March 12-17, SXSW Music will host 1,300 musical acts in Austin. 10 Dallas-Fort Worth bands on the lineup are poised to take over the fest. The entertainers span from Top 40 rap to psychedelic doom — which is a thing, apparently.
Here’s who you need to know:
Conner Youngblood is the next in the St. Mark’s musician pipeline, with a sound that mixes multiple genres for indie-pop that’s as sonically expansive as it is mellow. His song “Australia” was featured in an Under Armour spot last year as well as an episode of Grey’s Anatomy in November.
Wo Fatcan be found somewhere on the musical road between Jimi Hendrix and Black Sabbath. They describe themselves as a Southern fried, blue-infused version of psychedelic doom. Mosh on.
Dorrough gained national attention with his Southern hip-hop hit “Ice Cream Paint Job” in 2009. You might have forgotten that song, but good luck getting it out of your head if you ever stumble across it. Yeah, buddy. Rolling like a big shot.
Yung Nation is a pair of 20-year-old rappers swathed in the window-rattling bass of Texas’ hip-hop elder statesmen like Lil’ Flip, Slim Thug and Big Tuck.
Jessie Frye, a pop songstress from Denton, is both seductive and unflinchingly raw. She’s a SXSW veteran, having performed there every year since 2009.
The Longshotsare a Fort Worth rock foursome with a loose, ramshackle vibe. Shaggy harmonies and a psychedelic streak come together irresistibly live and on the August 2012 release “At a Time Like This.”
Madras, the Dreamy Fort Worth-born chamber-pop trio, got raves for its highly personal, ethereal debut disc, released in June, called Things Can Change.
The Orbans, a Twangy Fort Worth band, is a relative old-timer, having been on the scene since 2008. The country-tinged rock is easy to like, and they’re finishing up a new record to come out in early '13, which they’ll showcase at the conference.
Quaker City Night Hawks says it best on its website: They play Southern rock right out of '75, played with the fervor of a sermon crackling out of the radio in a '68 Lincoln. The rock quartet has also been featured on the FX series Sons of Anarchy.
Skeleton Coast is an incredibly talented young foursome that’s like Fort Worth’s answer to My Bloody Valentine, issuing big waves of blissful shoe-gazer space-rock sound. Their self-titled opus came out in November 2012.
Conner Youngblood did the whole Yale thing after St. Mark's, but the whole time he's been making music, and people have been listening.
