On our way to the Urban Outfitters day show, we got randomly solicited by some KLRU folks for an ACL Stage Left taping, and decided any band in a warm studio with free beer was better than an arctic windy parking lot. Boy, am I glad we did. Lost In The Trees put on an amazing show!
David Gutowski and Jami Attenberg put together this cool little event at Bookpeople, noon on Saturday of SXSW. Jami, Bill Cotter, and Stephen Elliott read and Alina Simone sang some songs. There were munchies and mimosas. It was a good time, and I was really sorry David couldn’t be there. Next year!
PS. Speaking of Bookpeople, mark your calendars: we’re having our Newspaper Blackout release party there on April 13th!
Man, this was such a cool, chill party. I sat up in the balcony at Klub Krucial dead center and drank ice water that the nice dude next to me kept bringing me when he’d go to buy whiskey. I liked all the bands, but I LOVED The Golden Filter and really liked Dum Dum Girls. Thanks, Gorilla Vs. Bear!
UPDATE: Cameron Cantu took this cool pic of me drawing during The Mantles’ set. Thanks, Cameron!
On Monday, I did my first-ever booksigning at the SXSW bookstore. My awesome publisher had copies shipped hot off the press to SXSW, for sale a whole month before the release date. People who picked it up at the conference officially owned it before anyone else…including me!
I’d never actually seen the final book before –I haven’t received my author copies yet, so I didn’t get to do the whole un-boxing-your-author-copies-at-home thing — the first time I saw the book, Adam Norwood tweeted that he’d seen it, so after a panel I rushed over to the bookstore to see it stacked next to Laura Dern (not a bad first impression):
I must say, I was not 100% about the book cover until I saw it in person. It looks really great, it has a matte finish, and feels real nice in your hands.
Here I am gesticulating to somebody. Loved getting to chat with all the folks that came up to by a copy. The added bonus was that everybody had their SXSW badge on, so spelling names was no problem…
After things wound down, I signed the rest of the copies:
Last I checked, there were only about ten or so left, so I’m hoping we sell out over the rest of the week.
Hope to have more pics up of the book soon. Thanks to my shutterbug wife, Meg, for all the awesome pictures. You can see a few more on Flickr.
In the meantime, be sure to get your pre-order in!
So here’s a funny story about how weird life is right now:
I get back from a long night out with pals at SXSW, and Meg is on the couch reading Texas Monthly. (We’re subscribers.)
I’m in the can, and all the sudden I hear this little squeal come from the living room.
“Your book’s in Texas Monthly!!”
And just like that, our first review. The magazine had been sitting on our coffee table for at least 3 days.
Thanks Mike Shea!
UPDATE: What’s even cooler about this is that Marc Burckhardt (fellow Austinite and very nice guy) did the awesome Selena cover.
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