RM64 Artists Record

The biggest advice I could give to anyone trying to do anything (yeah, I know…really broad) is to know your strengths. I’ve said this many times to my friends, my family, my fellow students, etc… who were in one way or another in need of help or advice. This time around, I say “know your strengths” to a group of people who have never asked me for words of wisdom and probably never will, but I feel inclined to give it anyway.

To be specific, my audience is the city of Austin, a little quirky nook in the heart of Texas with a local music industry that, while conjuring up images of vastness and notoriety, oftentimes falls short of its pompous nickname, “The Live Music Capital of the World.” It has become very clear over the past few years that unless the city can either readjust its priorities or be honest with itself, it deserves, sadly, to be stripped of that, now empty, title.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Austin and its musical reputation, the entire city, due to its large per capita amount of record stores, live music venues, and artistic establishments, has always been known for an awesome music scene, whether it be blues, country, rock, goth, punk, hardcore, or indie rock.  But Austin is also growing very fast, in part due to a hefty investment from Californians looking to escape the L.A. of the West for the L.A. of the South. Condos are going up everywhere. Big lofts have shot up like fratboy dicks on Friday night at 6th Street.

And the lofts and condos have gone up right across the street from music venues and seedy bars. Do you think the people living in the high price condos like these kinds of places…no. Of course not.

It is also home to the South By South West Music Festival, a yearly “conference” that “showcases” “new” bands and other musical acts from across the globe. SXSW has been going down during the Spring in Austin for a long time now and as I’ve watched it changed significantly over the years, I’ve been excited to have the chance  to bring my piece of the puzzle and participate.

But alas,

This is the third year in row that our band “The Eastern Sea” has applied for an official showcase and been put on the standby list (aka. the “we’ll call you if someone can’t get here from Israel or Argentina” list). But before you call me bitter and angry, I will say that I have always really respected SXSW, from an early age, and I am fine with not receiving an official showcase (after all, there are more great unofficial shows than official, we’ll get to that later), but I’m starting to really lose faith that SXSW can actually continue to be affective at what they do best and that is distressing.

Lets get this straight, South By does emerging artists and exciting new things best. So I dont blame them at all for putting an emphasis on world music over the last couple years. But unfortunately, since the emergence of the blog culture and tastes being controlled by an unsaid buzz-meter, SXSW has reached out to companies looking to profit off of hype. Its a simple formula, you slap a buzz band on your corporate show and advertise your brand by giving out free beer to hungover 20-somethings who are too busy on their iPhones to deal with marketing let alone what the band actually sounds like. And thats just  if they remember to RSVP for every unofficial show out there for the whole week.  I’m still working on Thursday.

As someone in a band looking to start working with a publicist, I know how much publicity it takes to have a presence at SXSW.  I know that if you are buzzed about during this festival, you are not some new found treasure, you are a planned and purposefully tuned machine just looking to solidify a number of deals that got you the buzz in the first place. Yes, there will be bands that come out of nowhere and shock a lot of people, but I guarantee you, just as we felt for the great guys in Local Natives last year, someone out there has heard them and isn’t surprised in the least.

If only South By could at least show some love to the little guys in Austin instead of ignoring a large portion of them. I mean, a million people come from all over and there’s not even a stage or showcase dedicated to showing off Austin musicians. This is one of the reasons, unfortunately that a lot of musicians and bands choose to leave Austin. Because most of the time, Austin’s music scene is too busy looking at everything else to cultivate whats right under their nose.

I have no more to write about. Good day.

-matt