I've thoroughly enjoyed this thread. While having a hard time not siding with the populist musician voices of Nancy, Kip, and poor, grumpy Erin (who, like Cheryl & Wall almost always makes me laugh), it's also helpful to hear the pragmatic, weasel's-eye view from Jim C. et al. Aesthetics meets the real world, and is it ever a mixed bag. When my band was young, we bought the dream and spent dough we did not have made from gigs and temp jobs that rot your brain to play the Cactus Cafe at SXSW. We thought the miraculous might happen. Debt when you're middle-class is a livable ball and chain; debt when you're poor is a cement overcoat. The fact is, my band was good; we really had something. What we lacked was savvy: we had no industry connections and no knowledge of how to get them. We couldn't afford to stay, so we flew in that afternoon, stayed up all night, flew out the next morning. We played, we caught Jimmy LaFave at the Hole In the Wall, we went home. Occasionally now, people are impressed to see SXSW on our resumes. End of story. Ross Whitwam says Garth Brooks' music is what bugs him, Garth's ambitiousness doesn't offend him at all. I say the two are inseparable. Without ambition, ain't nobody gonna ever hear your music. Aesthetically speaking, though, it is one dicey bedfellow, and it is the rare event when the pure pleasure of music and the push to get it heard aren't actually in conflict. In Garth's case, the music is sufficiently subsumed by his ambition to the point where it is impossible for me to find any enjoyment in his songs (although, in all fairness, I have found his cover of Billy Joel's "Shameless" to be a powerful emetic and therefore somewhat useful.) SXSW, NEA, and the rest pay the musicians jacksquat while others profit. Nothing can make this an O.K. thing for the musicians. For the listeners, it's an incredible opportunity to hear live music. For the business, it's business as usual. Kelly
