A bouquet of colorful hand-scrawled text against a stark textured background. When it comes to album art, personal and expressive beat cool and collected any day.

The band’s in top form too. Check out The National’s High Violet.

This year was my first visit to SXSW Music. I stuck around for a few days after giving a SXSW Interactive talk (thank you for those who attended!) and was blown away by the energy and the discovery taking place on such a massive scale. I picked up a few new favorite bands and some timely reminders about music as a form of artistic expression:

music is personal.

Each person’s navigation through the endless waterfall of musical expression is unique.

music is best shared.

As solitary an experience as music can be when you’ve got your headphones on at home, it’s something entirely different when you’re with friends or strangers, enjoying a familiar sound or discovering something new.

music is connection.

One of the most exciting things to see at SXSW is a relatively obscure band snowballing followers by performing passionately, 8, 9, 10+ times in a weekend, and watching word of mouth transform off-the-beaten-path bands into legends by week’s end. The best bands, regardless of genre, make you smile regardless of whether you’ve heard of them or not.

Some of my favorites (just scratching the surface): The Middle East, Broken Bells, Local Natives, Here We Go Magic, Shearwater, Surfer Blood, Miike Snow, The Very Best, The Walkmen (with local 5 piece brass ensemble @ Digg Shindigg), and of course his Orchestra, which was especially endearing for its unique context (secret venue in a power plant parking lot, with DIY flamethrowers and human mic stands, with VIP transportainment by the RVIP Lounge).

I was especially proud of the San Francisco representation at SXSW, both musically and diplomatically.

In the Jewish tradition, on the day of the Lunar year when a parent had passed away, you light a candle and say a prayer. The candle is called Ner Neshama which means soul candle and signifies the memory of a lost one. It burns for almost 24 hours. This is the third year that I’ve lit a candle for my father and it’s a startling feeling to wake up the next day to see it burning. You go to work, nine hours later you come home and it’s still flickering on.

If you’re reading this, a suggestion: when you leave this page, don’t tweet, blog, poke, update, text, or IM. Instead, pick up the phone and call someone you love, or better yet, go see them in the flesh. Let’s cherish the living and celebrate those that have lived.