Documents from Gilberto Gil's Private Archive

SFGate.com Print This Article SFGate.com Back to Article Singers bash sponsors, stop traffic in Austin Aidin Vaziri, Chronicle Pop Music Critic Saturday, March 17, 2007 (03-17) 04:00 PDT Austin, Texas -- The hardest part about covering the South by Southwest music • Affordable payroll deductions festival is trying to be everywhere at once. With nearly 1,500 bands playing around the clock at more than 60 venues for a four-day stretch that extends into Sunday, there's always a nagging sensation that the big breakthrough act is playing just across town while you're stuck watching some third-rate busker emulate James Blunt (who, incidentally, was discovered here just three years ago after playing in a small room to about two dozen people). Plus, there's always the constant distraction of free beer and barbecue. So the best thing to do is keep moving -- and take lots of notes. The sightings Primus front man Les Claypool and producer Jerry Harrison (formerly of the Talking Heads) shared our flight into Austin. Flaming Lips ringleader Wayne Coyne stopped traffic near the Convention Center, simply by standing on the corner (it may have had something to do with the fact that he was wearing a three-piece suit in 80-plus-degree weather). Around every corner, there were shaggy-haired men with thick accents and tight-fitting jeans dragging around guitar cases. David Byrne and Brazilian singer Gilberto Gil gave lectures during the day, and Isaac Hayes stopped by to mark the Stax Record Label's 50th anniversary. Filthy rapper Peaches was set to take the decks at the Factory People party later in the night, while Los Angeles scenesters Steve Aoki, Perry Farrell, a shirtless Cisco Adler and Internet gossip guru Perez Hilton (real name Mario Lavandeira) and his bright pink hair (a sighting in itself) made the scene at the Playboy event across town. That's also where we ran into San Francisco's DJ Omar. "It's been a congested experience," he said of his first day at the festival. "But if you love music, then this is paradise." The speech By all accounts, Pete Townshend's keynote address at the Hilton ballroom Wednesday was a dud. Instead of offering young bands advice on how to best propel furniture out of hotel room windows and pillage small Third World countries, he used it as an opportunity to announce his idea for a new-music Web site called the Method, which sounds nearly as boring and convoluted as the Who's most recent album, "Endless Wire." Actually, nothing sounds that boring and convoluted, but you get the drift.