South by Southwest is the biggest event we do all year and, as far as Im concerned, the largest music event in the world. Its hard to believe that theres anywhere else where two thousand bands come into town to play for 4 days. On top of that, the film and interactive portions of SXSW have started to grow and bring even more people to town for one unforgettable week in March.
This was our fourth year heading to Austin but, with the economy being a bit tipsy, it was the hardest year for us. We made Off the Wookie #4 but ended up having to go over a grand outta pocket to get it printed. Even though were at dozens of parties around town and can sling up to 15,000 creams in town, we still couldnt lock down any sponsors or projects to help cover our costs. Since it wouldnt be SXSW without us and the Wookies were already heading down and we had rented a house for the week, we decided the only option we had was to sell Bessita and use the funds to buy over 6,000 ice creams. It wasnt a hard decision, just frustrating after having gone down SXSW for three years and slinging over 25,000 creams in Austin
Enough of the sob story. Everyones been bitching about how things suck and if its possible for one week in Austin to turn the whole economy and negative mindset around, I wouldnt be surprised. SXSW was PACKED this year with so many big headliners playing official and unofficial parties, it makes me wonder what they could possibly do next year to match it. Kanye flew in last minute and performed with Eryka Badu and Common, Metallica and Janes Addiction also played full sets and The Decemberists even debuted their album in its entirety live at Stubbs for an NPR webcast (fyi head over to the NPRs webcast achive and rock some tunes especially the stellar set by Heartless Bastards). We only had Newt to sling from and most of our regular photographers from years past werent able to make it out so we focused most of our energy and slinging a ton of cream and wookies.
I took the long road to Austin so to speak. Newt was in Fort Lauderdale because I left here there after Art Basel in December. Crash needed her for Jam Cruise and we had planned on rocking Langerado in Miami, which unfortunately was canceled. Once I grabbed her I started driving north. For those who might not be aware, it can take foreeeever to get outta Florida if youre heading west from southern Miami. Luckily I got hooked up at Suwanne Music Park just north of Live Oak, FL and got to hand out there for a bit. If you ever are in the area, do stop by. Theyve got live music on most nights, multiple festivals a year, anda Frisbee golf course. After a quick stop in New Orleans I made it all the way to Austin in one shot and hung out at Doug and Zachs place ’til the Film and Interactive portion kicked off.
My main goal during the first half of SXSW was to hit as many interactive events and panels as I could. Since were in need of projects for the ’09 summer tour, I figured thered be a lot of new companies in town that are trying to get the word out about their products. Plus, there was a keynote speech and panel based around the free economy. Parking around Brush Square Park, which is right in front of the convention center was cut in half because all the spots on 5th street were taken out for a future rail project. That made it a bit tough for us but we weaseled our way into a good spot and surprisingly no one kicked us out. We also made a much needed return to the Nuclear Tacos parties on Monday night. One of the biggest things I learned this time around is how big Twitter has become. Ive had an account for over 2 years but havent put it to much use until recently. It was so popular during the tech part that people would sharpie in their twitter address below their name on their badges. While slinging in front The Mohawk later on Monday we ran into Dave Morin who works at Facebook. He was sending out a tweet and wanted to make sure our address, @icecreamman, was right. He wanted us to double check though because he has over 170,000 followers on twitter and didnt want to link to wrong profile. WOAH thats crazy. Were still not even to a thousand and, if you follow us, you might get ice cream.
On Tuesday, James and I headed back to Dell Childrens Medical Center for our second ice cream social. With only a limited amount of cream, we were only able to sling to patients and their families this time around. Next time well do our best to have enough for the everyone whos helping. After that we hustled back to the convention center so James could catch some food blogging panels and I could check out the panel on Rebuilding the World with Free Everything.
Its still interesting to me that when people refer to a free economy its almost always directly related to virtual or web. I rarely hear any examples of people creating new businesses or models in the physical world . I do like how Prince throws concerts and gives away albums for free with each ticket purchased so that he can say hes sold a ton of them. I rolled into the free panel and grabbed a seat towards the front. I noticed they had a screen setup on the site of the stage and it was running all twitter trends, posts that had #free in them. I couldnt stop looking at the feed. Not because it was all that exciting but because I hadnt witnessed it before and it got me thinking of how it could be used to keep in touch with people and to sling free cream. The panelists werent really picking questions from the feed but they did reference it about half way through the talk and I decided to post something. Getting lucky with time I posted, Thinking of slingin some cream out front after #free panel. The timing couldnt have been better. When the screen refreshed my post showed up at the top and the panel moderator, Doc Searls, noticed it and made a comment to the 500+ people in attendance. Right afterwards, when he was fielding a question from someone at the mic they mentioned they had gotten free cream the night before from us so we doubled up quick. Naturally I skipped out early and moved some cones to get a parking space out front. With everyone still inside a sent the message #free ice cream out front on Caeser Chavez and the hordes quickly came out. Check out the twitter search for #free icecreamman to see how things went down. If you have any ideas on how we can continue to use twitter in ways to benefit cream slinging and our sponsors/projects, let me know.
That night we headed over to La Zona Rosa where MediaTemple was throwing their closing party. It took us a sec to dial in parking but once we did we chilled for a bit and had a steady flow of people to chat with. The coolest part was when the Hey Cupcake truck showed up. I thought they were selling cupcakes but they too were FREE. What a beautiful world we live in. As they drove away they tossed me one and it was a wonderful breakfast treat the next day.
Wednesday is when the music portion of SXSW kicks off and, after browsing a few sites, I had a big list of places to head by. I knew we wouldnt be able to make them all so we went straight to Mohawk and posted up out front of the Austinist party. After rocking a bit of Elvis Perkins we snuck out and returned to Brush Square park for the Canadian Blast. We had prime parking and a whole lot of people had just got into town and were getting their badges then walking by the truck. Still Flyin came straight from the airport to the truck so we could get a photo for our daily feature we did in Austin Chronicle. It was so busy for the three hours we were there that we didnt even bother slinging any cream that night. Instead we lucked out and found El Gallo restaurant on the southside and had the best Chili Relleno Ive ever had.
Things were picking up on Thursday and we had gigs lined up all day and night. Our first stop was right down the street from our house where KEXP was doing live broadcasts. We were set to feature The Love Language in our Austin Chronicle piece and needed to snag a pic before they went into the studio. The next three parties we stopped by didnt work so well for parking so it freed up our schedule a bit and we ended up being able to relax at French Legation for a lot of the afternoon. Still Flyin was scheduled to go on at Red House Pizza at 5:30 and we got there a bit late but they were at least an hour behind schedule. Before they went on I pulled up right next to the stage and started slinging. Luck have it, we were right across the street from my most favoritest restaurant, Hoovers, so we all headed over there afterwards and enjoyed some good ol home cooking.
The sched for that night was mostly centered around the C3/Playboy Party that Janes Addiction was headlining. For some reason I assumed they were throwing the party at the same place as last year and the truck wouldnt have worked out. But this year they needed a much bigger and better spot and they took over an old Safeway building a li’l bit north of town next to I-35. At the last minute I got it worked out so we could pull into the lot and sling to all the party goers. Janes wasnt going on ’til 1:30ish and I wasnt ready to stop giving away ice cream so I headed over to the KVRX late night party and hooked up a bunch of kids there before calling it a night.
Friday was probably the crews most anticipated day because we were going to head by Hank Sinatras then post up at the French Legation for most of the day. We started out at Yard Dog on South Congress because I wanted to finally catch Andre Williams. I had left the last day open for our Chronicle piece and Andre was the perfect person to feature. After that we stopped by the Levi’s/Fader Fort for a bit to catch the tail end of The Love Language and sling some cream to all the folks working. I Even scored some nice new silver Ray Ban aviators. Twas great timing cuz my 20 year old Serenghettis just broke on the way into Austin. While restocking on cream on the way out to Hanks I did an interview with Lana at CBC radio you can check out here.
Finally we made it to Hanks and since there wasnt a band playing on the stage I walked down and shouted from it that we had free cream. I grabbed a plate of BBQ then watched the truck while Rachel, Kate, and James got to hang out with the goats, beer, bands, and BBQ. Unfortunately we couldnt stay too long because we were scheduled to be at the French Legation for the Dig for Fire/Babelgum party. And, I needed to write the Andre Williams piece and get it in around 5. We ended up hanging out there ’til the very end then grubbing some Veggie Heaven before the night shift
The night sched was oddly light. We checked out Club 1808 on the east side but was SUPER ghetto and not somewhere we wanted to hang for any amount of time. Ms. Bea’s was going off and we got a parking spot about 20 feet behind the main stage so we camped out there for a while. Pterodactyl was playing followed by Marnie Stern, some DJ, then HEALTH. Lucky ducks indeed, if youre into noisy rock. Which I often am. Our friends Jelly NYC were throwing a party down south with Franki Chan so we decided to roll by there to cap off the night. Somehow I forgot to add that Primal Scream was playing La Zona Rosa to my calendar and thats the number one bummer of all of SXSW for me argh.
Saturday was winding down a bit and we didnt want to get stuck much in downtown so we mainly focused on the east side and spent a lot of time at the French Legation for The Garden Party. One of my favorite new bands, Wild Beasts, were going on at five and a couple hours later Dirty Projectors were headlining. All of the crew were down to relax so we closed up the truck to save cream for later then played Frisbee on the big lawn and relaxed before rocking out to Dirty Projectors.
You would think wed know better by now but we still hadnt eaten any food by 8:30 at night. We were going to sling out front of the Perez Hilton party at the old Safeway and were ecstatic that the Fuddruckers truck was there making burgers. I gladly would have dropped $40 for burgers for the crew but the nice folks there ended up swapping us cream for burgers and we were happy. We werent sure what to do and I again ended up spacing a show I really wanted to see, We Are Dios at a church. It wasnt ’til we were home that I looked at my clock and saw it was 11:58 and they were going on in two minutes argh. We drank a few beers then got some rest before waking up for a busy Sunday filled with cleaning the house, brunch, and filming a pilot episode with The Love Language for a video series were pitching. Good times all around.
Thanks to Kate, Rachel, James, Amy, and Jared for helping to sling. Thanks to Natalie for helping with some cream and to Jakprints for making the wookies, stickers, and all our cards. Thanks to Doug and Zach too for allowing me to crash on the floor at their place. Until next year!
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