SXSW Recap (Matt Lemay)

So, SXSW. As always, it was great to see out-of-town friends, and to start every day with one or two (or three) breakfast tacos. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was in the midst of some giant indie rock LARP, throngs of outlandishly-clad ladies and dudes wielding shiny objects, referring to each other by class (blogger, promoter, guy in a baaaaahnd, etc) and fictional title (“ZOMG I THINK I JUST SAW BROOKLYNVEGAN”). For better or worse, festivals like CMJ and SXSW are feeling more and more like a bunch of people acting out the Internet.

While the deluge of corporate sponsorship at SXSW has rendered expensive badges and wristbands largely irrelevant (as the NY Times pointed out), it has also changed the very premise of a “showcase.” Labels no longer showcase bands — bands showcase brands. As a corporate sponsor, your goal is to get as many people as possible to come to your party, sample your energy drink, ponder the feature set of your smartphone, etc. When a small handful of artists have been preordained as super-cool in the months leading up to the festival…. those artists are going to get a lot of calls, a lot of offers, and will in turn wind up playing a LOT of shows. The net (no pun intended) result? A physical manifestation of the blogosphere’s critical mass-clusterfuck.

… Which is certainly not to say that NOBODY makes exciting new discoveries at SXSW. With so many bands playing in such a small area, some pleasant surprises are inevitable. But, in the mad dash for original content, “here’s a picture of this band I like that nobody knows about” doesn’t count for much. It’s a core paradox of Internet journalism– to quickly boost your own profile as a unique entity, you have to write about the same thing(s) everybody else is writing about.

This year, those very things were ubiquitous to the point of being unavoidable. EVERYBODY gets to be cool… even if it means looking like an enormous fucking dweeb in the process.

- Matt LeMay