The end goal of South By Southwest is, essentially, to generate significant sound and fury. So it’s fitting that the batch of bands I saw on my first day in Austin seemed dedicated to making as big a racket as possible.

So let me get this out of the way first: I love SXSW. Love. I look forward to this week every year, and spend the bulk of my time trying to cram in as many shows as humanly possible. It’s my Super Bowl, if the Super Bowl was a week long and ran for a [...]

01 The supposed primitives who believe that a camera snatches their soul? Onto something. Photographers suck at SXSW. Suck suck suck, whether it’s some dude snapping with his iPhone, someone using a camcorder to bootleg a show or a credentialed shutterbug with a massive DSLR, they are not your show-going friend. I watched too many [...]

I don’t even know where to begin. Just yesterday I promised we wouldn’t do the minute-by-minute diary, but some stretches from yesterday are just too incredible not to. Straight off the top, here’s who I saw (hyperlinks to be added later when there’s time): French Miami (SF math rock that I have played on the [...]

Hey everybody! This is my third day here in Austin, and I wanted to give you some idea of what’s been going on. First off, I have been careful about how to write about being here: I’m wary of writing things that consist of little more than bragging (”I’m here and yr not!”), while also [...]

Alex, Joe and I are all heading down to Texas tomorrow for SXSW (Joe and I covering, Alex playing a kabillion shows), and we’ll be bringing you daily updates on what we’re seeing that’s good, hopefully uncovering a few gems for you. This also means that 17 Dots might be a bit quieter than usual. [...]

South By Southwest is the biggest music-industry festival every year. It happens every March in Austin, Texas, and days are filled with a neverending blur of live shows — some bands you’ve heard of, some you haven’t. Anyway, this year we’re hosting a showcase that we’re insanely proud of:
Grizzly Bear
Rural Alberta Advantage
Girls
Two eMusic Selects bands [...]

Here’s a quick-hit recap of my last two days in Austin, including a case for why you need to see Ponytail right now. Oh, and again, lots of pictures here.

On my final day at SXSW: I meet Mingering Mike, hear a great band in a bike shop parking lot and finally see High Places.

20+ shows in 2 days meant countless doormen checking my ID to make sure I was of age. The only one to notice I had a birthday coming up? The doorman at the Scandinavian Death Metal Showcase. More on that later.

For all of my SXSW photos, go here.
Thursday in Austin was a bit of a wash. I saw a fair amount of stuff, but not a lot of it stuck. Best of the day by far was Ponytail, from Baltimore.

For lots of my SXSW photos, go here.
Forget bias, I’m gonna say it outright: the eMusic showcase last night at Maggie Mae’s was ridiculously amazing. Seriously. The highlights: Delorean (one of the best sets I have ever seen), Day for Night and Frightened Rabbit. I have never been so proud to be an eMu’r.

Day One South by Southwest was full of the familiar. I ended up seeing bands I’d either loved for years or seen before – owing both to strange scheduling or odd geography. By day’s end I was hoarse, slightly sunburned, and I couldn’t feel anything from my ankles down.
Needless to say, I’m ready to do [...]

Hey everyone. So I will be hopping on a plane to Austin for SXSW here shortly, but I wanted to point out that the second installment of eMusic Selects is LIVE. The two picks are Susu, a mathy Brooklyn band, and Hands on Heads, this exuberant London art-punk band. We like the two records quite [...]

With SXSW fast approaching, Yancey and I needed help navigating the festival’s hectic schedule. There was only one place to turn: Amishi. Over the course of a spirited 15-minute (or so) conversation, Amishi cuts a straight path through this year’s overcrowded Austin lineup. Click through for the carnage.

01 Stephen Malkmus‘ performance was really, really good. As has been well-documented (check my 20 Best Pavement Songs Ever list), I am a rabid Pavement fan, and Malk’s (mostly) solo set was tremendous. It was sloppy and rough and all over the place, aka perfection considering the source. Even if ex-Pavement drummer Bob Nastanovich hadn’t [...]

Photo by Johnny Blood
Here are the nine best albums to hit eMusic this week, with an embedded YouTube clip for almost all of them. Have at it.

 
Atlanta’s The Black Lips are getting quite a bit of much-deserved attention. And it’s not just the 14 shows they played in 3 days that’s prompted the New York Times to anoint them “the hardest-working band at SXSW,” it’s their seemingly endless font of energy. And frankly, that moniker is a little misleading, since “hardest-working” [...]

There’s a lot to love about SXSW, and way too much to experience. This was my second time heading down, and I enjoyed the vast majority of it. Saw good shows, etc., etc. I wanted to wrap up my posting about South By with a collection of some photos that I took that, for me [...]

The last time Les Savy Fav played SXSW was almost 10 years ago, in 1998, right before the Black Eyed Peas (pre-Fergie, of course)…strange bedfellows indeed. So, it’s no surprise that last Wednesday night’s showcase brought out fans old and new alike, creating a line 50 deep a full two hours before the band’s scheduled [...]