Rumored Bands for SXSW 08

It's never too early to start thinking about SXSW. Although both Jason and I have been thinking about/discussing it for the last 3 months, which might be pushing it. Anyway, the good folks at Austinist have put together an excellent list of bands rumored to be playing this year, which you can find here.

The sexy folks at Smarmy Hipster are excited about the following acts:

The Black Keys
Blitzen Trapper
Born Ruffians
Breeders
Car Stereo (Wars)
The Cribs
Devotchka
Experimental Aircraft
Jens Lekman
The Kills
The Lemurs
My Brightest Diamond
My Morning Jacket
Nada Surf
The Raveonettes
Scissors for Lefty
Sons & Daughters
The Soundtrack of Our Lives
The Stills
Vampire Weekend
The Von Bondies
The Voom Blooms


Right now, I'm most excited about Vampire Weekend. Followed closely by The Soundtrack of Our Lives. Those Swedes dominate a live show like a hobo dominates a session at The Sizzler.

Favorite Albums of 2007

From David:

Yeah, it’s been an extremely long time since we blogged, but you’ll get no apologies from us! We work for a living, unlike those snide hippies at Pitchfork. Can hippies be snide? Never mind — it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that 2007 was a great year for music. I had forgotten how many fantastic albums came out this year before I started putting together this list.

So, without further ado, I give you Smarmy Hipster’s Favorite Albums of 2007 (extremely haphazard averages of our ordered picks):

1. Okkervil River, The Stage Names
2. Arcade Fire, Neon Bible
3. Andrew Bird, Armchair Apocrypha
4. Elvis Perkins, Ash Wednesday
5. Band of Horses, Cease to Begin
6. The National, Boxer
7. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Some Loud Thunder
8. Wilco, Sky Blue Sky
9. LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver
10. Of Montreal, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
11. Blitzen Trapper, Wild Mountain Nation
12. Dr. Dog, We All Belong
13. The Weakerthans, Reunion Tour
14. Radiohead, In Rainbows
15. The White Stripes, Icky Thump
16. Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (Note: For some reason not even known to him, Jason hates Spoon. He makes no endorsement of them. Which is stupid, because Spoon is great, and this was a really good album. Whatevs.)
17. Iron and Wine, The Shepherd’s Dog
18. Animal Collective, Strawberry Jam
19. Les Savy Fav, Let’s Stay Friends
20. Matt Pond PA, Last Light
21. The Twilight Sad, Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters
21(b). Shearwater, Palo Santo (Okay, technically this is a Matador reissue of the 2006 release by Misra, but it has a whole extra disc of songs, and I really like it, so I’m counting it. But I’ll put it under 21, just to be [minimally] fair.)

There you have it. It was such a good year, we had to go to 21 (actually 22) picks.

We’re going to make a concerted effort to post more in the months leading up to Indie Rock Christmas. Smarmy Hipster will be your source for daily SXSW updates and musings from two dudes who refuse to wear skinny jeans and Vans/Chucks.

Have a face-rocking New Year!