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Louis Black speaks and we listen. He is an inspriation. He reminds us to fight for what we want to create, leave the excuses at the door, shed the fear and be prepared for just how many people are going to be pissed at you for doing that. Here he weighs in on the ups and downs of living the dream.

How he feels about unofficial SXSW events and day parties…

I will be perfectly honest, there are some events that I don’t like because either they bring in bands that aren’t playing SXSW or in some cases they cherry pick. We announce that a band is going to be playing at SXSW, everybody gets excited, they go and offer their management a ton of money and we lose them. It’s almost pointless to explain this again and again because the people negatively react because they don’t really want to hear our point of view. Most of the day parties don’t bother us at all—that’s great; I love the day parties; I love to watch the day parties. People act like we are out to close all the day parties. We do nothing to 90% of the day parties and if anything, we actually help them. We stage a ton of events but we also help other events all the time. What bothers us is when multi-national corporations and national corporations fly in name bands for private parties–that I don’t like. When a national corporation rents space close to the Convention Center and puts up their logo so that the sponsors that are helping to pay for all this get pissed, I don’t like that either. This could really screw us in the long run. Those are the two things I don’t like. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:a=72157594270496732,id=235372751,j=r,s=s,l=p]AUSTIN DAZE: Tell us about SXSW this year.

LOUIS BLACK: It’s the 20th anniversary, which is kind of shocking and exciting. It’s really weird to have the Chronicle almost 25 years old and then SXSW is 20, which will probably be the most extraordinary SXSW we’ve ever had and, I think, the most difficult. The music line up and the film line up are both so strong. There are so many great acts and so many great movies that people aren’t going to be able to get in to see who they want to get in to see. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:a=72157594267830938,p=2,id=241711354,j=r,s=s,l=p]This particular interview came at the perfect time. The world of the Austin DAZE was weighing heavy on our shoulders. On the drive to the Chronicle office, we were contemplating and arguing about the usefulness of our efforts. It was a messy scene to say the least. This meeting had been arranged in advance, so we followed through with it. I am grateful that we did. That said, Louis Black is the editor of a little Austin paper you may have heard about called The Austin Chronicle. It is the most widely read weekly publication in this town, so chances are you have seen it. We followed him back to a meeting room and we were nervous as hell. This guy is one of the creators of this paper and he is also at the helm of this great ship. Read the rest of this entry »