Intoduction Page
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Austin, Texas is definitely the "Live Music Capital of the World". It's probably also the only city after Zurich, Switzerland where I would like to live. Why? Because of its music and the many live music clubs that the town has to offer. Me along with my brother Fernando and my cousin Biagio were very lucky this year to go visit the city and the annual South by Southwest Music Festival. Since 1987, SXSW has produced the internationally recognized Music and Media Conference & Festival.
As the entertainment business adjusted to issues of future growth and development, seven years ago, SXSW added conferences and festivals for the film industry (SXSW Film) as well as for the blossoming interactive media (SXSW Interactive Festival). Austin is also the hometown of Stevie Ray Vaughan one of the most powerful bluesman and guitarist of all time. He died tragically on Aug. 27, 1990 and the city of Austin honored its famous citizen by placing a statue of him on the shore of Town Lake.
Our hotel was pretty far from Downtown Austin, and renting a car was too expensive for us (we prefer to spend our money in cd's...), so we went from place to place by bus (which is very cheap), by taxi (sometimes), or walked when distances were short. Sometimes it was really stressful and when we arrived back to the hotel late at night, we were very happy to take off our shoes and relax. After all we were there for the music, and we met a lot of nice people on our bus-rides. For most of the people we met during that week, was hard to understand that three Italians go to Austin just for the festival, and some of them were really surprised of our musical knowledge. 
Well I guess these things happen when you are a rock-music junkie for more than 20 years. The second day of the festival on Thursday afternoon while we were at the Antone's Club for the Americana Music Association party, I was very lucky to win a "Gibson 1967 Replica Flying V" guitar at a contest. The funny thing about it is that I can't play guitar, but maybe this is a sign and if I will not start to learn it, it will be the perfect souvenir from that incredible vacation. It was without any doubt an amazing week that I hope to repeat again next year.
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