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[March 07] SXSW Music

Now this is the biggie. Last year, as I left Austin for San Francisco, Austin was gearing up for the annual music festival that is SXSW Music. The nearest comparision I can make is this is like the comedy section at the Edinbburgh Festival. Sure there are other worthy shows on, but if you want to make it big (certainly in music) then Austin in March is where you (a) want a gig and (b) want to get noticed.

And it was on the flight out (as I was editing the one year anniversary show of TPN Rock) that I decided that this year I would cover the music (and film) parts of SXSW as well. Naturally it makes my stay in Austin three times as long – and as Austinites know SXSW has a lot of visitors, it gets very pricey for accomodation and suchlike – but that just presents me with a slightly larger finanical problem to overcome; which I have.

Of course I have another consideration – you can’t just walk into any of the gigs and switch the microphone on to grab a bootleg (well you could, you just couldn’t podcast it legally afterwards). So as well as finding bands that will work in the show format I have in mind, they need to be podsafe, have some tracks alreadya vailable that I can play, and be available to meet up for an interview.

Luckily I’ve had contact with a lot of bands through TPN Rock, so I can call on them, and their labels (now that the SXSW Organisers have published the big list of bands playing), but I’ve another advantage. Ioda’s Promonet.

Naturally a number of the bands on their promotion network have already appeared on many shwos on The Podcast Network, and they also know who’s turning up at Austin. Which means that big SXSW list gets cut down a fair bit once I factor in the promonet bands that are appearing. I wonder if other podsafe music sites are doing this? And they have a massive musical showcase gig on the first day as well which I’ll be attending.

February 17, 2007; Daily Links;

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