SXSW: The gift that keeps on giving

I'm trying, trying, trying not to be bitter about having missed South By Southwest. I keep saying I'm going to make it there one year, but then I go and do things like move to Japan that seem to work against that goal a wee bit. But for those of us who didn't make the festival/conference/party/whatever it all means, the magic of the Internet has a way to give us some parting swag anyway.

Go to the band listing page on the SXSW Web site and you'll see that several of the names have a little yellow cassette icon next to them. Click on the band name, and you get a nice little page with info on the band, as well as a song you can either download (free! legal!) or stream to get a taste.

Or, if you'd rather do it the hard way (looking at you, Larry), the folks at SXSW have joined up with some techie pardners to let you grab the songs a somewhat different way -- some calls it a Clickguide. Something involving BitTorrent. These crazy kids today and their Internets. Here's where to get this here Clickguide (dammit! You kids get off my lawn!), complete with step-by-step instructions on how to do it.

Have fun! The guilt-free, cost-free, no-hangover-in-the-morning variety of fun, that is. How often do you get that???