We Luv Video
How Many Times Has It Happened?
RECEIVED Thu., April 15, 2010
Dear Editor,
Re: A reader comment on “Page Two: Praying for an Early Death” [March 26]: "I'm not in a band, but if I were, I'd be pretty damn glad to have a chance to play for a crowd that stood a far higher than usual chance of containing music industry people who might make a phone call and get me a big fat recording contract with a major label. It happens."
How many times has it happened? Write that number over the top of the number of bands who have played at SXSW. What fraction do you see? Do you see that it rarely happens? Just asking. It's easy to think it's glorious. Thousands of bands … how many signed?
Re: A reader comment on “Page Two: Praying for an Early Death” [March 26]: "I'm not in a band, but if I were, I'd be pretty damn glad to have a chance to play for a crowd that stood a far higher than usual chance of containing music industry people who might make a phone call and get me a big fat recording contract with a major label. It happens."
How many times has it happened? Write that number over the top of the number of bands who have played at SXSW. What fraction do you see? Do you see that it rarely happens? Just asking. It's easy to think it's glorious. Thousands of bands … how many signed?
Hank Alrich
[Louis Black responds: Getting bands signed may have long been the assumed goal of SXSW, but even from our very earliest discussions it wasn't the intended goal. The idea is much more about small steps than big ones; maybe a writer, a record-store owner, a DJ, or a club-booker gets turned on to a band. Maybe a number of them do. Maybe bands on a bill get excited about a band they didn't know and begin talking it up. Obviously, I have a vested interest in believing SXSW works. If, like this letter writer, you believe it is more smoke than fire, more scam than content, then it is hard to argue other than by saying the vast majority of the music business including journalists, managers, agents, bookers, publicists, and especially musicians are blithering idiots so easily conned. Approximately 10,000 bands from all over the world apply while about 2,000 end up playing. In the national and international music press, there is constant, mostly positive, mention of SXSW. Locally, some have declared it an emperor without clothes. If the latter were even distantly true, it would do a lot more to condemn the international music community than it does SXSW.]