SXSW becomes XXL
The festival has changed, and grown — immensely — but musicians stay away at their peril
AUSTIN, TEX.— Griping about how big and unmanageable the South by Southwest festival has grown is always a popular sport on the streets of Austin at this time of year, but you’ll notice that most of the people doing the griping are, yes, still here. Year after year after year.
South by Southwest gets in your blood. I’ve been coming to Texas for the weeklong music, tech and film extravaganza for slightly less than half of its 30-year existence, but the distance between the SXSW I first encountered and the mammoth SXSW that exists today is still noticeably vast. Yet I can’t imagine being anywhere else during the middle of March and nor, clearly, can the global music industry.
There were some 2,100 acts in town this week, from the Strokes to Iggy Pop to Erykah Badu, upwards of 20,000 SXSW music-badge holders, and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of concertgoers, thronging every single space capable of housing live music in downtown Austin.
So while the festival has noticeably dialed itself back from a tipping point a few years ago — where folks such as Metallica, Lady Gaga, Green Day, Coldplay, Justin Timberlake and Kanye West were stealing the spotlight away from the up-and-comers — it’s still a monster. Both Barack and Michelle Obama were keynote speakers this month. That tells you everything you need to know right there.
The tenor of the festival has changed. Where once it was a feast of musical “discovery,” it’s now more of a victory lap for performers certified as on the way up or oldsters looking to reassert themselves.
Where once it was a place where industry wheelin’-and-dealin’ happened on the fly, now it’s a little more methodical with its business.
Where once you could just go with the flow and take your chances on what you might see, now you definitely need a plan to make that badge or wristband pay.
Austin’s rapid growth as a city is starting to have an effect on the music scene. Some venues have closed, while others, such as Emo’s and Antone’s, have been forced to move to make way for noise-allergic condo and hotel construction. A city of Austin study recently quoted in The Associated Press estimates at least 1,200 music-industry jobs have been driven out of the city by the rising cost of living.
We spoke to a few SXSW vets about the evolving nature of the festival, and why — despite the bitching and moaning — everyone keeps coming back to Texas in March. Stuart Johnston (President of the Canadian Independent Music Association)
“There’s so much noise, both figuratively and literally, and you need to be able to rise above that noise,” he says. “There are so many artists I talk to who are just so excited and they say, ‘I just want to play SXSW.’ And my immediate response to them is, ‘Why?’ If you don’t go down there with a plan, if you don’t go down there with a strategy and a team to make that strategy happen, then, quite frankly it’s a good party, but it won’t do that much for advancing your particular career.”
To that end, CIMA has hosted a Wednesday-afternoon “Canadian Blast” barbecue in Austin’s Brush Square Park for the past 11 years, while holding down a weeklong perch to showcase several CanCon acts a night and facilitating meetings with international record labels, festival bookers, film and TV people looking for soundtrack fodder and the like. Among the beneficiaries of their mission this year, which involved 34 showcasing artists and 28 companies, were Terra Lightfoot, the Arkells and the Strumbellas.
“That really puts a giant footprint in the middle of all the chaos,” says Johnston. Eric Alper (Radio host, Twitter magnate and Entertainment One music guy)
“I think the year when Snoop Dogg was performing in a 75-foot (Doritos) vending machine was when I stopped and said, ‘This is madness.’ But in a great way,” says Alper. “Music shouldn’t be somebody’s little secret. Music shouldn’t be just for the music industry and the media to go and share and justify what everybody does throughout the year. So for people to not go to SXSW because it’s ‘too big,’ I can certainly see their point . . . but there’s still a lot of opportunity to get your face in somebody else’s face, your business card in somebody else’s hand and say, ‘I’m going to contact you after all this madness is over.’” Ian Chai (Co-founder of Buzz Records)
“The days of SXSW being this tastemaking ‘discovery’ festival have kind of passed, from my perspective. This isn’t meant to be a pejorative, but it’s about brand activation and it’s essentially a ‘coronation’ festival for select acts that everyone knows have the hype going in,” says Chai. He points to Australian indie-rocker Courtney Barnett — who went from SXSW “it” girl to Grammy nominee within the space of a year — as the perfect example of what happens these days when you get a boost from the festival.
Buzz was lucky to have a trio of bands — Dilly Dally, Greys and Weaves — with a touch of heat on their sides going into SXSW 2016. Heat definitely helps.
“It’s very unlikely that some random kid from Indiana is going to pay $100 to SXSW, play the one showcase they’re put on and get discovered. I don’t think anybody really holds onto that dream anymore,” he says.