It looks like perfect wide open clear Texas skies for the third day in a row now in Austin, as SxSW delivers its usual intoxicating blend of good food, seeing lots of old friends and meeting new ones, and of course more great music packed into one place then you can get your head around. Though this year, the trip started off in pitch black darkness, as my colleague Matt Hanks and I both caught the same pre-dawn flight out of New York.

Thanks to some crack on-time work by the folks at American, I was able to turn an 11:00am landing into an just barely on-time arrival for my noon “Promotions, Publicity, and Press” panel at the convention center. It was a new format for me, instead of the traditional panel with a moderator, the room was set up as a series of round table discussions with attendees, arranged in a “speed dating” format where each of us stopped in to chat with a new group every 10 minutes and share some insights and answer some questions on getting started with music publicity.

It was well timed — we’ve been spending a lot of time on the topic lately with the launch of Shore Fire D.I.Y., a one-on-one educational program for the music community designed to help new and up and coming artists learn to do their own publicity and online marketing. Take a look, we’re excited about it.

Next up were some musical highlights from artists of our own, starting with a blazing mid-day set from London’s Sons Of Albion. Here’s (from left) bassist Gones, drummer Francisco De Sousa, frontman Logan Plant, and guitarist Nuno Miguel. They’re playing Friday and Saturday night too, followed by a three night stand in New York next week.

Equally hard-working is the lovely and talented “incendiary Telecaster-wielder” (so says the Statesman) Sarah Borges and her band The Broken Singles, who are performing an incredible eight times this week in Austin. I had the pleasure of catching them twice in one night, first as they joined an all star cast including Jimmy Vaughan and a host of Texas Tornados veterans for the Doug Sahm tribute at Antones, and then as they brought they house down for their show at Mother Eagans. Sorry it’s a little blurry, they move pretty fast when they get going:

Meanwhile, Tina Dico was having a busy day of interviews and live performances of songs from her “stunning” new release before her showcase set. Here’s Tina and bandmate Helgi Jonsson practicing a little harmony on the piano bench:

Later on, I got a chance to catch up with Rocco Deluca, who followed up a scorching performance on Leno last week with a powerful duo set at La Zona Rosa.

And it’s only Friday morning, with a whole slate of interesting shows and appearances still to come. I haven’t even had time to dig into some BBQ yet — we must be just getting started.