by Paul Klemperer

As South by Southwest wraps up another year, I feel like I should say a few pithy bon mots, but what hasn't been said already? It's about music. It's about money. And for those not directly involved in music and/or media, it is either a smorgasbord of entertainment or a good reason to avoid the downtown area for a week. For the haves, it is just another industry shindig. For the have-nots, it is a source of frustration, grapes dangling out of reach, etc., etc. And for a few, it actually is an opportunity to jump a few rungs up the industry ladder, meet the right people and advance a career. But that is old news. One could argue that SXSW has not changed its character since its inception, that the infusion of money, hype and hordes of visiting hopefuls have simply allowed the event to manifest itself fully and to replicate the class stratification of American culture in general.

It started out as an Indie thing -- a way for those outside the mainstream to network. But was that its essential character, since the goal has always been to get into the mainstream, to get a piece of the pie? Some of the SXSW panels over the years have explored ways to create your own niche, to make industry resources work for you, but mostly it's about ways to break in, to produce better demo tapes and promo packs and to create your own buzz. Essentially, it's about how to do well on your job interview.

That said, I did have a few encounters that reminded me that a community, however loosely connected, does exist outside the industry bandwagon. For example, several industry reps noted, or admitted, that they didn't attend SXSW to sign acts, but to check out "the milieu," to spot trends and to get a reading of the street pulse. You can look at this several ways: If you are part of a trend, your chances to get signed are greater. If you aren't part of a trend, you better go find a trend and latch onto it. But trends are already a commodified crystallization of popular culture, which is by nature hard to pin down. The A&R guys hit the streets like 18th century aristocrats going to the pastoral peasant villages searching for inspiration, vitality and buxom peasant lasses. And we SXSW participants try to give them what we think they want to hear, dancing our peasant jigs in a fitful effort to leap aboard the gravy train as it passes through our sleepy village.

Or, we can see our "milieu" as a source of strength, a bargaining tool in the musical class struggle. Rather than constrict our art by fitting into short-lived trends, we can use the visibility of our "milieu" as an opportunity to express things that trends only refract: subterranean themes like freedom, libido, community and truth. But we often forget our collective and enduring strength when we try, as individuals, to play the industry's game. The irony is that the industry itself is full of individuals seeking the very things that inspire us to create art, the things which they have distanced themselves from by accepting the corporate agenda. And so why wouldn't they want to seek out our "milieu" before it too becomes completely commodified and pinned to the wall like a trophy insect?

It is also worth mentioning that for four days, total strangers seeking to recognize and connect with someone would make eye contact with me wherever I went. Maybe they just wondered if I was Somebody, in which case their glances may have been just an extension of the overall schmooze-a-thon atmosphere of the week, as everyone looks to network. Yet, I think it's also part of a larger feeling of an extended community. Most artistic and occupational efforts are validated by an association with others in similar pursuits. We may have different individual agendas, but we're all in this together.

One other development struck me. Each year there are more and more venues and events that are not part of the official SXSW structure: more free concerts, in-stores, parties and such. They spring up not in opposition to SXSW but as an extension of it, helping to remind Austin and its music-minded visitors that we are here to celebrate the arts and our artist community, not to just make a buck off of them. Now that's some good "milieu."