Hello Monday and everyone checking in today! After a wild 3 days and nights in beautiful sunny & warm Austin, TX at the SouthBySouthWest Film/Interactive/Music Convention, I am one tired puppy! I was so amazed at the amount of events going on all at once, it was head-spinning! Thousands of people in all the clubs up and down the famous 6th Street of downtown Austin. Thousands of bands. Panels on a plethora of topics. Made for madness! You didn’t know what to do, see or eat next!!!! From the early days of attending what was a rather intimate event has turned into a blur of sponsor events, cocktails, music, food and film. And I couldn’t keep up with the secret shows, where Prince, Smashing Pumpkins, Jane’s Addiction, Justin Timberlake, Jay-Z, Beyonce and more were throwing down! And of course, most of the stuff went down after midnight and after a long day of panels, drinking and music, it was hard for this girl to stay AWAKE! LOL I did hang out with and see Young Guns, who are so over the moon about the upcoming hardDrive Live Tour! They did about 6 or so showcases in two days, and they are headed to NYC in a few weeks to work on some new music! Also was at the Sound City Players (Dave Grohl, Nate Mendel, Chris Shiflett, Pat Smear, Jesse Greene, Taylor Hawkins, Brad Wilk, Alain Johannes, Rick Nielsen, Corey Taylor, Rick Springfield, Lee Ving, Chris Goss, Krist Novoselic, Stevie Nicks, John Fogerty) outdoor show at Stubb’s! It was awesome, as expected. But comparing the New York and Austin shows, I gotta say, the NY show was tighter. Maybe it had something to do with it being final show, I dunno. But Corey Taylor on vocals for the Cheap Trick portion of the show (with Rick Nielsen) was the only difference in the line up from the NY show, and I gotta tell ya, Corey had the crowd in a frenzy! (Altho Corey sounded like he had a cold or probably allergy attack, it was like spring down there with all the leaves in bloom.) Anyhow, Stevie Nicks opted to appear in the set early rather than last. That spot was occupied by John Fogerty on Thursday. I hung out on the side of the stage with the monitor sound man and bass tech. Didn’t have a great view, but it was enough to feel like I was witnessing history, again! After the show, ran into drummer John Tempesta (formerly of White Zombie, now with The Cult) and we had a Lone Star together. Managed to find a cab home, by miracle! Cabs were in shortage this weekend. Pedicabs were everywhere but my hotel was up near the Capitol Building up a hill. Nobody wanted to go up there. LOL On Friday, I interviewed Kyle Nicolaides of Beware of Darkness and his band over at the Four Seasons Hotel. (Ran into Pat Smear and Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters! Waxed poetic about how cool the shows were and told Taylor he needed to eat a burger! The man is too skinny!) After that, was on a panel, then jumped a limo coach to David Draiman‘s beautiful Tuscan villa in the hills outside of Austin. Was kinda bummed his dogs were at doggie day care! But hung out with some industry types and listened to the new Device album, which is great. AND surprise! Turns out Mr Draiman is producing the new Trivium album! He played us a tune (title escapes me) which I expect rock radio to embrace when it comes out later this year! We dined on BBQ from Franklin’s (there was enough leftovers for David to feed the entire neighborhood! LOL) Met a dude from London who writes for Metal Hammer. Enjoyed chatting with him and his girlfriend. Then it was off to take a nap! LOL Friday night ended up over at Blackheart to check out Beware of Darkness and Middle Class Rut. Then over to the Raw Power party for Young Guns, Chiodos and Lacuna Coil. (Got to talk to Cristina for a while. Love her to pieces!) But while I was waiting for the Lacuna band to show up, down the block on the Samsung Stage was locally based film director Robert Rodriguez’ band. He had a giant screen projecting clips from his different movies, including Once Upon a Time in Mexico (with Johnny Depp) and Machete (Danny Treo). It was so cool! And his band was great! Then went over to the Four Seasons and closed the bar! Crazy! Saturday was just a bunch of sponsored parties including Beats by Dre where a pal who works there gave me the new Beats by Dre Pill! It’s so cool! Attaches to your smart phone and is an excellent quality speaker with Bluetooth capabilites! Realizing I had to get up at 5 AM to leave for the airport, I had to call it a night. All in all, Austin, you did it again! Amazing job!….Pulse Content reports Eddie Van Halen isn’t the only rock guitarist making a guest appearance on Authentic, the new album from legendary rapper LL Cool J. Rage Against The Machine‘s Tom Morello will also appear on the disc, along with rapper Snoop Lion (Snoop Dogg has changed his name!) LL announced Eddie Van Halen’s involvement during a show at South By Southwest, also posting a photo of him and Van Halen in the studio on his Facebook page. Authentic is due out on April 30th. (Blabbermouth)….Black Sabbath is releasing their album, 13, on June 11th….Happy 47th today to Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains!
