Invisible Children: Silver Series

This looks really cool.  A ton of good artists will be doing some acoustic busking on the streets during SXSW throughout the festival.  Donations will help efforts to end the 25 year war in East Africa.  Some of the performances will be filmed by the awesome La Blogotheque. 

Check out the lineup here.
 

La Blogotheque

I discovered the fabulous Take-Away sessions on the website La Blogotheque featuring some stellar acts directed by up-and-coming directors. I especially love The National's take-away session that showcases stark, beautiful versions of the songs "Start A War" and "Ada" off The National's exceptional 2007 album "The Boxer."

#40.3 - The National - Start a war
Uploaded by lablogotheque

Bon Iver, an artist on a lot of short lists for best album of 2008, is also featured on one of the take away sessions. Originally a solo project of Justin Vernon's, Bon Iver has clearly graduated into a band effort. Backed by former guitar student Mike Noyce and multi-instrumentalist Sean Carey, the trio's exquisitely layered harmonies shine through on versions of "Skinny Love" and "Flume" off of Bon Iver's stellar album "For Emma, Forever Ago."


The Take-Away sessions also feature performances by Okkervil River, Vampire Weekend, Fleet Foxes, Voxtrot and countless others. The best thing is this: you can download these performances for free!