So, South by Southwest's 2013 version is going on March 8-17th, and as usual it's a treasure-trove of music and media. Lots of cool things going on. Also as usual, I won't be there, because work, life, money, and distance prevent me. The cool thing about what NPR has put together is a hand-picked, 100 songs by 100 artists, six-and-a-half hour playlist from the bands of this year's SXSW music festival.

Even cooler is, it's free. For the next 30 days, you can download a .zip file from NPR's website. (Click the title of this post to take you straight there.)

Obviously, most people won't like everything in the list, but there's a really good chance you might find a handful or two of solid tracks, and maybe some jewels. The hope, then, is that you enjoy something enough to seek out and purchase some tracks or full albums from the ones you like best. I'm gonna check it out.