Radio and South by Southwest

South by Southwest just drew to a close in Austin after over a week of panels, films, and music (apparently 1900 music acts!). I feel a bit remiss in not writing about this year's epic indie (and not so indie) music fest, so I'll share a few college radio-related tidbits.

As was the case last year, a number of college, community and non-commercial radio stations set up camp in Austin this week to capture performances, chat with musicians, and blog about the insane amount of music taking place. It's actually quite overwhelming just sifting through the coverage of SXSW online. There's so much out there that I kind of wonder how much of it the average person is interested in consuming online.

KVRX, the student radio station from University of Texas, presented a number of showcases during SXSW.

Radio K, the AM/FM station from University of Minnesota (recently profiled on the CMJ Staff Blog) sent a team down to Austin and broadcast live performances out of a studio there on March 18-20. You can see their coverage on their blog.

KJHK (University of Kansas) sent a few of their DJs down to SXSW to soak in the festival and blog about it. They also covered it all on one of their DJ's Twitter pages, as did many of the other stations in attendance.

WFMU once again trekked to Austin and organized a showcase along with San Francisco indie record store Aquarius on March 20th. The show was also broadcast live on WFMU. A review on Pop Matters captures the essence of the show.

KEXP, the Seattle station affiliated with Experience Music Project and University of Washington, also set up shop in Austin, broadcasting performances from a studio there March 18th to 20th. They aired video streams of the live performances and also featured interviews and KEXP DJs spinning music between bands. You can see their extensive blog coverage of SXSW on their website, where you can catch show reviews and a lot of great photography. They were also one of the many stations helping co-present NPR's "Music for the Right Brain Show."

KCRW, the public radio station from Santa Monica College broadcast their "Morning Becomes Eclectic" show live from Austin on March 19 and 20th. They also sponsored a music showcase on March 18th featuring School of Seven Bells, Port O'Brien and others. You can learn more about their SXSW schedule, see videos and view photos here.

NPR sponsored a show called "Music for the Right Brain," featuring a number of bands. On the NPR website you can actually listen to entire performances from this year's SXSW (as well as stuff from 2007 and 2008), including The Decemberists, Dirty Projectors, and the Avett Brothers. They also have blog posts, podcasts, and videos that cover the festivities. Last year it was pretty easy to figure out which NPR stations were broadcasting bits from SXSW, but in 2009 I have yet to find details about that.

KUT, Austin's public radio station from University of Texas also did a lot for SXSW this year. Lucky for them, the are IN Austin, so they were able to have musicians come by their radio station for performances and interviews. They hosted their own showcase at Momo's (and streamed it live) and it looks like they streamed a bunch of really cool live club performances from The Mohawk too (including AIDS Wolf, Akron/Family, Hold Steady, Vivian Girls, Camera Obscura, The Mae Shi, HEALTH and Monotonix). Their website actually features multiple streaming channels...kind of a cool way for them to feature different content for different listeners (including one channel for Momo's and one for Mohawk shows). You can also catch archived SXSW performances on their website too.

Texas Public Radio (which operates three stations in Texas: KPAC, KSTX, and KTXI) also did some SXSW coverage, although it looks like they mainly covered the film festival.

Sirius XM also broadcast performances from SXSW, discussions with bloggers about the festival, and musician interviews across a number of their channels. Stations that participated included XMU, The Loft, Underground Garage and Outlaw Country, according to this post on Orbitcast.

KGSR, an Austin commercial radio station, also did live broadcasts from SXSW, as well as featured in-studio interviews and performances throughout the week.

And, in terms of television, DirecTV once again presented band and journalist interviews, acoustic sets, and live club performances from SXSW over satellite TV, including a set by Echo and the Bunnymen.

That's a whole lot of radio. If I missed your station's participation in SXSW this year, let me know. By the way, if you want to compare this year's scene to last year, you can see my SXSW post from 2008.