SXSW 2007: Big Bloc 4

It's always exciting when South by Southwest announces its schedule and posts songs by many of the bands that will be appearing at the festival. I just spent several--okay, six--pleasant hours making my way through the entire list from Aa to zZz (I skipped +/- because they didn't provide a sample mp3). I admit I didn't listen to every single song. Certain categories didn't really interest me, not yet at least. But I did give ear to everything labelled rock and pop that I didn't already know, plus a few others. I actually want to go back and listen to a few more categories, but I've compiled a list of a couple hundred tunes that I liked. The eternal question at a blog: to post only a few at a time or post the whole lot? I know it's daunting to see a long list, so if you're interested, you might only want to sample a few at a time. Hopefully they'll be here for awhile. SXSW seems to leave them posted semi-permanently, as I showed with my recent posts for SXSW 2005 and SXSW 2006. Anyway, enough chatter, let's to the tunes. I begin with the ones that comport most closely with two of the three terms at the masthead of this blog: powerpop and indie. I've got a bunch more, especially of the indie variety, but most of those have pp tendencies. I'll be posting some of them over the next couple of days. Here are a stingy baker's three dozen. Links are provided to the SXSW band sites.

Air Traffic - Charlotte mp3
The Apples in Stereo - Energy mp3
The Ark – One of Us Is Gonna Die Young mp3
The Awkward Stage – Heaven is for Easy Girls mp3
Bang Gang – Find What You Get mp3
The Breakup Society – Robin Zander mp3
Broadfield Marchers – Kingdom for Lions mp3
The Capitol Years – You Can Stay There mp3
The Comas – New Wolf mp3
The Dagons – It Flies Out mp3
E>K>U>K – KeMo Thera-P mp3
Electrico – Love in New Wave mp3
Elemeno P - 1157 mp3
The Ends – Nice Quiet You mp3
The Explorers Club - Forever mp3
Fernando – Howard Hughes mp3
Future Clouds and Radar – Quicksilver mp3
The Gear – Eight Arms to Hold You mp3
Going Home – Act 7, Scene 8 mp3
Goldenboy – Summer of the Evening mp3
The Jellydots - Bicycle mp3
The Little Ones – Lovers Who Uncover mp3
Los Abandoned – a la mode mp3
Luminous Orange - EverySingleChild mp3
The Moog – I Like You mp3
Paul Collins Beat - Helen mp3
Patrick Pike – Beautiful Thing mp3
Pop Levi – Sugar Assault Me Now mp3
The Procession – Major and Minor mp3
Starky – Hey Bang Bang mp3
The Sterns – Supreme Girl mp3
The Teeth – Trumpet Blared mp3
Winterpills – Broken Arm mp3
The Yoko Casionos – Loose Cannon mp3
The Zebras – You Look Ready mp3

Big Bloc 3: Get the Parasol

Rain or shine, the folks at Parasol gotcha covered. (Snow is problematical.) I selected the following from four pages of info and offerings, leaving behind probably two to three times as many free and downloadables as are posted below. Information on each artist is available at the Parasol website. The links to pages 2, 3, and 4 are found at the bottom of the website's first page.

The Apples in Stereo – New Magnetic Wonder
Energy wma
Skyway wma
Sunndal Song wma
Sloan - Never Hear the End of It
I Understand wma
HFXNSHC wma
Yo La Tengo - I Should Have Known Better wma
Headlights - Lions wma
The Legends - Darling wma
David & the Citizens - Out Of My Hands wma
Aberdeen - The Boy Has Gone Away wma
Sparklehorse - Shade And Honey wma
Ashley Naylor - Merry-Go-Round wma
The Embassy - Stage Persona wma
Pink Nasty - Thirsty Thursday wma
Leopold - Johnny wma
I'm From Barcelona - Collection of Stamps wma
Clinic - Tusk wma
Black Belt
Road Crew wma
Hold On wma
Loney, Dear - I Am John mp3
Peter Bjorn And John - Young Folks wma
New Ruins - Ships mp3
Voxtrot - Trouble wma
Unnatural Helpers - Lights Down Low wma
Electric Blankets - Hanging On The Telephone wma
Richard Lloyd - Watch Yourself (original) wma
Broder Daniel
Cruel Town wma
Shoreline wma
When We Were Winning wma
Honey is Cool
On The Beach wma
The Lion wma
The Secret Ink
Neverafter wma
Boomerang wma

Big Bloc 2: SXSW 2005 Roundup

The response to last week's Big Bloc 1 posting of selected mp3s from SXSW 2006 was vast, although largely invisible but to the practiced eye. Here's a list I put together of three dozen songs I like from SXSW 2005. Again, if you find yourself wanting more, click on the two SXSW's above. As I did for Big Bloc 1, I am retaining original spelling, deleting "mp3" so as to make it easier to browse the list, and leaving it to you to Google for more artist info. So here we go with Big Bloc 2, chip off the. . .nevermind.

Boyskout - Jesse James
Crooked Fingers - Call To Love
Cruiserweight - This Aint No Beach Party
Dirty on Purpose - Mind Blindness
Dwight Twilley - Walking on Water
Earlimart - The Hidden Track
Epo-555 - le beats on fire
Head of Femur - Curve That Byrd
Jason Falkner - Lost Myself
Joy Zipper - Out of the Sun
Limbeck - Julia
Low Frequency In Stereo - Man Dont Walk
Maximo Park - The Night I Lost My Head
Novillero - The Hypothesist
Of Montreal - So Begins Our Alabee
Tegan and Sara - Walking With a Ghost
The Capitol Years - Mounds of Money
The Chapters - Its All Too Much
The Crash - Gigolo
The Czars - Paint The Moon
The Damnations - New Hope Cemetery
The Dawn Parade - The Underground
The Dears - Lost In The Plot
The Emeralds - LOVE FIRE
The Deathray Davies - I regret the day I tried to steal daniels ego
The Ends - Pucker Up
The Grip Weeds - Realities
The Lackloves - The Radios Mine Radio Edit
The Lashes - Sometimes the Sun
The Oranges Band - OK Apartment
The Panda Band- Eyelashes
The Paybacks - Bright Side
The Pretty Please - The Rockstar Guide to Falling Apart
The Salteens - Time You Have Been Wasting
The Silent League - Breathe
The Telepathic Butterflies - A Final Word

Big Bloc I: SXSW 2006 Roundup

Okay, I'm a bit skitterish about this one, so please bear with me. Back in early December, I went group-by-group, song-by-song through a long list of artists I found at the 2006 South-by-Southwest festival website. I sampled every song I didn't already know and prepared my own list of the ones I liked best, old friends and new. For various reasons totally uninteresting even to myself I've just never posted a big bloc of the songs, some of which are by some of my favorite current artists. Soooooo, I'm simply going to copy and paste the entire deck of 52 right here and now. Maybe you'll look it over and find some things you like. It might appear a bit overwhelming, maybe it seems a copout on my part, maybe you won't respect me in the morning (and for some of you, it already is morning, so we won't even have to wait). Due to the time factor, I'm not doing the usual drill of providing links to the band names. I trust your ability to Google the ones that interest you. All of these are mp3s. I'm eschewing labelling each one as such so they'll be easier for you to hunt and gather. I have retained spelling and punctuation from the site. If you like this one, I've got a similiar list for SXSW 2005. Also if you like this one, you might want to click on the SXSW link up there and check out the rest of the list for yourself. Maybe you'll discover I left out some of your favorite stuff (although I've posted another twenty or thirty the past month-and-a-half). So without further ado, I post our first Big Bloc. Now I'm going to hide somewhere till the dust settles.

The Ark - One Of Us Is Gonna Die Young
Bellaparker - Instead
Boyskout - Back to Bed
The Brother Kite - Death Ray
Butterfly Explosion - The Great Game
The Capes - Tightly Wound
The Capitol Years - Juicers
The Carrots - The Train Song
Centro-matic - Calling Thermatico
Cruiserweight - Goodbye Daily Sadness
Cuff the Duke - Take My Money And Run
The Dresden Dolls - Girl Anachronism
Dressy Bessy - Electrified
Earlimart - The Hidden Track
Editors - Munich
Elf Power - Walking With the Beggar Boys
epo-555 - Hyperschlieb
The Evangelicals - Diving
Flogging Molly - The Seven Deadly Sins
The Foxymorons - Harvard Hands
Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly - Whitewash Is Brainwash
The Giraffes - The Giraffes
The Grates - Sukkafish
Great Lake Swimmers - Various Stages
Headlights - Tokyo
Islands - Dont call me Witney Bobby
Lovetones - Mantra
Mazarin - New American Apathy
The Meligrove Band - Everyone's A Winner
The Mendoza Line - Mysterious in Black
Metric - Monster Hospital
Midlake - Balloon Maker
The Minus 5 - Retrieval Of You
The Morning After Girls - High Skies
The Most Serene Republic - Content Was Always My Favorite Colour
Jim Noir - My Patch
Of Montreal - Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games
OK GO - A million ways
The Owls - Air
Owen - She's a Thief
Page France - Junkyard
Palaxy Tracks - Grey Snake
Ariel Pink - helen
Pink Mountaintops - Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy
Rainer Maria - Burn
Silversun Pickups - Kissing Families
Sound Team - Fastest Man Alive
Tullycraft - Stowaway
The Twilight Singers - Teenage Wristband
Laura Veirs - Galaxies
The Whigs - Violet Furs
zZz - House of Sin