SXSW Thu Mar 20 2014
This was music industry veteran Martin Atkins' advice for bands at this year's South By Southwest music festival in Austin, TX: "You're fucked, nobody cares, everybody's doing it."
When you're in the thick of 6th Street in downtown, deep in the shit, you can see what he means. Live music blares from every bar and restaurant on the strip. Elsewhere in the city, houses, thrift shops, and churches turn into music venues.
People stumble between them like it's St. Patrick's Day -- which was celebrated on the Saturday of the festival, not that anyone noticed.
Finding yourself among this Great Migration of bands and music fans, you have two options: go with the flow or be swept away.
"It's kind of like riding the mechanical bull," mused Archie Powell of Archie Powell & the Exports. "The object is not to not fall off, it's to hold on as long as possible -- and if you're going to fall off, try to do it gracefully."
RJ Export. Photo by Christopher Guess.
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— Mike Ewing
Robbie Fulks rounds out his reports from Austin. He comes back to considering the business of the festival, and considers how well he played his part this past week. Plus, he offers up a quick lesson on how to play a Texas honky-tonk gig.
-Anne
Saturday
I cleaned up and left the house in west Austin and went back to the hotel near downtown, where there was still a room in my name. Rob and Josh from Bloodshot Records were in the lobby, and together we headed to the little cantina where I was for some reason part of an afternoon of "Brooklyn Country Music." On the way over we talked about the unpredictable benefits vis-a-vis the certain costs of participating in South by Southwest. Rob said that a generous partnership with a beer company, the end result of a social relationship with loopy youngsters fortuitously forged at SxSW years ago, got his company through the recession and provided years of ballast. He said that he tells his bands, "I can tell you what will happen if you don't come to Austin, I can't tell you what will happen if you do."
For myself, I hope one thing comes out of my sizable investment here, and that's a precious spot on the lineup of Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, the blue-chip fall festival in San Francisco. I was told that the booking lady was at our Yard Dog show on Friday. Other than that, the contacts I made — with, for instance, a promoter from Columbus, a house concert couple from Baltimore, a very friendly editor/writer/photog from Acoustic Guitar magazine — were great to have but probably not necessary to come here for a week to obtain. If I can make my way into the elite H-S ranks, though, chalk this trip up as a solid success for ole Robbie.
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— Anne Holub /
Archie Powell, oddly enough of Archie Powell & the Exports, brings us back to the beginning to round out the week's updates from the band. Here's hoping the boys' livers have weathered Austin intact!
- Anne
Saturday
"Well, we've gone and done it, folks. We've ruined the show."
I exclaim at our Good Land Records showcase yesterday after a particularly climatic and in-your-face bridge from our new record apparently destroys the circuit breaker and renders our microphones and amplifiers useless. Here's panic mode, for those of you not accustomed to purposely making an ass of yourself in public. When there's pervasive feedback and buzz saw vibes coming from all the speakers, at least you're acting the fool in a way you've rehearsed. These people have got to watch something for the next thirty minutes, though, and it's not their fault that you only got two and a half full-mast tunes in before the power went blooey.
Playing solo acoustic is definitely outside my comfort zone, especially when it's something that makes its necessity known under extreme duress. Good thing I don't take myself seriously, or this may have been more of a problem. I guess it's kind of like getting naked in front of all your friends, but I did that for real outside the Burlington on my birthday two years ago. Sometimes you just gotta roll with the punches. The power eventually came back on ("Mr. Hammond, the phones are working...") and we finished out our set with a Judas Priest cover. Just keeping it real, man. The whole thing ended up being a great hang.
Suds and buds: technical difficulties yet again fail to ruin the party
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— Anne Holub
Archie Powell & the Exports' Ryan Lynch has Friday's updates for us. Things are a little troubling. But at the center is still some good Chicago love.
- Anne
Friday
"Hey man, how's your testicle?" a concerned friend yelled into my ear while at the Chuggin Monkey this afternoon. "I'm back at 100% now!" was my reply. "Ready to do this whole thing over again today"
My band mates (and wife, Laura via text) have had constant updates on the status of a weird aching man-parts situation I've been dealing with the past 36 hours. Still not entirely sure what the deal was, but possible theories include: sleeping funny on a tile floor, walking too much in tight jeans, rocking too hard, and "bro, you're just backed up."
I'm gonna chalk it up to the physical toll that SXSW takes on every band involved. By three days in, the sunburn, dehydration, hangovers, ringing ears, overstimulation, miles of walking and insane load-in and parking situation at most shows leaves everyone with a 100-mile-stare and desire to be cooked sous-vide in a hot tub until all your flesh falls off the bone like a perfectly cooked pork shoulder.
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— Anne Holub
Robbie Fulks's Friday was filled with some good SXSW-vibes, and even a bit more music, thanks to a successful Yard Dog party with his label, Bloodshot. Family's always best, right? But perhaps he's over-stayed his time in Austin? I sense a black cloud on the horizon.
-Anne
Friday
Today the corpse is starting to stink. I should have left days ago. I'm still here. On Lamar, on Barton Springs, across the river on Congress, the seething pullulating crowds continue to surge and sway across and alongside and against auto traffic on their way to the next tasteless margarita, the next trending band, friends across town, bankruptcy. "Check check" barks a bleating fathead, his lips smashed against the grate of a midline microphone at nine in the morning on a big corporate sponsored stage near Einstein's Bagels. A rachitic young white trio with electric guitar and drumkit is ever so gently trying to get the attention of sensation-glutted passersby across from the smoothie stand next to the Continental Club. You can't see the pavement for crumpled paper and drippings from people's mouths, you can't see the walls for bugs, you can't see parking spaces because they aren't there. Music-addicted, story-addicted, anywhere-but-here-addicted, thumbsucking humanity has made a place for itself — buyer's market America — and the result is rot, idiot chatter, music that will embarrass us for generations to come, and all the ravages and indignities of cancer. Please add 90 minutes to your GPS's estimated arrival time, ladies and gentlemen. It's Disneyland with drinks, it's Rush Street, it's St. Patrick's, it's Million Moron March, it's all things to be avoided, it stinks.
But let's accentuate the positive. We had our best show yet, over at the Yard Dog, in front of a warm and friendly group. I had talked to Ben awhile in the morning, and with all the board problems — the Continental's soundboard had broken down shortly before our arrival, the one at the Spoke had beer and stuff crusted in it preventing calibrated fader moves — and the closely related feedback plague, we decided that using a crappier mike on my guitar, a non-condenser — in short, an SM-57 — would be best. That did help us at the Yard Dog, that and reducing the monitors to a whisper. At once I could tell that we were connecting with the people in front of us; whatever was being represented of us out in front was ample and was a pretty balanced image of all the instruments and vocals. Great. It was our first decent show of the week, and it was what all our shows should be like, and usually are like. I wish we could have done as well at all our shows here.
Mrs. Norris, alive and well inside the house
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— Anne Holub
Archie Powell & the Exports passed the mic to bassist Adam Melberth for today's update.
- Anne
Thursday
Sometimes you go to a rambunctious, foggy, boozy, punk/country show to end your night before passing out on a ceramic tile floor in Austin, TX. Then you wake up in the morning on said floor to the realization that the venue you were at didn't have a smoke machine and that "fog" smelled kind of funny...Thus begins my Thursday at SXSW 2014.
9am never pairs well with rock n roll, but an early wake up time was on the agenda to hit an acoustic performance in an old air stream called the Ham Solo. (Star Wars pun intended). Being accustomed to van life, piling four dudes into a baby blue aluminum trailer and talking about how I fashion my look after Chewbacca's was extremely familiar. As a bassist, I don't provide much in instrumentation in these types of performances, but some backup vocals from The Exports earned me a breakfast taco as we accompanied Archie while he played two new songs from our upcoming record Back in Black (Yes, it's really called that).
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— Anne Holub
Robbie Fulks has 2 more days left in Austin. But on Thursday, there was: Drama! Intrigue! Beautiful women! Expensive cars! and more!
-Anne
Thursday
This morning I awoke to a call from my friend Elaine (whom I love with all my heart). It was an emergency vocabulary call. She needed a word for when simple meanings are encoded in elaborate phrases which expand absurdly over time, for example contemporary job descriptions. Where she works, at a music school, the teachers were first called "teachers." Later the designation was upgraded to "teaching artists," and now an outside consultant was instituting "teaching artist fellows." At three words we're in more of an activity zone: painting lady fingernails, watching Scotty grow. I couldn't think of a word, I could think only of "title inflation," which didn't cover the terrain as broadly as she was hoping. Googling, however, I found a neat one-word neologism for title inflation: uptitling. What is a word for when you invent a silly word to describe a sillier trend? Maybe southbysouthwesting.
Elaine was dismayed by my cat dilemma with Mrs. Norris. (This will be like joining General Hospital in season 27 — I'm not going to provide backstory or define established terms from here on.) [Editor's note: Catch up here.] "Have you seen that movie?" she said. "What is it? Lood....Loon Davis? Lewr? Funny name, it's about a folksinger. Some benefactors open their nice apartment to him and the first thing he does is lose the cat." Takeaway: I've done something so losery that a Coen Brothers character beat me to it.
I ran briefly into Lisa Pankratz on the running trail this morning. She and her husband Brad are gigging this week with Dave and Phil Alvin, with Brennan Leigh, and with Roger Wallace. I made a list of some friends I wanted to go hear tonight — those guys, Rhett Miller, Chris Mills. Seems a shame to come here and miss the music part.
While I was washing laundry, I saw Mrs. Norris on the porch, but I couldn't coax her inside. I'd move a muscle, she'd abscond. Elaine had mentioned catnip, so I went across town to Petco to get some. While there I also got a wire-mouse toy to dangle before Mrs. Norris, and a litter scoop. I came home and opened the deck doors, and before I had the chance to deploy any of the new-bought items, she sidled in and headed to the food dish. I sneaked around the other side of the kitchen island, crouching low martial-arts-style so she couldn't see me, and slammed the door shut, victorious. I looked at my watch to memorize the moment. 2:25pm. The cat saga was over.
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— Anne Holub /
Archie Powell & the Exports drummer RJ Schillaci chimes in for the latest entry from Austin. Looks like he's hitting all the SXSW festival high points: Free Stuff.
- Anne
Wednesday
Day Two of Archie Powell & The Exports take on SXSW started for me on the floor of an unfurnished apartment in a sleeping bag trying to recover from a long night of all the drinks and one of the most amazing shows we have ever played. Riding high on how well the showcase went, I soon realize that it's only Wednesday and I have $11 to my name. So my goals the whole day was to not spend a dime and see where the day took me!
Spoiler Alert: The day ends drunk on the floor of the unfurnished apartment.
Being and official SXSW artist did help when it came to free food/beverages/swag. Starting with an artist lounge in the Austin convention center containing beer, coffee, and our super rad artist backpack! The main perk and helpful to me not spending money was an artist tent on the street with cheeseburgers and an open bar. Also tons of Doritos.
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— Anne Holub
Robbie Fulks still has cat problems, but I think he's getting to a very Zen place about it. What follows is a relating of his latest travails involving: the cat, long drives in a noteworthy van, thoughts of crumpling crotch parts, and a bit more about the cat. This is getting epic.
-Anne
Wednesday
Here's one more way of halving humanity, or dividing it into two unequal groups: people who habitually fret over every niggling detail of daily living even when it's clearly unproductive and useless to do that, and people who project ease and confidence through the very worst of it — people who seem to assume a nearly medical duty, of propping up the rest of the race with empty but nonetheless soothing ministrations, saying, sometimes implicitly through their bearing and sometimes aloud, "Don't worry!" The pilots I know through my son, on duty or off, and a lot of lawyers, and many of the spouses of each, and certain (though not all) graduates of elite colleges: solidly in group two. Most of my musician friends, on the other hand, and most of those in my and my wife's family, and I myself — most people generally, I imagine — are in the first. There is so much to worry unproductively about. Worry after worry leading nowhere in particular and followed by certain extinction. I think that an apparently relaxed disposition must not be deep-grained, but a shallow facade. After adjusting for income, we are all facing the same small routine challenges, and same large unsolvable one.
The cat conundrum is the central thing right now. I call it a conundrum because now she appears occasionally and looks at me reprovingly before disappearing again — I was so close to nabbing her twice today but she got away. As of this morning, when I woke, she was still missing in action, and I had slept little due to worrying — every little noise I heard including that of the cat still safe indoors presented the image of the cat stuck under the deck and clawing to get out — so over morning coffee I started calling assorted people to worry aloud to them.
Robbie Gjersoe voiced outrage on my behalf. "You don't go away and leave your pets to a stranger and expect everything to work out," he said with feeling. He seemed to be jumping ahead to some kind of trial, with me as defendant and the homeowners as the aggrieved plaintiffs. "I'm glad you're on my side," I told him, "but I don't think they're to blame, and anyway it's not a dispute. It's just a bad situation, and I'm upset not so much because of being at fault as because an innocent creature is in danger and maybe suffering, and I just wish I could...turn back time...and not having a course of action is frustrating." Robbie wanted me to take heart in my essential innocence, which might have been comforting but it seemed too much like advice given you by someone on your payroll.
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— Anne Holub
SXSW Thu Mar 13 2014
As the cornerstone of the City of Chicago's effort to attract talent and tourism during this year's South by Southwest (SXSW), Chicago Made brought together a wide range of local artists that handily represented the energy and diversity of the city. Until it was shut down. Here's what happened:
The Hood Internet, Photo by Christopher Guess
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— Mike Ewing
Robbie Fulks cares. About heart health and "Texanliness", among other things. But may not make the best cat caretaker, if you're thinking about loaning him your house.
-Anne
Tuesday
Yesterday I was scoffing at how little festival color and news my posts would transmit, but today I started to feel sad and ashamed. Vested with all the journalistic trust by a website, only to produce dull diary entries pertinent to no one's interest. I should get out there in the field. So I Googled "south by southwest best music 2014" and similar phrases. "Agnes Obel," says Paste.com, "exists at the crux where beauty and sadness are indistinguishable, weaving sedative piano whispers around tales of aborted love." I know poor Agnes Obel didn't write that, and might not even endorse the description, and maybe she doesn't sound like what that suggests, but if she did, wouldn't it be just awful? That's not something to go do for fun. Or because you are down on your website-writing performance. And there are eighty-four other suggestions of don't-miss music on the site. Eighty-four! With music clips included but no information about where or when they'll be playing. Sorry, but I'm not seeing anything while I'm here.
This day just passed had a truly hideous aspect, which I'll get to. I got up and went to Starbucks, where I saw Terry Lickona of Austin City Limits, and where I also saw a young light-haired bearded guy with a tight short-sleeve cowboy shirt, sitting at a table talking about his music and gesticulating emotionally to a Sephardic older gentleman who appeared deeply sympathetic and who hung on every word with a cocked head. Which character in that music business tableau would you rather be, if you had to choose? Winning entry gets one Gapers Block mug. [Editor's note: we have no mugs, sorry.]
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— Anne Holub
Archie Powell of Archie Powell & the Exports gives us the run-down on the band's first day in Austin, including just as much corporate mumbo-jumbo as you'd expect and some Chicago pride.
- Anne
Tuesday
I skipped SXSW last year, and all the while I was convinced I hadn't really missed much. Today was a reminder of what the big deal of this whole fracas really is. And it was only day one.
To begin with a lighter note, SXSW offers plenty in way of the complimentary and absurd. This is no surprise to the average veteran, but to those at home who have never made the trek, allow me to illustrate: if you tweet about Cottonelle baby wipes, you can earn yourself a free massage. Pair that with a commendable array of odd pan-cultural fusion via vehicular culinary purveyors stationed across the street and you've got a bizarre start to your day. Korean chicken burrito and hygienic towelettes. Conflict of interest? Perhaps, but just roll with it. This shit's all over the place.
Archie Powell & The Exports had the pleasure of playing their first official SXSW showcase today (specifically curated by the city of Chicago's department of tourism). We aren't used to this. We met the mayor and were served fancy tray snacks like we weren't a crew of unwashed transients. After a spell of being on the road, you're lucky to get eye contact with the Boomer elites, let alone be given the time of day and goaded into crushing a baker's dozen horseradish short rib buns. We all took full advantage and loaded our gear into the night's venue universally droopy-eyed.
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— Anne Holub
SXSW Wed Mar 12 2014
The Chicago Made music showcase at South By Southwest was shut down by the fire marshal early Wednesday morning, with officials indicating the number of people in the venue exceeded its maximum capacity.
Photo: Christopher Guess
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— Mike Ewing
Robbie Fulks gets us started with SXSW diaries with some pre-trip thoughts as he got ready to head south on Monday. Read on for his (at times) brutally honest entry.
-Anne
March 10
Midway Airport
Of all the musicians participating in this year's South by Southwest I may be the worst choice to send daily dispatches home. Which immediately raises some questions, such as: why the worst? And: what, don't I like South by Southwest or something? And: why then did I agree to write about the conference for the wonderful website Gapers Block?
Last one first, I agreed to write because I like to write. I especially like the phase of writing where you reflect on, sift, edit, straighten, plump up, and in some valid way add dramatic interest to the day's events, which as they happened appeared random and not that interesting. I like making sentences and the effort to get better at it. That's simple.
As to liking SxSW or not liking, I have mixed feelings about the annual gathering of musicians, techies, filmmakers, and miscellaneous media scum. I've done it three other times and, I have to confess, I had a grand time each visit. But my enjoyment wasn't correlated with any of the sanctioned goings-on. I mostly avoided wristband events. It was visiting friends in diners, taking in the balmy weather, being drunk, watching Redd Volkaert and Bill Kirchen and Dale Watson and Stephen Bruton (R.I.P.) play at off-track venues, having fantastic Mexican food, and sleeping in a quiet bed up in the hills outside of town that made it such a blast.
It's been 8 years since I last attended "the little conference by the Colorado," and I hear there's not a lot of quiet there anymore. No beds either, as I found out when I tried Pricelining rooms in February. And there's not nearly as much outside-of-town, since tech has come to Texas, inflating its capital into the US's second largest. A couple days ago in Chicago, I ran into an old musician friend, a banjoist and central Texas native. "I'm headed to Austin next week, and I'm a little worried, based on what I've been hearing," I told him. "The crowd factor is pretty out of control since you were there last," he admitted. "But just stay away from the official shows, and you'll be fine."
Preaching to the choir! This is why I fear I'm ill-chosen to guide you, dear reader, through all the excitement, buzz, and magic that is South by Southwest. Of my least favorite things on earth, three that spring right to mind are:
1. Crowds.
2. New media professionals.
3. Bands.
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— Anne Holub /
Let's face it, it's been a long, dark, cold and brutal winter in Chicago. If you weren't forward-thinking enough to plan a beach vacation by now, you're out of luck. Some of us can't afford to get to Texas ourselves for the annual SXSW conferences, but some lucky Chicago bands are headed there right now, with the intent to rock the taco-consuming masses from venues including nondescript parking lots to sponsored showcase stages. As in years past, we're following two local acts, and asking them to send daily dispatches back north, so we can bask in the warm glow that is Austin, Texas, without the added cost of airfare or hotel rooms. This year, we're following Robbie Fulks and Archie Powell & the Exports (as well as some on-site dispatches from GB's Mike Ewing). If you're not familiar, here's a quick introduction, as well as where to see them perform this week in Austin:
Our first local act is a Bloodshot Records mainstay. Robbie Fulks is not only a current local artist, he's lived here for over 30 years. A little bit country, and a little bit rock your ears off, Fulks brings a traditional country singer/songwriter sensibility to the mic, without the coffee house pretension. Coming from a historic country tradition, his music is like a refreshing beverage arriving the second you need long, cool drink. Here he is with Jon Langford in the Bloodshot offices, recently covering a Barbara Mandrel song (or checkout this popup player for some other tunes):
His current (and subject to change) SXSW Music Fest schedule is below:
Tuesday, March 11, 1pm - Trade show
Wednesday, March 12, 9pm - Continental Club
Thursday, March 13, 4pm - Broken Spoke
Friday, March 14, 12:45pm - Yard Dog
Saturday, March 15, 2pm - Brooklyn Country Cantina
[The bookend shows are solo and the others are acoustic quartet (Raines, Cobb, Gjersoe).]
To catch Robbie Fulks back home, his next Chicago gig will be at the Pig & Weasel in Evanston on March 23 at 3pm. Suggested donation $15-$20 at door.
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— Anne Holub
Preview Fri Mar 07 2014
I'm looking at the weather report and it's supposed to be 50 degrees in a few days. There still might be some snow on the ground, but it looks like we've almost made it through this winter. Things outside seem to be increasingly pleasant and this may be the first weekend to truly resemble spring that we've had in 2014. What are you going to do with this not hibernating in your comfortably warm apartment whilst binge watching Pokemon cartoons on Netflix and eating leftovers of cheap chinese food time you've suddenly found yourself with this weekend? If you want to get out of the house, a few good shows are coming up that you may want to check out.
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— Justin Freeman
SXSW Mon Feb 17 2014
We at Gapers Block try to cover the SXSW Music Festival in Austin as if it were a local festival -- because every March, Chicago sends dozens of acts and hundreds of fans down to Texas, making sure our city's music scene stays well represented. This year's festival runs March 11-16, and will feature a broad swath of Chicago acts both young and old.
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— Andrew Huff /
SXSW Thu Dec 12 2013
It's hard to believe the year is nearly over, and SXSW, the annual festival and conference on music, film and the internet down in Austin is only a little over three months away. Each year in Transmission, we take a look at which local musicians will be performing at SXSW Music March 7-16, 2014 to give those of you attending the fest an idea of who to keep an eye out for. And now that the first two rounds of showcasing artists have been announced, there are enough locals to file a report.
And yes, it took two rounds for there to be enough to bother. With more than 500 acts announced, fewer than 10 are from Chicagoland. They are: Andrew Belle, The Autumn Defense, Circuit des Yeux, Empires, Rockie Fresh and Urge Overkill, as well as The Giving Tree Band from southwest suburban Yorkville and K'La from Gary.
Sure, that's pretty light representation, but don't forget that this is very early -- the full schedule, usually released in February, will provide a clearer picture of how strong Chicago's presence will be felt in Austin. If you're planning to go to the festival, get your tickets and book your room ASAP, as most of the hotels close to the epicenter are already sold out.
As always, we'll be bringing you coverage of Chicagoland acts at the SXSW Music Festival as it happens. Stay tuned, and read our past coverage of the fest in the archives.
— Andrew Huff
