What an exciting week. It’s been 8 years since I last got to Austin, but I just spent the last 4 days running around like the young man I once was. I was in town mainly for the RxSM Self-Medicated Film Expo, which nominated “If Only Tonight I Could Sleep” for their Crossroads Award and screened it during the Pollygrind showcase. I also got to go check out some of the craziness that is South by South West. I also ate a lot of meat… I had a great time. Let’s start off with the RxSM Fest.

It ran from Wednesday to Sunday but I got in on Thursday afternoon. I started off getting to chat with the fest’s founder, Anthony Pedone, and caught a few films including On Her Own, a great documentary about real ranchers. I was dead tired though from getting up at 3:30am for my flight, and had to head back to the hotel early. The next morning I got started right at the beginning of the day, which also was when the Pollygrind showcase took place. Not a lot of people, since it was early, but the people that were there seemed to really dig my video. Plus they played it really loud and it sounded awesome. They also showed two films that I had seen at last year’s Pollygrind, Chocolate Strawberry Vanilla and Rebel Scum, both of which were excellent.

If Only Tonight I Could Sleep at  RxSM

I then headed downtown for the SXSW Interactive Segment. I was kind of just planning on sneaking in to a talk about the Oculus Rift (the technology used in my new virtual reality music video, “An Unseen Sky: The VR Experience,” created by Elemental Spark). What I didn’t know is that the Interactive Segment was totally open to the public and I ended up sticking around for a few hours and got to play some games, check out some other virtual reality stuff, do some networking and have fun. By the time I was done it was too late to really head back to the fest so I went to a SXSW party I managed to get myself on the list for (thanks Collider) that was celebrating the premiere of the movie Unfriended. I’m not the biggest fan of those kind of movies but the drinks were good and I met some cool people and played this dirty card game themed around the film. It was fun. It was also great getting to go back to the heart of SXSW. I haven’t been back there since I worked for Sony Music (those were some fun days), so it was awesome to walk around those streets again.

The next day was my last full day in Austin and I packed it tight. I started off back at RxSM where I saw a bunch of cool films before heading back downtown to try to get in on a standby line for the premiere of Michael Showalter’s new film Hello, My Name Is Doris. After a 90 minute wait, I actually got in, and it was a really cool experience. Lots of stars including Showalter (one of my favorite sketch comedy people ever). The film was great, absolutely hilarious. Really glad I tried my luck at getting in. After, I headed back to RxSM for some more films including the awesome hard-core documentary The Color Of Noise. Then they did the awards ceremony where I got to hang out and chat with some of the film-makers. After a long day and some great barbecue, I headed back to the hotel. The next morning I slowly made my way to the airport so I could get home and start promoting the new album, An Unseen Skywhich is available for pre-order now at Bandcamp and will hit iTunes and all other online music services on April 7th.

David Rosen at SXSW

I’m glad to be home, and I’m glad I got to go. It was a great experience getting to go back. Maybe I’ll be back next year for something off of An Unseen Sky

– David