LOU REED TRIBUTE SHOWCASE
SXSW's keynote speaker wasn't scheduled to play this week, save in spirit at a multi-artist Lou Reed tribute on Thursday at the Levis/Fader Fort. Among the many highlights was a set from singer-songwriter Joseph Arthur, who did a slow, woozy ''Pale Blue Eyes'' (while wearing a pale blue suit) and turned ''Venus in Furs'' into a bluesy Dust Bowl ballad. Thurston Moore tore through the recently-rediscovered Velvet Underground song ''I'm Not a Young Man Anymore'' with the New Wave Bandits, a kick-ass, co-ed band which was not Sonic Youth. The tribute seemed headed for an anticlimactic finale with Moby's anemic ''Femme Fatale'' — but then Reed himself turned up out of thin air, guitar in hand. (Of all sets to guest on!) Together, he, Moby, and crew rolled through a soft, gorgeous, strummy/droney rework of ''Take a Walk on the Wild Side.'' Before leaving the stage, Reed shared some parting wisdom with the crowd: ''I love punk rock. And I was the first one!'' At least, that's what it sounded like he was saying over the house's ecstatic roar.
DOWNLOAD THIS: ''I'm Not a Young Man Anymore''

YEASAYER
Consider yourself warned: This Brooklyn psych-rock foursome's '07 debut, All Hour Cymbals, showed off some neat studio tricks, but you're seriously missing out if you pass on a chance to see them live. At NPR's day party at the Parish, their performance was both formidably tight and dizzyingly free. Interlocking guitar chords gave way to drum-machine drills; angelic three-part harmonies emerged suddenly out of raw shouts. The only time the crowd stopped swaying in rapture was when the band announced that they had to get off the stage to make way for the next act.
DOWNLOAD THIS: ''2080''

BON IVER
The late Jeff Buckley has been riding a wave of Idol-enabled popularity in recent weeks — good timing for this Wisconsin troubadour, who sings his own soulful elegies in a bruised, distinctly Buckley-ish falsetto. Bon Iver (real name: Justin Vernon) kept the NPR attendees enthralled after Yeasayer's set with strong selections from this year's For Emma, Forever Ago. He asked the audience to sing along on a refrain of ''What might've been lost'' during ''The Wolves Act I and II,'' but he hardly needed to — half the room was already serving as his unofficial backing choir.
DOWNLOAD THIS: ''The Wolves Act I and II''

THE CLIPSE
Virginia Beach's lethal rap duo had the odd job of headlining an otherwise indie-centric Rhapsody party at the Mohawk. But the same audience that had just finished hearing rock acts like British Sea Power and Sons and Daughters warmly welcomed the Clipse's furious poetry. Before the Thornton brothers took the stage, a group of scruffy white kids were already bellowing out the name of their squad — ''R-E-U-P, G-A-N-G.'' Once they arrived, the crowd eagerly rapped along to virtually every verse, even the ones from the brand-new We Got it for Cheap, Vol. 3 mixtape. A few fans hoped aloud that longtime Clipse mentor Pharrell Williams, in town for a N.E.R.D. show, might turn up; he didn't (not a huge surprise, given the subtle tensions voiced on Vol. 3), but we did get cameos from their Re-Up Gang pals, Philadelphia's Ab-Liva and Sandman. Considering how well those four complement each other's lyrical styles, Williams' absence was nothing to complain about, by any means.
DOWNLOAD THIS: ''20K Money Making Brothers''

NEXT: N.E.R.D. gets its funk/pop/metal on