South By Southwest 2015 Music Festival: Free Downloads, Webcasts, & More

See below for details on free SXSW Music downloads and more.

Today is not just St. Patrick's Day, it's the kickoff of the music portion of the sprawling South By Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas. Here's our guide to how to take part in SXSW Music if you're not there, an annual (usually) feature of Podcast Party.

NPR Music is doing its usual extensive coverage, including song downloads and streams, live webcasts, podcasts, previews, and more.

• listen to NPR's All Songs Considered SXSW 2015 preview 
• listen to or download their hand-picked collection of 100 songs from this year's SXSW artists, the Austin 100 (you can download all or just the ones you want) 
• and read their article on how to experience SXSW Music without being there

(If you want a lot more free song downloads from SXSW 2015 artists (and we mean a lot), go to the unofficial SXSW torrent page. It features two parts containing a total of more than 8 gigabytes of tunes.)

NPR hasn't announced a webcast schedule yet, but we'll update this post when (if?) they make this info available. They also do "late-night dispatch" podcasts each night of SXSW Music, in which each of the NPR Music correspondents on hand sum up the best acts they've seen that night (sometimes recorded in random places like a parking lot).

[Update, March 18th: NPR's SXSW showcase takes place tonight and while it won't be streamed live, it will be posted online "in the days after the concert." The show features Australian Courtney Barnett (playing her new, not-yet-released album live) ... Belgian singer Stromae, who's gotten hundreds of millions of views for his video "Papaoutai" ... and TV On The Radio, playing tunes from their latest album, "Seeds."]

Santa Monica's KCRW also has great SXSW coverage. Start with this article on "Newbies to Know at SXSW 2015." And see KCRW Music during the week for more coverage.

Also, check out Podcast Party's coverage from previous years, including 2013, 2012, and 2011.

Enjoy!

Austin City Limits Festival (ACL Festival) Lineup Announced; Tickets On Sale Now

The lineup for the 2010 Austin City Limits Festival (ACL Festival) was announced today, and tickets are now on sale. The festival takes place in Zilker Park in Austin, Texas from October 8th to 10th.

Three-day passes are already sold out; single-day passes went on sale at 10 a.m. are available for each day at $85 per day. (Link to buy ACL Festival tickets.)

Headliners for the 2010 ACL Festival include The Eagles, Muse, Phish, The Strokes, M.I.A., and Flaming Lips. (Full 2010 ACL Festival lineup by day.) Here are the top 10 acts performing each day, as listing on the daily schedule:

Friday:
Phish, The Strokes, Spoon, Vampire Weekend, Sonic Youth, The Black Keys, Broken Bells, Slightly Stoopid, Beach House, The Sword

Saturday:
Muse, M.I.A., LCD Soundysystem, Monsters of Folk, Deadmau5, Gogol Bordello, Pat Green, Matt and Kim, The xx, The Temper Trap

Sunday:
The Eagles, Flaming Lips, Norah Jones, Band of Horses, The National, Robert Earl Keen, Yeasayer, Rebelution, Portugal. The Man, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

You can follow updates from the 2010 ACL Festival at its Twitter page, @ACLFestival.

Free Song Downloads and Webcasts from the 2010 SXSW Music Fest

If you can't be in Austin, Texas for the 2010 SXSW music fest, you can download or stream plenty of free music to get the feel for the hundreds of bands that will be playing there. The music event runs from March 17th to the 21st.

* SXSW offers 5.43 gigabytes of free music downloads from SXSW showcasing bands. You can download the free songs from the official SXSW Web site, or go to the unofficial SXSW torrents site.

* For music videos, check out the SXSW music Youtube Channel and the SXSW Videos and Podcasts page. 

* NPR Music offers plenty of podcasts, streaming audio, and concert Webcasts from SXSW. Check out their SXSW preview show and their listing of free live streaming SXSW concerts (most of which will be archived for streaming or podcast download).

Enjoy!

2008 Austin City Limits Festival (ACL Festival) Lineup is Out

The lineup for the 2008 Austin City Limits Festival (ACL Festival) has been announced ... see details here. You can click on an artist's name at this page to hear music by that artist.

Austin has just recovered from the South by Southwest Festival, and now if gearing up for the ACL Festival, a tie-in to the long-running PBS TV show Austin City Limits.

Robert Plant and Allison Kraus will be performing at the 2008 ACL Festival, along with the Foo Fighters, Beck, Gnarls Barkley, Patty Griffin, the Black Keys, John Fogarty, and many more. There are more than 130 bands in all, many in the country or singer-songwriter vein, but also heavy on the alt-rock and indie rock genres.

This year's ACL Festival will be held September 26th to 28th in Zilker Park in Austin, Texas.