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SXSW

SXSW Tour Diary: The Nice Guys

Rocks Off is asking a handful of Houston artists to write about their experiences performing at SXSW.

Day 1 of SXSW went pretty well, we got on the road to ATX at about 9 a.m. The moment we arrived in Austin we were busy, went straight to the convention center to get the artist wristbands. By the way, it definitely feels good being official performers this year, much love to Matt Sonzala for showing love to the guys.

After the wristband pickup, we stopped by the Lipton tent for some libations, their staff was super cool so we hung around for a little. A few drinks later, we were finally off to our first SXSW showcase of 2011 at Cream Vintage, which is a vintage clothing shop in the UT Campus area.

The trek to Cream turned into a walk marathon. Like some idiot out of towners, we decided to talk from downtown to UT campus, the walk took about 40 minutes. The path from downtown to UT wouldn't have been so bad, but there is no flat ground in Austin. We were going uphill most of the walk, made for a good workout but we definitely should've just driven to the spot instead, lesson learned. Fortunately for us, we weren't late to the show, we got there right as Esso was about to go on, soon as he wrapped up we hit the stage.

It was a super fun show, we made everyone in the crowd yell "Bi**h!" at the top of their lungs, multiple times, it was hilarious! We ran through our set, had a blast, and rocked the show, wasn't a huge crowd but we definitely made it fun for everyone in attendance.

After that, we got some drinks, hit a few showcases, hung out with some friends, and called it a day. SXSW Day 1 was a fun start to what should be a very crazy week, see you guys tomorrow with a Day 2 recap.

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Shey is an experienced blogger, social media expert and traveler. She studied journalism at Oklahoma State University before working as a full-time reporter for Houston Community Newspapers in 2005. She lived in South Korea for three years, where she worked as a freelancer.
Contact: Brittanie Shey