Rock It Science Laboratories founder Eric Sharp recently left San Francisco for almost 2 weeks to go on a promotional rampage letting the whole dance music industry know about the launch of our label at South By Southwest in Austin and WMC in Miami. Here Eric recounts some highlights of his experiences on the first leg of this whirlwind trip and drops more names than we care to count.
Day One
Wednesday I put in as big a day as I could at Flavor Group before heading to meet Jonathan and Alvaro from Om Records to head to the airport (Jonathan and I were serendipitously on the same flights from SFO to Austin and from Austin to Miami). I left the office at the last minute possible and grabbed a taxi to the Dogpatch to meet the boys. From there we made our way to the airport, only to find our flight was delayed. We waited eating Asian food and talking shop at SFO while I packaged up the first 50 of the Rock It Science Laboratories 2010 Summer Samplers to give away.
We arrived at Austin’s airport and met up with White Girl Lust to give him a ride downtown in the car I rented. Due to our flight delay, I missed my DJ set at the Headset party. That was a bummer, but we went instead to the Stones Throw party where we bumped into Om homie J.Boogie. I then linked up with Headset boss Ken Liu and we headed to our accomodations – his friend Stephen Glass’ house (Glass House and Stones Throw…irony…) to catch some rest.
Day Two
Things start to blur together already a bit on day two…Ken and I woke up quite late and had lunch at a spot called Mother’s. I believe they call it this because you look pregnant when you finish eating there – that or because the portions are the size of large babies. From there we stopped by the bank to grab cash and American Apparel to buy socks, followed by the Rocksteady and Waxs Sounds event where Louisahhh was confusing rock ‘n’ roll fans by dropping classic tracks from the likes of Green Velvet and Jaydee. We then went to 6th Street, Austin’s main drag, to cover the place in our new stickers!
Our attempt to then attend the Mad Decent & iHeartComix party failed, as we got there when the doors had closed, so we headed to Uchi – a great Japanese restaurant I recommend if you are in Austin. We then proceeded straight to another fail…having bought tickets in advance to the Fool’s Gold event we were pretty disappointed that we were unable to get in because the venue was oversold. Refund? Not so much. Disappointed, we headed to check out Christian Martin which, on the other hand, did not disappoint in the least. Chris was repping SF hard and throwing down some great tech-house. We then moved on to Silhouette where Bird Peterson was dropping everything from house to drum & bass. Cousin Cole was there and he told us about an afterhours he was djing at called the Music Gym so we decided to check it out. The party was actually pretty cool, despite the fact that there was only 1 turntable so Cole didn’t get to play. I danced it out pretty good in a room the size of a large bedroom to Nadastrom, Willy Joy, and Sammy Bananas before calling it a night.
Day 3
Friday we finally made it to the Mad Decent x iHeartComix Carniville party where we were actually able to hear Cousin Cole perform alongside Jess Jubilee and a band called Yacht. I had a great opportunity to promote the label later during a great DJ set from the XX when I bumped into Acid Girls who introduced me to Jokers of the Scene, Lvis 1990, and Skeet Skeet.
When Mad Decent closed up shop we headed to the Ninja Tune showcase and met local promoter Richard Henry who makes a lot of cool stuff happen in Austin. Highlights from the party included Anti-Pop Consortium and a brilliant set by Daedelus. iHeartComix & Mad Decent were hosting an afterhours at there spot which we proceeded to attend where Lvis 1990 was DJing and some dude was on the mic in an English accent shouting Lvis 1990 over and over again. Weird.
Day 4
The final day at SXSW was thankfully a good one for the most part (except for the freezing cold weather which Ken and I braved to check out his co-worker’s cousin performing only to be subjected to strange freestyles by a white guy from Nashville.) The evening started with the Hype Machine party where Eli Smith was dropping beats. Next stop was the Beauty Bar for the AM Only showcase, which was probably the standout event of SXSW. We were treated to another set from Daedelus as well as Craze, Kill The Noise, Jack Beats, Treasure Fingers, Mickey Factz, Felix Cartal, and Nick Catchdubs.
After that madness we made a last stop to the Carniville afterhours where Diplo was DJing featuring everyone. (Literally every song had a different live vocalist performing over it.) I bumped into my good friend and favorite comedian Moshe Kasher randomly, who was at SXSW for his comedy, which was a trip. We took this picture:
Following these 4 long days, I went back to Stephen’s and got 3 hours of sleep before picking up Jonathan and dragging him to the airport to head to Florida for Winter Music Conference. Info on that coming soon…]
