29 Australian bands will be performing at the prestigious music event, South by Southwest in Austin Texas on March 17-21, 2010. About a dozen more will be invited…

This is the worlds largest music event hosting over 1800 bands from all over the globe…at 85 venues…over 5 nights. With that in mind, it will definitely be gloriously hard to make an impact amongst the hordes. Either way Its good to see so many Australian bands playing festivals such as this.

Battling it out will be:

Art vs Science
Beaches
Bliss & Eso
The Blow Waves
Shannon Bourne
The Chevelles
Children Collide
City Riots
Dappled Cities
Dash and Will
Dead Letter Circus
Paul Dempsey
Nathan Gaunt
Darren Hanlon
Hungry Kids of Hungary
Karnivool
Love of Diagrams
The Middle East
Oh Mercy
Pets With Pets
Philadelphia Grand Jury
Sherlock’s Daughter
Summer Cats
The Temper Trap
Thirsty Merc
Vasco Era
Via Tania
Washington
Whitley

Townsville band ‘The Middle East’ have won the J Award for Unearthed artist of the year. The band has been snatched up by Spunk Records gaining songs on regular rotation on the radio as well as touring the east coast. In addition, they have a music video for their song ‘Blood’, which has been received well over recent months. You can also catch them at Splendor in the grass and Homebake this year.

Check out their myspace here

Also take a look at their music video here

Michael Coppel has pulled out of his deal with Richard Branson to present the coming V Festival in March. Apparently the festival has been losing money the last 3 years, so unless a new promoter can be found the festival may not come back next year.

Coppel is reportedly working on a new national festival with Modular in place of V fest. What is even more exciting is that the new festival is boasting Massive Attack as the headliner. In an interview with Triple J, the band are set to tour Australia in the new year to promote their highly anticipated fifth album Heligoland, which will be released around early February.

This is some exciting news and I hope all goes well.

Another year is about to pass and once again more new acts have popped up around the place. The Modular Xmas Party is a great way for the label to showcase their newly acquired talent. This year the label has got together the much talked about Tame Impala, as well as Jonathan Boulet and The Swiss all playing live. Also joining the nights festivities will be the ever present DJ sets of Bang Gang DJs and KIM from the presets, as well as a set from Ladyhawke and Tim Cut Copy.

The Beach Road Hotel in Bondi will be the venue for the evening.

Saturday December 12

Tickets from www.moshtix.com & The Mod Shop

Seekae are, in my opinion, one of the best electronic bands around these days, both in recorded and live form. In fact they are up for some SMAC awards including best record and best live act. The SMAC awards are presented by FBI 94.5 and Time Out Sydney, so check them out and vote if you come across a band or two you like.

As you can see the signature bear from their album cover has made another appearance on their new Tshirt. I like the fact that they have kept this bear thing going throughout their promotional devices as it builds a really recognizable theme that people will begin to catch onto.

After a possible win at the SMAC awards, I’m sure the Tshirts will be going for a lot more, so get in now. Check them out here.

ALSO, take a look at their live performance at the Metro Theatre at moshcam.com It’s fairly awesome. Don’t take any notice of the typical non-dancing Sydney-siders, accept for that one guy at the front.

Commonly when a band has little to no money to make a music video, the result is relative. Usually the band gets a friend who has studied a bit of film or animation to throw together something, which quite often doesn’t deliver.

With this said, Ghoul’s new ‘Milkily’ music video is an enticing and playful production attempt. It is clear that there are some minor problems with the syncing, but all that is washed away by the mesmerizing and unique dance moves of the band members. Luckily, I have had the privilege to see these guys perform a few times, and during this time I have witnessed many of these dance moves more or less acted out live on stage. I have to admire the hours that would have been spent animating the bouncing geometric shapes in and amongst the guys. That must have been agonizing!

All in all the video is an interesting addition to the promotion of the band. I hope to see more bits and pieces like this come into existence.

Check out the weird and wonderful video at http://www.get-over.net/nicolo/Ghoul/index.html
Also visit their myspace at http://www.myspace.com/ghoulsydney

For some time now these guys have been playing at venues all over Sydney. Sure they have had some great shows with the room filled to the brim, but they have also battled their way through some tough gigs. One of these situations involves being forced to play so early at Candy’s apartment that the place wasn’t even open to the public. Apparently, the sound guy and the barman (the only people in the room) enjoyed themselves immensely.

These days the guys are playing some of their greatest shows to responsive crowds of old fans, new phantom groupies, and important people in the industry. In addition, they have been reviewed and interviewed all over the net and even invited to do a one hour radio spot on fbi’s ‘The Bridge’ segment.

Well, It seems all this hard work is paying off for Bearhug. The band are set to record their newest EP in the coming months and will be playing at Peats Ridge Festival at the end of the year. So check out their myspace, have a listen and become hooked.