"The Ai Shuffle"
Hello Peeps! Its been a little while, but this is the first of three posts I will be posting for your enjoyment today.
We here at Random Access WebTV love the DIY culture and its foothold here in Austin, TX and this event was just that. Originally, this event was the annual "Ai SXSW Kickoff" that was produced by the teachers and the school itself. It was good, but lets be honest, they have a ton of other things to do and worry about, so it could have been improved upon. Well, that's exactly what a group of the Audio students felt...so they jumped in and took it over. They were able to get food trucks to come in to sell food, artists to come in and have booths to sell their art, clubs to join in and have a presence at the show and they brought in dozens and dozens of bands and comedians to perform throughout the entire day! It, was inspiring to see and we congratulate them for all there initiative and for their success. We also want everyone out there to keep your eyes and ears opened next year for this event and come join in and show these students your support.
To help out, we brought the podcast up to the school for a few hours to do some interviews with as many performers as we could. Turns out, this was the last event we were able to help Ai with.
So, here are all those interviews and, since we have all graduated and are moving forward with our company and careers, we appreciatively say farewell to The Art Institute of Austin. I personally thank you for all that I have learned and for all the opportunities that I have been blessed to take part in. Thank you.
We hope you enjoy these interviews and take the time to search out these artists and show them your support as well. Enjoy!
These guys were freaking cool and this song is about Zombies, and you all know how much I freaking love Zombies!
These guys were really cool. They are bringing back a style of Rap that seems to have been left in the past...the kind that actually tells a story and has something to say, PLUS, on a personal note, one of their influences was "YAZ" and especially one of their greatest albums "Upstairs At Eric's", so yeah, I got a little happy about that.
This was a fun interview. These two were sitting off in the back of the student lounge watching us do interviews and honestly we thought they were students...right up until they came and sat down and took over the interview. It was fan freakin tastic! Anton and I didn't have to do a thing except laugh and chime in from time to time. Now, this is the Un-Edited version so be warned...I debated on whether or not to put up this version or the Edited version due to language and some corporate names mentioned, but we are "Random Access WebTV", we aren't getting paid by any advertisers, hell we aren't getting paid at all for this, so I figure...What The Hell! You guys should be able to enjoy the laugh as much as we did.
These guys had a mellowness about them that was just cool and made you wanna kick back and just enjoy listening to them. They are playing all over Austin, so go out and find em and give them some love! (Also, there are some dates mentioned here, my apologies for the major delay getting this out, but we have had a ton of stuffs going on, again, my apologies).
Alright, now these guys were a bit of a shock to us...with all the heavier sounds and rap coming from the outdoor stage, these guys came into the student lounge and began to set up their horns and music stands and performed more classical pieces with a kick to them. It was a stark but somewhat refreshing and definitely entertaining difference and I'm glad we got to meet and talk with them.
These guys were new on the scene and proof that sometimes you just gotta go for your dreams and enjoy the ride!
Well, that's all we have for the Ai Shuffle. We again applaud all the students for what they did with this event and we applaud all the vendors, artists and musicians that joined in to help make this the success it was. Catch ya on the flip-side!