The human body is an instrument, many people will tell you. Foxy Shazam take this literally and decide to utilise both the human keyboard and the human cymbal.
Seeing a grown man sat on a stool fingering imaginary chords on the back of a bandmate is likely to rate amongst the more bizarre sights of South by South-West, and yet this was not the weirdest thing of the night. During the show, frontman Eric Nally was approached by a member of the audience with a packet of cigarettes, lightening the box by two of the cancer sticks, Nally proceeded to light both and commence puffing. That this was followed by his swallowing both of the alight cigarettes is something that will forever give us heady doses of both the heebees and the jeebees.
Rather aptly, “The Parish” is possibly the reddest venue throughout all of the 80+... Read on
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Is it better to enter a show with high expectations and to have them... Read on
Having been handed the performance baton by Los Campesinos, The Stills have a crowd... Read on
SxSW has the power to create buzz, or equally to leave it limping, banged-up and struggling for air in the squalid remains of its once beautiful home.
A three piece consisting of two youths, one slightly uncomfortable looking adult and one androgynous band member may compel comparisons to fellow SxSW-ers Hanson, but there was not a bubblegum pop ballad in sight this afternoon.
For Okkervil River tonight's show amounts to a homecoming and the band, who setup and started gigging right here in Austin, were assured of a warm reception from SxSW.
Maggie Mae's Rooftop is one of those dream venues, a place where the stage exists only as a corner of a room, where the band and audience mingle without divide, even a trip to the bathroom involves walking past the band live on stage.
It's easy to forget as you trawl around Austin from bar to bar in a succession of small intimate venues, that in the background runs an event designed for the music industry to gather, network and swap plans for world domination.
One of the bands playing at SxSW this year that are generating a deserved buzz are Crystal Castles.
Nada Surf have quite clearly outlasted the traditional cycle of indie bands. So it's refreshing to see them anew, reinvigorating themselves and their audience at this year's South By Southwest.
One of the problems of playing at 8pm on one of the smaller stages at South By Southwest is that there are aren't too many people about.
Ranking amongst the hardest to find shows of the week, The Motion Sick certainly rewarded all who trekked out of downtown to find this 'unofficial' showcase.
The audience of a band should never be the most interesting thing about a live show, and yet that is how things transpired tonight at Stubb's.
It was a tale of two venues and two performances for Jens Lekman here at South By Southwest last night.
There's been a whiff of a Scottish takeover this year at South By Southwest. With Frightened Rabbit making waves along with Sons & Daughters we headed to the Wave Rooftop for another Caledonian band Make Model.
There was no doubt that this rare appearance by The Vines was going to generate buzz at South By Southwest.
More widely known for their 2006 collaboration with Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley fame, The Watson Twins step out on their own tonight to a sizable audience at Buffalo Billiards.
The Soho Lounge in downtown Austin provides the setting for the punk stylings of the chaotic three-piece from Ohio known as Times New Viking tonight.
You'd never expect two bespectacled wiry men, poured over keyboards and a third who would fit quite easily into the hipster scene looks wise to draw a crowd of black clad, hardcore metal-heads, and yet, this is what Genghis Tron have done.
After nearly an hour setting up their various instruments, Working For A Nuclear Free City still weren't happy with the sound coming back from their monitors.
One of the perks of visiting South By Southwest is that you can find bands that sell out tours in the UK within minutes performing to a few gathered alcoholics in a bar.
So where do we head to to find Denmark's finest purveyors of sleaze riddled guitar noise?
There's much of an electronics theme here tonight. To get to Enter Shikari one must walk through the X-Box 360 tent complete with guests showing off their skills on Rock Band.
Words can work like magnets for the human race. Just as "bomb" can repel people to the border, so can "free concert" attract multitudes.
Being perhaps the busiest band at this year's South By Southwest Festival, Manchester's The Whip certainly don't appear to have run out of steam at the end of Day two of this year's festival.
Justin Vernon, aka Bon Iver is gigantic in every sense of the word. His 6ft+ frame would normally give him bad posture in a venue the size of Maggie Mae's.
"Who'd want to watch R.E.M anyway?" so bellows out Scott Hutchison to a packed out audience at Maggie Maes.
We find our way to the Austin Music Hall, one of the larger venues on the festival circuit and it's packed which is kind of surprising, since it is also one of the most distant.
The perfectly named 'Dirty Dog Bar' is the venue for Birmingham's finest recent export.
As Wednesday becomes Thursday there's no sign of any letup in the schedule, things don't kick off till later in the day but when they do they don't slow down.
After Sons & Daughters had given the audience at Antone's an aural shot of adrenaline, The Kills upped the heart rate with a genuinely electrifying performance.
Jason Stollsteimer has trouble holding on to women. Gone are the famed days of the Marcie and Carrie era, yet The Von Bondies seem just as urgent, just as passionate and just as hungry.
If Karen O is America's classy yet sexy vocalist, then Be Your Own Pet's Jemina Pearl Abegg is America's demented cheerleader complete with reckless abandon a-go-go.
Delta Spirit were one of the first bands we plugged when we commenced project: 'Strange Glue'. So we were delighted to be afforded the opportunity to see how the band have progressed in the intervening years.
On Wednesday night in Austin, the night had started to come alive. 5th Street, home to many of the venues was awash with music fans and the festival was in full flow.
Getting a member of the audience up onto the stage is nothing new. Getting someone up to be your microphone stand though, is relatively odd.
As the light faded, leading us into the opening night of this year's festival, Austin was finally starting to simmer with a warm buzz of excitement.
Mid-afternoon in a day cafe which has it's front end populated by a nice, civilised, 6 rows of chairs. It's a strange place for Ra Ra Riot to take to the stage.
There's only one place to be for new music in March and that's Austin, Texas for the annual South by Southwest Music festival.
We're delighted to announce that Strange Glue will be sponsoring woxy.com and their coverage of this year's South By Southwest Festival.
Organisers for the 2008 South By Southwest Festival have revealed the artists and bands that will make up what is surely now the greatest festival ever.
Freshly processed from the strangeglue.com playlist at Last.fm
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