Friday, March 19, 2010
SXSW My Drunken Take on What SXSW Is v. What It Probably Used to Be
Posted by D Patrick Rodgers on Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 4:18 PM
Preface: The following screed was composed last night during Lou Barlow's set at the Merge showcase at Cedar Street Courtyard, just before The Love Language played ... and also some time after Gold and I decided to take one of those two-seater bike cabs just to get about eight blocks away. I wrote it in that overly analytical phase of drunkenness that comes just after you start talking at great length about fashion and just before you start talking at great length about politics. It is transcribed verbatim from my notebook. Please forgive any egregiously misinformed assumptions I make.
By all informed accounts, South by Southwest is (aesthetically, functionally) a shell of what it once was.* Until this week, I was a SXSW virgin, so what do I know? But everyone who does know tells me it used to be about serving the artist. It used to be about serious industry insiders coming down to witness rising bands as they rode the wave of growing buzz. It was about networking opportunities for burgeoning artists. As a spectator, it probably hasn't changed much -- selection-wise, it's probably gotten much better, in fact. But for bands, it's now kind of an obligatory type of scenario. If you don't make a showing in Austin this year, you have no "buzz capital."
Unlike Next Big Nashville, attendees here seem to be in charge, and the bands are largely regarded as workhorses -- if they miss their set time, it's they who suffer ... not the venue/festival/promoters. South by Southwest is a wonderful place and time to see a plethora of diverse bands if you're a critic or a fan. These guys are at their best, hustling for attention. (Case in point: Turbo Fruits are playing 20 times this week.)
Hell, here's Lou Barlow at a Merge showcase. There's JEFF at an ultra-hip, semi-underground-but-totally-not-actually-underground house show. These bands, even the established ones, are hustling to meet their quota (almost competitively, but certainly not overtly). And here we are, the bloggers, writers and analysts, watching them fight it out like sonic gladiators. What better venue could there be in which to see a band at its finest?
But are we serving the artists? (And, of course, the hardened, cynical listener says, "Fuck them! Their job is to serve us!") Sure, maybe the artists who are already on the rise will be well served by this festival. I'm sure a band like Surfer Blood will benefit big-time from playing seven showcases down here. But the rest? The hard-touring-but-not-on-the-rise bands? They're here because they know they have to be. They're grinding because the mill needs laborers, and if they don't do it someone else will. They're hustling because they know they won't get a better opportunity until 2011. And that, in my humble and quite possibly misinformed opinion, is what keeps the modern-day music machine's gears turning.
* But not attendance-wise, obviously.
Comments (3)
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Just want to say I saw Barlow solo at CMJ juxtaposed with Arcade Fire (the weekend they supposedly blew up) and Lou blew them away, as far as I was concerned. Great troubadour!
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