SOUR NOTES SOUTH OF THE BORDER
Trump border policies loom over Austin’s SXSW fest,
AUSTIN, TEXAS— There’s a chill in the air at the South by Southwest festival this year, but it has nothing to do with the weather.
Talk to any musician or member of the music industry attending North America’s largest and most influential festival from another country this year, and the conversation invariably turns to their concerns about crossing the border — particularly if their skin tone or cultural background marks them as a potential threat under a Donald Trump presidency obsessed with the comings and goings of anyone who might be of Muslim lineage.
SXSW organizers won’t talk numbers but the unofficial buzz is that international attendance is going to be a bit down this year, and blame for that can be laid squarely at the feet of Trump and his executive orders curtailing travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries in Africa and the Middle East.
Not that there would have been a lot of bands from, say, Yemen among the 2,000-plus acts attending the music end of this year’s SXSW gathering — which also includes a film festival and a thriving “Interactive”/tech component — but a further implication of the Trump administration’s xenophobia is that no one from anywhere is terribly excited about facing down U.S. customs and immigration officials these days. At least one band, Italy’s Soviet Soviet, has already detailed a nightmare experience of being detained and deported on its way to play the festival, and more such stories might surface.
In any case, amongst this writer’s circle of friends there are a few “conscientious objectors” sitting out the festival this year simply because they have no interest in visiting (and spending money in) the U.S. at this point in time.
As the manager of one of Toronto’s most famous venues put it to me: “I wouldn’t come visit your house if you suddenly banned Muslims.”
Heading into this year’s music meetup — which began on Monday and runs through Sunday in every nook and cranny of downtown Austin — there’s already been one major controversy over a so-called “immigration clause” in the SXSW contract that could be interpreted as meaning that international acts playing the myriad unofficial gigs going on around the city could have immigration authorities brought down on them, and then be deported and denied entry to the U.S. in the future.
Several acts announced they would be pulling out of this year’s festival after Brooklyn indie band Todd Slant posted the relevant portions of the contract online, although festival director Roland Swenson told the Austin Chronicle the language had been in document for five years and was only “intended for someone who does something really egregious like disobeying our rules for pyrotechnics, starts a brawl in a club or kills somebody. You have to really f--- up for us to do this stuff.”
In SXSW’s defence, the festival has issued a statement condemning the Trump travel ban and a showcase called “Contrabanned: #musicunites @ SXSW” featuring artists from countries specifically named in the Trump travel ban — including Iranians Mamak Khadem and Ash Koosha and Somalian sister duo Faarrow — is planned for Thursday at the Palm Door.
In any case, many bands are of the opinion that the best thing they can do is come down here and play as a simple act of resistance in itself.
“I don’t think we necessarily had second thoughts about coming here,” says Jasmyn Burke of Toronto art-punk quartet Weaves. “We’ve always talked to people on the ground level and it seems at our shows, especially, it’s liberal people who don’t know what the hell is going on in their country but they also want to come together with music.
“So, in a way, this is actually the time when you go and play and you make people feel good and you show them that you can’t have fear. If you’re afraid to come to the U.S., that just creates more of a blockade.
“Sometimes now during the live shows I feel like I want to connect more with people of colour or women and say, like, ‘This is our time to have a voice.’ I feel a drive to be more out in the public and representing. I feel kind of the opposite of being afraid.
“I feel like I just have to get out there and show other women and women of colour that they have to push forward and that there needs to be more representation at our festivals, at music labels and all of those places.”
At least Weaves are in the States now. A Moroccan-born musician and booking agent from Montreal who declined to be named for this piece — let’s just say his name is “conspicuously Muslim” — is incredibly nervous about flying down to Austin this Thursday for a run of gigs.
“It’s crazy. I go to the United States fairly often — seven times in 2016 — and I hadn’t realized the situation before, really, until like a week ago. It was getting closer and friends were sending me articles and I started getting a bit more stressed out . . . this is pretty serious.”
As the “only non-white person” and African-born member of his band, he now worries that he’s going to be a liability for the band as touring duties for a new record and festival season approach. Their ability to make a living could be impacted.
And he’s not alone; one of the bands he’s booking has two Arab members and they’re worried a tour routing that will take them from Mexico to the U.S. later this month could be interrupted, even though everyone has active U.S. work visas and one member even lived in New York for a time.
“I realize the people at the border are just doing their jobs,” he says. “But you already have so many things to take care of. You have your tour, you have your shows. Do you really want to spend weeks freaking out about this before doing it? . . . I wonder, frankly, where this is all going.”
Canadian booking agent Zaed Maqbool, who works with United Talent Agency — which notably cancelled its Oscar party earlier this month in protest against Trump’s policies and donated money to the American Civil Liberties Union instead — points out that it’s not just international acts coming to the States who are worried.
American acts with the kinds of backgrounds that get them singled out for suspicion by the authorities are concerned that if they leave the country to tour, they won’t get back in.
For his part, Maqbool says he received a slightly more thorough going-over during his most recent entry into the U.S. “My mom thought they were going to send me to Guantanamo,” he jokes. “I kind of made light of the situation a little bit, but they certainly were not friendly and they certainly were not as easy going as they had been prior to Trump. You could see it . . . Any time a political situation makes you worried it’s something you have to think about.
“But hopefully it makes for some great music. Every single time there’s been dissent, there’s been amazing music.”