Berklee, Vanyaland Announce SXSW Party, Boston and Beyond, March 17

Berklee’s 12th official South by Southwest (SXSW) party, Boston and Beyond, takes place on Friday, March 17 from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. at Friends Bar at 208 East 6th Street in Austin, Texas. The event is presented by the Red Room at Cafe 939, the Berklee Popular Music Institute, and its student-run label Heavy Rotation Records.

For the fourth year in a row, Berklee is partnering with Boston-based online music magazine Vanyaland to book the day-long party. This year, Berklee also welcomes marketing and events platform Do617 (of DoStuff Media) as marketing partners for Berklee at SXSW.

The 2017 lineup—Aüva, Bat House, Boketto the Wolf, Contact, Rebecca Loebe, TRISHES, and Weakened Friends—features fast-rising Berklee alumni and student acts performing dream pop, folk, surf, psych-rock, fuzz-rock, and more. See below for more information about this year’s artists.

Berklee’s SXSW Party: Boston and Beyond is 21+ and open to SXSW badge holders. Alumni can RSVP at Eventbrite to and the public can RSVP at Do617 to attend free of charge.

Vanyaland will be providing live video, audio, and social updates from the event at Vanyaland.com.

More Berklee Events at SXSW

• Panos Panay B.M. ‘94, managing director of the Berklee Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship (BerkleeICE), is mentoring at the SXSW Hackathon, and has three speaking engagements: Is Art School Squelching Creative Rebellion? (March 7), Creative Headspace for a Bebop Century (March 14), and Living in the Future: Music Policy in a New Industry (March 15). 
• Emilien Moyon, program director at Berklee’s campus in Valencia, Spain, hosts an event for music educators and mentors (March 16).

About the Artists

Indie pop sextet Aüva blends elements of dream pop, surf, and psych-rock with driving rhythms, jangly guitars, and vibrant harmonies. Since forming at Berklee in 2015, the band has released three EPs in three years: 2015’s Light Years, 2016’s Aüva, and 2017’s Side Effects, recorded with producer Benny Grotto B.M. ‘05 at Mad Oak Studios in Allston. The group is made up of Berklee students Miette Hope, Jack Markwordt, Jake LeVine, and Michael Piccoli, and Boston Conservatory at Berklee students Andy Metzger and Austin Birdy.

A mainstay of Boston’s DIY basement scene, Bat House is a psych-rock quartet known for intricate, shapeshifting songs and explosive live shows. Comprised of recent Berklee grads Emmet Hayes B.M. '15 (bass/vocals), Nicole Pompei B.M. '16 (drums), Alexandra Juleen B.M. '16 (guitar) and Shane Blank B.M. '16 (guitar), the band's self-produced LP, recorded with Dave Minehan of the Replacements at Converse Rubber Tracks, is due out on April 14, 2017.

Folk rock four-piece Boketto the Wolf has a dusky, raw sound defined by crafty lyrics, rich melodies, and layered harmonies. The Deli Magazine called their debut EP Sleepless "formidable…a neatly packaged, 5-track album that perfectly sums up the reach and character of the band." Boketto is made up of Julia Marie Hoffman B.M. '14 (vocals), Erik Grimm B.M. '14 (guitar/vocals), and Catherine Parke '14 (bass), and current student Tim Washington (drums).

Indie-electronic trio Contact makes dark, melodic orchestral pop with an 80s post-punk influence. Fronted by vocalist/producer Matt Rhoades, who studied music production with Berklee Online, their latest single, "Never Stop," has reached more than 1.4 million plays on Spotify and is being featured in all H&M, Forever 21, and Gap locations.

Austin-based singer/songwriter and Berklee graduate Rebecca Loebe B.M. '04 has spent the past decade on the road performing. Along the way she has honed her voice as one of the Americana music scene’s most exciting new songwriters and earned a place on Alternate Root Magazine’s annual listing of The Top 10 Female Singers in America. In 2017, she will be touring all around the world to celebrate the release of Blink, her fourth full-length studio album, which NPR’s Art of the Song describes as "Rebecca coming into full stride as a sleek, polished, rough-edged woman…The word seminal comes to mind."

A dynamic one-woman show, indie pop singer TRISHES (Trish Hosein B.M. ‘11) mixes beat-boxing, vocal looping, hip-hop beats, pop hooks, and harmonies, walking a tightrope between artistry and accessibility. She grew up in Trinidad before moving to the U.S. to hone her craft at Berklee, earning a dual degree in songwriting and music business/management. Since graduating in 2011, she has toured extensively, playing showcases at SXSW, NAMM, and Canadian Music Week, and opening for Neon Hitch and K.Flay. Her first full-length album will be released later this year.

Fuzz rock trio Weakened Friends (featuring alumna bassist/vocalist Annie Hoffman B.M. '09) plays music that is catchy, moody, candid, and to-the-point. The group’s live performances—relentlessly energetic and unapologetically loud—cast an immediate and cathartic pull on anyone within earshot. The Le Sigh said, "The band’s choruses are as big as their hearts and singing along seems less like an option and more of a primordial urge," and Vanyaland praised the band’s "upbeat, supercharged songs that lyrically reflect the confusion and chaos of modern life."

Listen to a Weakened Friends song in this Sounds of Berklee podcast: