SXSW festival sees a perfect blend of serious music and some fun.
Kevin Martin, aka The Bug, made an interesting remark in the January issue of the UK’s Wire magazine. Martin’s album London Zoo was released last year, and gained enough critical acclaim for it to be placed among the most intelligent, “end of year” music lists in 2008. This doesn’t make Martin a spokesperson for all things music-related, but his statement, which simply laments the current lack of “what the f***” moments, in hip-hop and dance-hall music is reflective of a lack of such moments in majority of the popular music at our disposal. Simply put, it is hard to come by moments in music that inspire us enough to go, “what the f***” in wonder of its genius.
In Austin Texas South by South West, often cited as among the world’s largest music conferences and festivals, kicked off on March 18 and will run till March 22. While also hosting a parallel interactive and film conference and festival, the music segment of SXSW has over the years gained a reputation as nothing short of a Mecca for independent artistes, the music industry and fans at large to congregate, at what could easily be seen as the intersection of business and pleasure.
With close to 2,000 artistes scheduled to perform across dozens of venues in Austin over five days, in many ways the pursuit for nearly everyone attending SXSW is trying to capture that “what the f***” moment. Artistes try their best to provide it, music executives try their best to discover and promote it, and audiences simply enjoy it. In the music business, a lot depends on the provision of this moment or what could otherwise be called the “wow factor”, which in this case has nothing whatsoever to do with sex or oomph or whatever. If you are an artiste and are blessed with that wow factor, but it involves more sex than good music, then you shouldn’t be at SXSW.
In fact, artistes who go to SXSW are generally serious about their music. Serious enough for Australian federal and state agencies to provide support in terms of partly funding of the 31 Australian artistes invited to perform at SXSW this year with a view to supporting the growing export potential of Australian music to the world.
Despite its enormous attendance and potential offerings, SXSW is cutthroat and no one knows this better than the artistes and music industry people that attend it. For artistes, engaging people by providing that critical “what the f***” moment (if an artiste has it in the first place) is the middle step, preceded by getting people to attend your performance in the first place, and followed by relentlessly promoting yourself to relevant industry types. For the music industry people it’s more about picking up on the music and vital technology trends that first manifest themselves at such gatherings.
The best part about SXSW is that it keeps the music business on its toes and physically expresses the enthusiasm and creativity of people. More importantly, it lays bare the passion and optimism that carries the business forward to its next “what the f***” moment.
