Most famous as a punk rock icon and artist, Exene Cervenka (front woman for X, Knitters and Original Sinners) is documenting her adventures for Heard Mentality on the way to Austin's South By Southwest, the country's biggest music festival. Check out her complete tour diary archive here.

Raven Lorthos

Exene at Red Eyed Fly

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Most famous as a punk rock icon and artist, Exene Cervenka (front woman for X, Knitters and Original Sinners) is documenting her adventures for Heard Mentality on the way to Austin's South By Southwest, the country's biggest music festival. Check out her complete tour diary archive here.

Raven Lorthos

Old 97s at Antone's

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On Wednesday, March 16, I picked up my wristband at 9 a.m. at the Convention Center and went to my first show. It was an awareness-raiser for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Sea Now.

Ironically, they have stopped the whaling in Japan. They do great work trying to save a part of the world that they care about. Before me, a band from LA played, Blueblood. Snare, bass drum, acoustic and steel/electric. They were very compelling, electric folk. Their new record, Reverse the Curse, is being mixed now. Look for them in OC at some point.

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Shannon Cottrell/Houston Press

Wu-Tang Clan

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Village Voice/Frank 151 SXSW Party
March 17, 2011
Austin Music Hall

Of course, you wish you were there. According to Houston Press, the all-night lineup for the 2011 Village Voice and Frank 151 Showdown at SXSW  was one of the festival's most anticipated showcases, featuring Times New Viking, Yelawolf and all of Wu-Tang Clan (well, all seven, not including Ol' Dirty Bastard, duh). If you weren't, well, we have highlights for you after the jump.

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Jeff Antebi

Sub Pop band Avi Buffalo to hold hometown record release bash at Fingerprints in Long Beach

Fresh off successful SXSW showcases, Avi Buffalo, led by singer/songwriter/guitarist Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg, has booked a free in-store homecoming/record release performance at Fingerprints on April 16. It's a Monday and starts at 6 p.m. 

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We know how much you wanted to go to SXSW last week. But for those not willing to take a week off work and spend a butt-load of cash to get there, here's an entertaining set of live videos from Austin showcasing some of our hometown talent on stage, spreading the gospel of rock & roll in a variety of sweet and passionate permutations. More >>

Chad Cheverier

Local Natives, originally from Orange County, rock SXSW

Local Natives crushed at South by Southwest, returning home to LA with massive momentum leading up to their April 18 Coachella date. The other OC/LBC acts that made appearances in Austin surely turned heads but nothing like Local Natives. The quintet had critics drooling.   

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Flickr user BenGoetting

John Reis performing with the Night Marchers at Alex's Bar, Long Beach, Feb. 10, 2008.

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Long Beach and Orange County bands aren't the only locals headed to the cheerfully soul-trying SXSW music-biz death march in Austin this week. 562-ers Alex's Bar and owner Alex Hernandez will be teaming up for a Friday day party with Dragons' frontman Mario Escovedo's Requiemme Management and Booking as well as with Bar Pink--the San Diego venue run by John Reis, the local-ish legend behind Rocket From The Crypt/Drive Like Jehu/Swami Records/Hot Snakes-and-more--and Ontario, Canada, bar Call The Office, which must surely be a special place to keep this kind of company.

"It just seemed natural to team up with Mario and Alex on something like this," says Reis. "There is a lot of history there, both personally and professionally. RFTC and the Dragons both came up together in the San Diego music scene of the '90s. There have also been parallels between Bar Pink and Alex's Bar, as we end up having many of the same band routing through both clubs. We even had a night at Pink where both Mario's and Alex's bands--MEX and Los Mysteriosos, respectively--shared a bill."

More on Reis and Alex's Bar--including a show flier with info--after the jump.
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Christian Lantry

Superchunk

​We're stoked to relay this announcement by our big sister paper in New York City: 

The Village Voice's 2010 SXSW party, featuring Superchunk, the xx, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and our old sparring partners, Surfer Blood. Friday, March 19, La Zona Rosa, Austin, Texas, 12 p.m.--5 p.m. 

It's free, first come first serve, open to the general public. 

"These bands are alternately old friends and young heroes to us, so it just didn't seem worth keeping it secret any longer," writes Zach Baron. "You will probably forget, but we will definitely remind you. And if you forgot who these other guys were in the first place..."

Click for more info. 

A lot of people are packing up and headed to Austin, Texas as we speak, but none of us here at OC Weekly are among then. I know, sad, right? I've never even been to Texas. I'm not even sure it exists.

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Saturday afternoon, sunny and 80º+—it seemed like a good idea to go to Waterloo Park and sample the musical and comedic talents that some enterprising soul had cobbled together. This would ensure that I'd be dead tired by the time the sun set. But that's cool—sometimes one does one's best work while running on fumes. Of course, those SXSW Day 4 Blues hit with a vengeance. But enough about me... Onto the entertainment.

Newly signed to Rick Rubin's Def American label, Howlin Rain play grizzled Southern rock redux, but with so much fire in its belly and soul (and with chops to burn, especially keyboardist Joel Rabinow) that the retro-ness of it all doesn't pall. Along with Ethan Miller's flagrant guitar solos and gritty, testifying vocals, Howlin Rain create ideal hot sunny day outdoors rock that almost makes this vegan want to eat a slab of bbq ribs while riding a Harley 100 mph on some south of the Mason Dixon line highway. Hee-yah, or something.

After this, I ambled to the comedy stage, where Aziz Ansari was yukking it up. He was followed by Reggie Watts, Hard N' Phirm, Paul F. Tompkins, Leon Allen and a woman from the Sarah Silverman Show whose name escapes me. Watts and H&P stood out with their spot-on musical parodies. Tenacious who?

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