SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST, DAY FOUR

Here's a suggestion for the SXSW people: Questions from the audience should not be allowed at panel sessions. This morning, HITS' own Jeff Rabhan led a panel of A&R weasels that covered some basic issues—f'rinstance, when asked what a band can do to get signed, Hollywood A&R VP John Dee suggested “Be great.” And as usual, the panelists, also including Columbia's Tim Devine, Artemis' Joe McEwen, Interscope's Debbie Southwood-Smith and Warner Bros.' Jeff Blue, stressed the fact that bands need to work hard after they get signed. And then, also as usual, every band in the audience thought that they would get their money's worth from the assembled A&R staffers. “My band is called XXXX and we're blah blah blah. How come we're not signed?” Uck. And that was before a guy admitted to having called Southwood-Smith's hotel room that morning at 9 a.m. She told him that invasion of privacy wouldn't help his chances.

To relieve the itching and burning, I headed to the Listen.com-sponsored hacks & flacks reception. Since Listen is trying to save on dough, it was a clever idea to schedule the open-bar soiree at 1:30, before I'd even had lunch. We then headed to the Sub Pop party, with ex-Sub Pop GM/current Gracenote VP of Label Relations John Schuch riding shotgun. Unfortunately, the beer ran out in 29 minutes—we were counting—so we headed out to lunch at a real restaurant before lining up at the Revolution magazine party, where DreamWorks' Creeper Lagoon impressed and Atlantic's the Cult—yes, that Cult—showed that the teenpop-classic rock pendulum is swinging back.

From there I went off-site. Much as the Sundance Film Festival has spawned Slamdance, bands not included at SXSW use the number of industry bottom feeders in town to draw some attention. Tonight it was Houston's StarFX at some weird-ass punk club halfway to the airport. With the right song, these guys could be huge. Of course, with the right song, I could be huge.

For the next several hours, I wandered in and out of clubs looking for something decent, but other than Pleasure Forever, it was mostly nothing. So, with my feet aching and the knowledge that I had to get up at 6:30 to catch my flight, I went home early.

My scorecard shows at least 50 bands, 50+ beers (90% paid for by other people, by the way, Lenny) and a handful of free meals. The lessons learned were mostly dulled by Shiner Bock, but I'm sure they had something to do with the need for earplugs and comfortable shoes.

See you next year.