SXSW Day Recap Day Six
Interactive was now over, Film was winding down and Music is starting to kick in.
iPhones are still everywhere but now the people using them have a lot more piercings and tattoos. In previous years it was a bit of a joke amontst the interactive attendees that stayed over though music about how different things are. Suddenly no one has heard of twitter and no one is trying to start a company. Well at least one of those has changed. While twitter isn't as prominant during music as it is during interactive, now most of the bands have at least heard of it and many of them use it.
My day started out fairly early at the convention center. I dropped by what had been the Adobe Day Stage and with the change it had now become the SESAC Day Stage. It is a cafeteria style area and I needed to change lenses on my camera. I had the fast lens on from the night before but needed to change to my more multi-purpose kit lens.
I sat down at one of the tables and start switching and cleaning my lenses. As I am doing it a guy gets up on the stage where there are a bunch of microphones set up unusually close together.
He starts speaking into the mics and the voice comes out over the speakers but keeps repeating after he stops speaking. He keeps this up checking the mics and occasionally walking into the audience to see how it sounds. Once he is satisfied he gets on the stage and starts his show.
He is called Hyperpotamus and I wrote about him on here right after seeing him. His show was energetic and unusual. His music was an odd mix of beat boxing with opera and word jazz. He sang passionately and danced around the stage using his hands and feet for percussion. Only a few minutes into the show he kicked off his shoes to better be able to operate his looping boxes with his feet. His show was unexpected and a great way to start off the first day of music.
After his show I dropped by the trade show. It had also transformed over night and had all new exhibitors. In the big plastic box up front was someone important whose name I didn't catch. He was talking about working with Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger.
When he was done the band Data Rock were lead into the box where they talked about their music. I got some shots of them then took in the trade show and walked out to see what else was going on. I ran into Peelander-Z who were in line waiting to get their badges.
For my first music assignment I am supposed to shoot two bands at the Scoot Inn at night. The Scoot Inn is fairly far from the convention center and Haleigh won't be getting off in time to give me a ride. I call up my oldest daughter, Claire, and see if she is busy. She was supposed to have band practicebut it has been canceled so she agrees to give me a ride. She picks me up in the afternoon and we head down to South Congress where we grab a bite to eat at Guero's and check out a San Francisco party. They have some custom made tshirts on sale and the bands seem okay but nothing special. I really enjoy getting the time to hang out with Claire. The time that I get to spend with her has gotten less and less over the last couple of years and I really miss her.
After a while we decide to head on over to the Scoot Inn. On the way we pass by the Levi Fader Fort. I had never seen it before and it is pretty impressive. It is one of the most popular party places at SXSW. Supposedly, in addition to free food and an open bar they give free jeans to everyone that shows up. This year on Saturday night they had a not so secret surprise performance by Kanye West. The list of guests for that night were all people on his record label with the last performance being listed as "special surprise guest" so most everyone had figured out ahead of time that it was going to be Kanye. I had gotten an invite to the Fader Fort but ended up never having the time to go over there.
Claire dropped me off at The Scoot Inn. I make it in and find out that it is a large outdoor venue. The place is almost completely empty. The SXSW staff member in charge of the venue sees me and says she feels sorry for me getting stuck here. It isn't long however before people start to filter in.
I am not assigned to shoot the first bands and it is probably a good thing. A guy comes on stage and says he is with the band called "Homopolice" and that on the way to SXSW two of the members of the three piece band were arrested so he would be doing the show solo. He sits in a chair toward the back of the stage hunched over behind some speakers turning some knobs which makes something vaguely resembling music. I am guessing that the genre that it would be considered to be would be "experimental." I am not one to criticize others tastes but this wasn't a type of music that appealed to me. I often enjoy odd sounding music but this was beyond my tastes. To top it off the show was completely unphotogenic. He stayed almost unmoving in the dark back area of the stage hunched over and often blocked from view by equipment. I was very glad that I wasn't assigned to photograph this band.
The first band that I was assigned to shoot was called "Complete." A number of fans had shown up and I chatted with some of them. They said that the band had gotten quite a following on youtube and was a favorite of the son of the guy who started SXSW. Since then I have researched them and found out that part of their following appears to be because one of their first videos was considered by some to be so bad that it was good. I went into their show not knowing this. The show itself wasn't bad. The band wasn't my style of music but they had some stage charisma and weren't particularly horrible but weren't great either.
To give an example of how the band was received on the internet, here is a thirty minute long video someone put together about how bad they think the band is..
The other band I was assigned to shoot was called "Easy Action."
They had a bit of a punk vibe going on and a classic old school Social Distortion style punk rock look to the band.
In addition to these two bands I caught "When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth" that played between them and they were pretty good as well but nothing I felt a need to rush out and buy.
Haleigh showed up before my last shoot and hung out with me. Toward the end of the night the lead singer from Complete came over to us and thanked us for showing up for the show. He gave me an autographed copy of his CD and seemed like a really nice guy.
iPhones are still everywhere but now the people using them have a lot more piercings and tattoos. In previous years it was a bit of a joke amontst the interactive attendees that stayed over though music about how different things are. Suddenly no one has heard of twitter and no one is trying to start a company. Well at least one of those has changed. While twitter isn't as prominant during music as it is during interactive, now most of the bands have at least heard of it and many of them use it.
My day started out fairly early at the convention center. I dropped by what had been the Adobe Day Stage and with the change it had now become the SESAC Day Stage. It is a cafeteria style area and I needed to change lenses on my camera. I had the fast lens on from the night before but needed to change to my more multi-purpose kit lens.
I sat down at one of the tables and start switching and cleaning my lenses. As I am doing it a guy gets up on the stage where there are a bunch of microphones set up unusually close together.
He starts speaking into the mics and the voice comes out over the speakers but keeps repeating after he stops speaking. He keeps this up checking the mics and occasionally walking into the audience to see how it sounds. Once he is satisfied he gets on the stage and starts his show.
He is called Hyperpotamus and I wrote about him on here right after seeing him. His show was energetic and unusual. His music was an odd mix of beat boxing with opera and word jazz. He sang passionately and danced around the stage using his hands and feet for percussion. Only a few minutes into the show he kicked off his shoes to better be able to operate his looping boxes with his feet. His show was unexpected and a great way to start off the first day of music.
After his show I dropped by the trade show. It had also transformed over night and had all new exhibitors. In the big plastic box up front was someone important whose name I didn't catch. He was talking about working with Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger.
When he was done the band Data Rock were lead into the box where they talked about their music. I got some shots of them then took in the trade show and walked out to see what else was going on. I ran into Peelander-Z who were in line waiting to get their badges.
For my first music assignment I am supposed to shoot two bands at the Scoot Inn at night. The Scoot Inn is fairly far from the convention center and Haleigh won't be getting off in time to give me a ride. I call up my oldest daughter, Claire, and see if she is busy. She was supposed to have band practicebut it has been canceled so she agrees to give me a ride. She picks me up in the afternoon and we head down to South Congress where we grab a bite to eat at Guero's and check out a San Francisco party. They have some custom made tshirts on sale and the bands seem okay but nothing special. I really enjoy getting the time to hang out with Claire. The time that I get to spend with her has gotten less and less over the last couple of years and I really miss her.
After a while we decide to head on over to the Scoot Inn. On the way we pass by the Levi Fader Fort. I had never seen it before and it is pretty impressive. It is one of the most popular party places at SXSW. Supposedly, in addition to free food and an open bar they give free jeans to everyone that shows up. This year on Saturday night they had a not so secret surprise performance by Kanye West. The list of guests for that night were all people on his record label with the last performance being listed as "special surprise guest" so most everyone had figured out ahead of time that it was going to be Kanye. I had gotten an invite to the Fader Fort but ended up never having the time to go over there.
Claire dropped me off at The Scoot Inn. I make it in and find out that it is a large outdoor venue. The place is almost completely empty. The SXSW staff member in charge of the venue sees me and says she feels sorry for me getting stuck here. It isn't long however before people start to filter in.
I am not assigned to shoot the first bands and it is probably a good thing. A guy comes on stage and says he is with the band called "Homopolice" and that on the way to SXSW two of the members of the three piece band were arrested so he would be doing the show solo. He sits in a chair toward the back of the stage hunched over behind some speakers turning some knobs which makes something vaguely resembling music. I am guessing that the genre that it would be considered to be would be "experimental." I am not one to criticize others tastes but this wasn't a type of music that appealed to me. I often enjoy odd sounding music but this was beyond my tastes. To top it off the show was completely unphotogenic. He stayed almost unmoving in the dark back area of the stage hunched over and often blocked from view by equipment. I was very glad that I wasn't assigned to photograph this band.
The first band that I was assigned to shoot was called "Complete." A number of fans had shown up and I chatted with some of them. They said that the band had gotten quite a following on youtube and was a favorite of the son of the guy who started SXSW. Since then I have researched them and found out that part of their following appears to be because one of their first videos was considered by some to be so bad that it was good. I went into their show not knowing this. The show itself wasn't bad. The band wasn't my style of music but they had some stage charisma and weren't particularly horrible but weren't great either.
To give an example of how the band was received on the internet, here is a thirty minute long video someone put together about how bad they think the band is..
Click to viewThe other band I was assigned to shoot was called "Easy Action."
They had a bit of a punk vibe going on and a classic old school Social Distortion style punk rock look to the band.
In addition to these two bands I caught "When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth" that played between them and they were pretty good as well but nothing I felt a need to rush out and buy.
Haleigh showed up before my last shoot and hung out with me. Toward the end of the night the lead singer from Complete came over to us and thanked us for showing up for the show. He gave me an autographed copy of his CD and seemed like a really nice guy.