XL: SXSW
At 20, SXSW has grown mightily, but it hasn't lost sight of its roots - the bands
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Twenty fests is a long time, but I remember just about everything about the first day of South by Southwest.
March 12, 1987 was one of the worst days of my life where no one died. My girlfriend of about two years and I were having a rough go, so when she overshot the hotel by a few blocks and made me get out there, I knew we were done.
Later, Joe Nick Patoski, a good friend who managed the True Believers, jumped in my face because I had printed that the Troobs were looking for a new drummer before they had a chance to tell the old drummer. This was before "my bad" was invented, so I didn't know what to say.
I was on a panel called "Whither Rock?" (a reference taken from "Between the Lines," the Austin Chronicle's secret handshake) with too many other critics and every time I thought I had something to say, someone beat me to the mike, so I just sat there like the biggest dolt.
Then, Daniel Johnston's manager stood up and asked me to defend the journalistic ethics of reporting on his client's mental condition — Daniel had checked into the state hospital for a short stay — and I just mumbled something about not wanting to talk about it and I could feel my cheeks burning.
This was not my gentle, laid-back home town. This festival, which could be called AXTF because it's Austin times twenty-five, brings out the best in people, but it also brings out the worst. Things that folks would normally let fly the rest of the year are magnified. Austin becomes the center of the music universe for four days every year, so everything means more.
SXSW was once a giddy secret, like a favorite fishing hole or knowing a vending machine that treats pennies like dimes. Folks would come here from metropolises up north and feel like they just stepped into heaven. We got Mexican breakfasts that cure hangovers. The word spread, slowly at first, but then like a chant: "Let's go down to Austin and use that friendly little town for all it's worth!"
During the 10th anniversary year, fest director Roland Swenson was standing at the corner of Seventh and Brazos streets, watching a crowd of more than 8,000 disperse following a free outdoor concert by Iggy Pop. The horde just splintered in all directions and in the midst of all that, a guy in a white car pulled up to Swenson and asked: "Could you tell me how to get to South by Southwest?"
That was a dumb question 10 years ago, but it would be ridiculous today, when being in Austin is being at SXSW. Daytime parties were once exotic little gatherings to be sought out and cherished. This year I've received more than 100 invitations via e-mail to parties happening everywhere from the French Legation and a boat on Lake Austin to downtown punk clubs and friends' backyards.
Last year, SXSW finally got out of hand, and this year it's going to be even bigger.
Looking back on the past 20 campaigns, the pivotal fests were 2001 and 2002. At the almost exact midpoint was that horrific event that happened in New York, Pennslyvania and the Pentagon. 2001 found SXSW getting its hip card punched real good, with such bands as the Strokes, White Stripes, Coldplay, Death Cab For Cutie, My Morning Jacket, Mogwai and New Pornographers playing the various downtown shot bars and discos which are converted into live music venues every mid-March. It's not like SXSW had suddenly gotten cool, but 2001 was the year that garage bands from the UK finally outnumbered Nashville singer-songwriters.
Then 9/11 happened. The industry fell into a funk. Everyone did. After the A2A festival in Amsterdam, organized by SXSW co-founder Louis Meyers, tanked badly because no one wanted to get on an airplane (or could no longer afford to), it looked like SXSW would also slump.
Indeed, registrations dropped off in 2002, but not as much as expected. I kept running into folks from New York who I didn't think would be here, and they all said basically the same thing: "We need this." Everyone did. Never before had the cliché of SXSW as "spring break for the music industry" rung so true.
The financially strapped record labels, meanwhile, saw sending new bands to SXSW as a much more cost-effective way to promote them than with $250,000 videos and press junkets. SXSW became a place for recharging, where you fell in love with live music all over again.
It's been rolling madly out of control ever since. Looking back at the first SXSW, it seems so stunningly different from its present incarnation, but the fest is unchanged at its core. It's still bands playing in front of people who could help their careers. It's still Austin playing host, only now the bands are coming from farther away than Louisiana, Oklahoma and wherever Chickasaw Mudd Puppies were from. SXSW is still a regional festival, but now the region is planet Earth.
The first directory was photocopy pages stapled in the corner. Wristbands were $10. There were 700 registrants, 172 acts. The biggest bands were Austin bands. But you could see the potential. With dozens of nightclubs in walking distance from each other and a reputation as a listeners' town, Austin seemed built for a major conference based on live music. Someone just had to flip the switch.
Even in that first break-even year, you just knew this thing could really grow. But nobody could've predicted that the entire music industry would descend upon us, dark and thirsty, like grackles with credit cards. Early on, the Irish kid from MTV's second season of "Real World" was considered a VIP. Last year, Jessica Simpson hung out virtually unnoticed.
In 1987, the thought that a band, like this year's Arctic Monkeys, would play SXSW the week after appearing on "Saturday Night Live" was as unlikely as produce warehouses on the East Side hosting red carpet parties.
Even as it's gone from a quaint, roots rock shindig to a youth cultural explosion, the truth remains that everything means more during SXSW.
Bands obsess over their showcase slots like neurotic children. Publicists work around the clock seizing every opportunity to promote their artists. Shy people become invisible. You don't schmooze, you lose.
After 20 straight years of going to SXSW — the past 14 covering the fest daily — I'm going to take it easier this year. C'mon, I'm 50 years old. If you want to get a good sense of just how many years SXSW has been in existence, compare a picture of me in '87 with the one on my SXSW06 badge. Just as club owners will say they do two months of business in four days, I swear I age two months every mid-March.
But I also cram in two months of life every time SXSW comes to town.
For four days — five for softball players — the music industry comes down here to play and work. This is when our AA team gets called up to the big leagues. This is Austin's time to shine.
Flip the switch.
mcorcoran@statesman.com; 445-3652
