There’s little room for argument over the idea that this year’s lineup for the Austin City Limits festival is truly badass. ACL 2015 will rock Austin’s Zilker Park on back-to-back weekends – Oct. 2-4 and Oct. 9-11 – and will feature headliners Foo Fighters, Drake, and The Strokes leading, with Florence & the Machine, the Weeknd and Disclosure following their lead alongside Run The Jewels, Chance The Rapper, Disclosure, Alt-j, The Decemberists, Tame Impala, Father John Misty, Alabama Shakes (first weekend), Modest Mouse (second weekend) and many, many more.
Tale From The Rail: Pearl Jam at ACL
Naturally, Crave is going to be there bringing you wall-to-wall coverage and killer pics, like we do every year. But there’s always room for improvement within any music-marathon experience, and this time around we reached out to the fine folks over at Austin’s famous Breakaway Records to help us compile a list of artists they’d like to see at ACL fest, as well as recent-ish releases they strongly endorse at Breakaway.
Compiled by Breakaway’s Josh LaRue (Breakaway Records co-owner), with Gabe Vaughn (co-owner) & Scott Heard (manager), the following are key listens worth a spin if you’re in town for the festival, or just looking for some killer new music.
1. Tuxedo
Mayer Hawthorne & Jake One’s project is pretty damn great and has potential wide appeal. Get up and dance, ya’ll.
2. Ghostface Killah
Ghost’s career output has been the best of the Wu-Tang camp in our opinion, but his output over the last few years has been phenomenal. Just so many good records. Not typical ACL fare, but dude deserves major props & respect.
3. Golden Rules
London producer Paul White and Florida vocalist/rapper Eric Biddines made a super interesting and great LP called ‘Golden Ticket’. Not sure about the live show but we’d be there for sure.
4. Moon Duo
Wooden Shijps guitarist Ripley Johnson and Sanae Yamada make killer repetitive & catchy jams that’d sound great loud & outdoors.
5. Seven Days of Funk
Snoop and Dam Funk made a fantastic LP and we would love a live show with a fat sound system. Total good times music.
6. D’Angelo
D is playing FunFunFunFest in November, but he’s so damn amazing and elusive that people would go see him at ACL too.
7. Tinariwen
They’ve been around a long time, and hail from the Sahara Desert region of northern Mali. Their music rules and I missed them a couple years ago at Psych Fest. Bring ’em back!
8. Chain & The Gang
Punk / Garage greatness from ex – Make*Up / Nation of Ulysses front man Ian Svenonius. Always love what he’s got cookin’.
9. Courtney Barnett
Big fave around here after the most recent SXSW. Great, great rock n roll and such a good voice. And the songs!
10. Leon Bridges is playing ACL.
Superb new soul outta North texas. He deserves the praise he’s getting and then some.
Thanks to the staff at Breakaway Records in Austin! Learn more about the history of Breakaway here.
