Simon & Garfunkel, the Allman Brothers Band, Pearl Jam, and Better than Ezra will also be playing. For the record: We do not consider these performances to be highlights.

Advance tickets are still available for a totally reasonable $45. It happens April 23-25 and April 29-May 2.

Mutek 2010: Sometime in the near future, we hope that we can make it back to Montreal. (This time, sans rain. Thanks.) We can see no better excuse for a trip than the 2010 edition of the Mutek festival—“one of the premier showcases for cutting edge electronic music and digital creativity,” according to the Web page. This year’s performers include Matmos, Mouse on Mars, Theo Parrish, and Tim Hecker. A weekend (June 4-6) pass’ll run ya $141.09. A passport—which’ll get you in to events that start on June 2, costs about $220.

ATP New York 2010: We here at Festival Watch wouldn’t throw a curatorial appointment to one of the All Tomorrow’s Parties out of bed. Hmmm…right now, we’d do Bjork, ESG, J.D. Emmanuel, Daniel Higgs, Pocahaunted, anything involving an Ex guitar player, and Beyonce. This is prolly why we wouldn’t get one. Sigh.

Instead, New York-bound ATPers will have to settle for Jim Jarmusch. His line-up include Raekwon, Girls, Dungen, Vivian Girls, and, just announced: some crazy Sunn0))) and Boris collaboration. Intense!

That’s Sunday. Saturday’s show will be a revue of “past ATP curators, ATP Recordings artists and friends”—these include Sonic Youth, the Breeders, Tortoise, the Books, and Bardo Pond—and Friday will bring nostalgic album performances from the likes of Iggy and the Stooges and Mudhoney.

ATP says that you can look forward to more artist announcements in the coming days. We’re already pretty much sold. Tickets are still available but we’d suggest you consult the ATP site for details; there are few different travel packs. It happens Sept. 3-5.

TODAY: MGMT, Congratulations—leaked March 2010; out April 13.

Two things you should know: One, YFPT loves—loves!—the title of the new MGMT album. Is it a cheeky reference to the solid taste in music that the band thinks you’ve displayed when you go out and purchase (or download, heh) the album? Is it a pat on the back for a self-deemed job well done? Is it a handshake to be received once you’ve made it through the 12-minute opus the band’s stuck smack dab in the middle of the album?

Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Nope. Despite our best efforts, our zen approach to shining up our crystal ball has drawn a blank.

Maybe this’ll help?

Nope.

Here’s the thing, this new MGMT album is pretty great. But on it, the band–which, you’ll remember, had “Kids” blew all the fuck up a couple years back–has trended away from its electro side and toward its proggish psych-pop side—a move that may make things a bit less radio-ready then they were the last time out. We salute that.

And we’d like to think that Pitchfork will agree. But, back in ’07 reviewer Eric Harvey told the band that “electro-glam seems the ideal toward which” they should strive. Along with that pat on the noggin, he gave the band a 6.8.

And that brings us to two: To be frank, we also would have missed the MGMT turn-around.

Perhaps a mea culpa is in order?

So (things becoming clearer now). A-hem: YFPT is calling for an 8.2, and a positively glowing review that extols the band’s newfound sophistication.

in which our man in Austin runs down the best ways to enjoy this week's South by Southwest festival without spending a dime

For your reference: I live about five miles north of 6th and Red River. That’s South by Southwest ground zero. Up here, it’s all peaceful—birds, parking, lack of vomit in the street. So, though my daily news publication insists that the long economic reach of the behemoth SXSW Festival “spread[s] far across the city,” from where I live, you’d almost kind of never know it.  Except that, though I haven’t yet experienced a South by from these particular digs, I’m pretty sure that some portion of the thing will creep its way into this neighborhood.

Officially, like for the badge-having types who get all-access to the whole festival for somewhere north of $1,000, this might happen at the Nomad—a cozy bar just down the street. Unofficially, it could happen at someone’s house—in their backyard, at like noon. Bonus? Those shows often come with a keg. And you rarely have to dish out any thing for the privilege.

This is what stands in for the underground at SXSW. And though even this portion of the festival has been co-opted—see: the Levi’s Fader Fort, for example—you can still get in to see most of it with little more than an RSVP.

Here’s a quick run-down of just some of what you Austin-bound lucktards can look forward to not paying for. This is, by no means, a complete list. For that, head on over to Show List Austin, which’ll give you the full scope of this totally ridiculous week.

* Last time around, those Fader Fort duders brought out Kanye West for a surprise set. This year’s confirmed performers include YACHT, N.E.R.D., David Banner, Lykke Li, and, uh, 2 Live Crew. Food’ll be provided (we’re unsure about the freeness of this) by the capital area’s most overrated barbecue joint and one of our many purveyors of fine cupcakes. Trouble is that, if this is the first time you’re hearing about it, you’re already too late for an RSVP. Sounds about right for something sponsored by The Fader. This’ll happen between Wednesday and Saturday.

* NYC’s Other Music is sponsoring a two-day affair called the Lawn Party. Performers include the xx, Austin-locals Yellow Fever, Real Estate, Thurston Moore, D Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 âm Funk, Dengue Fever, and Talk Normal. You can still RSVP for this sucker on Facebook, but as far as we can tell, there’s no real need. This’ll happen on Thursday and Friday.

* I’m not quite sure how a free show can also be a benefit show, but Eastbound and Found is apparently just that. Performers here include White Denim, Danielson, Kid Sister, and THE FUCKING GZA. Just in case you missed it, this’d be your chance to see THE FUCKING GZA for FUCKING FREE. RSVP here. This’ll happen on Thursday.

* Want to know just how un-weird SXSW daytime action has gotten? Look no further than Cheap Trick’s free festival performance at Waterloo Records. This’ll happen on Wednesday.

* OK, so apparently, the GZA is playing two free day shows. This one’s the Brooklyn Vegan party at Emos, where he’ll be joined by the likes of the NYT-hyped New Jersians Titus Andronicus and Japandroids. This’ll happen on Wednesday.

* The Big Parking Lot show will feature performances from Videohippos, Zs, and Acid Mothers Temple. (Full disclosure: I am also performing in a band that will grace this stage.) This’ll happen on Thursday.

* I’ve been trying to steer clear of any pay shows masquerading as day shows, but we figure this one should make the cut: Thanks to the folks at Insound, $3 gets you unlimited beer and performances from the Liars and Vivian Girls (among others). It’s at Club Deville and it’ll happen on Thursday.

* Lest you metal people think you were left out: Full Metal Texas 2010’ll have Darkest Hour, Fair to Midland, a whole lot of other heaviness, and a special guest. Oooooooooo! This will happen on Thursday.

* The IheartComix, Jelly, and Mad Decent Carniville will have Major Lazer, the Walkmen, Diplo, Kid Sister, YACHT, the GZA (again), Japanther, D Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 âm Funk, and about a billion other awesome bands. This’ll happen on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

This, really, honestly, is just a sampling. Indeed, I’ve spent so much time staring at Show List Austin that it’s starting to look like a wordsearch. So I’m gonna stop.

Anyway. Over-under on the number of cast members who show up at this years’ Ultra Festival? We’re gonna go with three. For starters, this thing is at the beach, and those folks sure do love the beach. It’s also packed with the sort of bubble gum electronic music that might get Pauly the DJ all stoked: Tiësto, Carl Cox, Oakenfold, etc.

(Also, this is kind of off-topic, but we’d like to point out that these Ultra Music people are kind of on par with hardcore and metal bands when it comes to logo obsession.)

Anyway, fist-pumping douchebags or no (but we’ll pretty much guarantee you that attendance at this thing will put you face-to-face with some fist-pumping douchebags), the Ultra Music Festival happens March 26 and 27. Two day and single passes are still available in both VIP and regular.

MusicNOW Festival 2010: After four years of super solid line-ups—featuring the likes of Bang on a Can, Bill Frisell, and the Books—Chamber Music Cincinnati’s MusicNOW festival is bringing in Joanna Newsom. We know that this makes sense. Chamber music. Harp. Yeah. We get it. And we know that some of you think that Newsom is this totally adventurous creative thing, and that her high-pitched whine doesn’t really bother you all that much. But whatever: We here at Festival Watch are going to call bullshit. We think Newsom is kind of terrible. And totally boring.

For those of you that don’t, the MusicNOW Festival is scheduled for March 30, March 31, and April 1. Tickets are still available.

Pitchfork Music Festival 2010: Back when we here at Festival Watch enjoyed the luxury of office space at City Paper HQ, we found ourselves faced with the challenge of word-processing with XyWrite. This was no pleasure. But we made do—even when we had to type in numeric codes every time we needed to put in an accent mark.

This brings us to Dam Funk. We wonder: Will our editor have to type in some </#345> shit to make the little hat appear above the ‘a’ in Dam? [I'll let it slide this time -ed.] Does he have to do this every time some jerkwad wants to write about that duder?  [Yes. Same with Tiësto. – ed.]

Point is, Dâm Funk’s been added to Pitchfork 2010. Like as of today. Other late additions include Broken Social Scene, Panda Bear, El-P, John Spencer Blues Explosion, Freddie Gibbs, and CAVE.

Festival-length passes are sold out, but you can still get single-day tickets. It happens July 16, 17, and 18 in Chicago’s Union Park.

But sometimes you have to RSVP to reserve yourself a spot. The Bay Area Takeover, for example, will happen at the Beauty Bar on March 18. Bands include Sleepy Sun and Wallpaper, and the event runs 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. To get in on the fun, hit up that their Web site and get your name on the list.

The Republic of Austin has a pretty good rundown (complete with links to RSVP pages) of all of this stuff. If your SXSW plans come sans badge or wristband (as our’s here at Festival Watch do), you should check it out.

Big Ears Festival 2010: We here at Festival Watch sure do hope that our inability to access the Big Ears Festival’s Web site isn’t a sign of some kind of disaster. I mean, we know how tough times can lead to the sudden dissolution of worthy (well, maybe not market-worthy) projects. So this’d be a shame.

Still, we think that Big Ears’ sudden electronic unavailability is probably something that’s totally fixable. Otherwise, yesterday’s announcement of the additions of Sufjan Stevens, Adrian Belew, William Basinski, Liturgy, Konk Pack, Abe Vigoda, and Ches Smith to the lineup would be kind of weird. We suppose we’ve seen quicker turnarounds in fortune.

Anyway. Other already-announced participants in the second edition of the Knoxville, Tenn., festival include Tim Hecker, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Terry Riley, the Ex, Vampire Weekend, Joanna Newsom, and Dirty Projectors. Hecker and Bang on A Can will also be featured in a couple of collaborations—the former with the Books in a performance of Brian Eno’s Music for Airports and the latter with Terry Riley for a run-through of the composer’s “In C.”

Dang. This sounds kind of blockbuster to us.

It all goes down between March 26 and 28, and tickets—presuming all’s still well with the festival—can be had through the Big Ears web site. Our fingers are crossed.

Lollapalooza 2010: On Tuesday, the Daily Swarm reported that Green Day, Soundgarden, Lady Gaga, and maybe the Arcade Fire will be the headliners for this year’s Lollapalooza. Yawn, we say. But you should click on that link anyway ‘cause they’ve posted some pretty great ur-Gaga photos that catch the Lady at the 2007 edition of that festival. Minus the peroxide and fancy outfits.

Each week, the Austin City Council offers its citizens an opportunity to address it on any topic that might be nagging at their conscious. A week ago, Leonard Davila got up to speak about the lack of support for Mexican musicians during SXSW. “The city of Austin is about to extend open arms to the world…it will mean millions of dollars to the local economy where many business and individuals will profit. Some ethnic communities will also be rewarded, and their culture celebrated. But one group in particular will be ignored, that being the Mexican-American community.”

Davila went on to ask his government to support his community by, in the future, reserving a park for SXSW Mexican-American-centric musical events. As is the norm, no one on the dais responded to his request.

As for this year’s festival (happening March 17-21), organizers this week announced a host of additions to the official line-up. Included were !!!, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Broken Social Scene, Fucked Up, and the xx. Though badges are still available, they are plenty expensive—so we suggest signing up for one of the Facebook pages that promises to keep you up to date on all of the free stuff that’ll go down. You know, if you don’t have hundreds of dollars to blow on the official gigs.

Pitchfork Music Festival 2010: Your FW pals saw Pavement twice: Once, at the 9:30 Club, where the band was excellent, and once at the Recher Theater, where it was unforgivably awful. We hear that this is how it goes with that band.

By our count, Pavement fans will now have eight chances to see the band on its stateside reunion not-tour: Five dates in Central Park, one at the Sasquatch Festival, one at Coachella, and now one at Pitchfork’s festival-circuit entry. We’d try and figure out the shreds/eats-it ratio, but there’s far too much in the way of variable factors. We’ll just say you’ve got a 50-50 shot of being totally disappointed.

Joining the reformed, breathing definition of musical hit-or-miss, will be LCD Soundsystem, Lightening Bolt, and Modest Mouse. Other acts will be announced in the coming weeks, but, if you don’t mind waiting to see who you’re paying for, you can buy tickets…right now! It’ll happen from July 16-18 in Chicago’s Union Park.

Welcome to the Pitchforkast. Here, your friendly Pitchforkast team (YFPT) will attempt to predict the Pitchfork rating for albums that have not yet appeared on that Web site. Note: Ratings estimates are arrived at through expert guesswork.

TODAY: Liars, Sisterworld—leaked January 2010; out March 8

Holy dude do those Pitchforkers love their Liars. Ratingswise, Brooklyn’s finest rack up an Average Pitchfork Rating (APR) of 7.97—a solid pretty good that would be darn near very good if it wasn’t for that pesky pretty okay (6.3) the band got for its They Were Wrong so We Drowned. They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top, Drum’s Not Dead, and Liars? Not a single one of those suckers came in under 8.1.

‘Course, as we all know, love for a recording does not guarantee one’s ability to write about it. Over the years, Pitchfork has collectively struggled to get a clear picture of just what it is that draws the publication to that band. Here, Jess Harvell’s metaphor-heavy treatment of the band’s last full-length release can stand in: “In essence, Liars is scorched-blacktop biker music played through the art-rock filter of a band that's spent the last few years steeped in the bleak sounds of German new wave and early industrial.”

We know about (indeed we have some personal experience with) writing about music. And we’re pretty sure that the overprose kicks in when a critic doesn’t really have much to say. The members of Liars seem to delight in compounding that problem by throwing their reviewers the sort of curveballs that’ll make you try and describe something by using “scorched-blacktop biker music played through the art-rock filter of a band that's spent the last few years steeped in the bleak sounds of German new wave and early industrial.”

Though YFPT thinks that this new Liars album, called Sisterworld, may be a bit more focused than the trio’s past attempts, we’re pretty sure that it’ll provoke some crazy, long-winded metaphor—even as it continues the band’s trend of pretty OK to very good ratings. So, YFPT has determined that Liars latest will earn an...

8.4. And that its reviewer will go on and on and on about it.

Bloc Festival 2010: Your pals at Festival Watch like to keep you informed about things that don’t happen in this country. Maybe it’s 'cause we’re jealous that we can’t really afford to go to them—and are hoping that we can live vicariously through those of you who can.

Anyway. If there’s ever been a festival that we here at FW might just think about emptying the ole bank account for, it'd be this one, on England's Atlantic coast. Salt-n-Pepa, Grandmaster Flash, Roots Manuva, Ellen Allien, Autechre, and about a billion more awesome electronic acts? Color us there. Maybe.

It happens over the weekend of March 12-14. It’ll cost you (and us?) between 140 and 150 quid (what is that, like 300 bucks?), lodging included. Airfare is, of course, extra.

Chaos in Tejas 2010: We here at FW used to make fliers. Fliers? You know: collage-y things cut out of magazines and such, meant to tell members of our community when to stop by our house for a show. And though we tried (monkey-wrenched Kinkos card and all) our best to make sweet art of these things, nothing we did can compare—at least in terms of scope–to this.

For those of you unwilling to click, that’s an electronic copy of the flier for the 2010 Chaos in Tejas festival. On it, ably fitted into a space that can’t be much larger than a piece of legal-sized paper, are the logos (!!) of some 35 bands, the names of 25 other musical outfits and presenters, and various other pieces of information. Though the work was clearly not done via the ole cut-and-paste (at least not with tape and scissors), it’s enough to make us recall our DIY flier-making days.

Anyway. For trad-punk, metal, and brutal music lovers at least, the 2010 CiT line-up is just about as impressive as the promo material: Headliners include Australia’s X (not to be confused with the one from Los Angeles or the one from the Netherlands), a re-united Bastard, Subhumans, Rorschach, and Poison Idea.

The festival is scheduled for Memorial Day Weekend (May 27-30), and will, from the looks of it, take up much of Austin’s downtown club space. Tickets, according to the flier, will be available soon. Until then, you can check in for updates at, um, webang.blogspot.com.

Coachella 2010: OK. So we know that you know that they know who’s going to play Coachella this year. Gary Numan! Faith No More! PiL! Wale! Whatever. We’re more excited by Fantasy Coachella game as conceived by the Posties over at Click Track. Our line-up? Public Enemy ($200k); My Bloody Valentine ($100k); Jesus Lizard ($60k); Trouble Funk ($40k); Clinic ($20k); DJ/rupture ($20k); Four Tet ($20k); Mi Ami ($20k); Northeast Groovers ($20k). Okay, so we kinda went outside the WaPo-approved list. But, c'mon—it’s Fantasy Coachella, people!

For those of you interested in going to this year’s version of the real thing, tickets are on sale starting today. $269 gets ya in for the whole shebang.

Welcome to the Pitchforkast. Here, your friendly Pitchforkast team (YFPT) will attempt to predict the Pitchfork rating for albums that have not yet appeared on that Web site. Note: Ratings estimates are arrived at through expert guesswork.

TODAY: Hot Chip, One Life Stand—leaked January 2010; out Feb. 9

YFPT has never liked Hot Chip. I mean, we got over the Depeche Mode thing kind of fast, and we never really understood why anyone would want to resurrect it—at least insofar as pure sonic appeal is concerned. As a formula for making money post-electroclash, however, we kind of get it.

But Pitchfork didn’t. Not with 2008's Made in the Dark: Despite Zach Baron’s post on the Village Voice’s music blog, which found that its “purview is as commercially viable as pretty [much] any other, give or take a U2 or Taylor Swift,” the go-to source for the moderately discriminating music fan failed to see the commercial potential of that Hot Chip album. “Hot Chip have a big record in them and this isn't it,” wrote reviewer Mark Pytlik. The album would debut at No. 2 (just below Hannah Montana) on Billboard’s Dance/Electronic Chart. And The Warning? The 2006 sophomore release that earned the band an 8.1 rating, despite the totally mediocre review penned by Sean Fennessey? It didn’t crack the top 200.

Which is to say that YFPT believes that Pitchfork has a bad Hot Chip formula.

So. Based on the total lack of musical advancement (read: desire for another payday) on display throughout the band’s latest, One Life Stand, and the fact that Pitchfork hasn’t yet seemed able to tune its ear with that of the purchasing public (at least when it comes to Hot Chip), YFPT has determined that Hot Chip's latest will earn a...

6.5. And sell like crazy.

Neon Hates You/Smell Anniversary Fest: The Smell is the sort of DIY space that makes a scene. All ages, with a bent toward the experimental and interesting, this L.A. spot is about to mark its 12th anniversary with a weekend festival (Jan. 22 and 23) that seems heavy on the stuff it trades in: Participants include Mi Ami, Lucky Dragons, Foot Village, and Robin Williams on Fire. $10 (we repeat: $10) gets you in for both days.

Sounds Like Brooklyn Festival: We here at Festival Watch can kind of feel the Brooklyn hate. Being based, as we are, in the self-proclaimed “Live Music Capital of the World,” we've seen for ourselves what happens when every honky with a tonk feels like they have a right to be a rock musician. Brooklyn, we think, suffers from a similar sort of self-assuredness. Except there, the obnoxious proliferation of honest-to-God musical goodness almost seems to justify that sentiment. Which makes it all the worse.

As if to drive this point home, even academe has embraced the whole Brooklyn-as-the-edgy-Mecca thing—well, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, to be exact. Over the last weekend of January and the first weekend pf February, the residents of Williamsburg and Greenpoint (and at least some portions of Bed-Stuy) will, for the third time, presumably decamp and witness what BAM believes is a representative cross-section of their borough's sonic creativity. What, exactly, that means is a little unclear. Says press: “BAM's Sounds Like Brooklyn Music Festival celebrates some of the best music from the borough with two weekends packed with concerts at BAM and at clubs all over Brooklyn.” But the organization lists only the shows it plans to host at its own facilities. Performers there include Les Savy Fav, Vivian Girls, and the reunited Anti-Pop Consortium. Tickets for those performances are still available—and will be for the foreseeable future. Unless, of course, any of those bands can actually sell out the multitiered opera house that will host their performances.

As for the rest of the weekend, your guess is as good as ours. But if you should find yourself in Brooklyn, upset at the lack of shows that appeal to you, we’d remind you that there’s plenty of other stuff to do.

Noise Pop 2010: OK, so we realize that the last time we did one of these, we told you all about Noise Pop 2010. But that was before we found out that Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band would be playing. And despite the hit-or-miss craziness associated therewith, we still feel like that experience is probably worth the $39.50 admission price. Of course, if you’re planning to be out there anyway (reminder: Four Tet, two nights of Magnetic Fields, and assorted other awesomeness is included), you could just get a badge.