So as March continues to lumber toward us, Raincity has been making preparations for the big event in Austin.

One thing I'm curious about is the artists that will be performing. I don't know many of them and I need some people to rattle off lists of say 5-10 artists that they would rather die than miss, so feel free to throw in your two cents.

I have noticed after studying the bandlist is that Vancouver is sending a legion of bands to Texas. In all, I've found ten bands from Vancouver alone are going to the event.

• Bella (Vancouver BC)
• Black Mountain (Vancouver BC)
• The Choir Practice (Vancouver BC)
• Destroyer (Vancouver BC)
• Jeremy Fisher (Vancouver BC)
• Dan Mangan (Vancouver BC)
• Marianas Trench (Vancouver BC)
• No Kids (Vancouver BC)
• The Pack A.D. (Vancouver BC)
• Pride Tiger (Vancouver BC)

Ace photgrapher Kris Krug has used SXSW as an opportunity to take some cool shots in the past and will be again this year.

Another list of must see bands going to SXSW is underway at SxSW Insider community. SxSW Insider is totally worth signing up to stay in the loop and make friends with the Raincity clan - Scales, KK, DaveO, Roland and our pals coming from Vancouver and beyond.

With Northern Voice behind me it's time to finalize preperations for my trip to Austin Texas for SXSW (thats South by Southwest for the uninitiated) 2007.

Last year SXSW was huge for us at Bryght. We had a booth, thew a great party with Raincity, Blue Flavor and NewsVine, and drummed up a bunch of great Drupal development and consulting gigs. Since last year we've worked on lots of online community projects including the one for Warner Brothers Records and are excited to mix it up again with music industry moguls down in Texas.

This year will be more of the same with the exception that I'll be speaking on panel this year. The first panel of the whole conference in fact! Alex Williams, Corey Dennis and I are working together to present the talk "Snakes on A Mother Fuckin Plane". Raincity will have a booth this year and Bryght will have a presence in it. Come find me in booth J5 during exhibition hours.