BIGSOUND returns for its 12th year in 2013 and tonight, they have revealed the first lot of artists and industry professionals set to perform and speak at the music conference in Brisbane later in the year. The September 11-13 event will be represented by some of the best in the international and local market, with the following artists set to perform, with more still to be announced:

Xavier Rudd
Washington
The John Steel Singers
Bleeding Knees Club
Stonefield

Owl Eyes gave the crowd a sneak peek at her forthcoming debut album Night Swim during her Zoo Twilights performance on Friday night.
The fresh-faced Aussie popstar played the title track from the album, as well as the new single "Love Run Dry" and another track from the album which she had never performed live before.

This is my last week for State of Affairs as we hand the writing duties for this column to both Priyam Chovhan and Ruby Niemann. On this week’s column though, we see a new artist on the ARIA singles chart finally, the Australian list for Europe’s answer to SXSW, The Great Escape grows, and Bigsound announces that registrations and applications are open for bands. Exciting stuff for conference loving musicians everywhere

The Mushroom Free for All was a free gig to thank the music loving public for supporting live music - and in particular the music of Mushroom! Featured were Adalita, Bleeding Knees Club, DZ Deathrays, Stonefield, Sures and World's End Press. Carl Dziunka brings us photos from the night.

This time last year we divulged our top twelve Australian artists and top five international artists to watch over the following twelve months. So we figured now was as good a time as any to have a look back and see how they all fared...

Stonefield are four sisters from Macedon, Victoria, who are quite young, but play their instruments with the wisdom of old timers. El sat around the table with the sisters Amy, Hannah, Sarah and Holly in awe of such young and talented rockers.

This year’s Pyramid Rock Festival on Phillip Island in Victoria will be remembered by me not only as a paddock full of beer cans and flocks of seagulls. It will instead be remembered as the New Years Eve that someone threw a basketball at Dominic Simper of Tame Impala’s face. But let’s go back to the beginning, a time of sobriety and a lot less violence.

The Melbourne Zoo is about to get wild in a whole other way, with the announcement of their 2013 Twilight Zoo Program, with tickets available now. Kicking off on January 25 with ARIA Award winner Missy Higgins, the Zoo Twilight Program, sees the zoo put on a live music event every Friday and Saturday night through until March 9th.

Your Festival is back again for another year celebrating diverse Australian music at The Cambridge Hotel. This year spread out over 3 nights on Friday the 23rd till Sunday the 25th of November. This will be a more chilled out affair - or full weekend bender which ever you prefer - then last year which went on for ten hours and had Ball Park Music headlining.

Stonefield fans were treated to another awesome show by the talented Findlay girls at the Newport Hotel, Fremantle. Perth's very own Emperors played in support but played like they were headliners after locals Lovesick Junkies got the night rocking to a good vibe.

Turning nine years old this year, the Pyramid Rock Festival is once again bringing a killer line up of bands and DJs to Philip Island to help you ring in the New Year! With a line up dominated by Australian talent, which is always great to see, Pyramid Rock is going to be a dream festival this year, with so many different sounds being set against the awesome back drop of the ocean.

The line up is as follows!

360
All The Colours
Anti-Flag
Blood Red Shoes

Next week, for the first time ever, Stonefield and Owl Eyes will tour together around the country, playing a variety of regional centres in support of the Australian Government's initative The Line - a cause aimed at promoting respectful relationships amongst Australia's youth. We caught up with Brooke aka Owl Eyes and Hannah from Stonefield to talk about the tour and the campaign.

In this weeks issue: Bluesfest racks up a "major win", Gotye continues to win with his US sales, Marty Smiley wins a TV hosting gig, and your opportunity to win by taking part in a competition run by Telstra. Who knows, you may become their new hold music!