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Austin's Next Big Thing

alpha_revAustin, TX knows a thing or two about music.

The home of musical institutions from Stevie Ray Vaughn to Austin City Limits, SxSW to Stubbs BBQ and Antone’s, the central Texas town knows music.  After all, they don’t call it the Live Music Capital of the World for nothing.

So when we tell you Alpha Rev is one of the most unique and important bands ever to come out of Austin, you can believe it.  Last March, Alpha Rev was recognized by the Austin Chronicle as one of Austin’s best performing rock bands and in May they were named Austin’s best rock band by Rare Magazine in their annual “Rareist of them All” issue.

You can chalk up much of the acclaim to band frontman Casey McPherson.  He’s well-known in these parts, having made an impression on the local scene with his previous band, Endochine.  When Endochine dissolved in 2005, it had already made its bones in indie circles by sharing the stage with the likes of Pete Yorn and Bob Schneider, and national credibility by playing with more high-profile bands like Staind and Red Hot Chili Peppers.  McPherson simply moved forward, assembling some of his former bandmates and mixing in some new blood and Alpha Rev was born.

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Cakewalk Sponsored Showcases At SXSW 2009

Although, we’re a little late in getting this up, we thought we’d share pictures and give you the skinny on our travels to this year’s SXSW Conference in Austin, Texas.

This year, was the first year Cakewalk made the trek to Austin to join in on the South by Southwest (SXSW) Music and Media Conference. We sponsored a series of live performances hosted by Music Gorilla and submitted our SONAR 8 Producer into a drawing. Here’s a few pictures from the event:

A little history on SXSW:

Established in 1987, SXSW’s original goal was to create an event that would act as a tool for creative people and the companies they work with, to develop their careers, to bring together people from a wide area to meet and share ideas. In 22 years, this music event has grown from 700 registrants to nearly 12,000 registrants.

Austin’s eclectic music scene goes back to the city’s early history (from Mexican, German and colonial origins) and encompasses a wide variety of music including country, folk, jazz, blues and rock. Central Austin boasts more original music nightclubs in a concentrated area than any other city in the world. SXSW was a way to reach out to the rest of the world, and bring them to Austin to do business. SXSW now has offices in Ireland, Germany, Australia and Japan who help bring SXSW registrants to Austin every March.

If you missed SXSW this year, you can catch up on the panels via podcast now until May 29 at http://sxsw.com/interactive.