SXSWorld
Issue link: https://sxsw.uberflip.com/i/81859
Pages from the by Andy Smith 2007-2010: Come Together: Music, Film And Interactive As One Looking back, SXSW's 20th anniversary banner, were still generally regarded as separate entities with far less crossover than in the years to come. Changes in technology that would help trigger more convergence among the interactive, fi lm and music spheres were on the immediate horizon but had not fully arrived. Musically, the four major labels still accounted for more than 80% of all U.S. music sales, though the labels were scrambling to try to fi gure out how to prevent CD copying and downloading by implementing such features as the dreaded Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology. While artists such as Arctic Monkeys, TV On Th e Radio, Gnarls Barkley and My Chemical Romance wowed both critics and audi- ences, annual American sales fi gures indicated that the general music-buying public was more interested in the likes of American Idol, Rascal Flatts and the High School Musical soundtrack. At least Justin Timberlake had taken on the noble cause of bringing "Sexy Back." In fi lm, Pirates Of Th e Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest was the top grossing fi lm of the year, while Th e Departed, Babel and Th e Last King Of Scotland made noise on the awards circuit. On the home viewing front, video-on- demand was still in its infancy, and the fi rst Blu-ray Disc titles were introduced in the summer of 2006. In the tech world, MySpace was the dominant force in social network sites, though a new site called Facebook was released to the general public in late September. Meanwhile, the heads of Odeo, a San Francisco-based podcasting company, had unveiled a new "micro-blog- ging" service called Twitter earlier in the summer to little attention. Google purchased YouTube in October, validating the huge growth in user-generated video, and Apple dropped rumors of a new touch-screen mobile phone that would enable pictures and video, leading to Steve Jobs' iPhone announcement at the MacWorld confer- ence in January 2007. SXSW 2007 brought another legendary fi gure as music keynote. "Following the shock and awe of having Neil Young as keynote," in 2006 seems to belong to a diff erent era. Th e three SXSW conferences, though united under the SXSW 16 SXSW ORLD / M AY – J UNE 201 1 remembers Roland Swenson, "I was back on the fl oor with my socks knocked off when Andy Flynn confi rmed another major fi gure from my personal pantheon of heroes, Pete Townshend." Th e legendary rocker's appearance followed the October 2006 release of Endless Wire, the fi rst Who record in 24 years. Townshend also was in the midst of a performance project with collaborator Rachel Fuller called Attic Jam, which brought together a number of well-known singer-songwriters for gigs on both sides of the Atlantic. "Following his keynote, he was very friendly and totally down to earth as he chatted with me and my wife Roseana and posed for photos with us," recalls Swenson. "Th e next morning I was standing in line for coff ee SXSW SCRAPBOOK SXSW Interactive's 2006 "Designing the Next Generation of Web Applications" panel with Moderator Jeffrey Veen (Adaptive Path), Eric Rodenbeck (Stamen Design), Mena Trott (Six Apart), George Oats (Flickr) and Evan Williams (Odeo). at the Hilton with a dozen other people, when I noticed Townshend by himself, fetching his own coff ee, carrying a shoulder bag and newspaper like any other SXSW delegate ... He must have liked Austin, because when he was due to check out of his hotel, he stayed a couple of extra days before rejoining Th e Who tour in Mexico City." Elsewhere, SXSW Music was rife with discussion of the music industry downturn, even as the conference hosted more music reg- KATE LINGER