When I checked out The Black Lips at Stubb’s during SXSW 2009 I thought to myself, never have I seen a band that so benefited from the swampy miasma of vocal effects layered over their mix. It was noteworthy, the amount of distorted echoes and reverbs mixing like a stew around their frenetic performance.

Black Lips will be playing at the Great American Music Hall on Thursday, April 30th, 2009 with Flowers Forever and Bridez. From GAMH:

The Black Lips are kings of the psychedelic garage rock underground. They started the band when they were 15 years old and spent the next seven years touring the world, booking themselves, playing for scraps. Underground parties, basement shows, outlaw festivals, the odd tour opening for Yeah Yeah Yeah’s and Be Your Own Pet, plus three classic albums, countless 7″s, a couple DVDs, and their own seminal garage rock label Die Slaughterhaus cemented their reputation. They’re now 22 years old, grizzled veterans of the underground, and legends in the scene.

Cool Kids, who you can check out above live at The Red Bull House in Ausin during SXSW, are set to release their debut EP on Chocolate Industries later this month:

Chicago-based hip-hop duo The Cool Kids are set to release their debut EP on Chocolate Industries on May 20th exclusively on iTunes, and June 10th on CD and other digital outlets. Heralded by Rolling Stone and many others as an artist to watch in 2008, The Cool Kids have recently toured Europe and Australia as well as selling out shows nationwide. This spring and summer finds them doing spot dates in America, hitting Europe again June 14-July 14, rocking Lollapalooza and appearing on many of the dates on the Rock the Bells tour.

The band will also be on tour this summer in the US and Europe, dates after the jump, as per custom

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Curious about the lineup for the Austin City Limits Music Festival 2008? Well here’s your chance to find out. Listen to the ACL Lineup-Mashup from Car Stereo (Wars) and see how many artists you can decipher. The mashed-up song features 29 of the130 total artists on the 2008 bill. How many can you name???

Click here to listen to the ACL Lineup-Mashup 2008

So while I was pretty happy with one of last Monday’s blogs (‘Tis The Season. My Top 10 favorite Jesus Jokes. Happy Easter Monday), in that it was pretty offensive AND timely, I totally missed out on repping my boy Brad Neely (and by “my boy,” I don’t mean to imply that we’re actually friends with one another. I’m just friends with his work).

Brad’s done some cool things (including recording his own audio track to the first Harry Potter movie, and touring arthouse theatres with it), and while his awesome single-cell animations on Creasedcomics.com should be referenced weekly, if not daily, his true genius shines through in the animated world on Superdelux.com.
Here’s what i should have led with last Easter Monday: The story of JESUS (aka, “Jesus F**king Christ”)

I remember my first South by Southwest experience pretty well, considering the whole kid in a candy store / free music, free booze thing that happens in Austin TX every March. But the one thing I remember most was how much my feet hurt after the second day, and how happy I was when I visited the Riot Act Media party and found out that they were giving away free shoes. Saucony Jazz sneakers. I had brought nice-looking, but ill-fitting kicks with me, and once slipping into a pair of comfy shoes I was good to go for the rest of the week. It was like walking on the wings of sponge-angels. I podcasted something to that effect on the Synthesis radio site. In fact, since 2006, I’ve bought nothing but Sauconies (How’s that for good marketing, yo? You’re welcome for the free plug, thanks for the free shoes). Having saved my feet in 2006, David Lewis will forever be a saint to me.

This year, however, I failed to make it to a party featuring free shoes, and right now my brown Saucony Jazz sneakers, going on 6 months old, are in flattened shambles. It’s true, as outlined in my astute friend’s blog, musicismyboyfriend, there’s pretty much nowhere to sit at SXSW for more than a minute. You’re on the go from venue to venue to venue the entire time because, honestly, there’s just too much to see and so little time to see it. Sure, there are rickshaws (known in these parts as pedicabs), and I did use one after Chiodos‘ set on Friday night since La Zona Rosa is kind of a long walk from the main drag on 6th street. Otherwise I was on foot, and as of Sunday I’ve been developing the gnarliest athletes’ foot you’ve ever seen. If it gets any more personality I may have to give it a name. Updates as they come. In the meantime, Check out Video Matt being a drunk ass on a rickshaw. Hilarity! Snoochy Boochies!

I kept hearing about them during the first two days of SXSW - Cool Kids this… Cool Kids that - it really seemed like they were the buzz artist to see at this year’s SXSW. Once they went onstage at Emo’s I instantly knew why. Overall it was just an incredible lineup between Kid Sister, A-Trak & Clipse (photo’s from The Clipse portion of the show are here) taking over Emo’s main room and the Cool Kids fit right in and without question played an amazing set that the crowd was completely feeling. Cool Kids also played the Red Bull Moontower - video footage from that will be up pretty quick…