[Si] TV

For more than two decades, the SXSW Music and Media Conference has showcased hundreds of musical acts from around the globe on countless stages in downtown Austin, Texas. This year's conference, which went down March 7-16, proved to be bigger and better than ever. Here Si's Upground, The Dollyrots and Gustavo Alberto recap their personal experiences at SXSW.

The band members of Upground: "On Saturday (3/15), after our showcase Ev and Joe went to the middle of 6th Street with thousands of people and started playing their horns which turned into a massive jam out session-the cops came on horses and almost arrested us for disturbing the peace. Joe (who is 18) tried to use a fake ID to go see NOFX and they took [it] away. [It] looked nothing like him anyway.

Adolfo and a ‘friend' caught a couple having sex in the elevator of our hotel. On the way up there we noticed problems with our lights on the trailer; we had to stop at some small town in the middle of the night and try to fix it. It turns out the electrical system on the trailer went out so we had to rent a cheesy room and all 10 of us stood in one room. The next day (it took us two days to get to Austin) we got a flat on our back tire. We just bought two new front tires three days before we left on tour. And it was irreplaceable so we had to purchase a new one. On the way to Firestone Auto Shop our electrical system on the van went out, so now we had to fix the electrical system on the trailer, the electrical system on the van and purchase a new back tire!

We got to meet Fat Mike from NOFX (Joe & Bolillo) and the Aggrolites (Joe & Bolillo), Salvador Santana (Carlos Santana's son). We met him before but this time it was more personal because we played two shows with his band."

Kelly Ogden of The Dollyrots: "One cool part about playing SXSW is all the free booze. There are all these parties to go to; the Gibson party is where we saw Moby play and got free booze, the Hunnypot party where we played an acoustic set and got free booze, the Spin party where we saw a bunch of people who thought they were ‘awesome' and drank up the open bar . . . you get the idea. Boozefest! We ended up swimming in a little cold creek behind Jovina's where we later watched Girl In A Coma rock it. Oh next to that little creek is where we later found Chris fast asleep.

Another funny/wrong thing happened at a punk rock showcase at Red 7 (The Cute Lepers, Horrorpops, G.G. Elvis) [was that] we had to deal with a serious case of mistaken identity. Apparently some guy thought Luis was the dude who had sex with his wife in the ladies room. It came to fisticuffs. Good thing we were traveling in a posse! The weird thing is I actually did see a dude in the ladies room. Maybe that's what they were doing!

We also got really lucky getting our friends (The Sweethearts, Punk Rock Social Live and Shannon) into shows! We had wristbands that got us into a lot of the shows and parties but our friends just had to sneak along. We would stack ourselves up so every other person had a wrist band and the ones who didn't just walked fast and acted distracted. We would also have them pretend to be us if we were on a guest list! There was this taco stand called Alamo downstairs from the Ritz; we ate three meals in a row there! Fast, cheap, yum!"

Gustavo Alberto: "I missed one of my favorite musicians and good friends' showcase after I confused two street names that sounded exactly the same and ended up on the wrong side of town. After realizing my mistake I ran the six blocks between the streets and only caught the tail end. To make it up to him everyone go check out myspace.com/horsestories. We were also asked to perform a second set after our showcase when one of the bands from Mexico didn't arrive. We managed to keep the crowd in place and deliver. Again!

My familia came! My parents came from Mexico City, and my brother and his girlfriend came in from NYC. I've also had great support from a group of people who've been to most of my L.A. gigs, and it meant everything to see them in the audience in Austin. Just getting accepted was a pretty big deal, since I just started playing this [new] music in November, and we haven't even finished the LP. Everything seems to be getting into place and I'm really excited about the future. [I also] got to meet my new favorite bands: Niña from Monterey Mexico, 60 Tigres, Los Dinamite, and Chikita Violenta.

We rented a four-bedroom house and managed to fit 12 people. I [now] know my band members way more intimately than I should. We had people on the floor and some even slept on our deck in sleeping bags. We also developed Australian accents to compete with the coolness of Adam my manager and his friend Pete. ‘G'Day ladies!' [Lastly], Austin has thousands of ravens; [it] felt like a Hitchcock movie."