Geldof Keynote Speaker at SxSW

SXSW TAPS A RAT: Live Aid founder and Boomtown Rats vocalist Bob Geldof will be the keynote speaker and showcase performer at this year’s 25th anniversary SXSW. He’ll bring his band to play music from his new album, How to Compose Popular Songs That Will Sell. In a perfect bit of synchronicity, the Irish rocker whom Bono calls “my big brother” will address the annual Austin music/film confab on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17. Geldof started out writing for Canada's premier underground newspaper The Georgia Straight as well as British papers NME and Melody Maker before forming the Rats, who scored the first New Wave and Irish rock #1 in the U.K. charts and subsequently around the world through such timeless hits as “I Don’t Like Mondays.” He was the a driving inspiration behind the charity single, “Do They Know It’s Christmas,” which he co-wrote with Ultravox’s Midge Ure and the 1985 Live Aid, which both raised funds for African famine relief. He has continued to lobby world leaders on behalf of the poor and persuaded Bono to join him to co-found the ONE campaign. (1/12p)