Paste's Hour-by-Hour Guide to SXSW 2010

Photo by Mark C. Austin

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With more than 2,000 bands, official or otherwise, at this year’s SXSW festival in Austin, it can be tough to know where to start. Head to Stubb’s, or the Lustre Pearl? See big-names like Spoon and Band of Horses, or check out someone new? Of course, Paste‘s three daytime parties and Tuesday night music kick-off are a guaranteed good time, but what else is worth checking out? Well, just like last year and the year before that, Paste is here with an hour-by-hour guide of our top picks from the smorgasbord of musical talent available in Texas this week. Be sure to check in with our Festivus blog, where we’ll be covering the events as they unfold, and prepare yourself for a week of music mania with all the juicy stuff we’ve written about it so far.

Weds., March 17

12:30 – Givers (Galaxy Room) – Givers’ drove of multi-instrumentalists make delightfully breezy, lucid-dream pop, Will Henderson’s keyboard whirling away while Josh LeBlanc’s Dixieland horns rough up Kirby Campbell’s steady Afro-pop drums. The young band knows how to experiment without abandoning danceable melodies or life-affirming lyrics.

1:30 – Royal Bangs (Vice) – These grungy electro-poppers thrive on flying by the seat of their collective pants. And though the specific chaos of each of their live shows is rarely premeditated, frontman Ryan Schaefer says, they makes a conscious effort to play every gig with the same level of enthusiasm.

2:30 p.m. – Joe Pug (Galaxy Room) – This singer/songwriter has drawn comparisons to the likes of Bob Dylan and Josh Ritter. His full length debut, Messenger, released earlier this year, blends Pug’s simple acoustic riffs and smart folk-poetry lyrics.

3:45 – We Were Promised Jetpacks (Fader Fort) – These Edinburgh-bred lads had their baptism-by-fire at a battle of the bands competition in high school, before relocating to Glasgow and tearing up hole-in-the-wall venues where they weren’t yet old enough to buy drinks. The numerous comparisons to Frightened Rabbit are entirely apropos: We Were Promised Jetpacks has a speedy intensity to their particular brand of affecting post-punk that’s as apt to make you think about your life and loves as it is to set your feet tapping.

4:30 p.m Roky Erikson with Okkervil River (Galaxy Room) – This year marks veteran psych-rocker Roky Erikson’s third year at SXSW. With Okkervil River, the Austin resident will play songs spanning his long and tumultuous career.

5 p.m. – Frightened Rabbit (Galaxy Room) – Frightened Rabbit is yet another group of Scottish troubadours. Their latest album The Winter of Mixed Drinks contains some of the band’s most open-air atmospherics to date, and combined with nautical metaphors and burial imagery, it sounds like an emergence from deep hibernation.

6:15 p.m. – Seabear (Epoch) – The Icelandic septet’s tunes, with lyrics sung in Nordic-tinged English, sound more earthy than angelic. Their new album We Built a Fire comes out March 16—just in time for SXSW.

7 p.m. – Zoroaster (Mohawk) – One of Georgia’s many excellent metal outfits, Zoroaster play a particularly slow ‘n’ sludgy brand of the heaviest kind of rock ‘n’ roll. Prepare to have your face melted off—gradually.

7:30 p.m. – The Lighthouse and the Whaler (The Tap Room at Six) – Ohio trio The Lighthouse and the Whaler caught our ear with their pop-influenced folk harmonies and Midwestern charm. The band has shared the stage with the likes of Sufjan Stevens and A.A. Bondy before releasing its self-titled debut earlier this year.

8 p.m. – Madi Diaz (Maggie Mae’s Gibson Room) – Six years ago, she was a musical prodigy featured in the Paul Green Rock School documentary. Now, she’s a 22-year-old songwriter who makes lovely indie folk pop with partner Kyle Ryan. Bonus: She does a country cover of Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again.”

9 p.m. – Chew Lips (Latitude 30) – This fun, female-fronted electro-pop trio hails from South London and comes to this year’s SXSW on the heels of their debut album release in January. We’re expecting groove-inducing beats from the spunky U.K. crew.

9:45 p.m. – Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings (Stubb’s) – The decade-spanning, genre-bending music of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings will definitely up the groove factor at SXSW. The band will release its new album, I Learned the Hard Way, in April.

11 p.m. – Broken Bells (Lustre Pearl) – Broken Bells is the much-talked-about collaboration of Shins frontman James Mercer and producer Danger Mouse. The pair are both fond of slowly unspooling melodies, mellow rhythms and sonic gewgaws that let you come to them, as exemplified on their self-titled debut.

12 a.m. – Warpaint (Emo’s Jr.) – L.A.-based Warpaint claims all three of its members as frontwomen. Their music pairs dreamy shoegaze melodies with post-punk dissonance, fueled by the bandmates’ pure magnetism and instrumental chops.

1 a.m. – Those Darlins (Prague) – "Country” is a loose label for this tattooed trio, whose debut is loaded with nods to The Rolling Stones, old-time bluegrass and garage rock—but the music is in their Murfreesboro, Tenn. blood.

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