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In this episode, Dave and Kerry get lost, but manage to pick up some complementary sangria's along the way.

We hear from a very enthusiastic preacher in the midst of the festival activities.

And we also get to hear from various performers and festival 'go-ers' on what SXSW means to them.

Oh, and Jody from Halo Stereo says a quick introduction for us...

-The Forum

Fused Sxsw - So What Is Sxsw? by Fused Magazine Listen on Posterous

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In this episode, Dave and Kerry catch up on some well needed rest and try
to discover the best of British in Austin.

They meet Phil Patterson and discuss the impact of British music on
Austin.
The Gin Riots talk about the magnitude of SXSW.
Not to mention they bump into a few of the locals and what they think
makes SXSW so good!

But we will let Fyffe Dangerfield have the first word...

- The Forum

Fused Sxsw - Day 3 by Fused Magazine Listen on Posterous

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Another scorcher of a Day on Thursday and once again we missed almost everything that we had planned to do. The day started with fine intentions but meeting up with the rest of the delegates and a netowrking dinner meant that we didn't get to fit in all the events that we originally planned.

The weather forecast was threatening to put a dampner on festivities for the weekend so it seemed everyone was making the most of the sunny Friday. Queues for a lot of the venues meant that we missed a fair few events but we did catch our friends The Culprit who have been playing everyday since they arrived.

We also managed to see Who Made Who at Stubb's whose electro tinged tunes offered a refreshing change to the indie rock of norm. BUT the find of the day had to be Hollywood Holt. Party hip hop at its finest with some seriously natty dress sense to boot!

Plans for Saturday...

Early this morning the thunder, lightening and rain woke us up so its pretty damp here in Austin – and a little chilly too. So we will be in search of indoor entertainment.

So we be:

• Heading to Flatstock – the music poster art expo here at SXSW

• The Mean Eyed Cat -

• Holy Fuck – The Brooklyn Vegan Party at the Radio Room – 2.45pm (and 7.30pm)

• The Jim Jones Revue – Mojo BBQ at the Mean Eyed Cat – 3.50pm

• Thee Oh Sees – Harley Meets Austin – 900 Red River

And yes we know these names keep coming up each day but we keep missing them so hope to catch them the following day.

This is our last few hours in Texas and we'll be heading out to NYC very early in the morning so will try our best to get in as many of the 'we really want to see' bands as we can!

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Hello team!

Well I'm here, and everything you heard about the Internet is true. I can't see Twitter, facebook, or posterous so I'm flying completely blind in terms of little project!

I'm getting files down the line over dropbox app, but can't see them online, and I have no idea where we are.
It may be the hotel's dodgy Internet, but the fact that I can do anything but use a social network suggests to me that it might be at a network level. I should have sorted a proxy. If anyone has any setting they can send me I'm jonhickman1 [at] googlemail.com

Best wishes from Beijing,

Jon

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Day 3 started off watching an act in the back yard of Urban Outfitters. We managed to catch 5 minutes of Toro Y Moi before heading downtown.

We popped in to Klub Krucial on 6th Street to drink free (yes free) Champagne at the France Rocks SXSW party with Uffie (who was being mobbed by the crowd). The French even laid on cheese and crackers – the best cheese we've had this week that hasn't been squirted out of a can.

We met up with cameraman David and Clare Edwards (one of the WM delegates) and set off sufficiently fuelled to interview bands and locals – and whoever would talk to us.

Next stop was the British Music Embassy to see the Welsh acts and sip a cool G&T w hile there. We also interviewed Phil Patterson who heads up the Embassy on behalf of UKTI to see the why and hows of the event and the planning involved. In the background Race Horses and Straight Lines were our soundtrack.

Following on from that we headed to Brush Square Gardens where we thought we were at the New Zealand party – until the Sangria and Paella came out and infact we were celebrating with the Spanish (we did eventually get to check out the Kiwi's a little later).

Jagerbombs and lager were the drink de jour of our friends The Gin Riots who we interviewed outside Wave on 6th. This is their second year oerforming at the event and have their official showcase tonight.

Off on our travels taking in buskers, kissing girls and manic street preachers we carried on to see Birmingham's Fyfe Dangerfield (singer of the Guillemots) who was doing a solo show at Lamberts on 2nd St. Clare stepped in to interview him on our behalf as we had been sidetracked by the crazies on 6th St and forgot just how far Lamberts is on foot.

After Fyfe had done his set and completed a fine rendition of Girls Aloud's 'Call the Shots' (or whatever its officially title is) we grabbed a much needed slice of Pizza and headed to the Central Presbyterian Church on 8th to see Chillie Gonzales.

The gig was a bit of a slow starter but 2 fine piano solo's on and Chillie was on fine hip-hop form. Talking to the crowd, a little audience participation and some killer hip hop tunes made classical help put an end to a superb day.

To top it off – NO blisters thanks to a well timed taxi coming our way.

Today we say goodbye to our friends Capsule who are heading home but we will be busy catching up with more people and hopefully getting more interviews.

So plans of people/bands/events/places to see today include:

Mess With Texas Party with: Man or Astro Man, Billy Bragg, Black Angels, The Bronx, Jim Jones Revue

Showcasing Scotland at The British Music Embassy

8pm – Thurston Moore – Red 7

9pm – The Gin Riots - Wave

9.15pm – Awesome Color – Red 7 Patio

10pm – Who Made Who – Emo's JR

10pm – Pirate Love – Rusty Spurs

11pm – Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

11.45pm – Kid Congo - Beerland

12am – Th' Legendary Shack Shakers – Bo Riley's

12am – Rye Rye – Beauty Bar

12.30am – The XX – Central Prebyterian Church

1am – Liars – Antone's

1am – Les Savy Fav – Galaxy Room Backyard

1am – Acid Mothers Temple – Club 1808

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Taking in Levi's Fader Fort (with Annie Mac on the turntables), South Congress to meet Capsule's Jenny and Lisa and Kerrang's Johnny Doom and then the Austin Music Hall to see Motorhead (again) and meet up with a few more of the West Mids delegates we must of covered at least 6 miles on foot - ouch.

This year seems busier than last. Wednesday (yesterday) is the first official day of music and by last night it was heaving. People were everywhere on 6th Street (the main centre of the action). The roads are closed off and buskers, dancers (we use that in the loosest sense) and entertainers of various quality mingle with the crowds - and that is before you even go in to the venues.

Of course yesterday was St Patrick's Day and the American's seem to take this very seriously indeed with Green clothing everywhere and just a touch of the Black Stuff.

So what about plans for today (Thursday)? Well the sun is shining which means the BBQ's are on. Today we are off to the:
- New Zealand Showcase at Brush Square Gardens (6pm)
- We also have the pleasure of visiting France Rocks (it seems that every country 'rocks' at SXSW) at Klub Krucial 614 E. 6th St. - they have Champagne so we will certainly fit that in. Uffis and Brodinski being the highlights of that event.
- The Bay Area Takeover is happening at Beauty Bar from 11.30am with an indoor and outdoor stage
- The Liars are playing tonight at Club De Ville (5pm) and Antones (1am)
- Bad Sports - Red 7 Patio at 8pm
- The Black Watch - Headhunters at 8.50pm
- Explode into Colors - 10pm Wave rooftop
- The Jim Jones Review - 11pm at Prague
- Ninja Sonic - Beauty Bar 11.15pm
- And one of the things we are MOST excited about is the amazing Chilly Gonzales who will be rocking up with his piano at the Central Presbyterian Church at 11.30pm. It is supposed to be a great venue so really hoping we can get in to that one.
- Kid Congo Powers (12am) at Prague
- Free Energy (12am) at Beauty Bar
- Roxy Cotton Tale - 12.15am at Karma Lounge
- First Aid Kit & Holy Fuck - Mohawk Patio

Clearly there are some serious clashes on this list so it will really be a case of where we can get in without huge queues and where isn't too far to walk (got this darn blisters to contend with after all).

Finally this may all be shot to pieces as we were also invited to the Premier of 'The Runaways' - a film about the band that was formed by Joan Jett in the 70's and stars Dakota Fanning and Twilights' Kristen Stewart. We are still waiting to see if that comes off.

So inbetween meeting up with other delegates and fitting all this in it should be a fun day!!!

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As Kerry and Dave start their Day 2, we round up their first day in Texas.

They catch up with Lemmy and we have picked the best bits - with some nice pictures too!

---

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Stay tuned for more updates as the SXSW journey continue...

The Forum

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So the weather has started shining in Austin for the start of SXSW music - thank goodness. After the fun of last night's Home of Metal launch we are busy working out what and who to go and see today and the rest of the week.

We are going to put up a list of who and what a little later on so we can see what we planned to do and what we actually do. I'll hazard a guess that we will end up only doing a fraction of what is planned and end up at a random list of things we didn't even know about - such is SXSW music!

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LemmyTourBus.mpg Watch on Posterous

We have a short podcast coming your way very soon.
But to wet your appetite, say hello to one of the originals of Metal...

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We had a great first day in Austin (Tuesday). We managed to meet up with lots of the WM interactive crew, most of who are heading home today, and our friends Capsule who (with some help from UKTI, AWM and ScreenWM) put on a great event.

Capsule's Home of Metal project was officially launched in the US last night. Celebrating the Heavy Metal heritage of Birmingham the project is taking on a full scale international operation with Jenny Capsule heading to LA last week to interview Ozzy Osbourne.

Last night's SXSW event saw Johnny Doom (Kerrang! Radio) interviewing Motothead's Lemmy to a packed audience at the British Music Embassy. Lemmy turned up on his tour bus - resplendid with Home of Metal branding.

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(this is a repost of the original which became very borked - see http://fused.posterous.com/infinite-loops-1 for details)

We need some graphics for the main Fused blog, to flag up the podcast and roadtrip diary. I don't have FTP access to Fused's server, so I'm going to use this post to serve the images... I simply grab the posterous URL for each image and drop it into the main wordpress site.
Here's the first, which will link across to the Posterous:

The second image will link straight to the Podcast feed.

If Kerry, Dave or team Forum have any ideas for better icons, let me know. And if any readers want to provide something better, I'm open to offers :)

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Here's a fun game, and our first bit of fail:

Contributors to Posterous blogs get a notification of new post email. If they have an email autoresponder switched on, it responds to that email. That becomes a comment on the blog. Posterous then sends an email to all the contributors letting them know there's a new comment...

I now have an infinite loop of emails from Dave & Kerry whose autoresponders are replying to my last post. I never even thought to check how this might work, because I wasn't even thinking of them switiching autoresponders on while they were in Texas.

Damn and blast.

Now all the team has about 150 emails waiting for them.

Comments are off on this blog til I fix it!

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While Dave and Kerry sleep, ahead of their very long flight to Texas, we at Rhubarb Forum have created a little teaser podcast.

In this Pilot we discuss the best parts of SXSW09. But more importantly, what they are looking forward to this year round. The music, the BBQs and of course, the drinking!

Its really easy to subscribe - all you have to do is click the "Subscribe" image below and iTunes will do the rest.

Stay tuned for the next installment

- Rhubarb Forum

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We've been keeping track of the guys that are out there representing interactive and they seem to be hearing and seeing some useful things at the seminars - and drinking lots of free beer!

So our pre-trip plans involve the obvious stuff:
- Packing
- Making sure we have all the CD's  and mags we need to take with us
- Making sure we have a half way decent schedule

We'll be arriving early evening Texas time on Monday evening and don't have any plans for that night. Tuesday will be our chance to pick up our press badges and head down to Capsule's Q&A with Lemmy (more on that later).

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