NPR Music Opens South By Southwest With Showcase Headlined By Spoon: March 17 At Stubbs

Spoon Kicks Off U.S. Tour For New Album Transference

NPR Music And Five NPR Member Stations To Live Broadcast, Webcast And Podcast Entire Show

Advance Stream Of Transference Begins Today At NPR Music As Part Of “Exclusive First Listen” Series

Washington, D.C. – For the third year running, NPR Music will present, broadcast and webcast the opening night showcase of the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference in Austin, TX, when it brings Spoon to headline Stubbs on Wednesday, March 17. The concert will kick off Spoon’s U.S. concert tour in support of its forthcoming album, Transference.

NPR Music is offering an advance stream of Transference, one week before its release, now through January 18 as part of the “Exclusive First Listen” series. Hear the entire album for free at www.npr.org/firstlisten Transference will be released on January 19 by Merge Records.

As in years past, NPR Music will live webcast and broadcast the entire showcase from Stubbs. The concert will be streamed live, podcast and archived at www.npr.org/sxsw, and will be available for broadcast on NPR Member stations across the country, including live on KUT in Austin. NPR Music is partnering with five NPR Member stations – KUT Austin, WFUV New York, WXPN Philadelphia, KEXP Seattle and The Current from Minnesota Public Radio – to offer extensive coverage of the influential music festival on-air and online. Additional bands in the lineup at Stubbs, and NPR Music’s complete schedule of events, broadcasts and webcasts at SXSW 2010, will be announced in the coming weeks.

Transference is Spoon’s first album in three years, following the critical and commercial success of 2007’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. At SXSW, the four-member band will have just returned to its native Austin, following a European tour. The concert at Stubbs will mark the first U.S. performance of material from Spoon’s new album. While frontman Britt Daniel has said Transference is “uglier” than the band’s previous records, it’s still a mix of perfectly orchestrated pop songs. “The music of Spoon has always been an exercise in careful restraint,” says NPR Music producer Robin Hilton. “And Transference is the band’s tightest, most flawlessly executed album to date.”

NPR Music’s broadcast and webcast of the concert will be anchored by Bob Boilen, host and creator of All Songs Considered and its Live in Concert series; NPR Music “Monitor Mix” blogger Carrie Brownstein; and David Brown, host of Texas Music Matters on KUT.

The concert continues a recent tradition for NPR Music to present the opening night of SXSW from Stubbs – and to debut a new record from a major band in the process. Last year, the Decemberists gave the first live performance of its new album, The Hazards of Love, playing all 17 songs in sequence, and in 2008, R.E.M. (in its SXSW debut) performed songs from the March 2008 release Accelerate. In 2008 and 2009, NPR Music also live webcast and broadcast performances by Vampire Weekend, The Avett Brothers, My Morning Jacket, K’NAAN, Heartless Bastards, Bon Iver, The Dirty Projectors and many others. All past concerts, along with artist interviews and live audio and video performance sessions, are archived at: www.npr.org/sxsw

NPR Music celebrates great music in every genre and is an industry leader in music discovery. The free, multimedia web site at www.npr.org/music offers 300 new features monthly and an extensive archive, in collaboration with NPR’s newsmagazines, 12 public radio member stations and the passionate NPR community. NPR Music creates and distributes inventive music coverage across multiple platforms – from web, to radio, to podcast, to mobile, to social media, to live events – with first listens to new albums, live performances, concerts at the Tiny Desk, interviews, reviews and blogs.