South by Southwest is pleased to announce that we have entered into a promotional partnership with Austin Music Award-winning pirate band The Jolly Garogers as their nonprofit organization - Pirates for the Preservation of New Orleans Music - embarks on its International Cash Donation Drive.

Pirates for the Preservation of New Orleans Music (PPNOM) is a Texas nonprofit corporation dedicated to rebuilding the music education programs of the New Orleans public schools hardest-hit by Hurricane Katrina.

Proceeds from the Donation Drive will be delivered directly to the schools with the greatest need for assistance. This grass-roots, non-bureaucratic approach to assistance in the rebuilding of the public school music education programs of post-Katrina New Orleans makes the PPNOM organization one with which SXSW is proud to partner.

In the city that remains the epicenter of indigenous American music, the schools of New Orleans must continue to foster the development of the current generation of music students who will, in the not-so-distant future, follow in the footsteps of Ellis, Wynton, and Branford Marsalis, The Neville Bothers, Harry Connick, Jr., Dr. John, and countless other mainstays of American music.

With budgetary allocations to the music education programs in the New Orleans schools at an all-time low, your contribution to this worthy cause is more important than ever.

To learn more, please visit the official website of Pirates for the Preservation of New Orleans Music by clicking here.

Please give generously to PPNOM. The students of New Orleans need your help.

The deadline for international submissions to SXSW Music Fest 2008 is rapidly approaching. It’s this Friday, October 26th at midnight PDT as a matter of fact. (Domestic acts have until November 9th to apply.) In 2007 SXSW hosted over 400 bands from outside the USA in a range of genres from rock to hip-hop to electro and more. We’re always in search of the newest sounds from the furthest reaches of the earth, and Canada, so be sure to get your submissions in today to avoid missing out on what’s sure to be the largest gathering of musicians and music industry insiders from around the world in 2008.

There's two way to apply: Sonicbids and via the SXSW website. Either way is fine with us, we just want to hear what you've got.

One of the original, defining voices of Houston’s dynamic rap community, Kenneth Moore, known in music circles as Big Moe, passed away Sunday October 14th at Ben Taub Hospital after suffering three heart attacks and slipping into a coma just one week earlier.

Known as the grimy crooner of DJ Screw’s Screwed Up Click, Big Moe’s baritone, sing-songy rap style came to help define what is now known as Houston’s signature sound – a slower, more blues inflected variation of hip-hop.

Moore was merely 33 years old, but had been plagued with health problems for much of his life, problems which were compounded by a salacious appetite for codeine cough syrup. Moe made no bones about his drug of choice, naming both of his major albums (2000’s City of Syrup and 2002’s Purple World) and many of his hit songs after the street term for the prescription opiate.

Death is no stranger to his crew, the aforementioned Screwed Up Click. In 2001 his mentor, the late DJ Screw, died after suffering a heart attack, many say was caused by an overdose of codeine cough syrup. Fat Pat and his brother Hawk, both A-Level MC’s in the click were both gunned down in separate incidents.