SXSW Music 2016: The artists, speakers and breakout performances – The Verge

Talking to singer-songwriter Julien Baker about art, pain, and Dashboard Confessional

2016-03-23T11:30:44-04:00

How do you quiet a crowd packing one of the many venues on Austin's raucous 6th Street? You give Julien Baker a guitar and a loop pedal, and you let her go to work. While I watched Baker's inspired set last Thursday night in a standing-room-only bar, I found myself picking out all of the sounds I shouldn't have been able to hear: the ice and liquor the bartenders were shaking a few dozen feet away, the whirr of the building's ventilation, the odd ping of somebody's smartphone. The room was otherwise silent, giving up every inch of space to Baker's clean guitar melodies and her incandescent voice. She'd played at a church the night before, he …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Faces of 6th Street: a series of SXSW portraits

2016-03-22T14:39:46-04:00

If SXSW has a heart, it's somewhere on 6th Street. The historic Austin avenue becomes a 24/7 pedestrian playground during the festival's second half, one stuffed to bursting with street musicians, enterprising vendors, and curious civilians. There's a band inside every bar lining either side of the street, and their performances bleed together as you shuffle down the street like you're breathing musical smog. It's a chaotic, weird scene, one that feels distinct from the quieter parts of the city studded with showcases or the sterile bubble around the convention center to the south.

We spent a few hours among the 6th Street crowds on Saturda …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Wall-to-wall carpeting and the glory of God: the weird side of hip-hop at SXSW

2016-03-22T12:49:06-04:00

On Thursday night at SXSW, Taiwanese rapper Dwagie performed "Refuse to Listen" to a few dozen people in a mostly empty room. It's probably Dwagie's most well-known song, despite the fact that only a handful of people seemed to recognize it, because it features a verse from Nas. When Dwagie hit the point in the song where Nas appears, he paused and let a backing track take over - the irony being that the New York rapper was in Austin that night, too. Later that night, Nas himself performed just a few blocks away, to a crowd that was there to see him, unlike Dwagie's audience, many of whom seemed to stumble in from 6th Street just for the air …

Read the full story at The Verge.

I want it all: a conversation with Dawn Richard

2016-03-22T12:32:34-04:00

If SXSW has become the age of Too Much Content manifested as a physical environment, you certainly don't go in looking for a single narrative and takeaways. This year's film program failed to produce one massive takeaway success story; one could hardly expect the music half of the festival -€" which features over 2,200 artists -€" to do what it couldn't. And yet, all last week, in food truck lines, the corral outside Fader, on smoky patios, I kept overhearing people talking about Dawn Richard.Part of this may have been just a question of exposure: Richard, who now goes by D∆WN, was playing a formidable amount of sets last week, from tiny bar …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Juiceboxxx, a rapper, made me care about guitar music again

2016-03-19T17:30:03-04:00

Everyone eventually hits a point at which they stop caring about something they once loved. I don't mean in a romantic sense, I mean in a practical sense: the well-worn sweater that doesn't fit right anymore, the once-comforting movie you've gotten sick of watching. For me, that thing was rock music, or guitar music, or bands, in general. It sounds insane to say I've lost interest in bands, but in the past five years or so, the feeling of joy and adrenaline that used to bubble up during live shows has mostly faded to boredom. But last night, after watching Milwaukee musician Juiceboxxx scream and writhe through 13 minutes of grimy punk-rap ( …

Read the full story at The Verge.

I danced myself clean at Ninja Tune’s SXSW showcase

2016-03-19T17:00:03-04:00

After spending the bulk of my week at SXSW Music watching panels, conducting interviews, and speed-walking from event to event, I crawled into Friday night hoping to embed myself in a series of performances without a looming distraction. I've been surrounded by music here in Austin, but it's remarkable how little time I've actually spent listening to it. I know enough to understand that's par for the course despite everyone's best intentions, but I still had my fingers crossed. Would I stumble into a transcendent experience or end up in bed before midnight, laid low by decision paralysis and listening to old podcasts?

Reader, I'm happy to r …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Atlanta rapper Rome Fortune is just like you, only more famous

2016-03-19T12:00:02-04:00

When you take photos of Rome Fortune on a busy street in Austin during SXSW, people are going to look at you. Or, more accurately, they're going to look at him. The the 27-year-old Atlanta rapper, born Jerome Fortune, is over six feet tall, wearing a floppy hat, an aquamarine beard, and no shirt save for a denim jacket. He's also wearing jeans, and his denim-on-denim look is done so well, one can't help but worry the average passerby will convince himself he too can pull off a Canadian tuxedo.

Fortune is that rare kind of rising star that makes it all - the music, the look - seem effortless. Later that night, at an unannounced Fool's Gold Re …

Read the full story at The Verge.

What it’s like to be a band on the SXSW grind, as told by Whitney

2016-03-18T17:21:09-04:00

When I caught Whitney's performance Wednesday afternoon here in Austin, it was under the worst possible conditions. A crammed schedule and a chance at a can't-miss interview meant the band was rushing from gig to gig, and they didn't make it to the venue until after their scheduled set time. That meant sacrificing their sound check and settling for a truncated performance, one that began with only half of the band's six touring members ready to play.

It sounds like a stereotypical SXSW nightmare, I admit: rookie buzz band stretches themselves too thin! But Julien Ehrlich and Max Kakacek are by no means at their first rodeo, even if Whitney …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Verge ESP: Why does music make you lose control?

2016-03-18T16:01:37-04:00

You'll never believe it, but Emily is still at SXSW in Austin, where the events have shifted from the film festival and interactive conference to the sprawling, inconcievably huge music festival. And what better time to talk about the effect music has on our brains? We've all been in the car or at a show when a song comes on that provokes a seemingly involuntary physical reaction, whether it's goosebumps or a bout of extreme headbanging. Neuroscientist Valorie Salimpoor has been doing research on that very phenomenon, and Liz talks to her about the mysteries of chills, memory, and Tïësto.

But first! Did the success of 2013 documentary Black …

Read the full story at The Verge.

This is your next jam: our special SXSW selections

2016-03-18T14:00:27-04:00

Welcome back to The Verge's weekly musical roundup. I'm Jamieson, I'm still your host, and I'm bringing this week's special group of jams to you from beneath a pile of breakfast tacos and discarded brisket bits in Austin, Texas. Our music team has spent the bulk of the week here attending panels and watching late-night showcases as part of this year's SXSW festivities, and we're going to keep at it through the weekend until we have to scrape our exhausted husks out of the Lone Star State.

In that spirit, we've collected 10 recent tracks from the artists we've been most excited to see this week. (They're being delivered without blurbs, a tem …

Read the full story at The Verge.