Music-Industry Merger Casts Shadow on South by Southwest
James Sullivan, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 17, 1999
©1999 San Francisco Chronicle
URL:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/03/17/DD31646.DTL&type=music
Live music, free-flowing beer and smoking grills as far as the eye can see: The annual
South by Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas, is the record industry's version
of March Madness.
This year, however, a certain sobriety threatens to dampen the festivities, which
begin today and run through Sunday. Seagram's recent purchase of Polygram has resulted
in the dilution of some of the industry's most highly regarded labels -- A&M, Geffen,
Island. At least a few hundred bands and as many as 3,000 employees have received pink
slips in recent weeks.
While nearly 30 Bay Area bands are heading to Austin for the conference, including
Imperial Teen, the Hi-Fives, Los Mocosos, Jackpot, the Mother Hips and Neurosis, few
of them expect to bring back much more than hangovers.
``I think there's a general feeling of disillusionment in the music industry,'' says
Hans Dobbratz, lead singer of Dura-Delinquent. Having missed the deadline to apply for
a spot in the official showcases, the bratty San Francisco band plans to perform
around Austin on a rented flatbed truck.
The group's kamikaze appearances will be a kind of protest, Dobbratz says. ``All we
really want to do is have fun and play rock 'n' roll. We want to give it to the people
pure and free and unadulterated -- no middleman or business weirdness.''
Weirdness has been the first order of business this year in the industry. In addition
to the merger, record companies are fretting over the new MP3 technology, a way of
downloading music from the Internet that promises to radically alter the distribution
of recorded music.
But doomsday predictions are wildly premature, says Bonnie Simmons, Cake's manager and
a founder of the music convention SFO in recent years. ``I've never seen the record
industry get to this point, but I've certainly lived through three or four major
purges. They seem to happen every five years or so.''
Simmons goes to South by Southwest (SXSW) every year with a coterie of San
Franciscans, including staffers from Slim's and the Great American Music Hall. This
year she's escorting her latest client, the highly touted (and unsigned) songwriter
Etienne DeRocher.
She says the industry's uneasiness won't keep her from enjoying herself. ``I don't
feel like I'm going to a wake,'' she laughs.
Actually, the shakeup might be just the thing for the big-money gathering, says Adam
Cohen, former front man of the Geffen signee the Mommyheads. In recent years, SXSW
began moving away from its original function as a showcase for unsigned bands, as
record labels lobbied for appearances by established acts plugging their new records.
``Maybe this will bring them back to square one,'' says Cohen. With the majors
unwilling to spend as lavishly as they have in recent years, unsigned acts might find
better venues to play than ``an ice cream parlor five miles out of town.''
With the Mommyheads broken up after being dropped by Geffen, Cohen's new band Adam Elk
-- featuring members of the Kinetics and Mumblin Jim, two other groups affected by the
industry turmoil -- has been enjoying an early surge of local interest. He's not going
to SXSW, concentrating instead on promoting his band's forthcoming independent
release, ``Labello,'' here in town; there's a record-release party March 25 at Slim's.
In hindsight, he says, this might have been as good a year as any to go to SXSW. ``I
might've missed my one year, when the integrity's back,'' he says.
Simmons points out that getting signed is just one of many productive connections
people make at SXSW. When Cake was in its infancy, the band played Austin and
attracted the attention of talent buyers from clubs around the country, laying the
groundwork for Cake's first successful tours outside California.
``I think we sometimes give people the idea that these conventions are a peculiar,
rigid star search,'' she says. Record company representatives ``don't just stumble
into a nightclub, accidentally see a band and take a contract out of their pocket.''
Whatever the industry climate, she says, Austin's relaxed attitude will take the edge
off. ``It's the only convention where I don't feel people are shaking my hand and
looking over my shoulder for the next person to accost,'' Simmons says. ``It's just
comfortable.''
