It's not entirely clear what the annual South By Southwest music festival accomplishes anymore. Once an industry shindig where buzz bands played in hopes of landing a record deal, the four-day event (10 days, counting the film and interactive...

The Shepherd is taking its annual trip down to Austin for South by Southwest this week. I'll be blogging the annual music festival here, with updates beginning late Wednesday/early Thursday and running through Sunday. Will I be staying at the same hotel as NOFX again? Will I be able to take Ian McCulloch from Echo and the Bunnymen up on that drink he promised me several years ago? Will I...

Justin wasn't lying: There's an odd stigma about drinking Pabst here. When Justin ordered a round last night, a guy next to him surmised that he must be out of town, since people here stopped drinking Pabst two years ago. Justin was unable to gauge how much (if any) sarcasm was in that statement. And indeed, when I ordered  a round myself, the bartender raised an eyebrow  and dismissively sho...

I'll be posting periodically to this blog throughout the week (or at least as much as I can, given that I'm hoping to spend more time taking in music than in my hotel room, hunched over my hefty, barely portable laptop.) Anyway, I just arrived in Austin, and it's sunny and 75 degrees here. It's amazing how this mammoth festival engulfs the city: Even on my connecting flight from St. Louis, t...

Bob Schneider is the type of songwriter who gets bored if he plays even just a few songs in a row with a similar tempo or feel, and that unrest showed on his first albums.