Matthew Wettergreen dot com» houston

Houston’s Upcoming TED Feast

matthew — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 19:38:34 +0000

Anyone committed to a life-long education already knows that TED talks are just one component of a healthy, balanced, information diet. Virtually all subjects are covered with inspirational, ground-breaking research explored in a fascinating, motivating manner. The real benefit of these talks is the learning that happens when these talks are digested and discussed among colleagues, when they lead to further investigation into a particular topic, or when they spark an idea helping you to solve a current problem in your own work. Sadly, most cities are deprived of the opportunity for future discussion about these topics because watching TED talks remains mostly a solitary activity, leaving viewers with a less than full feeling in their mental bellies.

Announcing a 12 Course Mental Dinner: TEDxHouston

TED Organizers have recently recognized the wealth of innovation and groundbreaking work occurring everywhere on the planet. As a platform for local communities to highlight this innovation, TED has created local conferences, labeled TEDx conferences.The ‘x’denotes an independently organized TED event.

TEDx events have been held in many places around the nation and world but we haven’t had one in Houston yet. Houstonians rejoice! because the great, community-minded, educational-focused people at Culture Pilot are organizing this year’s TEDxHouston event, scheduled for June 12th, 2010. Culture Pilot has a great day planned and they’ve also assembled a crack team of organizers to help plan the day. It cannot be overstated how much I respect the members of Culture Pilot for their forward thinking and work as well as the honor of working alongside such a prodigiously experienced and talented organizing team. We’re all doing our best to make the event about Houston people and as community minded as possible while still providing a professional conference atmosphere full of opportunities to discuss and digest. It’s sure to be a full meal of innovative information, all happening in Houston on a daily basis.

Your Dinner Invitation: TEDxHouston has limited seating and the event is designed to have a diverse attendance. Therefore, the Organizers have released an application form to attend TEDxHouston. This application process is live now, visit the TEDxHouston site and fill out an application to attend.

Your Appetizer: Golan Levin

Tomorrow, April 8th, Houstonian’s have an incredible opportunity to whet their mental appetites in preparation for TEDxHouston. Artist, Engineer, TED Speaker, Golan Levin will be speaking at Rice University as part of the James Baker Hughes Lecture: Engineering and Humanities in the Arts.

Golan Levin’s work employs computers to create improvised soundscapes with dazzling corresponding visuals. He merges the borders between performance art and engineering, employing software engineering with an artist’s touch.

Your Call To Action: Seriously. Go to this talk:

Golan Levin (event link)
April 8th, 4-5pm
Keck Hall 100 (map)

Prep yourself by watching Dr. Levin’s 2009 TED Talk:

Bandcampus: SXSW PREP Recap

matthew — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:05:12 +0000

Last Sunday, Bandcampus held it’s second SXSW PREP where we collectively prepared and reviewed band’s digital and physical toolbox in an effort to prepare them for playing SXSW. Over 15 bands were in attendance with a range from seasoned SXSWers to new bands that had never played the conference.

Also at Bandcampus: SXSW PREP we announced the winners of the community voted contest to select bands to play at the second annual Houston@SXSW party. Over 1000 votes were cast over a 72 hour period. We are all very impressed with the work that bands put into contacting their community to get the vote out. If these Houston bands are working that hard in other spheres we’re going to be hearing many more about them in the near future.

The bands that were selected, the bands that will be representing Houston at the Second Annual Houston@SXSW party will be:

Here’s the remainder of the recap in mostly bullet point form for your skimming pleasure:

Tips for Bands playing SXSW (contributed by everyone in attendance)

The first agenda item of the day was to discuss what you could get out of SXSW by playing or even just attending. The overarching tip that should be considered when planning anything is to Cut Through the Noise. Too many people are at SXSW and you need to think about ways in which you can connect with these people in a substantial way. That does not include overplaying, that does not include talking to everyone you meet. It does include thinking about effective ways to communicate your message. It does include novel ways of getting the word out.

Biggest tip: Cut Through the Noise!
Don’t overplay
bring extra equipment
Make a game plan
Playing is half of the goal
Networking needs a goal

Digital and Physical Preparation for bands

No matter what level a band is at, they should have a digital and physical toolbox that they can use at a moment’s notice to get discovered, sell merchandise or showcase their craft. At the Bandcampus session we reviewed the basics of a digital and physical toolbox that bands can set up easily. The components

Digital Toolbox
- Central band email address (gmail or unique band domain recommended)
- Pictures posted online
- Videos (Live, Produced) posted online
- Unique Band Domain Name
- Music posted online in several locations
- Testimonials/Writeups from press posted visibly on online properties
- Booking information
- Short biography of the band
- A Home Base that is not Myspace, Facebook or any other online property not owned by yourself
- Digital Outposts at places like Myspace, Facebook, ReverbNation, Bandcamp.com, etc.
Physical Toolbox
- Music for sale
- Merchandise for sale
- Business Cards (Recommended by Marie Angell of The Snake Charmers)
- Elevator Pitch (Worked on at a previous Bandcampus, demonstrated by Insert Name Here)

Helpers

Several experts were on hand to give bands a review of their online presence and physical marketing materials. These people donated their time and deserve thanks and also should be considered for the future if you are looking for copy, marketing materials, or general direction for a band’s career.

Bands in Attendance

Houston’s Local Music Press 2010, Part Two

matthew — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 14:00:49 +0000

This is Part two in a two part series listing Houston’s music press.

Yesterday’s post began with the provenance of this list: the need for local bands to be contacting their local press more often. Then the first half of Houston’s music press was listed, including links to their outfits and samples of their work. Today’s post finishes that list with the second half of Houston’s Local Music Press. Make sure that you check out both posts and remember the additional homework assignment of actually writing the press to tell them about what you’re doing.

Here’s the rest of your local music press (in random order thanks to random.org):

David Sadof, Houston Examiner
David Sadof has been a member of the Houston Music Community since the 80′s when he was Music Director at Rock 101 KLOL and The Buzz KTBZ. Kerry Melonson of Satin Hooks openly blames David and his radio show “Lunar Rotation’ as the reason he is a musician. David is now a regular writer for the Houston Examiner; read his post on Spoon’s Transference and notice that every post David writes includes a video clip.

Craig Hlavaty, Houston Press
Craig is Assistant Music Editor at the Houston Press and works closely with Chris Gray to cover everything about our music community. Craig writes an unbelievable number of pieces regularly, probably due in part to his firm adherence of the “everyday is a workday, every night is a weekend” mantra. You can catch him tweeting about every show he sees and everything that happens in his very busy nightlife. You also might want to read his actual writing; here’s coverage on February 5th’s Justin Townes Earle show.

David Cobb, Houston Calling
David is a one man show covering all forms of musical expression in Houston, from benefits to live shows to news about local bands, artists, and concert posters. Every year along with partner blog Done Waiting they compile one of the best curated SXSW music lists. Read his post and commentary on Derek Webb’s recent Haiti Benefit.

Rob Delossantos/Joel Hughes/others, Indie Houston
These guys are living the kind of life where you don’t get the deposit back. Staging most efforts from the IndieHouston House, this group hosts regular shows but also have a blog that covers the goings on of bands that makes their way through this city. One difference between this site and most is that guest contributions are welcome and invited. Here’s Joel’s post on an upcoming Roky Moon + BOLT show and here’s Rob’s call for submissions from the community.

Joey Guerra, Houston Chronicle
Joey is a music critic for the Houston Chronicle and “absolutely loves it.” He’s clearly living life to its fullest, regularly abusing twitter with laughter and commentary on all things pop culture. Personally, his tweets crack me up regularly. Joey’s love of pop culture makes its way into his writing so as a band looking to contact him, better be able to discuss your music in the context of anything from Madonna to Jonas Brothers to Solange. Read Joey’s honest assessment of the latest Jonas Bro solo album.

Adam Newton, DryveTyme Onlyne, Houston Press
This guy gets hustler of the year award. Previously with Houstonist, now seriously focused on his own blog DryveTyme Onlyne which has daily content in various forms and has also recently started doing some coverage for the Houston Press as part of Chris Gray’s master plan. Also plays in Prairie Cadets with Marc Brubaker. Witness Adam’s weekly feature, Media Monday, where he offers up free music and video from the web.

Jeremy Hart, Space City Rock
Editor of Space City Rock which constantly amazes me with its unbelievably prolific posting schedule. SCR is also the best place to find a comprehensive readout of the shows going on in Houston every. week. Revelry Report still uses the show calendar for our weekely music events calendar. Jeremy is also an ex-KTRU dj which means he’s got a well steeped diverse musical background. See what I mean with Jeremy’s discussion of the Daniel Higgs show on February 5th.

Marc Brubaker, Houstonist
Carrying the torch for the Houstonist’s coverage of the local music scene. Has started something that has been needed for a very long time: a weekly news recap of things that happened in the local music community (the only other place I’ve seen a daily/weekly recap of local news is with Houston Press’ new feature: Magnolia City Mixtape, brought to you by Brittanie Shey). Marc also curates Xnihilo Gallery, shoots live shows and events for a smattering of local papers and publications, and plays in Prairie Cadets with Adam Newton. Take a quick look-see at Marc’s H-Town Rock and his regular news recap Rock Talk.

Andrew Dansby, Houston Chronicle, 29-95
Houston Chronicle and 29-95.com music writer. Did his time at Rolling Stone so you know he’s legit. Still mostly covers nationally recognized acts but has been able to focus a little more on local artists thanks to a crack team of people who continually send him music, hard working Houston bands who have started to write local press about their work and the hyper local focus of 29-95.com. Here’s a story from 2009 about the Wild Mocassins as they pr epared to leave for their first tour.

Note: Some of these people are repeats from the 2008 post, some of these are new entrants to the field. Last time I compiled this list, I caught some shit for not including some people DESPITE mentioning that if there was anyone missing, drop me a line and I will add them. I cannot be in all places at all times. If I don’t know about you and your writing, I want to. Drop me a line at mwettergreen@gmail.com so I can add you to this post and start reading your work.

Houston’s Local Music Press 2010, Part One

matthew — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:00:43 +0000

This is Part one in a two part series listing Houston’s music press.

Back in 2008 when I first listed Houston’s music writers my point was that anyone who has more than a casual relationship with music should know who their local music writers are. These are the people on the ground grinding to make sure music in your community is covered, from the stadium shows down to the fledgling bands just picking up an instrument. The list was both a love letter to these writer’s work and a required reading list for those inside the community. People on the support, management and service side should be paying close attention to what gets covered because these writers provide a barometer for the vibrancy and success of the local scene. More importantly though is that bands need to realize that local success includes an intimate understanding of the landscape that they inhabit. And that means that these bands should be even more invested, knowing which writers to contact and when, based on their coverage, area of interest, and lead time.

That last part’s not happening.

Over the past couple years, I’ve heard two different viewpoints explaining the situation, one from music writers and one from bands. The music writer viewpoint is

“I’d love to be listening to more local acts and writing about more local acts. But, local bands aren’t sending me cds, giving me updates on their recording, forwarding press releases or really contacting me to tell me anything about what they’re doing.”

This viewpoint was punctuated strongly by Houston Press music writer Craig Hlavaty on Sunday when he stood up at Bandcampus: BOOKING PARTY and said something to the effect of:

“Bands: PLEASE send me your cds, music, information about shows and what you’re doing. I would LOVE to cover you but you don’t write us about what’s going on.”

The second viewpoint is the band’s viewpoint:

“I’d love to get written up in local press more // Why aren’t we getting written up in local press // I don’t know how to get written up in local press”

For bands, the question of who to contact and how to contact them has a simple answer. The how is: if you’re doing something that you think the music press should be talking about, write them. The who is: listed below.

This year carries an additional homework assignment: write these musicians and tell them what you’re doing with your music. If Houston music writers start complaining to that there are too many bands writing them because of this, then we’ll all high five each other and mark our calendars to remember the date.

Here’s the first half of your local music press (in random order thanks to random.org):

Jim “Eggs” Bricker: Breakfast on Tour
Jim and his crew are serious music fans. They started writing Breakfast On Tour as a creative outlet for the staggering number of shows they were attending and as a way to “encourage more people to experience the joys of live music events.” The blog covers mostly live shows and the culture surrounding live shows. Check out Eggs’ last entry from his tour diary with The Sour Notes.

Ramon Medina: 29-95, Free Press Houston
Writes for 29-95.com, Free Press Houston and founded NonAlignment Pact (a really insightful group blog about music you might want to check out). Ramon and his wife Rosa Guerrero are caring fixtures on the music scene and inspire many bands to keep on trucking. Check out a recent post from his two writing spots.

Dan Joyce/Keaton Branch: AudioADD
These young upstarts launched AudioADD about a year ago and have been doing a great job covering the cult of the music addict. Appropriate from two guys who feel the same way about Apple. You can also listen to Keaton with his band The Figure Eight. Check out this post from AudioADD’s 12 Days of Christmas series: In Rainbows.

Anna Garza: Free Press Houston
Anna Garza is about to have the “best year ever.” She recently founded Girls Rock Camp, a non-profit that works to empower women through musical education and performance art. Earlier in the decade she booked shows for Hands Up Houston which gives her intimate knowledge of the Houston music community and makes it pretty easy for her to bang out post after post on Free Press Houston about art, the city, and local music acts. Take a look at her post about Sound + Movement.

Sara Cress: 29-95
Sara’s been writing about the Houston Music Community and its culture for several years now. She’s made the jump from the Houston Chronicle to 29-95 where she gets to have a bit more fun with her posts especially with list titles like “My Redneck Past”. Check out the cheeky side here and the more straight ahead reporting as published in the Houston Chronicle.

Chris Gray: Houston Press
Music Editor for the Houston Press. Writes several weekly pieces for the print version and also writes the Rocks Off blog. Chris Gray has a master plan to cover the depth and the breadth of Houston music that he’s been enacting over the past year plus. You can see his success by taking a look at the diversity of posts on the Houston Press website and the volume of daily writing coming out of that staff. It really portrays the music community as it deserves to be covered. A demonstration of his musical knowledge can be seen in his recent post about Lightning Hopkins receiving a Historical Marker.

Brittanie Shey: 29-95, Houston Press
Brittanie’s a freelance writer that has amassed an incredible number of accolades as a journalist in a very short time, covering everthing from food to travel to women’s issues. She is extremely literate but has a conversational style that makes reading a concert review seem like you’re hearing it from one of your friends. It also makes you wish you were there. Or that you performed better. ouch! Check out how she couldn’t stop running into Ralf Armin of Dead Roses the weekend of the last Free Press Houston Block Party.

Lance Scott Walker: 002 Magazine
Lives in New York. This fact doesn’t matter if you know that Lance Scott Walker is born and bred Texan. His book with photographer Peter Beste about Houston’s hustlers and rappers is set to be out this year. Lance is reportedly “still paying off” Ojet Records, a little Houston label he had in the beginning of the century. Check out his monthly pieces on local musicians in the back pages of 002 Magazine.

Jeff Balke, Houston Chronicle
Writes Broken Record, a blog about the music industry from the perspective of a performing artist. He also plays in Orange Is In, which according to this tweet, is getting back together! If you are a band trying out a new business model in your career, you could write Jeff and tell him about it. Here’s his analysis of NIN continuing to reinvent their business model.

Stay tuned for the second half of Houston’s local music press tomorrow.

Innovation Driving Ideas for 2010

matthew — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 05:46:03 +0000

The end of 2009 saw reflective lists from everyone who could get up the energy to dredge their memories and diaries. I’d like to offer a different list, a wishlist for 2010, or a to-do list for the decade if you can’t get to it this year. I contributed to a similar list focused solely on the Houston Music Community that was recently published in the Houston Press (One to Grow On). The list you’re about to read is a different one though, more broad and addressing city-wide issues. These items are aimed at improving the quality of life, reducing the friction of doing business, increasing innovation and harnessing the talent in a city or region. These are based on my perspective of Houston but could be widely applied.

1. The formation of more Communities of Practice.

Communities of Practice are groups of people who share similar interests, industries, or professions. Meeting with others experiencing similar challenges allows the sharing of information and experiences between the group that the members can learn from to improve themselves personally and professionally. Communities of Practice are also great places to discuss standards of excellence. Examples of Communities of Practice that exist are: Meetup Groups, Startup Houston Happy Hours, Fresh Arts and Spacetaker‘s Arts Leadership Forums, Netsquared, Bandcampus, AIGA, Coworking spaces, Hackerspaces, Barcamps.

When I say I’d like to see more Communities of Practice I mean new Communities of Practice that are focused on improving themselves. Example: coffee shops discussing their businesses and how to deal with the economy and the influx of customers camping out all day. Music venues discussing the state of the music economy and how they can use their role in the music community to help drive band’s careers and increased fan attendance. Music writers meeting to pick up on the newest bands or help new writers build their career. Marketing Directors sitting down to review their plans with each other and provide guidance.

If you are not a member of a Community of Practice, form or join one. Go out in a social setting to meet everybody and begin the information and knowledge sharing.

2. The conversion of the passive to the active in existing communities of practice and community based events.

If you are already a member of a Community of Practice and your monthly meetings focus solely on socializing and having drinks, stop. Start planning situations where you can build the same camaraderie but accomplish something. Examples: Hackathons, Green Dev House, Dr. Sketchy, Startup Weekend, goal-oriented Barcamps, etc. Start taking advantage of peer-to-peer learning, just in time learning and other cases where learning and doing can be matched together, with beer if desired.

3. Greater communication between existing communities of practice towards the development of standards of excellence.

Your Community of Practice should not just get together to have a beer but take a proactive role in leading the economy in your industry. You owe it to your peers to tell them if they’re doing something that makes your profession look bad. Your peers owe it to you to share information which could help all of you streamline your process or be more successful as an industry. Ask yourselves, “What can we be doing better?” “How are we all failing to serve our customers needs?” “What do we need to educate ourselves in?” Examples: Music venues setting unofficial non-compete regulations between each other because the musicians are unable to hold each other to them. Experienced bloggers taking a novice under their wing and teach them the ropes. Information sharing between local businesses in similar industries to determine pricing structures that promote standards of business w/o turning into price fixing or collusion.

4. Increased support for startup culture.

We are a creative culture and entrepreneurship and social activists are driving innovation in our cities. We owe it to them not to hinder their progress and to champion their efforts. This message works anywhere but the ideas are tailored for Houston. In Houston, increased support for startup culture could mean many things. First, I’d love to see the expansion and increased visibility of Startup Houston (who are doing a great job already) as the definitive source for news relating to the startup culture. There is a culture and a market that is not being fully served by the Houston Business Journal or the Houston Chronicle. One site doing it right for their city is Technically Philly. They regularly report on the issues that relate to local startups and users of technology, have a fairly comprehensive startup/technology-issue-related calendar and have membership options to support the site and its contributors. A regular [and frequent] section in the Houston Chronicle or Houston Press that covers startup culture and focuses on local startups is another idea that would go a long way towards shedding some much needed light on the incredible talent of Houston entrepreneurs.

I’d love to start a dialogue about this. What other Communities of Practice do you think are doing it right?

2009′s State of the Houston Music Scene – An Outsider’s View

matthew — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:32:37 +0000

Yesterday’s post provided a reality check for the Houston music community over the course of the past year. The post highlighted the great successes the community had experienced from club openings to artist signings to the positive effects of touring. This perspective was provided from someone knowing the trials and tribulations of each of these venues, musicians and members of the community.

Today’s post provides a different perspective, that of an outsider to the Houston music community. As an emigrant of Chicago with strong ties to the Chicago music community, I continue to regularly interact with members of Chicago media and artists and regularly poll them to gain an idea of their thoughts on the Houston music community. The results are interesting. Keep in mind, this is not me taking a pessimistic view of the last year in Houston music, merely taking an argumentative stance of someone completely uninitiated to the wealth of talent and the difficulty in becoming a successful band.

The State of the Houston Music Scene – An Outsider’s View

Viewing the Houston music community from an outsiders standpoint, the Houston music community continues to underperform and do nothing to make itself visible to the national music consciousness. Few bands, if any, are seen outside of Texas, certainly not touring as far north as Chicago (NOTE: Indian Jewelry tours the nation regularly).

Using national music conference showings as a metric of talent, Houston’s music community significantly decreased in quality from 2008. This is nowhere most apparent than in the SXSW showcases awarded to Houston artists. Less Houston artists played SXSW compared to 2008, due in large part to the departure of a huge champion of the music community, Matt Sonzala, who left for Austin to actually work for SXSW. Across ALL genres, out of Texas cities (Austin, San Antonio, Dallas), AND of the top ten most populous cities in the nation, Houston had the largest percentage drop in showcasing acts, 66% less showcases than 2008 (Numbers taken from actual showcase numbers 2005-2009, written up in this post about SXSW numbers: http://matthewwettergreen.com/2009/02/21/sxsw-music-2009-by-the-numbers-pt-1/). The genre hardest hit by this drop was Hip Hop, demonstrating the actual strength of Matt Sonzala to prop up the Houston music community. In polling Houston bands about SXSW, many of them elected not to submit to the festival at all, feeling that it either was unimportant or that they wouldn’t be selected because they did identify with Houston as a hometown. Bands that were interested in playing took it in their own hands, contacting promoters and played at the unofficial parties, making personal connections but not showing up anywhere in official documentation.

Houston continues to NOT be noticed by national press (NOTE: Houston band listenlisten was recently mentioned in Rolling Stone’s online hype monitor blog). Members of the Chicago music community have no idea what is going on in Houston. No recognizable albums are being sent to national blogs, radio stations or media outlets. This all sums up to personal contacts in the Chicago music community and abroad asking

“What’s going on down in Houston? We don’t hear anything about the music. Do they even have a music community?”

This is downright embarrassing and a personal point of ire when I travel up to Chicago and talk to national music reporters; of course we have a music community. One of the most fertile in the Nation.

So what can Houston’s music community do better? What are your thoughts? Stop by the blog over the weekend for a discussion of how the Houston Music Community can start practicing better habits to reverse this media blackout on Houston music.

2009′s State of the Houston Music Scene – An Insider’s View

matthew — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:51:26 +0000

A couple weeks ago, the music editor for the Houston Press, Chris Gray, asked me to answer some questions for an article about the State of the Houston Music Scene. Several other heroes of the local community were included resulting in a panel of incredible talent: Quinn Bishop of Cactus Music; Ramon “LP4″ Medina of Linus Pauling Quartet and writer for blog NonAlignment Pact, Free Press Houston and 29-95.com; Jagi Katial of Houston booking agency Pegstar (picking up Super Unison’s slack); “Eggs” of Houston music blog Breakfast on Tour and finally a personal hero of mine, Dan Workman, co-owner of Sugarhill Studios and board member for the Grammy‘s.

It was an honor to be included as someone who could comment on the state of the Houston music community alongside these tastemakers and leaders of the music community. The article was published in three parts, two on the Rocks Off Blog and one in the print version for Chris’ weekly editorial piece. You can read the posts in the below links.

Article 1: Inquiring Minds: “Eggs” of Houston Music Blog Breakfast on Tour

Article 2: Noise: Progress Report

Article 3: Inquiring Minds: Is Houston the new Austin?

Below are my unedited answers to the questions Chris asked of the panel, from an insider’s perspective of the Houston Music Community:
1. Do you think the local music scene is better or worse than last year? Why?
2. What aspects of the scene (promotion, touring, production, media, venues) are most improved?
3. What aspects could still use improvement?

Viewed as a contributing member of the Houston music community, the local scene is much stronger and much more productive than last year. Seems like everyone listened to Ryan Chavez of Super Unison when, at the first Bandcamp, he said “just start recording and releasing as many records as you can.” This is the “Year of the Album” in Houston with most of the heavy hitters dropping either an album or an EP. Two big scene championing comps came out this year, the first by Artstorm Records and the second culled from KTRU’s Live Sessions recorded by Ian Wells on the Local Show or the Revelry Report. There were also some surprises as well, including Ghost Mountain’s first album that seemingly came out of nowhere. Ghost Mountain later released a VHS album at the News on the March EP release last week, firmly cementing the Houston music community as the leaders for “dead tech” releases. No other music community I know of has released so many cassettes in one year.

This past year saw many more players getting onto the field. Mango’s was renovated and reopened as a viable location for droves of young kids to see their favorite bands continue to overplay their audience. Super Happy Fun Land is back in a new location, one much closer to a higher concentration of concert goers. Houston has two music festivals being held in 2009, the first being Texas Heat Festival and the second being the Free Press Houston’s Summer Fest. It’s not clear whether the heat contributed to the Texas Heat Festival’s lackluster attendance but Summer Fest should prove that Houston is a great market to hold a festival of that magnitude.

There are a couple more bands on the scene that are demonstrating the positive effects of leaving Houston for a bit. Wild Mocassins are a perfect example of getting it right from the start: put out an album, release it with a tour kickoff and go on a three week tour. Repeat. Something Fierce was signed while on a show in the Northwest by a rep who was told by Something Fierce fans that he needed to attend the show. B L A C K I E is talking to Vice Records because he went up to NYC and played a show.

As our girlfriends and wives begin to understand the importance of music for ambience, they’re asking for incorporation of more Houston music into the events they’re promoting or throwing. As a result more local acts are being featured in previously unheard (har har) locations. Due in part to Mark Austin, Little Bigs and Block7 Wine Co have expressed strong support for the Houston music community, holding listening parties and including local artists on their jukebox or house music.

4. In your eyes what makes our scene unique?

What continues to make our community unique is our bands almost complete disregard of national music trends. For better or for worse this allows us to innovate completely outside of the bounds of what’s hot, what’s not. It also makes Houston a great staging ground to incubate a band. Look at the dead tech releases this year or guerrilla shows, these things just aren’t going down with such regularity in most places. Here, it’s the standard.

5. Is Houston any closer to losing the Dallas/Austin chip on its shoulder?

As for the Dallas/Austin chip on the shoulder? Well, as a fertile ground for innovative bands trying out new sounds, release media and genres I think we only need like three more HTx bands to start touring regularly before people start asking “Woah. Where the fuck did Houston come from?” But as a city for concert goers we still have a long way to go before nationally touring bands begin playing here to larger crowds. There’s no short term fix for this unfortunately but some headway could be made by promoting outside the Montrose area, even promoting to cities outside of Houston and high schools.

What do you think? It’d be great to turn this into a running dialogue. Please comment below.

Check back tomorrow when I provide the Outsider’s Perspective to the Houston Music Community.

Bandcamp: SXSW PREP Recap

matthew — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 02:49:58 +0000

There was a time in my life when I quoted Fight Club religiously. Any remark could be deftly answered with a snarky remark from the movie, demonstrating my discontent with our capitalistic and materialistic society rewarding personality rather than character.

At that time I had an extreme amount of entitlement for my skills and what I was owed. When things went wrong I failed to look inward, instead, blame shifting or allowing this entitlement and a sense of animosity to blossom inside myself.

Now, not so angry, I attempt to keep an open mind in all situations and approach every situation as if I know nothing. I’ve found that learning is accelerated because my brain is set up to be a sponge rather than resisting or preparing to provide counterpoint at every step. People are more willing to help when they see an open nature and someone is interested in enrichment and personal growth.

Watching the flurry of activity at Sunday’s Bandcamp I couldn’t help but remember those days of watching Fight Club regularly. Looking at the cracks in the walls of Caroline Collective I was immediately transported to the Paper Street Soap Company where a crowd of Project Mayhem members were working towards something bigger. There was one big difference though; they were working to bring equality and success through destruction — we were working to build up and support each other through education, openness and a strong sense of community. And the entitlement and pretension characterised by some unsuccessful and angry bands wasn’t present, as each group was soaking up the information flying around the room like a sponge.

This particular day we were working towards building a digital toolbox for every artist at Bandcamp. This digital toolbox would help promote them online and make it easier for them to get discovered. We made sure that bands had a domain name (thanks to Jason Armstrong) and that it was forwarding to their current dominant outpost until they build a site. We got them a band email and a flickr and a youtube account (thanks Ned Dodington and Jeremy Osborn, Wayside Drive). We offered a photographer in case they needed a band photo that day (thanks Marc Brubaker). We had several PR and marketing reps (Patty, Chris Pitre) who could review their bio. We made sure they had an online location to store their music (box.net) to use to send to promoters at any point. We had people on hand to look over the copy and layout of their online presence and home bases, including their website and myspace, facebook, virb, reverbnation or other site (Grace Rodriguez, AYN Brand). We (thanks Ash, Music Heals) set them up on discovery sites of last.fm, deezer.com, lp33.tv, mp3.com, seeqpod.com, odeo.com and blip.fm, just a few of the many sites that can help a band be discovered on the web using only passive methods.

As I compared the activity from Paper Street Soap Company and Bandcamp: SXSW PREP I realized that each community had a greater sense of accomplishment and mission and each group worked fervently towards that common goal. But the difference was in the attitudes; you could witness the excitement and openness each band had to new ideas and setting up these systems. Infomation was volunteered and readily shared as idividual groups showed eachother what they had set up or explained how technology and an online presence had helped them in the past. At the end of the two hour session, everyone felt better about their band’s position online and everyone realized the potential of putting together their toolbox to help not only promote themselves but also EACH OTHER.

Most Bandcamps have ended with exhaustion, as the speakers give as much information about a particular topic as they can and the attendees’ heads fill with new ideas and new methods of promoting and running their careers. Something different happened this time as bands met each other and got excited about the prospects of showing themselves at SXSW. Not only did we not run over time but everyone was excited and energized at the end of the session. We selected the topic of April’s Bandcamp: COPYRIGHT and left for Coffee Groundz for post-Bandcamp discussion.

This Bandcamp was a reflection of the success of the event over the past several months. We are building something and it’s just as disruptive and passionate as Project Mayhem. The difference is that it’s not based in anger or entitlement; it’s based in hard work, education and dedication. The result will be a strong, united and educated Music Community that is self-sustained and self-supporting.

Check the twitter stream for Bandcamp: SXSW PREP by searching the hashtag: #bandcamph.

Thanks to @audioADD, @danjoyce and of course @dryvetyme for live tweeting the event.

Check out these bands on multiple digital outposts:

Bands in Attendance:

Artcamp Recap

matthew — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:09:22 +0000

On a blustery day in Houston on the last day of February members of the Houston Arts Community met for an open discussion about the state of the Houston Arts Community. We met earlier than most usually get up on a Saturday morning but aided by bagels provided by Sarah Gabbart of Sew Crafty we had the energy to tackle issues and challenges surrounding the Arts in Houston. People came and people left, we ate lunch donated by Les Givrals and before we knew it the end of the day had arrived. In the end we covered a range of topics surrounding promotion, resources, challenges and steps to look forward.

The Barcamp model provided a simple and manageable framework to run a community based discussion and forum for social change. Similar to Bandcamp, we shed the formal educational sessions in lieu of a community driven conversation. This ensured that all opinions and topics were covered and dealt with all topics in a comfortable and collegial atmosphere. Several issues continued to come up and while facets of these issues were discussed, we are clearly only at the beginning of this process:

There seems to be a need to share available resources in the arts community at all levels, from staging an independent show to running a successful gallery. As an independent artist new to Houston, Jen Mathis mentioned that it is daunting to know where to start to stage a show or which organization to contact. Nancy Zastudil of the Mitchell Center for the Arts pointed out that Skydive studio, one of the newest in Houston, is a great model for an artist run gallery and has begun to run weekly classes on Saturdays entitled Saturday Free School of the Arts (SFSA).

Bringing Awareness about the Houston Arts Community
Addressing what seems to be a systemic identity issue, the fertility of Houston Arts is known outside of Houston but internally greater awareness is needed. In the afternoon session, Rainey Knudson of Glasstire discussed the formation of the online magazine and her attempts to bring awareness of the Houston arts community internally and nationally. It seems that, while engagement exists, on the whole, awareness and education is lacking.

Dichotomy between Underground and Overground
Sean Morrissey Carroll provided perspective on some of his favorite shows over the past 10 years, all underground. Many were staged as guerrilla shows among friends, held at alternate venues an included such ridiculousness as pyramids of jello shots. He commented on the difference between the underground and the overground in terms of methods of promotion, inclusion of artists and desired attendance for success.

It seems that the guerrilla shows are staged to cut through the noise but also as a way to show art without pretense or rigid guidelines. There is a cycle that exists where the people staging these shows put on so many successful shows that they eventually gain the respect of the establishment, who then adopts them into the fold. Without the need to be innovative in staging and promotion, these people become the establishment and a new breed of guerrilla artists stage shows and the cycle repeats. The group agreed that it would make sense to harness the power of this arts cycle, bringing the underground and the overground together for resource sharing and documenting our rich arts community.

The best ideas that came out of the day are the following:

Houston arts wiki to share best practices and provide a living document
City-wide art fair
Aggregated list of events and city map

Houston Arts Wiki
David Herrold of the Houston Chronicle, joining us on UstreamTV put forth the idea for a Houston Arts Wiki (not myself, as incorrectly stated by Sean Morrissey Carroll in his recap). This wiki could serve as a community curated list of resources, artists and history of the Houston Arts Community. It could function as a living document of the city’s arts scene and will be a valuable resource for people to use for learning or what already exists or what could exist. Already showing success in providing a living document of a community, the Houston Scene Wiki off of now defunct Skyline Network has provided valuable information for the Houston Music Community. We are looking for a site that is unafilliated to host this wiki and have thought of purchasing houstonartswiki.com

City-Wide Art Fair
Grace Rodriguez had an idea for a city-wide art fair. Nancy Zastudil chimed in that Chicago has such a fair every year. The idea was to get every arts organization and gallery into a large open space, give them tables and showcase everything that Houston has to offer in the arts community. While this is a large undertaking we feel that this could be one way to showcase the arts in Houston.

Aggregated List and map of Venues and Events
Elliot Cole of Caroline Collective mentioned that his mother runs an aggregated blog of events happening in Austin. While the process that she uses is labor intensive it would be great to create something that would allow all events to be pulled in and seen by Houston members. As Marc Nathan said “You want to build the castle and then hand the keys to the community.”

Closing and What’s Next
The best recap of the day was provided by Houston’s contrarian art representative: Sean Morrissey Carroll.
Grace Rodriguez recorded the entire day, thanks to UstreamTV. Morning Session is here and Afternon Session is here.
You can check the #artcamph twitter stream for a running commentary of the day.

Going into the event one of our goals was to work towards developing a sustainable system for improving the arts in Houston. This meeting was a huge step but only the first towards open lines of communication along the vertical hierarchy. Regular events of this type that will allow the community as a whole to arrive at a fully informed picture of the challenges and unique situations that we face in the Houston Arts Community.

Looking forward, we covered some challenges and came up with some solutions but this was only the beginning of the discussion. While two great ideas came out of Artcamp’s session, there are many more that this community could develop. It is our job as leaders in the community to discuss and listen to the community’s needs and direction for the Houston arts community for the goal of raising awareness for the Houston arts community, as well as making people in Houston proud of the art that they have in their city.

What do you think are the unique challenges that exist in Houston Arts?

What do you think some solutions are?

Join the Houston Arts Community at ArtCamp

matthew — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:17:33 +0000

In October of 2008 Caroline Collective hosted the first Bandcamp. The event was a full afternoon of education and community discussion surrounding the challenges and successes of the local music community. Through a several hour townhall discussion, community members were able to voice their concerns, ideas and success stories in the Houston Music Community. Fast forward several months and Bandcamp is a regular monthly event addressing the facets of career development that bands need to be successful as well as providing continued resources for local artists.

As a community based education model, Bandcamp has been a resounding success. Sessions are led by experts in the particular topic but the open discussion format results in information sharing about some of the best practices and experiences other artists have learned from. Bandcamp organizers have also recently begun to offer one-on-one consultation sessions with bands looking for extra guidance. Regular attendees have reported that Bandcamp has resulted in more gigs, better online presence and a new and richer relationships with members of the Houston Music Community.

Bandcamp’s success is a demonstration of the power of community based education models and what can result from open forums for discussion and idea sharing that ultimately create opportunities for individuals and groups to be more successful. The best part about these models is that they can work for any genre or specialization. For that reason we’ve decided to hold a similar event but this time focused on the Houston Arts Community.

Join us this Saturday, February 28th for ArtCamp. Artcamp is an informal, community-based event to discuss the state of the arts in Houston and develop an informed strategy on how we can collectively support our arts community. The format is open and decided upon by those in attendance but we have several goals that we will achieve through open discussion and peer-to-peer educational sessions:

Inform participants of available resources online and offline
Share best practices among organizations, including audience development, fundraising, board and volunteer recruitment, and online outreach
Share best practices among artists, such as developing their careers, promoting themselves and their work, obtaining gallery representation, and building an online presence

The schedule for the day will include educational sessions and a townhall discussion section just like at Bandcamp. Through this discussion we hope to determine the difficulties that local artists and members of the art community experience, the common solutions to problems, and voice concerns, comments and suggestions for improvement. The final session of the day will be a focused townhall discussion proposing sustainable solutions to educate and deliver resources to members of the community to ensure the improved success and continued communication at all levels.

Check out this great quote about ArtCamp from co-organizer Grace Rodriguez of AYN Brand:

The trigger for this event was Wayne Dolcefino’s scathing editorial (disguised as an investigative report) that derided funding for the arts in Houston. Members and supporters of our arts community were appalled at the lack of factual context and objectivity in his broadcast; and were disappointed that private objection to Dolcefino’s “reports” were not reflected in a unified voice, publicly. Several of us recognized that we need to facilitate better communication and improve relationships among the various arts organizations, stakeholders, and supporters to strengthen our community, so that we could disseminate information and correct misunderstandings more quickly in the future.

We hope to bring the general public and arts supporters together with those directly involved in the arts community to discuss the state of the arts in Houston, share best practices, and develop strategies on how we can *collectively* support and contribute to our arts community. Basically, we want everyone who “hearts” art to get to know each other and figure out how we can best vitalize and support our cultural community.

The signup and event listing is here: http://barcamp.org/ArtCampHouston

For more information, please contact Matthew Wettergreen at mwettergreen@gmail.com or Grace Rodriguez at grace@aynbrand.com.