Issue date: 3/23/09 Section: Features

Media Credit: Jon Eilts Rapper Paul Couture performs Wednesday at club Fuze in Austin, Texas, as part of the South by Southwest Music Festival. [Click to enlarge]

"We are an unsigned band from Norway," the band's frontman said in a horrible Scandinavian accent Friday night at Stubb's in Austin. "Maybe we get signed." Hearing statements like this was not uncommon in Austin last week at the South By Southwest Music festival, but the band making this claim was joking. After all, Metallica has had a record deal for more than 25 years.

SXSW is no longer for only the smaller unsigned or independent bands looking to score a bigger record deal. More established artists are getting into the act to promote their own music or a fellow label mate's.

Metallica performed a 90-minute not-so-secret show to endorse their new "Guitar Hero: Metallica" video game hitting stores March 29. Rumors went around about their attendance at the music festival for weeks until the band confirmed its presence two days before the gig. The performance came two weeks before the band is to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Kanye West also made a "surprise" appearance at the festival at a showcase for his own label, G.O.O.D. Records.

Feeling the SXSW music festival was too good to miss, Jane's Addiction set up shop at an abandoned supermarket off I-35 in Austin to play for a sea of fans with its recently reunited original lineup.

Portland, Ore., natives The Decemberists, gave its audience something not many bands could offer. It played songs from its highly anticipated album "The Hazards of Love" in its entirety for the first time before the album drops March 24.

Though bands with heavy star power showed up to surprise devoted fans, they were greatly outnumbered by smaller unsigned bands. A stroll down 6th Street exposed visitors to a plethora of artists playing on the sidewalks or members of groups passing out flyers for an upcoming show later that night.

Without ever walking into an actual building, you could see a human beat box on a microphone, singer/songwriters with acoustic guitars, full bands performing through amps powered by generators on skateboards, a piano pushed into place by one man and a gentleman simply banging on sticks with other sticks.

Continued...

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