This week's column is beamed live from Austin, Texas, where I am dizzily trying to chart a worthwhile course among the 2,000 or so bands who have descended for the city's annual South by South West music festival.

In the UK, where the (occasionally) green and pleasant Glastonbury is the benchmark experience for seeing a head-melting number of musicians in a short period of time, a city event on the scale of SXSW would be impossible. Around 80 clubs and bars within a few blocks of each other all put on continuous shows from midday to the small hours for four days solid. It's the Camden Crawl times a million.

Though established names are present this weekend — Motörhead, Billy Bragg and Scissor Sisters are all here, Muse are doing a not-so-secret show tonight at the biggest outdoor venue, Stubb's, and Smokey Robinson is giving a keynote speech — it's all about discovering the next big thing. That's why the world's music industry almost outnumbers the fans along the hectic 360 degrees of noise that is Austin's 6th Street and its tributaries.

The suits are here to sign up the bands who will dominate the second half of 2010, in the indie scene at least. The White Stripes and Fleet Foxes were introduced to the world at SXSWs past, and now everyone is avidly seeking the next MGMT or Animal Collective.

Future British success stories are present, too. The UK music business spends plenty of money generating an unavoidable presence here, with its own “embassy” in a temporarily converted pub and some 150 acts in tow — the second biggest showing after the Americans. It is claimed Amy Winehouse and James Blunt owe their international success to early appearances here.

Their successors are in this barbecue-smelling haystack somewhere — but where? Straight off the plane early Wednesday evening, I begin the search and quickly hone the ruthlessly short attention span required to survive. Hands are stamped, snap judgments are made and it's on to the next gig.

Local act The Strange Boys could be the Texan Zutons, with their rock 'n' roll boogie and female sax player. They're great fun and their home crowd loves them. I regret passing through a room containing the inane Australians Goons of Doom (one of a long list of attention-grabbing names that also includes Das Rascist and Gay Witch Abortion) and The Coolness, a group of ridiculously attired Londoners who mistakenly think we're in need of a new Darkness.

Scenting a rare opportunity to see someone who's been in this game longer than 10 minutes, I watch 72-year-old rockabilly queen Wanda Jackson singing while obscured by a post in a bar that sells cowboy boots on the merchandise stall. She teases her young admirers (“What's that, honey, a hat or a hairdo?”) and is no doubt as bemused as the rest of us by her presence.

The arty jangle of hyped quintet Here We Go Magic, Brooklyn's billionth band, washes over me a little but I love Chew Lips, a London synthpop trio who perform five times this weekend. The surname-free singer Tigs, so striking that she doesn't quite look real, is a surefire star in waiting. With the help of two gangly men on keyboards, she fires out numerous crisp, sexy tunes that deserve to find a place alongside those, like La Roux and Ellie Goulding, who have already achieved leftfield pop success.

The night is closed in soothing fashion by The Middle East, seven Australians swapping instruments beneath the fairy lights and mini cliff-face of beautiful outdoor venue Club deVille. Playing accordion, flute, banjo and harmonica among other things, their layered acoustic sound will mesmerise when they inevitably graduate to theatre venues.

With a touch of Arcade Fire about the rousing climax of their song Blood, and a dash of Fleet Foxes in their sweet vocal harmonies, they tick enough boxes to start a serious chequebook battle.
Though it is pleasing to head to bed with a sense of valuable discoveries made, I also feel as if the surface has hardly been scratched. There's a lot of exciting ground to cover before Sunday. When are Gay Witch Abortion playing again?

FIVE TO WATCH
METRIC
This Canadian indie rock band, fronted by the charismatic Emily Haines, are long overdue some British success after four albums, two of which have been
nominated for Canada's equivalent of the Mercury Prize. Playing today's hot Muse bill at SXSW, they will reissue their fabulous latest album, Fantasies, and play London in May.
www.myspace.com/metric

LISSIE
California-based singer-songwriter Lissie Maurus shares a producer with Kings of Leon, though her rootsy rock has more in common with the polished Seventies fare
of Fleetwood Mac.
www.myspace.com/lissiemusic

GRACE POTTER AND THE NOCTURNALS
Grace Potter's group have a mainstream sound and have supported Dave Matthews and The Black Crowes. They play in Austin on the same bill as the new Dixie Chicks project, Court Yard Hounds.
www.myspace.com/gracepotterandthenocturnals

UFFIE
Paris-based rapper Anna-Catherine Hartley has been a buzz act since 2006. She's only now preparing to release a debut album, on which it is believed she will show Little Boots, La Roux et al how it should really be done.
www.myspace.com/uffie

WASHED OUT
Georgia's Ernest Greene is leading a new wave of bedroom synth artists, with laptop tunes that sound as beautifully fuzzy as a scratched 78.
www.myspace.com/thebabeinthewoods