Announcing The Official Monster Children SXSW Showcase Presented By Sonny’s Porch
Music is important to us. It is most of our sensory experience. Many years ago with the advent of affordable noise canceling headphones we shut out the real world in favor of a curated auditory experience populated by only our very favorite melody makers, and we have loved nothing more than sharing our enthusiasm for good music with you.
Next month, at SXSW 2024, we’d love for you to come shut out the world with us at the Monster Children showcase presented by Sonny’s Porch - a new music program by our best pals at Sun Bum - on Wednesday, March 13th, at Empire Garage.
Featuring six of our favorite bands from the UK, AUS, and USA - Automatic, bar italia, Dust, Deeper, Psymon Spine, and The Belair Lip Bombs - as well as prizes, drinks, dancing, suncream, and ferns, the night is sure to be the best night you’ve ever had in Texas.
And this is only the start! Stay tuned for interviews, features, and more in the lead up and get your hands on some passes available here. Capacity at the venue is limited, get in while you can.
WHEN: Wednesday, March 13th, from 8PM to 2AM.
WHERE: Empire Garage, 606 E 7th St, Austin, TX 78701
TICKETS: Here.
MEET OUR ARTISTS:
photo by Steve Gullick
bar italia is a London-based band.
photo by pooneh ghana
Automatic is Izzy Glaudini (synth, vocals), Lola Dompé (drums, vocals) and Halle Saxon Gaines (bass). Their music rides the imaginary edge where the ‘70s underground met the corporate culture of the ‘80s; or, as the band puts it, “That fleeting moment when what was once cool quickly turned and became mainstream all for the sake of consumerism.” The band first met while immersed in L.A.’s DIY music scene and started jamming together in 2017. Once they started playing shows, word quickly spread about their explosive live shows and they became a mainstay on the L.A. club circuit. After their debut album Signal was released on Stones Throw Records in 2019, they began touring internationally and have not looked back. Their follow up LP “Excess” was released in 2022 and since then they have supported: Bauhaus, Tame Impala, Parquet Courts, and toured all over the world including Australia, EU / UK , etc.
You can’t get Deeper if you’re standing still. That’s intentional, says the Chicago quartet’s Nic Gohl. “Does it feel good when you’re listening to this song? Does your body want to move with it?” These are the questions he asked himself as he and bandmates Shiraz Bhatti, Drew McBride, and Kevin Fairbairn were writing and recording Careful!, their third record and Sub Pop debut. “I wanted these to be interesting songs, but in a way where a two-year-old would vibe out to it,” Gohl adds. “It’s pop music, basically.”
That “basically” qualifier is working pretty hard, as fans of 2020’s Auto-Pain might suppose. On Careful!, they’re not reimagining their sound so much as testing its limits. If you want to, you can hear echoes of David Bowie’s Low in the snapping rhythm and gray-sky synths of “Tele,” but you can also hear a bit of Auto-Pain in the nailed-in, stippling lines being spit out by Bhatti’s drum programming and McBride’s synthesizer. “Fame” seems to stumble together and nearly fall apart, the dialed-up noise making the beat feel maniacal and a little invincible, the whole thing a series of short, snipped, autonomous gestures that are by now Deeper’s trademark.
photo by Charlie Hardy
Newcastle post-punk quintet dust are fast cementing thier status as one of Australia's most singular and essential bands. Urgent, mesmeric, and arresting both on and off the stage, the collective have wasted no time in ensuring that their music and message reaches as far as it possibly can.
In March 2023, Dust unveiled their debut EP, 'et cetera, etc,' a testament to their creative prowess and sonic innovation. Blending contemporary Australian post-punk with experimental jazz and electronic influences, Dust has forged a sound that is simultaneously brooding, introspective, and dynamically progressive.
Offering a contemporary take on Australian post-punk, along with elements of experimental jazz and electronic music, dust have curated a sound that is as dark, introspective, and angular as it is powerful and progressive.
As dust continues to evolve and explore new musical territories, together, they’re set to provide Australian music with the sort of powerful jolt that will reverberate for years to come.
photo by bridie fitzgerald
The Belair Lip Bombs are Maisie Everett (Guitar & Vox), Mike Bradvica (Guitar), Jimmy Droughton (Bass) and Liam De Bruin (Drums), four close friends from a coastal town in Victoria, Australia called Frankston.
The band has really hit their stride recently with the release of their debut album ‘Lush Life’. The record is 10 tracks of evocative exploration; stories that run a gamut of longing, seeking new horizons and discovering new paths to satisfaction and self-fulfillment. It showcases the bands evolution and song writing abilities with striking indie arrangements and catchy hooks. The album is starting to catch attention worldwide and the band is gearing up towards a breakout year in 2024.
photo by dannah Gottlieb
Imbued with a sense of disorienting euphoria, Head Body Connector embraces abstract pop as a vessel to explore temporality, togetherness, beauty, and chaos. The latest offering from Psymon Spine (Noah Prebish, Peter Spears, and Brother Michael Rudinski) comes out on Northern Spy this February and is a gritty, punchy, guitar-forward studio record from a band obsessed with production. “It’s more unhinged than anything we’ve made before,” says Prebish, adding, “Throughout the writing process, we were always asking ourselves how we could make it really fun to play live.” The end result is a little Sonic Youth, a little YMO, and basks in the glow of early 2000s New York-based dance punk and electroclash. If you were to ground it in something more current: Kevin Parker meets Spirit of the Beehive. It features contributions from Deradoorian, Liquid Liquid, and Sabine Holler, as well as recently inducted band members Zebadiah Stern and Sarah Aument.
“Head Body Connector is our response to a world even more chaotic than usual,” says Spears, “and an exploration of the little joys, anxieties, and absurdities that world has to offer.”
