This is what everyone missed in Tuesdays SXSW. SXSW Tuesday: Neil Young talks about a new way to hear music, Chelsea Clinton closes Interactive, and Music cranks up Posted: 9:26 p.m. Tuesday, March 11, 2014 Email 0Facebook 0Twitter 0ShareThis New BY PETER BLACKSTOCK - AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Tuesday was moving day at South by Southwest, with the Interactive Conference and Festival winding down as the Music Festival cranked up. Chelsea Clinton’s keynote highlighted the last day of Interactive, while Neil Young’s interview session kicked off Music and the iTunes festival began its five-day run at ACL Live with Coldplay and Imagine Dragons performing. Long lines formed at the Samsung Galaxy Experience hub next to the Convention Center in the morning as those without SXSW badges sought free tickets to Wednesday’s Jay-Z and Kanye West show at a venue still to be announced (with some reports that it would be at Austin Music Hall). Those hoping to get tickets for Lady Gaga’s Thursday show at Stubb’s engaged in Doritos “Bold” promotional stunts at various downtown locations. Chelsea Clinton’s personality came out in the Q&A portion of her SXSW Interactive keynote on Tuesday. Across the river at the Long Center for the Performing Arts, “Jimmy Kimmel Live” filmed the second day of its weeklong Austin run, with Gov. Rick Perry reportedly receiving a less-than-welcome response plus guest spots by actress Rosario Dawson and musician Aloe Blacc. Daytime bashes at Red River hot spots such as the Mohawk and Hype Hotel, as well as west-of-downtown venues such as Rattle Inn, kept things lively on a beautiful afternoon. Those parties gave way to the first night of official showcases, as well as the awards from the Film and Interactive conferences. Neil Young’s 5 p.m. session was officially billed as a “SXSW Interview,” but it felt more like a keynote address, given that the completely full house in the Convention Center’s largest ballroom buzzed with anticipation and adulation for the legendary rocker. Young’s label, Warner Bros., even sent out a release Tuesday afternoon about a live stream of the event, reminding people to “watch Neil Young deliver the keynote address at SXSW.” Ultimately, Young’s appearance was mainly a sales pitch for his new Pono high-quality sound system than anything else, but it was an entertaining and effective one. He began with a half-hour solo address to the crowd in which he outlined a decades-long devolution in sound quality (from LP to CD to MP3) that motivated his desire to bring Pono to the marketplace. A 10-minute testimonial video featuring dozens of major artists — including Eddie Vedder, Tom Petty, Jack White, Bruce Springsteen and Mumford & Sons — followed, after which Young sat for a brief chat with USA Today reporter Mike Snider. The hourlong session concluded with Pono CEO John Hamm joining Young to answer a few audience questions. Young stressed that the idea of Pono is to give listeners a chance to hear “exactly what the artist made” in the studio. Claiming that modern formats such as MP3 often capture just 5 percent of the sound actually recorded by musicians, Young suggested that today’s listeners typically don’t have the same experience he had when he heard records many decades ago. “Inside their soul, they’re just not getting what we got,” he said. Pono is a triangular device, slightly bigger than an iPod but still portable, which Hamm carefully referred to it as “a small piece of audio gear, not a mobile device.” Young and Hamm showed off test models from the stage, though they made it clear the process isn’t that far along yet; devices are scheduled to ship in October (Pono launched a Kickstarter page where donors can reserve devices for $200 to $400). Chelsea Clinton, vice-chair of the Clinton Foundation, delivered the final keynote of SXSW Interactive, starting with a formal presentation that was an update on the Foundation’s work and a call to technologists in the room to do more social good, followed by a relaxed Q&A that better reflected Clinton’s personality. In the first 30 minutes of the hourlong talk, Clinton presented a slide show and read from notes, spotlighting ways that technology can aid the global work done by the Clinton Foundation. But it seemed overly scripted, with Clinton standing behind a podium, delivering facts and data without the oratory flair of her father, President Bill Clinton. Things improved dramatically in a Q&A with a Fast Company staffer. Clinton, dressed in jeans and a black suit jacket, seemed much more herself in conversation, cracking jokes about Twitter’s brief outage in the afternoon and launching with, “I’m obsessed with diarrhea.” It wasn’t just for shock value: she relayed a story about a simple oral deydration solution could save lives in the third world. Clinton shared stories about growing up as a 6-year-old expected to debate her parents, revealed that she taught her parents to text and charge their phones, and mentioned her late grandmother several times as a major influence. Her grandmother taught her to think big, but to start with small actions, something Clinton said can apply to what we can do with technology. She urged those in the room and beyond (“We are all technologists,” she said) to use tech for social good and to help the Clinton Foundation not only create tech products and apps, but to help analyze big data to determine what works and what doesn’t. “Each one of us can make a difference in the world,” she said. “What can we do? I grapple with that every day.” Omar L. Gallaga, Michael Barnes and Ramon Ramirez contributed to this report. Statesman at SXSW @austin360/sxsw: More live coverage, including reports from the first night of the iTunes Festival, the closing Interactive Party and Interactive award winners, plus previews for the next four days.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 13:13:05 +0000
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