March 2009
84 posts
Back in San Francisco
We arrived back in San Francisco, will post more in the next few days after sorting through the 40 gigs of photos and videos we shot.
One thing we learned was sadly internet radio in the car isn’t ready for prime time in many parts of the country- there just isn’t reliable mobile internet service in many locations still.
However, on the big interstates, we did have...
Zion National Park
We went to Zion National Park yesterday, and spent the night there. Playing Drone Zone and watched the sun set over the rocks. Today, we’re going to hike a few miles around to see the “must see” sights and take a bunch of pictures. Then hit the road again.
Very little internet connectivity in Zion; took an hour just to download email in the lobby of the Zion lodge; iPhone has no...
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Monument Valley and Page, Arizona
Last night we arrived in Page, AZ, on the shores of Lake Powell. We arrived here for sunset Wednesday night after driving much of the day from Farmington.
We made several stops: Four Corners and a detour through the dirt road that goes through the bottom of Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, which straddles Utah and Arizona. It’s pretty awe inspiring to be underneath these thousand foot...
Farmington, NM
There is something cool about seeing towns you never even knew existed. Last night we ended up in a place called Farmington, New Mexico which is the first of the “middle of nowhere” places we’ve been to that is thriving, even with the somewhat recent addition of 2 Walmarts on either end of tiwn!
This is a small low-rise city full of wacky (and/or unique) small businesses (e.g....
“Back on historic Route 66, spending the night in Santa Fe, NM.”
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Lubbock, TX
We departed Austin this morning, drove most of the day until we made it to Lubbock, TX. Not much going on here in the birthplace of Buddy Holly. Tomorrow we head to Santa Fe, NM, and after that a detour to Bryce Canyon, Utah.
“One final night of SXSW Music. We depart Austin tomorrow.”
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Saturday Night Picks
Rusty’s picks for this evening at SXSW:
8pm Nosaj Thing at Speakeasy (Congress between 4th and 5th)
9pm Machinedrum at Speakeasy
9:30pm Dieselboy at La Zona Rosa (Big venue, probably packed, 4th and Rio Grande)
10pm Felix Cartal at Radio Room Patio (on Sixth)
10pm Yelle at Emo’s Main Room (sneak in through Emo’s Jr if the line is long)
11pm Longview at Cedar Street...
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Great panel on music licensing
I’m in the “Is Collective Licensing for P2P File Sharing a Future Source of Income for the Music Industry?” panel at SXSW. It’s a great panel - huge amounts of intelligent debate and opinions - I’m loving it. Sandy Pearlman, a professor at McGill University, is great; Jim Griffin (who runs the Pho list and is a digital media consultant to Warner and other large...
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Ulrich Schnauss performing at Elysium
Ulrich Schnauss brought out two guitarists for his “Laptop” performance, which really added a great dimension. Since he often uses abstract guitar samples, the live guitarists blended nicely with the music.
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“It’s unbelievable how many people are ditching work to attend all the...”
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Ulrich Schnauss, The Egg
Ulrich Schnauss did a great set tonight. He had a couple guitarists join him for a few of the tracks, which really added to the show.
Same goes for The Egg, who came in from the UK to do a show tonight. We play a bunch of the older stuff from The Egg on Groove Salad and Space Station Soma - but they’re more funky and less spacey in their latest incarnation… so expect to hear their...
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SXSW Choices tonight
Rusty’s picks for tonight:
8:00 PM Ulrich Schnauss at Elysium
9:00 PM We Are Standard at Karma Lounge
10:00 PM The Egg at Karma Lounge
Elise will probably be at The Decemberists at Stubb’s and Rusty and Merin might try and check out Echo and The Bunnymen at Emo’s Main Room at 12:30. And if Meghan was here, she’s be at Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head at Dirty Dog...
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RIP: a Remix Manifesto
I was really looking forward to seeing Brett Gaylor’s new film, but ended up being very disappointed when we saw it last night.
That’s not to say it wasn’t a fun movie. And the filming, animiation, sound and visuals were great. I was completly hooked for the first 10 minutes, and then the editorial stance started bothering me.
There was a complete lack of respect of people...
Rip: A Remix Manifesto
Going to see the premiere of “Rip: A Remix Manifesto”, a documentary on copyright and the new culture of remixing things. Afterwards, we’ll head on over to the Tumblr party. Assuming we can get in at that point.
More updates after downloading the camera and writing up our notes from SXSW today.
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"New Think for Old Publishers" Panel
There have been a lot of panels discussing the future of “Old Media”. It’s a topic that’s both exciting to many, and frightening to many. Blogger journalists are exhorted, while at the same time the loss of newspapers is lamented. Author and emerging technologies consultant Clay Shirky was the moderator, most of the panelists were from Penguin.
Several other panels...
There are 3 parts to SXSW: Interactive (web/internet stuff); Film (both very indie films/documentaries and some more mainstream movies); and Music. Up until last year, Film was the smallest part of the festival. This year, Film is huge, and there are some really good films premiering this year; both indie films and the more mainstream (but not Hollywood blockbuster) films.
Merin got us tickets...
Friday SXSW Interactive Panels
Went to see Dan Willis from Sapient talk about “Everything You Know About Web Design Is Wrong”, where he drew parallels between the early days of motion pictures and how that evolved over 15 years to be the movies we know today; and how we should think in order to start designing now what the web will really look like in the future.
Rusty then saw Paul Annett [from Clearleft Ltd in...
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SXSW Registration
We checked in to the hotel, dumped our bags, and then headed over to the convention center to pick up our badges. It looked like there was a huge line to pick them up, but it went really, really fast and within 10 minutes we had them.
We went back to the hotel, finished unpacking, downloaded pictures, did some work editing some video Rusty shot together and then realized how tired we...
“We have arrived in Austin. Yay!”
Remembering the Alamo
Went to see the Alamo after lunch along the river walk. Didn’t realize it was right in the middle of downtown San Antonio!
Music: SomaFM on Boot Liquor on approach; Doomed while Inside.
“Hello Del Rio, Texas. 20+ Spanish FM stations. Two English. It’s a choice...”