NPR Music - Saying 'goodbye' to SXSW Music

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

We look at how and why SXSW, once the world's largest music festival, is being scaled back to a shell of itself, what was so special about it, and what the shift means for artists and the industry.Enjoy the show? Share it with a friend and leave us a review on Apple or wherever you listen to podcasts. Questions, comments, suggestions or feedback of any kind always welcome: [e-mail] Hear new songs from past episodes in the All Songs Considered playlists in Apple Music and Spotify.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Let's just do a show where we all try to remember all the names we've forgotten and the memories we've made. That show is called My Life. Hello. Yeah, exactly. So this past week we received what I think counts as pretty big news in our world, staggering news, really. And even I would go as far as to say, unthinkable news in a lot of ways. And that is that the South by Southwest Music Festival is all but going away. And I say all but going away because technically it still exists, but starting next year, organizers are cutting it so much that I think it's safe to say that it'll kind of just be a shell of itself and what it used to be. Anne Power, Stephen Thompson, both here to talk about this.

I think, Anne, you and I actually met for the first time at South by Southwest. I met all of you at South by Southwest. I'm pretty sure that's true. Yeah, I remember very vividly the walking into a room and you and Bob. Boyland and who else. I think Anya Grunman was there. Yeah. Wasn't Carrie Brownstein there too?

Yeah. I was like, oh my goodness, the glamorous. Look at these glamorous NPR people. I was so impressed. I thought the same thing. Look at us. Exactly. Well, so we should say, South by Southwest,

it's been happening every year for nearly 40 years. And once at least the largest music festival in the world, South by Southwest, it's basically being folded into the film and interactive festival that historically has happened the week before the real music festival begins. And they're also shortening all of it. So the bulk of the festival, you know, it used to really take off around Wednesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Those were the huge days.

Now it's ending on Wednesday. The day I often think of it normally taking off, that is when it's ending. And we're going to talk about a few. things here on this episode. We're going to talk about what was so special about the festival, why it was so unique, why it mattered. And we're going to share some memories of our time there, the bands that we discovered what it meant for us to be there. We're also going to talk about what this means for the future of music, for the industry, for the artists, music discovery, how all of that could be affected by this. And of course, we need to talk about how exactly we reach this point.

But I want to get some music in here right at the top. And maybe this is a good point. And maybe this is a good place for us to, you know, talk about why it was so special. We can get to some of the bands that we discovered there. And maybe it's best if I kick this part of the conversation off with a song. And let's call that. Wait, I'm going to try to name that tune. Is that Oceanano or is that abiotic? This is the song, I have to have a half of half and half. Oh, oh, no, the locust. No, it's Sin Zun Toad. Hi. Sign Zun Toad. So many amazing metal bands. Let's call this the sound of Wednesday at 11 a.m. And then maybe after this you go to this.

And then from this, maybe to this. Hey, I've been solid baby since day one. So I can't just throw around who I love. And at this point, let's say it's one o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, right? And then you go to this. And you're just getting started with your day, right? Exactly. And don't you think that that just sums up one of the biggest things that was so special about South by, that you could have the most bonkers slate of concerts all happening at the same time, same day,

and before 3 o'clock in the afternoon, you haven't even started your night stuff yet. Yes, I don't know how we kept going, except for perhaps the existence of a Red Bull. Thank God! Red Bull came to exist. That intoxicating cocktail of Red Bull and youth. I have never had Red Bull in my entire life. You are Red Bull. You're like a living Red Bull, Robbins. I had the exact opposite. I always had to have wine to sort of to bring me back down to Earth after it was all done.

But jump in here with what you remember about South Bay and what you think made it stand out so much and why it mattered so much. Well, I think that one thing that's worth keeping in mind here, is that music festivals are all over the place. And when we talk about music festivals, how they currently exist in most cases is you go out to some open field somewhere and there are four, six, maybe eight stages kind of scattered across this expanse

and you go from place to place checking out kind of a festival-approved, like major or rising artist. And that's a very different experience from what South by Southwest has been over the course of its history. South by Southwest was sort of an industry discovery festival taking place across dozens and dozens of bars,

coffee shops, kind of makeshift venues, theaters, outdoor amphitheaters. A convenience store doorway. Yep, exactly. And some of the best and worst venues that you've ever tried to see music. And all of this stuff is kind of happening on top of each other. It was an incredible way to do one-stop shopping and take in little pieces and kind of scout different acts that we would then go on to champion over the course of their careers, book them at our showcases, book them at the tiny desk. A lot of discovery happened at South by Southwest. One of the things I hear you saying here, Stephen, that made it really unique, is how integrated it was into the community and sort of became a part of that whole little universe.

It wasn't like you went off to a field out. in the middle of the country somewhere isolated from everyone. That's very true. And I think we have to talk about South by Southwest as an Austin festival. And as the elder in this group, you know, I started going in 1993. We're all basically the same age. I know, okay. But I just started going in 1990s.

Stephen, I was fully, fully prepared to allow Ann to just go with that and just let that go. I saw the Beatles at South by Southwest in 1964. No. Who could forget seeing Dennis Day and the... No, but when I started going in 1993, South by Southwest was growing toward what you're describing, Stephen, but I think it's important to acknowledge that it was very much rooted in the Austin music community and in the spirit of music that runs through that town.

I mean, it used to feel like when you went to La Zona Rosa, which is one of the venues that we loved at South by Southwest, it felt like you were walking all the way to Waco. Like, it felt so far away. And so it grew, the fact that it grew from this smaller festival that was focused a lot on Texas acts, kind of roots acts, to this bigger thing, I think is key to its charm. Well, and for me, one of the first artists that I discovered at South by Southwest, I've been going, I've been going. I went every year from 1997 to 2019, 24 years in a row. Amazing.

And then the pandemic stopped it, and then I haven't been back. like I think a lot of people. But in the late 90s, I saw performing in the convention center at some nondescript day stage. I was, you know, browsing through different stuff and I hear this voice kind of swooning in the distance. And it was like a cartoon character drifting toward the scent of a pie. The experience of hearing this voice. And it was the singer Don Walzer. Oh, never.

And Don Walzer, who's since passed, he was known as the Pavarotti of the Plains. Right. And he was singing this song called I Will Hold You in My Heart Till I Can Hold You in My Arms. And just that voice, oh, man. And that was an early kind of formative experience I had at South by Southwest of having my mind blown by not only an artist I'd never heard, but a genre I'd never appreciated. Well, this is sort of something that you both have been touching on. The fact that they created this fast, well, it eventually became vast, universe that you could step into and wander around in.

The potential for discovery, accidental discovery, were very, very high if you just stepped out of your hotel and just started walking around. And I'll never forget, it was 2018 when I was just walking down the street thinking, I wonder what I'll go see. And I heard the most incredible noise coming from this little hole in the wall venue. And it was the band Thick. And it was this group of women who were just absolutely just laying waste to this little room where barely anybody could stand in. It was like they found, you know, maybe a medium-sized walk-in closet. And they thought, we'll just put the band here. And everyone's crammed in there and sweats pouring off of everyone.

And Thick put on the most incredible show. And I am certain that in addition to probably not even getting booked, to play one of the big festivals. This just would not have happened if South by Southwest hadn't been set up the way that it was, where you could have bands literally everywhere, including just sitting on the curb of some random street. Oh, I have a great story about discovering someone

completely accidentally. And I remember eating breakfast at 2 p.m., because, of course, I've been up till 4. In the main part of South by and the downtown area, A group of people came by my table and somebody's like, oh, there's this guy you should see. He doesn't have an official showcase, but he's playing tonight on 6th Street, right? And I happened into this bar and here's this completely dorky-looking, blonde, curly-headed nerd guy with giant glasses. He kind of looked like your favorite, Stephen Weirdell.

And I'm like, what's going to happen here? He has this band. Yes, he had this band. The band was Raphael Sadiq's band. And they cooked so hard. And Alan Stone is such an amazing singer. Just like the soulfulness, the wild energy of that set. And it was full of kids on spring break.

It didn't have anyone else. There was no other journalists in the room, no other industry people. It felt like just kids on spring break completely grooving to the sky. And I was just amazed by his talent, spilling out of the room. And that was, that was a discovery that could have only happened, not only at South by, but at an unofficial set, you know, an unofficial showcase, which was a big part of it.

Those things you would discover just because somebody whispered in your ear. Oh, you never, you never had to step foot in a single official showcase. Yeah, you didn't necessarily. Right. Yeah, it's true. Part of what I loved about South by Southwest, and, you know, we're talking about it in the past tense. I noticed that. I really don't.

I really don't want us to, like, have this be a funeral for South by Southwest, but you would find artists who would become your new favorites. I remember finding Phoebe Bridgers. Yeah. But, like, Phoebe Bridgers was a perfect example of somebody who had put three songs out into the world. She had three songs in circulation. I happened to hear one of them while preparing for South by Southwest.

And by the time we got there, like, I'd gotten Bob Boylan into her. I'd gotten Robin Hilton into her. We ended up recording, like, a field recording with her. before she was even signed. Right. Well, Stephen, everything you're saying, discovering artists who we end up falling in love with and following for years and who get a lot bigger and speaking to the idea of how special Austin was.

It's the only place in festival I know of where you could go to see the most amazing shows ever at two different churches that were downtown. Central Presbyterian and St. David's. And I'll never forget, I think it was 2009, when I went to see a show by this artist. Something to my eye. I'm getting choked up again now, just hearing her voice again. Sharon Van Etton. Again, Robin crying to Sharon Venetton.

I've seen you cry to Sharon Van Etton in so many settings now. I really feel like that show brought us closer together, Robin. We'd known each other by that point for less than three years. We'd only known each other 17 years at that point. I just hadn't clicked. But I remember sitting next to you and really, like, having a small cry. together. Yeah.

Do you remember what Bob Boylan was doing during that show? He was scrolling through his phone trying to see what the next show was. That was, I couldn't handle that aspect. I couldn't compete with you and Bob, Stephen. I had to eventually give up because I remember one time we were taping a late night session and I think you had seen 34 bands that day and he had seen 35. And I was just like, I'm going to get a margarita. Well, yeah, and as somebody who, one, hates logistics and two has ADHD,

South by Southwest was a fascinating combination, was, it still exists, is a fascinating combination of stimuli. Yes. And because there's always something else to see. And if you're trying to see everything, you are constantly trying to map out your next move. And I would try to see three shows in an hour. I would try to catch like eight minutes. You're like two songs by three different artists at three different venues in the same time slot to try to take in as much as possible and get a sense of what I'm seeing.

But you can, in effect, turn off the part of your brain that is most open, most receptive to discovery because you're always thinking about the next thing. And so that push and pull was something you constantly had to navigate. All right. We've talked a lot about why South by Southwest was so special and how incredible it was and how hugely important it was. to us and to so many other people, really all over the world. So the big question right now is, yes, it is still going to continue and it is, I would say, maybe on life support, but how on earth did we get to this point? And there's so many things, and we can get into all of them here, but I think if we had to pick one thing, it's probably COVID, yeah?

I think it's COVID, but I also think there was bloat. Let's be honest. It had gotten so big. There was a lot of criticism, Robin, as you alluded to, of the admission of big brands sponsoring shows. There was the infamous Doritos. Doritos vending machine. That was quite a vending machine, though. What was it? It was like a 70-foot vending machine, and bands would play in the mouth of the vending machine. Like, there were a snack being dispensed.

If you don't think the festival had jumped the shark at that point, then, yeah. But, I mean, I know what you're saying, yeah. I saw some good shows at that vending machine. I saw Haley Bonner there, and she was great. Yeah, honestly, it was iconic. But, you know, there was bloat. It did get so big and so corporate. And I think it got very difficult for smaller bands.

Andy Langer, who's been a long time Austinite and observer. And participant in the music scene wrote an excellent analysis of what happened. And the thing that sticks in my mind from what Andy wrote was he said, South by Southwest had lost its utility. It was so expensive for smaller bands or even mid-level bands to do the festival. It was so difficult for them to get any attention that that thing we're talking about, that spirit of discovery kind of went by the wayside. So I think what I'm hearing you say, Anne, is that COVID may be expedited things,

but that it had already started to lose some of its shine well before COVID. I think so. I mean, discovery is great until you get to the point where you can't even see the forest for the trees. And despite your incredible Herculian skills, Stephen, I think even you must have started to feel that way at a certain point. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, if I'm charting the contraction of South by Southwest, the first year that I would bring up is 2014. Wow. And in 2014, that is the year that you had the tragic fatal crash.

Yes. Where a car drove into a crowd of people. Four people died. many people were injured. At the Mohawk Club. Outside the Mohawk, which is one of the best clubs in Austin. Absolutely. And it cast a really heartbreaking Paul over the festival.

And it was right around the same time, 2014 and 2015, where I was really starting to feel like it had become extremely difficult just to navigate from place to place in the city because so much was laid on top, like you just had layers of festival piled on top of festival, piled on top of festival. And I alluded to this in the beginning of this discussion when I said, like it's part discovery, part mainstream festival, part, Marty Grapp, part spring break, where you would just try to get from place to place and it meant wading through what felt like a dangerous throng

of people just outside. Like you couldn't navigate outside because there were so many people. And I think, you know, and part of that was a byproduct of the fact that the festival was bringing in free outdoor concerts by Lady Gaga or Coldplay, these really, really massive artists. Major rappers, like future, people like that, yeah. And those functions, which were not so much about music discovery, but about bringing in people kind of outside of the discovery realm, made the festival really hard to navigate. And I remember around 2014, 2015, it was the first time that I was thinking, I can see a world where I stop going to this festival.

Wow. That for me is a big thing to admit, because that, festival was such a big part of my life. It's interesting to hear you guys talk about the bloat because I hadn't even thought about that, but everything you're saying is so true and really resonates with me. But all the, you'd be looking at your schedule and you'd think, well, I'm here. Right. And this band that plays 15 minutes from now is a two-mile walk through a sea of people that I will never get through.

So I'm never even going to make it to that show and discover that artist that I really want to see. Yeah, the bloat was, it was real. Yeah. I had, recently, I was doing an interview with Matt Riley from KUT for New Music Friday. And Matt and I were chatting kind of in the run up to the taping. And I said, oh, man, you know, have a great time at South by Southwest. I'm so jealous. And he's like, well, it's really shrunk.

And I was like, oh, don't threaten me with a good time. Exactly. Well, yeah, this is all really interesting because I was really just thinking about how corporate it had become and how I think. think it had lost some of its soul and its original intent. The move towards bigger and bigger bands, and then if you don't get the bigger bands, then you're not making more money. I'll never forget being at breakfast one day. And this might have been around 2014, 2015, and hearing a person on their phone at the table next to me yelling into the phone, where's the money? Oh my gosh. Seriously. Where's the money? Yeah, I remember talking about this on one of our late

night dispatches. It was right out of Jerry McGuire, show me the money. That's crazy. Yeah, and I thought, well, that's a moment. That's really you know, but I want to say, I mean, you could still see great shows at South Island. Sure, yeah. The last

time I went was in 2018 and I actually went in to do a film panel. It's interesting that film is kind of the dominant now the dominant aspect of the South By South Wales Festival. I got invited to do this film panel and I stayed for one day of the festival, which was the Wednesday, and on that day, Pussy Riot performed.

And just the privilege of seeing the great subversive Russian band Pussy Riot at all was incredible, you know. And it was an afternoon set. And Robin, what you were saying about seeing, seeing like a band that blows your mind at one in the afternoon. It was at Emo's on their outdoor stage. It was small and so crazy and so exciting. There were still artists who could grab that moment, even in those final years before the pandemic.

I don't want to say they didn't exist. I saw Chance the rapper at a little, a cafe bar thing, on a Wednesday afternoon. Right. You know, like at one o'clock, well before he blew up. Clearly, Wednesday was the best day. Wednesday was the best day. You know, I think, so when I think about how we got to this point,

I guess what I'm hearing everyone say here is that there was, it was kind of inevitable maybe. We were kind of moving in this direction where there needed to be sort of a correction, a contraction of some kind. You know, I think that, you know, obviously so many bands used to go there because they wanted to be discovered, and that was where they were going to get their big break. And, you know, with so much bloat,

with so many big bands playing and so much money at stake, I just don't know that that was happening that much in those last several years. Although I did read, we just had this band on All Songs Considered, called Mail, M-H-A-O-L, male, and they got signed to merge, apparently, on the strength of a performance they gave it South by Southwest in 2023.

Oh, wow. Well, see, the old indie rock song, stalwarts are still out there, A&Ring, which I love. I mean, the fact is, you know, so many artists now are getting signed via their TikToks, you know, via Instagram, via their sound clouds, and the physical experience of seeing an artist doesn't seem as valued, which I think is really tragic because, of course, there's nothing, nothing can replicate that feeling of being in a room with a band. So let's talk a little bit about what we're losing here, even though South by Southwest isn't entirely going away. The music part of it isn't entirely going away. I'm wondering how you think we're going to feel this down the road or even right away. I think a lot of it is kind of hard to measure.

Yeah, I mean, I think that the first thing that springs to mind is just the sense of having communal experiences in which people are hearing artists for the, the first time. And as Anne kind of alluded to with TikTok and YouTube and so many ways that you can you can hear bands, you know, before you get a chance to see them live, I think that sense of like a whole bunch of discovery-minded people all kind of crowding around one place to have a hundred different experiences simultaneously is something that is very, very hard to replicate. And obviously, like the industry is in a very different place. The country is in a very different place. Artist's ability to travel around the world is in a very different place. There are many ways in which you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, but I think that it is really

unfortunate that there are fewer places to experience live music in a discovery sense a bunch of bands at once. You know, you can obviously like go, you know, if you live in a major city, you can go to different clubs and just kind of graze and, you know, check stuff out. You know, you got to pay a cover or whatever. But I think that that's a real loss. And I'm really hoping that something pops up to replace that experience. And I do think having a way, even though obviously the local vibe of South by Southwest and how much South by Southwest has meant two people who live in Austin, I do think having a travel destination that is combined with music discovery can be really special. That's what I was going to talk about. The regional aspect

of South by Southwest really did matter, even when it did get more bloated and bigger and in a good sense, more international, really a global festival. But I do, you know, worry for the city of Austin and how this is going to affect Austin. As someone who lives in Nashville, it's always important to remember that New York and Los Angeles are not our only music cities in the U.S. And we need that, we sometimes need those festivals to highlight what's there all year-round and hopefully bring people back at other times of the year. So I would just encourage everybody to, hey, book a little trip to Austin. Maybe it could be in July.

It could be in October whenever. Yes, everybody should go to Austin in July. I live in the South. I'm like, go to the South in the summer. It's actually really fun. No one's there. Go to Phoenix in August. You know, nobody's going to Phoenix and August.

There's nothing like New Orleans in July, I tell you. Do you all think, though, that bands are going to feel this in any way or that this will have any sort of impact on, I don't know, you know, that, again, discovery, but also the arc of a band's career and success. Or do you think that everything has shifted so much to TikTok and social media and that sort of stuff that it just doesn't matter anymore? Also, the fact that artists don't even need bands anymore, artists can just do it alone at home and, you know, they don't even need labels.

You know, does all those sorts of things that bands used to get from Southby, do you think that doesn't matter anymore? Yeah, I mean, I think one thing, if you're looking for what South by Southwest's decline speaks to, it is a larger trend kind of paralleling what we've seen in movies, where the movie industry has become so blockbuster focused that we've really lost a lot of the middle class. we've lost a lot of mid-budget and genre films. And I think in music, you're seeing some of the same stuff happen where there's been a real decline of the middle class in the music industry. And look, it is not a new phenomenon that it can be very, very, very hard

for non-superstar musicians to make a living. It has long been exceptionally difficult for independent musicians who do not have family wealth to survive making a pittance playing music and, you know, touring the country, playing small clubs. But I do think the decline of South by Southwest is accelerating the hollowing out of that work-a-day kind of working in middle class in music, where it is getting harder and harder for artists to mount tours, to be heard, to, Lord knows to hit the Billboard charts. I mean, that's a pipe dream for most artists, the way the billboard charts are set up. You know, I write and talk about the Billboard charts for NPR every week, and it's remarkable how few artists. you're really talking about in the grand scheme of things, while at the same time there's more

music being put out into the world than ever before. And so you have this weird process where the more music is made, the harder it is for any one artist to be able to make a living. And so that's one thing that I'm concerned about is just how do you mount a career as a working musician who is not working with or is a superstar? It's very difficult now. I do want to inject a little ray of light by saying that there are great music festivals right now that are thriving. And I'll just mention three. Big Ears in Knoxville, which also takes place in March, which is really the vision of Bonneroo founder Ashley Cappes. And it focuses on jazz, experimental music, but this year the

headliners are Ann O'Ne and Michelle and DeGiicello. I actually joke that Big Ears is kind of the NPR festival. Really a lot of the artists we love play there. Also want to mention American Americana Fest, which is still happening here in Nashville in September. And then finally, one that might be not on many people's radar is Folk Alliance, which moves around. I'm on the board, full disclosure, but Folk Alliance is this amazing festival where they actually rent out for, I think it's four floors of the hotel where they have the conference. And then artists play in the hotel rooms and you go from one room to the other in the hotel rooms. And it's like an indoor or 6th Street, but inside a hotel. It's pretty incredible. And I've seen breakout sets at all of

those festivals. I mean, a Rouge off tab at Big Ears, when she just put out Vulture Prince, or the Warren Treaty at Americana Fest introduced by Buddy Miller and Amy Lou Harris. Those are two examples of just sets that knocked my socks off and really elevated those artists to the next level. Well, when I think of the things that you can't really take the measure of, the things that are less tangible. It's kind of something you were saying earlier, Stephen, about sort of the communal experience, this shared experience that's being lost in a lot of ways. I remember having lots of discussions with upper management at NPR about why exactly we were spending so much money to go to that festival and put on showcases when it was nothing but a money loser. I mean,

we spent tens of thousands of dollars going to the festival and putting it. on massive showcases that were, you know, wildly successful. And the conclusion was that there was massive value in just being out in the mix, being a part of this huge collective experience, being in the conversation, and being part of the conversation, and engaging on the ground with real music fans who were also our audience. I made so many amazing connections with people on the ground there that I never would have ever, you know. I will also say, and I know my reputation precedes me here, I'm not really one who likes to be out in the midst of hordes of people,

but it was pretty magical. It was pretty magical. And I had actually gotten to a point where I was starting to think just this year before we got this news, I was thinking, I really need to start going back to South by. I don't know if you guys were thinking anything like that. Oh, absolutely. I'm happy with my, I mean, I'm happy with the festivals I'm going to this year.

But I would maybe consider going back to Southby now. You know, actually, a streamlined, quote-unquote, diminished Southby is way more attractive to me than reinserting myself into the choppy ocean that it was. One thing that I really appreciate about the way they're handling this, because sometimes the most important thing you can do with a long-running property like this when it's struggling is just find ways to keep it on life. support until you're able to rebuild. And I still think there is enormous potential to rebuild this into something better than it was. But I want to express my gratitude to the people who've put this festival on over the years. The people who've put on this festival have done such good work. And as much as there's legitimate criticism for how this festival has developed over the years, there are people behind it who really deserve our thanks. Absolutely. And we should pour one out for Brent Groke,

who was one of the founders of the festival. He tragically passed away at only 51 in 2012. But I remember when Brent died in just the shockwave that went through the music community and here was this person who had taken this festival, led this festival into a new space. So thank you for shouting out the founders. And shout out to all the amazing bands

that put all of their time and energy and money that they didn't have to probably deficit-funded their trips to South By to put on performances. I made a list here of some of my favorites I discovered. They're mini mansions, artist named Blush, big phony, Fongy, Fang Island. I saw Bonie Vair, 2008 at her showcase.

Who's heard of them? Who were they? Kishi Bashi, Vampire Weekend played that. I mean, so many. We put on that one show, and we had Adele was on the lineup, and she had to drop out because of visa issues, but our lineup was Adele BoniVe,

vampire vampire weekend the shout out louds and Jans Leckman all on one bill at one party as long as we're singing our own praises

I'll never forget St. Vincent's set at and I think that was actually the year of the accident that happened and she played

right before that and but that was one of those like anointment sets where she just oh she killed she was a guitar god

on that stage it was incredible it was really really amazing Well, we could take a walk down And remember And you know the bands And everything that we discovered

From our years at South by Southwest We could do this all day Well into the night But we'll wrap it up here And speaking of looking back At memorable moments songs considered is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. And all spring and summer, we're looking back at our number one songs from each year.

We're doing a different year on each episode. We're actually going to take a break from that this week. But we'll be back next week with a look at our number one songs from 2007. But until then, Anne Power's Stephen Thompson. Thanks so much as always. Thank you. It was lovely to walk down Memory Lane. Even if Memory Lane was sometimes crowded, full of drunk kids on

spring break and for NPR music I'm Robin Hilton it's all songs considered