The Daily Swarm

(photo credit)

Austin360.com:

Spotted: Rachael Ray in Cissi’s market on Friday morning. She had one of their Sausage Biscuits (both biscuits and sausage are made in house).

New York Times – Jon Pareles:

Southwest is a talent showcase and a schmoozathon, a citywide barbecue party and a brainstorming session for a business that has been radically shaken and stirred by the Internet. For established recording companies, the instantaneous and often unpaid distribution of music online is business hell; CD album sales are on an accelerating slide, and sales of downloads aren’t making up for the losses. But for listeners, as well as for musicians who mostly want a chance to be heard, the digital era is fan heaven. As major labels have shrunk in the 21st century, South by Southwest has nearly doubled in size, up to 12,500 people registered for this year’s convention, from 7,000 registered attendees in 2001, not including the band members performing. In an era of plummeting CD sales and short shelf lives even for current hit makers, the festival is full of people seeking ways to route their careers around what’s left of the major recording companies.

Sooner or later, public forums and private conversations at this year’s festival end up pondering how 21st-century musicians will be paid. For nearly all of them, it won’t be royalty checks rolling in from blockbuster albums. Musicians’ livelihoods will more likely be a crazy quilt of what their lawyers would call “alternative revenue streams”: touring, downloads, ringtones, T-shirts, sponsorships, Web site ads and song placements in soundtracks or commercials.

NME:

Paramore made their live return at South By South West tonight, with a show at La Zona Rosa in Austin.

The show was the first for Paramore since canceling dates due to \“internal issues\” within the group.

The all-ages show show provided Guitar Hero facilities to gig-goers who were belting out Weezer songs as NME.COM arrived at the venue.

Paramore frontwoman Haley Williams inspired one of the keenest crowd reactions in an audience this week, encouraging sing-a-longs and call-backs.

[...]

Williams was also enthusiastic at being asked to play this week in Austin: “We are really honoured to headline a show at South By Southwest, it’s huge! For anyone who is here, you should give yourselves a pat on the back for being here because it’s all about the music”

Pitchfork – SXSW: Thursday [Amy Phillips]:

If you ever get the chance to see Moby and/or Justice DJ at a warehouse party, do it. Seriously. Even if said warehouse party is being thrown by Playboy, and there are Playboy Bunnies there, and the place is crawling with the kind of guys who hang around Playboy Bunnies. It’s worth it, I’m telling you.

Think what you will about Moby, but dude knows how to rock a dancefloor. I don’t know how he managed to make stuff like Basement Jaxx’s “Where’s Your Head At” and Guns n’ Roses’ “Paradise City” sound fresh and exciting, but he did. Maybe I was just delirious with exhaustion?

As for Justice, they stood there smoking cigarettes, looking impossibly hip, spinning the hits. Just being in the same room as those guys made me feel like a sleek, sexy VIP who was totally used to hanging out with Playboy Bunnies, whatever, no big deal. And hey, isn’t that what the transformative power of live music is all about? Making you feel really, really cool?

Village Voice – Sound of the City – Rob Harvilla

Don’t you hate the question “So what’ve you seen?” Does it freak you out a little? Make you self-conscious that your itinerary thus far has been insufficiently sweet? “Yeah man, last night I saw Lou Reed play ‘Heroin’ backed up by Vampire Weekend on the steps of the Driskill. Obama sat in on tambourine.” We are all searching for that one transcendent moment—either the epic celebrity sighting, or, more agreeably, the budding megastar who only you and 10 other people standing next to you know about, if only for 10 minutes—that’ll justify this whole bizarre, wearying experience.

We all need a Champion. And I suspect Duffy is/was it for a lot of people. Whispers within the truly surreal Fader Fort (loaded with skinny, aloof, ludicrously well-dressed twentysomethings; “Is that eyepatch ironic?” my companion asks of one gentleman) pegged this Welsh lass as the next Dusty Springfield, and this here (fairly) intimate afternoon gig as the equivalent of Amy Winehouse’s coming-out parties last year.

We wanted it so badly.

She’s pretty boring.

Rolling Stone – Caryn Ganz:

If the crowd gawked at Mascis’ musicality, they were equally rapt for the preceding set from the label’s young Nashville punks Be Your Own Pet. After letting a friend draw a pair of lipstick racing stripes under her eyes, Jemina Pearl Abegg started things off with, “Hi, we’re Be Your Own Pet. Ready?” Before anyone could even draw a breath, the band launched into a tidal wave of raw energy, Abegg strutting around the stage like a zombie running back with one hand outstretched in front of her, her head flailing around, miraculously missing collisions with Nathan Vasquez’s flying bass and guitarist Jonas Stein’s scissor-kicks. After just a few songs, though, the speakers stopped working and Abegg vamped by talking to the audience about John Waters movies without a mike.

AP:

South by Southwest has always been known as a music festival that flourishes with indie-rock bands, singer-songwriter types, classic blues players, metal acts and even some country artists. But hip-hop? Not so much.

That’s been changing thanks to SXSW music programmer Matt Sonzala, who has worked steadily to increase the profile of rap at the festival, which hosts hundreds and hundreds of acts each year. Among the 150 hip-hop performers at this year’s event include Ice Cube, Bun B, The Clipse, Dizzee Rascal, 2 Live Crew, Talib Kweli, and the Cool Kids.

“Honestly I didn’t know too much about this, and people would say, ‘What — you don’t know what that is? ... If you don’t go, you trippin’!’” said Del the Funky Homosapien, playing SXSW for the first time this year. “That’s when I started realizing.”

Wayward Blog:

The gods of hip-hop smiled further ‘pon Mac by snatching up from the ether and depositing the notorious Bushwick Bill, the short-framed member of Houston’s Geto Boys, whom you might remember as the sickle-brandishing dwarf in the video for the group’s hit “My Mind Playing Tricks on Me”

Bill waited patiently side stage until Mac escorted him on for a verse in the middle of Mac’s (distinctly un-ghetto) new single “Calm Down Baby.” If you’re wondering how Bill’s paying the bills nowadays, he’s apparently doing well: “My pockets ain’t hurtin,” the little guy rapped, “A broke motherfucker is a burden.”

Billboard – Bon Iver was Robbed:

Sometimes the lamest things happen to the nicest people. Justin Vernon, aka Bon Iver, should be having the time of his life right now—he’s the toast of SXSW, with all four shows he’s played packed to capacity. Unfortunately, a thief had to come in and ruin Justin’s good time. On Thursday afternoon, someone stole Justin’s beige fanny pack from the green room at the Parish while he was playing an NPR show. The pack contained all his cash, his specially-made earplugs, his passport, and other forms of ID and credit cards. The timing of this is especially lame because Justin will be heading to Europe next month, and J.I. can say form experience that rush passports are not cheap.

NME:

British rockers I Was A Cub Scout were forced to pull out of their scheduled gig this afternoon (March 15) at the Wave venue, a gig which would have been part of NME’s showcase event at SXSW in Austin, Texas, after some of their equipment was stolen.

The band fell foul of thieves last night (March 14), who broke into their van and stole equipment vital to their performance.

The band members posted up a poster in the Wave venue saying: “Sadly, when we got to our hotel car park this morning we noticed out van was missing a lot of equipment and that the van had been broked into.

“With this, we regret to inform you that we will not be playing today. We are really sorry, but hope to be back soon.”

The band consoled themselves by drinking at the Wave bar.

ALSO:

South By Southwest 2008: You’re Not There, Pt. 1

South By Southwest 2008: You’re Not There, Pt. 2

South By Southwest 2008: You’re Not There, Pt. 3

South By Southwest 2008: You’re Not There, Pt. 5

South By Southwest 2008: Where’s the Beef?, Pt. 1

South By Southwest 2008: Where’s the Beef?, Pt. 2