If you're so keen on South By Southwest why don't you just move to Austin, eh?

Well, we can dream. And listen to BBC Radios 1, 2 and 6 Music, all of which will be covering it in detail come mid-March. And download their mightily sized torrents of sample mp3s, of course.

So, how are we going to justify an aimless lengthy list of band names? Well, by claiming there's something for all the family in torrent 1's 2.5Gb : Alien Ant Farm, Aerial Pink, Battle, Beans, Blackalicious, Blackbud, Brakes, Busdriver, Cadence Weapon, Centro-Matic, Chris Mills, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, Daedelus, Damien Jurado, dEUS, Dressy Bessy, Duels, Duke Special, Editors, Envelopes, ¡Forward, Russia!, Gemma Hayes, Get Cape Wear Cape Fly, Gogol Bordello, Goldrush, Grand National, Great Lake Swimmers, Hard-Fi, Head Automatica, Her Space Holiday, Islands, Isobel Campbell, Juliette and the Licks, KT Tunstall, Ladytron, Laura Veirs, Levy, Little Barrie, Magnolia Electric Company, Mary Lou Lord, Mazarin, Merz, Midlake, Morningwood, Moving Units, Mystery Jets, Of Montreal, Okkervil River, Piney Gir, Polytechnic, RJD2, Richard Hawley, Serena Maneesh, Shearwater, Sia, Talib Kweli, Tapes'n'Tapes, Taylor Hawkins and the Coattails (drummer's side project from drummer's side project), Th'Faith Healers, the Bellrays, the Cloud Room, the Cribs, the Dresden Dolls, The Eighteenth Day Of May, the Electric Soft Parade, The Gossip, the Grates, The Juan Maclean, The Like, The Longcut, The Minus 5, the Morning After Girls, The Organ, the Rakes, the Secret Machines, The Spinto Band, the Young Knives, Why?, We Are Scientists, Willy Mason, Xiu Xiu and several hundredweight of acts you've never heard of and probably never will again. And that's without Torrent 2, starring Billy Bragg (A New England!), Bullet For My Valentine, Corinne Bailey Rae, David Ford, Drive-By Truckers, Elf Power, Gomez, Guillemots, Harrisons, Ian McLagan, Jad Fair, Jamie Cullum, Jim Noir, Jose Gonzalez, Lady Sovereign, MC Lars, Metric, Neko Case, Nickel Creek, Nine Black Alps, Noisettes, OK Go, People In Planes, Plan B, Rumble Strips, Some By Sea, Teddy Thompson, The Boy Least Likely To, the Duke Spirit, The Feeling, The Magic Numbers, The Mighty Wah!, the Presets, the Rifles, Two Gallants and everyone else, including a band called The Brakes who we hope find room to have a proper fight with Eamon and co.