OK, we are done. Officially. The managers have taken down our daily line-ups from the walls. We bagged all the mics and wrapped the cables. The road cases are packed and ready to head northeast. We have had 45 artists come before our cameras in the last four days. We have seen nothing else, we have eaten primarily at Threadgill's. No one cancelled. No one was late. People BROUGHT it. The audience came and hung. We loved it when they were lined up at 11 am to enter when the doors opened each morning. They came and stayed, ate and drank, and were merry. We had the occasional freak-out. Steve Poltz was SO over the top, we couldn't believe it. Especially when he took off his shirt ala Iggy Pop. There was an "interloper" who took the stage during Matt King's set yesterday carrying a fiddle case with a cowbell in it, and proceeded to whip it out on stage and start banging the thing and high kicking. You can never have enough cowbell.
What's going to happen to Pedro, our Austin aquired bunny mascot? He was banished from the stage when Chris realized we were growing ears out of the tops of artist's heads, at certain camera angles. [Editor's note: Actually, we gave Pedro to one of the guys here at Threadgill's to take home to his family. Pedro will have a good life.] Denise did not let anyone get by without documenting the songs, authors, and instrumentation. Mitch was an all around aid, culminating in running Camera 2 before he was pressed into ladder duty to pull the ambient mics. Trev was sent on a mission to procure more digital tape, not an easy task during SXSW. He went to four stores, and almost gave up. But he pressed on. And the Foggers pressed on through ten plus acts a day, a quick dinner, some conferences to decide what to post, and then back to the mobile production studio to edit, master, and upload. Chris had an undisclosable side job which prevented him from sleeping and necessitated a Red Bull binge. Aaron laid cords, sat with his headphones on for four days, delivering an amazing audio mix to the cameras and the house. Not an easy thing to do hour after hour, day after day. Beans. What can you say? He of the steady hand on the new jib. Have we told you about this thing yet? Chris and Jim designed it last week from parts they found around the house and on Ebay. It is an elegant way of getting into people's faces. It has remote control, and it allows the operator to bypass doing Pilates three times a week to get the shot they want. We had many compliments on it, and someone even asked if we had it patented yet.
Thanks to all the folks at Threadgill's for welcoming us and making it so easy. Thanks to our sponsors Lone Star School of Music, Hansel & Gretel at the Austin Lyric Opera from the Armstrong Community Music School, and of course Pork Barrel BBQ with their All American Spice Rub. We had the Threadgill's chef throw it on the rib-eye steaks, and "MMMM, that was DELICIOUS!"
We operated like a pas de deux, or septe, actually! Four days done, as Music Fog bids Austin Adieu! We'll be bringing you lots of music videos from these performances in the coming days and weeks, plus we still have lots of music to share with you from our trip to Memphis, too! Meanwhile, here's a time-lapse video of every load in, performance, and load out of our sessions on the Music Fog stage at Threadgill's!
-Jessie
