Vance Joy, Money For Rope Among First Aussies Invited To SXSW

The first six Australian artists who have been accepted into next year's massive South By Southwest [SXSW] music festival and conference, with organisers expected that at least 30 more Australian artists will be invited.

Australia's first invited showcasers include:

The Chevelles
Vance Joy
Money for Rope
People Of Letters (fron the Women Of Letter project)
Josef Salvat
The Swiss

In total the world's best known music conference, which takes place in Austin, Texas from Friday 7 to Sunday 16 March 2014, has invited 150 performing artists from this year's applications. Submissions to perform closed last week, with almost 8,000 artists from 55 countries applying to showcase. The eventual number of artists invited will be approximately 2,000 and they'll play across 100 venues, with over 15,000 delegates expected.

The full list of bands accepted in the first round, including London Grammar, Urge Overkill, Micah P Hinson and others from America, Canada, Chile, Spain, England, South Korea, Denmark and beyond is here. The conference element has representatives from Shapiro Bernstein Music Publishing, Pitchfork Spotify, Beatport, Yale Law School, NBC Universal and heaps more, full list here.

New York's own music conference the CMJ Music Marathon is happening this week. Courtney Barnett has arrived and told us all about it.