Another View of Music

The view here, as you can see, is merely of the top of my head. Yes, it’s your humble Entertainment Editor with his humble Reporter’s Notebook, covering the 2006 South by Southwest Music Festival. And who are those two tykes? They’re band members, mind you — namely, John and Dion (now age 13), the guitarists from the Flairz, an Australian outfit that played well beyond its green days. (Thanks to Erich Schlegel for the photo. And by the way, the logo on my T-shirt reads: Awful Arthur’s Oyster Bar, Kill Devil Hills, NC. Although I don’t care for oysters, I can highly recommend much of the rest of the seafood at Arthur’s. But I digress . . .)

I returned to Austin this year for SXSW 2007, my 10th straight time at the festival. All in an effort to keep you, dear music-fan reader, informed.

Which brings me to this blog, and my first contribution as music editor.

There are indeed many views of music at Sound & Vision. The print magazine, of course, includes CD reviews and our groundbreaking column “Tracking Surround.” Look for them up front in “Random Play.” Then there’s the Entertainment section of our Web site, where we get to put All the Reviews That Didn’t Fit in Print. Now’s there’s Bitstream, the blog, where we get to put Everything Else.

And just what would that be? Well, everything and anything: quick-take reviews, newsy items, miscellaneous ruminations, and so forth and so on. My bits in the stream will be casual. Outspoken. Irreverent. Chocolatey. (Sorry, but I do love chocolate. Have you tried Reese’s Crispy Crunchy Bar? Yum. And does anyone remember the scrumptious Reggie Bar, which wasn’t even a bar? It was kinda round — like rounding the bases, I guess. Oooooo, baseball and chocolate. The passions keep piling up! But now I truly digress . . .)

Point is, keep reading the mag and the Web site for the in-depth stuff that Sound & Vision is known for. But don’t forget to check back into the Bitstream for stuff that will often be, personally speaking, off the top of my head. —Ken Richardson

X