Austin360 blogs > Michael Corcoran's SXSW Journal
This week in the Austin Agenda
In an otherwise breezy round up of SXSW 2008, Austin Chronicle’s “Off the Record” columnist Austin Powell refers to the Lou Reed tribute show at “the universally reviled Fader party.” Huh? Is that why there were continuously long lines of people trying to get into the 1,000-capacity venue on Fourth Street? They desperately wanted to get in there so they could be “reviled” by all the free booze, top flight talent and good sound.
The Levi’s/ Fader Fort, which transformed the American YouthWorks building during that charter school’s spring break, has been a sore spot for SXSW (founded by the Austin Chronicle) during the past few years because so many registrants would rather hang out at the Fort than at Grandma’s (the Convention Center). The spacious, mazelike Fort is in taunting range of the confab vortex, but what really irks SXSW organizers is that it used to be theirs every mid-March.
SXSW used Youthworks as headquarters for the volunteers and to handle various office chores. “When we tried to do music there,” festival director Roland Swenson told me during SXSW, “they said we couldn’t serve alcohol.” But when a couple of corporate interests came waving money a couple years ago, the party was on, big time. SXSW was left outside, with all the others who couldn’t get in. They let that prime real estate slip away and Levi’s/Fader rubs their faces in it every year, picking the cream of official SXSW acts to play their daytime parties. (Administrators at Youthworks, which trains “at risk” teens on job skills, won’t be back in the office until Monday and could not be reached.)
The Fort, which hosted Ting Tings, N.E.R.D., Duffy, David Banner and on and on, was the place to be, one of many, during SX. Universally reviled? Only if you’re talking about the claustrophobic universe that exists on West 40th Street, where a volleyball court separates SXSW from the Chron.
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Duffy one more time
Duffy from http://kcrwmusicnews.vox.com/
The song of SXSW, performed live on KCRW 3/14. This was recorded at the Tequila Mockingbird jingle factory in back of Clay Pit>
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A Letter To Andy
(Note: Former New York Rocker editor Andy Schwartz has been coming to SXSW since the beginning, but family commitments kept him in New York this year.)
Hey, Andy-
We missed you this year at Liggerpalooza, where the freeloaders have run wild. The kids who made Napster such a phenomenon years ago are now all over 21 and so they snag a few party laminates and download free booze and food all day, laughing that only suckers need to buy badges and wristbands.
Our friends over at SX have been harping for years that “parasite” parties are hurting the official segment of the conference and until recently I thought they were just being paranoid and overreactive. Especially when they themselves went into the private party biz, setting up tent shows for corporate and cultural interests at the Brush Creek Square.
But, check this out, Andy: when wristbands went on sale to the public last month, using a lottery system to control demand and limit scalpers, the 4,000 reduced-price bands did not sell out. Meanwhile, paid registration is flat, even as the number of acts (1,700) was 300 more than ever before.
The success of SXSW is built on alcohol sales. That’s why the clubs turn themselves over to SXSW volunteers and production crews for four days out of the year. You’ve heard it over and over: clubs can do six weeks of business in four days. I’m going to ask around, but I’d bet the clubs didn’t do as well as in earlier years. Who’s going to buy six or seven beers at a SXSW evening showcase when they’ve been drinking for free all day? (Well, besides Canadians?)
When bartenders aren’t as busy as they used to be, clubs will opt out of SXSW and book their own showcases or rent themselves to the highest bidder. You remember how big New Music Seminar was? This was one of the reasons it crumbled in 1994.
What most people don’t realize is that, until they get the clubs under contract, the only thing SXSW really owns is its name and the rather staid and underattended goings on at the Convention Center. Everything else can be taken away.
The folks who put on SXSW are not visionaries. They’re not doing something of their own invention. Their idea was, simply, to do in Austin was New Music Seminar did in New York and what Popkomm did in Berlin and what MIDEM does in Cannes. Fortune smiled when it turned out that Austin was the perfect city for such a convention based on live music. You’d spend $50 a night in cabs at NMS just to see three bands; with Austin’s entertainment district already in place, SXSW was so much more convenient. The city of Austin has as much to do with the success of SXSW as the people who put it on and so the city should (and does) share in the profits.
But there seems to be this attitude of entitlement in Austin, as if personally benefiting from SXSW is a birthright, even for the 90% of Austin residents who were born somewhere else. You’ve never seen so many whiners, who hate SXSW because they were at a cool party last year that was shut down by the fire marshals because the permits weren’t in order. The clueless vitriol, under the cloak of fake names, has flowed dramatically on the Internet .
As always, Andy, SXSW brings out the best in people and the worst.
Here’s the truth as I know it. SXSW organizers act less out of greed, than of a genuine fear of losing what they’ve worked hard to build from the ground up. And the money is nice.
In the amped-up crush of SXSW, it sounds absolutely ridiculous to suggest it won’t be around for years to come. If SXSW organizers are visionaries, it’s because they can see a future not as rosy and when bellies are filled with free mojitos and ‘cue.
What can be done about all this? I really don’t know. It’s a free country. Also, you have to wonder if the international acts, which have really improved the personality of fest, will continue to fly from overseas enmasse without the opportunity to play six or seven daytime parties.
SXSW is too strong to not survive, right? Right? But a word of advice, Andy. I wouldn’t miss too many more.
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Ice Cube: turn it up!
Ice Cube is one of those rare rappers who understands the concept of a live show, so although he was certainly throwing down at Auditorium Shores Saturday, there was just no kick in the sound system. You should not be able to hear the couple behind you talk about dinner when Ice Cube is on the mic.
Still, it was great to hear the former N.W.A. cat revisiting “Straight Outta Compton” and “Gangsta, Gangsta.” I just wish I could’ve felt something more, like the first time I saw him live.
By the way, Cube’s still got draw (at least when it’s free). I’d guess about 12,000 turned up for the set.
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Let’s hear it for the home team
I’m a huge fan of Okkervil River and yet I’d never seen a full set by the band until Saturday night and they were pretty terrific. Singer-songwriter Will Sheff had worried about his voice holding up after a frantic schedule this week, but he must’ve found the right throat spray because he sounded in top form.
They opened with “The President’s Dead” and moved through such “Stage Names” material as “Unless It’s Kicks,” “A Girl In Port” and “Our Life Is Not a Movie Or Maybe.” A great moment of the set was “For Real,” which pulsed with purpose.
This is not just a band that makes great records.
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Darondo!
The funkiest place to be at all of SXSW was Club Deville Saturday night, when the mysterious Darondo, who recorded three singles in the ’70s and disappeared, performed. His band of fellow Bay Area rollers played about half an hour before the main man hit the stage, looking like Chuck Berry and singing like Al Green.
“How I Got Over” (not the gospel song) trounced like a bull out of the chute, while a song of parental admiration, which could be called “I Love My Papa” rode an intensely nasty groove. The band, with a horn section, couldn’t have been better.
As the crowd chanted his name, Darondo seemed genuinely touched. “I may have to move to Austin,” he said.
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Perezzzzzzzz Hilton party
In case you missed the Perez Hilton party, I wouldn’t say you missed it. The shindig at the old Redrum Club (renamed Palm Door) was kinda lame- way too crowded with humorless jarheads. And you couldn’t get a beer. The bar served only rum drinks. What are we, pirates?
I stayed for only one act, the very fiery Katy Perry, but I couldn’t take the crowd and left 15 minutes before N.E.R.D. took the stage.
ME TV’s Josh Shepherd was still rattled from an earlier encounter with N.E.R.D.’s Pharrell Williams at ther Four Seasons. Shepherd had gone to the hotel room to interview Williams, but found a very hyper, confrontational, paranoid subject. Shepherd says ME will air some of the craziness later.
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Ludacris throws dem bows
“How many people are intoxicated in the afternoon?” Ludacris asked Saturday at about 4:30 p.m. at the DMX party at Brush Creek Square. Hands shot up in the air, kinda like they just didn’t care.
“They finally got some rap at South By Southwest,” Ludacris said at one point. Wrong fest, m’ man. That’s ACL. I think SXSW is where Whodini got signed.
There were dead mic problems about 15 minutes in, but that got corrected and the party started right back up with “Pimpin’ All Over the World” and “Roll Out.”
This is about the fouth time I’ve seen Ludacris and I will say this about him: he’s a professional, who didn’t resort to profanity (the crowd called back every missing F-word.). He always brings it big time, and the people love him for it.
The party hosted by DMX (not the rapper, the mall music piper-inner) also featured my girl
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A switch in time
SXSW organizers contend that day parties could be the end of their fest.
Meanwhile, every year there are fans who swear they will never go to the Austin City Limits Festival Fest again with its 100-plus degree heat in September.
Why don’t SXSW and ACL switch dates? Day parties won’t be so cool if you’re standing under a tent in the sweltering heat. And can you imagine how great ACL would be in March?
Just an idea — a million dollar idea!
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Worst kept secret
The word is that rapper Ludacris will make a “surprise” appearance at the DMX party to be held from noon to 4p.m. today at Brush Square Park (409 E. 5th St.) Invite only, but the chain link fence is only about 50 yards from the stage. Also on the bill: Los Bad Apples, British Sea Power and Back Door Slam.
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Hot Saturday tip: Darondo
Bernard Vasek owns the Musicmania record store that sells all that horrible “screwed and chopped” music, but he’s probably the biggest music fan I know. He knows who’s got it and he passed on a name of a can’t miss act: Darondo, playing at Club DeVille on Saturday at 10:45 p.m. “It’s like seeing James Brown,” Bernard said. Consider yourself tipped.
By the way, wasn’t Friday afternoon hot? It seemed so much like ACL Fest I wondered when Wilco was going on.
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Scion change miffs bouncers
“We’re gonna get things straight before (Saturday’s) hip hop show,” my friend the doorman told me Friday at Stubb’s. Check it out: he and his crew were handling things fine Thursday afternoon, with Motorhead about to go on at three p.m., but when party organizers saw the half-filled venue, they made the show open to the public. Next thing you know, there’s a line around the block with a bunch of amped up Lemmy fans not wanting to be left out. Many were, which made the bouncers’ jobs less than fun.
- Spotted at the annual Roky Erickson Ice Cream Social Thursday at Threadgill’s was for Creedence Clearwater Revival drummer Stu Cook. who’s recently moved to Austin. Billy Gibbons jammed, of course.
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Latest comments
Okkervil River’s incredible. Coming on after Duffy, they made her seem like a lounge singer.
... read the full comment by Angelina | Comment on Let's hear it for the home team Read Let's hear it for the home team
One fact you didn’t mention in your article, DMX announced the launch of GETUPLAYED as a way to help independent artists gain exposure via retailers. They further exemplified their support of independent artists by hiring local Austin band LOS BAD
... read the full comment by Carolyn | Comment on Ludacris throws dem bows Read Ludacris throws dem bows
Well, we are a one bar sampling, but we’re entirely at odds with the guesstimate on business levels. We set sales records Wed, Thu, Fri & Sat this year. Saturday even beat Sat 3/17/07, which was St Patrick’s Day, traditionally pretty damn
... read the full comment by Steve Basile | Comment on A Letter To Andy Read A Letter To Andy
The event turned out GREAT!!! I loved the bands chosen starting from Los Bad Apples to the british bands to Ludacris. I LOVED the Los Bad Apples! They added the most awesome flare to the event. Thank you for the great show!
... read the full comment by Karla | Comment on Ludacris throws dem bows Read Ludacris throws dem bows
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