Kate Galloway's report from Day #3 of SXSW

Ladies and gentlemen, Kate Galloway with her third SXSW report of 2006.


The Deaths at SXSW - Photo by Kate Galloway

More photos added here.

"St Patty's Day? What? It never fails. I always forget that St. Patrick's Day is almost always celebrated during the course of SXSW. Being a cultural mutt with little to no Irish heritage, I couldn't care less about the holiday, and can't stand the frat party antics that go on with it. I'm classy like that! Tonight's SXSW crowd was double, but in a very bad way. Walking down 6th Street was more difficult than usual... but I digress.

I started out my day heading over to the convention center to check out Flatstock, the event that celebrates cool concert posters of all kinds. I was happy to run into my friend Adam Turman, and got to meet the fine David Witt whose designs I've been admiring for a long time. Seeing them along side poster designers from around the world made me realize that we are very lucky to have such great creative people working in all aspects of local music. I suggest that everyone take a look at their websites and support the great and vital thing they do. www.adamturman.com and www.dwitt.com

I was really excited to go check out 89.3 The Current's live broadcast of We Are Scientists with Mary Lucia on the 18th floor of Capitol Place. I was surprised to see only 20-30 people there, which is too bad because it was so much fun. When I first heard the buzz about this band, I wasn't really sold on the record, but then seeing them live made it clear why people talk about them. I don't know if they're doing any streaming on the Current website, but I think everyone should listen to it. They're incredibly nice guys too, which is always refreshing. Sam Keenan was engineering, and was really exhausted from all the work he's put in the past few days for the live broadcasts. Luckily, the We Are Scientists one was the last, and he could finally go out and enjoy SXSW.

A quick stop to the Driskill to meet up with a colleague was the next item on the list. As soon as I walked into the lobby, I remembered that the hotel is the hotbed of industry activity. A hint to anyone that's looking to network - that's one of the best places to be. It's probably even worth the ridiculously expensive cocktails.

Text messaging is the greatest thing ever!! I don't know what I'd do without it, or what people did without it before. I got a text reminder to check out a band called The Picture from New York. They had some problems when the mics and one of the guitars lost sound, but were complete pros and just played it cool. We quickly stopped by Nuno's to check out Goldrush on our way to Bourbon Rocks to see The Lovetones from Australia and one of our clients, Hopewell, from New York. Structurally, Bourbon Rocks is ok, with a lot of great sight lines. The bad thing is that in-between bands was a painfully annoying Top-40ish nightclub DJ talking to the crowd. What's worse is that he was trying to play "indie" music, obviously NOT what they're used to playing there. His version of indie music was The Strokes and Beck. Not that there's anything wrong with them, but in the context of what was going on, it was just sad.

I got to see one of my favorite band from SXSW 2004, The 88. They were playing an unofficial show at The Drink upstairs. The crowd was small, and there was an unusually high amount of "myspace whores" who probably found the 88 through their myspace page and songs featured on the O.C. The funniest part was when two girls started grinding on each other. In front of The 88. Yeah, weirdest thing I've seen yet.

I rounded out my night with a stop at the Atmosphere show at Emo's and making a stop to pick up a surprise for my husband. I even have pictures, but I can't say what it is because he's probably reading this as we speak. I can't let the internet ruin everything!!"