South by Southwest: The BP Report

Two nights into this four-day music madness, amid zapping photos and videos to livefrom.musicplayer.com in near-real-time, I skipped from one club’s big semi-outdoor stage to see what was happening at the little indoor spot where I had been floored the night before. The band inside had just ended as the last of the night, and were leisurely sipping Shiner Bocks rather than breaking down in a hurry. As I surveyed the now-dormant gear resting after what looked to be a hard-fought set, I realized I was eyeing a few things I had already seen on a number of “South-By” stages. There was the P-Bass plugged into a Big Muff pedal. There was the semi-Ampeg bass rig, in this case an old Kustom head on an SVT 6x10 cab. There was the weird old vintage guitar amp, here represented by a Sears Silvertone, possibly rescued from Great Uncle Milford’s attic.

I turned this scene into a quick photo-posting at livefrom.musicplayer.com, but as the weekend went on, my mental list of commonalities grew.  So here is a more complete list of “Things I Saw a Lot of at SXSW.”

P-Basses No big surprise here, but my informal survey of “South-By” stages suggests that the venerable Fender Precision reigns supreme as the King of Rock. (Apologies to DMC.)

Ampeg and semi-Ampeg setups With what undoubtedly were a lot of backline bass rigs, it’d be tough to conclusively say that Ampeg was the brand of choice among SXSW’s rocker hordes. (But it’s a pretty safe bet.) Or, maybe it was all about the letter A: I did spy at least one rig each from Aguilar and Ashdown, and one from MarkBass (which has two A’s).
Fender Telecaster guitars There was a much wider variety of six-string guitars than 4-string basses (and this was definitely a 4-string scene), but Telecaster plinkers were exceptionally well represented.

Women Easily more than half the bands I saw had one female member, and in most of those cases, she was the bass player. Go ’head, girl!

Old punks I kept crossing paths with—and occasionally just missing—groundbreaking punkers like X, the Slits, and NOFX. I also spent time with 15-year MxPx veteran Mike Herrera. (He’s hardly old; his skate-punk trio just started so young.)

One singer, two mics I saw at least four bands where the lead singer would sometimes switch to a second mic for effect. Sometimes it fed a trippy delay or had a smaller, vintage-y sound. Other times it fed a vocoder. I saw two ultra-heavy bands where the singer did the typical “Cookie Monster” death-metal vocal on one mic, then switched to a vocoder for the “melodic” chorus.

Corporate sponsors Though SXSW definitely does not have the corporate marketing feel of, say, your typical product-placement packed Hollywood blockbuster, there was plenty of sponsorship and marketing presence. Fuse drinks, Dell computers, Digidesign, Levi’s, you name it—brands were everywhere, attempting to associate their products with supposed tastemakers, and perhaps reminding the baby bands on the scene of the importance of marketing. Vibe-wise, sponsor participation ranged from innocuous to pretty cool, but at times I couldn’t walk 100 feet without some street-team member shoving a three-pack of Dentyne in my hand. (Were they trying to tell me something?)

Regional representin’ There were club nights, parties, and showcases, featuring bands from specific locales from around the country and the world. Some were put on by local impresarios hyping their rosters, others by what seemed to be bona-fide government bureaus of rock & roll. Japan Night bore the bulk of the buzz, but there were well attended offerings from Australia, Montreal, Scandinavia, San Francisco, Spain, and so on.

Bass players Remember a few years ago when bands like the White Stripes and Black Keys came out, prompting what seemed like a bass-less trend? Those days are over. (Though the Black Keys rocked out at SXSW.) Even when bands had the occasional low-end synth, it was usually the bass player who took charge.