You’ve seen the awesome photos, checked out our live footage and interviews with folks including My Morning Jacket, N.E.R.D. and Sara Bareilles, and read our daily reports on acts like R.E.M. and Thurston Moore — now get a look at the five up-and-coming artists Rolling Stone spotted down in Austin at this year’s SXSW fest:

• Equal parts “dance” and “punks,” Does It Offend You, Yeah? obliterated the crowd with hard beats, glitchy synths, vocoder-enhanced vocals and a few wailing guitar riffs.

• Cleveland MC Kid Cudi showed up during rapper Wale’s gig at Stubb’s on Saturday and just about stole the show with a killer Southern-flavored freestyle and a lot of stage presence; more proof that the Midwest is hip-hop’s most happening spot right now.

• Los Campesinos!, seven kids from Wales, U.K., combine the insta-party vibe of the Go! Team with Broken Social Scene’s triumphant, ecstatic choruses. (more…)

Follow all of Rolling Stone’s ongoing SXSW coverage — photos, video, interviews and live reports — here.

You could see the crowds of 6th Street in the distance from the window of Jim James‘ solo gig, but that was as close as the Mardi Gras atmosphere of SXSW encroached to this special show on the festival’s final night. Inside the music hall of St. David’s Episcopal Church, it was calm as a chamber music recital as the My Morning Jacket frontman performed gorgeous acoustic versions of his band’s most spiritual songs. He put aside his guitar and placed a small keyboard on his lap for the gentle “What a Wonderful Man” from Z, hitting high soulful notes that matched the God-like surroundings. Later he was joined by MMJ guitarist Carl Broemel for a stunning version of “Gideon.” The audience, which had been sitting quietly as church mice for the entire show, exploded into a standing ovation when it was over.

Over at Waterloo Park, the Breeders kicked off their set with the droney, pounding “Overglazed” and “Bang On” from their forthcoming album Mountain Battles. (more…)

Thurston Moore demonstrated all sorts of guitar heroics at Friday night’s Ecstatic Peace showcase at the Mohawk Patio. The rock legend/label mastermind spent the night prepping to play his own headlining set while shepherding the rest of the lineup’s acts through trouble — reassuring Be Your Own Pet when their sound went dead; adjusting the treble on J Mascis’ amp (”Much better!” he mouthed).

Though he was often visible lurking side-stage, when Moore stepped up for his set and teased a photographer in the front row about his Courtyard Marriott pen, the truly magical Moore arrived. Opening with “a song about everybody who’s out of work” he kicked into “Off Work,” a wordless three-chord jam that summarizes the aesthetic of last year’s solo album Trees Outside the Academy — crisp acoustic-guitar led tracks that sound like Sonic Youth’s less-squawky songs on Ambien. Moore played several more Trees tunes (”Silver>Blue,” “Honest James,” “Fri/End”) that showed off his ability to write (relatively) short and sweet songs and his skill at generating epic tension with just a single repeated note. When it came time to acknowledge his band, Moore introduced his bassist — a dead ringer for Chris Cornell in Singles— simply as “Satan,” adding, “you know Steve Shelley” (violinist Samara Lubelski and guitarist Chris Brokaw rounded out the lineup). (more…)

Follow all of Rolling Stone’s ongoing SXSW coverage — photos, video, interviews and live reports — here.

It was a surprisingly scorching afternoon in Austin on Friday, but the weather didn’t explain the high number of scantily clad women packed into Stubb’s well after the sun went down to check out N.E.R.D.’s show. Pharrell Williams and Co. took over the outdoor venue with a set that featured a handful of songs from their forthcoming Seeing Sounds and all of the band’s past singles (save “Provider”). The two drum kits — tandem drum solos! — added a large dose of power, and Williams just could not stop darting around the stage. The atmosphere was like an aggressive rock show, complete with guitar solos and Williams calling for mosh pits. The pits may not have materialized, but muthafuckin’ noise was made, hands were waved in the air, and caring, in that respect, was at a minimum. New track “Everyone Nose” manages to make “All the girls standing in the line for the bathroom” a viable chorus, and closer “She Wants to Move” was a strong reminder that “Her ass is a spaceship I want to ride” remains a fantastic lyric.

A few hours earlier at the same venue, the Cribs showed signs of shaking off the Strokes comparisons, adding a ferocious attack to older tunes like “Mirror Kissers” and newer ones like “Mens Needs, Womens Needs,” during a short set that was both lean and loose. The Kings of Leon’s Nathan Folowill came to check out MGMT’s extremely well-attended gig (more…)

Welsh singer Duffy seemed taken aback by the 92-degree Austin weather: “I’ve never experienced anything like this in my life!” she said onstage. But that didn’t stop her from delivering a remarkable set at the Parish Friday afternoon with her six-piece band. The very cute twenty-three-year-old has had a Number One hit in the U.K. for the past month with “Mercy,” a dance-y go-go-style track that begs the Amy Winehouse comparisons. The songs that sealed the deal at her first U.S. gig, though, were the precise but powerful ballads: her other single “Rockferry” and the affecting “Warwick Avenue” started gentle and rose to belting, breathtaking crescendos. By the time Duffy ended her six-tune set with a pounding version of “Mercy,” the industry crowd was swaying on the club floor and entirely besotted; at least one major label (Mercury Records) has a reason to be cheerful in what looks to be an otherwise very challenging 2008.

Follow all of Rolling Stone’s ongoing SXSW coverage — photos, video, interviews and live reports — here.

[Photo: Lorne Thomson / Livepix]

Follow all of Rolling Stone’s ongoing SXSW coverage — photos, video, interviews and live reports — here.

Before most bands rolled out of bed Thursday morning, Lou Reed delivered his SXSW keynote speech. Though Reed doesn’t always strive to be a crowd-pleaser, he was in a surprisingly sharing mood, earning laughs with lines like “I have a B.A. in dope, but a Ph. D in soul,” and by explaining how The Bourne Ultimatum is one of his favorite movies. In addition to discussing Berlin (”It’s about jealousy, and in that sense, it’s romantic”) and Julian Schnabel’s live document of the album, Reed ripped into the rise of MP3s — “Here’s your song reduced to a pin-drop,” “You have a lot available and it all sounds bad.” He also gave an impromptu spoken-word performance of “Rock Minuet,” praised the music of Dr. Dog and Holy Fuck, and left the door open for the possibility of full performances of Magic and Loss and Street Hassle, although he called the Berlin shows “not an audition” for playing other albums live.

A few hours later in the afternoon, scads of Vampire Weekend fans lined up outside the Parish three hours before were scheduled to play, and those who got into the venue early had the pleasure of seeing Yeasayer — whose tweaked, psychedelic take on art-funk made us wish we had a blunt to blaze. (more…)

Follow all of Rolling Stone’s ongoing SXSW coverage — including news, interviews, and video — here. For photos, stay tuned here.

During SXSW, Austin, Texas is the center of the indie-rock universe, overrun with singers and bands deserving of wider attention and a fair payday but, with the major labels in free fall, more defensive than ever about creative purity and corporate sabotage. The headlining set by indie-scene graduates My Morning Jacket at the Austin Music Hall, on the second night of SXSW ‘08, proved that they became arena-worthy and pop-smart without selling out or diluting their Southern-gothic boom.

Like R.E.M. the night before, My Morning Jacket devoted nearly half of their generous set — sixteen songs and four long encores over close to two hours — to their imminent new album, Evil Urges, including the heavy funk and wah-wah city of “Highly Suspicious” and the disco-pulse Armageddon of “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream Pt. 2.” The record features singer-guitarist-songwriter Jim James in a bold, R&B frame of mind, unleashing his inner Earth Wind and Fire — particularly his strong, piercing falsetto — over oceans of guitar fuzz and John Bonham-thunderclap drums, and it was all there, at maximum volume, on stage. (more…)

Follow all of RollingStone.com’s ongoing SXSW coverage here. For photos, stay tuned here.

Serj Tankian asked the audience to “imagine an upside down world,” while Tom Morello traded in his Rage for melody at Stubb’s Thursday evening for an event celebrating the release of the documentary Body of War and its two-disc soundtrack. The film’s subject, Tomas Young — his spine severed by a bullet during his first week in Iraq — sat sidestage in his wheelchair, chain smoking cigarettes during a rapid-fire set that also featured heartfelt songs from Ben Harper, a brilliant Billy Bragg set as well as performances from RX Bandits and Brendan James. (more…)

Follow all of RollingStone.com’s ongoing SXSW coverage here. For photos, stay tuned here.

In an interview earlier this year, R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck promised me that the band would try to play every song from their new studio album in concert. They did better than try, in their headlining set at Stubb’s BBQ on the opening night of SXSW. R.E.M. played all but one of the eleven tracks on Accelerate, and they plunged into each song, especially the fast ones, with a joyful fury. In the very first number, “Living Well Is the Best Revenge,” singer Michael Stipe turned his breathless chanting on the record into a manic harangue, like a preacher about to explode in his pulpit. During “Man-Sized Wreath” Stipe made a wreath over his head with his arms as Buck and guitarist Scott McCaughey fired cannonball power chords and McCaughey and bassist Mike Mills sang high harmonies like mocking angels. And in “Hollow Man,” its quiet deceptive start blew up into an impassioned chorus, with Buck executing his old Pete Townshend-like leaps. (more…)

Follow all of RollingStone.com’s ongoing SXSW coverage here. For photos, stay tuned here.

The opening day of the annual South by Southwest festival is in the books, and while fans, journalists and industry folks were still busy arriving and staking out the best spots for margaritas, there were still plenty of parties and showcases to whet the musical appetite Wednesday. Here are a few highlights from the opening round of the year’s biggest rock fest:

• Kill the Daylight: The line for the Levi’s/Fader house snaked around the block in the moments before the Kills took the stage on Wednesday afternoon. They opened their set with “U R A Fever,” the first single from their new album, Midnight Boom, and picked up steam — and crowd enthusiasm — over the next couple tunes. Oddly, the room was nowhere near as crowded as I expected given the size of the line. Hopefully the Levi’s/Fader folks, who consistently throw one of SXSW’s best daytime parties, will have the kinks worked out by today. (more…)

Follow all of RollingStone.com’s ongoing SXSW coverage here. For photos, stay tuned here.

The annual South by Southwest Music Festival begins tonight, and Rock Daily will be reporting live from the mosh pit (and the barbecue pit) until the last note is played on Sunday. Stay tuned to our SXSW page for live reviews, video interviews, photo galleries and footage of some of the hottest gigs (and while you’re at it, catch up on what went down at last year’s festival while you’re there). In the meantime, take a look at the twelve bands Rock Daily is most excited about — six heavy hitters and six up-and-comers. (more…)

For Iraq War vet Tomas Young, Eddie Vedder, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Morello and Bright Eyes aren’t just rock stars — they’re his lifelines. “They keep me going every day to continue in this struggle,” says Young, who was paralyzed from the chest down when his Humvee was ambushed in Baghdad in 2004. “They remind me that there are things bigger than myself.”

Young, whose story is chronicled in the documentary Body of War, hasn’t met all of his musical heroes — just Vedder, who penned an original track for the film — but that didn’t stop him from soliciting favors. “Eddie asked if there was anything he could do for me,” says the twenty-six-year-old Missouri native. “It dawned on me that there was the possibility of making an album with songs that inspired me to keep going through the antiwar movement.” (more…)

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 Raveonettes and 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. In the meantime, check out the entire list of bands performing at the event after the jump.
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If you’ve been watching our amazing video from SXSW, you know that punk icon and all-around Stooge Iggy Pop
met with our own Pete Maiden and Jenny Eliscu before his riveting late-night set in Austin this weekend. Well, what you saw was just a taste! Watch now to see the full interview.

You’ll see Iggy wax on about playing with the Stooges again, reveal what it’s like to be mislabeled “classic rock” and get real about how it feels to compete with the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Whether you were down in Austin last week for the musical shit-storm known as SXSW or merely living vicariously through our online coverage, you’ll still want to gaze upon the awesome photos in our SXSW galleries.

• Day One: The Calm Before the Storm
• Day Two: The Crowds Begin to Gather
• Day Three: 24-Hour Party People
• The Festival Ends

The gorgeous pictures — featuring special moments with Mastodon, Girl Talk’s Gregg Gilles, the Black Lips and more — were snapped by twenty-six-year-old Brooklyn photographer and rising art star Noah Kalina. You might recognize Noah from his genius YouTube hit “everyday,” a video documenting his six-year-long self-portrait project. (Noah was the subject of this New York Times article about portraiture in the age of the Internet.)