Considering plane fare or a road trip down to the lovely city of Austin in mid-March? You might be once you read just a *fraction* of the bands scheduled to play the annual South by Southwest music festival...

Aberfeldy, Animal Collective, Annie, Arab Strap, Arctic Monkeys, The Ark, Art Brut, Asobi Seksu, Athlete, Jon Auer, The Avalanches, Belle and Sebastian, Black Heart Procession, Biffy Clyro, Blue Aeroplanes, Boy Least Likely To, Billy Bragg, Brakes, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Broken Spindles, The Brunettes, Busy Signals, Calla, Camera Obscura, Neko Case, The Capes, Cat Power, The Charlatans, Chin Up Chin Up, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Jason Collett, The Concretes, controller.controller, The Crimea, Cut Copy, The Datsuns, Death in Vegas, Dirty Pretty Things, Dirty On Purpose, The Ditty Bops, Division of Laura Lee, Dressy Bessy, The Duke Spirit, Earlimart, Echo & The Bunnymen, Editors, The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster, The Electric Soft Parade, Elefant, Envelopes, epo-555, Erase Errata, Essex Green...

Um, those are just a *few* of the bands from A-E that I'm interested in seeing. The full list (over 1100 acts!) seems almost miraculous. The SxSW story of the day has to be that they've confirmed that Morrissey will be making an appearance...

"In what could best be described as a once in a lifetime experience, Morrissey will be interviewed by Rolling Stone's David Fricke for a SXSW Interview on Thursday, March 16 at the South By Southwest Festival followed by a performance at Austin Music Hall presented by the BBC Radio.
This will be a rare chance to hear the icon discuss his work and his influences. Additionally, this will be one of the first performances in support of his forthcoming album Ringleader of the Tormentors which will be released on April 4th on Attack/Sanctuary."