Crashing the Party

My introduction to SXSW consisted of a battle of bands as I walked down 6th Street in Austin.

For the last 23 years the SXSW festival – the largest music conference in the US - has been the Week of the Undiscovered Band, and it’s synonymous with the opportunity for any of the 5000 artists to be the next buzz name, to grace the covers of national and international music press, to be a radio chart star, and to sell out shows nationwide.

While there have been grumblings about major artists slowly hogging more of the spotlight over the years, 2009 may very well mark the year when noticeably more attention was paid to the veteran talents of Metallica, Kanye West, DEVO, and Tori Amos than to the fledgling artists.

However, for every major act playing the festival, there are at least a hundred bands whose star is on the rise. It is precisely because of these up-and-coming musicians that a deep-rooted excitement exists and motivates the likes of Metallica and Kanye to crash the party.

For each great new band seen, you risk missing the performance of ten other equally talented, potentially “best of SXSW” buzz-worthy artists. It’s a daunting task and you soon find yourself sling-shot from venue to venue hoping to catch a little of everyone, yet risking not witnessing enough.

It would be dishonest not to admit to the attractive pull of being there when the much whispered-about mega-stars play that “secret” performance. On the other hand, it’s incredibly rewarding to have your ear tugged by the sound of some unfamiliar group or singer from a block down the street.

My best advice is to throw out your agenda, your well-thought-out plan of attack, and abandon the goal of trying to find the buzz bands du jour. Practically every music monthly, website, blog, and radio station have reported back about their favorite performances, and for once in the history of the conference, there seems to be no clear winner of the “new artist to watch” award. Every attendee has walked away with at least one previously unknown artist who they will rave about. For some, it may be one of the major bands they’ve only heard about; for others, it may be a long-time local act that hasn’t made it outside of the Austin region… yet.


As it is par for the course that you will be missing a great many shows, information transmitted through word-of-mouth (and who wasn’t Twittering from SXSW this year?) will ensure that a big bag full of those events are at least heard about – and therefore not entirely unnoticed. Those missed but talked-about performances contribute to the growing list titled: “must check out as soon as I get back to the hotel/I get back home/when they come through town”.

Here are a few of SXSW artists worth watching:

BLK JKS

They’ve been quietly working away for nine years in Johannesburg, South Africa and this year marks the four piece’s second appearance at SXSW.
In 2007 they released a very limited 500 pressing 10 inch vinyl of “Lakeside” that is now clutched tightly to the chests of every person in possession of it. In 2008 they landed on the cover of Fader magazine, mixing up the progression of which comes first – SXSW and then the cover or cover and then SXSW?
BLK JKS are familiar with mixing up the progression. Their very short blistering set at Mohawk was, luckily, captured by Youtube. I was left dazed, reaching for descriptive words for what I witnessed. Punk, Jazz, Reggae, Progressive Rock, Funk… it all gets thrown into the machine and what comes out in the wash is something like this:



Avett Brothers & Passion Pit

It’s good knowing people who have the cheat code to get you in the back door of well sold out shows. The ace in my pocket was Ryan Barkan of Primary Wave music publishing. We had arranged to meet up at Radio Room because one of their artists, the great Daniel Johnston, was playing the Brooklyn Vegan blog day party. The line to get in was nearing two blocks long, so I put a call to Ryan who directed me to the back gate where bands were loading and unloading gear for the constantly rotating performances. I got in with a word and a shrug from the “bouncers” and pretty much came to a halt. The crowd was massive and the tent was full. Daniel Johnston was on stage and Ryan was up front. We’d have to wait until afterward to meet at the beer stand. It was while having our first face-to-face conversation that I heard North Carolina’s Avett Brothers from outside the tent. Yes, they are brothers – well, two of them are. They’ve been kicking around their American roots-rock for a few years now but this was the first time my ears had been pricked up by them.

http://www.theavettbrothers.com/

Ryan and I talked for nearly an hour until he had to go check in on some other Primary Wave published bands. I had to get out of the Texas heat (ah, sunburns) and check out Passion Pit, but not before I had promised Ryan a hand made compilation CD of bands from Minnesota. Seemed everyone I talked to at SXSW couldn't think of any artists besides Prince that come from our cities. I’ve got work to do.



Passion Pit, I overheard, were one of bands that “the kids” were all buzzing about. I actually overheard this being said by some older "been there done that" hipster while standing in the tent watching their performance. Well, I was happy to find myself being lumped in with “the kids” again. Their songs were penned for a CD as a Valentine’s Day gift to a girlfriend, which was shared amongst other friends… and their friends… and their friends. It didn’t stop until Passion Pit were voted best new band in Boston in 2008. Actually, it didn’t stop because there they were at SXSW with a tent packed full of delighted ”kids” from around the world dancing to their infectious electro-pop.



Now they're off to Europe & the UK for the summer festival season. Stars do still rise.

more SXSW reports soon

Divergent Thinking: Making a Breakthrough

After attending sxsw, I've resisted just reporting on one panel, thinking there's got to be an overall theme to most of the things I saw. And I think I've finally come up with it, read on.

1. Brainstorm, a lot
At "Being a UX team of One" I committed to brainstorming, a lot. Usually we can come up with one or two ideas right off the bat, the problem is pushing past that wall to come up with something more interesting. Leah Buley suggested coming up with a minimum of 6, hopefully much more.

Why does coming up with more ideas make them any better? In my experience, I tend to do the most rote and expected things first, kind of like regurgitating. Forcing myself to move past a couple ideas makes me uncomfortable, but it's oddly freeing at the same time. If I'm in the mindset that I don't have to come up with THE IDEA right away, I'm actually more at ease and open minded. I begin to make better kinds of connections.

Leah's tools for pushing past this wall were to use:
1. conceptual frameworks (this is good for user experience designing)

2. word associations

3. an inspiration library (I just take screenshots and pictures of anything and everything I like, no matter what it is.)

Both the "Objectified" panel and "Journey to the Center of Design" discussed the value in creating a lot of ideas, being rewarded for risk taking and learning from those mistakes. Basically you cannot edit yourself in the beginning.

Journey to the Center of Design Highlights:


2. Start on paper
Several panels admonished not to start in WORD or a PROGRAM of your choice. The format is constraining and you think more broadly and have more freedom on paper or napkin.

3. Involve other people
Ask for specific feedback and ideas. Another perspective is valuable. One of the panelists suggested hosting a session where everyone plays the devil's advocate to poke holes in the idea. Doesn't mean you listen to every criticism, but could help you look at things in a different way.

4.You don't need to know the end at the beginning
In speaking about his movie, "Objectified", Gary Hustwit said he didn't start out with a plan of how the narrative would work, it unfolded with the footage. The challenge in coming up with good ideas is to let go of control and not get stressed out by uncertainty. Kathy Serra in "Change your World in 50 minute: Making Breakthroughs Happen" said "The surest way to guarantee nothing interesting happens is to think you know how it should all go. "

5.There is no right and wrong
My favorite discussion was lead by Charles Sayers, the global marketing director for Sapient. He's worked with brands like Coca-cola, Home Depot, UPS, and Auto-trader in all aspects of brand development and design, marketing program strategy, messaging and corporate communications. In his panel, "Brand Noir: Crafting a Who-Why-How Dunnit", Sayers talked about War rooms and the rules he had:

1. If you go into the war room, leave an idea

2. NOTHING is thrown away, put it on the wall

3. There's no structure in putting it on the wall

Why these kinds of rules? Because people think they have to get it right before they say anything. The point is getting a reaction and response from the team. My doodles or questions may spark something for someone else. Along with no right or wrong, there is no perfect. I like this idea because it frees everyone up from coming up with the Big Idea.

Part of there not being a right and wrong is the idea of suspending disbelief. Acting like there are no limits will get you farther then imagining every possible road block.

6. Create a little discomfort
How do you know if it's a good idea? If everyone feels comfortable with the idea, does that mean it's a good idea? "Oh, Ok, I get it" in not very compelling. A good story or idea will have multiple reactions, you want a lot. If it makes people think, that's good.

The possibilities for creative thinking?
One of the speakers on the "Objectified" panel made an observation on the difference between analytical and design or divergent thinking: "In design or divergent thinking you're trying to create new choices, you're not just picking from the choices you already have, which is analytical." They were discussing product design but then summed it up by saying, "we need to get better at different types of thinking so that we can apply it to current issues" like policy making and health care. They believed that including divergent thinkers in any problem solving process was the key to coming up with breakthrough solutions. Amen.

Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people.

The SXSW conference started with opening remarks from Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh on how fostering a passionate culture of employees while proving extraordinary customer service can massively extend your brand. He spoke about good deeds, chasing your dreams, greater life purpose, goals, inspiration and ended with a strong recommendation for a book by Jonathan Haidt called, "The Happiness Hypotheses". Heavy stuff for a company that known best for selling shoes.

It was inspiring and while obvious on many levels, became an underlying theme throughout the conference: sharing, open, trust, playing fair.

Over the next four days, the number of references to relationships, friends, community, openness, honesty...were many. While not a new concept to business chatter; individuals, brands (countries, civilization...), are realizing the need to focus on the basics to create, foster and extend their image, products, brands and survival.

Concepts like sharing, openness and free may be the new buzz, but would never have made it to the white boards of corporate America as a priority or requirement to remaining relevant. It's a monumental shift for companies formed around protecting intellectual property to now open their doors to the open sharing of content, often for free.

The panel on Becoming Social: This Changes Everything, lead by the heads of development for Myspace, Yahoo, Google and Reuters Thompson was interesting specifically in that the former was a perfect example of a company founded on the dissemination of proprietary information finding it a difficult transition to becoming transparent with it's data, while acknowledging that there was not a choice. To survive, brands need to not only acknowledge consumers, but to open their doors, give them something they don't expect and foster the open conversation that drives perception, respect, trust and happiness?

Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Figure out how to monetize free.