You can now feast your eyes on the initial lineup of showcasing musicians for SXSW, thanks to the latest in a slew of releases teasing the 2015 festival programming.
SXSW notes, "this is just a small sample of the wide array of artists and conference panels" slated for the 29th annual edition of SXSW Music, but with it comes big names, both local and international.
A host of Austin bands made the cut — festival stalwarts like Ben Kweller, East Cameron Folkcore, Jess Williamson, Emily Wolfe and Ume will showcase this year — as did an impressive set of artists from around the globe. Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett, former Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland, and Chicago's Twin Peaks are included in the eclectic lineup.
In addition to announcing more than 100 bands, SXSW also announced the first round of conference panels on Wednesday. Highlighted sessions include a SXSW interview with Sydney, Australia's The Church, who will also perform during the fest.
SXSW Music 2015 runs March 17-22, 2015. For the full list of first-round showcasing artists and panel programming, visit the SXSW website.
As winners of the Tiny Desk Contest, Cure for Paranoia will record their own Tiny Desk concert and go on tour.
Few, if any live recording studios or musical web series have the cultural sway of NPR's Tiny Desk, and a Dallas band is poised to make an impactful debut. Cure For Paranoia, an alternative hip-hop project by rapper Cameron McCloud and producers Tomahawk Jonez and Jay Analo, has won the high-stakes annual Tiny Desk Contest for 2026. They'll record their official Tiny Desk show "soon," the announcement by NPR says.
Winning the concert also means Cure for Paranoia is going on tour. The only Texas stop will be at Emo's Austin on June 24.
Tiny Desk is known for platforming both niche and majorly successful artists — NPR posted a new Foo Fighters set on YouTube today, May 13 — for stripped-down sets that are literally played behind the desk of former All Things Considered director Bob Boilen. (Fun fact for Austinites: Tiny Desk was created because folk artist Laura Gibson was disappointed with the sound at her South by Southwest show in 2008, and she wanted a redo.)
Most artists who appear on Tiny Desk more than 15 years later are already well-known, at least in their specific circles. But the Tiny Desk Contest, which launched in 2015, helps a growing group of newer, unsigned artists get their foot in the door. Contestants record one video of them performing a single song behind a desk, and a jury of radio staff and musicians choose their favorite.
In their audition video, Cure for Paranoia gathered 11 musicians around a truly tiny desk in front of Dallas' gigantic eyeball statue. They played the song "No Brainer," a frenetic track that starts with clever boasts and turns of phrase about mental illness and identity, then becomes a criticism of racism in the United States.
McCloud, a pre-school teacher, is known independently of Cure for Paranoia for rapping to his social media following about politics and current events. Some of those lyrics made it into "No Brainer." He says he started the group because he found that music was more helpful than medication for coping with bipolar depression and paranoid schizophrenia.
Alex Marrero, host of the Austin-based KUTX show Horizontes, was one of the judges this year. He was impressed with the visuals in Cure for Paranoia's audition.
“When this popped up, I immediately felt something different," he wrote in a blurb for the announcement. "It just jumped out. The visuals were super cool and creative, BUT I could still totally envision them bringing the heat behind the Desk.”
Madison McFerrin, jazz vocalist and daughter of the famous singer Bobby McFerrin, was one of the musical judges.
"Cure For Paranoia’s energy is infectious, fresh and distinctly theirs — exactly what you want in a Contest winner!" she wrote.
McCloud's post on Instagram announcing the group's win has only been up for three hours at the time of this article's publication, and it already has more than 8,000 likes. The YouTube audition has garnered 74,000 views.
