South By Southwest Music and Media Conference

AUSTIN, Texas – As if on cue, the sun came out Thursday morning for the true South by Southwest launch, dispelling fears of another soggy SXSW.

Helena, Arkansas, slide marvel Cedell Davis, accompanied by REM's Peter Buck on bass and sundry Minus Five players, rocked the Austin Convention Centre's Ballroom E with some nasty Mississippi roadhouse blues bashing to wake-up groggy delegates for producer Daniel Lanois's keynote address.

The way Hamilton homeboy Lanois was groovin' and grinnin' off at the side of the stage, he likely would've been happy to give up his talk time so that Davis and crew could roar on for the full hour.

It's never a good sign when speakers at these events bring handwritten notes with them onstage. You would hope that whatever they have to say is short 'n' sweet and comes from the heart. That's not to say that Lanois didn't genuinely believe everything he'd scrawled on the 2-by-3 ring-bound note pad that he read from. But all the stuff about "mining for the soul" and "keeping true to your dreams" lost much of its impact because he was looking at his lines, not the audience.

He did much better when he put down his pad, picked up a microphone and began walking around answering questions from the crowd.

When someone asked who was still on his production wish list, Lanois said without hesitation, "Neil Young. I've made numerous calls, 'Hey Neil, what about this Canadian boy?' But so far having him come in to play harmonica on a track for Emmylou Harris is the closest I've come."

As a follow-up, I raised my hand and asked Lanois if there was any truth to the rumour that there's a tape of Young and Rick James singing together as the Mynah Birds in the basement of his mother's Grant Avenue home in Hamilton. He responded by saying that while he did make an early demo recording with James at Grant Avenue Studios – Lanois even sang a few lines from one of the R&B ballads à la James – and does have that tape, it's sadly not the mythical Mynah Birds tape with Young.

Later in the afternoon, Liz Phair turned up for a celebrity interview that began with her singing four songs from her forthcoming album, tentatively self-titled and due in late June. Phair revealed that the first single, Extraordinary, was shaped for a serious chart bid by the Matrix songwriting/production consortium behind Avril Lavigne. So much for that indie cred.

Along with the panel discussions, the outlaw events also got into gear with bars, restaurants, gallery spaces and many of the city's popular record stores – namely Tower, Waterloo Records, Cheapos and Thirty-Three Degrees – staging 30-minute showcase sets all afternoon. The notable exception was indie mecca the Record Exchange, Austin's version of Rotate This, since it unfortunately closed for business. The Drive-By Truckers, foolishly dropped by Lost Highway recently, kicked ass with a vengeance, debuting the storming new songs from their completed Decoration Day album that will likely be coming out on New West Records in May. Frontman Patterson Hood says to count on the Truckers making their long-overdue Toronto debut this summer.

Fortunately there was just enough time to duck into Guerro's for some serious burrito action before hitting the Continental Club for Philadelphia's Bigger Lovers, which was the only way to get in to see the highly-anticipated Minus Five getdown that followed. With the front line of Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows) and John Ramberg (Model Rockets) augmented by John Wesley Harding, the Five didn't appear to suffer from the absence of Jeff Tweedy, whom McCaughey mentioned was "recovering from an operation." Despite the cultured pure pop aesthetic of their recordings, they blasted away like a garage punk band in the flesh and everyone who managed to squeeze into the Continental Club was thrilled silly.

Running into some old pals at Antone's Record Shop while scrounging for singles, I was informed that survivors of Austin's late great punk numbskulls Motards were now rampaging as the even stoopider Mangina. They're not playing any sanctioned SXSW functions, but if I hear about them bum-rushing some afterhours party, you know I'll be there.

Next big things the Rapture had a tough time connecting with the huge crowd at La Zona Rosa who appeared unimpressed with the New Yorkers' brand of throwback punk-disco. Most people just stood still and stared at them whenever they tried to get an overhead clap-along going to one of their angular jams. They saved their "hit" song House of Jealous Lovers till the end, but even that only got three people dancing, and they knew each other. They closed with a dismal run at Louie, Louie that fell apart before they got to the second verse and then split to a smattering of applause.

The worst-kept secret of the event was that Blur were the special guests listed in the festival guide following the Rapture. Sure enough, Damon Albarn came out and announced they would be playing new tunes from their forthcoming Think Tank album. Then they launched into a deep dubby Afro-reggae throb. It may seem like an odd departure for Blur, but knowing the sort of things Albarn has been working on with the Honest Jon's label, particularly the Cedric "Im" Brooks reissue project, the new groove-oriented direction makes sense. If the album sounds anything like the tunes they played, it might actually be good.