You’ve heard about the Ben Weasel impersonation of Brett Myers. You’ve read about the Vevo/Kanye/Seaholm Power Plant disaster. Maybe someone told you that SXSW organizers hope to shift the blame from serious security problems at big, splashy events and attempt to crack down on the only things keeping the fucker interesting or relevant (ie. the sort of unofficial parties / house shows that were a thousand times more fun than the lemming-fests that took place through much of downtown). And perhaps you had to listen to me moan for far too long about how The Unholy Two destroyed what’s left of my hearing / mental acuity and it’s gonna be their fault when I’m shot during a dispute at Whole Food’s.
(photo swiped from Richard at Super Secret)
But none of that really measures up to Jeremy’s take on The Week The Circus Came To Austin. The Flesh Lights’ debut LP on Twistworthy is coming soon, and I can promise you it will go down better than whatever Mr. Steen consumed Saturday afternoon.
The biggest reason I don’t participate at SXSW any more is because of the insane crackdown on ‘unofficial’ parties. The last one I did was IN A SOUNDPROOFED RECORDING STUDIO in East Austin and cops were there to shut it down before the first band even played. Please note, I had a hard time finding the place just because it was SO QUIET, but the cops didn’t. However, at least I went out with a bang: Pissed Jeans, Sex/Vid, Monotonix, Harvey Milk and Torche. Not too shabby if I say so m’self.
i was there for the Harvey Milk set. Let’s just say that major traffic around the greater Austin area had prevented delivery of deodorant that week.
even with all the myriad hassles, this was still an awesome week of music if you knew where to look. I can’t really hold SXSW organizers accountable for house parties being shut down —-that stuff was happening weeks prior to SXSW, too. But the speed with which some of these gigs were re-routed to other locations was pretty impressive.
I love the SXSW circus!! Why all the complaints? I don’t hear those complainers when UT football closes down streets, or UT graduation. If you want to drive, just allow more time to get through the traffic. Otherwise, ride the bus and metro-rail. It’s much cheaper than parking.
If SXSW promoters offered really good music folks would go, but they are ‘stuck’, just like the ‘suits’ in the record industry by playing it safe with the musicians they bring. There’s too much creativity for them to handle, so the small businesses and house parties offer the overflow artists a space.
Security issues are due to band planning- they had no idea who stars of the fest would be- The Strokes! No one’s fault, just a mis-calculation on their part. THAT should have been a SXSW badge only show if they wanted to keep the crowd small.
Kanye- you don’t invite 50,000 of your closest friends to the Seaholm power plant and then uninvite them- that’s a problem- again, a miscalculation by the people in charge.
This has nothing to do with ‘official’ vs ‘unofficial’. All the unofficial venues had their crowd control folks and things went well.
If house parties got shut down, that’s because people have neighbors who complain. That’s not SXSW organizer’s fault.
SXSW is organic- and if there were problems at year 25, so be it. Twenty-four years without major incident is pretty good, don’t you think? Folks can learn and next year more people can come- it generates great business and tax revenue as well as offering good old Texas hosiptality and that helps all of us.
See you at next year’s party.
good luck getting a bus home at 2am. As far as generating great biz and tax revenues, that’s tremendous consolation for the the unpaid talent — many of whom also toil in a service industry where working insane hours and getting stiffed on tips is pretty standard during SXSW week.
The Strokes’ free Auditorium Shores show was heavily promoted by SXSW, the same local media that was in a tweet-frenzy over SXSW horror stories and some little firm called Levi’s. We’re talking about a band that played the main stage at ACL a few months ago near the top of the bill, was just on SNL and released a new album this week. This wasn’t a “miscalculation”, the overflow crowd happened by DESIGN.