In the coming days you’ll most likely want us to STFU about SXSW, so I’ll keep this introductory South By Southwest blog brief. For those unfamiliar, SXSW is a music festival in Austin, TX where music industry professionals and semi-professionals from around the globe come to schmooze, ink deals and drink as much free alcohol as possible while seeing some of the largest (and smallest) bands play in some of the smallest venues. For instance, one of 2006’s highlights was seeing the Flaming Lips with about 250 people.

It’s spring break for the music industry, and Synthesis is here in Austin on assignment to bring you some sweet video coverage (which you can see via our youtube page).

Things that Rule about Austin, TX: BBQ. It’s enough to turn a vegetarian insane with meat rage, and for all those who are trying to keep away from the savory deliciousness of places like Ironworks or Stubbs, we wish you the best of luck. I put my veg status on away for the week. Our other vegetarian crumbled upon entering Ironworks, and soon tears were streaming from his eyes as he gorged on beef ribs. Tears of pure rib joy. Now we all know why Adam got all nuts and got himself and Eve kicked out of the Garden of Eden: was missing out on ribs.
Things that you don’t want to have happen on your first day of SXSW: your camera decides that it is done with life. On the first day. Drat. Double drat. My screen is broken, and without a viewfinde my camera is pretty much useless. Hence, a blog without original pictures. Le sigh.

Some Day 1 stats:
Sweet beards witnessed: 3 (I judge a beard as beings “sweet” if it’s four fingers long. Mine is not yet sweet.)
Close encounters with famous rock stars: 2 (Velvet Underground kingpin Lou Reed and ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons are staying at our hotel. Apparently Billy Bob Thornton is also here, but that was reported to me by video matt.)
Lone Star Beers consumed: 3
Sweet photos taken: 0
People staying in our 2-person luxury suite: 5
People I’ve caught eying me, trying to figure out if I was “somebody”: 17 or so

Hey, it was a travel day and we haven’t been here more than a few hours. Besides I said I wouldn’t write about the Dub Trio show we all caught because someone else is gonna blog about that shit.

SXSW is without question both the busiest and best week of the year. We arrived late afternoon today (Tuesday) ready to start drinking Lone Stars, eating BBQ and working our collective asses off getting tons of content and meeting virtually everyone there is to meet.

SXSW 2008 looks to be better than 2007 (not that SXSW 2007 sucked or anything) since Red Bull is back this year with the Red Bull Moontower (at SXSW 2006 the Red Bull House stole the entire show). Now we really don’t know what’s going to be going down over there (we’ll let you know after we find out) but we are certain of one thing - the Red Bull Moontower will be the place to be for SXSW 2008. What we do know is this:

Anchored by the Red Bull Energy Station, the Alamo Draft House Rolling Road Show and a solar stage, the Red Bull Moon Tower will be a mix of a musician compound and a high-end party where anything can happen.

More on all that throughout the next few days especially since I know we’ll be there until the 4am mark nightly for the next four nights. The first thing we had to do after a drink at the hotel bar was hit up Ironworks BBQ for a completely amazing dinner. I think I want to move into that place and just spend my day eating, at the least I think I need to eat there at least once a day for the next week.