I just got back from the SXSW music festival in Austin -- this year (compared to last year) I had a blast! Big thanks to Rightround and MusicIP for supporting my trip!
I really wanted to share some thoughts on my adopted industry. See, by default I am a computer geek and I only pretend to know something about Music (I don't, really!) Thus I consider the Music industry my adopted industry. And let me tell you, this industry is strange as strange can be.
On the high end you have music executives working for labels, RIAA/MPAA/SoundExchange and all the crap that goes to supporting the creative types that actually create the music. Greed, conceit and one-upsmanship rule the day here. This blog has focused on the many actions of these people in the past, so I won't go there this time. Rather, I want to examine the artists in this blog post. Actually, aspiring artists would be a better term, since many of these people create terrible noise and not actually art (and yes, I know that noise can be art, but that is not the goal here).
My definition of artist conjures up images of independent thinkers. Radicals. Unique people in their own quirky ways. Sadly most of the musicians walking on the streets of Austin looked a lot like these three fellows:
I mean lots of people looked exactly like these fellows. The same hair-cut. The same shades. Similar cut jackets. Boring black shirts. "Skinny" womens pants (the ones here are not that bad even!) I'd call it a uniform more than a look. How can you call yourself an artists when you look like everyone else?
Unfortunately the music played by most of these people was as bad as their outfits. Way too loud, complete with muddy and indecipherable lyrics. And if you felt that the current band playing sucked ass, you could go next door and see an entirely different shitty band. Knowing that crappy rock bands abounded at SXSW I made a conscientious effort to seek out other acts and on my first night I decided to check out a venue that was playing hip/hop all evening.
At first glance the scene was entirely different, but very quickly it became clear that things were actually quite the same. Take for instance this terrible grainy clip I shot in the hip-hop venue:
What are all the people on the stage doing there? Only 2-3 of them are screaming into the mic at any given time. These people aren't dancing or really performing in any way. They are solely there for attitude from what I can tell. And their music was terrible too -- different kind of terrible from the indie rock folks, but terrible nonetheless.
In the same venue was a group of 4 young guys who pranced on stage and blasted unintelligible lyrics into the microphone for 45 minutes. Afterwards they could be seen on 6th Street (the main Austin club drag) parading in front of any camera that would give them a few seconds of attention. For each camera that played along they performed some sort of bizarre ritual of posturing -- they did this for quite some time so that I ended running into their shenanigans three times after their show.
Why do these people feel the need to push their attitude? Why do they all have to dress according to some unwritten dress code and all try to look exactly like the others while attempting to be more of a badass than the next guy? What's the point? Now I fully understand when hip hop artists like Jurassic 5 bitch about the attitudes of other artists.
But, don't get me wrong. There was some awesome music there as well. I really enjoyed White Ghost Shivers and Badly Drawn Boy. Neither of these bands did any kind of strange posturing -- they just played good music. After seeing the White Ghost Shivers live twice in one day, I'm a newly devoted fan -- these guys had an excellent stage presence that blew me away! As I went to buy their CD, I asked the lady selling their stuff: "Do you have any double XL shirts for fat people like me?" She responded: "Nope, we sold out all of them in Kansas!" Everyone within earshot started cracking up when they overheard the exchange.
Overall I had a great time at SXSW! Now that I am starting to clue in where I can find the good music and which locals only pubs I can escape to be with people who are more down to earth things have become much more fun. I'm scheming for next year already...
