Jackson Free Press

Today marks the official start to South by Southwest, the four day Austin music festival and conference that is one of the most exciting and stressful weeks of a music fan's or industry employee's year. According to http://sxsw.com, over 1800 bands will be officially playing the festival this year, and they represent genres from Norwegian electro to garage to avant pop to hardcore.

This year seems to highlight a mix of blog-hyped newbies (Wavves, Vivian Girls) and underground 80s icons (Dinosaur Jr., Meat Puppets, and Echo and the Bunnymen), but as always, most of the bands are just on the cusp of gaining popularity or landing record deals. While it's exciting to watch these rising acts, it's also likely that hundreds of people will wait in line for several hours to see the remarkable PJ Harvey and increasingly compelling Grizzly Bear. And I may be one of those people.

This year marks my third SXSX experience, and I hope my experience and year of living in Austin gives me a certain advantage over other festival-goers. This year I plan to forego the $550 badge and $165 wristband concert and attend the festival completely free. In the past few years, free day parties, in-stores, and an increasing number of free night shows have given official showcases (which require badge or wristband) a run for their money. These free shows also often have free beer and sometimes free food. Given the lethal combination of dry, Texas heat and prodigious Tex-Mex, I plan to limit my free alcohol intake in an effort to sustain myself through Sunday morning. But South by Southwest laughs in the face of plans, so I'll have to let you know how it all works out. This afternoon, I hit up the Force Field PR/Terrorbird Media party at Mohawk for The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Vivian Girls, and Beach House.

Previous Comments

ID

144912

Comment

Have fun girl! I so wish I was there. One of these days I'm gonna make it to SXSW...

Author

andi

Date

2009-03-19T08:22:13-06:00

ID

144918

Comment

They charge reporters to attend these events? I though y'all got press passes and such to get in free.. if you're reporting on the event of course. Learn something new everyday.

Author

LambdaRisen

Date

2009-03-19T08:40:35-06:00