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You should be listening to Alabama Shakes and Cloud Nothings if you're not already.

SXSW 2012 had a lot of well-known artists I caught who ruled: Bruce Springsteen -- who was joined by members of Arcade Fire, Jimmy Cliff and Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello -- Jack White, Santigold and Fiona Apple. And there were surprise pop-ins from Rick Ross and Eminem, too. But one of my favorite things about the music festival is stuffing my face with Tex-Mex and BBQ the chance to discover and check out up-and-coming bands to keep on the radar. Some have already been making waves, and some are just about to, but all are Buzzworthy bands you need to know.

Here are, in no particular order, 15 bands from SXSW you need to know:

Alabama Shakes: Holy ish, these guys and gal are fantastic! The group drew long lines and crowds during their multi-show appearances. Brittany Howard's powerhouse, gritty voice conjured Janis Joplin, and the band's Southern soulful, bluesy stomp was as intoxicating as an Alabama Slammer (with all the fun, and zero hangover). Listen: "Hold On," Watch: "You Ain't Alone"

Howler: Talented? Check. Cute? Check. Hilarious? Check! The Midwestern (Minnesota) quartet are an indie rock band for retro-leaning melodies and a young zeal. There was plenty of silly boy banter onstage about tour antics, which added to their already-adorbs charm. Watch: "Back of Your Neck"

Of Monsters And Men: I first saw the Icelandic band at Iceland Airwaves music fest in October, and in five months they've grown their fanbase exponentially, playing to a full house at the larger Stubb's venue. Their song "Little Talks" is getting radio airplay love and due to their appealing orchestral-tipped, rousing folk style (fans of Arcade Fire will approve) and lovely male-female vocal interplay, they garnered a deal with Universal Records. Watch: "Little Talks"

Check out more SXSW bands you need to know after the jump.

The Balconies: Toronto, Canada trio The Balconies mines hook-laden pop-rock and singer Jacquie Neville's arena-worthy, Hayley Williams-esque vocals and bigger-than-the-stage presence (which included scissor kicks, half-splits and all-out rocking about) were as ballsy as she is hot. Listen: "Kill Count"

2:54: Yes, this U.K. band played at the exact time slot as their namesake at Fader Fort, but they're far from gimmicky. The quartet includes two sisters, Collette and Hannah Thurlow, whose axes provide the shoegazy undertone that pleasingly juxtaposed against Collette's hazy vocals. Listen: "Scarlet"

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Alabama Shakes, Cloud Nothings, Kimbra + More: 15 SXSW Bands You Need To Know

Do you hear that? The deep rumble thats been approaching over the horizon for a few years now that screeching, skittering WOMP WOMP WOMP that sounds like Optimus Prime having sex with a dial-up modem?

It has arrived.

Turn out to Short North nightclub Circus on Wednesdays and find several hundred young people twirling glow sticks and gyrating to aggressive strains of dubstep and electro, the genres at the forefront of electronic dance musics surge into the mainstream. Its an impressive sight, especially on a school night, but its nothing compared to the scene when thousands of them flock to see rock-star DJs like Skrillex and Bassnectar headline LC Pavilion, bodies moving with a ferocity that verges on mosh pit status.

After years on the fringes, electronic dance music is having its big mainstream moment, and Columbus is in on the fun.

Thump is just one of many massively popular dubstep and electro nights in town; Thump promoter Nick Reeds monthly LeBoom party routinely brings more than 500 people to Skullys, while Scott Niemets multi-genre Sweatin has been reliably attracting hundreds to various venues for half a decade.

Columbus-based promoter Prime Social Group books major global names like Tiesto and Steve Aoki at local spots like The Mansion and The Bluestone; the company also promotes events across the Midwest and even in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where theyve recruited a superstar DJ lineup for a 42-night spring break experience called Electro Beach.

We even have a rising superstar DJ act of our own, the laser-eyed duo roeVy, now popular enough to repeatedly pack the Newport and steadily making a name across the Midwest.

The causes of this nationwide phenomenon are myriad: taste-making producers like Diplo and Girl Talk brought dance music to fans of rap and indie rock; diverse festivals like Bonnaroo, Coachella and Electric Forest act as Petri dishes for new music discovery; DJs from Skrillex down to roeVy have seized the opportunity and fashioned themselves as rock stars with elaborate stage shows worthy of KISS or Alice Cooper.

This has been a long process, said Reed, who deejays under the name Carma. We put on a free show with Rusko and 12th Planet that only had 300 people two years ago. We recently had him back, and he sold out Bluestone.

With the influx of local dance nights has come an influx of local electronic musicians. Not all of them dabble in dubstep (the decade-old brainy English genre that morphed into bro-friendly party music with violent bass drops) and electro (a splicing of drum machines and funk that dates back to the 80s). The local ecosystem supports everything from gloomy midnight-techno duo Funerals to vibrant Moombahton act Cassius Slay to Digiraatii, who infuses dubstep and electro with the energy of hardcore punk. Niemet, who has made it his business to use Sweatin as a vehicle to bring together disparate social groups and styles, has a lot to work with.

Continued here:
Spin city: DJs rule Columbus nightlife

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Music For 'Disenfranchised Working-Class Youth': The British reggae band Steel Pulse formed in Birmingham in 1975. Mykaell Riley is third from the left.

You could hear it on mainstream radio in 1978, courtesy of The Police, and if you're in Britain, you can hear it on the airwaves today, in the music of Birmingham-born MC Lady Leshurr: reggae's influence on British music.

"As long as there's been reggae, there's been reggae in the U.K., and that influence has played a massive role," says producer and DJ Ras Kwame, who has worked on BBC Radio for more than a decade.

Lately called "bass culture," the wide range of music influenced by reggae in the U.K. is as prominent as the rock that was inspired by R&B and blues half a century ago, says Mykaell Riley, the lead singer of the reggae band Steel Pulse, which formed in Birmingham in 1975.

"We look at the impact of it; we look at how it's changed production; we look at the story of the remix culture, rave culture and the relationship to sound systems; we look at current youth and what they use as a key reference when making popular music in the U.K., and we'll see that the resonance of the black community in the U.K. has a major contribution that has never been fully recognized," Riley says.

The contribution began in the 1950s, when Jamaican immigration to the U.K. spiked. By the early '60s, British sound systems flourished and British ska music by artists like Millie Small topped the Billboard charts.

Where in America, West Indian immigrants could be absorbed into existing African-American communities, in Britain, where there was no real black community to speak of, Caribbean people found themselves isolated. Riley says that reggae became a potent way of dealing with that alienation.

"Disenfranchised working-class youth identified through this music," Riley says, "which was rebellious, it was anti-state, anti-government, it was very politically charged and very militant, so the black youth were very motivated and socially aware at the time. And all of this came through reggae. It was not present in the schools, on television, in the books, in radio."

In the 1970s, reggae exploded in the U.K. Bob Marley lived in London. Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones recorded reggae songs, and a soulful British genre known as Lover's Rock was born. But when U.K. reggae bands like Steel Pulse and Aswad hit the scene, they struggled to be accepted by black audiences who deemed them less authentic than Jamaican-born acts. Instead, these new bands found an unlikely fan base: punks.

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Reggae In The U.K.: A Steady Force

EAST RUTHERFORD Computer beats are eclipsing rock riffs on the concert scene, as electronic music has become the soundtrack for teen rebellion.

"Rave" parties, debaucherous techno dance gatherings, are crossing over from the underground to the mainstream, and stirring up controversy in the process. The rebirth of rave culture is coupled with a comeback of the club drug Ecstasy, or MDMA.

The Electric Daisy Carnival, the countrys largest remix mega-fest, is making its Garden State debut at MetLife Stadium in May. Tickets were sold out within three hours of going on sale earlier this month.

"Were witnessing an explosion of electronic dance music in America," says Kerri Mason, a Billboard magazine columnist. "Young people arent going to see big rock bands in this cultural moment. Right now, with the recession, things are kind of marginal and bordering on crappy and all kids want to do is bounce around to happy dance music.

"Its communal. Its energetic," he says.

Its also alarming to parents and public health advocates. Electric Daisy Carnival was banished from its hometown, Los Angeles, after a 15-year-old girl died of an Ecstasy overdose two years ago. It relocated to Las Vegas last summer and drew an audience of 230,000 with no fatalities. Two drug-related deaths were reported, however, at an EDC spinoff in Dallas the same month.

Unprecedented safety measures are being mapped out for the MetLife tour stop on May 19-20. It will be the first Meadowlands concert with an 18-plus age restriction.

"We encourage adult responsibility among our fans," says Erika Raney, spokeswoman for Electric Daisy organizer, Insomniac Events, via e-mail. "MetLife Stadium has well-planned security procedures in place. Insomniac works closely with local and regional law enforcement at all events."

Thousands of glowstick-twirling fans are expected to sway around four stages as the sports complexs parking lot is transformed into a psychedelic theme park with rides and a vendor village. The lineup includes U.K. remix pioneers Fatboy Slim and John Digweed.

"Making the show 18 and older is a way for the promoters to protect themselves," says Jersey-based concert promoter John Scher, whose credits span from the Grateful Dead and Bruce Springsteen to the problem-plagued Woodstock 99.

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Electronic music mega-festival getting slapped with Meadowlands' first concert age restriction

BOSTON (AP) In the summer of 1996, Mitt Romney received a frantic report from one of his fellow executives at Bain Capital.

Robert Gay's 14-year-old daughter, Melissa, had gone missing after taking a train into New York City, Gay told Romney. Gay said he and his wife, Lynette, had contacted the police and were desperately trying to track down Melissa.

She might have become lost in an underworld rave party scene after attending a party on Randall's Island on the city's East River. Rave parties were typically all-night affairs punctuated by the use of the drug Ecstasy, which can induce euphoria or hallucinations. The Gays feared their daughter might be unable to contact home.

Romney stepped in and committed Bain's resources to help with the search.

"I said let's close the firm, let's close the company we were in Boston and let's all of us fly down to New York and try to find her," Romney recalled recently when ask about the incident at a rally in Ohio this month. "So we closed the business, we went home and packed our things."

The search ultimately led to a home in New Jersey where Melissa was found safe. Soon she was back with her family.

As Romney, now a Republican presidential candidate, explained it, his decision at Bain was what anyone would have done.

His recounting at the campaign event was one of the few times has spoken publicly about the matter.

But his political campaigns and allies have not hesitated to highlight the story at critical times as he has looked to sell himself to voters as a can-do leader and manager who takes charge in a crisis and gets results.

In this, his second presidential race, Romney's campaign has been built around the notion that the nation needs a president with deep experience in the private and public sectors. He has highlighted both his work as a businessman and his efforts turning around the financially troubled Salt Lake City Olympics. He has focused less on his four-year term as Massachusetts governor.

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In 1996, Romney led NYC search for runaway teen