At about 6pm I was unsure whether to bother going to the official SxSW Music dinner but I'm so glad I did.
The event was considerably smaller than I expected -- I guess SxSW attendees aren't used to paying for expensive conference dinners. There were only five people on my table, including myself but it was a much better environment to talk to people than I've experienced probably the whole of SxSW (although the Austin Game Developers' Happy Hour was pretty good).
Renee Sebastian is a Pop/R&B artist based in San Francisco. She's released stuff on her own label and it sounds pretty good to my ears!
Kimberly Guise and Steven Erdman run GO Records based in New York and are currently working on an album featuring Brit James Hunter. If Steve's passion is anything to go by, the James Hunter album should be awesome.
I'll definitely be watching both Renee's and Kimberly and Steven's efforts. You might want to do yourself a favour (to quote Molly Meldrum) and check them out.
They were certainly a wonderful bunch of people to spend an evening talking with.