SxSw 06 with Neil Young, Cat Power, B&S, Saves the Day, Rollins...

South By South West, announces first blast of details for next year, which is also its 20th Anniversary... plus DiS to put on an event.

It's in Austin. It is, was and will be amazing. Basically there ain't many music festivals in the world where you can see about 3000 new bands, pretty much before anyone else in the world, in the Texan sun, whilst drinking mexican beer and eating the best BBQ in the world. And see bats fly from under a bridge! And if you work in the music biz you can goto a conference where this year Neil Young is the keynote speaker and the likes of Henry Rollins (being interviewed onstage!), K.D. Lang, The Pretenders, Kris Kristofferson and Billy Bragg are all talking too!

Joining Neil Young on March 16th, during his natter will be director Jonathan Demme, whose film 'Neil Young / Heart of Gold' will screen during SXSW. The movie documents Young's 2005 Nashville performances, which focused on his most recent album, 'Prairie Wind'.

Drowned in Sound will be out there in full force, and is helping to curate the Bootleg BBQ on Saturday afternoon with British Underground. It takes place at the Mean Eyed Cat on Fifth St, which is a Johnny Cash bar that was formally a chainsaw shop, The Cut-Rite as featured in Chainsaw Massacre 2.

For our review of last year click here.

Here's the first round of official acts confirmed for SXSW 2006:

The Adored (Los Angeles, CA)
Annie (Bergen, Norway)
Arctic Monkeys (Sheffield, UK)
Belle and Sebastian (Glasgow, UK)
The BellRays (Los Angeles, CA)
Be Your Own PET (Nashville, TN)
Blockhead (New York, NY)
The Boy Least Likely To (Wendover, UK)
The Brokedown (Los Angeles, CA)
Calexico (Tucson, AZ)
Neko Case (Tacoma, WA)
Cat Power (Atlanta, GA, pictured)
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (Brooklyn, NY)
Clor (London, UK)
Jason Collett (Toronto, Ontario)
The Cribs (Wakefield, UK)
Cuff the Duke (Toronto, Ontario)
Jamie Cullum (London, UK)
Dashboard Confessional (Boca Raton, FL)
Death In Vegas (London, UK)
Death Vessel (Brooklyn, NY)
Dengue Fever (Los Angeles, CA)
Destroyer (Vancouver, British Columbia)
Die! Die! Die! (Auckland, New Zealand)
Dirty Pretty Things (London, UK)
Jorge Drexler (Madrid, Spain)
Dr. Spock (Reykjavik, Iceland)
The Duke Spirit (London, UK)
The Earlies (Manchester, UK)
Echo & The Bunnymen (Liverpool, UK)
Editors (Birmingham, UK)
The Eighteenth Day Of May (London, UK)
Elbow (Manchester, UK)
Empire Dogs (Stockholm, Sweden)
Erase Errata (San Francisco, CA)
Faker (Sydney, Australia)
Flogging Molly (Los Angeles, CA)
Forward Russia (Leeds, UK)
Giant Sand (Tucson, AZ)
Gogol Bordello (New York, NY)
Jose Gonzalez (Gothenburg, Sweden)
The Go! Team (Brighton, UK)
Headphones (Seattle, WA)
The Hellacopters (Stockholm, Sweden)
Clarence Frogman Henry (New Orleans, LA)
The Juan Maclean (Dover, NH)
Kaki King (New York, NY)
Kalas (Oakland, CA)
k-os (Whitby, Ontario)
Sharron Kraus & Christian Kiefer (London, UK)
Lady Sovereign (London, UK)
The Like (Los Angeles, CA)
Los De Abajo (Mexico, City, Mexico)
Luminous Orange (Yokohama Japan)
Barbara Lynn (Beaumont, TX)
The Magic Numbers (London, UK)
Magnolia Electric Company (Chicago, IL)
Serena Maneesh (Oslo, Norway)
Mates of State (East Haven, CT)
The Morning After Girls (Sydney, Australia)
The Most Serene Republic (Toronto, Ontario)
Mystery Jets (London, UK)
My Summer as a Salvation Soldier (Reykjavik, Iceland)
Neon Blonde (Seattle, WA)
Nickel Creek (Carlsbad, CA)
n0 things (Brooklyn, NY)
Of Montreal (Athens, GA)
Beth Orton (London, UK)
Peaches (Berlin, Germany)
The Plimsouls (Los Angeles, CA)
Robert Pollard (Dayton, OH)
Ramblin' Jack Elliot (New York, NY)
Saves the Day (Princeton, NJ)
The Secret Machines (New York NY)
Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives (Hendersonville, TN)
Tarantula A D (New York, NY)
Susan Tedeschi (Jacksonville, FL)
Towers of London (London, UK)
KT Tunstall (London, UK)
Two Gallants (San Francisco, CA)
Tom Verlaine (New York, NY)
Vetiver (San Francisco, CA)
The Whigs (Athens, GA)
Witch (Brattleboro, VT)
Wolfmother (Sydney, Australia)

The event takes place in Austin from March 15-19th. In 2005, SXSW drew over 8,000 registrants from all sectors of the music business and related industries, and featured official performances from more than 1,300 bands spread throughout 60 venues, according to organizers. For loads more info and stuff visit sxsw.com.