Here’s a video tribute to our moms..

Love,
The American Secrets

by Bryon Rossi
Bassist & Singer, The American Secrets

I’ve been looking forward to this past week for about five months (since I first found out that we were going to be showcasing at SXSW.) Every unsigned artist knows that SXSW is THE place to get to in order to have the best chance of being noticed. For about a week the entire music industry converges upon the city of Austin for 5-6 days of non-stop music, meetings, posturing, hand-shaking, partying, watching, staring, longing, crying (probably), lying, eating, judging, promoting, and walking around…while on as little sleep as humanly possible.

It’s pretty awesome.

Because of our individual schedules, we (The American Secrets, a.k.a. the freecreditscore.com band) had not been able to spend a lot of time together before our arrival at Austin. We decided to get in a day early and rehearse our material. My brother (Danny) and I actually missed our plane to Austin, so we ended up catching a later flight…and thus, delayed rehearsal that night. In doing so, we also forfeited any sort of grounds for ever coming at any of the other guys in the band for being late to anything.

Rehearsal went well, then our official SXSW experience began. There were a number of new bands we met, old friends embraced, and star sightings during the week. Now I am going to describe some of those moments to you…

New Bands I Am Now Hip To
Brent Amakar and The Rodeo, Generationals, Operation Juliet. Operation Juliet was the most pleasant surprise for me. I had gone back to the venue that we showcased at on St. Patrick’s Day a couple hours later to catch the official headliner. We hit it off with their management and just wanted to hang later on with them. I ended up showing up too late, but was taken aback to see Sean Lennon setting up onstage. Even though I’ve never been to the East Village, I felt like I was there. Go ahead and try to unpack that statement if you want, but you can’t do it.

Celebrity Sightings
SXSW wouldn’t be complete without some Grade A celebrity sightings. I’m a musician and artist, but I’m also a fan of music. Seeing Sean Lennon play was awesome. Having the chance to meet other celebrities during the week was pretty awesome too. I was able to share and elevator with Ron Sexsmith, have a very pleasant exchange with Kid Rock at our hotel, watch LL Cool J walk through the lobby at our hotel, take a picture with Pos from De La Soul, chat with Sway from MTV, hang with a couple of the guys from The Buried Life for a few minutes, open for Liz Phair, and see Perez Hilton walk out of one of our performances. Awesome.

Food
One of the highlights for me personally was being introduced to, and experiencing, a bacon milkshake. You can watch the documented journey here. It was a glorious moment that I shant forgot soon. Verily, I say.

Playing Music
Showcasing at the SPIN loft was awesome…most industry shindigs are properly run. Also, the IFC Crossroads House was professionally run and a pleasure to experience. I say this regardless of the fact that there were free drinks there…but that fact also made the event great. VEVO also was amazing for us to work with. Great crews, great producers, super comfortable, and they understood our humor (ie. They have a good sense of humor.)

Summing Up
All in all, this is another great notch in the belt, feather in the hat, ice cube in the ice tray, etc. Freecreditscore.com has been nothing but completely supportive of us as a band creatively. They took amazing care of us this week and I know that I speak for the rest of the guys in The American Secrets when I say that we love working with them and look forward to more experiences with them. (I swear there was no arm-pulling in writing of this last statement)

Pretty Dang exciting, eh?!

– Bryon

When you’re doing 100 blog posts in 100 hours, there’s some good stuff that just doesn’t make it in. We went back and looked through some of our photos and picked out these favorites from SXSW 2011 to share!

Sometimes even the band has to wait in line.

An Austin cowboy walking through the madness.

Dawes' Taylor Goldsmith in surreal lighting at their final performance at SXSW 2011.

Full moon the final night of SXSW 2011.

Gear Case of Aaron Beavers from John Popper & The Duskray Troubadors and Shurman.

G. Love playing the harp.

Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr's Joshua Epstein does some creative guitar playing.

And, yes, we did tip him.

The outside of the Number 19 Bus food truck in Austin.

The Wooden Birds' Andrew Kenny's guitar speaking it's mind.

A couple taking a ride in a pedicab -- in style.

If you could do it all over again, would you?

Email your response, along with your name and current mailing address, to swag@freecreditscoreband.com for cool SWAG from us! All entries sent within 48 hours of this post qualify! See the full details.

We did our best (sacrificing much sleep and shoe leather) to bring you the full story of SX. Hopefully you saw some music, food or people you might not otherwise have during our 100 straight hours of coverage starting back at 11 a.m. on Wednesday.

Before we completely pass out from exhaustion, here’s our highlights from the week…

• Panic! At This Disco and Dawes closed out the week with some of the best music we’ve seen.

• Our band, The American Secrets, rocked two amazing sets opening for lady legends Jewel and Liz Phair.

• Joey Kramer of Aerosmith and rapper Theophilus London gave shout-outs to our fans.

• When we think about food, we think about the wild boar ribs from Lamberts, bacon milkshake from tenOak and the delectable cupcakes from Hey Cupcake.

• Probably the friendliest folks we met were the kids who traveled from Fairbanks to play their music on the street.

• Fitz and The Tantrums surprised us with one of the most upbeat and fun shows of the week.

• And, that’s not even counting all the live performance video we caught of Young The Giant, DJ Cam, Duran Duran, John Popper, G. Love, Josh Ritter, Josh T Pearson, Noah and the Whale, Portugal. The Man, Middle Brother, Jeremy Messersmith, Carl Broemel, and Deertick!

What was your favorite part of the week?!?

No, seriously, what was your favorite moment?!?

Email your response, along with your name and current mailing address, to swag@freecreditscoreband.com for cool SWAG from us! All entries sent within 48 hours of this post qualify! See the full details.

Delivering raucous energy, feverish vocals and passionate instrumentals, the L.A. band had the crowd in its grips with their powerful rock ballads — at times turning the performance into a giant sing-a-long.

Dawes had the crowd enraptured with their touching Love Is All I Am and powered them up with My Girl To Me. But nothing matched the feverish pitch of the crowd during their closing song, When My Time Comes.

During the closing, the energy even took over Goldsmith’s fellow members of Middle Brother, who were in the crowd and jumped up on stage to help work up the crowd — not that it took much. Singing with the crowd, not at them, the battery of musicians up on stage turned the microphone over to the audience who helped close out the night.

“Thank you so much, you guys,” said Goldsmith as he left the stage. “This has been so fun!”

What is your favorite song to sing along to?

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In probably one of the more interesting closing acts of SXSW, Deer Tick — normally known for their alt-country stylings — took on the moniker “Deervana” and performed a complete set of Nirvana cover songs.

While we did see one fan leave angry when he found out the band would not be playing any of their own material, the vast majority of the crowd decided to celebrate by returning back to the 90s. In fact, the crowd was so enthusiastic that mosh pits formed throughout the performance and a few attendees even took to crowd surfing.

The performance was most definitely a celebration of Nirvana’s work, with lead singer John J. McCauley III being spot on taking the place of Kurt Cobain’s vocals. How good the music sounded could almost make one melancholy for what could have been, but the opportunity for sadness never materialized as the crowd was much too busy having a good time finishing out their SXSW.

What part of the 1990s did you enjoy the most?

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Oregon’s Weinland brought their jam rock to the South and got the crowd moving with their infectious energy — at times standing on their amps to yell and work up the crowd’s enthusiasm.

Their three guitars, two drums and one keyboard brought a layered sound that added depth to their rock. Sometimes feeling bluegrass, sometimes tropical influenced, sometimes anthemic, Weinland kept the audience entertained — even breaking into jazz improvisation to fill time when a guitar string needed replacing.

The type of band that might not fit the perfect mold for radio or CD sales, Weinland nonetheless has the perfect mixture of spirit, energy and quality music to pack a club and keep them dancing all night.

What is your favorite band to see live?

Email your response, along with your name and current mailing address, to swag@freecreditscoreband.com for cool SWAG from us! All entries sent within 48 hours of this post qualify! See the full details.

Carl Broemel, guitarist for My Morning Jacket, brought his solo work to SXSW, performing at his request in the St. David’s Bethell Hall where he was reminded of his early years singing in the Episcopal church choir. Showcasing his first solo album, 2010′s All Birds Say, the album’s deep personal meaning came through with Broemel’s care and craftmanship in the songs.

Utilizing looping and multiple guitars, Broemel created the majority of the music completely solo — a truly impressive feat. Many of Broemel’s works were reminiscent of James Taylor — soft and airy in approach. At times, Broemel would switch over to his slide guitar to add an ethos of melancholy and forlorn wailing.

No matter the technique, instruments or accompanists, the music maintained a touching feeling throughout as you felt Broemel truly use his music to tell a story, not just create sound.

What’s the most personal project you’ve ever done?

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This band is starting to get a lot of buzz and the “timing” couldn’t be better — their first full-length LP “Timing Is Everything” — is scheduled to be released on March 22.

Here’s a taste of their set:

Email your response, along with your name and current mailing address, to swag@freecreditscoreband.com for cool SWAG from us! All entries sent within 48 hours of this post qualify! See the full details.