But there were also new twists on past styles. Maps & Atlases, from Chicago, packed the intricacies of progressive rock into much shorter attention spans. Black Moth Super Rainbow, from Pittsburgh, played pulsating, mesmerizing songs on vintage keyboards, with vocals filtered electronically through a vocoder, while animated videos unfurled in neo-psychedelic splendor overhead. Luminous Orange, from Yokohama, Japan, swerved between sunny pop melodies and unlikely but invigorating shifts of key and tempo. Illinois, a band from Pennsylvania, flaunted a banjo in rowdy songs that mingled Merseybeat rock, skiffle and punky absurdism.
This year SXSW had a stronger hip-hop presence, recognizing both the new prominence of Texas hip-hop — there was a packed 1am set by Devin the Dude, from Houston, a few days before the release of his new album — and hip-hop's long success as a street-level, do-it-yourself phenomenon. Public Enemy, which revolutionized hip-hop in the 1980s and 1990s, played one of the festival's free amphitheater shows, leading an audience of thousands in chants against US President George Bush.
In a music business that can no longer center itself on sales of hit CDs, even for the lucky few that have them, SXSW has thrived as musicians piece together careers in other ways: from touring, from selling their own music online, from licensing their songs to movies or advertisers. If the festival has an overall message, it's that musicians need to build their own support systems and hustle for themselves. For most musicians, performing rather than recording will be the bulk of a career, and with six sets a night in more than 60 clubs — along with countless affiliated and unaffiliated daytime and late-night shows — SXSW prizes live performances above all.
And is also a festival that celebrates perseverance as much as trendiness. At the Convention Center longtime musicians — Pete Townshend of the Who, Emmylou Harris, the Memphis soul mainstay Booker T. Jones, the Brazilian songwriter and minister of culture Gilberto Gil — spoke about careers, memories, ideas and inspiration. (Then Townshend went out and jammed as a surprise guest in the clubs.)
There were reunions of the Stooges, the Buzzcocks, the Saints and Booker T. and the M.G.'s. Mary Weiss, the lead singer of the Shangri-La's, was promoting a new album, and Stax Records celebrated its 50th anniversary with appearances by Isaac Hayes and William Bell. There was also a set by Jandek, the pseudonymous Texas who has released 49 albums on his own label since 1978 and didn't perform in public until 2004 — perhaps the most independent musician in a festival devoted to self-sufficiency.
Stern had another song that summed up South by Southwest's lessons: "Keep on!" she sang as her guitar lines ricocheted everywhere. "Keep at it!"
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