Austin360 blogs > Out & About > Archives > 2009 > March > 15
Sunday, March 15, 2009
O&A SXSW 20: Frog Design Party at the MACC
Well, they topped the 2008 party. The Frog Design folks, known for the liveliest gatherings at SXSW Interactive, bested last year’s three-ring circus with latter-day side-shows and exotic parades in 2009.
Jason Stoddard, Cynthia Fedor
Word was out. The Mexican American Cultural Center plaza was packed, with some celebrants drawn to the quieter, warmer tents and others huddled around radiating space heaters.
Allen Mendelsohn, Sarah Bagnall, Daniel Morrison
On on stage, Kitty Kitty Bang Bang, expanded on its cabaret-style burlesque with a touch of the grotesque. The Minor Mishap Marching Band — counting members of the ecstatic jazz troupe White Ghost Shivers — created a musical spectacle unmatched this side of New Orleans or a Mummer’s Parade.
Maria Alonso, Brian Baugh
Meanwhile, a swarm of cycle-fueled insects gyrating among the guests. These large, sculpted beings, luminous in the night, would have freaked out anyone of psychotropic drugs — which I’m reasonably sure was not the case on Friday.
Sachi Ariel, Sarah Stubbs
My first contact was with marketer Jason Stoddard and his new gal, Cynthia Fedor (yes, Jason, I will text you when I arrive at the Facebook party tonight). Almost immediately, my new Minneapolis contact, Chris Baumgartner, walked up — and, wouldn’t you know it? — Jason and Chris had scads in common. Networking task completed.
I curled around guest pods, meeting and greeting, before my legs yelped and I hobbled off to find a ride.
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O&A SXSW 19: Standard Answer Party & More
This is a brief SXSW story in three brisk chapters.
Stephen Rice, Mark Erwin
1) I joined the line at Mohawk. Ran into a Statesman colleague and his two, new SXSW friends. I explained that this was the launch party for Standard Answer, a social networking site. They nodded as we breezed past the man with the list. Two bands played. I ran into music rep Stephen Tatton. He introduced me to the front man for one of his acts. Neat. But the bands onstage didn’t match my expectations for the Standard Answer party, so I fired up the iPhone. Wrong club.
Clara Shih, Dan Chao
2) Swept into the Red-Eyed Fly. Right musical acts — White Denim and Black Joe Lewis. And back on the patio, the party. Mark Erwin, impresario of Standard Answer, greeted his guests. I networked with author Clara Shih, publicist Kevin Smothers, e-mail contact Leora Rockowitz and ASA communicator Micah King. White Denim sounded funky-punky, holding the guests in its buzzy magnetism.
Leora Rockowitz, Jeremy Simon
3) But it was time for the Frog Design party at the Mexican American Cultural Center. Chilled, damp, my legs cramping, I headed in that direction. Just past Sixth Street, I sought succor from a pedicab driver. I approached a strapping guy who seemed capable of transporting my weight, but he thoughtfully said “oh, he was first,” pointing to a slender, wild-haired man almost my age. Appearances deceive. He sped down Red River, cut through the Shores driveway and up to the MACC entrance in mere seconds. Bumpy thought the ride, I handed him all my cash.
Rachel Glaser, Micah King
More on the Frog Design party soon.
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O&A SXSW 18: Retreat to Stubb’s
This is what I love about SXSW. It’s also what I love about Austin. And my job.
So, I go to Stubb’s for a party. A conglomeration of Internet TV and other hosts had attracted a frenzied house to the outdoor stage. The mostly male, wool-capped crowd bellowed with delight at the announced entertainment — strange to me.
Rapidly, the place filled. A tall, young man, looking a bit lost in his Fargo N.D. hat, and chastened by a concerned look on his brow, searched for a nonexistent place at the bar, so I offered him my other chair.
We could have grunted our way through the mounds of meat, but Chris Baumgartner proved much more interesting than that. He hailed originally from Northern Virginia — now all one mall and suburb, he says — and now lives in Minneapolis. His firm, MusicMatters, matches environmental projects with music programs — so 2009.
We talked music, interactivity, SXSW — what made it special, the networking, was as plain as the person across the table — Austin and its evolving glam culture and “open city” concept, as well as his generation, the Obama Generation, which ignores color lines, can’t even guess what segregation meant and thinks that opposition to gay marriage is just plain goofy.
Of course, I choked up. Social contact made. I could have gone home at that moment, my job done.
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O&A SXSW 17: ‘The 2 Bobs’ Premiere Party at Aces Lounge
Inarguably, Austin lawyer and movie producer Mark Mueller knows how to have a good time. Everyone predicted his premiere party for “The 2 Bobs” at Aces Lounge would be packed and happening, combining forces from the SXSW Film and Interactive mobs (the movie depicts the adventures of two gamers).
Mueller hired a bevvy of friendly, costume-clad beauties who insured a positive first visual impression when one entered the Sixth Street club, but also that later conversations — set against a loud club soundtrack — would include alert social give-and-take. (Modern geishas?)
Anna Kozminski, Ashish Patel, Lars Lindstrom, Charles Dahan
The Tim McCanlies-directed “Bobs” doesn’t come with a huge marketing budget, so Mueller put up some of the cast in his house and ferried them around in donated limos. It’s the kind of story you hear time and again at indie-fueled SXSW.
Vanessa Montes, Paul Feneht
I ran into multimedia journalist Rachel Youens, whose husband worked on the trailer. “I haven’t seen the movie, but I’ve seen the trailer about a million times,” she quipped.
Archie Fields, David Collier, Jessie Maguire
Cultural note: For the third time during this SXSW, I’ve run into Canadians who thought the name of my column derived from their co-nationals’ dialect. No. But you’re cute anyway.
Chris Doubek, Alex Karpovsky
