STEPH DEROSA: DINNER WITH DEROSA >>>

But of course, since I invaded SXSW this week, the invitees to Dinner with DeRosa are all from my whirlwind trip.  I’m doing this so that you may have the truest SXSW experience, seeing the people that I saw in Austin. I think we’ve focused enough on the bands â€" Let’s see the other people who were there.

I will be serving chicken nuggets, steak, lamb, pork chops, ham, and Cocker Spaniel at this week’s dinner.  Why?  Seeing this guy made me hungry for meat.  Thank you PETA guy in a chicken suit.

As for our cold beverages, I’ll be getting it all from Gabe’s Auto Stereo.  Why wouldn’t you buy your beer from a stereo place?  Apparently that’s how Texans do it, so how wrong could it be?  I suppose if we want to rent a DVD later, we’ll have to go check out the local pet store, right?

Every good music festival not only needs good bands, but they need good merch girls.  Janelle Browning and Kirsten Detec sold CDs like no other merch girl I’ve seen.  Perched up there on your stool, sellin’ those CDs, you work hard for the money, don’t you?  C’mon ladies, let me treat you to Dinner with DeRosa. 

Along with good bands, and good merch girls, you need good music venue protesters.  When I asked Shawn about his sign, and to tell me what he was protesting, he couldn’t answer me.  He said he had no idea, and that some guy had paid him to stand there and hold a sign.  Oh, where I could go with this … the jokes I could make … I have somethin’ I’ll pay him to hold, I have a sign he could have, yadda yadda yadda.  I’ll let you use your imagination and pick where you’d like this paragraph to go.

So then there are the freebie people.  Free shit is good.  Just ask Matt Driscoll.  Monster energy drinks are not good, though.  At least that was my opinion three sips into this monsterly-sweet crap drink.  Ew, yuck, and barf.  I’m inviting the Monster girl to dinner so that I can help her find a different job.  Someone needs to stop these people from polluting the streets with shitty free energy drinks.  Consider it a public service.

Lastly, I’m inviting Olivia Parriott from San Francisco.  I like this girl, and what she has to offer.  She has created a Web site to help promote local bands from the San Francisco music scene.  Included in her Web site are videos, mp3s, and artist information including performance dates.  She even said they were trying to put out a two-CD set of local bands.  One CD would be the bands performing their own original stuff, and the other CD would be the bands covering other S.F. band’s stuff.  What a great friggen idea!  We need one of those for Tacoma!

So let’s everyone welcome these SXSW dinner guests, and show them how it’s done here in the 253.  Chicken nuggets and all.