As the myriad day parties become just as much of a draw as South by Southwest itself, the quality of the shows gets better and better. While backyard keggers and parking-lot impromptus still sprinkle around town, the sponsored, high-dollar parties reign supreme, and this year, Transmission Entertainment's Mess With Texas took the cake. Sure, NPR's Right Side of the Brain had the best sound I've ever heard at any live show – partly due to Chris Payeur's insane talent and impeccable ear and partly because of the live radio broadcast – but Waterloo Park had tons of band, lots of Tecate, and plenty of sunshine.

Those who enjoyed December's Fun Fun Fun Fest are familiar with the setup: three stages, two of which were split in two to allow for immediate band switches; punk rock at one end, indie in the middle, and an eclectic mix of comedy and indescribable rock to the north. The difference was that while Fun Fun Fun Fest soared with locals (and some folks who flew in just to see Murder City Devils), Mess With Texas – Mess With Texas 2, if you wanna get technical; last year debuted in the much-smaller Red 7 – filled to bursting with thousands of festivalgoers and nonfestivalgoers alike enjoying a low-key Saturday afternoon.

Daniel Lanois is missing. It’s Tuesday before the start of SXSW, and Lanois’ manager is standing uneasily outside the Hyatt Regency just south of Town Lake. Lanois left the hotel in a fury, the construction going on below his room interfering with tuning his pedal steel guitar.

“He’s a little sensitive to sound,” says his manager by way of apology. For one of the greatest producers of our time, whose credits include Grammy-winning albums by Bob Dylan (Time Out of Mind), Emmylou Harris (Wrecking Ball), and collaborations with Brian Eno, “sensitive to sound” is an understatement.

Lanois arrives still seething, slamming the cab door and marching, jaw clenched, around to the back of the hotel. The back of the hotel is similarly rife with construction, and Lanois scans the area. He finally spies a grassy knoll to the side of the bike trail and seats himself in the grass, his characteristic black leather jacket glinting in the bright sunlight. He pulls out his guitar and begins to strum each chord slowly, visibly assuaging his anger.

Despite working on the Beatles’ Abbey Road and the international success of his namesake Project, not a day passes without someone asking Alan Parsons about his engineering experience for Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. SXSW 08 proved no exception when OTR questioned Parsons about the “Great Gig in the Sky” before his panel discussion, Producers: The Analog-Digital Shift.

Off the Record: What’s the most common question you get about Pink Floyd?
Alan Parsons: What was it like working with Pink Floyd?

OTR: And the canned response?
AP: Read my book. The second most frequently asked question is, ‘What is it about The Wizard of Oz?’ They think I’m some sort of authority on the matter. My answer to that is that the media got it all wrong. It was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

OTR: What was the biggest difference you noticed in Pink Floyd from Atom Heart Mother to Dark Side?
AP: I think they were more ready to record it. There was a large improvisational element to Atom Heart Mother, whereas Dark Side of the Moon had been played live before a single note had been recorded for the final version. It was called Eclipse at one time, and it definitely did develop in the studio, but it existed as a piece before we started recording it.

Listen, my children, and you shall hear of those glorious daze of yore when Alvin Crow & the Pleasant Valley Boys were kings of the scene in the 1970s. Any night Alvin laid his horsehair bow to catgut strings was a good night but there was something about his brand of country that skirted the progressive tag while still being as subversive as it could. Crow fused his childhood classical training to the raw country & western music of his youth and developed a distinctive style of fiddling that fit perfectly with the rising cosmic cowboy sound dominating Austin in the Nixon era.

It wasn’t just his songs of marijuana-laden semis (“Texas Kid’s Retirement Run”) and bewitching heartbreakers (“Dynamite Diana”) amid over-the-counter cures for speed jags (“Nyquil Blues”). And it wasn’t just his spot-on renditions of classics like “Orange Blossom Special,” “Cotton-Eyed Joe,” and “Maiden’s Prayer.” Alvin Crow’s music has an edge honed by his nasal hillbilly twang, gorgeous fiddling, and a dogged determination to keep the “o” in country.

Saturday of SXSW is one of my favorite days of the year. The city is so energized and the craziness has reached a peak, like everyone is on the last leg of a marathon, and a final burst of music, beer, and schmoozing will get us all to heaven. Spent a good part of the afternoon at the epicenter, better know as South Congress, where I caught sets from Jon Dee Graham, Chuck Prophet, Eliza Gilkyson, Bruce Robison, and current fave Black Joe Lewis & the Honey Bears. Lewis’ set in the parking lot of the San Jose Hotel was a mob scene. Why young Joe and band were wearing Star Trek uniforms I didn’t understand, but no matter how many times I’d seen them last week, I marveled at their ability to get people to shake that thang.

Most Surreal Scene: Bun B
Fuze was a crazy scene Wednesday night, with only badge-wearers squeezing through the door and plenty of irked UGK fans left out in the street. Inside was no less chaotic, dozens of people crowding the stage at any given time, including some very mediocre rappers who had more diamonds than mic skills. Geto Boys veteran Bushwick Bill took control of the stage with an entertaining half-hour of drunken freestyles and ad-libs when a scheduled act failed to show. With serious sound problems and no sign of Bun B by 1:30am, the show teetered on the edge of disaster before Bun walked through a back door and, with no introduction, delivered one of the coldest performances I’ve ever witnessed. Surrounded by people on all sides, including the late Pimp C’s mother and child, Bun’s no-nonsense set included a verse from Dizzee Rascal (who rapped along to every word in the background for the rest of the performance) and a long moment of silence for Pimp C.

Most Likely to Kill You in Your Sleep: Game Rebellion
If screamcore rap-metal outfit Game Rebellion doesn’t think the audience is quite hype enough, frontman Netic will jump offstage, shove the nearest audience member, and stomp around scowling at people. At one point I thought he might actually punch me in the face for not rocking hard enough. At times like this, writers are advised to put away their notebooks and start doing some serious headbanging.

Trying to navigate the streets during SXSW feels a bit like being in a game of pinball. You shoot out of a club in search of the next club, trying to avoid the hordes, the trash, the vomit, the lines, Bushwick Bill. Sometimes you end up in the gutter, and other times you get a whole bunch of extra balls. Ya know?

In other words, there were a few more unexpected surprises from this whole draining, exhilarating fest:

The Muslims: Four fresh young things who looked as button-up as those Vampire Weekend dudes but are from San Diego, have every Modern Lovers record, and write way catchier songs.

Indian Jewelry: They've filled out as a fivepiece with an extra drummer and guitarist and, as a friend remarked, they're also the “new Thrill Kill Kult." And that’s not an insult!

The Columbus Discount Records showcase: Columbus, Ohio, is seriously going off. The Guinea Worms were bred for Midwest skuzz rock, and singer/guitarist Will Foster kind of reminds me of Kenneth the Page from 30 Rock. El Jesus de Magico brewed up some excellent, serpentine early 1990s noise rock.

Shining: A prog-metal band from Norway that uses a electronic wind instrument sounds iffy on paper, but live this quintet slayed, closing their set with a cover of King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man.”

Boots were definitely the accessory at South by Southwest 08. It's pretty easy to tell who was strolling down Sixth Street in their favorite pair, and who probably ran over to Cavender's straight from the airport. Click on the gallery for more.

A pioneer of minimalism, Steve Reich is perhaps the most important living composer, responsible for altering the way that people thing about time, tone, and color in regards to music. OTR spoke with Reich following the SOLI Chamber Ensemble's performance of his music during a Wednesday night showcase at St. David’s Church. His explanation of his latest work, Daniel Variations, which fuses the biblical story of Daniel with words and legacy of Daniel Pearl, is being reserved for a later entry closer to the album’s release next month on Nonesuch Records.

Off the Record: When someone is performing one of your pieces, do you expect variation? Do you want them to interpret the work in their own image?
Steve Reich: Absolutely. The pieces that were played last night I’ve performed hundreds of times with my own ensemble, and we play them differently each time. Other ensembles play them differently each time as well, and they play them differently than we do. Being 71 and watching these people that are in their mid-30s, what I get a kick out of is the ease they have with the music because they grew up with it. It’s proof to me that the music will live forever. Every kind of music is interpreted by the person who is playing it, for better or worse. I was lucky last night that everything was for the better.