SXSW Artist Profiles

GUITAR MASTER Tom Morello started using the stage name “The Nightwatchman” while his band Audioslave was at the height of their popularity.

Kentucky quintet Cage the Elephant was either named after a Hindu symbol of strength and honesty or based on the exclamations of a frenzied drifter, depending on whom and when you ask.

Tucked away in the three-room warehouse studio known as Dunham Sound in the South Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, 62-year-old singer Charles Bradley and youngblood producer/guitarist Tommy Brenneck are playing back their cover version, still in progress, of Neil Young’s “Heart Of Gold.”

…And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead got its start in Austin in the mid-’90s as a duo: Conrad Keely and Jason Reece both played guitar and drums and would switch back and forth as they unveiled their idiosyncratic original songs, which ranged from post-punk personal tunes to more abstract ramblings.

Black City, the latest offering from Brooklyn-byway- of-Detroit-and-Austin-based DJ/producer Matthew Dear, picks up where his previous CD, Asa Breed, left off.