I’m on a plane to Austin this morning, and one of the bands I’m likely to see an awful lot of whilst there are locals Shearwater. In addition to their slot in the Misra showcase at Maggie Mae’s on the 17th, they’re playing three other day shows over the course of the week. This is all to build up excitement for their new album Palo Santo, which is out May 9 and if it’s a patch on Winged Life, will be excellent. They’ve released the first MP3 from the album below and there’s more to listen to on their MySpace. 2005 was the year of Okkervil River – 2006 may well see Jonathan Meiburg and Will Sheff again put out one of the best albums of the year.

MP3: Shearwater – “Seventy Four Seventy Five”

As the festival draws nigh, there’s lots of tips, guides, suggestions, etc for the SxSW punter, newbie and veteran. Pitchfork and Drowned In Sound have some suggestions of hot acts worth the attendee’s attention (and all of those showcases just got 200% harder to get into… thanks…) and The Star-Telegram rates the buzz bands of SxSWs past. Central Village has some excellent day party suggestions including hard-to-find set times, Crackers United has some festival-going tips, (via BrooklynVegan, whom I probably won’t be running into around ye olde BBQ pit) as do Depraved Fangirls (re: band t-shirts… but I don’t have any other clothes!).

Festival sponsor Yaris (as in the Toyota) has set up a really nice guide with maps, schedules, music and tips and for those of us who didn’t have the foresight to book a hotel with free internet access, here’s a map of free wifi points around Austin. And WhereAustin has a terrific Google Maps app for finding all the night showcases.

For my part, here’s an idealized list of where I’ll be during the evening shows. Probably won’t shake out that way, but I’m avoiding a lot of the bigger shows so maybe I’ll get lucky and make everything I want to.

Wednesday, March 15:
Page France @ Emo’s Annex, 8PM
Luminous Orange @ Habana Calle 6 @ 8PM
Headlights @ Emo’s Jr, 9PM
Voxtrot @ Emo’s, 9PM
Field Music @ Emo’s, 10PM
The Czars @ Fox & Hound, 10PM
Serena Maneesh @ Emo’s, 11PM
The Octopus Project @ Emo’s Jr, 12AM
Monsters Are Waiting @ Nuno’s Upstairs, 1AM
Saturday Looks Good To Me @ Emo’s Jr, 1AM

Thursday March 16:
Margot & The Nuclear So And So’s @ Nuno’s Upstairs, 8PM
Belaire @ Emo’s IV, 8:30PM
Film School @ Club DeVille, 9PM
Mazarin @ Buffalo Billiards, 10PM
Some By Sea @ Redrum, 11PM
The Hidden Cameras @ Molotov Lounge, 12AM
Levy @ Nuno’s Upstairs, 1AM

Friday, March 17:
Ambulette @ Red 7, 7:30PM
Dirty On Purpose @ Spiro’s, 8PM
The Mendoza Line @ Maggie Mae’s, 8PM
Isobel Campbell @ Dirty Dog Bar, 9PM
Eric Bachmann @ 18th Floor At Capital Place, 10PM
Gemma Hayes @ Soho Lounge, 10PM
Sarah Hepburn @ The Drink, 10PM
The High Violets @ Molotov Lounge, 11PM
Hopewell @ Bourbon Rocks, 11PM
Shearwater @ Maggie Mae’s, 12AM
Centro-Matic @ Maggie Mae’s, 1AM

Saturday, March 18
Decoder Ring @ Red 7, 8PM
Bedroom Walls @ Habana Calle 6 Patio, 8:30 PM
Rainer Maria @ Karma Lounge, 9:30PM
Superchunk @ Antone’s, 11PM
I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness @ Emo’s Annex, 11:15PM
Camera Obscura @ Antone’s, 12AM
Okkervil River @ Emo’s Annex, 12:15AM

So you can see there are heavy periods and light periods. Saturday, in particular, is rather barren – I don’t even have a 1AM show picked! I can’t close out the festival sitting on a street corner narfing down pizza… though I bet that’ll sound like a pretty damn good idea by that point. But suggestions for filling in the gaps are welcome. Also, I will be photoblogging this week for Scene From My Life. One photo a day from Toronto and Austin. Hopefully I will manage to document something worth seeing.

Glide puts the spotlight on Centro-Matic, who will be playing the Misra evening showcase at Maggie May’s on the 17th and their day party at Red Eyed Fly on the 18th.

Notes from the UK – Doves will release a live, e-EP on April 10 consisting of five songs recorded during their 2005 Some Cities tours and Primal Scream tell NME about their new album, still untitled but due out June 5 across the pond.

Shows news – the Death Cab/Franz Ferdinand has been moved from The Docks to the Ricoh Coliseum. This may be the first time anyone has celebrated a show being moved into a bigger arena. The Strokes will also be at the Ricoh on May 6, presale starts today, and Architecture In Helsinki will make up their cancelled Fall date with a show May 20 at the Horseshoe.

The Asheville Citizen-Times stands up for vinyl (via Coolfer).

Oh look, I lost at the Bloggies again. 0-for-4. I rule. Congratulations to Photojunkie on the win.

24: The lifeboat episode! Chloe sheds a single tear! Lynn gets dressed down by an anonymous security guard. Jack plays Macgyver and holds his breath! But really, wouldn’t any nerve gas worth its salt affect any mucous membranes, like his eyes or his nose? Not that I wish severe hemmorhaging on Jack, but come on. Don’t know why the security guy was so upset about dying, surely he knew when he put on that red shirt he was a goner? Hasn’t he ever seen Star Trek? Poor Bill, he’ll never get to stay in charge. Collette? Who’s Collette? WE WANT MANDY. Oh, and who wants to bet that Kim gets caught in the martial law crackdown? No one? Smart. Not like Tony. Tony is stupid. Stuid and dead. And as a chaser – The Toronto Star has a requiem for dear, departed Edgar.

Hey, question – yesterday afternoon my MSN crapped out. Like the application itself crashed, and would do so any time I tried to log in. I uninstalled and reinstalled, same thing. I can login via web and through Windows Messenger fine, but MSN Messenger? No dice. Now this wouldn’t normally alarm me that much, but the exact same thing happened on my laptop install as well – the program crashes the exact same way. So, uh, WTF? Anyone having this happen to them?

np – Okkervil River / Black Sheep Boy