Eric R. Danton

Too bad they’re not calling it ‘Shout at the Pumpkin.’

Saturday dawned clammy with rain showers at South by Southwest, which made for humid going as it warmed up on the last day of this year’s festival.

One of the great things about South by Southwest is seeing what sorts of businesses can double as concert venues.

As usual at South by Southwest, there was no shortage of bands to see Wednesday, as the Austin festival kicked into high gear.

Sharon Jones is ready for a fresh start in 2014. Heaven knows she deserves one, after the year she had in 2013.

It’s been a breakout year for Savages, the U.K. post-punk foursome that released a fierce and riveting debut LP, ‘Silence Yourself,’ in May, and stirred up a killer beehive’s worth of buzz with taut performances at Coachella, Glastonbury and the Pitchfork Music Festival.

You’ve seen them at parties, lurking in the corner, waiting to engage in battle disguised as conversation. They’re indie rock know-it-alls, and no matter what band or musician you mention, they’ve got an opinion — strong and almost certainly negative — ready to ram down your throat...

When Primal Scream frontman Bobby Gillespie listened back to the songs he had written for ‘More Light,’ the band’s first album in five years, he was startled to find that all of them had pain as a central motif. Startled, but not necessarily surprised.

The Breeders are nothing if not comprehensive. To mark the 20th anniversary of their breakthrough album ‘Last Splash,’ the band is releasing ‘LSXX,’ a hefty package compiling ‘Last Splash,’ four EPs from the same era, a live show recorded in Sweden and a disc of demos, rarities and previously unreleased session tracks.

Maybe it’s just the effects of a cold gray winter in London, but Foals guitarist Jimmy Smith mentions warmth more than once when he gets on the phone with Diffuser.fm to talk about the band’s new album, ‘Holy Fire.’