I’ve never really taken much notice of the SXSW (South by South West) music symposium that happens in and around Austin, Texas – probably because over here, it’s not really news and isn’t covered by the general music media. Radio 1′s alternative programming has touched on it in the past, but this year they seem to be going with it in a bigger way – sending Steve Lamacq over there with a handful of ‘hand picked’ acts on a ‘BBC Introducing‘ stage.

SXSW is seen as a way for underground US acts to get noticed, and – increasingly – as a springboard for popular UK acts to broaden their US marketability. For example, US unknowns, but UK chart-troubling acts like The Pigeon Detectives, Scouting For Girls, The Wombats, Duffy and socialist-pop troubadour Billy Bragg will be performing at this year’s SXSW.

However, SXSW isn’t like Glasto, or Reading. It’s not a ‘festival’ in the traditional sense. It’s a collection of 100′s of gigs across a few days in and around Texas. As such, it’s not a case of there being 20-30 acts on – there’s, literally, thousands. With so much choice, I guess it’s difficult to know what to look for.

I happened upon an excellent site providing instant 6-word reviews of the tracks that some of the attending artists submitted when they signed up – there’s 763 artists reviewed. I scanned through Paul Ford’s ratings and, obviously, went for the 5-circle rated ones first. Some wheat, a lot of chaff, but one artist stood out in particular.

Delorean. Delorean sound a bit like what’d happen if New Order went back in time to Ibiza in 1989 with The Killers and The Chemical Brothers, and dropped a shitload of Ecstasy together. It sounds like what I wanted ‘Waiting For The Sirens Call‘ to sound like! On the strength of the one track, ‘As Time Breaks Off‘ I order their album, ‘Transatlantic KK’ from an eBay seller in America. Amazon have some of their stuff, but – be aware there are at least two other bands using the name ‘Delorean’ out there!

We’re both off to our respective mum’s this weekend – me to mime with Aimee, Emma to hers with the dog. I drive down the M1 with Aimee soundly asleep in the back. Right-lane hoggers never cease to amaze me. It’s 8pm on the M1, there’s hardly any traffic – apart from the constant stream of morons in the right-hand lane overtaking two lanes of thin-air. What do they put in their water, I wonder?

Aimee must have a Nana-proximity sensor, because no sooner are we a few miles from my mum’s, she’s up and awake and full of beans. Get to my mum’s and Aimee’s revelling in being the centre of attention for an extra hour or two, before finally running out of steam and being taken up to bed.

Emma and I have been researching the idea of taking a holiday at the end of April, and I would have booked one today, had the Monarch Airlines website not crapped out on me – just after submitting my card details – grrrr! Do I have flights, or do I not? Grrrrr!

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