Lollapalooza 2015: Paul McCartney, Metallica among headliners
Paul McCartney, Metallica and Florence + the Machine will headline Lollapalooza when it returns for its 11th year to Grant Park on July 31-Aug. 2. For McCartney, it will mark...
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SXSW in review: Let there be music, if not money
One of the multitude of horn players in the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble was pretty pumped up one morning at the South by Southwest Music Conference, which concluded over the weekend...
Chance the Rapper and the Social Experiment a formidable team at SXSW
Two years ago at the South by Southwest Music Conference, Chance the Rapper tried to animate his 15-minute performances with wired energy and a hoarse voice, as if demanding that...
Snoop Dogg’s SXSW address slides into shallowness
There's a guy named Calvin Broadus who lives inside the fabulously wealthy and famous caricature known as Snoop Dogg, and one of the intriguing questions before Snoop's keynote address Friday...
SXSW vibe is that ‘Blurred Lines’ ruling could set dangerous precedent
The pop-music industry suffered a potentially damaging blow in the Robin Thicke-Marvin Gaye copyright infringement case. That's the fear generally expressed across the South by Southwest Music Conference this week,...
SXSW gets a Paul Krugman economics power lesson
Besides being a prominent New York Times economic columnist and a Princeton professor, Paul Krugman is an avid music fan, and he brought a typically nuanced grasp of top-down economics...
SXSW: Promise realized, near-misses and turbocharged noise
"Nobody told me there was gonna be so many people here," Courtney Barnett said as she surveyed the vast crowd Wednesday that had gathered at the outdoor venue Stubb's. Barnett's...
Preatures forgo convention for simple pop excellence
Before she became one of the most arresting new voices in rock with Australian band The Preatures, Isabella "Izzi" Manfredi wanted to be an English teacher. She grew up feeling...
SXSW music fest returning to its roots
The tone of the South by Southwest Music Conference, which opened Tuesday, is somewhat muted compared to the corporate crassness that dominated recent years. There's no giant snack dispenser masquerading...
SXSW: Henry Rollins and his ‘massive punk-rock fraud’
To hear Henry Rollins tell it, the fearsome Black Flag singer has been desperately spending the last few decades trying to disguise his inadequacy. Touring alongside bands such as Husker...