South by Southwest Music 2013: Free SXSW Downloads, Podcasts, Streaming Shows, & More

Hear live concerts and more from South by Southwest; see schedule below.

The music portion of this year's South by Southwest festival starts March 12th (running through the 17th), and as usual there are plenty of ways to sample music by the artists involved and the actual concerts down in Austin. Here are a few of the best ones (I'll post if I come across them):

* NPR Music's SXSW coverage is, as usual, pretty extensive; there are live webcasts of concerts and the keynote, interviews, and more. On March 13th there'll be live webcasts with Nick Cave, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Youth Lagoon, Alt-J, and more; the next day they'll stream Dave Grohl's keynote address. Other live sets include Divine Fits, Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell, Iron and Wine, Dawes, and Charles Bradley.

NPR's Alt.Latino will broadcast live sets as well, featuring Café Tacuba, Molotov, and Bajofondo. And if you miss any of these live webcasts, don't worry: NPR tends to archive them online and make many of them available for download as free podcasts.

See the complete schedule of NPR Music's SXSW 2013 lineup here, and listen to their "Austin 100" playlist of songs (which you can also download individually, or in one big 800 MB zip file).

* Sample more than 1,200 songs by SXSW 2013 artists with this year's edition of The (Unofficial) SXSW Torrents. It's split into two files, the first is over 6 GB, the other a little over 1 GB.

* Amazon.com has two free SXSW 2013 samplers, one from Polyvinyl Records (featuring Deerhoof, Japandroids, Of Montreal, and more) and "Don't Mess with Texas" from The Orchard, with Loal Natives, Charles Bradley, The Virgins, Young Galaxy, Ra Ra Riot, and more.

* L.A.'s KCRW radio was one of the first radio stations to broadcast from SXSW, and it will have plenty of festival coverage as well. See the complete KCRW SXSW schedule here.

* The Alternate Side and its parent, WFUV, will have plenty of live music from SXSW on March 15th as part of the Public Radio Rocks SXSW Day Stage featuring Vampire Weekend, Divine Fits, Iron & Wine, Emmylou Harris, Dawes, Charles Bradley, and Pickwick.

* Fellow blogger Andriana of Gluttony is the New Black has put together a very thorough guide to the essentials of surviving SXSW for the website The Line of Best Fit. It covers music, of course, but also gives tips on the best food, open bars, parties, getting around, and more.