Just heard George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue on the radio, and I immediately wondered what a United Airlines commercial was doing on NPR. Seconds later I realized that it was a performance of the Gershwin piece, not an ad. I don't watch commercials anymore, with TiVo in the house, but United's campaign predated my TiVo by quite a bit (they licensed the song in 1976), and seems to have burrowed deep into my brain. Good on them, I am impressed.

Among the many holiday catalogs we received was one that offered a turntable (you know, the kind that plays those old plastic records... um, vinyl?) that could convert your music to a digital format. The beautiful photo included an iPod and a stack of CDs, the top one labeled prominently, "Chicago." Not the city.

[Now updated with new, working links to the .torrent files, and a new version of the 2006 cover art, one I like much better. Ed.]

SXSW (aka, South by Southwest) is a music, film, and interactive media festival held in March of every year in Austin, Texas. They draw hundreds of bands to play for a week in Austin, at just about every bar and venue available. But the best part is that the organizers offer up one track from just about every band, for download, free. Several hundred tracks of some of the newest, freshest, most interesting bands out there. (There seems to be a lot of thrash metal, too, but to each his own.)

I have downloaded these tracks (conveniently available via Bit Torrent) every year since 2005, and I plan to continue doing so, even though weeding through them for the real gems takes a long time (and I'm a couple of years behind). But one thing that has always bothered me, and moreso with recent versions of iTunes, is that there's no cover art associated with the songs. SXSW doesn't offer any up (though that may change), and when I went looking online, I found just one: Ben Millett made a 600 x 600 pixel JPEG of the 2007 web site art that he uses as a cover. He generously let me have it, and after adding it to iTunes, I liked it so much I decided to make covers for the other years.

I did some Internets spelunking and found marketing pdf materials for previous years, with graphics I could slice and dice in Photoshop. I did not try to be too creative, as I was trying to fit with the identity already created for each year. The 2008 materials (yes, I know I'm early) were really easy to adapt. Ben did 2007, and 2006 was not that hard. 2005 was a real pain though, as the art is all horizontal and difficult to mush into a square. Still I managed something I am mostly pleased with.

I do encourage you to come up with your own. This seems like the sort of thing ripe for the Internet-o-sphere to tackle.

But for now, I present to you, for your downloading pleasure, cover art for the SXSW Showcasing Artists for the years 2005-2008.

Click on each for the 600 x 600 pixel version.

You have to understand something about my family, to know why I care that Robert Goulet has died. Besides being that rare performer that is comfortable making fun of himself (a quality that endeared him to today's youthful generation), Goulet portrayed Lancelot in the Broadway production of the musical Camelot, alongside Richard Burton and Julie Andrews.

My mother had the record of the original Broadway cast when I was growing up. When I was old enough to put records on by myself, I used to rotate Camelot with a Spider-Man record I had, and a record about Sparky the talking piano/train? My memory is fuzzy on that last. But I spent the next two decades immersing myself in all things Arthurian. My mother had a lot to do with that, and it's been a bond between us forever. We even made an Arthurian heraldry quilt together.

I'm not quite suggesting that Robert Goulet is responsible for the man I turned out to be, but thinking about him now makes me remember all those parts of my life that were affected by the Arthurian legends. As a kid I drew a lot of swords and sorcery stuff, I played Dungeons and Dragons, I read a ton of fantasy novels (not the least of which was Le Morte d'Artur, but most more along the lines of The Lord of the Rings), I was, in short, that kid in high school.

I found out this morning that my wife shares some of the nostalgia I felt on hearing of Goulet's death. Turns out, her mother had the Camelot record, and she, too, listened to it as a kid.

In honor of Mr. Goulet's influence (however small) on my life, I went and bought the Camelot soundtrack on iTunes this morning, and I have been listening to it this morning. Turns out I miss musical theater.

We're doing our morning chores when Washington Bullets by The Clash comes on the iTunes mix, and after about half the song, my wife (who did not bring The Clash to our marriage) asks from the other room, "Is this the Clash?"

Inimitable. But it made me wonder, for the umpteenth time in the last four years, where are all the protest songs? What happened to music as a political outlet? And don't give me John Mayer. That song could have been so much more than it was. Poking sly fun at your own fan base is one thing, testifying against your irresponsible government is another. I want the latter.

Maybe we just don't hear it on today's radio. Which is a whole 'nother rant.

I just discovered that Thurl Ravenscroft died last May, 2005. He has an extensive Wikipedia entry, if you're interested, but know that he was a singer and voice-over actor, most famously for Tony the Tiger. I just discovered, however, that he is also the singing voice behind the theme of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, as well as featured in many other Disney atttractions.

So, long overdue, in his memory: Yo ho, yo ho!