missed south by southwest 2005? listen to over 2GB of featured performers here!

another year has passed and if you weren't lucky enough to attend the ever growing south by southwest festival, then here is your chance to at least check out some of the bands that performed during the music section of the event.

with over 1500 bands in just 5 days, the sxsw music wing is quickly becoming THE place for music tastemakers to choose who will be the next big thing in indie/alternative for the next 12 months.

in the past few years, alumnis that left sxsw as high level buzz acts included franz ferdinand, the killers and the white stripes. so it's no surprise that many of the 'next big things' (the futureheads, m.i.a., kaiser chiefs, bloc party, the dears, lcd soundsystem.. all wongie's world favorites!) of the indie press swarmed down to austin to hopefully cement their success in the following months.

of course, part of the magic of sxsw is the fact that with every buzz band, comes even more 1st time discoveries that leave the festival with hot press or even a record deal.

if you're curious about the list of artists check out the site and then listen to some of the featured artists by downloading the bittorent 2GB file and play it in your itunes/ipod now.