Dear Scotland

Four weeks tomorrow the music world will descend on Austin, Texas for one of the largest and most influential festivals of the year. South by Southwest, also known as SXSW, (or “South By” if you want to be annoying) will feature 16 15 14 Scottish bands in 2010. And Dear Scotland will be there too:

SXSW is more like the Cannes Film Festival or Sundance rather than your traditional summer festival in a field. Though a lot of music fans now make the trip to Austin, the event successfully attracts music industry types from all over the World, which means that if a band gets to play in front of the right people then their career can really accelerate.

In recent years, Franz Ferdinand, Glasvegas, Frightened Rabbit, Camera Obscura and the Twilight Sad have all benefited from the concentrated exposure that SXSW offers.

This year, the festival will take place from Wednesday March 17th through Saturday March 20th and right now, the Scottish bands and their representatives will be sorting out visas and trying to find extra gigs to play during the week, because as well as one official SXSW “showcase” gig, the bands are free to play as many day parties, in-stores, sessions and late night parties as they physically can outwith the festival hours of 8pm-2am. Oh and by the way -- these parties usually have free beer and food at them. And most of the time it’s about 75 degrees.

Anyway, those extra shows are often the best way to see bands and over the next few weeks, Dear Scotland will provide a full listing of all the parties and events involving the Scottish artists. Regular readers of Dear Scotland will be familiar with most of the bands but we’ll have 15 articles over the next 4 weeks, one for each band, listing all their SXSW appearances, as and when they are confirmed.

And if you can’t make it to Austin, then Dear Scotland will be there to bring you the best live performances, interviews and more from the Scottish acts.

The 16 15 14 Scottish Bands and Artists who have now been confirmed for this year’s festival are as follows:

Broken Records -- Full SXSW show schedule

Codeine Velvet Club -Full SXSW show schedule

Colin MacIntyre aka Mull Historical Society -- Full SXSW show schedule

Django Django -- Vic Galloway on Django Django (see comment)

Fangs -  Full SXSW show schedule

Frightened Rabbit- Full SXSW show schedule

Hudson Mohwake -- Full SXSW show schedule

Kid Adrift -- One of Vic’s tips for 2010 (see comment)

St Deluxe -- Full SXSW show schedule

The Law -- Full SXSW show schedule

Tommy Reilly -- Full SXSW show schedule

Trembling Bells -- Full SXSW show schedule

Twin Atlantic -- Full SXSW show schedule

Unicorn Kid -- Full SXSW show schedule

We Were Promised Jetpacks -- Full SXSW show schedule

Young Fathers -- Full SXSW show schedule

A full listing of all the SXSW related gigs will appear on the Scotland On Tour page as always.

…

Two major gigs have already been announced featuring Scottish bands.

There will be an official Scottish showcase night at The Parish on Wednesday 17 March. The line up is:

08:00 -- 08:40 Tommy Reilly
09:00 -- 09:40 Unicorn Kid
10:00 -- 10:40 Codeine Velvet Club
11:00 -- 11:40 We Were Promised Jetpacks
12:00 -- 12:40 Frightened Rabbit
01:00 -- 01:40 Hudson Mohawke

Then on Friday afternoon, there will be a day party at Latitude 30, (also known as the British Music Embassy during SXSW) on Friday 19 March from 2pm to 5pm. The line-up for that event, with times to be confirmed is:

The Law
Fangs
Young Fathers
Twin Atlantic
Broken Records

More info on the involvement of the Scottish Arts Council, PCL Presents and DF Concerts can be found here.

Official SXSW website at http://sxsw.com/

We Were Promised Jetpacks -- It’s Thunder and It’s Lightning, New York & SXSW, March 2009

Photo Credit: Austin Motel