just a little bit better than dope.
For those not familiar with SXSW (South By Southwest), its bananas. Basically a gigantic week long conference and music festival, taking over all of downtown Austin. There’s over 80 stages and hundreds of bars and clubs involved, showcasing all things music from every genre. The hardest part is choosing your adventure.. when you have Kanye, Jazzy Jeff, Warren G, Diplo, Afrojack, Risk One (ha) and 100 other artists all performing at the same time, its almost not even fair. Such is life.
This is hands down my favorite festival to attend and participate, mostly b/c of the intimate nature of all the events, and the diversity of everything going on. It still seems to be heavily dominated by the indie scene (floppy beanies and skinny jeans err’ywhere), but all the same there are hip-hop parties, bugged out sweaty dance parties, funk and soul parties on all vinyl, turntablist showcases, and everything in between. Also as an industry person the networking is amazing. Almost everyone is equally accessible, not to mention one of the only times to kick it w/ all the homies from all over the globe! Here’s a brief lenghty recap of my week…
Weds and Thurs were relatively low key. I had just got in from Houston Weds and just hopped around some of the main clubs where the homies were playing. Thursday there was an all vinyl 45′s party going on at District 301. Some of the super OG’s of the game (Nu Mark, J-Boogie, and Supreme La Rock to name a few) were playing their dopest and rarest funk and soul breaks, which was the soundtrack of b-boys on the dancefloor.. and an impromtu mustache party. Not even sure where these things came from, but everyone was rocking a fake ‘stache halfway through the night. Awesome!
Oh and then there was the old dude the pink TuTu..???
A few of us dipped from there to check out the Wu-Tang show down the street. With a special guest DJ set by Erykah Badu! Everyone is a DJ these days eh? Still really dope though. Jayceeoh was DJing for some of the earlier acts so we peeped his set, after shmoozing our way in b/c we weren’t on the guestlist (industry snobs, don’t judge). We worked our way up to VIP and enjoyed the show. Sardines!
I Missed Friday b/c of a gig in Louisville, but returned Saturday evening just in time for the big Red Bull 3Style showcase. A handful of previous 3Style battle winners and other DJ legends did showcases for a ridiculous crowd of people. It was good to see our good friends DJ-R (US Final runner-up) and Platurn (Oakland Faders) rocking alongside super legends such as Jazzy Jeff and Z-trip.
We enjoyed most of the show from the upper VIP area (w/ open bar woo!), but I snuck down backstage with JR just before Z-Trips set. JR made me a drink in the Red Bull bus, which was the nicest establishment i’ve ever seen on wheels. Then we hopped on stage for the beginning of his set. I was shamelessly taking video which apparently was NOT ok, b/c after about 5mins I was shuffled off the stage w/ the other camera-holders. All good though I got my footage!
Good timing anyways b/c I was I had to do my closing set at Six Lounge right across the street. Six was PAAAAAAACKED. So crackin. Wish I had more photos and videos but they apparently don’t believe in lighting the place, it was all sorts of dark in there. All goodie though, fun times take my word for it 
So we got word of the Fool’s Gold afterparty going on and A-Trak performing. It was 15mins outside of downtown, inside a local mall. So random.. We made the trek and sure enough the parking lot is jam packed w/ a line outside the main entrance. We got inside and in one of the empty store spaces wall an all our raging sweaty dance party in progress. They were even selling crappy beer for $5 each.. win! After the opener finished the most gutter ghetto hip-hop set ever, A-Trak hops on playing his usual “i’ve never heard any of this before in my life but its dope” electro set that had everybody going crazy. I think we stayed til around 5ish a.m. before heading home . Good night.
Sunday is the infamous Funky Brunch, started by the DJ mayor of Austin Mike Swing. Its an all day rooftop party with a delicous brunch buffet, bottomless mimosas and bloody marys, and a ridiculous DJ lineup (peep the flyer) playing great music all day. We got there around noon, and my set was 445pm-530pm. Had alot of fun with it and the people were vibing, annnd bring shot after shot after shot..
I was fine thru the end of my set, but by 6pm it was lights out. Apparently there were 2 other spots we went to afterwards that cannot be accounted for, before I woke up around midnight in my buddies truck in the parking lot of Beauty Bar. I called him and he came out and got me and we went back insde.
5mins later I get a tweet.. “Can someone please let @RiskOne know we found his DJ bag at Montage, hit us up to come get it”. Holy F*cking smokes. Panic mode sets in, I send him a message with my phone number immediately and he hits me back. Luckily it was one of the other DJs from earlier in the day, so everything was safe and sound. We met up at another spot downtown and got it back. Pretty much owe this man my life.
At this point I got my second wind back (probably after the few hour nap I had in the car), so we checked out the sunday hotspot before closing time (it was 1am at this point). Of course there is an afterparty across the street at Republic. It was a Dim Mak party and Steve Aoki was playing. Most of the SXSW festivities were over at this point so my jaw hit the ground when we walk in and its a packed house of electo-heads going ape and Aoki is crowd-surfing, as per usual..
Monday was the voyage home, after what seemed to be the longest week of my life, but also one of the most fun. See you next year!!
