Bluhammock Music, the New York-based label that is home to Cary Brothers, showcased seven of their artists at SXSW 2008. One of those artists, the Philadelphia-based popsmith Jim Boggia, now has a song (“Live the Proof” from his Bluhammock album Safe in Sound) featured in a current Blackberry television commercial campaign.

On Safe in Sound, Boggia collaborated with Aimee Mann, Jill Sobule, Wayne Kramer and ‘70s cult artist Emitt Rhodes, all who count themselves among his fans. Songs from Safe in Sound have also been heard on MTV’s Real World and the ABC TV show, Men in Trees. Boggia’s third full-length album, Misadventures in Stereo, will be released on August 5.

Bluhammock artists who appeared at SXSW this year included Boggia, Cary Brothers, KaiserCartel, Virginia Coalition, Patty Hurst Shifter, the wonderful UK dream popsters South and the Beck-like stylings of Sweden’s Kristoffer Rangstam.

Original post by melissa

Posted: May 27th, 2008 under Music Festival, Latest News.
Comments: none

Billy Bragg’s newest album, Mr. Love & Justice was released in the U.S. this week. I’m sure I’m not his only fan, because Bragg played to a packed house at the Cedar Street Courtyard during SXSW 2008. Here’s what the critics are saying:

Joshua Klein of Pitchfork calls Bragg “…the missing link between Woody Guthrie and Joe Strummer, and anyone who’s seen him perform in recent years knows he retains the power to move and inspire.” Click here to read the review.

Billboard’s Mark Sutherland found “plenty to enjoy.”

Tim Sheridan from Paste Magazine calls Mr. Love & Justice “…a leap forward in maturity, depth and nuance.”

This review and interview by Uncut’s Alistair McKay and Michael Bonner is pretty awesome, too.

You can check out Mr. Love & Justice on Billy Bragg’s official website. That’s all I have for now. Let us know what you’re listening to! E-mail musicblog@sxsw.com.

Until we meet again,

Melissa

Original post by melissa

Posted: April 24th, 2008 under SXSW Aggravator, Melissa Dennis, Music Festival.
Comments: none

So without Linda here cracking the whip, I’ve discovered that I’m a blogging slacker. I’m really sorry. I just don’t know how to function without her.

I’ve searched the intrawebs for today’s edition of SXSW AGGRAVATOR because I still love you, darling readers. I love you without anyone reminding me that I love you. And who doesn’t need a little love from time to time? You’re lying to yourself. You need love.

We’re covering the festival as a whole this week because it’s a big event and can be a little overwhelming…even for me. So here’s your bird’s-eye review of the SXSW 2008 Music Festival:

The staff at SPIN Magazine listed best and worst SXSW 2008 experiences.

Pitchfork’s Paul Thompson covers a few Saturday night showcases including Ice Cube, Constantines and more.

Jon Pareles of the New York Times writes about the growth of the SXSW Music Festival and it’s successes despite uncertainty in the music business. You can read it here.

I’m too depressed about Jose Gonzales not coming to Texas (again) to stay focused or keep writing. You kids take care of yourselves and come visit again soon.

I guess you don’t have to visit. We could visit you. Just subscribe to our feed.

Loving Jose from afar,

Melissa

Original post by melissa

Posted: April 17th, 2008 under SXSW Aggravator, Melissa Dennis, Music Festival.
Comments: none

Okay, I promised myself I would post these before SXSW has been over a month…

SIMON MILLER OF THE BBC NORTHERN IRELAND

I finally got to break my South by Southwest virginity this year, when I got to visit the week of madness as part of a BBC television crew filming bands from Northern Ireland for our music show Across the Line as they played showcases and parties during the week. Unfortunately I was stuck in the hotel room editing most of the time (Grrr!) but I did manage to sneak out at night and soak up some of the music and the atmosphere.

Bands I loved? I saw Sons and Daughters at the Domino Records showcase, and got to say I really enjoyed them, but the best band I saw all week were FM Belfast from Iceland. A three-part electro-pop outfit, their performance at the Soho Lounge was absolutely brilliant - it was one of the few showcases I was at where a band really, really got the crowd going - everyone dancing to their high-energy madness. And they were ace at performing, as well - at one point dashing into the crowd and handing out medals with “Winner” written on them. We’re hoping to get them over to Belfast for a gig soon - weirdly enough given their name, they’ve never been here!

A lot of our bands from Northern Ireland seemed to be doing very well at SXSW - Oppenheimer got to play the Time Out NY / Virgin Megastore showcase at Emo’s Main Room on the Saturday night - and then had to head off on a 21 hour road-trip straight afterwards for a gig in LA. The Answer also rocked a couple of showcases and parties, and already big in Australia and Japan, this could prove to be their break in the US, as apparently they garnered the attention of a certain US music publication. I can say no more!

So, back in Belfast, our program’s already transmitted, and I feel already like SXSW happened months ago. Stuck in a hotel room way out of Austin (late booking!) editing all the time meant I missed most of the acts I really wanted to see - MGMT (although I did get as far as queuing for that), Robyn and Annie (the Swedish contingent!) and N*E*R*D, but who knows - I’ve completed my SXSW survey, so maybe I’ll get a free pass to next year, and I’ll be able to go around and get drunk, see more bands, and get to talk to more good-looking women! Oh and I want to check out more of those taco hole-in-the-wall places!

DAVID NEWGARDEN OF MANAGE THIS

Fleet Foxes (pictured): went to see Blitzen Trapper, but they were blown away that night by their tour opening act, Fleet Foxes, a sweet six-piece with CSNY-style harmonies, terrific playing and wonderful songs.

Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet: I first heard this Uncle Earl member in 2007 eMusic SXSW freebie (really!), and put her CD on my list to buy, but never got around to it…My mistake. Banjos, violin, cello and the voice of an angel. Extra points for occasional Chinese singing. Find her CD and a new one coming in May.

The Enchanted Forest (with art installations by outsideart.org): part junkyard, part museum, part hippy commune, 3 wooded acres with two stages, organic vegetarian food, good vibes, and creekside rocks to sit on, made this the best daytime party venue.

Best Mexican breakfast for SXSW gringos: Curra’s Grill beats out Polvos, El Sol y La Luna, Gueros, Las Manitas… I tried em all… (burp).

JESSIE CARTER OF THE INDEPENDENT FILM CHANNEL

Bon Iver: Gorgeous album and it was fantastic live. Seeing Justin Vernon and crew pretty much made my night on Thursday.

The Dodos (pictured): Very catchy stuff. I’ve been obsessively listening to it since I’ve been back. So glad I was able to see them.

Peelander-Z (pictured): This was one of those shows where you can’t fully wrap your mind around what happened until it’s over. Power rangers-esque costumes + climbing over every available surface, person, balcony, etc = serious fun!

Well, it sure sounds like people had a grand old time at SXSW. It seemed like a good year (I definitely had a better time this year than the last three or four but I think that’s mostly because of Gil Mantera’s Party Dream). I have two more Pick-Three Wrap-Ups coming and that’s all she wrote on that end. However, we’ll be coming at you regular-like with music news, reviews and aggravation.

Email us and be our new BFF at musicblog@sxsw.com. Subscribe to our feedie here.

It’s Monday and it feels like it! lp

Original post by LP

Posted: April 14th, 2008 under Linda Park, Pick 3, Music Festival, Latest News.
Comments: none

(I featured Margaret Moser - and Susan Cowsill - pre-fest here.)

For me, it’s always about how many living legends I can rub shoulders with and chat up. I know I’m not supposed to say that but it’s true.

Catching up with Kim Fowley on 4th Street. Hosting Danny Fields for four days. Booking Lyle Lovett, Roky Erickson, Roy Head, the Judy’s etc at the Music Awards then having Billy Gibbons show up. Getting hugged by the Cowsills (yes, that was a real “16″ Magazine wet teen dream when Susan Cowsill introduced me to her brothers at the softball game). Schmoozing with my hero journalists like Jaan Uhelzski, Dave Marsh, David Fricke, and Jon Pareles. Narrowly missing Lou Reed at several turns (”Damn, Margaret! He was just here!”). Interviewing Chip Taylor for Studio SX. And - most embarrassingly - having my cellphone go off during Andrew Loog Oldham’s introduction on the Rock Memoirs panel. My ringtone is “Satisfaction.”

Also, it’s very difficult to explain the feelings that the unholy beauty of Taylor Hanson elicits : )

Most Nostalgic Show: The Cowsills at Central Presbyterian Church. Those sibling harmonies just shimmered during “Hair” and “The Rain, The Park and Other Things.”

Most Hilarious Moment: Watching the front row get doused during the Judy’s “Guyana Punch” at the Music Awards.

Other Most Nostalgic Show: X at Emo’s. I’ve lived in interesting times to be able to claim X and the Cowsills in my lifetime.

Thanks for joining us for this Pick Three Wrap-Up.

Email blog related musings to musicblog@sxsw.com.

Biß Später! lp

Original post by LP

Posted: April 10th, 2008 under Linda Park, Pick 3, Music Festival.
Comments: 2

Here’s a roundup of what some of our fave industry pals had to say about their three favorite acts at the festival. I’m listening to Marigold as I put this together. Anyone remember them?

LOUIE BANDAK OF CAPITOL RECORDS
Louie B, the nicest A&R guy who ever lived, had a great time playing Jerry Springer at the Perez Hilton party. In addition to those good times, he also had these at the fest.

“Although I lost my voice on the first night of the festival, it didn’t stop me from enjoying some fine rock n’ roll. The bands I originally chose for my Pick Three all played great shows (two hours of MMJ!), but here are some others that made my SXSW experience unforgettable:

Best band to watch in the 85-degree hot sun while drinking free Pabst Blue Ribbon: Airbourne.
Best band to watch through a fence because it was too crowded to get in, yet still rocked my socks off: Tight Phantomz
Best band to watch at 3:30 am while getting hit on by two married sisters: N.E.R.D.

Looking forward to next year… let’s hope HALLS becomes a sponsor.”

CONOR MCANALLY OF BLAZE TV
Conor is the producer of SXSW Live, our DirecTV sponsored three day broadcast from the ACC. It’s really cool and I encourage you to check it out next year if you missed it somehow this.

“OK – so it was a festival impression only because we were 8 hours a day for three days on three hours sleep a night. Full of sunglass mornings, glimpses of tanked tanktops in midafternoon being dragged from one gig to another by friends, rumours of a dance on the fourth floor of a garage, strange tales of a free party in room 386, and the sheer unadulterated cacophony of music up and down 6th street.

Blown away by the ease and facility with which Carbon/Silicon rocked our Lone Star Lounge. True music pros for whom nothing was a problem. Nicole Atkins won me over with a live performance which breathed feeling into every word that had sailed over my head on the album. And Sia….I just can’t get the songs out of my head.”

TONY DOBSON OF METROPOLIS MUSIC
Mr. Dobson, one of the finest concert promoters in the UK, had this to say…

“The three acts I saw and really enjoyed at SXSW were My Morning Jacket, especially Jim at the Church … it’s something magical when a guy can hold an audience the way he did. The Kerrang showcase at Latitude, where People in Planes played… I saw the band a few years ago at the Barfly in London, but wow, what a transformation. Those guys blew me away, and their new album will surely see them have great success.
Finally I saw the Dusty Rhodes and the River Band, I forgot the venue. It was refreshing to see a band really enthusiastic and giving it their all… trying to get the crowd going.”

Thanks for reading this edition of Pick Three. I have a few more to run, which I’ll do in short order so you’re not reading wrap-ups for 2008 in April of 2009. We’ll be here every day, though, through the summer and into the fall when things get going for next year, bringing you the latest and greatest in semi-entertaining music news, reviews and aggravation.

Email submarines to musicblog@sxsw.com. Subscribe to the feed that burnshere.

I have Martha Stewart’s dressing room sign, lp

Original post by LP

Posted: April 8th, 2008 under Linda Park, Pick 3, Music Festival, Latest News.
Comments: none

The Coast was one of the few bands I was really excited to see at SXSW, and they managed to rock out on a stage no bigger than a postage stamp. It was lovely to hear the songs I’d been listening to over and over leading up to the fest live, and hopefully I’ll get to catch them again sometime soon.

It sounds like they had a grand old time at the fest (and I love how they, too, pointed out the plethora of skinny jeans on their MySpace blog).

Bassist Luke Melchiorre (pictured, left) had this to say about their experience:

I think without a doubt we would all agree that SXSW was the most exciting music festival we have ever been a part of. I have never seen so many great acts in one place in my entire life. I think if we had to narrow down our favorite three shows of the festival it would be (in no order): Born Ruffians At 90 Proof, Handsome Furs at Bourbon Rocks and The Constantines at Antone’s. I know our guitarist loved Man Man and our drummer raved about Noah and the Whale.

Coast singer/guitarist Ben Spurr did an LP Questionnaire that you can read here.

I’m bummed to report that the band’s van was broken into upon their return to Canada but they continue to make their way across their (apparently not so) fair country. You can keep up with the band (and hear some juicy tracks) on MySpace.

Speaking of Canada, I’ll be heading up to Whistler in July for the Pemberton Festival. It looks mighty groovy so I look forward to doing some posting from there, but I’ll warn you now that it will probably just consist of pictures of this guy and perhaps some blurry photos of rock star backs like this one of Daryl Hall.

I hope you’re all having a happy Friday. Email emails to musicblog@sxsw.com.

Tell me what you found out, lp

Original post by LP

Posted: April 4th, 2008 under Linda Park, Pick 3, Music Festival, Latest News.
Comments: none

I have some more Pick Three Wrap-Ups for you, but we’re experiencing some “technical opportunities” here at SXSW so in the meantime, I’m going to introduce a new feature for the SXSW Bloggy called The SXSW Aggravator. Named by the ultra groovy Melissa Dennis… okay, maybe it was a slip of the tongue on the word “aggregator,” but I thought, goodness, that’s clever, we’ll just call it that. You got some crack minds over here, let me tell ya.

So, of course I’m going to start with the hubs’ band because I’m cheesy like that and they made quite a little splashy at the fest this year doing a show at the Austin Music Hall and then Jim played solo at St. David’s (which was mind blowingly awesome, I must say).

But The SXSW Aggravator isn’t about what I have to say, it’s about what our music writer pals (and perhaps I use the term ‘pals’ loosely, but aren’t strangers just friends you’ve never met?) are posting…

James Montgomery at MTV wrote a bitchin’ review of the show. He even stayed for the whole thing, which I thought was totally neato.

Rolling Stone’s David Fricke compared them to Led Zeppelin, which is pretty heavy.

NPR recorded the show and took some pics. You can listen to the show if you missed it.

Dave Maher at Pitchfork said nice things.

And finally…

The Daily Texan’s Callie Richmond took some killer shots.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this inaugural edition of The SXSW Aggravator. Melissa Dennis will be aggravating you some more this week.

As always, you can email me at musicblog@sxsw.com. Drop me a line, tell me who you want to win Dancing with the Stars. Subscribe to our kickass feed here. Yay. Now you will be alerted when we write things!

In the desert you can’t remember your name, lp

Original post by LP

Posted: April 1st, 2008 under Linda Park, Music Festival, Conference, Latest News.
Comments: none

Watch The Whigs’ video for “Right Hand On My Heart” while you read the fabulous Parker Gispert’s take on his time at SXSW.

“The overall experience of SXSW ‘08 was super BUSY!!! I always have extravagant plans for the festival and usually never get the chance to see them through. This year was no exception. Despite not being able to see Elf Power or Centro-matic, I got my face thrown on my sneakers by My Morning Jacket’s Austin Music Hall set. That was definitely the most frighteningly good show I saw preceded by a scary sick/nasty Yo La Tengo set. Yes, it was the same show and it was simply on fire. ROCK!”

Apologies for the sporadic posting, boys and girls, but I am back. I hope you’re still with me. Some of you? Anyone? Helloo?

If you’re new here, check out what people wanted to see via Pick Threes here. LP Questionnaires here. More coming on what people saw headed your way soon along with other features we’re brewing up here at SXSW Headquarters (and by SXSW headquarters I mean my couch in Crestwood, KY, the coolest place on earth).

Email hot messes to musicblog@sxsw.com. I just love publishing my email address because it ensures I will get more and more spam from people telling me I’ve either a) won a million dollars or b) that my sex life is in the toilet and they have the answer.

Subscribe to the RSS thing with your RSS Reader thingy. It’s super fun!

Buy one, get one free, lp

Original post by LP

Posted: March 31st, 2008 under Linda Park, Pick 3, Music Festival, Latest News.
Comments: none

It’s 1 am on Saturday night of SXSW (or Sunday morning, if you prefer) and Tom and I are racing down a completely manic 6th street (seriously, who are all these freaking people? Frat boys are staring us down as scantily clad girls puke their way down packed sidewalks) to get to the Bourbon Rocks Patio to see Gil Mantera’s Party Dream.

I’ll be honest and say that I’m a total goob who had no idea who this Youngstown, Ohio band was and were it not for way more awesome than I’ll ever be photographer Lisa Johnson bringing me cookies and reminding me several times that I had to go see them, I would be just as ignorant today.

But lucky for us I heeded her call, and we were treated to THE AWESOMEMEST BAND EVER. I have to say I’ve never seen two grown men in spandex wrestling outfits sing and dance their way through euro disco inspired songs (with extremely witty repartee betwixt and between), and I never want to again unless it’s Gil Mantera’s Party Dream.

The super cool and super cute Ultimate Donny, a Cancer who’s never ridden a horse, was groovy enough to do The LP Questionnaire and here… it is…

Name: Ultimate Donny
Pro Wrestling Name: Chief Titan

1. Pretend you’re 15 (and tell us what year it is, if you don’t mind). Name three songs you’d put on a mix tape for your girlfriend/boyfriend.

The year is 1990.
New Order - Leave Me Alone
Morrissey - I Don’t Mind If You Forget Me
Nitzer Ebb - Fun to Be Had

2. Which evil villain would make the best president? Brainiac – he’s infallibly brilliant and a maniacal bastard.

3. What was your favorite cartoon as a child? Thundarr the Barbarian comes to mind quickly. I probably wanted to be just like Thundarr but didn’t know it at the time. I know now.

4. What superpower do you wish you had? I wish I could become invisible at will. Besides the obvious reason, sneaking into women’s dressing rooms, I’d love to be able to swim with the sharks… invisibly, and talk to the sharks… invisibly, and fill tires with custard… invisibly.

5. What would the title of your autobiography be? Dogtime with Aurora Borealis

Gil Mantera’s Party Dream are still on tour so run run run to your nearest rock type club and check them out. You won’t be sorry. I bought Tom a GMPD t-shirt after the show and he actually wore it for two days straight (and he never wears printed tees unless they have something Marvel related on them).

I still have more SXSW wrap-up type thingies coming your way. Also, we’ll be continuing this little bloggy through the summer so you’ll never be rid of me, will you? I know it might seem a bit odd seeing as the festival is like ancient history and all the other bloggers have already posted scads of ink about our wee shindig but as with most things in life, I am late to the game (like when I said I’d be back to posting on Tuesday and it’s… err.. Wednesday).

Please feel free to check out other groovy LP Questionnaires here. Please feel free to subscribe to the music feed here. It is fun to subscribe to things!

Email things other than pee pee enlargement spam to musicblog@sxsw.com. Seriously, I’m never going to buy that shit.

Toodles, lp

Original post by LP

Posted: March 26th, 2008 under LP Questionnaire, Linda Park, Music Festival, Latest News.
Comments: none