Sony Music Scouts Are Coming to Antone's This Weekend — for Four Austin Artists You've Never Heard Of

Four Austin musicians beat out nearly 100 other applicants for one Friday night on Antone's stage — and a straight shot at feedback from Sony Music, Angry Mob Music, Bar/None Records and SXSW. The showcase is ticketed. Saturday's industry panel, where the same executives spend an afternoon coaching those four artists in public, is free.

What is Sound & Vision, and why does a local music blog care?

Sound & Vision is a new two-day event at Antone's, presented by the Austin production company Daydream Believer Creative and paid for in part by the City of Austin's Live Music Fund — the hotel-tax-funded grant program that put $7.1 million into 399 local musicians, promoters and venues this year alone. Most of that money goes toward things nobody outside the industry ever sees: recording sessions, tour support, marketing budgets. Sound & Vision spends some of it differently — buying four working Austin musicians a real afternoon with the kind of industry access that usually requires a manager, a lawyer, or a lucky text.

Friday night is the performance: four acts, judged live, in front of an audience. Saturday afternoon is the part almost nobody gets to watch — a public roundtable where those same four artists sit across from label and festival executives and get worked through, on stage, in front of anyone who RSVPs for free.

Who are the four artists Austin picked from a field of 100?

The panel — Tommy Borscheid of The Orchard (Sony Music), Ralph Torrefranca of Angry Mob Music, Emmy Black of Bar/None Records, and Evelyn Gómez Rivera of SXSW — narrowed close to 100 applicants down to four, all Austin-based, all working different corners of the city's scene:

• Montclair — an independent folk-rock project made up of four half-siblings, Casen, Anna, Jackson and Clay, whose debut album Heart is Alive! moves between surf-rock groove and folk guitar.
• LeTrainiump — a pop/R&B artist raised in Mamou, Louisiana, who built his sound in New Orleans church choirs before bringing a Luther Vandross-and-Nile-Rodgers-indebted style to Austin.
• Kohanna — an Arizona-born folk/Americana singer-songwriter who's called Austin home for about a year, working from a 2021 album, Hometown, and singles like "Comatose" and "Jane."
• Soto The Activist — an Austin hip-hop artist who runs Underground Voices' Monday open mics at the 13th Floor and just released his debut full-length, War on Drugs.

Four genres, four different scenes within the same city — which is close to the point. A folk band, an R&B singer, an Americana songwriter and a hip-hop artist don't normally share a stage, let alone the same afternoon of career advice from the same four executives.

What happens Friday, and what does it cost?

The live showcase runs downstairs at Antone's, 305 E 5th St, Friday, September 4 — doors at 7 PM, show at 7:30 PM, all ages. Tickets are sold through Ticketmaster; as of this writing the event page doesn't list a price, so check before you go rather than guessing at the door. This is the version of the night built for an audience: four sets, judged live, no consultation happening in public.

What's free about Saturday — and why "space is limited" actually matters here?

Saturday is the rarer thing. From 2 to 6:30 PM, upstairs at Antone's, the same four artists sit through live roundtable consultations with the panel, followed by a moderated industry discussion with audience Q&A, an award presentation, and a networking mixer — hosted by KUTX's Alex Marrero. Admission is free with RSVP through Eventbrite, and the listing states plainly that space is limited, which for a free event inside a venue that normally seats a few hundred is a real constraint, not boilerplate. If you're an Austin musician, songwriter or manager who's ever wondered what a label rep actually says when they're giving real feedback instead of a form rejection, this is that conversation, held in public, for free, three days from now.

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"Still one of the best venues in Austin. Attracts big & small, famous & emerging performers... Now has a functioning record studio where artists' performances are recorded."

— Brad Morrison, Google review

That last detail — the in-house recording studio — is part of what makes Antone's a fitting host for something built around emerging artists rather than just booking them a room.

What locals should know before Friday or Saturday

• Parking: Antone's sits downtown at 5th and Trinity, inside the same grid as the rest of Austin's Friday/Saturday downtown crowds. One reviewer noted they "always manage to find parking nearby," but budget extra time on Saturday specifically — the same afternoon overlaps with a heavy downtown week (UT football's home opener, Bat Fest and Austin FC all land the very next day, September 5, so 5th Street traffic builds early).
• Heat: it was 100.7°F with a 103.9°F heat index in Austin as this was written — both Sound & Vision events are indoors, which is its own small mercy this week.
• Dress: Friday is a ticketed show, Saturday is a public industry event with a mixer — think "networking," not "concert."
• The free event has a cap. RSVP on Eventbrite now if Saturday is the one you actually want; "space is limited" is the organizer's own language, not ours.

Make a night — or an afternoon — of it: that's a live list of what's actually open near Antone's downtown right now, useful whether you're grabbing dinner before Friday's show or lunch before Saturday's panel.

FAQ

Is Sound & Vision open to the public, or just industry? Both nights are open to the public. Friday is a ticketed live showcase; Saturday's roundtable, panel and mixer are free with RSVP and open to musicians, songwriters, managers, students or just music fans.

Do I need to RSVP for Saturday? Yes — Eventbrite lists it as free but capped ("space is limited"), so RSVPing doesn't guarantee walk-up entry once it fills.

Who are the four artists performing? Montclair, LeTrainiump, Kohanna, and Soto The Activist — an Austin folk-rock band, a pop/R&B artist, an Americana singer-songwriter, and a hip-hop artist, respectively.

What funds an event like this? The City of Austin's Live Music Fund, a hotel-tax-backed grant program that distributed $7.1 million to 399 local artists, promoters and venues in 2026, helped support Sound & Vision alongside producer Daydream Believer Creative.

Where do I park, and is it walkable from other downtown spots? Antone's sits at 5th and Trinity in the heart of downtown — walkable to Rainey Street and the Convention Center area, with metered and garage parking nearby; budget extra time Saturday with UT's football opener and Bat Fest both landing downtown the next day.

We're watching whether Sound & Vision becomes an annual fixture or a one-off — if any of these four artists land a deal traceable back to this weekend, that's a follow-up worth writing. Follow @austintexasthings for it.

Antone's own 60-minute history tours cover nearly 40 years of this stage before Friday's four newcomers ever took it, and if Culture & Creativity nights are your thing this week, The Front Festival's 10th anniversary and Koe Wetzel's Thursday headline set at Moody Center both land in the same stretch of days.