This year, at times, the conference felt more like Detroit than Austin. I heard dozens of bands that sounded like cousin derivatives of the hard-rocking Stooges and the MC5. Motor City garage rock revivalists the Go ran the sound through the Rolling Stones ringer and added some good, old-fashioned sideburns and shaggy hair, while Vancouver, British Columbia, trash rockers the Black Halos captured something of Stooges frontman Iggy Pop's death-by-rock 'n' roll attitude. Stooges bassist Ron Asheton and MC5 co-founder/guitarist Wayne Kramer also played gigs that drew lots of murmurs and, subsequently, larger crowds than I imagine would turn out to see them on, say, the county fair circuit. (They weren't the only lingering rock stars hanging around SXSW: I spotted Taylor Hanson of the teen group Hanson checking out shows and parties; supposedly his band was discovered at one of the famed SXSW Sunday softball games years ago.)

On Thursday night, Asheton took the stage with Dinosaur Jr. founder J. Mascis and Minutemen founder Mike Watt at a dank, rambling alternative rock haven with a huge backyard called Emo's. When the mocked up band broke into old Stooges classics like "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and "No Fun," you could almost imagine the burnt-out skyline of the Motor City, even if Watt didn't have a chance of re-creating the nihilistic energy of Iggy Pop. Still, I figured that if I wanted to hear Stooges songs that it's better to hear Stooges songs by a Stooge than just another band working hard to sound like them.

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One of the great things about SXSW is that even amid a massive festival infused with corporate sponsors and major label cash, held in massive ballrooms and professional clubs, you can still see music for free in out-of-the-way spaces that feel more like house parties. I went to one Thursday afternoon party at the collective home of a group of people that puts out a zine called Salt for Slugs and the modest indie dot-com Epitonic. The collective had turned up their mattresses to block the doorways to the bedrooms, hung up scrawled signs asking guests to respect their living space and opened up splotches of pudding-colored carpet as stage areas.

The two stages, really what must have been the living and dining rooms before the furniture was moved out, showcased acts as diverse as Austin's Dakota Smith and Dayton, Ohio's Swearing at Motorists. I would have missed Smith's lo-fi comic relief act at night because my schedule was jam packed with quality punk, hard rock and experimental acts. But at the same time, his goofy little songs about his Canadian girlfriend and squirrel fights seemed just perfect in a casual space where I could relax and nosh on free candy and sandwiches.

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Again, every year at SXSW, three or four bands emerge out of the hundreds that play. Faced with more music choices than one person should ever have to make, most conference-goers comb through extensive listings in the local papers and the official program guides for tips. But the real buzz comes from word-of-mouth conversations that happen in between sets or during downtime at the afternoon panels. Likewise, if a certain band really smokes at a particular show, you can end up hearing about it for the rest of the weekend -- and in the press that piles up in the following year.

Listen.com, one of the few dot-coms left with the money to throw around, held an invite-only Friday afternoon industry barbecue at Fat Tuesdays, a massive frat bar where you could get alcoholic slushies in a big cup with a plastic sports straw. The party, featuring Detroit duo White Stripes, was one of the conference's hottest tickets.

Stripes singer/guitarist Jack White introduced drummer Meg White to hundreds of industry types and other musicians packed into the backyard space. He called her his "sister," but the publicist-heavy crowd buzzed with another rumor: She's really his ex-wife. I was blown away by their white-hot psychedelic indie blues; there's no denying the two have chemistry.

Sounding like a young Robert Plant and dressed in skintight red from head to toe, Jack White sang songs about all the ladies of Detroit who love him and covered Dolly Parton's "Jolene" while Meg smacked the drum set and smiled at the sky. It was a performance worth seeing twice, which I did. The Stripes' second set at the Room 710 club Saturday night packed the band's sex appeal into an appropriately sweatier venue that was wall-to-wall bodies. Spotted at the show: Jello Biafra, looking more like an industry head than the former Dead Kennedys frontman, bending Jack's ear after the show.

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