“Texas” (Used 9 times)

Crawl is a one-man experimental sludge project from San Antonio. With his vocal mic shrouded in a parastacoidean mask, Emperor Crawl plays drum with one hand while controlling a bass string instrument made out of actual bones. He likes to build things, he says, and to run this sound through a wall of amps. The result is eloquently blackened doom with nods to Khanate's Things Viral and Sunn O)))'s Black One.

I was fortunate to witness Crawl's incredible live performance at Sux by SuxWest, Austin's second-annual anti-sxsw noise festival. I'd originally biked to way out Bernadette's for Rat Bastard and the supremely funky Olneyville Sound System, who were at the top of their game in duo form. Crawl's set was an unexpected highlight of my time in Austin, and left the entire room stunned. After our applause faded into an uncomfortable silence (yo where's the DJ?), Emperor Crawl removed his mask to let us know that he does not have any merch— but! There is this demo recorded in 2010 that you can download for free on bandcamp. After the show ended, I asked where to find it, and learned that Crawl is a bit of a free music advocate. Even once he gets to doing physical releases, we'll always be able to download and share Crawl mp3s. So I told him about the FMA, and of course it's with his belessing that the Crawl Demo is online under a CC Music Sharing license. Go forth and spread the word of Crawl!

A photo of Crawl's bass string instrument and video of an earlier Crawl performance after the jump...

WFMU returns to Austin Saturday night for it's showcase, this time an event independent of the SXSW Festival at the great Beerland, 711 Red River. It's a 6-band blowout featuring The Wedding Present, The Men, Xray Eyeballs, Electric Jellyfish, Death of Samantha and Supreme Dicks! Liz Berg, Jason Sigal, Brian Turner will be broadcasting the sets live over WFMU-FM and wfmu.org starting 8pm central/9 PM Eastern. $10 door entry, no SXSW badges or wristbands accepted. All proceeds to the bands. Special commemorative posters designed by Nevada Hill will be available at the show.

Lineup (Times Central):

8PM: Electric Jellyfish: Straight outta Melbourne: "Electric Jellyfish carry the torch along with Eddy Current Suppression Ring lighting the way to a legendary story of distinctive rock 'n roll beginning with bands such as Radio Birdman, The Saints, X, the Birthday Party, feedtime, etc. Their sound is on par with The Wipers in their heyday...such daring emotional vulnerability, yet it's psych/punk that's sonically full-fledged, solid, walloping, and (to quote Monoshock) 'philosophically Stoogely'".(Rick Ele)

 9PM: The Wedding Present: The first band to play a WFMU show to have had 18 top 40 singles in the UK!

10PM: Death of Samantha: Full on reunion show by Cleveland post-punk/indie godfather legends! DoS tore through the late 80's early 90s and gave birth to Cobra Verde (which included members John Petkovic and Doug Gillard, who also spent time in Guided By Voices); Petkovic also was a member of Sweet Apple with J Mascis, Gillard made records with the great Gem, solo, and nowadays plays in Bambi Kino and Nada Surf. Drummer Steve-O was an Elvis impersonator in Memphis for a while. This is gonna rule.

11PM: Supreme Dicks: Uber-rare out-of-New England show by these reclusive woodsy Massachussetts psychedelicists! Their official recordings ceased in the mid 1990's, but have popped up live around their locale through the years, now lured to Texas on WFMU's special invite to which we are extremely grateful. The Dicks are also subject of a well overdue recent anthology on Jagjaguwar, a 4CD complete history called Breathing and Not Breathing.

12M: Xray Eyeballs: NYC new wave dance party faves, started up by OJ from Golden Triangle. Equal parts Jay Reatard and the Urinals, described by our own Liz Berg (who had them live on her show): "fuzzy, over modulated garage pop at a languid trot.”

1AM: The Men: (photo left: Ryan Muir) Raucous four-piece post-punk combo out of Brooklyn who've cobbled together a pile of not-so-pounding influences (drone, Krautock, pop) and sets them into car-crash mode. Howling guitars, rocked-up Suicide references, this could be the great crossover Amphetamine Reptile spacerock band if they were around circa 1989. Seriously driving punk rock with intricate, layered structures amidst the raw power. Played live on Brian Turner's show in 2011 (issued as a tour CD), and have a new album out Open Your Heart on Sacred Bones. Perfect way to tear up the evening's finale!

Past WFMU Austin events [2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011] have included: Sun Araw, Kurt Vile, Half Japanese, Mayyors, Los Llamarada, Harvey Milk, Pierced Arrows, Dengue Fever, Cheveu, Kelley Stoltz, Whitehorse, Hank IV, Evangelista, Major Stars, Iron Man, Absu, Woven Hand, Gary War, XYX, Shit & Shine, Gunslingers, Home Blitz, Todd, Moon Duo, the Renderers, Sonny & the Sunsets, El-G, Amen Dunes, the Homosexuals, Lexie Mountain Boys, Psychedelic Horseshit, Gary Higgins, Paul Metzger, The Bad Trips, Citay, the Endtables, Obits, Slough Feg, Elm, Prizehog, Speedwolf, Prizehog, Epileptinomicon, Headdress, and True Widow. So you know it's gonna be a stellar night in 2012! Stop by, grab a poster, dance the night away with WFMU.

SXSW is underway right now down in Austin TX. Between the interactive, film and music portions (not to mention taco, bbq and beer portions), SXSW is a many armed beast. With so many great bands descending on Austin this week, it's a great opportunity to pull some gems from the FMA library.

Here's a 2-part mix featuring free & legal mp3s by 122 artists who'll be in Austin during SXSW Music (March 13-18):

Big thanks to kingmmm1234 for helping research and compile this playlist!

Free Music Archive curators with Austin happenings:

KEXP is broadcasting live from Mellow Johnny's! (Info)

WFMU hosts a Saturday night show at Beerland! (Info)

DUBLAB bypassed Austin in favor of an all-night 'Tonalism' festival in Marfa! (Info)

CBC Radio 3 host three live broadcasts: Canadian Blast BBQ, Street Sessions, and Planet Quebec! (Info)

If you know of more artists with free & legal mp3s who'll be kickin' around Austin this week, drop a line in the comments!

When WFMU trekked down to Austin for this year's SXSW showcase, the Free Music Archive tagged along to co-present a fantastic lineup of live music. We heard from Beijing/Brooklyn's Amen Dunes joined by Greg Fox of Liturgy, GDFX, Guardian Alien, Dan Deacon Ensemble; the USA debut of France/Belgium's él-g who one listener described as "Throbbing Gristle after a kegstand of springwater from the fountain of youth"; Long Beach future-psych jammers Sun Araw; Louisville KY punks The Endtables' first show in 25 years; a ferociously doomish set from Melbourne Australia's Whitehorse; and our super-secret guest, the always incredible Kurt Vile & The Violators (who everybody thought was going to be Erykah Badu based on the Philadelphia hint).

It was an incredible night, and for those who weren't able to swing by Barbarella, or tune in to the live broadcast, or would like to relive the magic, we've archived just about everything (though unfortunately we had to hold back on the performance from our hero Kurt Vile) here on the FMA for you y'all to bliss-out on-demand:

Amen Dunes

él-g

Sun Araw

The Endtables

Whitehorse

Between sets, I DJ'd 100% FMA music, including a bunch of tracks from our massive 3-part SXSW preview mix featuring ~150 artists who performed at SXSW this year. Check out the playlist here, and next year, we've got our eye on something really massive for SXSW so stay tuned!

Hello from Austin in the Lone Star Beer state! SXSW Music starts today, and as I was flipping through the schedule trying to figure out what to see & hear (aside from FMA curators' happenings listed below, and the WFMU / FMA show on Friday), I realized that there are well over 100 125 SXSW artists with curated mp3s in the FMA library. So I made a couple three mixes for you...

I'm sure I missed a bunch of great FMA artists who are in town this week though, especially if you factor in all the unofficial shows -- more than anyone can keep track of (though some have tried). Many FMA curators are putting on shows or broadcasting live as well:

* The FMA is co-presenting WFMU's fourth-annual showcase at Barbarella on Friday night, with Sun Araw, The Endtables, él-g, and more (including a special guest who is one of my personal favorites but we can't announce it yet!). More details on the blog and here's a F-book event.

* KEXP is broadcasting from Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop March 16-18th with sets by The Black Angels, Steve Wynn & The Miracle Three, Yuck, Wild Flag and many more -- check the blog for details on other KEXP-related happenings, including the SxSeattle Party (info). And DJ Chilly of Mo'Glo's put together some great Latin Music Recommendations.

* dublab is broadcasting from Domy Books' 'What x Whatever' with music from Daedelus, Mount Kimbie, Asura and many more Wednesday thru Saturday.

* CBC Radio 3 is coming to Austin for BBQ and broadcasting live music by the likes of Malajube, Buck 65, and Imaginary Cities (info)

And in case you missed True Chip Til Death's feature on SXSW chip music happenings in Austin, click that link (but unfortunately one of the best was last nite!).

Hope you can tune in / swing by these events, and we'll be sure to post some highlight mp3s to the FMA. In the meantime, if you download this mix and enjoy it alongside some bbq, tacos, and/or beer, it'll be just like Austin!