On The Record »

• SXSW 2012: it’s (really) a wrap

  March 21, 2012 @ 8:22 am | by Jim Carroll

  (1) I’ve a couple of SXSW-related features running in the paper over the next few days (the first one is here which is a look at what the hell SXSW is all about). But despite that coverage, there’s still a ton of stuff from 10 days in Austin TX to get through and I’m sure I’ll be remembering bits and pieces for weeks to come. Here’s some of the stuff which fell between the cracks.

  (2) By Saturday night in Austin, you’ve seen everything you’ve come to see and you’re beginning to get itchy feet. There may be one or two acts to check out again or some late tips to catch up on, but it’s usually time to kick back a little. This time around, I managed to get see not just one, but two of the bigger acts latching onto SXSW 2012. It started with NaS with help from DJ Premier and Pete Rock playing the classic “Illmatic” album in full in front of a heady, up-for-it crowd in the same venue graced by Bruce Springsteen and Jay-Z earlier in the week. It was a hoot to hear NaS and friends blowing the dust off a 20 year old classic – yes, 20 years – and finding new ways to blow it all up.

  (3) Later that night, I clicked that Erykah Badu was in town to play a show in a car-park downtown. What we got for a rapid bike ride through town was Badu doing an improvised set backed by The Cannabinoids. What could have been a bit of a mess turned out to be a totally awesome headfunk instead, Badu’s still glorious voice and queenly poise coupled with new arrangements for stone-cold classics like “On & On” produced a wave of nodding heads and gently swaying bodies. The best interstellar, out-there, far side drive of the week.

  (4) SXSW 2012 was a fantastic year for hip-hop with great throwdowns from the likes of Action Bronson (the rugged chef is in Dublin’s Twisted Pepper this Friday), Kendrick Lamar (believe), A.Dd+ (bright new Dallas heads behind the “When Pigs Fly” mix-tape), G-Side, Cities Aviv, A$AP Rocky (new thrilla for the masses), Main Attrakionz (space cadets of the week) and many, many more. It’s bigger than hip-hop.

  (5) Having spent most of my time at SXSW Interactive at panels and keynotes, I tend to avoid such talking shops during music for a few reasons. Mostly, it’s because the topics and themes are dull and the speakers don’t really know what they’re on about, problems you don’t encounter at Interactive. I hadn’t realised others thought the exact same until I turned up for the Dan “The Big Payback” Charnas and Steve “The Tanning Of America” Stoute panel on Saturday morning along with just 15 other people in a large room. Attendance aside, it was a good chat with Stoute – record label exec and NaS manager turned advertising dude – in particular running the rule over advertising and big business’s approach to hip-hop culture.

  (6) Speaking of brands, we now have a winner for The Worst Stage Ever at SXSW. Sponsored by a company who manufacture crisps, it was a stage decked out as a vending machine for said crisps. To see acts like the GZA play on this monstrosity made the heart sank a little. Just because we want brands to get involved, do we really need to sink to this level?

  (7) I’ll be listing the 20 best acts I saw at SXSW in The Ticket on Friday but, as always, the list could have been a little longer. Acts who impressed who didn’t make the final cut include Electric Guest (new-school indie pop with some soulful moves and oddball twists under the hood as produced by Danger Mouse), Nikkiya (the “When I Was High” r’n'b lady showed lots of potential for future turns on bigger stages), The Coathangers (fiery-as-fuck riotgrrrl punk rock from the Atlanta foursome), Family of the Year (beautifully pitched melodies in the midst of tunes tailormade for your radio), John Steel Singers (Australian band banging out the harmonies), Pomegranates (frantic mod-pop from a four-strong band who seemed to levitate from the stage) and Gliss (mega-promising artful pop from a Los Angeles/Copenhagen trio).

  (8) One of the coolest hours I spent at SXSW was when I went off-grid to see Australian janglers Twerps playing in someone’s backyard out in the wilds of east Austin. There were no heavily branded stages here, no-one checking IDs and badges at the door, no posters selling you stuff. Instead, you had a bunch of good acts (I also liked Snowmine) playing for music fans, while a bunch of hens (hipster hens, no doubt) clucked around merrily in the background.

  (9) That man Nialler9 threw a swell party at the Hype Hotel during SXSW and you can check out performances by NIki & The Dove, MMOTHS, Clock Opera and Body Language from the shindig here

  (10) My final SXSW 2012 soundsnap came at the Malaia club at the New Orleans bounce night with Katey Red at large bringing 10 crazy days and nights to a close.

  

• SXSW 2012: it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive

  March 16, 2012 @ 2:43 pm | by Jim Carroll

  Some days, all you can do is sit back and admire your heroes. Some days, you have to take a break from the usual SXSW routine, the routine which involves checking out brand new acts with songs in their heads and dreams in their hearts, and admire a master at work. Some days, you have to admit that the man who saved your life and blew your mind when you were a teenager growing up in the middle of Tipperary, a place as far and remote from what Austin, Texas is about this week as you can get, is still capable of doing it, is still capable of casting that spell. Heroes are heroes for a reason.

  Bruce Springsteen, though, was doing this for the kids out there on those streets. He knows all about those crazy dreams which get you into a band, get you into a van and get you to Austin in March to play a bunch of shows, sleep very little, eat very little and have a nagging terror in the back of your mind that you should have stuck with that job or stayed in school. Yesterday, in what was easily the best keynote speeches by a musician I’ve ever heard, Springsteen was all about the power of inspiration.

  He simply told his story and he told it with style. To hear him talk about doo-wop and The Animals and country music was to hear a fanatical music fan talk about what moved his heart, his soul, his head, his gut, his hips. This was the real deal, a hugely successful musician breaking it all down and bringing it all back home. For an hour, he told stories (there was a great one about James Brown hauling him onstage at a show – JB didn’t know his name, he knew him as “Mr Born In the USA guy”), sang a few songs to illustrate his points, talked about the passion, demonstrated a fantastic way with words (just listen to him go through the hundreds of music genres out there) and reminded us that the biggest rock’n'roll stars are often just music geeks and nerds with massive record collections and a liking for long, silly arguments into the night about music and why it moves us. It was truly inspiring.

  I’ve mentioned that word twice, haven’t I? But it was that. This was a battle-cry for the thousands of bands slogging their guts out in Austin and beyond. It’s the kind of speech you’d want any musican – young or old, new or established, successful or semi-successful – to hear and take to heart. With Springsteen, it really is still and always was and always will be about the music. Here’s how he ended the speech (full video below):

  “So rumble, young musicians, rumble. Open your ears and open your hearts. Don’t take yourself too seriously, and take yourself as seriously as death itself. Don’t worry. Worry your ass off. Have unclad confidence, but doubt. It keeps you awake and alert. Believe you are the baddest ass in town — and you suck! It keeps you honest. Be able to keep two completely contradictory ideals alive and well inside of your heart and head at all times. If it doesn’t drive you crazy, it will make you strong. And stay hard, stay hungry and stay alive. And when you walk on stage tonight to bring the noise, treat it like it’s all we have — and then remember it’s only rock ‘n’ roll.”

  Later, Springsteen and The E Street Band – new and old members in the line-up – played a show at the Austin City Limits theatre out in the warehouse area, a venue which is like Vicar Street with an extra balcony on top. It was only the second time the band had played together, but you can see a new chapter in the Springsteen story emerging.

  Built largely on songs from the excellent new album “Wrecking Ball” and paying a few visits to “The Rising” – though there was also room for “Badlands”, “Promised Land”, “Thunder Road” and “E Street Shuffle”, amongst others – this was about pushing more soul and gospel to the front of the mix. There’s now a damn hungry brass section (including the late, great Clarence Clemons’ nephew Jake, who can play up a storm) and backing singers to amplify those notes, yet the electrics are still in there too, exemplified by a few guest turn from Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello.

  He was one of many guests last night – Jimmy Cliff was sensational on “The Harder They Come”, it was cool to see Eric Burdon there after Springsteen paid tribute to him at the keynote and Arcade Fire’s Win and Regine, Joe Ely, Alejandro Escovedo and Garland Jeffreys also stepped up – as the band pounced this way and that.

  At the heart of it all was the man from New Jersey, the man who delivered that stirring, majestic, soulful speech at a time of day when he quipped that most decent musicians are still in their beds. Last night was Springsteen putting those words into action. Last night was about blowing into town, making people forget their cares and worries for a few hours and getting the hell out of there to the next town before everyone wakes up. Last night was a reminder that they’re not making ‘em like Springsteen and this band of brothers and sisters any more. Last night was about the music and keeping the faith and knowing that it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive. Last night, man, I wouldn’t have traded last night for anything.

  Watch the keynote in full here.

• SXSW 2012: Team OTR have seen 67 bands already

  March 15, 2012 @ 3:00 pm | by Jim Carroll

  My highlights from Wednesday, a day spent cycling around downtown and east Austin like a blue-arsed fly and making pals with the local cops on bikes. Yo Brad, I said I’d mention you and all your folks back home in Kilkee.
  (more…)

• SXSW 2012: sorry, I have no business cards

  @ 8:00 am | by Jim Carroll

  Leagues O’Toole on why networking is not for him

  Ask any delegate what is the worst thing about SXSW and they will, nine times out of ten, tell you it’s the lines, the constant queuing, queuing in one line with the hope that it’ll mean you can queue in a slightly shorter line that evening. Queuing for gigs, films, panels, food, drink, registration, wristbands, passes, toilets. Queuing for queues. Queuing to get in, queuing to get out. When I get back to my hotel room at night I sometimes stand at the door for a few minutes just because I’m not used to not having to queue for something.

  It’s not the queuing that bothers me so much. Standing around doing nothing, people watching, is in my top 5 all-time talents. It’s what happens, or could happen, in the queue that bothers me. See, I don’t network. I don’t have an awful lot to say to people I don’t know. If there’s someone out there I need to talk with I just assume that that will happen by some methodical process sometime in the future. And worse again, I have no business cards. I hate them. I hate giving them out, I hate receiving them. I hate watching them become dog-eared and decayed in my wallet. I hate deciding whether I should bin them or keep because maybe someday I will really need to call that person who does that thing that’s something to do with the internet.

  Naively, of course, I assumed, at an Interactive conference in 2012, the notion of business cards would be laughable, archaic novelty. “Woah, look what someone gave me; a piece of cardboard with a name and address on it! This is what they must have done in the 90s, before we were born! Anyway, I was wrong. The physical business card is still alive, spreading like a disease, from one sweaty palm to another.

  The other fear of networking at an interactive conference is my inability to understand what anyone is saying ALL of the time.  But something I do get a very palpable sense of this year is the expectancy in the air regarding what will be the new break-out social media app? Will there be a new break-out app? Where now for social media in general? This area of discussion isn’t a jargonized talking point for the early adopters of Silicon Valley, this is something that absolutely everyone here can relate to whether you’re a band, a film producer, promoter, developer, designer, fan, entrepreneur…

  Although it wasn’t launched here, Twitter generated a massive buzz in 2007 at SXSW Interactive. There was also the small matter of a train-wreck interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2008. Perhaps these memories are bearing heavily on the mind of Pinterest co-founder Ben Silbermann as he takes to the stage to discuss his heavily tipped, fast growing social media application with blogging guru Chris Dixon (Hunch).

  Although Pinterest interests me in theory, the thought of welcoming another log-in and password into my life is not appealing. I barely remember my own name at the best of times, and finding the time in my day to update another site seems like an impossible equation.

  As it happens, Silbermann couldn’t be a better advertisement for his business. A charming, thoughtful, intelligent man, he brought none of the unpleasant tech-talk arrogance and alienation to the stage. He spoke about Pinterest as a platform for presenting personal “collections”, an online tool that will inspire and facilitate people with real life activity.

  In essence, the site is a “virtual pin-board”, with the emphasis is on the visual. The user curates their own themed image boards put together with media found online using a ‘Pin It’ button, and from there the social interactivity expands through follow systems and boards. So far there has been a strong emphasis on interior décor, cooking recipes, garden design, etc, but in theory the possibilities are endless, even if issues of copyright and intellectual property seem vague at this point. It’s still a small company, developing since 2009, but growing with unprecedented momentum.

  At a time when it feels like we’re close to some sort of social media saturation point, Pinterest might just be the application interesting and original enough to become part of our lives.

  

• SXSW 2012: Compliance, Man vs Machine, Waterloo Records & Danny Brown

  March 14, 2012 @ 2:56 pm | by Jim Carroll

  There are several questions which rattle around your head after seeing Compliance, Craig Zobel’s provocative psych-drama about the goings-on at the Chickwich fast food joint in Ohio based on real-life events. The restaurant manager Sandra receives a call from a police officer called Daniels who says one of the staff, Becky, has been accused of stealing money from a customer. Over the phone, he asks Sandra to detain and question Becky about the theft, who denies everything about it. As the questioning continues, Daniels demands that Sandra strip-search Becky, remove her clothing and have a male employee in the room for security, which leads to a chilling, dreadful outcome when it turns out that Daniels is a hoaxer. It’s a film which makes you wonder a lot about trust and how much we obey the orders of people we perceive to be authority figures. If you were Sandra, would you have taken the “police officer” at his word or would you have been been suspicious about his identity? But Sandra wasn’t the only one who fell for this: incredibly, Compliance is based on one of 70 such incidents which happened across the United States over the course of a decade

  It’s not just on the streets that you can notice the shift between the interative geeks and the music biz rock stars – less chinos, more tattoos – as SXSW’s Interactive strand winds down and Music kicks in. Yesterday’s Interactive strand featured several music-related discussions included a fascinating Man vs Machine discussion on music recommendations. Panelists from KCRW, Wahwah.fm, Fuel/Friends and We Are Hunted weighed up the pros and cons of human input versus algorithm-based services when it comes to recommending new and old music for the listener. While there was an argument that DJs really only mattered when you couldn’t find the music anywhere or anyhow else, the conclusion seemed to be that a mix of both human instinct and technological know-how is what we’ll be working with for some time to come.

  A trip to Austin for SXSW is not complete without a trip (or cycle – yes, the bike has arrived) to Waterloo Records. Long established as one of the best independent record shops in the United States, it’s the depth of the in-store catalogue which really impresses. Of course, Waterloo also faces problems from changes in how we consume music – the shop wasn’t terribly busy yesterday on new release day – but it isn’t going down without a fight, as can be seen from a very well stocked DVD section, some fantastic SXSW instore shows and an impressive width in terms of the music that’s available. Reckon it will be here for another few SXSWs to come.

  Music officially gets underway today, but last night saw a rake of official showcases around town. We saw a couple of acts, but the one who stood out was Danny Brown. The Detroit rapper may have encountered technical problems onstage with his backing DJ going silent every other track, but Brown just kept going. The dude has a wicked, demented lyrical turn and performs like a man possessed. A thrilling performance from the man with the silver tongue.

  

• SXSW 2012: did someone mention lunch?

  March 13, 2012 @ 3:04 pm | by Jim Carroll

  OTR guest writer Leagues O’Toole listens to his belly

  Awakening – thankfully – the next morning, to the cavernous rumble of my own stomach it dawned on me why I’d really made this pilgrimage to this great city of Austin. It wasn’t in pursuit of the next big band to break, the hot new indie movie about to blow up or the latest insider information on which direction the internet is going take next. It wasn’t to listen and soak up the collective wisdom of the world’s brightest sparks, tastemakers and corporate powerhouses. I’m here for the food.

  The addictive how-do-they-do-it tomato-tangy house guacamole in Manuels regional Mexican restaurant on Congress, the breakfast of kings (and Mexican bikers) in the Tex-Mex greasy spoon experience of Juan in a Million, the Texas-shaped waffles in the Driskill Hotel breakfast bar and, my own personal weakness, the late-night Slammin’ Sliders (miniature burgers dosed in BBQ with sweet potato chips on the side) outside Esther’s Follies comedy club are just a few of the city’s alluring temptations.

  With that confession out of the way it’s time to get to business, the business of laughs, because although South By South West is divided into three categories: music, film and interactive, all of which converge and crossover throughout the programme, there’s also room to showcase new comedy talent.

  One of the crews here in full effect is Funny Or Die, the brainchild of comedy actors Will Ferrell and Adam MacKay, essentially a comedy video site that manages to strong-arm famous names (Mila Kunis, Jerry Seinfeld, James Franco) into contributing to short comedy sketches. Having made the art of viral phenomenon look easy by using YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook to great effect, they soon moved into the TV world, partnered with HBO who no doubt will take them to the next level. On their panel Funny Or Die: The Future of Comedy & Everything Else the FOD key players Andrew Steele, Dick Glover, Mike Farah, Patrick Starzan explain how the internet, if used properly, can transform a fertile DIY entity into a thriving media force.

  Their presence also coincides with screenings of one of Ferrell’s new vehicles Casa de mi Padre, a Spanish language comedy starring an actor who doesn’t apparently speak Spanish. I won’t make. I’ve got to get down to the Ironworks BBQ spot for lunch. I’m, emm, reviewing it.

• SXSW 2012: TED, The Raid, disruption and Al Gore

  @ 8:49 am | by Jim Carroll

  It was very interesting to see the venerable TED organisation hosting two nights at SXSWi and proof that even a brand leader like TED needs to jump on the Austin bandwagon. For those at the back, TED is a brilliant series of talks and conferences about ideas and has been running in various forms since 1984. You can access tons of TED talks for free on their website – meanwhile, if you actually want to be at one of their two annual confabs, you’re looking at spending a lot of money (from $2,500 to $7,500), hence the huge interest in this. Sunday’s session featured eight minute presentations from speakers like DJ Spooky, Ayah Bdeir (who was spreading the Lego-like gospel of Little Bits), JP Rangaswami, Nandu Madhava and others.

  The Raid: Redemption is the flick which picked up the nods for best film from the audience and from the critics at the recent Dublin International Film Festival for director Gareth Evans and co. The tale of a police squad attempting to take out a drug lord in situ at the top of a Jakarta tower block (with every manner of ne’er-do-wells on every other floor), it’s a violent, action-packed, thrilling kick-ass action flick with incredible martial arts scenes and choreography throughout. The crowd at the Paramount roared along with every knife attack and every improvised explosive device. Not a film for all the family, unless all the family dig superbly bloody and unbowed uber-action.

  

  The word of the week so far? That would be disruption. Coming soon to an industry or sector near you.

  “Democracy has been hacked…it’s time for Occupy Democracy”. The rallying cry of Al Gore, the former US Vice-President (and president for a few minutes until those darn chads got in the way) who was in town for a keynote conversation with Napster and Facebook disruptor Sean Parker, who talked about his work with campaigning sites Votizen and NationBuilder. Gore applauded the recent efforts Stateside to stop SOPA, urged people to also campaign against efforts by governments worldwide to censor the internet and talked passionately about the coroding effects on US politicians of the efforts to keep collecting money from special interests to pay for TV campaign ads. Parker, for his part, talked about his belief that new online tools will reduce the need for such cash-calls and ensure campaigning is less dominated by TV coverage. But it was the former VP who was the real star of this gathering and provided a reminder that some politicians can be rock stars.

• SXSW 2012: Leagues arrives in Texas

  March 12, 2012 @ 4:03 pm | by Jim Carroll

  First post from OTR at SXSW guest writer Leagues O’Toole

  I left a day early for this trip and just as well. Delta Airlines had a fun surprise 24-hour detour planned for me, taking in Atlanta and San Antonio from where I was driven to Austin in the company of three other beleaguered travellers, one of which turned out to be the younger brother of prodigious actors Macauly and Kieran Culkin. The slack-haired young Rory Culkin (star of the excellent Mean Creek) told me about his new movie Electrick Children which was premiering at SXSW Film.

  When I arrived in Austin, my curiosity overcame my exhaustion, and I went to see the film at the Stateside Cinema. Rebecca Thomas’ debut turned out to be a beautiful accompaniment to my bleary, jet-lagged state of mind. The Utah desert is illuminated in blazing colour as this semi-surrealist modern-day Immaculate Conception story unfolds. A mysteriously pregnant 15-year-old Mormon virgin played by Julia Garner ends up in the unlikely company of a group of deadbeat skate-punks central to which is the charmingly damaged Clyde (Culkin). Despite its familiar coming-of-age nuances, Electrick Children has a fine young cast, a stylish, vivid look and the sort odd-ball storyline that’ll keep you interested, if not slightly confused.

  And so into the rainy Austin night… SXSW veterans have rarely witnessed rain in this city at this time of year, let alone frequent blasts of thunder and lightning. And as I look out my 21st floor hotel window perusing the relentless downpour and shuddering rumbles of sound and light across the Downtown landscape the mischievous words of my 3-year old son take on a more menacing Omen-esque hue. “Dad, there will be a big storm in America and everyone will die. And you will die, Dad. AHAHAHAHA.”

• If it’s March, it must mean OTR at SXSW (again)

  @ 8:26 am | by Jim Carroll

  Greetings from Austin, Texas as our annual trip to the massive SXSW conference, convention, festival and taco-eating marathon gets into full swing. Actually, it has been in full swing since Friday and FOMO is the term of the day. And yes, we naturally missed the interactive panel on FOMO.

  Missing stuff at SXSW has to be accepted because the event has just got so darn massive. Even trying to get your head around the amount of stuff on offer during Interactive alone is a bit of a task. There are individual campuses dealing with everything from culture to convergence, journalism to government, design to health and much more besides. I made my first trip to Austin in 2000 and, back then, the Interactive convention had the same amount of panels and programming as one of those individual sections. You also didn’t have every fecking brand on the planet back then attempting some stealth association.

  It also reminds me, as happens every year, that when someone tries to claim their event is ‘just like SXSW’ that they have obviously never been here. Your event is not ‘just like SXSW’ because the Texan monster’s size and heft right now just can’t be emulated. As someone remarked at a panel on when the social media bubble will burst (Oct 10, 2013 is the date for your SEO diaries), SXSW attracts influential people who want to be influenced.

  Aside from feeding our brains at Interactive (our pick of the panels so far include ones on coolfarming, the aforementioned one on social media bubbles, the attention drugs wars, Nick Denton from Gawker on the failure of blog comments (though he says Gawker will be launching a solution to this in the coming weeks – dude is obviously taking notes from OTR), a brilliant keynote from cultural antropologist Amber Case on ambient location technology, curation and libraries) and our bellies at Juan In A Million, we’re here naturally for SXSW Music which gets underway on Wednesday with thousands of bands replacing the thousands of geeks and nerds currently in situ. Expect full reports on all the new acts you’ll be raving about in 2013 and 2014. There are also a huge number of mega acts in town to grab some of the buzz which SXSW attracts (Bruce Springsteen, Jay-Z and Eminem for example – Jigga is taking a monster cheque from American Express to play a show in town tonight), but our focus as usual will probably be more on the new acts than the established ones.

  And when I say “our”, I do mean “our” this time around. We’ll have SXSW reviews and observations all week long from our old pal and always welcome OTR guest writer Leagues O’Toole. The Foggy Notions man will be helping to bring you the best of SXSW 2012 in snappy, snazzy, superfly sentences (though probably without that kind of alliteration).

  Because we’re Over Here and you’re Over There, some transatlantic house-rules are now in effect. All comments will be moderated and go live from lunchtime on. Most of the new content on the blog will go live in the afternoons rather than in the mornings. If you’re on Twitter, so am I and Leagues is also there.

  Some footnotes: regular readers will know that we’ve mentioned Dublin-based start-up 45 Sound here before. They’re one of the finalists in this year’s SXSW Music Accelerator competition. Their site and product – which matches fans’ live videos of their favourite acts with top-notch audio recorded by the bands on the night from their sound-desk – is getting better and better. Have a look at their latest work for And So I Watch You from Afar, playing a post-Choice Music Prize at Dublin’s Mercantile last week.

  Speaking of Choice, one of the other acts who didn’t get to go home last week with the cheque for 10k were the mighty Tieranniesaur. Here’s some new eye-candy from them for you in the shape of a Bowsie Workshop-directed video for their new digital single “In the Sargasso”. Watch out for a Dublin launch gig in a BYOB venue in the coming weeks. Take it away Annie and co.

  

• The real costs of playing SXSW

  March 29, 2011 @ 1:54 pm | by Jim Carroll

  A footnote to the last of last week’s posts about SXSW 2011. One or two readers commented about the Arts Council grants received by the Irish acts who go to play at the Austin, Texas event. Since then, a couple of acts who have played US showcase events like SXSW (and CMJ) have been in touch by email to give their side of the story and point out that “musos are not enjoying holidays at the Arts Council’s expense”.

  Last year (2010), funding to attend SXSW was €1,200 per act. According to one act “flights alone for four musicians cost around €2400 and that’s before adding in extra flight costs for equipment etc.”

  There’s also the cost of getting working visas which you are legally required to have to attend and play at SXSW. You can apply directly to the US embassy for these, but it’s often easier to use an agency as you have to liaise with the US Musicians Union and demonstrate that your act is internationally recognised (cuttings, reviews, sales figures etc). A lot of acts chance it without a visa, but it’s a big risk if you’ve already shelled out for flights. Using a visa agency such as Tamizdat to sort this out can cost up to €1000.

  While backline is provided at most showcases, you may need to rent backline for some shows and unofficial parties so that’s another €100 to €200 per show to factor into your costs. Another hidden cost is a step-up transformer to allow European equipment to run off American electricity, which comes to around €80 per show. According to one source, “you’re looking at kicking in at least €3000 of your own money to play at SXSW, if not more”.

  Another important point to note is that this funding comes from Culture Ireland, and not the Arts Council, and is administered through First Music Contact.

  (The acts who have given OTR these details have done so on the basis that they remain confidential)

• SXSW Music: it’s a wrap

  March 23, 2011 @ 9:33 am | by Jim Carroll

  Six final observations from the SXSW music marathon before we put a lid on it for another year.

  (1) “We’re just one human being short of a full tilt boogie”. That was how local resident Robyn put it when I asked her if this year’s SXSW was the busiest yet. Every year, the festival gets bigger and bigger and you think it really can’t get any bigger. Come back in 12 months, though, and it’s found even more space to take over to the east and south of the city. SXSW’s ongoing popularity means there were some capacity issues (The Strokes played an official free show out by Town Lake and there were a lot of people shut out) and it will be interesting to see how and if the organisers address these things in the future. After all, SXSW is now as much about the unofficial free party scene as it is about the big bands playing small shows and the would-be stars of tomorrow having a go. Then again, it’s worth remembering that the only reason all these free shows come to Austin during March is because SXSW is here. If it wasn’t happening, would the city be so busy?

  (2) Speaking of the “unofficial party scene”… You couldn’t move in Austin for brands aiming to leverage some of that SXSW cool for themselves by booking (and paying top dollar for) big-ass names for their parties. Hey, you don’t think Kanye West and Diddy and Foo Fighters were playing like all the rising bands for free, did you? The video games companies, car companies and soft drinks companies jostling for position are hoping that their line-up will be the one which gets all the traction and they’re prepared to pay for that talent. But I wonder does it work – despite all the marketing work, I’m sure I’m not the only one who couldn’t tell you the name of any brand (or blog or magazine or agency) behind some of the parties attended. After all, I was in that venue at that time to see certain bands.

  (3) Which brings us to the reason we were all here in the first place. I’d hate to be in a band playing at SXSW. In fact, if I ever get my grime-ska band together, I’ll be telling my manager not to even think of sticking us on at SXSW. For bands, it must be hell. You spend every day and night rolling around town from one venue to another, playing truncated sets, putting up with terrible production in many cases and generally getting cheesed off by your lot. I know, I know, it’s Austin in the sun and all of that, but there are many acts who probably went home wondering “what the hell was that all about?”. After all, only a small number of acts get to shine.

  (4) Indeed, only a small number of acts get to play the main day parties too. In the months leading up to SXSW, I get emails from various Irish bands heading to Texas wondering how they get on the party circuit. I give them the same advice – check out who threw parties in the past and hassle the hell out of them – but most of those who book the parties are really picking from a small pool. You had umpteen opportunites every day to check out bands like Cults, Fitz & The Tantrums, Baths, Dom, Yuck and The Joy Formidable because they seemed to be on every bill going. It stands to reason – party-bookers want the best bills hence why they’re going for the same acts again and again and again.

  (5) For anyone seeking an insight into where the music business is going, there was probably no point in going to SXSW Music because many of those future issues were rinsed out in the wash at SXSW Interactive (my piece on SXSW Interactive from last week’s Business supplement is here). There was little in the panels and keynotes (er, Bob Geldof) at the conference part of SXSW Music to fill you with optimism. It was the same old topics with the same old speakers as has been the case at SXSW Music for years. There’s little new thinkers coming to the fore here and there is a bit of a generation gap developing. Indeed, it’s telling that the only time you got any youngsters around the convention centre where the conference was held was when the local Austin kids flocked there for the American Apparel factory flea market.

  (6) Dates for your diary: SXSW 2012 runs from March 9 to 18

• SXSW Music: the Friday and Saturday reports

  March 22, 2011 @ 9:26 am | by Jim Carroll

  Once more with feeling: snapshot reviews from the Friday and Saturday night and day trawls at SXSW after the jump.
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• SXSW Music: Odd Future steal the show

  March 21, 2011 @ 12:45 pm | by Jim Carroll

  There are some shows which are destined to live long in the memory. Over the weekend at SXSW, Los Angeles teen tearaways Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All came to town and played a handful of gigs which were chaotic, messy, riotous and, above all else, downright thrilling. Yep, gigs to live long in the memory.

  They came to Texas with a lot of people wondering what the hell OFWGKTA were all about. After the shows they played over the last few days, no-one is in any doubt about what’s going on here. If the Wu-Tang Clan provided SXSW with a storied vision of hip-hop’s past at their St Patrick’s Night show at the Austin Music Hall, Odd Future are about, well, hip-hop’s future. And that future is swag.

  At this stage, many readers will be familiar with the backstory, but a recap for those at the back. An eleven-strong bunch of teen rappers, producers, skatekids, video makers and troublemakers from LA, Odd Future came out swinging in 2010 with a fabulous series of free, self-released albums by such cast members as Tyler, the Creator (whose next album “Goblin” will be coming out on XL), MellowHype (Left Brain and Hodgy Beats have now hooked up with Fat Possum) and Earl (my favourite of the Odd Future releases to date comes from the kid who has now seemingly disappeared).

  Many albums are given away for free, but what made the Odd Future mass giveaway stand tall was that the material was really, really strong. Yes, many will find the XXX-rated rhymes to be rough, ferocious and offensive and there are surely a slew of moral outrage opinion pieces to come provoked by those lyrics. The beats, though, are low-slung, dramatic and deep, with the Odd Future members (and especially in-house producer and sole female member Syd) displaying a lot of vision and imagination when it comes to what they’re doing on record.

  It was a show-stealing performance on the Late Night With Jimmy Fallon show a month ago which sent the Odd Future buzz rocketing out of the underground. Suddenly, it was no longer just clued-in music fans and hip-hop bloggers who were wondering what happened to Earl or why the group hated Steve Harvey so much. More mainstream coverage followed, including the cover of music industry mag Billboard.

  The Billboard piece also introduced some of the behind-the-scene players, such as co-manager Christian Clancy, a former marketing dude at Interscope who had worked on campaigns with Eminem. Clancy contributed an interesting sidebar to the feature on how Odd Future represent a new model for the music business: “what’s the new model? Find authentic artists and let them be themselves, let them create the music and art they want to. If it’s coming from a real place, it will stick – maybe not immediately – but if you hang on long enough and keep exposing it in an organic way, kids who feel the same will slowly find it. Emotion attracts emotion…Nothing will ever be more important than staying authentic. And in today’s world, I guess that is odd.”

  It’s hard to know if the crowds who turned out for the Odd Future shows at the Scoot Inn (where the crowd bumrushed the venue), the Fader Fort (where a mass beer and water fight broke out between band and audience), the Mess With Texas party (5,000 kids going nuts) and the Vice bash were attracted by “authenticity”, but they definitely wanted to check out the buzz. Few could have been disappointed because these shows were real slam-dunks, hugely punk rock performances where stagediving, chaos, broken noses, broken cameras and mayhem were the norm.

  These shows were exciting because you genuinely didn’t know what the lads onstage were going to do next and no other act in the SXSW bunch demonstrated as much exhilirating energy. But the shows were also exciting for reasons other than watching a bunch of kids get their kicks. Odd Future’s music is genuinely on another level. This is hip-hop rebooted and retooled by kids who are smart enough to know that the sound needs a new lease of life and a kick up the backside. Watching people go buckwild to tunes like “French” and “Sandwitches” truly was something to behold.

  And this is where it gets interesting. If hip-hop has lost its creative way of late, Odd Future are pitching a whole new direction. Forget the bling and the shiny beats. Forget the hit tunes which sound like candyfloss and the formulaic videos. Forget what hip-hop has become over the last decade. Think of what hip-hop might be if Odd Future have their way. The reason they resonate with so many people is that they remind us of how downright awesome hip-hop once was as a form. Odd Future may not exactly be groundbreaking, but they certainly shake things up, something which is badly needed. I would imagine that some of hip-hop’s creative permanent establishment at looking at the Odd Future rise with bemusement and thinking “what the fuck is going on here?”

  That permanent establishment probably caught the band at their official showcase at a terrible venue called Buffalo Billiards. Instead of playing to all-age mobs of skater brats and hip-hop punks like they’d done all weekend, Odd Future faced a typical industry audience. While some near the front were shouting “Wolf Gang” and “Free Earl” with gusto and knew what to expect, the majority faced the band with their arms folded and “impress me” looks on their faces. After three songs, Odd Future stomped offstage. They didn’t need to play this show. They didn’t need to play this game. They’d already played to 5,000 mad kids in a park on the eastside a few hours earlier and that was their real audience. They didn’t need the old-school, established music business – but it’s clear that that same music business needs something like OFWGKTA to come along and shake things up.

  It’s going to get interesting over the next few months as the Odd Future story unfolds some more. There will be more tours and more attention as this becomes the music story of the year in many quarters. It will be fascinating to see what happens from here on in. Messing and mixing with the mainstream doesn’t usually do an underground phenomenon like this any good. Can Odd Future keep the faith or buck the trend? Or do Odd Future even care what the hell happens? LIke I said, there’s fun times ahead.

  

• SXSW Music – if you’re Irish, come into the parlour

  March 18, 2011 @ 3:27 pm | by Jim Carroll

  If you think St Patrick’s Day was bad where you were, you’ve obviously never experienced this strange beast called St Patty’s Day. For the Yanks in Austin, being Irish basically means drinking until you puke, listening to terrible Irish music and wearing something green. It’s like a night at the Player’s Lounge in Fairview with better weather and tacos.

  No-one escapes. The White House welcomed someone called Edna Kennedy (per someone on CNN) with a bowl of grass (again, per someone on CNN). The Prez smiled for the cameras and wondered about this strange place called Ireland. He’s not alone – I wonder about this strange called Ireland all the time.

  After the jump, a rundown on what hit me right between the ears from yesterday. I also saw a lot of other acts too, but they didn’t leave a lasting impression or I forgot to ask them their name. I’ll catch them again – most bands who’re serious about what they’re doing are playing multiple gigs or else they’ve cloned themselves.
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• SXSW Music: it’s taco time

  March 17, 2011 @ 3:00 pm | by Jim Carroll

  You know the real business of the week has begun when the Austin police department make 6th Street a no-cycling zone and you move to the back-lanes to get from venue to venue without mowing down some slow-moving hipsters. I wonder is mowing down slow-moving hipsters an actual crime in this state? At least I know there’s a decent bail bondsman at 7th and Red River.

  On with the snappy reviews of the good stuff.
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• SXSW Music: we need to talk about what happened last night

  March 16, 2011 @ 2:45 pm | by Jim Carroll

  Traditionally, the Tuesday night of SXSW has been the quiet one in Austin, TX. The out of town nerds are returning to where they came from (San Francisco, New York and Swinford mostly) and the musos are rolling into the city. There is a real changing of the guard feel to the proceedings, like swapping Fianna Fail for Fine Gael so to speak (look, that comparison made sense to me 30 seconds ago).

  This year, though, there were a slew of official showcases on Tuesday night. Many bands, fans and music delegates are already in town and it was seen as a good idea to put on some shows to get everyone in the mood. You can probably expect a sprinkling of official shows on the Monday night in 2012 – after all, most acts probably prefer to play at the start of the week rather than come in and play to audiences of zombies on Saturday, which is usually the case.

  I caught a couple of acts last night, including a hugely impressive Jamie Woon. Many of you will already know about Woon’s great taste in remixers – check two tasty cuts out below – but Woon in the raw, so to speak, is also an enticing proposition. While the remixes hint at a potential James Blake 2, Woon has other ideas mainly because he’s coming from another department entirely (a Brit School grad, for a start). He has a lovely soulful drawl and the songs are subtle, gentle, tender and flexible enough to allow all those post-dubstep and wonky rerubs, yet also stand up on their own. The performance is slender and subtle (he has a killer band who know both that less is more and when not to over-varnish those shy licks) but, boy, does this sound and those songs drag you in.

  “Lady Luck” as remixed by HudMo

  Last year’s “Night Air” single remixed by Ramadanman

  For some reason, there were a lot of UK bands playing last night. From Oxford, Jonquil’s tropical pop already sounds fully formed with strong tunes, lovely melodies and striking, strong vocals from Hugo “Chad Valley” Manuel. Let’s call them a big ol’ hit. Glasgow band Admiral Fallow also warrant a mention in the despatches with Louis Abbott’s mob spinning ramshackle, charming, big-boned songs with epic bows and ribbons attached. Memo to self: check out their “Boots Met My Face” album.

  After accidentally seeing the Foo Fighters (an accident I hope never to repeat), the big hit of the night came with California’s Fitz & The Tantrums who were playing at Stubbs, one of the best venues in town. This was the real deal: a hot to trot band of soul-funk hands fronted by a hyperactive soulman Michael Fitzpatrick and a super-hyperactive sidekick soul sister Noelle Scaggs. Huge meaty songs with hooks which dug deep within your ear and dragged your feet in a dancing direction. A smashing stew of Stax, Motown and some of the purebred indie sensibility. Man, what a band!

  

• A Monday night in Austin

  March 15, 2011 @ 2:42 pm | by Jim Carroll

  Win Win is a great, big-hearted film about a New Jersey lawyer Mike Flaherty, the high school wrestling team he coaches, a couple of families and what happens when Flaherty becomes the guardian to his one of his elderly clients. Directed by Thomas McCarthy and with a fabulous cast (including the always reliable Paul Giamatti, the excellent Bobby Cannavale, Amy Ryan and Jeffrey Tambor) It’s got a bang of Little Miss Sunshine to it, which I’m sure is great news to the producers. It also features “Think You Can Wait”, a brand new tune from The National (click on link to hear song). Trailer for film follows.

  

  While SXSW Music doesn’t get underway until tonight, there are still lots of bands in town doing Interactive and Film festival parties. Last night, Zynga threw a bash in a downtown warehouse and paid the bills for Sleigh Bells, Flying Lotus and TV On the Radio to play. Sleigh Bells rattled ribcages as only Alexis Krauss and Derek E. Miller can rattle your ribcage with great stonking shards of superfried sonics. Flying Lotus did a short DJ set which was perfectly offkilter and alluring and largely consisted of his own tunes.

  Headliners TV On The Radio, though, stole the show. There has been a bit of a line-up shuffle due to bassist and keyboardist Gerard Smyth’s lung cancer diagnosis and this was one of the first engagements of what’s going to be a long SXSW week and tour to promote new album “Nine Types Of Light”. What stood tall for me were the new songs – album taster “Will Do” sounds quite spinetingling live, while the other new tunes (ie the ones without names which I didn’t recognise from previous albums) had a real shot of energy and ballast to them. Best of the oldies was “Staring at the Sun”, a tune I first heard when I saw TVOTR at SXSW back in 2004 (and called them “what you’d get is Curtis Mayfield fronted the Pixies”) and which is now a sturdy, emotional, powerful nugget, and “Dancing Choose”. A great start to a week of premier league gigging.

• It’s that time of year again: OTR does SXSW in TX

  March 14, 2011 @ 9:08 am | by Jim Carroll

  Greetings from the best little interactive, film and music showcase in Texas, nah, the world. As is now customary, mid-March sees me swapping the usual beat in Dublin for Austin and the SXSW beano. It starts with the Interactive and Film festivals before 2,000 bands roll into town on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning and start playing as the Music festival gets underway.

  While the natives will claim that everything about Texas is big, SXSW is still on another scale entirely to other fests of similar ilk. Look at the Interactive festival, for starters. There are 22 different strands to it, including Marketing & Branding, Robotics, Work & Happiness, the Future of Journalism (yes, there is definitely a future, though the panel titles and synopsises tend to be better than the actual dry, rather academic content), Greater Good (a big element to this year’s talks) and Convergence. That’s 22 different strands with 15 to 25 panels, discussions, workshops and presentations per day per strand. At any one time, you have a choice of between 40 to 60 events to choose from. Yes, you’re definitely going to miss stuff, but you’re also going to come across some fascinating panels too because there’s a lot of good stuff in the mix and the hit rate is way, way higher than equivalent festivals elsewhere.

  My Saturday schedule came up trumps with panels like Banks: Innovate Or Die (I kept waiting for the Citibank rep to do a Conor Linehan on Vinnie Brown impersonation during this lively, grumpy, shouty panel), How Does Scifi Influence Our Future Cities (fascinating look at how scifi literature and films have predicted urban planning), How Social Media Fueled Unrest in the Middle East (New York Times journalists Brian Stelter and Jennifer Preston chaired a public panel about how social media tools were used in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya – including warning protestors of where snipers were based – and how the myths may well outweight the truths), Brands, Celebs & Nonprofits (which produced the startling stat that Livestrong have sold 72 million of those yellow bands to date) and Left Brain Seach = Google, Right Brain Search = X (people from Google, Bing and Moodfish trying to predict the future of search).

  What’s very striking this year is a shift in themes. Once upon a time, SXSWi was viewed mostly as a G2G (geek to geek) love-in, but it’s now more about expressing, exchanging and discussing ideas of every stripe under a very wide interactive umbrella. Sure, the geek factor is still in play – I spent five minutes in absolute confusion at a panel about Interfaces for Geotemporal Visualisation, which reminded me of the time I spent a couple of minutes at a panel in Eurosonic in Holland before realising that the participants were speaking Dutch and I was in wrong room – but there are also been thought-provoking panels of the non-geek variety too. Panels like The End Of Reading In the USA, A Media Based Econony for Detroit’s Future (a focus on the city’s grassroots’ media enterprises rather than the now usual ‘ruin porn’ or ‘hope porn’ way of viewing Motor City) and How Social Media Is Changing Advocacy (solid conversation about how advocates are using social networks to spread their message) now have a place at the SXSWi table.

  The SXSW film festival is also in full flow right now. To date, I’ve enjoyed 96 Minutes, Aimee Lagos’ fine urban thriller about a bunch of kids caught up in a carjacking which goes wrong, and The Key Man, a brilliantly shot Seventies’ throwback about an insurance man caught up in a scam with great performances from Brian Cox, Hugo Weaving and Jack Davenport.

  Some housekeeping for the week ahead: we’re now on Texas time so all comments will be updated in the early afternoon. Our snappy SXSW music reviews will proabaly start appearing here from Wednesday afternoon as there are showcase gigs on Tuesday night this year for the first time. There will, of course, be regular blog posts this week too inbetween all the SXSW updates. And yes, the OTR SXSW bike is back in action and it’s a doozy.

  

• SXSW 2010 – the end of the line

  March 22, 2010 @ 3:40 pm | by Jim Carroll

  It’s over. There are no more bands to see, no more parties to try to get into, no more chance encounters with superstars in the hotel lobby (that would be John Hiatt) or lift (that would, er, Feargal Sharkey – I was hoping to see Feargal and Paul McLoone, who was broadcasting his show for Today FM from over here, together but it didn’t happen). When Saturday night finally ends (sometime around 10 bells on Sunday), SXSW 2010 is over. Time to pack up, leave town and think about next year.

  Before we go, the final set of reports from Sixth Street and surroundings. Yes, there were other acts we saw and no, we’re not going to review them. Have you ever heard of Twitter?
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• SXSW 2010 – that Friday feeling

  @ 5:41 am | by Jim Carroll

  There are no new bands in Austin, Texas. Sure, we go on about how SXSW is such a brilliant festival for new bands, but just how many “new” acts are there out here anyway?

  With one or two exceptions, most of the acts who will get mentioned in the despatches are those who have already been hailed or profiled in blogs, mags and publications. You ain’t going to walk into a venue and find a brand new act to hit you right between the ears. The internet has won the A&R war.

  That said, SXSW 2010 is all about getting sight of the act. You may be impressed by an album or a single or a track, but you really need to see the band live. It’s only then that you’ll know if they have the live chops, ambition and gumption for the long run. It also makes you realise once again, as we found out a few times last week, that just because a band gets a lot of rave reviews doesn’t mean that they’re actually any cop.

  Plenty of highs and some lows after the break.
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