by Paul Klemperer

As South By Southwest (SXSW) has grown from a regional music convention to an international music and media extravaganza, the response from various cultural sectors of the Austin community has also grown. Decidedly a mixed blessing, SXSW has made life more exciting here, helped put Austin on the musical map, but for many it is a week of smoke and mirrors; streets clogged with out-of-state cars, clubs clogged with out-of-state bands, and then, like a Ray Bradbury circus, it is gone, leaving only a hint of brimstone on the air.

There were the understandable growing pains: As more bands applied for showcase slots, the reserve army of unsigned musicians mushroomed like the detritus of an IMF austerity plan. Streetcorners swelled with fashionably alienated youths muttering between pierced lips, Why was I not chosen?

For the chosen it is also something like the gift of the monkey's paw. You become part of a media happening -- a small part. You get to play a short set for little or no pay and wave your demo tape at label reps. Secretly, you wonder if playing a real gig at a non-showcase venue wouldn't be more worthwhile.

Audiences also have ambivalent reactions to SXSW. Downtown traffic, always problematic, is horrendous at this time. The clubs are jammed, the sets are too short, and the ticket prices have soared. But it is a once-a-year event and, in the end worth a little frustration. There are some great bands, which you may never get the chance to see again. So shut up and dance.

While some Austinites have grown bitter or jaded, or just left town, others have accepted SXSW as an environmental phenomenon, a musical El Niño, and have adapted. In the early years of the conference, various alternative events began to crop up -- alternative showcases in particular -- often with the rebellious attitude of the outsider. (Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!)

But this attitude in turn has evolved. SXSW has come to be more than the officially sanctioned conference and showcases, rippling out from the downtown area and drawing a response from an increasingly varied collection of businesses and organizations. Alternatives to SXSW are becoming not so much antagonistic as supplementary, and this not only shows conference participants more of our great local talent, but helps to galvanize the Austin artistic community as a whole.

Non-showcase clubs provide a natural alternative to the slam-bang half-hour sets of the showcases, and benefit from the influx of visitors. Of course it's hard to squeeze in all that music, especially if you've mapped out your itinerary to the last minute in order to maximize the number of bands you can hear. But if you want to go to a bar to relax and enjoy good music (isn't that really the point, after all the showbiz hype begins to curdle?), then get off the beaten path. Especially if this is your first time to Austin.

Other clubs have their own alternative showcases. The Voodoo Lounge (308 E. 3rd) has its Voodoo Fest, blocking off part of 3rd Street. Two years ago the Reverend Horton Heat headlined there, and local Unhung Heroes (sadly now defunct) hosted a poignantly surreal white trash party.

Justin McCoy, who books acts for the Blue Flame (formerly the Blue Flamingo at 617 Red River), has again organized the alternative South By So What. His goal is to offer an "alternative to the mayhem" and give the public a chance to see a wide variety of musical acts that the conference proper might overlook. This showcase features 90 percent local acts, from surf to C&W to rock to tribal industrial to whatever. McCoy plans to "cover it all, with no limits, from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m." This year McCoy is also encouraging local record labels to set up booths at the club, display product, and have listening parties during the day.

Not all the alternatives are to be found in nightclubs. The coffeehouse scene has grown to Seattle-like proportions in recent years, with a number of them featuring live music on a regular basis. Peg Miller, whose Chicago House shows provided an alternative to the 6th Street fare years back, remembers struggling for more than 10 years to get coffeehouse music and spoken word performances accepted. Now, she says, they are an established part of the Austin scene.

An offshoot of the coffeehouse is the bookstore/barrista combo (you know, the big shiny copper and steel industrial espresso maker that periodically gives off bursts of steam like a miniature Italian train station). Beyond welcoming SXSW visitors with pithy marquee greetings like the restaurants and hotels flanking the I-35 access roads, some of these megastores are expanding the showcase concept. Fiona Cherbak of Borders Bookstore (10225 Research) has indie label showcases planned every night of the conference, from 7 to 9pm (working between the daytime workshops and nighttime showcases downtown). Antone's artists will be featured on 3/19, and Dolittle Records on 3/20. The next two days will feature the singer/songwriters of Hammstein Publishing (3/21) and the Nashville Songwriters Association International (3/22).

And there's more. Proving you don't need a bar or an espresso machine to have a music showcase, the vintage store Under The Sun (5341 Burnet Road) has big plans during SXSW, according to proprietor Steve Dean. The store provides an alternative venue for alternative country, acoustic blues, rockabilly and swing. Performers can strut their stuff for "fans, out of town musicians and industry people in an intimate atmosphere that avoids the crunching in" of the downtown showcases. Again, to work around the SXSW schedule, the Under The Sun showcases will run from 4 to 9pm.

Under the Sun's line-up runs as follows:

• 3/19 -- Libbi Bosworth, Ted Roddy and the Tearjoint Troubadours, Roy Heinrich and Roger Wallace, and Herman the German;
  
• 3/20 -- Susanna van Tassel, Steve James, Billy Bacon and the Forbidden Pigs, Chris Gaffney, and Wayne Hancock;
  
• 3/21 -- Karen Poston, Teri Joyce, Dale Watson, Josie Kreutz, and Cornell Hurd;
  
• 3/22 -- the Jivebombers, the Horton Brothers with Joe Clay, Hot Club of Cowtown, and Kim Lenz and the Jaguars.
  

This is just a sampling of the kinds of alternative events that are cropping up. While there will always be a love-hate relationship between SXSW and those most affected by it, the fact that creative alternatives are developing in the Austin community shows that many of us are moving beyond the insider/outsider dichotomy which is so often prevalent in the music industry overall. Rather than approaching SXSW as a kind of musical lottery, these alternatives show that it can be used as a hub for expanding artistic projects and resources. And that's truly alternative.