The SXSW music X-plosion is two short weeks away. Soon, the streets of Austin will be teeming with indie musicians from around the world, not to mention all the bloggerazzi, publicists, A&R reps, street buskers, hipster groupies, taco trucks and the occasional lost St. Patrick's Day "normie" in his green-striped Dr. Seuss hat, bead necklace and shamrock shades wandering around wondering what the hell happened to the reality he was acquainted with as a youth listening to sports talk radio...

At RockDex we're readying ourselves for a full seven days of mayhem, from the tail end of Interactive on through the music-fest long haul. We'll be in town from Sunday, March, 14, through Sunday, March 21. To set up some face time to talk about all the exciting new enhancements we've made to our product in the past couple of months, contact Shannon at shannon@musicarsenal.com or Jimmy at jimmy@musicarsenal.com or you can even call us at 818-303-3161.

We're thrilled to be a sponsor of the Silicon Prairie Party hosted by Big Omaha on Sunday, March 14 at Lanai. Visit the Facebook event page for details.

Now, let's get on to some stats.

Despite the fact that roughly 826,983 bands play in Austin during the week of SXSW, there are always a few marquee names. They're usually some combination of hot indie bands and aging major acts that have decided to use SXSW to promote either a reunion tour or a new album. It usually works, and the buzz is often reflected in social media numbers.

We took three big bands playing SXSW, Stone Temple Pilots, the Scissor Sisters and Broken Social Scene, and ran some numbers.

In the case of STP and BSS, the SXSW announcements coincided with confirmation of a new album out later this year: May 25 and May 4, respectively. (No word yet on when the Sisters' new one is arriving, though one is reportedly in the works.)

All three bands saw boosts in online conversation and activity around their respective SXSW gig announcements. And using RockDex, we can see how much.

Stone Temple Pilots saw a February 25 peak in Twitter mentions, coinciding with a Spin listening party for the new album, plus chatter about SXSW.

The Scissor Sisters announced their SXSW gig and a two-night NYC Bowery show on the 26th, also resulting in a Twitter jump.

Fun fact: That earlier spike on February 16 reflects the 2010 Brit Awards, in which the Scissor Sisters were up for an award for "Most Memorable Brits Performance of 30 Years" for their 2005 performance of "Take Your Mama Out." (Alas, the award went to the Spice Girls)

Going over to MySpace views for Broken Social Scene, the Canadian indie stalwarts stirred up activity at the beginning of the month, when they broke news of their new album and SXSW gig.

BSS saw its biggest peak, however, when the band played a free show in Vancouver on the night of February 20. That's some gold-medal thinking (*wink*).

As RockDex shows yet again, what happens in the music biz plays out in online conversation.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, now for one bloody memorable performance.

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