Joey Redmond - My Blog

It’s a sad thought but Joeyredmond.net has NOT been updated or maintained at all so I am going to move the blog to one of the “Staff” blogs at Wrecked Magazine. Currently as the head editor/part owner of the magazine that is where I seem to spend all of my off time from doing client work so it makes sense to stick my blog over there. Now go visit the blog, I promise you this one will stay updated!!!!!!!

http://wreckedmagazine.com/joeyredmond/

http://wreckedmagazine.com/joeyredmond/

http://wreckedmagazine.com/joeyredmond/

http://wreckedmagazine.com/joeyredmond/

After a long week at SXSW it was nice to come home to a present. We got a delivery from Phil at NOS Energy Drink in the form of a commercial NOS fridge! Here is our delivery coming in, thanks Phil!

After this arrived I hopped on a plane to New York City to visit Fuze in New Jersey. This was the line in the atrium to get to the line for security. What a disaster ATL security can be at times.

At the office they have Stanton Barrett’s NASCAR Busch hood from the Dover race last year up on the wall.

On the way back to Laguardia (LGA) we passed by Yankee Stadium! I have been to New York a few times but had never seen the place. They are building a new stadium right next to it.

SXSW Friday seemed to drag on forever. Myself and Phil had one main goal, see the N.E.R.D show at 1am at Stubb’s BBQ but that was no easy task and required some careful planning and some trickery to make sure we got in and got some solid placement. We hit up Hickory Street again for breakfast and it took forever……..they need to step up the cook staff at that place or something, at least for SXSW week. The day was a blur waiting for the sun to set and the Stubb’s show to kick off at 9pm.

We started the day back at Emo’s where Fuze did some activation for the day concerts and we enjoyed some great bands for a while before we head over to Townlake Stage.

This bus sat on 6th street all week and I assumed it was something important until I saw a cop writing a ticket for it being on the road after they closed it on Friday. Hmmm, worth the advertising I guess?

Pulling into the parking deck at Townlake Stage we found a sign that said “Out of Service” which doesn’t seem to strange until you see what it was on. An old Ford van? I hope this wasn’t a taxi or something people dared to use.

So it was crunch time and definitly time to get to Stubb’s BBQ to get to our 1am concert about 8pm. We swung into a pizza spot called Ropollos that had a vibe very similar to my favorite south beach spot called Pizza Rustica but it was subpar on quality by far but did have a walk up window!

So Phil and myself walked into hear N.E.R.D around 9:30pm just to make sure we got in and we sure did. Not to long after that they stopped letting people in we found out and were ecstatic to be holding a spot. So many horrible bands played before them that I couldn’t even count and while standing in the crowd rumors started flying that Britney Spears was going to play with them? Even MTV reported later that Spears was a no show and I don’t think a single person in that whole crowd cared one bit MTV.com on Stubbs Event and no Spears. It took N.E.R.D about 45 minutes to get set up which seemed like an eternity!

We secured a standing room third row spot or so for the venue as it’s in the back of a BBQ restertaunt so we lacked pleasures like stadium seating or seating at all. That wasn’t on my list of concerns either and all the sudden Pharrell and possie came out and started to rip and this place went CRAZY.

They opened with a new song off the album Seeing Sounds then played the classic song Brain. Skipping along they ended up smashing out three hits in a row with Backseat Love, Maybe, and Rockstar. During Rockstar N.E.R.D let a crowd of people come on the stage so they could jam out.

Randomly the guy just off my camera to the left took off his shirt in the middle of the concert and then wouldn’t leave once everyone else got off stage. He was standing in the middle of the stage holding up a 93.3 t-shirt (because we all care about his bad hip hop station) that he had to take off his body to show us? None of this makes sense I know but finally Pharrell politely told him to remove himself because he had a show to do and the guy finally left or got pulled off by a bouncer. The concert then picked up once again with a new song I just loved and then the old hit Lapdance.

They went past their curfew and were told to leave but kept playing as everyone was still going crazy after 10 songs. After their finale song She Wants to Move the band busted out into some Queen - Another One Bites the Dust and finally closed up shop.

Nobody moved once the band walked off stage and everyone chanted “One More Song” and Pharrell came back and apologized saying they couldn’t be given any more time and walked off to an insane ovation. What a night! Cannot wait for the new album in June. Sadly we couldn’t hang out for Saturday too long so this is a wrap on my South by Southwest week.  See everyone next year.

I woke up this morning and walked outside my hotel room in a stumbled daze (around noon) as you can tell by the sunlight and found two of the most amazing things on Earth next to each other. Fuze Beverage and Oscar Meyer Hot Dogs! Perfect, I knew this week at SXSW was going to be awesome.

Today we started out with some food at The Jackalope that is found right on 6th street. Judging by the pictures I took you wouldn’t think we left the 6th street area all day but I promise at some point we did something else I just cannot really recollect what it was…..

The registrants lounge was actually on 4th street if I recall and was right next to our hotel and the convention center. It was open in the afternoons and served free Fuze and liquor while also providing a place to sit down and listen to DJ’s.

We went ahead that night and did a time lapse on Sixth Street in Austin, Texas after it was closed for the night. Sixth Street has a crazy atmosphere and I never saw it deserted all week weather it was 6am or 6pm. It’s not the best place to find food however past about midnight on the weekends as I found out later in the week.

After some dinner and chilling out we went to meet up with Mike and his girlfriend at Emo’s. Emo’s is a huge spot with 4 concert venue’s that vary from indoor/outdoor and then across the street they have a huge tent setup that is the Emo’s Annex spot for concerts that is out on the street.

The first thing we checked out when we arrived was Dan Deacon from Baltimore, Maryland that Mike was a huge fan of. The concert was nothing I expected to hear! His music is a weird mix that really seems to flow together well and compliments video. This is one of the videos he played at Emo’s that night featuring the Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Then we snuck over Emo’s Annex across the street where the Lemonheads finished up a set. The crowd really seemed to love them! A very different style from the Dan Deacon video above as they were a very punk/rock/alternative style but it was a great performance none the less. It was the first time the Lemonheads played at SXSW. Evan Dando is the lead singer and is the only original member of the band that was formed back in 1986. They plan on releasing a new album something this spring it is rumored. That closed our night sometime around 4am and we headed to bed for the night.

We actually flew into Houston, Texas and then traveled the few hours to Austin in a SUV. One of the main reasons was to make a long time lapse of the back roads of Texas that we opted to travel for the trip. We got a late start in Houston due to some people who will remain un named missing their morning flight………but it was okay and we headed out in the late morning for Austin. Here is my favorite building in Houston, Texas as we past it on the loop.

Here is a photo of the mount as it was setup on our Dodge Nitro for the drive to Austin from Houston for SXSW.

We got into Austin, Texas and checked into the Residence Inn right across from the Convention Center.  My room was on the backside of the hotel and looked into the back of the Fader Magazine/Levi’s Jeans concert venue. We got a chance to check it out on Thursday night.

This was the other view outside my hotel room.

The first night we took it easy and visited the registrants lounge sponsored by Fuze and then hopped into the hotel room to setup our mobile office.

We hiked around Austin late at night and checked out everything going on over at 6th Street which they shutdown at sunset and is packed with people. Here was a snapshot of downtown Austin at sunset.