Sometimes it’s fun to be admidst the tumult; other times it’s nice to be able to talk to your visitors and hear what they have to say in return.

We’ve been sticking with what we stumble upon in the way of music and so it was that we came to follow the sound of New Orleans mysteriously embodied downtown Saturday by experts in brass and percussion dressed in yellow and black attracting a second line.

Beyond that, so far we’ve hit Recycled Reads, Maudie’s on South Lamar, Tien Jin, and Fran’s Hamburger’s and also The Richard Jones Pit for BBQ (lean brisket a favorite) on South Congress. These latter two make for great people-watching without any line-waiting. It was plain that there were SXSW people at Maudie’s, but they weren’t new to the establishment, being returnees in the company of Austinites.