For years I have wanted to go to Austin, Texas, to the South By Southwest music conference (SXSW). This year, through my job, I finally got the chance. As a music supervisor for commercials and TV shows, I can legitimately claim the necessity to go to a 4-day conference in which over 1,000 bands play in clubs and at label showcases. It’s impossible to see everything there is to see during the 4+ day music extravaganza (although my friend Todd came close).
I arrived at 4 p.m. at the Austin airport, whereupon my lovely hostess Molly picked me up and whisked me to her lovely and funky little home on the east side of town to drop off my bag. Coming from LA, I thought it seemed like a charming neighborhood, with trees and grass and cute little houses on every block, but as I found out later, cab drivers are still hesitant to go there. I then rushed off to the Austin Convention Center to sign in, get my badge, and a canvas swag-bag so full of unnecessary literature, postcards, and CDs that I jettisoned most of the contents immediately. The tables outside the registration room were piled high with festival detritus, and I fear that a new landfill had to be dug just for all that wastage. But that’s a rant for another day.
The combination of being in a strange town and having a terrible sense of direction made me kinda jumpy. The additional feeling of being awash in a sea of hipness whose waves were breaking way over my head didn’t help much. I had to have a plan or my head was going to explode.
Luckily, being a music supervisor, I was there mainly for business. I realize this sounds a bit twisted, when I had the whole devil’s playground to romp around in. Imagine, though, if you will, going to a huge party where you don’t know anybody, and you don’t know your way around, and it’s all you can do to maintain a semblance of cool amidst the chaos. So it was good to have specific people that I had to connect with during the course of the weekend.
The high points of my trip were both social and musical. Most people go to SXSW attempting to see every band they possibly can. I deliberately did not take that approach this year (although I might try it next time). Since this was technically a business trip, I had to make a certain number of contacts, which proved to be more daunting than I had expected because trying to meet up with people was sort of like herding cats. The prime mode of communication at SXSW is text messaging, so anybody with a Blackberry was at the top of the networking food chain, and those of us with regular cell phones had to attempt to make plans while shouting over the loud band in the background.
I ran around like a maniac the whole time, trying to get to the next show or find people I’d been playing venue-tag with all weekend. All the same, I did manage to catch some great shows and meet some icons. Some of the musical highlights:
The Fratellis with special guest Pete Townshend on guitar: The Fratellis are the new hot rock band du jour. Their recent claim to fame is an iPod commercial and so everybody wanted in to this exclusive Spin Magazine party. I had the great fortune to run into Gary Calamar, a DJ from KCRW (where I volunteered for many years) so he got me in. Gary is a huge Who fan, so seeing Pete Townshend was a coup for him. Pete only played two songs with the band, but they were so jam-packed with energy, tunefulness and talent that I was totally blown away. I was surprised that The Fratellis were so good, frankly, as I tend to get turned off immediately if a band is getting a lot of hype.
Rickie Lee Jones: She has a new album that just came out, which I haven’t really listened to yet. She is one of my biggest influences as a songwriter and singer, and she’s one of those artists that I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand. Her set was part of a showcase that was being filmed for TV, so the experience was slightly marred by the camera going back and forth in front of my sightlines and the obnoxious emcee demanding applause on his count. But she was able to transcend that crap with her mercurial voice and songs, and her great band.
Ian McLagan and the Bump Band: Ian McLagan is best known as a member of the Small Faces and The Faces (with Rod Stewart). After the show, my friend Chris Morris introduced me to him, and he was the sweetest guy. He kissed me on alternate cheeks three times – I blushed and told him I was never going to wash my face again. I was truly chuffed. He put on a great show, a tribute to his late great former band-mate Ronnie Lane.
John Doe/Dead Rock West/Jim Lauderdale: John Doe (formerly of X, the seminal L.A. punk band) did a short but powerful set that included “A Case Of You” (Joni Mitchell) followed by a political rant (paraphrased): “Okay, those of you who aren’t red-staters, I have to say that last week was the best week of my life because George Bush got his ass handed to him every single day!” He then launched into X’s “New World,” which segued into “Revolution” by The Beatles. Excellent. Cindy Wasserman, the lead vocalist from the band Dead Rock West sang Exene’s parts.
Each venue has its own character – Maria’s Taco X-press is a taco joint with an outdoor patio where the bands played. Pok-e-jo’s is a Texas BBQ joint with outdoor tables and a stage set up out back. Austin overall reminded me a lot of LA, although that may have had something to do with the roving hoards of hipsters crowding the streets.
My head is still spinning from the whole thing, and I’m completely exhausted just from trying to think about what all to tell you. I can’t wait til next year.
p.s. Other bands I saw: Oakley Hall, +/-, Ferraby Lionheart, Jessie Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter, a band at a party whose name I can’t recall at the moment but who were really good, The Rosebuds, Jim Lauderdale, The Hacienda Brothers, Mike Stinson, and of course Kind Hearts & Coronets (who I also sang song background vocals for, but that’s another story).
jen — i checked the calendar at mercury lounge to see if i’d missed fratellis. i haven’t, so i’ll try to get in, though it’s sold out. but i did notice that i’d missed ferraby earlier this month. i’m sad, since he was one of the best shows i saw while in LA last summer.
what a fun post. i envy your job. i sometimes fantasize about doing music direction for films. do you know who picked the forever thursday (?) song for that JC Penny commercial that plays nonstop? i’d never paid attention to that band, but what a gorgeous song. the woodwinds!
yes, me too–i am incredibly jealous. sometimes i think i have the best job, but music supervisor–that’s pretty goddamn cool… i’m wondering how ferraby lionheart went over down there. i saw him this summer with bryan, and then again recently with you and tim (though he was more or less drowned out by the chatty crowd).
my hand is raised. I want to go too! with so much to see, I think one must make a plan of action or get pulled in too many directions and musicaly quartered. Jen, I hope we get to hear some new samples this saturday.
Ferraby was great on his guitar songs, but for some reason I wasn’t crazy about his piano songs. I’m not sure what it was – he just took on different personae with different instruments. Guitar made him Dylan-esque, but piano just made him kinda whiny. The crowd was okay – unfortunately he had to compete with loudness from other bands/venues. But he did several shows, so that’s a good sign. It’s a bit hard to stay focused on one band because you’re always looking ahead, trying to make it to the next show – it becomes an issue of quantity vs quality, and it’s hard to resist trying to see 20+ bands per day (which my nutty friend Todd did, in fact, accomplish).
Autumn – you’ve just given me a great idea for record club! I hope I don’t disappoint ;)
And yeah, I pretty much have the coolest job in the world (aside from Rock Star). But it’s not all fun – there is alot of paperwork, plus I have to be here on time.
Aside from a couple of phone calls after some of the best of the shows (and rock star kisses), Jen has managed to restrain herself quite well when it comes to bragging to me about what all she saw at SXSW. I found out about the Rickie Lee Jones set only when I read this post. Also, John Doe doing Joni Mitchell? O. Mah. Gaawd.
SXSW sounds cool, and your job sounds even more cool. In fact, I’d love to see a post about your job, and what kind of things you see, hear, and do. My son, is always introducing me to new music, and I often end up hearing it again in commercials (it happened again just last night with a Dashboard Confessional song). He just recorded his first song last week (I’ll put a link on when I figure out how to find it on myspace). Oh, and I went and listened to Ricki Lee Jones, and found a HUGE difference between her early album v. the new release, almost as big as Tom Waits.
One of my favorite record-club memories is when I brought my friend Sara to record club at Tim and Jen’s house. Afterwards, Sara, who’s in the Devics, said, “Wow, Jen’s a music supervisor. To me, it’s sort of like she’s a rock star!” She was kind of nervous around Jen after learning about her job. A few days later, I remember Jen telling me, “Sara was so cool–so down to earth for a rock star.” It was interesting how they both viewed each others’ line of work–with equal reverence…
Hey to my GWI friends. Here’s the link http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=166357444&MyToken=6f656834-bea3-4794-aa83-1e509ce73b48
to my son’s first recording. He and his friend JD did a cover of a The Scene Aesthetic song. I’m amazed at the recording quality of a home PC.
Sorry, but I’m a Link IDIOT. Tried about 5 times, and screwed every one up…
Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter (live set on kcrw today) were the other band on John’s first tour with inara george. he’s got a great story about jesse that involves an on-going ass-slapping contest. i guess she’s a really good ass-slapper and song writer. i love it when people are multi-talented.
Hey everyone. in case that link my dad gave didn’t work you can check my band out at either http://www.myspace.com/inuncertainterms or http://www.purevolume.com/inuncertainterms. We just performed this song for our highschool talent show, so yall should check it out. It was a Dashboard Confessional song by the way.
Lisa –
I LOVE ass-slapping!
xo
jen
Oh dear (blush).