Last night when I got back to our hotel room, I walked in on the end of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. As I plunked down on the bed to start uploading photos, he introduced Vampire Weekend to play a new song. “White Sky” has been kicking around for over a year now — my [...]

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Early on in his set, Yoni Wolf informed the crowd that he wasn’t planning any solo career separate from Why. A few of his bandmates couldn’t make it, so he just decided to play solo and still support Force Field/Terrorbird. For not having a backing band, he still put on a great show. There were [...]

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If the indie rock world was more like the celebrity gossip circuit, then all the headlines from SXSW would be proclaiming in big bold type that this is the year that the Thermals make their come back. Come back from what? Well, that’s not the important part. After a fairly long period of silence and [...]

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Is this the hipsteriest video on the internet? No, but only because these girls seem to be pretty adorable and non-pretentious. Proving yet again that the only thing an iPhone can’t do is access my email in Austin during SXSW (not that I’m bitter), the Mentalists performed a version of MGMT’s “Kids” using only apps [...]

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My SXSW 2009 got off to a comfortably slow start. Rather than just jumping straight from the plane, to unloading at the hotel to a party, this year I was able to slowly shift gears from travel to festival over the course of about 14 hours. It might not seem like much to you, but [...]

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My good buddy Brad picked me up from the airport today in Austin and was kind enough to drop me off at my hotel. On the way there (while picking up some Sonic) he played a CD of some great new stuff. One band that caught my ear was Pigeon Detectives. MP3: Pigeon Detectives – [...]

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No, I’m not going to look like anyone in this photo. This is just the best representation I could find that I took of a band/crowd interaction at last year’s SXSW. If you’re reading this, I’m on a plane to Austin. Actually, no I’m not. I’m on a plane to Detroit, which is apparently the [...]

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For anyone who is holding out on listening to the leak of Grizzly Bear’s fantastic new record Veckatimest… you’re a stronger person than I am. After hearing those bootleg recordings of new songs, all I wanted was to hear them done in a studio, layered with multiple instruments and vocal tracks. And when I finally [...]

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MP3: These United States – Honor Amongst Thieves Adopted Lexingtonians (but mostly DC-ians) These United States have achieved every upper-small-sized band’s dream: purchasing a used van made within the past 15 years with no discernible mechanical problems or strange smells. But like so many before them, they can’t be driving around in a nameless vehicle. [...]

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