10 Acts I’m Excited About for SXSW 2018

I’ve put this off to the last minute, as I plan my yearly trip to Austin. Every year, I try to find my new favorite band at SXSW, and many years, I’m successful. In the past I’ve found acts like Temples, The Milk Carton Kids, Band of Skulls, LostAlone, Young Dreams, and Carney at SXSW. Sometimes the bands I discover become a lot bigger, and many times they don’t. But either way, they get a super-fan in me and I get to make great memories listening to music.

This year, I admit I haven’t done enough homework to know all the acts playing. I also don’t have a badge, which leads me to stay put at a lot of the places I plan to go to see shows this year. But I have managed to find 11 acts I would highly recommend to Space City Rock readers:

11. Dearly Beloved
I’ve seen these Canadians at SXSW before and they delivered the ROCK. The bassist is a beast. I just saw their names of the list of a showcase I was already planning to attend and instantly knew I was going to be at the “Desert Daze” party Wednesday night.

10. Jaguwar
Dresden, Germany’s Jaguwar (yes, my autocorrect changes it every time) walks the thin line between shoegaze and emo rock. I’m loving listening to them on the playlist I made, but looking at the actual schedule, it’s pretty unlikely I’ll actually get to see them. I’ll keep rocking out to this anyway!

9. Sunflower Bean
This will be my third time seeing Sunflower Bean at SXSW. In the past this young band took us all back to Britain in the early ’90s. It’s funny living to see kids steal from my favorite my favorite bands in college like Lush, Ride, and My Bloody Valentine. However, their new single takes a poppy turn and sounds like it was influenced by Aimee Mann, Chrissie Hynde’s lighter material, and various other attractive pop stars.

8. The Money War
“Well, there’s a slim chance I can catch them if the stars align and I get out and about early enough Thursday afternoon.” I have said this about one band or another every year… Listening to The Money War‘s latest singles, “Hold On” and “The Right Kind Of Love,” I should make sure and get rolling early Thursday, as they give me flashes of Fountains of Wayne, Midlake, and years past SXSW favorites The Lonely Wild.

7. Smokey Brights
Seattle’s Smokey Brights have been around awhile, and I’d imagine I’ve seen the name listed on flyers at SXSW, but they finally entered my musical consciousness with their “spy-rock” song “In Demand”. I’m going to aim to see them at their official showcase Thursday night, but in all honesty I might not leave Hotel Vegas‘s Levitation Party once I get there…

6. Michael Rault
I was so happy to see Daptone Records was branching out into “vintage retro-rock” with a new act that I had to give it a listen. Just like their retro-soul efforts, Michael Rault hits all the right buttons of late ’60s and early ’70s influences like The Hollies, Badfinger, CSNY, and The Zombies. I definitely need to find the time to see him at SXSW.

5. Elephant Stone
Speaking of the Levitation Party, the next two bands will be playing it, along with about 20 others. Elephant Stone follows in the line of classic rock/Beatlesque influences (sensing a trend of what I’m into…), they’re from Montreal (like another band coming up), and they’ve been on my list to see before, and it didn’t happen — as anyone who goes to SXSW misses a hundred times as much as they got to experience. Looks like this is the year!

4. Shame
There’s a classic brit-band feel to Shame that instantly attracts me, despite the fact that the music isn’t all that original-sounding (I hear traces of The Church, Jesus and Mary Chain, and U2, right off the bat). But hey, I’m a sucker for this kind of band and know there’s no guarantee they’ll make it big, and this may be my only chance to see them. Or they may hit it huge, and I can say I saw them back in the day.

3. Tennis System
Los Angeles has been a surprising fountain of amazing bands for me over the last decade of attending SXSW. This year’s LA band to see, for me, is Tennis System. They crank up the shoegaze rock to a level that it might actually get the attention of KROQ. As a side note, when I visited Los Angeles in February, KROQ was horrible. They’re actually still playing the music they played when I was in college in Los Angeles. Not kidding — in an hour I heard Rage Against the Machine and Nirvana and thought to myself, “they are now the machine they so raged against.” So, it’s totally a side note, and I don’t live in LA, but society needs KROQ to play new songs, not the same old stuff… Anyway, check out Tennis System.

2. Bee Caves
Three years ago, Austin’s Bee Caves was my band to follow around both Denton and SXSW, as I did both festivals in the same week. Later that year, I got them a gig in Houston and then have not had much of a chance to see them. They’ve been holed up in an Austin studio with “Good Danny” Reisch on and off for a couple of years now. I believe their album will see the light of day soon! This year it appears I’ll only get one chance to see them, at Good Danny’s party, which is where I’ll be starting off my mini-vacation. Check them out if you like gorgeous Americana-meets-Spaghetti Western-meets-Radiohead.

1. Look Vibrant
I got my first chance to check out this year’s number one act to see, Montreal’s Look Vibrant, this past Sunday night at Super Happy Fun Land. It was a sparsely attended affair, but there were actually a few more people than I thought would be at SHFL on a Sunday. Look Vibrant delivered the rock with a side of “this-is-out-there” — it’s hard to describe them, so I’m just going to say “give them a listen and decide for yourself.” There is an originality/weird factor in Look Vibrant, but they’re still melodic enough that you want to hear their songs again and again (kind of like XTC, Shudder To Think, or St. Vincent).

Other acts I’d love to see if there were 3 of me:

Gaz Coombes
Mogli
Chloe Foy
Girl Ray
Pearl Charles
The Strypes (a favorite of years gone by)
Ume
Oak House
Bat Fangs
Cotton Mather (Austin ’90s legendary band)
Erika Wennerstrom (playing Good Danny’s so I’ll likely see her)
Flyte
Kaela Sinclair
Pale Waves
 

See you out there! END