It's on!

Last night was my first (albeit small) taste of what's to come for the rest of my SXSW trip. After a few panels in the morning and a good lunch at Hickory Street over by the Austin Museum of Art, Julie and I explored downtown Austin a little bit. We checked out the AMoA for a little bit and walked up by the capitol building.

We gave a call to our friends at WOXY and headed over the the studio sessions they are recording live for SXSW. We ended up sitting in on The Kills' session - which was fantastic. All the songs where off their new album - can't wait to get it now.

After enjoying that, meeting and catching up with everyone involved we headed to Thunderbird coffee for what was apparently Austin's best soy latte. Julie's friend, Ryan gave us the hook up and what was a GREAT soy latte.

Funny story of the day: As bands have started coming into Austin, Julie and I would make guess as to where they were from based on clothing, hairstyles, general presence. Kinda funny, whatever. So, we are driving with our friend, Kevin, and we tell him all about it. So, we spot what looks to be a band on the corner of the street at the light we were stopped at. Julie launches into the guess... Midwest, possibly Ohio even... Kevin goes... I KNOW THEM! I saw them play a show in Clifton last week... That's Southeast Engine... and they are from Athens, Ohio. We are all dumbfounded by the luck of it all. So, Kevin rolls down the window and yells "Southeast Engine!!!!" as Julie honks the horn. All the guys in the band have this stunned look on their face as we drive off. It was pretty damn hilarious. Well, I guess you had to be there. So, hopefully we made their SXSW week before even playing a show.

So, that night Julie and I hit the Interactive wrap up party at Union Park. It's a really nice bar with a great upstairs patio and super view of Austin. The drinks were free, so it was good times, of course.

After a few gin & tonics there we head back downtown. Julie gets the rental car and heads back to the hotel. I meet up with CiN Weekly's Rich Shivner for music drinks and catching up. It ended up not being a terribly late night out... which was totally fine. I need to re-charge a bit before I take on the rest of the week anyways. It's going to be crazy.

Oh, so I guess Moby was playing the party at Stubb's that Rich was at? Rich showed me the photos of him that he had taken with his iPhone... looked like him to me. A couple of guys the Rich talked to confirmed it. Cool stuff. Rich also said he heard that the Flamming Lips were in town as well. They (like Moby) were not on the official SXSW schedule. I'm going to keep my eyes peeled and ears to the ground. I would love to see The Lips. UPDATE: Moby is here for sure. He speaking at a SXSW Music panel. Ice Cube is here too. Shit yeah.