大象传媒

Editors rock SXSW

They play 6 Music's showcase

19 March 06听-听6 Music rocked the joint at South By Southwest with our British music showcase at the Blender Bar on Friday听featuring Jim Noir, The Kooks, Brakes, KT Tunstall, The Feeling and Editors. It was presented by 大象传媒 6 Music and the UK Partners.

The fesitval is now wrapping up on the fifth and final day of live bands.

Tom from the Editors told 6 Music our event was quite a momentous occasion for the band as it was the start of their American onslaught.

He said: "This is the start of our first proper American tour. The album comes out in a week so it's new set up for us to do the hard work and play in the back of boyond and the major places too. No-one's ever seen us play live in America though really and that's kind of what we're about."

Tom continued: "We spent all last year touring the UK and we're going to spend a lot of this year touring here to try and duplicate what happened last year in the UK."

Other highlights of the听event so far听have included The Flaming Lips who rounded off the first day of the event with a surprise set.

The band听played in a marquee in the carpark of the Fox And Hounds and kicked off the show with a cover of Bohemian Rhapsody.

As well as debuting tracks from their new album At War With The Mystics including The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song, the band were also joined by Peaches for the encore - a cover of Black Sabbath's War Pigs.

Elsewhere, Dirty Pretty Things had their first set at the festival cut short after听they overshot the curfew at the Eternal venue and almost got arrested by Texan police when they tried to play on.

However, there were no such problems for their gig the next day at听the Mean Eyed Cat.

And Morrissey went down a storm at Austin's City Hall听on Thursday. He played a smattering of Smiths songs as well as all the hits听from his solo career, plus a cover听of Deep In The Heart Of Texas.

Speaking at a press conference beforhand, he revealed听The Smiths were offered $5m to play Coachella festival but they turned it down.

He also attacked Pop Idol, calling the contestants "imbeciles", and complained that Arctic Monkeys hadn't paid their dues.

He said: "For them it's happening too quickly. They haven't proven anything and they haven't had to work too hard. It's all a bit unnatural. Yes, they've sold 700,000 albums but it can't be gratifying. They haven't been driving up and down the M1 in a van for 15 years."

Don't forget, stay tuned to 6 Music for full coverage of all that's happening at the festival. For more from the 大象传媒听at听South By听Southwest, see www.bbc.co.uk/music/southbysouthwest


Jody Thompson