heute:pop:blog.  

Holidays. And not just sitting by the beach for a week but really getting away from life’s routine, seeing other places and getting to know new people. That’s what I’m doing right now.

I haven’t had an iPhone/Blackberry for four months and of course haven’t been working. But I also haven’t produced a radio show (in fact have hardly listened to any new music), haven’t been involved with the new OpenMusicMedia events and haven’t even been blogging.

I spent the last four months in South America with Raila and feel truely relaxed – in fact I’m surprised how easy it was to disconnect from my life in London. We are moving to Canada soon so I have been ‘homeless’ since we left and all my belongings boil down to a 15kg Deuter backpack. I have two pairs of trousers and two jumpers.

Nevertheless (or perhaps because of all this) I look forward to getting back into something you can call a ‘normal routine’. And for me this routine will start with something fun:

I’m moderating a panel at SXSW in Austin this year, the topic of our discussion is ‘how will we listen to music in 2020‘. I will be joined on stage on the 17th March by Alexander Ljung (SoundCloud), Ben Perreau (Gigulate) and Steve Savoca (Domino). With such speakers this should be an intersting talk, if there is anything specifically you want to see discussed, feel free to post a comment here.

If you are at SXSW as well please let me know, would be good to meet you there: jonas(at)jonaswoost(dot)com.

PS: if you’re more intersted in my time off rather than SXSW you can find some pictures here and you can follow me on twitter here.

Only two more shows to go after this one. Regular listeners will recognize many of the songs below – going through all my old playlists brings up good memories. Interesting how with some songs I know exactly why I played them on my show and where found them and with others I have no recollection why they ended up on my playlist.

I know you might be sick of hearing about it by now but if you can please have a look at my SXSW panel and vote. Thanks.

You can listen to this show here.

1. Alias ‘Unseen Sights’
2. Ulrich Schnauss ‘On My Own’
3. The New Pornographers ‘All The Things That Go To Make Heaven And Earth’
4. Cansei De Ser Sexy ‘Let’s Make Love And Listen Death From Above’
5. Phosphorescent ‘Wolves’
6. Nina Gordon ‘Straight Outta Compton’
7. Seu Jorge ‘Life On Mars?’
8. Lightspeed Champion ‘Stay The Fuck Away From Me’
9. Iron & Wine ‘Boy With A Coin’
10. Feist ‘My Moon My Man’ (Boys Noize Classic Mix)
11. Daft Punk ‘Human After All’ (SebastiAn Remix)
12. Modeselektor ‘2000007 feat. TTC’
13. Tes ‘New New York’

If you have seen me recently on a panel or doing a presentation you would have noticed that there is one topic that I’m very interested in: how the consumption of recorded music has changed over the years and how it will continue to develop.

Looking into the past is vital but also fairly easy. The future is the tricky one and for some the most fascinating: I want to find out how we will consume recorded music in 10 years from now but to find some good answers I might need some help.

This is how I came up with my idea for a panel at SXSW next year in Austin. As you might know, they encourage people to come up with ideas for a panel or presentation and post them on their website for anyone to vote on.

Of course you guessed it by now: please vote for my panel suggestion at the SXSW 2010 Panelpicker. You can see from my description on there what I’m trying to do. Also, please suggest people that should be on that panel by posting a comment here or on the Panelpicker. Maybe I won’t be the only one that’s trying to promote themselves.

So, I got back this morning from my trip to Austin, caught some sleep and am working on my next heute:pop:morgen radio show which will cover the event. Well, I’m going to play tracks of the artists I saw there and basically make everyone jealous and tell them what a great time I had.

It was a hot one (30C+) and it was my birthday last Wednesday. Doesn’t happen very often that I have a margarita at 1.30pm in the sunshine on my birthday. I meant to blog from there as well but there was just no time to sit down for 30 min and do this…

One highlight for me was surly Boys Noize which was absolutely insane and they ended up throwing him in the crowd and everyone was loving it. Maybe an odd one as he was one of the very few DJs is saw at the official SXSW showcases. Amazing nevertheless.

Another band I was hugely enjoying was This Will Destroy You, a band from Texas who I had never heard before. This was one of those SXSW moment where a friend tells you that you should come and check out this band (thanks for the recommendation Anthony) and then you are totally blown away. They seem to be playing in London soon as well.

Other highlights include Sia (she is a bit middle of the road but I just always liked her), Lightspeed Champion (live much better than the album), Frightened Rabbit (the Scotts know what they are doing), Bon Iver (shame about the sound problems but I loved it), Kimya Dawson (was watching that in between tons of 15 to 17 year olds who knew all the lyrics) Emmy The Great (Cute!) and N.E.R.D. (normally not my thing but what a great show). Songs of all those will be featured on my next heute:pop:morgen show.

On the more industry side there was one thing I notice straight away: there was no complaining. When you go to conferences like Midem of Popkomm you hear a lot of companies complaining about the way their business is going but in Austin you have nothing of that. I see a few reasons for that:
1. The companies I have been meeting which are typically the bigger independent labels are actually doing quite well at the moment. From what I hear they are now getting some good income from a bunch of digital services and they can also sustain some good CD sales
2. When you go to SXSW you can see that the Music Industry has still got one very flourishing arm: the live part. There are 1800 bands playing in (often) packed venues over the course of a week, it’s difficult to then start complaining about how no one wants to spend any money on music. Admittedly many of the people at those gigs are working in the industry but when you walk down 6th Street in Austin on Friday night you only see very few badges
3. Well, it’s SXSW: fantastic music, great weather, plenty of margaritas, excellent Mexican food. Not really good moaning conditions.

I think think this is all I can squeeze out of my jetlagged brain right now, I’m sure there will be more to come about SXSW. Oh and I took a few pictures as well. Actually just a very few, didn’t want to take my camera around all day and night: www.flickr.com/photos/pete_bug/sets/72157604137769936/

I’m off to Austin (to the SXSW conference) tomorrow and want to get some twittering done from there. For anyone who does now know what Twitter is, it’s a status based messaging system and it’s lot of fun. Make sure you follow me here: twitter.com/pete_bug

And I will of course try and blog as much as I can but it’s difficult to say how much laptop time I will have…

If you are going to the SXSW confernce in Austin next week and you have a Last.fm profile your life is getting a lot easier now: we have developed a tool that recommends you bands that are playing at SXSW based on your music taste. Everyone who’s been before knows that it can be tricky to find all your favourite gigs down there since there are 1500+ bands performing. Also, join the group: www.last.fm/group/SXSW+Music

I’ll be there too so I hope I see you in Texas!