SXSW: day one

Going on 3 hours of drink-polluted sleep isn't optimal, but it's the norm for SXSW. Despite the hangover fog, I vowed to hit the conference running and make as many sessions as possible on the first day.

I ended up attending 4 of the 5 sessions, which I'll describe in separate posts. The quality varied over the day, but all the panelists were engaging and had something interesting to say.

By the last session, I could barely stay awake. Conveniently, the Metroblogging meet-up was happening at the Hideout, so I could get some sugary/caffeinated beverage to lift me up. But the conversation didn't last long, because then it was time for the day to shift from Conference to Anniversary mode (1 year ... and they said it wouldn't last).

With visions of meta-tags dancing in my head, I abandoned SXSW and met my wife for a predictably unbelievable dinner at Wink. You'd be hard pressed to find a restaurant in Austin with a better combination of interesting (and fresh) cuisine, cozy atmosphere, and genuine hospitality (as opposed to contrived graciousness).

Rachel and I needed to burn off some calories after dinner, and there's nothing better for calorie burning that gettin' down wit dat hacidic reggae mon. Matisyahu returned to the site of his popular live recording, and brought Balkan Beat Box along to up the Mediterranean hip hop quotient even higher. Both acts represent interesting musical fusion and a welcome departure from the usual litany of angst rockers and hip hop retreads that clutter the airwaves. BBB brought phenomenal energy to their middle-eastern inflected club jam, which Matisyahu built on with some great beat box work and a roof-raising rendition of "King Without a Crown." Ultimately, though, he is still a reggae act at heart, and there's only so much reggae I can hear before it all blurs into a non-descript chorus; pleasant, but a little boring.