I think I’ve got a bit of a band-crush on Standard Fare. It’s getting a bit out of hand, if I’m honest. I think I’m just a sucker for several things, various little trigger points in my head that close the series of synapses that leads to me to completely forget myself. Stuff like boy-girl vocals, clean choppy guitars, start-stop drums, and buckets of vim. That sort of thing. Hence, I guess, the crush. Seriously, they’re fucking brilliant. There’s no point arguing the toss with me, either, it’ll be like you said something about my sister. Just a delight from top to bottom, a bloody great grin put to vinyl, one that has never yet failed to cheer me up when I hear it, and for those unfortunate souls who know me, that’s some fucking achievement given the towering mood I’m normally in. Aces, just aces.

Look, they’re from Sheffield, guitars that sound like that are issued on arrival, let’s just move on from anything that mentions the Arctic fucking Monkeys shall we? Excellent. The Crookes, then, instead of going down the rampantly excitable route, instead tread the lesser-travelled, but much, much more difficult path of trying to weave in Motown references, big choruses, and The Smiths, without it all sounding like a mess of the first water. The soon-coming single Bloodshot Days is a little cracker, with some fine crooning, musically managing to reference almost all of my favourite records at some point or another. There seems to be some chatter about them at the moment, and it’s well-deserved. I’d dearly love to end with a really duff joke around how The Crookes should become famous or it’d be criminal, but I think we’re all well past that, and I’m not sure everyone finds the same stuff as funny as me.

Belfast’s Strait Laces are one of the Northern Irish contingent at SXSW this year. I always find Northern Irish bands – and the Northern Irish in general for that matter – to be ever-so-slightly but fundamentally crazy, in a cheery but quite patently demented sort of way. Brilliant fun, sharp as a switchblade, but invariably the sort that will leave you for dead in a drinking competition, a race, or a fight. It’s endearing in many ways. Unsurprisingly – to me, anyway – Strait Laces come across exactly like that, all yelping and occasionally unrestrained voltage. As if the wheels are about to come off, but only because they’ve unscrewed them all.

It can’t be easy orgainising SXSW, I appreciate that, so the fact that the list of showcasing bands has changed umpteen million times should surprise no-one. Still and all, the grid (hurray, the grid!) is now live on sxsw.com for all your nerdish planning needs, while I’ve weeded out the brits who are playing after the wotsit.

Got word that the full list of Scottish Bands playing at SXSW 2010 is now finalised. Aside from We Were Promised Jetpacks, Hudson Mohawke, Unicorn Kid, Broken Records and the hotly-anticipated showcase from Frightened Rabbit, Young Fathers, Mull Historical Society and Codeine Velvet Club (featuring him off The Fratellis) are all on the bill, with The View “mysteriously” dropping off. You might not get a deep-fried Mars Bar in Austin, but you will get the soundtrack. Full list below, aye.

The Enormous Band List Of Doom just keeps on getting bigger, and from a quick whizz down the list, I can see that ever-such-nice-boys Athlete, as well as Ian MacLagan & The Bump Band (he was in the Small Faces, y’know) have been added to the British SXSW contingent.

Showburner favourites Fanfarlo are to play at Californian radio station KCRW’s evening showcase on Weds, 17 Mar, representing Britain alongside a globe-spanning line-up including Ozomatli, Mike Snow, Choir Of Young Believers, Soko and Fitz And The Tantrums.

The schedule is now live on sxsw.com, but this is the list of British bands playing SXSW 2010 that we’ve got together so far. Let us know if you hear of anyone we’ve missed – there’s probably loads, since there’s no longer an easy-to-scan list sorted by country yet. Latest scan through it shows up Stricken City, Pulled Apart By Horses and Marina And The Diamonds all added to the Brit-list. There’s also a Twitter list we’ve put together of showcasing Brits that you can follow here.

In the first of what I really, really hope I can actually make into some kind of regular-ish series in the lead-up to March, I’ve bothered a few of my more favourite British bands going to SXSW and pestered them with some fairly terrible questions. In the first one, the very loveliest Elizabeth from Allo Darlin’ spared the time to talk to us.

The schedule is now live on sxsw.com, but for your enjoyment or otherwise. this is the list of British bands playing SXSW 2010 that we’ve got together so far. Let us know if you hear of anyone we’ve missed, there’s probably loads, since there’s no longer an easy-to-scan list sorted by country any more. Latest update sees not only Scottish wunderkids We Were Promised Jetpacks added to the bill, but also Sheffield’s fantastic indiepopper trio Standard Fare. Wunderbar.

SXSW have now released what they’re calling a “preliminary” schedule. Except as far as the music is concerned, it’s so preliminary that every single showcase is tba. So, what you’ve really got is a bloody great big list of bands, all dumped in there on the Wednesday. Something to while away the time, though. It’s not the most user-friendly list of all time though, so I’ll wade through it and try and get some kind of British thing lashed together out of it. Still, though, hoping for awesome things from the iphone app they keep mentioning.

SXSW have again updated their big list o’ bands, with another 40-odd British bands added to that list. No really big names added from the Brits point of view, although I’m chuffed to see some more Scottish bands on there in the well-formed shapes of St Deluxe and Fangs, but delighted to see Allo Darlin (pictured), Beans On Toast and Blue Roses on that list as well, but I’ve updated the British list here so you can check it our yourselves. Pretty impressive though – over three months to go and around a third of the bands are already confirmed… excited, oh yes.

8-bit teenage chiptune phenomenon Unicorn Kid has stuck SXSW dates down on his myspace. Even though the over-talented little hoodie makes me feel about a hundred and fifty years old, this is good news all round.

Bloody hellfire, that was sharpish. SXSW have released a big list of over 200 bands now confirmed for next March’s antics. Thirty of those are Brits, which is nice, including Frightened Rabbit (pictured), Fanfarlo, Broken Records and Chris T-T, all of whom are favourites (and who have all played in recent years, many of them last year, I think). The full lists are below, and I’ll start digging into each of the UK bands over the coming few days. Hoo-rah.

Fresh from sxsw’s shiny twitter stream, the first bands have been announced for the 2010 shindig that we may or may not have mentioned before. From the UK, there’s the Domino-signed Archie Bronson Outfit (pictured) and CHEW LiPS, both from London, as well as the drop-dead awesome Japandroids (Vancouver, Canada), Giulla y los Tellarini (Barcelona, Spain), The Hong Kong Blood Opera (from Hermosillo, Mexico, obviously) and fashionable down-underists The Temper Trap (Melbourne, Australia). More on those bands after the jump, but in the meantime all other bands will get the magic letter of joy (or not) by Jan 29, 2010.

The ever-helpful Cultural Enterprise Office and The Scottish Arts Council are putting on two events – one each in Glasgow and Edinburgh – for bands thinking of showcasing at SXSW next March. Even if you’re only pondering the idea right now, we’d urge you to get down to one of them. Bands (including Scott from Sons & Daughters in Glasgow and Tommy & Ziggy from FOUND in Edinburgh) will regale you with tales of Texan fun, while managers, SXSW staff and other notables will give you invaluable advice on the tedious business of getting there, visas (worth it to learn this on its own), and all the other organisational stuff that, as a band, you are uniformly shite at.

As SXSW Baby points out, SXSW have pushed the button a day early on the new site, through which you can register and book hotels for next year’s shenanigans. I missed last year’s antics since my daughter – somewhat inconveniently – decided to get born right in the middle of it. Attendance next year is a definite though and even though it’s a fair old way off yet, I’m already a little tingly with excitement again.