Kevin Bronson on March 18th, 2015

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Ryn Weaver, the Lonely Wild, Cathedrals, Two Girls, Typesetter, the Lowest Pair, Tom Brosseau, Dead Leaf Echo, Natalie Prass

“Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.” — Kurt Vonnegut (Typewritten message given to me by a performance artist on 6th Street in Austin at the first day of the South by Southwest Music Festival)

At South by Southwest, Tuesday was known as “Convergence Day” — the day when the festival’s three groups of badge-holders (film, music and interactive) could commingle at certain events. Lest anyone forget SXSW’s higher purposes, it is, after all, a conference and trade show, with panels, educational activities and career seminars, and not just a place for young marketing bros to swap stories about the first time they saw Passion Pit. There was even a robot petting zoo, and, no, that’s not code for a meet-and-greet with your favorite dubstep DJ.

And as often happens in Austin, the South by Southwest Music Festival also converged with St. Patrick’s Day, so there was green this and green that, and copious amounts of booze adding to the let’s-get-this-party-started fervor. At least the thunderstorms that were predicted for the evening never materialized.

It seemed like a good climate to check out pop phenom Ryn Weaver, aka Ms. OctaHate, whose debut album “The Fool” is out June 16, and who stands out even in an age there’s a new pop phenom every month or so. Weaver kicked things off at the Spotify House, which was at capacity a good half-hour before her 2:30 p.m. set.

Weaver was impressive, if, well, 22 years old. Nasty sound problems at the beginning (“That’s what I get for showing up late to soundcheck,” she confessed) gave way to some idle chatter about her wardrobe (let’s call it “equestrian chic”) as a few fans gushed. “Cute?,” she said in response to one, “I’m a fucking leprechaun.”

There was even room on a muggy afternoon for a tender moment, as Weaver dedicated “Traveling Song” to “my really dope grandfather,” a man she called her muse. He died Jan. 1. “When you’re young, you don’t think about death,” she explained, “but after you lose someone who’s special to you, you reckon with it.”

My day was bookended by a midnight set from Natalie Prass, who every bit as good as advertised too — if you got in to see her. The show was at the tiny indoor room at Cheer Up Charlie’s, part of a showcase mounted by her publicity company. The show was booked at the space long before Prass released her self-titled debut in January and became a hot ticket; early arrivals were rewarded with a meaty set of her lovestruck songs and left with the reaffirmation that rock lives.

Even earlier arrivals at Cheer Up Charlie’s were rewarded with a glowing set from folk singer Tom Brosseau, whose new album “Grass Punks” abides the grandest traditions of storytelling and whose gentlemanly demeanor on this night was put to a test, since the sound bleeding from the outdoor stage ruined his genteel songs for all but the front one-third of the room.

You get sonic whiplash at SXSW, and this was one instance. Brosseau inside, spinning tales in his genial Midwesterner’s voice, and some dudes from Colorado playing bro-core outside. The outdoor stage got better later, when New York’s Dead Leaf Echo scorched a big crowd with some shoegazing rock (some people even danced). An earlier set by the sweet bluegrass duo of Kendl Winter and Palmer T. Lee, dba the Lowest Pair, suffered similar competition for the ears.

The late afternoon/early evening hours were a study in contrasts too. At the packed-to-the-gills party sponsored by StubHub, L.A. quintet the Lonely Wild made a lot of new friends, playing songs from their forthcoming album “Chasing White Light” and 2013’s “The Sun As It Comes.” The Clive Bar crowd remained sweaty and enthusiastic for Cathedrals, whose made-for-Hype Machine pop/R&B felt felt as watered down as the drinks. Fashionable, yes; memorable, no.

Across town, you got a feel for what SXSW must be like for bands without Internet buzz or branding hook-ups.

On the way there, I encountered Kofelgschroa, a German quartet with a punk sensibility and a great sense of humor. They play Bavarian folk music with various brass instruments and an accordion. And they hired three pedicabs — two for the band, carrying two members each, and a third for a film crew — as they “pedaled” their music down the streets.

Then came a stop at the Rattle Inn, a two-story venue/sports bar for a reality check. Upstairs, Boston’s Two Girls — expanded to a four-piece with two guys, including a fiddler puffing something in a corncob pipe — played folk songs to a happy hour crowd watching basketball on TV. Maybe a half dozen people were paying attention to the music. They did a cover of Radiohead’s “Creep,” with the violin sounding particularly mournful. “I don’t belong here” indeed.

And my favorite discovery of the day was Chicago punk-rock quartet Typesetter, who do a ferocious but melodic brand of emo/post-hardcore that seems indigenous to the Midwest. (I was reminded fondly of Braid.) They played the downstairs room at Rattle Inn, an otherwise perfectly good venue except for the fact that there were only seven people there, including the merch lady, sound engineer and myself. They play two more shows in Austin, and deserve something bigger and better.

Like convergence.