Sxsw

AUSTIN, Texas - On Friday afternoon, with the long march that is the South by Southwest Music festival past its halfway point, Sam Beam stood on stage at the Austin Convention Center before a crowd of weary listeners. "Wow, you people must really love music," said Beam, who records as Iron & Wine, during a show cosponsored by Philadelphia's WXPN-FM. "How are you holding up? Do you still love music?" At SXSW, it helps a great deal if you do. From Tuesday until the wee hours of Sunday morning, when Prince, Justin Timberlake, Vampire Weekend, and rapper Kendrick Lamar were among the last on stage, more than 2,000 acts pushed fans to the brink of exhaustion.

Inquirer music critic Dan DeLuca reports as of midweek from the SXSW music festival in Austin, Texas. See his blog dispatches at www.philly.com/inthemix

    AUSTIN, Texas - Every year, it seems the South by Southwest music festival can't possibly get any bigger - and each year it does. In 2012, Bruce Springsteen came to SXSW, and to keep attendees from lining up a day in advance, a lottery was held. This year, that distribution system is being employed for at least three shows: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds on Wednesday (also featuring Waxahatchee, the nom de rock of Philadelphia songwriter Katie Crutchfield)

The very idea might sound overwhelming to even the most gluttonous music fiend: More than 1,900 acts from 55 countries playing official showcases at 89 venues over four days at the South by Southwest music festival that wound down early Sunday morning. But that's hardly the half of it. Despite, or more likely because of, the music industry's ongoing woes, this year's SXSW was the biggest ever. There were more than 13,000 badge-wearing registrants roaming Austin's Sixth Street, up 11 percent from 2009.

The music industry may not know where the demand is going to come from. But there's never going to be any shortage of supply. That much was obvious at the South by Southwest Music Festival, or SXSW, which ended Sunday, where more than 1,500 acts played showcases, and hundreds of others plugged in at barbecue joints and taco stands in this city that becomes the capital of the music business every March. Band managers, booking agents and label honchos played I'll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours with digital mobile devices, as panels met on such topics as "Record Companies: Who Needs Them?"

AUSTIN, Texas - What's the future of the music business? During the last week at the South by Southwest Music & Media Conference, that question was pondered over bites of barbecue and swigs of Shiner Bock. The answer, the industry types figured, had something to do with the cloud, and online streaming music services like Spotify, and making the right deals to build your band into a brand. And with that question settled (or not), everybody took to the streets to hear some music.

Let the March music madness begin. More than 2,000 bands will descend on Austin, Texas, this week for the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference, the 27th annual music festival and industry confab that is the largest gathering of its kind in the world. SXSW or "South By," as it's increasingly known, also includes a filmfest and a technology conference, both of which began last week in the Lone Star State capital, which is why that pesky #SXSW hashtag already may be trending on your Twitter feed.

Is there anything going on in this Lone Star State capital city on a South-by-Southwest Thursday night? Well, let's see. There's Philadelphia rapper Amanda Blank, rhyming over at the Scoot Inn, and Philadelphia rapper Freeway, doing his thing at the Habana Bar Backyard. At 8 there's a tribute to the late, great Doug Sahm at Antone's, featuring Dave Alvin and others, and at midnight a tribute to the late, great Chris Gaffney at the Continental Club, featuring Dave Alvin and others.

The music business has been shrinking for a decade, and now the economy has followed it into the tank. So why were the streets here filled last week with thousands of music fans and industry types hustling from one club to the next in pursuit of more than 1,900 acts - including a couple of dozen from the Philadelphia area? They had come to hear and be heard at South by Southwest's 23d annual music festival and conference, the industry's largest, because tough times make it more essential than ever for aspiring acts and industry survivors to strategize about the future (while, of course, noshing on barbecue)

The ever-larger South by Southwest Music and Media Conference is an endurance test. Over five nights in 40 clubs revolving around the Sixth Street strip in the Lone Star State's capital, more than 700 rock bands, singer-songwriters, DJs, poets and other performers from around the world played for media and music industry types mixed in with avid Austin music fans. By the time the 11th South by Southwest (SXSW) drew to a close last night, the typical conference-goer had braved unseasonably chilly weather to become a zombie, exhausted from a nonstop diet of too many bands, too much barbecue and, most of all, too much schmoozing.

AUSTIN, Texas - On Friday afternoon, with the long march that is the South by Southwest Music festival past its halfway point, Sam Beam stood on stage at the Austin Convention Center before a crowd of weary listeners. "Wow, you people must really love music," said Beam, who records as Iron & Wine, during a show cosponsored by Philadelphia's WXPN-FM. "How are you holding up? Do you still love music?" At SXSW, it helps a great deal if you do. From Tuesday until the wee hours of Sunday morning, when Prince, Justin Timberlake, Vampire Weekend, and rapper Kendrick Lamar were among the last on stage, more than 2,000 acts pushed fans to the brink of exhaustion.

AUSTIN, Texas - The everything-is-happening-at-once-all-over-the-place nature of SXSW is a perfect fit for attention-deficit-culture consumers. In its 27th year, the festival's endless options and enticing distractions work kind of the way the Internet does, pulling you in one direction even after you made the tough decision to go in another. On Thursday morning, I started at Dave Grohl's keynote speech at the Convention Center, which was at the same time as a party across town hosted by Philadelphia recording studio/music venue MilkBoy, and featured a number of 215 acts, including Lushlife and Lantern.

    AUSTIN, Texas - Every year, it seems the South by Southwest music festival can't possibly get any bigger - and each year it does. In 2012, Bruce Springsteen came to SXSW, and to keep attendees from lining up a day in advance, a lottery was held. This year, that distribution system is being employed for at least three shows: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds on Wednesday (also featuring Waxahatchee, the nom de rock of Philadelphia songwriter Katie Crutchfield)

Let the March music madness begin. More than 2,000 bands will descend on Austin, Texas, this week for the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference, the 27th annual music festival and industry confab that is the largest gathering of its kind in the world. SXSW or "South By," as it's increasingly known, also includes a filmfest and a technology conference, both of which began last week in the Lone Star State capital, which is why that pesky #SXSW hashtag already may be trending on your Twitter feed.

Inquirer music critic Dan DeLuca reports as of midweek from the SXSW music festival in Austin, Texas. See his blog dispatches at www.philly.com/inthemix

Denver gypsy music foursome Devotchka broke out to a wide audience with their score to the 2006 hit indie movie Little Miss Sunshine . They were last heard from on the grandiose 2011 album 100 Lovers . Friday's show at the Trocadero is one of just two performances on a mini-tour in which the Nick Urata-fronted foursome will be trying out new material for that album's yet-to-be-recorded follow-up, accompanied by a string quartet. Brooklyn folk-pop trio Pearl and the Beard open up, on their way to the SXSW music festival in Austin, Texas.

After nearly 20 years away from the music business, British synth-pop icon Thomas Dolby launched his return last year with a passion - or rather, several passions. First there was a transmedia game, The Floating City, which was "set against a dystopian vision of the 1940s that could have perhaps existed if WWII had turned out a lot differently," he explains. Participants from around the world took part in the three-month long cyber-game, which wound down shortly before the release of Dolby's corresponding album, A Map of the Floating City.

AUSTIN, Texas - What's the future of the music business? During the last week at the South by Southwest Music & Media Conference, that question was pondered over bites of barbecue and swigs of Shiner Bock. The answer, the industry types figured, had something to do with the cloud, and online streaming music services like Spotify, and making the right deals to build your band into a brand. And with that question settled (or not), everybody took to the streets to hear some music.

AUSTIN, Texas - The Bruce Springsteen portion of SXSW came to a rousing conclusion Thursday night. The 21/2-hour show served as a preview of the coming Wrecking Ball tour, which will play Philadelphia with the E Street Band on March 28 and 29. "Thanks for being part of our test run," the Boss told the crowd of 1,800 gathered at the Moody Theater, where the PBS series Austin City Limits is taped. The hardest-to-get ticket in town brought together guests including reggae great Jimmy Cliff and singer Eric Burdon of the Animals, who were in town for the sprawling music confab, which Springsteen called "a teenage music fan's wet dream.

  With a bit of life in the economy, this could be the time to start that business you've been considering. There's more to it than meets the eye, so check out these sites for practical advice. Take it to SXSW. Entrepreneur.com serves a buffet of tips for anyone thinking about starting a business, including how to make a splash with your interactive business at the sprawling South by Southwest (otherwise known as SXSW), an annual cultural event set for March in Austin, Texas.