Robyn Hitchcock Turned 60 With A Chocolate Cake, And Other Food Notes From SXSW

The annual South By Southwest music festival — which wrapped up last night in Austin, Texas — often sets the buzz band barometer for the year ahead, with artists flocking to ATX to Instagram photos of migas and play many shows with the hopes of landing record deals and placement in formerly published music magazine photo slide shows. One of the acts to really break out was Danish band Indians, who we introduced you to in January. (Frontman Søren Løkke Juul was noted buzzworthy in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, to name a few.) For a country that has received so much play for their restaurants, it's cool to see a Copenhagen band get on the American radar. Sorry, not forgetting about you Junior Senior.

Moving on, we spotted on Instagram that Robyn Hitchcock turned 60 and celebrated with a sun-soaked Saturday performance at Ginger Man. We've long been a fan of the Soft Boys frontman, particularly his band's 1980 magnum opus Underwater Moonlight. "There's nothing more significant in your life than your birth,' he once told E Music. To celebrate the big 6-0 he was presented with a chocolate cake, with a soft center and Soft Boys reference. When pressed for details about the cake's origins, batter type and why the chocolate frosting, and not say something more fruit-focused, a PR rep for Hitchcock would only confirm that the cake was "damn tasty." Update: We've just learned that there was Dogfish Head beer mixed into the icing. Damn tasty indeed.

Lastly, another band to make a big impression was Indiana folk-rockers Houndmouth, who released their self-titled debut EP this past August on Rough Trade Records. They share a label with Alabama Shakes and have toured with The Lumineers. Last month they marked their most-significant milestone (in our eyes at least), with the release of their own beer with New Albanian Brewing Company. It's called Houndmouth (easy to remember) and is described as a hopped-up American wheat. On April 26 they play the Iroquois Amphitheater in Louisville, KY where we're told plenty of their namesake beer will be available.