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Published on 7/24/08
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The day after this year’s SXSW festival ended, the Austin American-Statesman ran this front-page headline: “It’s too soon to know what hit us.” You’d think the Texas capital had been attacked by a giant CGI lizard from outer space or something. Then again, SXSW does represent an alien invasion of sorts: More than 12,000 registrants came to what’s probably the U.S.’s most talked about festival, with thousands more surging into Austin for unofficial (and usually free) shows.
In other words, SXSW is a pretty accurate analog for the current state of the music industry itself. Both have grown to an unwieldy size; both are contending with fans who happily take for free what’s otherwise being sold. And, just as the majority of music passed off as “hot” these days turns out to be feeble and unsatisfying, chasing the bands that everyone’s talking about in Austin is guaranteed to leave you disappointed—and waiting in long lines to get into packed clubs. This is partly why I mostly avoided indie rock, the dominant sound of SXSW (as it is with CMJ in the fall): I hate lines. Also, I hate indie rock. A genuinely creative form of underground music in the ’80s and early ’90s, indie rock in general is now as culturally threatening (and just as white-bread) as mainstream country, with self-obsessed artists writing vague lyrics and blandly inoffensive melodies. To quote an indie icon of the past: It says nothing to me about my life.
This is why SXSW’s immense size is a great thing for the true musical adventurer: The crowds flock to a handful of places to see whatever is supposed to be generating “buzz,” so there’s no waiting at the dozens of truly exciting and unpredictable shows. While hundreds tried to get in to see R.E.M.—admittedly, I’d have liked to as well, but not at the cost of an entire night—I was bouncing around Sixth and Red River Streets (the two main drags downtown) seeing everything: Kirsten Ketsjer and the Mae Shi at Mohawk, Milwaukee’s Call Me Lightning through a fence on my way to Mohawk, supercool Swedish blues-rawkers Graveyard at Bourbon Rocks.…
In fact, SXSW 2008 might be the best time I’ve had musically at any festival. For days I moved easily through warm and sunny Austin, experiencing the known and the unknown, the good and the ugly, and none of the bad or dull. I’ll never forget seeing the original lineup of Half Japanese (with Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan on sax) at the WFMU showcase. (Read our probably too-detailed breakdown on what was seen and heard at SXSW on the TONY blog.)
I even left Austin with what feels like a grand prize: The best band I saw all week remains, for now, unknown. It’s the aforementioned Kirsten Ketsjer, a powerhouse Danish trio that blends interlocking pop guitars with all-out noise-rock and Texas-size charisma, leaving audiences stunned and grinning. Yet the three musicians slipped out of Austin still under the radar. No one is blogging about them; no one has offered them a contract. Hopefully that’ll change by this time next year.
