Loren Wohl for NPR

Molly Hamilton performs with her band, Widowspeak, at The Parish in Austin, Texas.

It wouldn't have stood out to me if I weren't immersed in a super-male industry festival such as South by Southwest in Austin, Tex.. But there I was, on frat-boy ridden Sixth Street, noticing the patriarchal web of door men, rock dudes inside the club and graying top dogs making money off them all. It contrasted with one trend that developed in my personal concert-viewing, which happened quite accidentally: I saw a ton of promising indie acts, many of whom haven't yet broken through, fronted by women. Here are my four favorites:

THEESatisfaction
The energy in the room for Seattle hip-hop duo THEESatisfaction at the Sub Pop showcase was something special, a humid dance party where everyone paid close attention to the words and self-produced music of Stasia Irons and Catherine Harris-White. It was a cool mix of physical surrender and mental consciousness. Irons and Harris-White rapped and sang about the frustration of living in an America where the Civil Rights Movement is too often referred to in the past tense, as if to say "mission accomplished": "Why am I chilling at the bottom of the pyramid? / I watched black women break their backs building them," Irons rapped, ending with "and it sucks." Sometimes her words came fast and sometimes they came slow.

LANGUAGE ADVISORY: This is a live recording. It contains audio that may not be suitable for all audiences.

Bruce Springsteen offered much to take away from his keynote address at Austin's annual South by Southwest music festival. He advised young musicians to believe in their own greatness — and to admit it when they suck. (Springsteen used that word frequently during his apparently wholly self-penned speech.) Chronicling his own artistic development, he talked about how doo-wop taught him about sex, country music helped him understand despair and Woody Guthrie revealed the political roots of the fatalism he'd heard in Hank Williams — then he made the crowd feel Guthrie's complicated passion in their own throats by leading a singalong of "This Land Is Your Land."

Springsteen made corny jokes, played a little music on an acoustic guitar and showed remarkable humility, saying he thought of himself as "an average guy with a slightly above average gift." People were crying in their seats, and I'll bet every audience member walked away inking her own favorite moment into her memory.

Here's mine, repeated numerous times: Bruce Springsteen used the word "pop." Though he ended with a line that perfectly combined his trademark earnestness with a veteran's casualness — "Treat it like it's all that we have, and then remember: it's only rock and roll." — Springsteen firmly stood on the side of the poptimists who embrace a wide, shifting definition of great vernacular music.

Mike Katzif/NPR

Percussionists Gidi Agbeko (green shirt) and Sam Bathrick (purple shirt) play on the street at SXSW in Austin on March 18, 2011.

A few minutes after 2 a.m. Sunday morning – closing time in most places, but just another occasion for swarming revelry at South by Southwest – a friend and I prepared to enter 6^th Street, the most swollen point in the Austin music festival's human stream. My pal, a young journalist, cheerily expressed futility. "How do you find a thread in all of this?" he asked "It's no one thing." He was right. To fashion any single narrative from the thousands of sets played, opinions shared and mouth-to-ear connections made amidst the din would be to impossibly narrow reality.

This, then, is my partial, inadequate view of what South by Southwest 2011 meant musically. I shied away from the week's big stories — one real (the fest has grown dangerously large, resulting in mini-riots and widespread bad behavior) and one pseudo (Kanye West played a show, a celebrity visitation not uncommon in the real world rendered sorta historic by the buzz blender of the fest) — in favor of a busy schedule designed to steer me mostly clear of hype. In choosing my path, I avoided entire popular subgenres — Americana, metal, chillwave, let's take a raincheck — although I did see Deer Tick performing Nirvana, about as white as it gets.

I also caught Odd Future, hip-hop's bratty young hope, but fate put me at the worst of their several showcases, the one where they stormed out (cursing their show's sponsor, Billboard Magazine) in a first grade-worthy huff after playing for just 15 minutes.

Following my own mix of new and new-to-me artists, I did find a thread to grab; actually a bunch of them, intertwined. My SXSW was defined by an extroverted mix-it-up spirit. At a time when new technology is supposed to be pushing music lovers further into their niches, I found the opposite: subcultural desegregation.

Breaking down social barriers is a basic function of popular music, reclaimed now by kids raised on hip-hop in the rainbow-hued American suburbs. Indie rock, the most noticed noise at SXSW, has sometimes appeared to be a strange aberration in pop – a collection of self-consciously homogenous scenes.

At times, SXSW has seemed to be a celebration of the inward gaze that's often afflicted bohemian communities in the post-civil rights era. Despite the mind-boggling diversity and international scope of the fest's programming, buzz tends to gather around bands who stand in for one small, white slice of the musical pie.

Enlarge Katie Hayes Luke for NPR

The crowd at a Bright Eyes show at Auditorium Shores at SXSW 2011.

Katie Hayes Luke for NPR

The crowd at a Bright Eyes show at Auditorium Shores at SXSW 2011.

SXSW: Live From Austin

Live Concerts, Videos And Photos

The 25th annual South by Southwest Music Conference is over, and many a sigh of relief has been heaved. It was the biggest SXSW ever, and downtown Austin rocked for five days. The whole city felt like one big crowded bar. Revelers like Mathew Oats, who just moved to Austin, staggered down the street soaking up the music coming out of every door and window.

"We're trying not to pay anything to have a good time," Oats says. "It is very easy to do."

But if you're an independent musician who had to get all of your equipment and band members to Austin, you may just be waking up with a hangover and a sense that the festival might no longer be worth the effort. Nick Stetz, who was at SXSW playing drums with Canadian Leeroy Stagger, has been going to the conference for five years. "It seems like every year it's, like, harder and harder," Stetz laments. "You know, there's more hoops to jump through. It seems weird that, like, the bigger bands get more than one showcase."

Stetz is referring to the official SXSW "showcase" concerts. It wasn't that way back in 1987 when there were 170 bands, and about 700 people came to hear them. This year there were 2,400 official performers and 36,000 attendees with admission badges and wristbands — and that doesn't count the number of unofficial bands that played on the streets and in small venues.

Enlarge Katie Hayes Luke for NPR

Claudia Garate of Austin, Texas, watches Man Man play at Auditorium Shores Saturday at SXSW.

Katie Hayes Luke for NPR

Claudia Garate of Austin, Texas, watches Man Man play at Auditorium Shores Saturday at SXSW.

It's midafternoon on the last full day of South by Southwest, and I'm singing a James Brown song to myself. I feel good!

Happiness isn't a given during this annual pop music endurance fest. With artists at every level playing for a chance to pull a career-making prize from the fest's goodie bag, and music biz folks trying to make their own profitable connections, tension can overcome fun during the five-day fest's frantic runaround. The longing to impress and be impressed distracts and distresses, especially now, as the music industry keeps changing, the way Jeff Goldblum did in The Fly.

In 2011, though, some kind of new dawn may have broken. Everywhere I go, the crowds are psyched, the music dominates and defeats the compulsive schmoozing of the jerks in the back of the club and the fans up front are eager to cheer and dance. With a few exceptions (that was a little boring, Vaccines), the acts I've caught have been fierce and focused and most of all, joyful.

Maybe the pleasure is connected to a willful decision to take charge of one's own creative life. The uncertainty that plagues anyone in the creative professions is countered here by a real commitment to the possibilities that arise when the old way of doing things becomes thoroughly obsolete.

Enlarge Wills Glasspiegel for NPR

Austinite D'wazauhn Washington working a make-shift pay-to-park lot in East Austin on Friday.

Wills Glasspiegel for NPR

Austinite D'wazauhn Washington working a make-shift pay-to-park lot in East Austin on Friday.

Downtown Austin can be a cacophonous place even on a normal night. But during South by Southwest, there's a hierarchy to these sounds: musicians stake out street corners to play for change; gigging rock bands blast songs from the open doors of night clubs and shot bars. Then there are the official South by Southwest events. You can spot them by the lines of people wearing badges or wristbands in front of the bigger name venues.

If you don't have a wristband? Leonard Briseno says you can just hang out at a friend's front yard across the street.

"It's like being at a free concert — I mean we're right outside you know?"

When I talk to him, Briseno is doing more than just listening — he's making some money. He and his buddys have opened up an impromptu food stand called Lenny's Legs, though it sold out of turkey legs hours ago.

Whether it's small scale entrepreneurship or just taking in the tunes, it seems like all around this city an attitude prevails: no wristband, no badge? No problem.

Enlarge Getty Images

Stressed-out music junkies, take heart. (Still from the film High Fidelity, adapted from Nick Hornby's novel.)

Getty Images

Stressed-out music junkies, take heart. (Still from the film High Fidelity, adapted from Nick Hornby's novel.)

Ann Powers will be in Austin, Texas, all this week for the South by Southwest music conference. Beginning Wednesday morning at 9:00 a.m. ET, click above to hear Ann's conversation with Morning Edition host Linda Wertheimer about the artists she's most excited to see. And head to NPR Music's SXSW page for our live webcast schedule, photos and Twitter updates.

Live From Austin: Webcast Schedule And Music Downloads

I'm in 24-hour countdown mode until I leave for Austin. My stomach has contracted into an irritated fist. Maybe I caught that nausea bug going around my neighborhood. But I think it might be another affliction: South by Southwest anxiety.

It's everywhere: overflowing on Twitter, showing up on personal blogs, and lurking quietly in the opening paragraphs of those survival guides that all seem to center on one thing your grade school camp counselor could have told you: WEAR COMFORTABLE SHOES. (My favorite, by my pal Jacob London, advises kindness.) Those of us lucky enough to attend this mother of all American music fests thrill at the prospect of gorging on music, Southwestern chow and schmoozy conversation. But every one of us also worries: Will we do the festival right?

South by Southwest anxiety encapsulates the feelings of inadequacy and failure that form the underside of the music-mad life. Chasing down new sounds, for a living or just as a fan, is mostly a huge joy, because music feeds every part of the body and the soul. Yet this pursuit, like anything that defines us culturally, brings up issues of authority and inclusion that can confuse and alienate.