by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Flipping through Lazy-i for #ThrowbackThursday I came across this entry, published eight years ago, that compiled three days of South by Southwest 2015 reporting in three podcast episodes that captured descriptions and performances by White Mystery, Twin Shadow, Speedy Ortiz, PUJOL, Laura Burhenn, Icky Blossoms, Viet Cong, Krill, Natalie Prass, Courtney Barnett, Best Coast, LITE, Drivin’ and Cryin’, The Residents, The Pop Group and Will Butler, along with photos from each performance. 

Eight years ago I was first experimenting with podcasting, having caught the bug from listening to the Serial Podcast, and if you dig around Lazy-i you’ll find podcast episodes embedded into entries that captured local and national performances on Omaha clubs along with interviews from around Omaha. The weekly podcast, which summarized my week of Lazy-i reporting and the shows I went to that week, was fun to produce, but I did the whole damn thing by myself with semi-professional audio equipment using Garageband for editing – what a grind!

Now eight years later, it’s a running joke that everyone has their own podcast. In fact, Emmy winning series Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building is a series about a podcast. As more of my free time opens up in the coming year(s), I’d like to do another podcast, but this time with some help!

The podcast never had huge listener numbers – somewhere between 200 and 300 per episode spread out across numerous hosting platforms, including iTunes, Libsyn and Soundcloud – podcast hosting was not easy back then. Considering I was using a hand-held Zoom H2 recorder and MacBook with no sound mixing or mastering, it didn’t sound half bad, especially the live recordings. Who knows how this would have sounded had an audio engineer been involved… 

Anyway, check out the post for all the photos or just listen below:

Day 1: Performances by White Mystery, Twin Shadow, Dotan and Speedy Ortiz.

Day 2: Performances by PUJOL, Laura Burhenn (Mynabirds), Icky Blossoms, Viet Cong, Krill and Natalie Prass.

Day 3: Performances by Courtney Barnett, Best Coast, LITE, Drivin’ and Cryin’, The Pop Group and Will Butler.

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2023 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Looking down on Sixth Street from Maggie Mays at South By Southwest 2015.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

This will go down as the least impressive, least satisfying year I’ve attended South By Southwest. Sure there were a lot of bands, but not nearly as many as year’s past and even fewer legends. Still, I had fun and didn’t get beat up, and that’s always a good thing.

This year I tried to podcast from Austin. The results are below. I’ll probably never try it again, based solely on the number of hits each stream has gotten. That said, there’s probably no where else online that has snippets of this many performances. Each podcast is only about 10 minutes long and includes bits from every band I saw. Check them out:

Day 1: Performances by White Mystery, Twin Shadow, Dotan and Speedy Ortiz.

Day 2: Performances by PUJOL, Laura Burhenn (Mynabirds), Icky Blossoms, Viet Cong, Krill and Natalie Prass.

Day 3: Performances by Courtney Barnett, Best Coast, LITE, Drivin’ and Cryin’, The Pop Group and Will Butler.

And here are the photos. If you follow me in Instagram or on social media you’ve seen most of these, but here they are again, in living color.

White Mystery at Beerland Patio, March 18, 2015.

Twin Shadow at Iron Castle, March 18, 2015.

Dotan at Cedar Street Courtyard, March 18, 2015.

Speedy Ortiz at Cedar Street Courtyard, March 18, 2015.

Josh Berwenger Band at Stay Gold, March 19, 2015.

PUJOL at Stay Gold March 19, 2015.

Laura Burhenn (Mynabirds) at Stay Gold, March 19, 2015.

Icky Blossoms at Stay Gold, March 19, 2015.

Viet Cong at Cedar Street Courtyard, March 19, 2015.

Krill at the 720 Club, March 19, 2015.

Natalie Prass at Maggie Mae’s, March 19, 2015.

Best Coast at the SXSW Convention Center, March 20, 2015.

Courtney Barnett at the SXSW Convention Center, March 20, 2015.

LITE at The Ginger Man, March 20, 2015.

Drivin’ and Cryin’ at The Ginger Man, March 20, 2015.

The Residents at The Paramount Theater, March 20, 2015.

The Church at Buffalo Billiards, March 20, 2015.

The Pop Group at Maggie Mae’s Rooftop, March 20, 2015.

Will Butler at Maggie Mae’s Rooftop, March 20, 2015.

There may or may not be a formal review of each gig to come. Check back tomorrow. There will be a column in the April issue of The Reader about SXSW. Watch for it.

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Tonight at the Sweatshop Gallery Darren Keen headlines with Calm Fur and Just Jace. $5, 9 p.m. Say goodbye to Darren before he flies back to Gotham City…

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2015 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.