I can't write this news without thinking of Ben Stiller's pitch-perfect impression of Bruce Springsteen. The (real) Boss will give the South by Southwest keynote speech March 15 at the Austin Convention Center, following in the big ol' legend-sized footsteps of Smokey Robinson and Neil Young. Maybe Bruce will even play a small, intimate club gig. Right? Probably?

​Considering that pre-South by Southwest bash 35 Denton announced its first round of performers last week, I guess it makes sense, then, that the Austin fest would announce its own first round of performers this week -- and that their list is indeed larger than 35 Denton's list of 17 names, clocking in at 105 names.

There are some nice names on the SXSW list, too -- acts like Against Me!, Com Truise, Cloud Nothings, Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, Say Hi, VHS or Beta and The Wedding Present. Interestingly, only two bands are for now slated to play both the Denton and the Austin festivals: Thee Oh Sees and Bare Wires.

Expect that number to go up in the coming weeks. Same, too, with the number of locals on the massive SXSW bill. For now, only two deserving locals -- hip-hop outfit Sore Losers and Denton/Fort Worth punk rock favorites Mind Spiders -- are on the Austin list; recent history has found North Texas averaging around 40 bands at SXSW each year.

In that regard, yes, this is just the first of many, many, many SXSW lineup announcements to come. So stay tuned. But, for now, check out the list of already confirmed acts heading down to Austin in March 2012 after the jump.

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All photos by Alexander Flores

For more photos from Flatstock 29, check out Alex's two-part slideshow here and here.

​Greetings citizens: I don't usually do this, but at the request of our intrepid music editor, I'm compelled to give an account of my virginal visit to the phenomenon that is known as Flatstock.

For those not as obsessed with design and poster printing as I am, Flatstock is a rock poster convention created by the American Poster Institute and it's been operating at different festivals all over the nation since 2002. The American Poster Institute is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and preserving the art form of rock posters, and was formed to protect the spirit of the music and cultural landscape portrayed in the work of gig poster artists, just as the iconic rock posters promoting shows out of venues like the Fillmore West did in the 1960s. Showcasing its artist members, API and Flatstock has been something of a sleeping giant for nearly a decade now, serving as a secret Mecca for lovers of music in the graphic form, designers who love music, and followers of a craft that is slowly gaining momentum with more mainstream audiences.

As a designer and closet collector of gig posters myself, it was long overdue for me to attend a Flatstock exhibition and get the face-to-face experience with the artists themselves.

This week, I got my chance. Flatstock 29 took place at South by Southwest, running between March 16 and 19, opening Wednesday evening and concluding Sunday evening of that weekend. Appropriately smack dab in the middle of the music portion of the festival, and located within the air-conditioned walls of the Austin Convention Center, more than 80 artists from all over the country and world (showcasing artists hailed from everyone from Brooklyn to London to Germany to Portland) were present, with tons of combined stock to display and sell to the wandering public.

In other words: I've been to heaven, and it is screen-printed.

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Who knew J. Mascis was an Edie fan?

​So here we were, sitting around DC9 HQ, talking about music as we tend to do, and, specifically, about our highlights from SXSW weekend. And, somewhere between my loving ramblings about Odd Future, Noah W. Bailey mentioned that, in his quick Austin sojourn, he'd caught an acoustic set from iconic Dinosaur Jr. axe-slinger J Mascis and loved it.

I, one-upper that I am, pointed out that I'd seen the same thing last year, and that I too found it pretty damn impressive.

Then Bailey trumped me. See, he didn't just see Mascis perform. He saw Mascis perform a cover of an Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians song. "Circle of Friends," to be specific. Lucky bastard.

I searched high and low to find a clip of the performance. The best I could find was this performance, which is just a pretty crappy video and wasn't even the SXSW performance Bailey caught, oh well. I did, however, also find a clip of Mascis performing the same song just a few days before SXSW, during an in-store at Newbury Comics, the incredible record store chain based in and around Boston, where I pretty much purchased every single album I bought as a teenager.

Anyway, the performance is pretty great. Moving stuff for sure. I've posted it for your viewing pleasure after the jump. Watch it. Five minutes ago.

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Seryn

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Marco Torres, Houston Press

Ladies Love Cool James

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To infinity... and beyond!

​Gossip, gossip -- if you've been following our daily power rankings of buzz at SXSW 2011 over the past few days, then you know that, yes, indeed, Kanye West has had it all week long at this year's annual festival in Austin.

And, after briefly losing the top slot in our rankings on Friday to up-and-coming rap collective Odd Future, Saturday saw the sometimes-controversial, and always interesting, rap superstar regain the top slot, thanks in large part to his much-anticipated Vevo-sponsored showcased at the power plant on Saturday night, where he was joined by the likes of Jay-Z, Kid Cudi, Mos Def, John Legend and others on stage.

But that, even, was just a microcosm of how things went at this year's festival: Hip-hop very much reigned supreme at this year's festival -- an indication, maybe, that hip-hop has completed its transition into full-on pop. After all, Kanye and Odd Future were hardly alone in their slots as the most talked-about artists at this year's fest. Aside from earlier performances in the week from the likes of Wu-Tang Clan, Erykah Badu, Yelawolf and others, Saturday night saw surprise appearances from hip-hop legends LL Cool J, Snoop Dogg and Warren G, and, in a surprise turn, even Diddy.

On that note, we must warn, our final buzz power rankings for SXSW 2011 are quite hip-hop heavy. Hit the jump to see the top 30 buzz power rankings in full.

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Pete Freedman

LL Cool J is hard as hell.

​Well, we made it through another SXSW alive -- and not without seeing some of the best performances we'd seen all weekend on Saturday night.

So, on that note, after the jump, we once more hit the ol' 140-character show review model we've been trusting all week to evaluate what we saw. Join us, yeah?
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Nick Rallo

Ah, remember 35 Conferette? Good times, good times.

​The final day--and night as Rocks Off discovered--of SXSW was a long one.

After perusing an absolutely epic line for Rachel Ray's Feedback Party at Stubb's (yeah, you read that right), we ventured over to Peckerheads to meet Dallas-friends Gorilla Groove.

While the lineup there doesn't really rank high on the ol' power rankings scale, there was some serious rock howl going on from Los Angeles' Sabrosa Purr. Pretty good way to start a long day that led us from 35 Conferette nostalgia to Owen Pallett covering Mariah Carey at the Stereogum party late Saturday night.

After the jump, check out our final Best Of's from Saturday's day parties at SXSW.

Oh, also, we're going to sleep now.

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Swag!

​Well, mercifully, the last night of SXSW 2011 is finally upon us. And, on this final day, in which luminaries such as Kanye West, Perez Hilton and Rachel Ray are finally letting their presence be known, we finally have a new act sitting atop our buzz power rankings.

That's right: Later Kanye; hello Odd Future.

Both acts have shows tonight -- and the star power still probably means that Kanye's show will outdraw Odd Future's. But so what? Duran Duran drew a shit ton of people to Stubb's the other night. Meaning? People are idiots.

This year's SXSW has straight-up belongs to a couple of kids from LA not even old enough to drink yet. Or so it has thus far. At some point tomorrow, we'll be back with our final rankings. But, for now, hit the jump to see the latest list of SXSW 2011 movers and shakers, as determined by on-street chitter-chatter.
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