If you’re unfamiliar with South by Southwest, the 23-year-old music showcase and conference that has become the Mecca for anyone connected to the music business, the easiest way to describe it is Rock ‘n Roll Spring Break.
Imagine the streets of downtown Austin filled with hipsters and punkers, writers and tweeters, bookers and radio programmers, fat cat label reps and wide-eyed bloggers, all walking around looking disheveled, confused and a little bit overwhelmed, music blaring from every direction. Its four days filled with fantastic new music discoveries, free booze, garbage cans filled with business cards and way too many breakfast burritos. And maybe, if you’re lucky, a connection that can spark a career. Every March, as soon as the first buds begin to bloom in Texas, 1400 musicians from all across the globe pack their bags and head to the city whose slogan is, “Keep Austin Weird.”
Memphis musicians have been a big part of the festival for the past few years, culminating with the largest number of Memphians playing the event in 2009 with both an official showcase from the Memphis Music Foundation and several Memphis-centric day parties.
Lucero, Amy Lavere and the late Jay Reatard all have made great strides in their careers through connections made at this widely respected music event. However, this year a much smaller group of musicians from Memphis will be attending and playing the conference. The recession and the current state of the music industry has made it harder and harder for musicians to pull together the resources to travel to Austin to participate in showcases – most of which is done on their own dime.
This year the official performers from our fair city are Cory Branan, Ben Nichols, Harlan T. Bobo, Hill Country Revue, 8Ball and MJG, Lord T and Eloise, Star and Micey, River City Tanlines, Magic Kids, Lucero and a very special performance from Big Star to commemorate the release of their quintessential box set Keep an Eye on the Sky.
So why is it important to play SXSW? With over 12,000 people registered just in the music portion of the conference (SXSW has added film and interactive conferences in the week that lead up to the music portion), it’s a fantastic place to network and get heard by writers, radio programmers, show promoters, and people who book tours and festivals.
Of course, it’s also a great place to be seen by people who are simply fans of music, both new and old. The festival sells about 12,000 wristbands to the general public for between $130 and $160 which usually sell out within hours. The wristbands are so hard to come by, only the most devout music fans usually have the stamina to stand in the long lines to obtain one.
Plus, the wristbands allow entrance – but don’t guarantee admission to the official showcases. This might seem like a deterrent to some, but with the plethora of corporate sponsored free events featuring the most talked about new bands and a lot of very well received reunions, visitors to Austin still seem to get a fair bang for their buck and more free swag than they can manage to carry.
“I think SXSW can be important, because any kind of interaction or connecting with other music people, regardless of how inane it can sometimes seem at the time, can end up being the beginning of something good,” says Roy Berry, drummer for Lucero. “Even things as simple as meeting a band you like and partying together could end up later becoming a tour together. A lot of what happens in the music world is arbitrary like that.”
It’s also a fantastic place to go to be inspired by other musicians.
“You may meet or hear the person or artist who gives you the advice that may completely change the way you live musically” says Josh Cosby, lead singer of Star & Micey.
As the conference has grown, more and more musicians have started to complain that it has lost the authentic vibe it once had. There are several mythical stories of bands that were touted as the next big thing in music only to fall back into obscurity by the next year – anyone heard from Tapes & Tapes lately?
Some even say that the festival has become more about selling jeans and cell phones than cultivating good music. The festival makes the performers choose between being paid an amount that would barely cover a nice meal for all the members or a few passes to the showcases that they can share. And then there’s the parking problem.
Of course, you have to take the good with the bad, there is no perfect system and there is still plenty to look forward to.
“I’m really looking forward to meeting up with fellow Memphis artists/friends in a weird Texas town (Austin)” says Dan Coburn, singer for Hill Country Revue, the side-project of Cody Dickinson of the Grammy nominated North Mississippi Allstars. “When this occurs, good times soon follow. Every family needs a reunion.”
“I look forward to running into bands and friends and people I know on the streets of Austin or at shows; that and getting to see/hear and supporting tons of good music, some of which I may not have ever heard before” says Berry. “I am NOT looking forward to finding parking and wrangling gear at SXSW. It’s little bit of a hassle, but all of the shows we play have that hassle to some degree; nothing new there.”
