Between March 14th and March 18th, 2012, we helped a collection of bands from Seattle perform 30 sets at one of the largest music festivals in the world. How we helped them make that happen is a “DIY” story with very few plot twists and turns, because once these bands decided they wanted to play at South by Southwest 2012, they didn’t let anything get in their way.
This story began, oddly enough, in Eastern Washington on Friday, February 11th, 2011…
Four members of Furniture Girls sat in their hotel room in Kennewick, Washington, after a very early-morning television appearance on Good Morning Northwest, talking about all the Seattle bands they knew who’d be playing showcases at SXSW 2011 the following month. As the group lamented their inability to land a spot at the festival themselves, producer/guitarist (and Critical Sun Recordings founder) Bubba Jones presciently opined, “You guys should just go. I’ll tell you what’s gonna happen: you’re gonna go down there this year, check it out, meet people, make connections, and then next year we’re gonna go down there to play a showcase.” Spur-of-the-moment travel plans were made that afternoon and Furniture Girls landed in Austin four weeks later. During their week of sensory overload amid thousands of bands and concurrent shows downtown, they checked things out, met dozens of people and made a handful of industry connections.
Fast forward to the summer of 2011; Furniture Girls’ bandmates Thane Mitchell and Jason Lightfoot (along with members of Jason’s band, Sightseer) began making plans for a return trip. Planning took place online, at rehearsals and at shows over the next few months and before long, a total of four local bands with ties to Critical Sun Recordings had signed on to head back to Austin with Furniture Girls: Sightseer, In Cahoots, Rob Marcus and The Januariez. They had the makings of a full-blown showcase of Seattle bands, as well as a stage manager (Thomas Moore) and an entourage of fans ready to make the trip – but no place to play. After a rapid-fire series of mid-December emails between Lightfoot, PA Mathison (also of Sightseer) and a handful of Austin music venues, the group settled on one: The Jackalope on East Sixth Street. They were booked to play at SXSW 2012 on Wednesday, March 14th.
With one showcase scheduled, the bands turned their attention to the other reason they’d all decided to head to the Lone Star State: to do a benefit show. The bands had played together at fundraisers earlier in the year, for Music Aid Northwest and the Seattle Humane Society, so it made sense that if they were all heading to Austin, they should take the opportunity to help raise funds for a nonprofit organization in that area. The Williamson County Regional Animal Shelter was a willing and incredibly helpful local partner, so a Sunday afternoon event was scheduled at Hardtails Bar & Grill in Georgetown, 30 minutes north of the crowds and traffic jams in Austin.
The groups had now scheduled two showcases to bookend their week in Texas. At this point, Jim Watkins (Furniture Girls’ bassist and Critical Sun’s creative director) stepped in to help get everything organized and promote the event. Before long, “Critical Sun @ SXSW 2012” posters and promotional materials were designed, set times and equipment logistics were sorted out, event pages were created on social networks and SXSW sites, and the group worked hard to find financing and last-minute sponsorships from anyone willing to help the bands cover their expenses. Within six weeks of the festival, three more artists connected to Critical Sun – Darrius Willrich, The Stacy Jones Band, Alejandro Garcia (of NoRey) – as well as Seattle bands Seeing Blind and Fox and the Law had made their travel plans, and Lightfoot had leveraged the Jackalope show to add two more half-day showcases at Kick Butt Coffee and Opal Divine’s, as well as two additional shows for Furniture Girls and Sightseer in Austin on St. Patrick’s Day.
Incredibly, despite only having one rental van and a couple of small cars to carry over two dozen people and enough gear for six full bands (two drum kits, six amplifiers and all of their instruments), every show went off without a hitch, on-time and on schedule. Bands that didn’t have St. Patrick’s Day shows booked ahead of time (Rob Marcus, Stacy Jones, In Cahoots and Darrius Willrich) even landed their own showcase at the Gypsy Lounge that night while busking on Sixth Street the day before. Critical Sun bands booked a total of five showcases in Texas, from Austin to Georgetown and every showcase was a success.
All told, Critical Sun @ SXSW was a bigger and better event than anyone could have imagined during the handful of planning meetings the bands held in the months leading up to it. Ultimately, by the time everyone flew back to Seattle, they had been part of a wildly successful endeavor that few other bands – or music collectives like ours – had ever even attempted: they sent themselves to South by Southwest before they’d booked even one show and left Austin having played a total of 37. In the process, they introduced themselves to a national audience, they helped redefine what Do-It-Yourself can mean when a group of like-minded musicians is connected to a common goal, and they also helped Critical Sun Recordings more clearly define its mission: to showcase the artists we work with and help them become successful.
See you at SXSW 2013.
My first exposure to U2 was at the age of 13 when I happened upon the U2 Live at Red Rocks: Under a Blood Red Sky concert video. I remember the poignant performance of “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and watching Bono famously wave the white flag through the Colorado rain. This was my first experience with the politicizing of music and how it can be used to rally those within earshot. Last night’s performance of “Sunday Bloody Sunday” was even more memorable. A dedication to the spring uprisings in the Middle East drove home the significance of these events and served as a reminder to all in the crowd that we all have the collective power to overcome adversity and defeat oppression.