South By Southwest (Absolutely the last time I say anything about Texas)

Where do I begin? Shall I count the ways?

You are a wanker if:

1> You refer to South By Southwest as "South By"

2> You wear your credential (let's not call it a laminate because it's not) around your neck while you're walking around the streets of Austin. These are not cool, and even if it's an all access laminate for God's gig in heaven, it's still wanky to wear your pass outside of the venue. At SBS more than anywhere they don't infer any coolness on you or really give you any special rights, as the guy found out when he refused to move from the side of the stage when it was time for the band to come off. Silly boy. That pass had no effect, did it? More to the point, it didn't give you any special powers or make you invincible either, did it? Wanker.

3> You work at a record company and you try to get extra wristbands off the band you're there to see. You earn more than they do, stop leeching.

4> You work at a record company. *

5> You insist on trying to inch your way backstage to hang out near the band; slow-creeping down the bar, chatting to the arrogant tosser of a barman--who, for one solitary week in March has more than ten customers and finally gets some attention--sliding your way towards the Mexican bus-boys, over to the fire escape and exactly in the way of anyone who's trying to do a 45 minute changeover in 10 minutes. If you were wanted backstage you'd be backstage already. That's how a tiered pass system works. It's not an oversight; you don't have the right pass because you're not wanted there. There's no point trying to ignore this obvious fact while slurping a piss-weak beer and getting slammed in the legs by flight-cases and looking pissy. Apologies if I bruised your sorry-ass with a high speed Fender 2 x 12 Hot Rod Deville; silly me, I was trying to put the gig on. That noisy music stuff? Yeah, that was us. I know, I know--terrid roadies. Don't they know that you've come to South By because you're in the "Music Business"? Don't they know that you're talking to some fucking troll at the bar and it's IMPORTANT? Don't they know that, that, that.....that you've got wristbands, goddammit?!

6> You went to South By Southwest and you didn't need to.**

7> You had anything to do with organising the music programming /production side of this fucking festival. It has so little regard for the music, it's painful to see it billed as such. Only a few years ago it was a destination for indie-minded people to go to see bands that were under the radar and hadn't broken yet, or couldn't get anywhere. Now it's a huge corporate venture with the music coming a sad last to everything else. I felt like the music and the performances were almost annoyances as they're given so little attention compared to say, the cocksuck that's pass allocation or something really significant. And it's not that I don't get that there's a lot going on but really....

For example:

Our soundcheck clashed with an instore performance. Fair enough. I set our arrival time at the gig to 11:30PM as there was no point getting to the venue directly from the instore (at 7PM) to unload our cases and do nothing but wait for 6 hours. This was a big No-No apparently and the day before I got several calls from people wigging out that basically we were being inconvenient (it was such a big problem that no one had thought to call me about it until 24 hours before the show). Bit of bad luck that. Anyway, even on the night I get calls from people asking me to bring the bus in three hours earlier for no reason other than they're fucking clueless. So we turn up at 11:30PM (even though the guy from the label told me the wrong load-in address. Luckily I ignored him, but see note # 4), unload the bus and wait with our gear by the dumpsters out back as there is no room in the club to store gear. if we hadn't been so "inconvenient" then we'd have been sitting outside by the dumpsters for 6 hours, instead of one. Had someone known what they were talking about they would have worried more about managing the stage than whining about us coming in late with a bus that caused no problems whatsoever. And even if it was difficult, so what? Isn't it about the gig? Or am I missing something..?

During our show the stage manager is absent from the stage and Albert's set runs over. The venue starts threatening to pull the power - the stage manager is nowhere to be seen - hiding, no doubt. Had he done his job earlier there'd have been no problem. But why the fuck would he do that? It's South By.... I later heard the venue got fined because we went over curfew. Good. They should have. They were ignorant. But it's nice to see the City Of Austin taking another cut from the festival by way of fining venues for excess noise at 2AM on 6th Street. BFD.

The Stage Manager's advance consisted of telling me what time we had to be there for soundcheck (too early) and then asking us to share gear. When the Mooney Suzuki shared gear as per the Stage Manager's request the following night they had two other bands (after the fact) ask them for money for the privilege (The HooDoo Guru's wanted $75 for use of their bass rig...). We didn't share gear, except when the band before us forgot all their drum parts and a guitar and Albert's band helped them out for free (as you would). We managed the stage during the change-over to hustle everyone out of the way. The Stage Manager wasn't present. A ton of liggers were however, all trying to be special by proving they didn't really need to move out of the way of the crew moving flight-cases. Those fuckers hurt when they clip you, don't they? Sorry about that.

You can only collect your passes in person. What a joke that is - seven people need to go line-up for up to two hours to get credentials because the tour manager can't collect them all. We didn't bother and went credential-less for the whole festival. The writstbands guarantee nothing anyway and for any cool shows the only way you get in is to know someone.

Ironically, Albert played at the Blender Party on Friday night and it was the best-run event I've ever been to at South By Southwest. Someone had invested in proper gear and a realistic schedule. I almost enjoyed doing the show. (Similarly, there was an instore at Waterloo Records and although they had very limited facilities they were at least welcoming and helpful. I didn't feel like an inconvenience at Waterloo, either). Strange how the corporate party got it right but the music festival treats all the bands like shit. At SBS there are limited facilities, limited production, no riders, nothing much of anything. It's like the emporer's new clothes of festivals. Why is that? And if I sound churlish and ungrateful consider that I've been putting on gigs for 20 years in one way or another and I completely understand the problems of managing large groups of uncoordinated people. But if the focus of the festival is as it's pitched, the music; then it needs to be the focus of the festival. Not some aside to a load of wankers getting loaded and jerking each other off; or included in the festival as a barely tolerated inconvenience. I know most bands are crap at dealing with practical matters but treating all bands like they should be grateful for being treated like cattle belies the advertising somewhat, if you ask me. Kind of forgetting the point of it all.

The best thing for me was the SBS staff tee-shirts. They had a stick-man holding up the world as a design. Yeah, that's right, you pompous fuckers; you're really carrying a burden there, saving indieland, keeping the world of music alive. For fuck's sake....get over yourselves. Go to Glastonbury or Virgin (UK) or Roskilde or Hurricane or Big Day Out to see how a proper festival works for a ton of bands. That Texan hippy bullshit vibe is bogus and hypocritical.

However, I loved seeing my friends there. I love my friends and my friends who were there were also feeling sidelined by the whole thing. We hung out a little and giggled at the two most common looks: a> Black skinny jeans and jacket (band person) or b) Jeans & untucked checked shirt (label person). I even have friends from Texas there, although they don't live in Texas anymore. It's something we don't bring up. Like a prison sentence that's been served or something.


For the record, I don't know how the band felt about their visit to South By Southwest. Just because I think it's a bag of sick doesn't mean they do too.

* With the exception of Rough Trade Records or if you're one of my friends and you work at a record company. Being my friend trumps being a wanker from the label - remember this on my birthday. It's november ninth.

** Not strictly true, but it sounds good.