Another Adult Books Hit

adultsTime to put your shoes on and shuffle your feet. You won’t have much more fun than if you choose to jam to this track from Adult Books. Immediately the drums give you a bounce to your step, with the guitar chords taking on the darker tones of jangling pop music. Vocals echo in a cavernous way, filling out the band’s sound, bringing infectious joy straight to your ears. It’s the latest single from the band in preparation of their forthcoming album, Running From the Blows; it’ll be released on March 4th via Lolipop Records. You can also find them on a lengthy US tour, including SXSW Dates.

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SxSW 2015: 24 Beats Per Second

All Things Must PassI already talked about several docs and the features I took in, no it is time for the music docs to take the stage. From the obscure and the hidden, the backbone of the beat, to the rise and fall of an empire and the rise of a movement, let’s take a look at what you need to keep an eye out for in the coming months. I am hoping a few will make it to the Alamo Drafthouse so you can hear them as much as see them. All hail crowd-funding.

Click past the break for the rundown.

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SxSW 2015: Converse Rubber Tracks

Rubber TracksBrand. Branding. Brand awareness.

Forget all of that. SxSW has been a bastion of branding experiments. From giant Doritos to McDonald’s trying to be cool, we are inundated by branding and usually, it has been quite unsuccessful. Twitter campaigns hijacked in the name of comedy, new product as a punch line for your snarly friend’s quips. #flatizza

But one brand has been kind of quietly been doing something very cool for musicians. Converse set up Rubber Tracks four years ago giving Texas bands, mostly Austin locals, the chance to get some studio time on the brand’s dime. I was invited to take a tour of the studio compound taken over during SxSW and turned into Converse Rubber Tracks home base, Big Orange and Shine Studio.

A few thoughts, pics of Tele Novella and Hard Proof Afrobeat, and a little Q&A action with the bands after the jump…

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SxSW 2015: A Day With The Twilight Sad

The Twilight SadIt isn’t a new idea, plenty of people have followed a band for a day, but it is something I have wanted to do for a while now. The last time The Twilight Sad was in town in support of We Were Promised Jetpacks, I had some time to chat with James, lead vocals, and Chris Patin, the tour manager, about following the band for a day during SxSW. You see, Chris is a friend of the program; he is in The Calm Blue Sea. James and I oddly ended up standing next to each other at several day parties in previous SxSW’s and we have had friendly conversations about tea, food, travel, normal human stuff. Seemed like a good fit. What follows is an account of the day, followed by a ton of pics. As a bonus, I got to see several other bands, some pretty damn good ones, including Torres and Ringo Deathstarr (more on them later).

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SXSW Superlatives: Nicole.Baumann

Upload SxSW 15 01This year SXSW got the best of me, and since I’m still living with the aftermath of the fest in terms of a nasty cold I figure I’d share my own superlatives of SX. I had a very different festival than the dudes of this site, which I’m referring to as SXSWJR: hitting up the low key events and only ever standing in one line for the whole fest, which I daresay is some kind of feat. Read on for my distribution of praise and a few super special secret awards that Nathan and RayRay didn’t include.

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SxSW Film: Features and Docs

SxSW FilmThis post starts my coverage from SxSW 2015. I do the Film Festival every year now and I have turned into a bit of an obsessive about documentaries. I will have a separate post for the 24 Beats Per Second music docs I saw, but wanted to get things started with what you should be on the look out for in the coming months either in the theaters or on the intarwebs.

Click past the break, won’t you? Let’s get started with #SxSWfilm coverage for 2015…

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SXSW Superlatives: RayRay

Young BuffaloIt’s always a struggle to get back to work after over a week of play time.  Reminiscing helps ease the sleepy eyes and doldrums so lets have another look back at the awesome week of music that was.  Nathan kicked us off yesterday with some fine observations and I’ll continue the opinions today about the SXSW music week.  Follow the jump for my awards.

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SXSW Superlatives: Nathan.Lankford

AlvvaysWith SXSW this year there was lots of hubbub about fewer bands and less corporate entities flooding the streets, but despite all that, I still managed to have myself a good old time.  I’ve got some thoughts and awards to hand out, and these are strictly my experience, as we tried at ATH to split up and cover as much as we possibly could.  You can read on, if you’ve got the time, to see what I had to say.  Read more

SxSW Approaches – ATH in the Preview Guide

sxsw-music-logoWhat’s up, nerds? We have a couple of additional news bits about the conference.

First, we give thanks to Mr. Brent Grulke, creator of SxSW. The City of Austin has decided to name the trailhead deck at Auditorium Shores the “Brent Grulke Plaza”. Yay. The dedication is happening at 5:30pm before the Thursday free Auditorium Shores show headlined by Spoon. Details.

Next and totally rad, Nathan got to write some band previews for the 2015 SxSW Preview Guide. Click here and find your flavor and serach for Nathan’s recommendations first (duh). Don’t chase the band you’ve seen. Discover. DISCOVER!

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