Another reason to love and visit Austin, Texas
A brief history of SXSW
The first South by Southwest Music Conference and Festival (SXSW) was held in 1987 in Austin, Texas. Despite the fact that Austin was not a Top 20 major market at the time, the background and character of the city made it a perfect location for the conference. Austin was considered a fairly cosmopolitan town for its size because of the University of Texas, which draws people from all over the world. As home to the state government and Texas Legislature it has also always been a popular party town, with a reputation that goes back to the 19th century when numerous nightspots and bars were populated by General Custer’s troops after the Civil War. These nightspots are located in the same areas where the 6th Street and 4th Street club and bar scenes now exist.
Austin’s eclectic music scene goes back to early in the city’s history (from Mexican, German and colonial origins) and encompasses a wide variety of music including country, folk, jazz, blues and rock. Central Austin boasts more original music nightclubs in a concentrated area than any other city in the world.
The classic problem facing Austin musicians was being isolated from the rest of the world here in the middle of Texas. SXSW was a way to reach out to the rest of the world, and bring them here to do business. To do that successfully, SXSW needed to appeal to people other than local artists whether they were from Austin, Ft. Worth, Chicago, Toronto, Munich or Tokyo.
National interest in SXSW was immediate. For years, music businesses on both coasts had been intrigued by what was going on in Austin. The cosmic cowboy, blues, punk and other scenes had already proven that Austin was a receptive place for bands to be creative. With SXSW, music industry executives gained a good excuse to visit.
International interest in SXSW began the second year due to many Austin and American bands finding their first success in Europe. Conversely, there was a lot of interest from SXSW registrants in the international bands who came to perform. SXSW now has offices in Ireland, Germany, Australia and Japan who help bring SXSW registrants to Austin.
The music event has grown from 700 people in 1987 to nearly 10,000 people. As Austin has grown and diversified, film companies and high-tech companies have played a major role in the Austin and the Texas economies. In 1994, SXSW added a film and interactive component to accommodate these growth industries. SXSW Film and SXSW Interactive events attract approximately 7,000 people to Austin every March.
SXSW’s original goal was to create an event that would act as a tool for creative people and the companies they work with to develop their careers, to bring together people from a wide area to meet and share ideas. That continues to be the goal today whether it is music, film or the internet. And Austin continues to be the perfect location.
The SXSW Festival, which inlcudes, Film, Interactive and Musical talents rom aroudn the world, is agrea way to discover the hidden talents that exists out there.
Here is one such talent that will be appearing this year at SXSW - RIO on 3/14.
David Moore Plays On
David Moore cut his musical teeth as a teen. Though he’s now a well-groomed married man with two children, the lyrical perspicacity that has endeared him to multiple generations both here and aboard continues unabated.
Moore made his start in the thoughtful, archetypal hardcore band Split Lip. Formed in the late ’80s with guitarists Adam Rubenstein and Clay Snider, bassist Curtis Mead, drummer Charlie Walker and vocalist Stevie D. (Moore soon would replace him), the young outfit quickly captivated Indianapolis and surrounding music scenes as proficient, intelligent and wholly ahead of their time.
Various bit releases and two full albums on Ohio’s burgeoning Doghouse Records later, Split Lip underwent drastic changes after becoming restless within the confines of their sound. Taking a new name from their retrospective song “Five Year Diary,” Chamberlain was born.
Following a successful tour of Europe, Chamberlain recorded their most realized offering to date — 1998’s heartland-inspired “The Moon, My Saddle.” The band endured through lineup changes and unrequited flirtations with major labels before officially disbanding in early 2000. A Web site continues to keep the name alive and fan mail still comes from overseas.
Moore obviously was disillusioned at the time with Chamberlain’s unfulfilled promise, though their legacy remains strong through a legion of believers. Time and wisdom have mostly tempered his disappointment.
“Ultimately, I think we forgot about the shared, collective vision that got us to the point we were at, the height of our creative output,” Moore said. “We got away from what made us want to play music and play music together. We started to focus on peripheral things that didn’t do anything but detract from the creative process. We decided to break up before things got too nasty. We made sure we could walk away from it as friends before things got out of hand, which is kind of where things were heading or at least seemed to be.”
All from Moore’s past is not lost. In 1997, when Chamberlain was based in Bloomington, Moore and Tim Jones, from the Sony 550/Epic Records-signed Indiana band Old Pike, would get together on weekends with members of both bands and jam. This incarnation was dubbed Chevy Downs and has survived on and off since. “It’s kind of funny to think we’re still doing it after we started it as a sort of whimsical offshoot of our other musical ventures,” Moore said.
Chevy Downs is a conglomeration of Indianapolis music veterans, including Chamberlain alum Seth Greathouse on mandolin and banjo. They play a form of foot-stompin’, vintage country/Americana meant more for fun than brooding introspection. Their debut, “Songs From a Forthcoming LP,” has been complete for several months now, but won’t have its official release until sometime this summer. That can happen when its makers are spread out over the country and can only unite sporadically.
Read Moore on David Moore and South By Southwest by clicking here
0 responses so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.
You must log in to post a comment.