Conference Fever

Today’s kickoff day for the music industry’s biggest orgy of shmoozing, boozing, and trying to see far too many bands in a brief period of time – the 2007 South by Southwest Music Conference in Austin. I won’t be there – my illustrious music editor Niki D’Andrea is on her way and will deliver the synopsis when she returns. Meanwhile, this is all you need to know – as a fan, you’re not missing anything at the multitudinous panel discussions; what you’re missing out on is the private parties, like Spin Magazine’s, where you’ve gotta score a special laminate to make it in (I haven’t heard yet who they’ll have there, but it’s always dope).

Since I’m stuck in the ‘Nix watching the temperature rise, I won’t be able to live-blog the conference for you, but I’ve found a couple of websites that should keep you up to the minute on what’s happening in Austin: the Donewaiting.com SXSW blog, and the Yaris Blog (which is apparently a SXSW-endorsed blog, but should have the goods nonetheless.

If you’re wondering, here’s a partial list of the Arizona bands who”ll be representing out there: Blackmarket (from Lake Havasu), Yuma Territorial Prison Guards and Digital Leather (both from Tucson), Anticon’s Sole (who reps Flagstaff these days), The Breakup Society (from Phx), Lymbyc Systym (the brothers Bell rep both Austin and Phx), Jon Rauhouse, and more (I know for a fact that Back Ted N Ted will be playing out there somewhere, but it may not be an officially sanctioned show. Anyway, if you really want to keep up with the action out there, the Independent Film Channel is video blogging the conference as well, you can find that here. Try not to be too jealous, it’s only a huge bacchanalian orgy of drinking and seeing great live music.