SXSW 2008 is a Comin' and Glasswerk is Ready and Reporting!

• 10th Mar 2008

SXSW 2008 music festival is finally here. Austin is in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout! The Lone Star beers are on ice and the BBQs are stoking up to feed the biggest crowd and band list yet. Austin – the always weird, cool little music haven stuck in deepest Texas – may be losing some of its charm but the place will be full to busting with more than 12,000 'delegates' and 1,700 performers in literally every bar and building downtown. This is the music industry's annual Spring Break! and the chance for the world's best new bands and a few old timers to impress and sell a few more God damn records. Glasswerk.co.uk will report on the whole of the music week March 12 – March 16 finding the best of the new Brits and tell you just who you should lend your ears to this year from a whole world of talent. Japanese screamcore, por favor?

Many locals blame SXSW – along with the condo craze – for selling out and not “keeping Austin weird” but when they are selling reduced local wristbands for $140 who can complain. This is some lineup. As usual the music is a dizzying mix of international showcases, the hottest new acts, the soon to be buzz bands, and monster acts Van Morrison and REM, who play venues in the hundreds. The queues will be something else. If you don't make it in there's no need for tears as Austin kings Okkervil River along with US talent from My Morning Jacket, to the Black Keys to Vampire Weekend are all throwing shows. Big Glasswerk tips from Sweden's crazy cat Ida Maria to the genius of Canada's the Weakerthans and from the US the Castanets will get the bigwigs scrambling while Austin's Black Joe Lewis should be the star of the week – a gritty, aggressive James Brown type who wants to be the “black Elvis”. He's got it going.

The invasion of the Red Coats is on again. The British storm Texas each year and make the biggest bang. Last year the Gallows and the Cribs – who return – ripped it up with help from Winehouse and the very best of new UK music will upstage even that trio of crackers. The real highlight will be the fifteen year olds Kitty, Daisy and Lewis who bring their flawless rockabilly to the creators. Seventeen and just as talented is Laura Marling, already making it, who has the voice and the well read weirdness of a young Kate Bush. Manchester's synthsters the Whip always get a place jumping with euphoria. They will be shown the way by UK class acts Billy Bragg, Carbon Silicon (Mick Jones), The Slits and the English Beat.

And that's scratching the surface. Oh, Lou Reed and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore are here too. Daily updates with reviews, news, gossip and interviews will grace these hallowed pages, so come along for the ride even if you can't afford the $650 ticket!