Every March I chase my youth and the music and descend to Austin, Texas for SXSW. This year was no exception as I rubbed headbands, skinny jeans and elbows with some 18,000 hipsters. I first got to town and had to hit up craigslist to get some wristbands. With a shady meet-up behind a dumpster and some krazy glue from CVS, “Voilà!” I had a wristband and 400 bucks left over to go buy beer.

Let me just say that Austin is weird. It says so all over town and they are damn proud of it. And when you people watch, you can see the Tragically Hip, White Rappers, Indie Lovers and Ironic-Busted-Tshirt-Wearers come together for one wonderful cause: finding new music. With almost 2,000 bands within a ten block radius I was like Paula Abdul in a Mexican pharmacy.

Every year since 2002 there are fewer and fewer balding music reps with ponytails. Emerging bands are not out  to impress those old label guys, they’re out to impress the bloggers/fans that can actually give them exposure. And it’s nice to know that no matter what chaos is happening  in the music business, nothing will ever replace the craving music lovers have to see it all live. So with a Shiner Bock in one hand and a glued-on wristband in the other, I threw the horns up and sucked in my gut.

Here are some bands to check out, in no particular order. I tried to categorize them into things like “power pop” and “They kind of sound like Rush mixed with Cheap Trick  if they were in Narnia with a pan flute,” but I felt like I was getting out of control. Just listen.

• Twin Tigers (from Athens, GA)
• White Denim (trio from Austin, TX)
• Deastro (from Detroit, MI)
• Shiny Toy Guns (from Los Angeles, CA)
• Televandals (from Boston, MA)
• We Were Promised Jetpacks (from Glasgow)
• Glasvegas (from Glasgow)
• School of Seven Bells (from Brooklyn, NY)
• Maluca Mala (from Brooklyn, NY)
• Blackgold (from Brooklyn, NY

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Tags: jason harris, sxsw