South By Southwest Showcases Announced; R.E.M., My Morning Jacket Lead the Way

The South By Southwest line-up is in, and it is predictably massive. Among the marquee names playing the Austin arts festival are R.E.M., My Morning Jacket, N.E.R.D., Ice Cube, the Raveonettesand Kevin Shields (sans My Bloody Valentine). The four day event will also showcase a bunch of Rolling Stone favorites (Kate Walsh, Black Mountain, Bodies of Water, Holy Fuck, Santogold, MGMT, Ingrid Michaelson. White Denim) and a couple of our Best Bands on Myspace winners (Airborne Toxic Event, the Voom Blooms.) There are also twenty bands that begin with the word "Black," a group from Uzbekistan (Navruz), a band named after Wayne's World's Tia Carrera and eighties pop group Was (Not Was). Rock Daily will be on the scene from March 12-16, reporting on the best shows, best parties and pictures from the festival.

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  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
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  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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