South by Southwest Festival

Is Your Band Doomed to Always Just Be a Local Act?

Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist and is the author of The Girls' Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to help you s ... More >>

The Best of SXSW

This year, our sister papers the Dallas Observer and Houston Press teamed up to document the SXSW madness for you amusement and/or edification. Here are the 12 best shows and moments they saw.

The 50 Commandments of SXSW

By DC9 At Night You're going to South by Southwest, right? Or you're already there? One of those things is bound to be true. Well, we here at DC9 have got some advice for you, and we've managed to format it all into the style of commandments, because one of our favorite things to do is pretend we'r ... More >>

And the Hairball Goes to ...

Los Angeles Film Festival 2012: Summer Showcase

The Worst Moments of SXSW 2012

See also: *The Best of SXSW Music: Saturday 3/17/2012 *Ten Awesome Concert Posters at SXSW Spontaneous tattoo at the S.O. Terik-Filter showcase On Friday, Samantha Urbani from Brooklyn indie band Friends did something to a fan he might forever regret. At the S.O.Terik-Filter showcase, beneath a bl ... More >>

The Best of SXSW Music: Saturday 3/17/2012

So, we come to it: the end of all things. Four days of madness, Doritos, Skrillex and finally, St. Patrick's Day. Before we bid SXSW 2012 farewell, allow us to share our favorite moments from SXSW day four. Later, we'll let you know which shows weren't so hot. Find our favorites below, and if there ... More >>

50 Cent, Eminem, and the Best of SXSW Yesterday

See also Houston Press's 50 Cent showcase slideshow 50 Cent / Eminem - Austin Music Hall Never mind that Get Rich or Die Trying actually came out in 2003; the moist and dewy crowd at Austin Music Hall last night was plenty psyched for his performance of his debut album on its "10th anniversary." Ba ... More >>

The Best of SXSW Music: Thursday 3/15/2012

If you're familiar with chaos theory, which in its basic form is the attempt to find patterns in the random acts of shit on Earth, then you may understand the difficulty that comes with describing a full day at SXSW. To break down the bright, scintillating chaos, Village Voice Media's roving music e ... More >>

SXSW: Ten Things Your Outfit Says About You

By Reed Fischer Some folks attend South by Southwest to look at bands, but a good many passing through the 2012 edition seem to enjoy the added benefits of being looked at, as well. Even without haute couture, music fans and opportunists on the streets of Austin send a wealth of subliminal messages ... More >>

Fiona Apple and the Best of SXSW Yesterday

​See also: Five Attractive Strange People Working for Tips at SXSW If you're familiar with chaos theory, which in its basic form is the attempt to find patterns in the random acts of shit on Earth, then you may understand the difficulty that comes with describing a full day at SXSW. To break down ... More >>

SXSW Recap: Where Were You When Death from Above 1979 Started a Riot?

photo by Siran BabayanBraids​ Had we known we'd be stuck in the middle of a riot trying to catch Death from Above 1979, we would've stayed put for art-pop group Braids on the festival's final night. Another one of the SXSW's buzzed-about and hardest working bands, the four Canadian 20- and 21 ... More >>

Top 10 Most WTF Band Names at SXSW

​ You'll be kicking up plenty of gravel waiting to see Cee Lo Green, Queens of the Stone Age and The Kills at this year's SXSW. Chances are, the lines will be much, much shorter for Go Back to the Zoo, Hungry Kids of Hungary, Amusement Parks on Fire or the dozens of other requisite oddly-name ... More >>

SXSW Bands From A-Z: E through H

​ As SXSW approaches, we figured we'd be a little servicey and give you a guide to some of the highlights of the official showcases, alphabet style. Last week we gave you A through D; today it's E-H. So here we go: five more awesome bands to see in SXSW's official lineup.

A DOC YOU CAN CELEBRATE

Tonight: The Naked and Famous, Dar Williams, My Chemical Romance, Chasing Kings, Black Apples, Dirt Dress

The Naked and Famous​Even the coolest of cool kids -- you know, the ones who can eloquently extol the virtues of MGMT's second album Congratulations -- have a soft spot the size of Brooklyn for hits like "Kids" and "Time to Pretend." That's the kind of chewy, sweet electro-pop that New Zealan ... More >>

SXSW Highlight Reel: Matthew McConaughey is a Dick

View more photos in the "Mariachi El Bronx, Dillinger Escape Plan, She Wants Revenge, Warpaint" slideshow. Erin BroadleyTropic Thunder screenshot at Red 7: the closest we got to taking a photo with Matthew​Matthew McConaughey may not be the first person you think of when it comes to SXSW. How ... More >>

Last Last SXSW Dispatch (for reals): Sewer Divers, D-bags, and Japanese peace signs

Last Last SXSW Dispatch (for reals): Sewer Divers, D-bags, and Japanese peace signs

Tonight: Quality Chilean Hip Hop Princess Ana Tijoux at Little Temple

[From our LA Weekly music newsletter, for which you should sign up ASAP:] Though she has five albums to her name--plus collaborations with Bajofondo and Control Machete, and plenty of praise--Chilean rapper Ana [or Anita]Tijoux is only just making her U.S. debut. After playing a handful of SXSW sho ... More >>

SXSW Interview: The Henry Clay People on Getting Signed, NoFX's 'Punk in Drublic,' and Being Really, Really Tired

​Glendale's Henry Clay People may end this South By Southwest able to brag that they were the hardest-working band in Austin. The sibling-led shout-rockers (who were just signed to TBD records, home of Radiohead) will have played 11 shows in 4 days. They've still got two more to go today. We ... More >>

5 Questions: Best Coast @ SXSW

5 Questions with... Best Coast

Growing Pains: Inside the SXSW Film Awards

​ Tonight's SXSW Film Awards began with a speech, apparently conceived at the last minute, by SXSW co-founder and Austin Chronicle editor Louis Black. With negative buzz building against the festival's overcrowded screenings (lines routinely circled blocks, and at some highly-anticipated scre ... More >>

Pulp Fiction: Aaron Katz's Cold Weather

​ The first unqualified hit of 2010 SXSW Film Festival premiered last night to a packed crowd (including recent Oscar snubbee Jason Reitman) at Austin's Alamo Ritz. Cold Weather, directed by two-time SXSW alum Aaron Katz (his Dance Party USA and Quiet City premiered here in 2006 and 2007, and ... More >>

Top 10 Tweets of SXSW Day 3

​Networking, learning, connecting, deal making, and tail-chasing are all popular activities among SXSW Interactive attendees. But a tech event isn't truly technological without spawning some excellent Twitter fodder. Here's our top 10 list of funny, crazy, crude, and bizarre tweets we've seen ov ... More >>

6 SXSW Film Must-Sees

​ If you're heading to Austin for the SXSW Interactive or Music festivals and have a Gold or Platinum badge, you can use it to get into screenings at the SXSW Film Festival, which starts today and runs all the way through the end of the Music fest next week. SXSW Film has made a name for thems ... More >>

SXSW Announces First Batch of Bands, Including a Dozen-Odd LA Entries

South by Southwest already? Yes, it's a little under four months away, and earlier this week the annual Austin festival announced the first round of showcase participants. It's a small list, this first batch, and mostly comprises international bands who need to start making visa arrangements, etc. i ... More >>

SXSW: Who Would Leave Metallica for Black Cobra? Our Man in Austin

Randall Roberts Finds Himself in the Studio With the Silversun Pickups

SXSW Overview: Where We Were, What We Saw, What We Missed

View the SXSW archives for complete coverage . Randall RobertsStrange Boys drummer Matt Hammer at the Beauty Bar It's all a blur, but a few snapshots remain. Many who follow the fest, of course, were there and damn sure weren't anywhere near the Internets. We were. We were blogging. Over the past ... More >>

Mess With Texas Party at Waterloo Park: The F-Yeah Fest Posse Hits SXSW, Pulls It Off Again?

Randall RobertsSaturday afternoon at the Mess with Texas party. Yes, they pulled it off. For the past three years, Sean Carlson and Keith Morris, in conjunction with Transmission Entertainers, the founders of Austin's renegade summer autumn Fun Fun Fun Fest, have thrown the Mess With Texas party ... More >>

SXSW '09, Day 1: On Max Tundra, Mojoe, and Mediocrity

I have this theory: like most things, greatness at music generally* requires an alloy of natural talent, providence, and an Outliers-like tenacity requiring 10 years hard labor in dingy crackerbox clubs, or snagging a Best New Music on Pitchfork--whichever comes first. The corollary being that for ... More >>

SXSW and the Future of Media: Guy Kawasaki on how L.A. Weekly Does it Right

Alltop CEO Guy Kawasaki gave a shout out to L.A. Weekly, the Village Voice and SF Weekly right before his March 17 SXSW keynote with Wired editor Chris Anderson regarding Anderson's upcoming book, Free. In Kawasaki's pre-keynote video interview above with Viddler.com, the interviewer (referring to ... More >>

SxLA: Los Angeles Interactive in a Post-Network, Post-Geographical World

S. TaylorHalo soldier reads up on Los Angeles at SXSWi ScreenBurn ArcadeAlthough we arrived back at LAX last night exhausted and missing Austin, we felt no symptoms of the dreaded SXSW SARS. Los Angeles was the new girl in town at SXSWi, and this was LAWeekly.com's first time covering Interactive. J ... More >>

SXSW Random Photo of the Day: The Rock & Roll Party Cab: March, 17 2009

What: Inside view of Austin's only Rock & Roll Party Cab. Location: Picked us up at 7th and Congress, travel time approximately 10 minutes in traffic to Magnolia Cafe. Why we loved it: You can spot this cab easily because it's probably the only yellow Eurovan in all of Texas. That, and there's the ... More >>

The Moment You've All Been Waiting For: We're Coming Out!!!

Erin BroadleyEvacuation ChairBetween 7-9 p.m. is a crazy time at SXSWi Austin; everyone is drinking at the free happy hours trying to chat, tweet, and ping in order to find the night's parties, hookups, and alternate sleep opportunities. Two that are on our radar right now are the Techset party at ... More >>

From the (Unofficial) Bigg Digg Shindigg to Sex Lives of the Microfamous: Your Ultimate Guide to SXSW Interactive

With the biggest conference presence of the entire SXSW festival, SXSW Interactive is more than just a place where, as ace SXSW Interactive Press and Publicity coordinator Tammy Lynn Gilmore put it, "you get to meet all those people you follow on Twitter." Unlike music and film, it's difficult to ma ... More >>

SXSW: One perspective from an official representative of the Music Industry

Van Morrison Lou Reed: 2 points. SXSW festival: ZERO.

SXSW Day 1-My Morning Jacket Prove That They May Be Invincible and Britt Daniel is Everywhere

If you do a Google Image search for "Austin" this is one of the first things that pops up. Two girls at the 1998 Austin Corvette Day. Granted, this probably has nothing at all to do with SXSW--yet judging by my first impressions of this place, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if by the end ... More >>

Add three more SXSW bands from L.A. to the list

Last week we offered an extensive list of L.A.-based bands hitting South by Southwest in Austin this year (March 13-16). Alas, we missed three of them, all from the beautiful township of Midcity, Cali. This from Brian Miller: Noticed on the la weekly sxsw blog that 3 la acts are missing. I have a ... More >>

Austin City Limits

Global kumquats, Gen-Y navel gazing and Michael Moore bashing at SXSW 2007

Trondheim Rock City!

Scandinavia’s biggest rock fest, featuring Aryan cuties, a Nazi bowling alley and the prime minister’s glam grandson

Maude!

SXSW or no SXSW, my first sign of Texas pride was the Texas-shaped gravestone in the Texas State Cemetery I noticed outside the airport shuttle. Landed in Austin in drizzling weather; even in a crowded airplane making four stops it's easy to single out the passengers headed here – they're the ... More >>

R.I.P. Cobra Toe

The Five Stages of South by Southwest

Fear of Music

South by Southwest 2005, as told by its survivors

A Small New Future

ALEC HANLEY BEMIS on the casualties and survivors in the war between the Cynics and the True Believers

The Fuzz and the Fury

Chaos at the Greasy Spoon

South by Southwest: Music, money and madness

The Setting Sun

South by Southwest: Forward into the past

South By Shut Up

Dispatches from a SXSW neophyte

Beer, BBQ and Bullock

at the South by Southwest Film Festival