Date: Mar 15, 2023 - Mar 18, 2023
Live Broadcast
Thanks to everyone who joined us at Scholz Garten for our 2023 SXSW broadcasts! With your help, we raised over $14,000 for Central Texas Food Bank.
Support for KUTX at SXSW 2023 comes from PNC Bank and Chattanooga Whiskey
Wednesday, March 15th Lineup
Jane Leo
Their initial skepticism at collaboration gave way to a full-blown partnership. For Austin musicians Jane Ellen Bryant and Daniel Leopold, it all started with a certain restlessness. Bryant’s singer/songwriter path was stalled, and Daniel was feeling his rock outfit Leopold & His Fiction had reached a certain stopping point. Dubbed Jane Leo, their new alliance would move them down unexpected paths. Influences from the Cars to Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra crept into their dramatic fare, moody synths, pulsating backbeats, and soaring pop melodies ruled the day. Their just-released debut album Jane Leo pairs a lot of last year’s singles with winning new material. And with an upcoming European tour and, they claim, another record already in the can, Jane Leo is just getting started.
– Jeff McCord
Jane Leo at Scholz Garten
Baby Rose
In January, NPR Music named L.A. based singer-songwriter Baby Rose one of their 2023 Artists to Watch. And NPR isn’t the only one to notice. Baby Rose’s distinctively dark and smoky vocals make her an in-demand collaborator, landing spots on Dreamville’s Grammy-nominated compilation album Revenge of the Dreamers III and Ari Lennox’s Shea Butter Baby tour. On her new batch of singles, Baby Rose picks up the tempo from her 2019 debut LP, To Myself, stretching her signature heavy bass lines and deep rolling grooves into new and exciting territory. “Fight Club” finds her teaming up with influential experimental artist and producer Georgia Anne Muldrow for a trance-like call and response, while “Go” blurs the boundaries of R&B with some Tame Impala-esque psychedelic arrangements. All that adds up to make Baby Rose one of the most creative artists in contemporary R&B. It will be exciting to see where the new music takes her.
– Peter Babb
Baby Rose at Scholz Garten
The Heavy Heavy
With a massive North American tour kicking off at SXSW and a full-length debut album scheduled for later this year, 2023 promises to be a year of growth for Brighton, U.K. rockers, The Heavy Heavy. On their EP, Life and Life Only, die-hard classic rock fans Will Turner and Georgie Fuller pay tribute to the golden era of rock’n’roll with killer harmonies and fuzzy guitars evoking CCR, Rolling Stones, and the Hollies all at once. Only fitting then that their latest single showcases their mastery of the folk-rock ballad with a hauntingly beautiful cover of David Crosby’s “Guinnevere.”
– Peter Babb
The Heavy Heavy at Scholz Garten
Son Rompe Pera
In an interview last fall, Son Rompe Pera’s Kacho Gama said his band “is in the middle of everything. We’re a rock mestizo band that plays cumbia.” And the glue holding all those disparate cultural and musical elements together? The marimba. For brothers Kacho, Mongo, and Kilos Gama, the marimba ties their past performing traditional songs on the streets of Mexico City, to their present, turning out their in-your-face brand of rockabilly-tinged cumbia. With their new single “Chucha,” Son Rompe Pera lays the groundwork for their first album of original compositions, Chimborazo, out on March 10. Their stop at SXSW this year is part of a bigger tour taking them across the western United States and Mexico so keep your eyes peeled for the punk rock marimba circus in your town.
– Peter Babb
Son Rompe Pera at Scholz Garten
Thursday, March 16th Lineup
Geto Gala
The Geto Gala is Austins’ newest hip-hop collaboration between two of our former Artists of the Month, Deezie Brown and Jake Lloyd. The two have released an EP that is essentially a celebration of barriers broken and goals achieved, though social justice issues are a prevalent topic on this EP, it is intended to uplift its listeners rather than dwell in a state of upset. The Duo is making their SXSW debut on March 16th, and they are sure to have the crowd roaring!
– Paisley Porter
Geto Gala at Scholz Garten
Ron Gallo
“Will I die if I don’t make this deadline?” Jersey rocker Ron Gallo muses on “Foreground Music”, the titular single of his latest 2023 volume of hyperbolic pop attacks. “Will any of this matter in one year?” he screams. “Did it ever?” Then: “What do wanna eat tonight?” It takes a keen satirist to laugh at one’s own anxieties, but Gallo’s always had a sharp eye, lampooning absurdities wherever he finds them. (His 2018 EP Really Nice Guys was a savage takedown of his chosen industry). You’d be forgiven if you somehow missed this. While rocking out to Gallo’s wild antics, blistering guitar riffs and hammer-lock hooks at rock festivals, you’re probably not focused on deeper meanings. The thing is, neither is he. He knows the world is free-falling, but he’s happily along for the ride. “My favorite thing to do is lie awake and panic”.
– Jeff McCord
Ron Gallo at Scholz Garten
Indigo de Souza
An artist mother. An absent Brazilian guitarist father. A free spirit raised in a conservative small town. All of this adds up to Indigo De Souza’s deeply felt interior monologues set to music. She’s been making music for over ten years, yet she’s only 25 years old. Do the math. We’ve watched her grow up in public. Early releases like the Boys ep and her first album, I Love My Mom were a slow-build to her tour de force, 2021’s Any Shape You Take. Here, De Souza learned some life lessons. There’s the joy of friends, but also the loves gone wrong. Songs like “Real Pain” and “Bad Dream” viscerally ache. De Souza uses her words sparingly but chooses them with precision. Presented in a variety of styles, from whispers and grunge-fueled screamers, the unifying element is De Souza’s vocal dexterity. So – older and wiser? Then what to make of her new single, “Younger And Dumber”, a soaring self-referential power ballad off her soon to be released third album All Of This Will End? We’ll find out.
– Jeff McCord
Indigo de Souza
Sports Team
A glance at the cover art on Sports Team’s sophomore record Gulp! may make you assume it’s a record of raw sludgy angst a la Black Flag. As the album opens, you may even think your assumptions were correct, but the hardcore punk comparisons lose credibility about fifteen seconds later. These young Londoners can’t be reduced to one genre; power pop anthems, angular post-punk, and rockabilly only begin to describe their sound. Alex Rice’s nasaly snark and swagger sounds like an English version of the Hold Steady’s Craig Finn. Burned out from years of full-throttle tour life, Sports Team announced a break in December 2022, but at least to our benefit, restlessness got the better of them.
– Ryan Wen
Sports Team at Scholz Garten
Friday, March 17th Lineup
Barrie
Barrie Lindsay, popularly known as Barrie, is a Brooklyn-based pop artist with a new album 2022 album, Barbara. Since her first single released in 2018, Barrie has flourished as a songwriter and producer. When she began working on the Barbara album, she realized that the material would be better suited if it were split into two sections. The second half of the project will be an EP titled 5K out March 31st on Winspear. Though Barrie is an avid runner, she says the title is entirely metaphorical. “This EP is meant to be your running partner for whatever form of 5K you’re doing.” Her debut with SXSW is sure to be impressive.
– Paisley Porter
Barrie at Scholz Garten
Caramelo Haze
They assembled to record one song. Instead, they decided to stick around. In describing the amorphous soup of Austin’s Carmelo Haze, it might be simpler to study the ingredients. The core group of Laredo musicians that first solidified in Austin as Grupo Fantasma has fanned out to too countless other projects. Grupo’s co-founder, guitarist/producer/engineer Beto Martinez, makes up ¼ of Carmelo (he’s also in Brownout, Money Chicha). Alongside him in all these projects is the extraordinary drummer and percussionist John Speice. Then there’s Alex Chavez (Chicago’s Dos Santos, Quetzal, Graham Reynolds’ MXTX project), and Victor “El Guámbito” Cruz (NYC’s MAKU Sound System, Austin power trio Nemegata). You’d think this extraordinary assemblage of talent would be Austin’s answer to the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Instead, they lay back in service of the music, which much like their name, is a stew of swirling hues: funk, cumbia, soul, Columbian folk, and psychedelia. They call their album NOESTÁSAQUÍ, which translates to “you aren’t here”. But really, you owe it to yourself to be.
– Jeff McCord
Caramelo Haze at Scholz Garten
Obongjayar
Fela Kuti’s titanic shadow is impossible to ignore when speaking about Nigerian-born Steven Umoh, AKA Obongjayar. Umoh admits, when he was young, Afrobeat and highlife were everywhere, but he considered it “old-people music.” His first love was artists like 50 Cent and Lil Wayne. It wasn’t until he moved to London that he learned about Fela Kuti’s legacy. Obongjayar’s debut Sometimes I Dream of Doors fuses hip-hop and R&B with the hallmarks of his native country’s sound, while retaining Fela’s inimitable qualities: the resolve to hope, and the conviction to reignite the embers of a world engulfed by despair. That crown has become heavier since Fela laid it down, but Obongjayar may be the first with the strength to lift it.
– Ryan Wen
Obongjayar at Scholz Garten
Girl Ultra
Girl Ultra is Mariana de Miguel, a Mexico City-based artist inspired by the 90s and Y2K R&B. This past year she released an EL SUR EP, including several stellar hits like “Punk” featuring Little Jesus. She also appeared on Adrian Quesada’s breakthrough Bolero Psicodelicos recording (and was part of Quesada’s recent Austin City Limits episode on PBS). Though she hasn’t been to SXSW yet, she has made appearances on NPR’s Tiny Desk series, Lollapalooza in Argentina and Chile, and several other prominent tours abroad. With intentions to release a second studio album this year, stakes are high for this up-and-coming artist and SXSW will be great exposure to propel her career forward.
– Paisley Porter
Girl Ultra at Scholz Garten
Saturday, March 18th Lineup
Scott Riegel of Friday Boys
Friday Boys is the absurdist post-punk duo of songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist Scott paired with the hyperactive textures of drummer Balin. Together the two create a fuzzed-out, sharp-witted brew all their own, with notes of the 70’s New York avant-garde and the raw Detroit garage rock of the 90’s
Pearl & the Oysters
These guys go way back. Juliette Pearl Davis and Joachim Polack, better known as Pearl & the Oysters, met during their high school years in Paris, immediately bonding over a shared love for ‘70s jazz and ‘90s pop. In 2015 they made the decision to cross the Atlantic and bring their music with them. In 2022, they released their Coordonnées EP and a single titled “Pacific Ave”. Now in 2023, they have intentions to expand on the single, so make sure to keep an eye out for new tunes!
– Paisley Porter
Pearl & the Oysters at Scholz Garten
The Nude Party
There’s a guileless and infectious charm to the rock of North Carolina’s Nude Party. Their name implies a silly party band, and indeed, when they fled their college dorms, moving en masse to a lake house to practice their favorite garage riffs, that’s exactly what they had in mind. And man, you play just one or two gigs in the nude and the name sticks, right? But a funny thing happened to this six piece. In discovering their love of the road, they forged themselves into something unique. Reminiscent of Louie Louie devotees, but not really. Funny, but only to a point. Traditionalists, but with an unmistakable air of modernity. And mostly, a band whose love of playing floods over to the audience with every song. Still not sure? Their 2023 album, Rides On, is all the evidence you need.
– Jeff McCord
The Nude Party at Scholz Garten
Thee Sacred Souls
A Chula Vista rhythm section, Alex Garcia and Sol Salmano, spend their days crate-digging and memorising Chicano soul records. Eventually they began writing their own instrumentals, with no clear idea what they would do with them. That is, before they met -well, found actually, on Instagram – the supple, magical vocalist Josh Lane. A band was born. Thee Sacred Souls, named after a reverence for the formative soul music they all adored, had barely gotten started when the super-attuned ears of Gabriel Roth (aka Daptone’s Bosco Mann) signed them to his label. Their eponymous debut, released in 2022, is a throwback marvel. Easy rhythms, lighter than air falsettos. Beauties like “Easier Said Than Done”, “Can I Call You Rose”, and a brand new single, “Love Is The Way”. Think the Impressions, Smokey, Marvin, but there’s something else, too – call it the Chula Vista vibe. Millions of streams later, Thee Sacred Souls roll into Austin on a shortlist of must-sees.
– Jeff McCord
Thee Sacred Souls at Scholz Garten
