I am honored by the many thoughtful comments that last week's article "Songs as Gifts Simultaneously Received and Given (Don't go to SXSW®)" has inspired. My first piece of was a more poetic, general, and less narrative work, but a few readers seem to be looking for a more specific follow-up, so I am happy to oblige...
Some have missed a key distinction, which I may not have made quite clear, I am not criticizing musicians who play at SXSW® or other inadequate venues or festivals, I am criticizing the festival. However, if musicians refused to engage with these exploitative and mediocre systems, the festivals/venues would disappear or change. Hence the call to boycott, and my strong language: “don’t go”.
I have personally felt very unhappy performing in many loveless commercial spaces, bars in particular, and eventually came to the realization that it is not necessary. Creative practice (a.k.a. art) is not the same as entertainment, sometimes they are interchangeable, but not as a rule. Spaces that want to sell something (other than the experience of the music itself) are interested in entertainment as a method of bringing people into the space to sell to them.
So are you revealing truth and beauty or are you selling drinks? Of course it is possible to do both at the same time, but why should you? Why should we cow down to a parasitic and mediocre set of parameters? And who’s pockets are we padding, and what exploitations are we propping up? Most musicians are underpaid or not paid at all for their hard work. In my experience it is the less commercial venues (art galleries, houses, community spaces, unofficial clubs, etc.) that pay artists a reasonable percentage of the money they bring in.
SXSW®'s clear commercial agenda is certainly enough to throw up a red flag or two. This little gem of a statement on there website kind of says it all: "With numerous avenues for exposure to over 36,000 key industry representatives, SXSW® 2011 is the most valuable addition to any marketing plan." Their key sponsors are… Chevy, Miller Lite, AOL, Pepsi & Monster Energy Drink… to my mind this kind of multi-national corporate underwriting is an obvious problem that doesn’t require overt analysis. May it also be noted that despite the distasteful sponsorship there is a $25 fee for all bands to apply to the festival. Tens of thousands of bands apply.
Unfortunately there are a lot of non-creative middle-men that profit while artists’ starve, and grasp in the dark for recognition. SXSW® uses a particularly shabby intermediary called sonicbids(dot)com that charges artists a monthly fee to set up a profile, and then collects additional money for submissions to venues and festivals. It is even more unfortunate that musicians are led to believe it is necessary to engage with similar parasites in order to share their tunes. Further more, these middle-men and bad venues contribute to a setting of competition that benefits them and not us. Bands will pay to be considered “legitimate”, and step over each other to play for someone else’s profit.
We sometimes pay a much higher price when we attempt to engage with the sacred in a place where very few, if any, could succeed. We may loose our way back to the ecstatic source, we may eventually no longer hear the songs, and we may give up the quest entirely.
So, a practical summary… Musicians who are interested in making a better artistic community/habitat ought to… demand payment if money changes hands anywhere in a venue, seek out spaces that care about music for music’s sake, make your own way as much as possible, and support each other! This is not cynacism, cynacism implies resignation, I believe that a better way is out there, I have tasted it, and I want more.
