March is here, which means it’s time for the return of South by Southwest, the annual media bacchanal that temporarily turns Austin into the center of the entertainment universe. The conference has evolved into a far bigger, far more #branded event than it was during its inaugural year in 1987, but one thing remain the same: right now, as you’re reading this, your next favorite band is probably en route to Texas, prepping for the showcase that, if caught by the right eyes and ears, might turn them into stars.
In celebration of SXSW’s spirit of discovery, we traveled through the conference’s 32-year history and found 19 before-they-were-stars sets from bands who would go on to make some of our favorite music of the last three decades. So, pop open a Lone Star and settle in for this Texas-sized walk down memory lane. We’ll just be over here figuring out how to enter the coordinates for Stubb’s into this stupid Delorean.
The Reverend Horton Heat
Year at SXSW: 1987
Year of Breakthrough: 1990
Take a look at the poster for the very first SXSW, and you’re likely in for a few surprises — that first fest stuck to a single weekend and occupied a downright manageable 15 venues (instead of this year’s 190+). More than 30 years later, the names of the inaugural lineup of bands are also surprisingly unfamiliar, save one — The Reverend Horton Heat, the Dallas psychobilly rabble-rouser who’d rise to indie prominence in 1990 on the strength of his Sub Pop debut, Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em, and the MTV-friendly video for “Psychobilly Freakout”. His appearance at the inaugural SXSW came before his band even had a single — the first, “Big Little Baby”, wouldn’t come until 1988. It was so early, in fact, that The Reverend had yet to change the spelling of his stage surname from “Heet” to the more familiar (and orthographically correct) “Heat.”
[Buy: Tickets to Upcoming Reverend Horton Heat Shows]
Billy Ray Cyrus
Year at SXSW: 1988
Year of Breakthrough: 1992
Before he was a pop music patriarch, the most underrated part of Hannah Montana, or even the owner of country music’s achiest, breakiest heart, Billy Ray Cyrus was just another aspiring singer-songwriter road-tripping down to Austin for the chance to make it big. Four years after his appearance at the second SXSW, Cyrus would have the number-one record in America with 1992’s Some Gave All, making him the most prominent alumnus of a year that also featured future buzz bands, including world music lifers Poi Dog Pondering and Chicago power pop legends Material Issue. In addition to serving as a stepping stone for his own career, SXSW has also become a Cyrus family tradition; oldest daughter Miley earned headlines for a surprise appearance at the festival in 2015 while sister Noah made her debut in 2018.
[Buy: Tickets to Upcoming Billy Ray Cyrus Shows]
Gin Blossoms
Year at SXSW: 1989
Year of Breakthrough: 1992
If you were of radio-listening age in 1992, you likely became intimately familiar with the singles of the Gin Blossoms’ breakout album, New Miserable Experience, in particular the almost-chart-toppers “Hey Jealousy” and “Found Out About Yo,u”. If you’d been at the band’s SXSW show three years earlier, you’d likely have heard those songs, and others, in a slightly more energetic form. Before appearing on New Miserable Experience, those two tracks (along with opener “Lost Horizons”) were among the raw power pop cuts that defined the band’s 1989 debut, Dusted, which was recorded during a triumphant year that saw the Tempe, AZ quintet play SXSW and earn the designation of “best unsigned band in America” from the tastemakers at CMJ.
[Buy: Tickets to Upcoming Gin Blossoms Shows]
Dixie Chicks
Year at SXSW: 1991
Year of Breakthrough: 1998
Today, the Dixie Chicks are best known for one of two things: the crossover ascendance of turn-of-the-millennium singles like “Wide Open Spaces” and “Goodbye Earl” or the 2003 Iraq War protest that single-handedly derailed that seemingly unstoppable rise. A decade before both the good and the bad, the Dixie Chicks were still a relatively anonymous bluegrass quartet that graced the stage at SXSW in search of a recording contract that wouldn’t come until they shifted their sound towards a more commercially viable brand of country. If that shift never came, they might’ve been remembered even more fondly; listen to tracks like “The Cowboy Lives Forever” and “West Texas Wind” from their 1991 debut, Thank Heavens for Dale Evans, and tell me, with a straight face, that you really prefer the later stuff.
Lisa Loeb
Year at SXSW: 1993
Year of Breakthrough: 1994
Lisa Loeb’s rise to prominence famously came with the help of her apartment’s proximity to Ethan Hawke’s, which helped her land eventual Billboard #1 “Stay (I Missed You)” on the Reality Bites soundtrack in 1994. Before she topped the charts, Loeb was a SXSW regular; according to a 1998 retrospective in the Austin Chronicle, Loeb attended the conference every year from 1991 to 1994 and made her first connection with Geffen A&R rep Jim Barber after one of her showcases in 1993. Loeb summed up her early days at the festival with three words familiar to any would-be rock star: “Shameless self-promotion.”
[Buy: Tickets to Upcoming Lisa Loeb Shows]
Hanson
Year at SXSW: 1994
Year of Breakthrough: 1997
Although they built their reputation on their image as fresh-faced, non-threatening children of the Oklahoma corn, the Hanson brothers weren’t above a little light trespassing in their quest to land a major-label contract. The boys behind “MMMBop” crashed SXSW in 1994, staging an unscheduled a capella performance at the conference’s annual softball game that caught the attention of their soon-to-be-manager, who went on to help them land a contract with Mercury Records. Reflecting on their musical skulduggery with the Austin American-Statesman more than two decades later, eldest brother Isaac Hanson remembered an even more pivotal fact about the day: “One of the other things I think is really, really important to talk about, with regard to the baseball diamond story, is the fact that I had never had proper Texas brisket in my life. And there was free barbecue at the baseball diamond. And I’m like, ‘OK, this is amazing, and I want this, for the rest of my life.’”
[Buy: Tickets to Upcoming Hanson Shows]
Blink-182
Year at SXSW: 1996
Year of Breakthrough: 1999
The poster for this show featured a deranged rabbit skanking on the lawn of the Texas State Capitol. If that wasn’t already a criterion for inclusion on this list, it should be going forward.
[Buy: Tickets to Upcoming Blink-182 Shows]
Spoon
Year at SXSW: 1996
Year of Breakthrough: 2007
It’s hard to get a do-over in the world of music, but hometown Austin rockers Spoon managed to pull it off. During this early appearance at SXSW, they were a month away from releasing their Matador debut Telephono, a record that helped them get signed to Elektra, where they released A Series of Sneaks, which helped them get … dropped from Elektra. Somehow, they rebounded, though; a fruitful partnership with Merge eventually led them to a run of three Billboard Top 10 albums spanning 2007’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (No. 10), 2010’s Transference (No. 4), and 2014’s They Want My Soul (No. 4). Their return suited their status as unlikely local heroes; the band resurrected the beloved (and bygone) Emo’s for a three-night curation residency in 2017.
[Buy: Tickets to Upcoming Spoon Shows]
of Montreal
Year at SXSW: 1997
Year of Breakthrough: 2007
Kevin Barnes doesn’t have much use for his band’s early work these days; after the band’s veer towards indie disco in the late aughts, the of Montreal frontman disavowed all material recorded before 2004’s Satanic Panic in the Attic during a 2011 interview with Pitchfork‘s Larry Fitzmaurice, saying that “what might have attracted somebody in the beginning is not really there anymore” and “I closed the book on that period of my life and moved forward.” Personal growth aside, that remains a real shame, especially given the enduring strength of the ’90s psych found on records like 1999’s The Gay Parade and 1997’s Cherry Peel. Maybe that’s why this particular SXSW set holds such retroactive appeal; we’d give just about anything to hear “In Dreams I Dance with You” live one more time.
[Buy: Tickets to Upcoming of Montreal Shows]
