So while I was pretty happy with one of last Monday’s blogs (‘Tis The Season. My Top 10 favorite Jesus Jokes. Happy Easter Monday), in that it was pretty offensive AND timely, I totally missed out on repping my boy Brad Neely (and by “my boy,” I don’t mean to imply that we’re actually friends with one another. I’m just friends with his work).

Brad’s done some cool things (including recording his own audio track to the first Harry Potter movie, and touring arthouse theatres with it), and while his awesome single-cell animations on Creasedcomics.com should be referenced weekly, if not daily, his true genius shines through in the animated world on Superdelux.com.
Here’s what i should have led with last Easter Monday: The story of JESUS (aka, “Jesus F**king Christ”)

I remember my first South by Southwest experience pretty well, considering the whole kid in a candy store / free music, free booze thing that happens in Austin TX every March. But the one thing I remember most was how much my feet hurt after the second day, and how happy I was when I visited the Riot Act Media party and found out that they were giving away free shoes. Saucony Jazz sneakers. I had brought nice-looking, but ill-fitting kicks with me, and once slipping into a pair of comfy shoes I was good to go for the rest of the week. It was like walking on the wings of sponge-angels. I podcasted something to that effect on the Synthesis radio site. In fact, since 2006, I’ve bought nothing but Sauconies (How’s that for good marketing, yo? You’re welcome for the free plug, thanks for the free shoes). Having saved my feet in 2006, David Lewis will forever be a saint to me.

This year, however, I failed to make it to a party featuring free shoes, and right now my brown Saucony Jazz sneakers, going on 6 months old, are in flattened shambles. It’s true, as outlined in my astute friend’s blog, musicismyboyfriend, there’s pretty much nowhere to sit at SXSW for more than a minute. You’re on the go from venue to venue to venue the entire time because, honestly, there’s just too much to see and so little time to see it. Sure, there are rickshaws (known in these parts as pedicabs), and I did use one after Chiodos‘ set on Friday night since La Zona Rosa is kind of a long walk from the main drag on 6th street. Otherwise I was on foot, and as of Sunday I’ve been developing the gnarliest athletes’ foot you’ve ever seen. If it gets any more personality I may have to give it a name. Updates as they come. In the meantime, Check out Video Matt being a drunk ass on a rickshaw. Hilarity! Snoochy Boochies!

I was pretty clear on what I was about to write until I got back on the dock and realized that my 24 hour $11 internet connection had prematurley expired, so we are free balling this one.

First and foremost, however, BALLS. Bollocks, if you will.

Sadly, Jill (whom I mentioned from a previous post) never made it to the dock for our tentative cigarette/wine date. The pleasant news, however, is that following Saturday night’s Spin/American Spirit SXSW after party featuring my new band I’m in, Soundtrack of Our Lives (I hope to get more into that bit later…), I ran into Karen (formerly indifferent) and Al (formerly cunt-y) outside the venue. Karen was far more warm, and Al was absolutely chagrin about his behaviour the night prior (”U” intentional, they’re from the UK, after all). Al was sweet, sheepish and apologetic for his caustic discourse. I gave him a bit more good-natured ribbing and once Jill appeared from the closing venue, we all walked back to the hotel together, quickly figuring out we were staying on the same floor. I was drunk….very drunk….and decidedly less charming than the previous night. Still, Jill asked if I was married, so I took that optimistically as a good sign. We made tentative plans to repeat Friday’s late-nite dock circle.

I feel a bit sick at the moment. My Synthesis compatriots have left me by myself on the dock hours ago, a slave to insomnia and the hopes of a brief snogging encounter with one leggy British heart-thief. Regardless, I still just had a rather cathartic ending to my SXSW, 2008. No, not the bats underneath the bridge (though they were pretty spectacular), but the crashing destruction of a former life.

Way back when, I used to own and operate a car windshield repair service, GlassMan out of Sacramento, CA. I fixed rock chips and installed new windows on cars and trucks. As I lay on the hammock behind the 8.5 Weeks Hotel (formerly the 4 Seasons Hotel…we really trashed the joint and brought the place to an all new low) I watched on as a dozen men manipulated a 15′ x 12′ glass window to its new home. As I chatted with one of the glass workers operating away from the action, I heard the thunderous and sadly familiar roar of hundreds of pounds of glass shattering to the concrete. Though unfortunate for the glass company, that Shiva-approved demolition of clear, perfect glass proved to be the perfect capstone to the most prolific (personally) SXSW I’ve had the pleasure of participating in. And that shattering destruction wasn’t even caused by me, though I had momentarily considered launching my mostly empty bottle of Japanese plum wine through its flawless double-planed beauty.

Victory or Death my friends, victory or death. I am sure I had more to talk about, but the post is long and mainly without original pictures…fucking broken camera.

Oh, and for the record, Shannon at Touche bar on 6th street is the radest provider of libations I’ve ever met. Sorry Duffy’s, you’ve been served. /pun

OOOh, I just saw a bat………. And I just puked. First time during sxsw08. Glad Jill didn’t make it after all to see me in this state. Drunkorexia!!!!!!!!!!!!1!111!!!!danieltaylor!!!111!!!

Here’s a video montage of the Synthesis.net crew’s first day in Austin, TX for SXSW 2008. In it, you’ll see how shitty the outskirts out town are on the way from the airport to downtown, how badass Ironworks BBQ is, and how even on the night before the official start of the music fest, there are more parties and bad ass bands to watch while getting completely black out than you can shake a fucking stick at. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and you’ll be sure to be hearing, and seeing, a lot more of our SXSW 2008 coverage, including interviews, live show footage, drunken rambling and maybe lewd conduct. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

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.

Video footage purported to be of the UFO spotted over Stephenville, TX earlier this year has appeared online. As detailed by Earthfiles.com, there has been a continuous chain of sightings in the state of Texas of similar “sky graffiti” over the last two months. Is this the work of alien taggers, or kids with fancy lasers drinking Pabst 40s in the sagebrush staging an EPIC WIN?