Today marks the officially beginning of the South by Southwest music conference. Yesterday, we published a list of 35 artists and bands to look out for at SXSW 09. Here is the completion of that list featuring songs from SXSW booked artists, letters N through R.

"Automatic Blues" - Neat Neat Neat from Hamburg DE

"Beast" - Nico Vega from Los Angeles CA

"Eraser" - No Age from Los Angeles, CA

"Lost Coastlines" - Okkervil River from Austin TX

"Hard Times in America" - Willie Nile from New York NY

"Wet Gold" - The Octopus Project from Austin TX

"Let's Get It Started" - Oh No Not Stereo from Los Angeles CA

"Ferocious" - OK City OK from Tokyo Japan

"Sofa Surfer Girl" - The Orchid Highway from Vancouver BC

"Young Adult Friction" - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart from New York, NY

"No Place Like Home" - Out From Animals from Chester UK

"Walk On" - Palomar from Brooklyn NY

"Sleepyhead" - Passion Pit from Boston MA

"Mr. Understanding" - Pete and The Pirates from Reading UK

"Gimme Chemicals" - The Pink Spiders from Nashville TN

"I Woke Up Today" - Port O'Brien from Cambria CA

"Tora Tora Tora" - Pretty & Nice from Boston MA

"Dying is Fine" - Ra Ra Riot from Syracuse NY

"New Scissors" - Royal Bangs from Knoxville TN

"Frank AB" - The Rural Alberta Advantage from Toronto ON

Bands S through Z coming up.

Labels: No Age, Okkervil River, Passion Pit, Pete and the Pirates, Ra Ra Riot, SXSW 2009, The Octopus Project

I've always believed that if indie rock artists and bands want to attract a loyal following, one of the most important things they need to do is offer free, no-frills MP3s for download on their official website.

Evidence that this approach works follows a path of logic and a huge demand for such a service by music lovers searching to discover new bands.

During the past year, popular rock bands like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have offered for free to anyone a full download of their most recent albums. The response to both has been overwhelming.

Not only does an indie group or a more 'established' rock band get plenty of positive publicity for
offering their music for free download, but they also build and solidify coalitions of loyal fans who
will often promote the band via the irreplaceable WOM (word of mouth), purchasing merchandise, buying their other music and attending their shows.

We all know how much that can cost, especially after TicketMaster and LiveNation often charge in fees up to, and more, than half of the original price of the concert ticket itself.

Over the next year, IRC will be featuring artists and bands, ranging from indie rock to 'mainstream' rock, who offer free MP3 downloads of their music on their websites, whether individual songs or entire album downloads.

In the first installment, IRC spotlighted NIN's newest album, The Slip. After announcing that the entire album would be available to anyone for free after a simple registration, the album has been downloaded tens of thousands of times on NIN's official website.

Here is that story and information on how and where to download the album in MP3 format.

This installment features the popular Austin, Texas indie rock band The Octopus Project. While there are no full album downloads, nor no free downloads for their latest release, individual tracks from all of their albums dating back to 1999 are available at the following link:

Download Free Octopus Project MP3s:
http://www.theoctopusproject.com/mp3s.html

Enjoy.

Labels: Austin Indie Rock, Free MP3s, The Octopus Project