The locals

A local music blog here in Austin puts out this sampler CD every year before SXSW to showcase some of the local bands who are playing the festival. It's a decent snapshot of a couple of the more popular local bands right now in Austin. The blog is called Austin Sound, and the Sampler can be downloaded here. Of the bands on the sampler, the ones that I really like are The Eastern Sea, Sunset, Ume, The Boxing Lesson, and The Great Nostalgic. I haven't listened to this whole thing yet so I don't know how high quality or recent these tracks are so the awesomeness that is these listed bands in a live setting may not translate perfectly. What can you do. Anyway, whilst on the topic of local bands and SXSW and whatnot, my roommates band is playing a bunch of shows and it just occured to me that I don't think I ever linked to their finished LP (which I think is really fantastic) on here. I think i may have linked to some of their demos back in the day, but can't be sure of that. The band's called The Calm Blue Sea and you can dl their album here. They get compared to Explosions in the Sky a lot. I'm sure you'll be able to hear why. I'm working an insane amount of hours over the next 6 days in order to be 100% off for all 4 days of SXSW Music and that Sunday as well. It's going to be killer, but I am so excited. The Wrens are playing a couple of shows and Caspian is playing and Dead Confederate is playing and I've RSVPed to 8million parties and shows and goddammit I wish it was Wednesday already.