SXSWorld
Issue link: https://sxsw.uberflip.com/i/81866
Pages from the by Jason Cohen 1997-2001: Experiments, Expansions and Explosions Th ere have been a lot of memorable SXSW venues. Bedrock Austin clubs like Antone's, Emo's, and the Continental. which was being clinically tested for the fi rst time outside of the band's home base in Oklahoma City. Registrants signed their cars up at the Cake magazine trade show booth, though the process skewed a bit toward Austin residents, who had better stereoes than most rental cars. While Roland Swenson says he barely remembers preparations for the unconventional performance, former SXSW Music executive staff er Leah Wilkes says he was skeptical. "Terms such as 'parking ramp,' 'mul- tiple cars' and 'Wayne Coyne' make people nervous," she says. "When he agreed to indulge me, it was with the understanding that there wouldn't be a signifi cant siphoning of SXSW resources: either money or manpower." Th e trick was fi nding a location, since so much prop- erty in Austin belongs to either the University of Texas or the state. "Trying to explain to various government employees that we needed to use their parking ramp for a rock music experiment was a fi asco," Wilkes says. "One guy hung up on me because he thought it was a prank." Eventually, she was able to sub-lease one fl oor of 702 Brazos from Texas Monthly magazine, which had its offi ces across the street, for a whopping $100. Wilkes remembers looking at the second fl oor from street-level and thinking, "please don't let the fi re marshal in on this one." "All I saw were hundreds of people, sitting on the low walls on two sides of the ramp," she says. "When I walked up, there was hardly room to move. Wayne had the cars parked in a fl ower pattern which he stood in the middle of, with a bullhorn and a bright yellow rain coat." Coyne handed out 29 cassettes, ornately marked with gold paint, with, "No! 10 SXSW ORLD / M ARCH F ILM- I A 201 1 Sorely missed rooms like Liberty Lunch and Steamboat. Somewhat less sorely missed spaces like the Austin Opera House or Upstairs at the Ritz. Th ere are also venues that play no part in the Austin music scene the other 361 days of the year, for better (Buff alo Billiards has hosted many a great showcase) and for worse (the regulars at South Congress dive bar Trophy's brawled amidst a Cher U.K./Magnolias show in 1997). But the greatest, oddest setting of them all was part of SXSW 1997, otherwise unused before or since: an unassuming little parking ramp at 702 Brazos Street. Th is was the setting for the Flaming Lips' Parking Lot Experiment, next 10 years of their career. Th ey returned to South by Southwest for showcases in 1999 and 2006, Coyne's SXSW interview in 2004, and Bradley Beesley's documentary Th e Fearless Freaks in 2005. Th e 1999 show in particular was legendary, only the second time (after a warm-up show in Dallas) the band had performed in a new incarnation spurred by the album Th e Soft Bulletin, with no drummer (Steven Drozd having moved to keyboards and guitars), a ton of multimedia, and Coyne's now-familiar props and let-me-entertain-you vibe. Like the Johnny Cash show of 1993, it was a case where the biggest "buzz" was not about an unknown band, or someone scoring that big major label deal, but a great artist using SXSW as a platform for reinvention — while also launching a sometimes on purpose, sometimes not marketing campaign to the assembled media, radio programmers, talent buyers and overseas people. From the the Strokes and the White Stripes to Norah Jones and Arctic Monkeys, this would continue in the years to come — and it was not an accident, in SXSW's view. "When the signing frenzy became what a lot of the media described as SXSW's main function, that worried me," says Swenson. "We never put together lists of acts who got record deals at SXSW to give the press because I always thought that would bite us on the ass. I'd always say, ' ment," Jim DeRogatis wrote in his Lips biography Staring At Sound. "Listeners gave the band a wildly enthusiastic fi ve-minute ovation. Th e group had pulled off a show unlike any of the other four hundred ninety-nine during the music conference." For the Lips, the Parking Lot Experiment laid the foundation for the Acts don't get signed because of SXSW. Th ey get signed because they are talented, work hard and are lucky.' I think there were two events that helped us turn the corner on the perception that SXSW was only about getting signed. Th e fi rst was Johnny Cash. Th e second was when we hooked up with the post-modern radio promoters and programmers after the New Music Seminar folded. Th e labels were anxious to get their acts in front of the radio programmers, and all the other possible print and electronic media coverage became more recognized." No! No!" in big letters on the B sides. Together, they added up to a bizarre symphony of time, space, and sound, with echoes and separa- tion circling the garage. During the second song ("Rotting Vegetables Marching Th rough Meatville"), car #16 blew a fuse. Unfortunately for Coyne, it was a crucial part. In its absence, he described the piece as "the quietest music heard in this whole conference." Coyne "was the only person in the garage dissatisfi ed with the experi- SXSW SCRAPBOOK