by Christopher Hess

Recently some friends moved to New York. This in itself is no great tragedy, it's something that happens every day. People get sick of where they are, feel a place no longer has anything to offer them, have to move elsewhere for work/family/random life changing events, etc. A large segment of society is nomadic (just look at the deaths of many American small towns for proof of this). But this time it's different. This time it 's a whole bunch of people who I've met all too recently who also happen to be musicians. These people comprise a strange group of incestuously collaborative punk/hardcore/rocker/citizens who were always throwin' parties or playing at other peoples' parties or landing big important gigs at the Blue Flamingo or the E-Lounge which required dedicated attendance just to ensure that there'd be another one. They didn't really make any money or anything, but they worked at it intensely. So not only are a few friends moving away, but also a bunch of the bands that I always made an effort to see. That's a lot to lose in a weekend. Red Scare, Kiki Debris, Sick Little Monkey, LV Rackle, these are a few of the casualties in the war for local music. And not just local music, but a communal music scene. Now they're in New York, the brutal land of musical sink or swim.

Maybe Austin is too comfortable. It's too easy to reach an acceptable level of mediocre response and appreciation. "Working your way to the middle" if you will. Of course there are opportunities to rise to the top of your field here, but where is the top? What does being the best band or actor in Austin mean? The recent breakup of Ed Hall, the forerunners of the current hard rock or whatever the frig you want to call it scene is a signal that hard work and talent -- hell, even a gimmick -- don't necessarily pay off. Respected and attended here, they toured to marginal success elsewhere, and record sales and opportunity of expansion werenot significant enough to keep them together. Bands like Spoon, 16 Deluxe and Starfish, to stay within the albeit narrow but VERY accessible genre, have been tagged the next big thing and have been met outside of the friendly confines of Austin with mediocre response.

What about writing? Or acting or painting or dancing or filmmaking? Richard Linklater has taken his work outside the city limits and has done well. SRV and John Henry Faulk are other obvious examples. But what else? Not too long ago in this magazine, Alissa Winternheimer wrote a critique about a play she saw that was good. It was good, not great; appreciable but not moving. She said this is an affliction common to most theater she sees in this town, and I suppose I find that to be true about most things. It's just something that often goes willingly unnoticed because greatness often upsets the contentment you feel. It startles you and wakes you to your very core. That 's not always pleasant, but you never forget it.

This is a very comfortable town. Most people you meet here are very non-confrontational, easy-going, open-minded people. And that's good. But it's hard to have a passion for comfort. Maybe it's impossible to strive upward from contentment. It's self-destructive to live by the idea that great art comes only from misery, but it seems to be proven time and time again.

I offer no solutions here which, I realize, is sort of a cop-out. Perhaps if people got tight, if there was more a sense of artistic collaboration, the energy exchanged from mind to mind would crack the doldrums wide open and release the creative genius that lolls against the thin skin of apathy. New ideas are a preferable inspiration to pain and suffering because, I admit, I do enjoy the comfort here. Three years removed from ChicagoLand and I feel I've finally assimilated to the Austin pace, and I don't wanna go back.

Apparently that sentiment is not shared by all, which is fine. So to those who leave I wish you good luck, you 'll be missed. To those who stay, whaddya say we get together and slap the boredom off each other's faces and wake up to create a new art for ourselves, inspired by the appreciation of why we 're all here. Regionalism? Commensalism? Mutualism? Whatever it is, let's get it going.