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:

Peekaboo Theory

Southern Backtones

Runaway Sun

Kenneth Scott

The Snake Charmers

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.

• Grace Rodriguez
• Natalie Osborn
• Jeremy Osborn
• Joe Stone
• Meghan Hendley

Bands in Attendance

• Nosaprise
• I-45
• Golden Cities
• Vocal Polluter
• Alkari
• Espantapajaros
• Live Lights
• Darwin’s Finches
• Wayside Drive
• Inner Lights
• Peekaboo Theory
• Snake Charmers
• Prairie Cadets
• Joe Stone
• Solanae
• Insert Name Here

The last 60 hours have been a fog of sleeping, coughing, delirium, speaking in tongues, and changing out of soaked clothes because I sweat the bed again. Gross. The flu quarantine should be lifted by Saturday and the locks taken off the apartment doors at that time.

My apologies to bands who were looking for voting information yesterday. We will now close nominations and open voting for bands to play at Houston@SXSW on March 15th, 2010. Voting is open as of now and will close on Sunday, February 28th at noon. Please pick three bands to play, one voting session per person, per IP, just in case you were already thinking of gaming the results.

Please send this poll along to any of your fans, the link is: http://micropoll.com/t/KDrkEZBCok

There are still many very good reasons to attend SXSW and there are even more unexplored ways to maximize your impact at the conference. The fact that the conference is so close to Houston makes it worth your while to attend even without a badge or wristband. Many industry professionals are in Austin during the week of music and the setting provides a good opportunity to contact and meet them to talk about your career. Label, booking and promotional companies also attend and fruitful research can be accomplished by sitting down with them for meetings. Additionally, with the rise of non-SXSW-sanctioned parties running virtually around the clock, the need to play a SXSW showcase is significantly less important than it was several years ago.

In personal communication with bands over the past couple years I’ve talked about how important it is to take control of your career and do game changing things to get noticed and build your audience. As a band working for itself, SXSW is the perfect staging grounds for this philosophy and the best way to accomplish this is to cut through the noise.

Don’ts:

• Don’t play 9 shows in 4 days; those last shows are going to be low on energy and probably not represent your band in the way you wish to portray yourselves.
• Don’t try and play the hottest party at SXSW; you probably don’t know what it is and if you did you’d already have representation working for you.
• Don’t expect to be discovered at SXSW and have everything handed to you from now on

Do’s:

• Look at what everyone else is doing and take a right turn from that
• Do play (at least) one show that will have the desired impact to get you noticed by any potential fans, not just that talent scout: a guerrilla show in the middle of the street, on the back of a flatbed truck while driving around, play your music blasting from a boombox while walking down the street, hang shirts of your band just out of reach on telephone poles near the convention
• Do your research beforehand to target the people you want to work with, write them beforehand, and get a committment to meet with them to talk
• Do attend Bandcampus: SXSW PREP at Caroline Collective on February 28th from 2-4pm to make plans to attack SXSW and get your digital and physical toolbox in order

That last part is key. This Sunday at Caroline Collective we will be holding the latest installment of Bandcampus, entitled SXSW PREP. Similar to last year, this will be a workshop pairing volunteers with musical artists working to get prepared for SXSW with the following goals:

1. Prepare press materials and basic online presence items for bands interested in attending SXSW.
Any band playing in Austin during SXSW needs to be prepared to promote themselves given the chance. Playing a show is just the start of that promotion. Artists need a press kit, songs hosted online, video posted online, booking and contact information somewhere as well as physical cds to sell to interested parties or to give to record labels or booking agents. Many bands are unprepared for this situation and are lacking many of these items. By providing musicians with creative experts bands can receive focused attention to generate or upload these items to a location on the internet that raises the artists’ visibility.

2. Announce the bands that will be playing at Houston@SXSW, a Houston focused party showcasing Houston musicians, filmmakers and technologists.
This year we will be holding the second Houston@SXSW party. Last year’s party, held at Gruv, sponsored by Kirtsy, Werkadoo, Schipul, AYNBrand, and Caroline Collective , was a locally focused party showcasing Houston talent in three areas: technology, film and music. The following artists showcased: Dave Wrangler, Western Civilization, Wayside Drive, Ben Wesley, Espantapajaros, Golden Cities, Liquid Kitchen, Tha Fucking Transmissions, American Sharks, Something Fierce, and Fat Tony / B L A C K I E.

This year’s party will again focus on the contributions of Houston’s creative professionals. Startups will present, films will be shown and musical artists will showcase. This year’s party will be held at Hudson’s (301 W. 5th), Monday, March 15th from 5pm-2am. Last year’s music was curated by myself selected from the bands who attended Bandcampus: SXSW PREP. This year’s showcasing bands will be selected by the community. That means you. And your community.

Pay attention because we are going to do this very quickly. Nominations are open as of now and will close on Thursday, February 25th at noon. If you are in a band, know a band or like a band, DO THIS NOW: nominate them in the comment section below.

Starting Thursday at noon, voting will open for all bands who were nominated. Voting details, site and rules will be given on Wednesday. Voting will close on Sunday, February 28th at noon. Bands who are selected to play the party will be announced at Sunday’s Bandcampus: SXSW PREP.

Sunday’s Bandcampus: SXSW PREP is for 1) Houston musicians attending SXSW as official selections, 2) Houston musicians interested in playing at the  Houston focused day party, 3) Bands looking to get their physical/online toolbox and online presence set up or checked by industry professionals, and 4) industry professionals looking to donate a couple hours to help bands generate/solidify these materials.

We need skilled graphic designers, web developers, copywriters, PR reps or any other creative professional which would be able to donate time and services for a couple hours to help bands prepare their online presence and press materials for SXSW.

WHAT: Bandcamp: SXSW PREP
WHEN: February 28th, 2-4pm
WHERE: Caroline Collective, 4820 Caroline Houston, TX
WHY: Prepare for SXSW, find out who’s playing Houston@SXSW; a free showcase of Houston creative professionals

SXSW is now over for this year, all that’s left is that hope that you learned something and came back with new ideas and contacts. We recognize that the summation of each individual experience totals to a wealth of knowledge for the community. In an attempt to share that knowledge and capitalize upon that creative energy, this Bandcamp: SXSW AUTOPSY will be a discussion of the results of SXSW. We’re interested to hear your activities, the successes, failures, new ideas, people to look out for, tips and any tricks to share with your community. The result of this Bandcamp should be a document of new ideas and new concepts for everyone to ponder, execute or employ to maximize your exposure over the course of this year.

Even if your band didn’t hit SXSW, attend this Bandcamp to learn some new ideas that would work anywhere, not just at SXSW. If you’re not in a band but you like Houston community, attend this Bandcamp to hear about the successes from your local musicians. The best part about this Bandcamp is that it will be run by YOU as Matthew Wettergreen will be speaking at a conference the exact time as Bandcamp except in Chicago. Grace Rodriguez of AYN Brand and Ned Dodington of Caroline Collective will be on hand to facilitate but the knowledge and sharing should come from YOU the bands.

Did you know that Bandcamp has now been running for 6 months? We think this meeting would be a good time to let us know what is and is not working for you or what you’d like to see from Bandcamp in the future. If you’d like to let us know privately: mwettergreen@gmail.com.

WHAT: Bandcamp: SXSW AUTOPSY

WHEN: April 5th, 2009 1-3pm

WHERE: Caroline Collective, 4820 Caroline Houston TX

Please note that the originally scheduled Bandcamp: COPYRIGHT will be rescheduled for May 3rd so that Joe Stallone of Bracewell and Giuliani and Grounded in Music may teach the session.

About Bandcamp

Regular BandCamp sessions are held on the First Sunday of every month at Caroline Collective sometime in between the hours of 1pm and 5pm. Please mark your calendar accordingly for future events where the community education model teaches specific skills to musical artists such as, online/offline promotion, tour booking, financials, and recording. Please speak about this event to your colleagues, band members and other interested members of the Houston Music Community.

Houston’s Focus on Regionalism
I strongly believe that regionalism is a viable path to greater success for groups and communities. This is reflected in the wealth of Houston-specific programs occurring over the course of the Festival:

• Houston Film Commission is cohosting a Film Texas Happy Hour Saturday March 14th at Iron Cactus (6th Street@Trinity) from 4P-6P. Registration is closed but show up and see what’s what
• Kirtsy and Alltop’s Girl/Guy Party hosted by Alltop & Kirtsy at Allen’s Boots from 5P – 9P. Look out for girls handing out red bandannas, those are the VIP badges
• Houston @ SXSW, on March 17 at GRUV (101 W 5th St) to showcase, support and promote Houston and its vibrant Film, Interactive, and Music communities, and make sure Houston innovators and talent aren’t overlooked by the numerous influencers and tastemakers at SXSW. See films curated by Michelle Mower of SWAMP, meet tech companies curated by Marc Nathan of Houston Technology Center and see Houston musicians curated by myself. This party is completely free, please register at the Amiando page here. This party is graciously sponsored by Kirtsy, Schipul, Werkadoo and AYN Brand.
  
• IndieHouston.org Day party on March 20th featuring free beer and 17 or so Houston bands. Event information is here, remember to register at http://colab.org. Caroline Collective is a cosponsor of this event.
  

Coworking and Whuffie
Last year at SXSW I had the opportunity to learn from some of the leaders in the field of coworking. Those interactions framed my year and contributed to my individual and our collective success. This year I’m looking to share what Ned and I have learned and in turn inspire others to successfully open their own coworking spaces. Join us tonight at the Coworking Meetup at Hotel San Jose (1316 S. Congress) from 7:30P til whenever.

One of my coworking mentors, Alex Hillman, of Indy Hall will be leading a core conversation on Saturday at 11:30AM entitled “Working Alone Sucks: Join the Coworking Revolution.”

Start off your Sunday by catching Tara Hunt‘s Keynote “Making Whuffie: Raising Social Capital in Online Communities” at 11:30AM.

Later on Sunday at 3:30pm join us for the panel “Regional Whuffie Building: Attracting Innovation to Your City” where Tony Bacigalupo (New Work City), Geoff DiMasi (P’unk Avenue, Independents Hall), Susan Evans (Office Nomads), Julie Duryea (Souk) and I will be talking about creating a spirit of entrepreneurship and inspiring a regional sense of innovation.

Music Related
As the week shifts from Interactive to Music, there are several events we’re participating in related to the Music portion of SXSW:

• Grace Rodriguez and myself are speaking on a panel at The Band Bootcamp on Wednesday, March 18th on “Why Your Fans Are Your Tickets To Success.” We’ll be talking about how to crowd-source management of your career employing fans as evangelists, booking agents, promoters, designers, microlenders and sources of inspiration.
• Saturday, March 21st, several Houston artists will be participating in guerrilla shows somewhere in downtown Austin. No details yet, you’ll have to pay attention to the twitters and the txts.

Coverage
Over the course of SXSW I’ll be blogging for Chicago Public Radio/WBEZ. Read the daily updates on WBEZ’s blog here and follow the coverage at the WBEZ Live twitter account @WBEZLive.

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.

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:

• Adam & Lena
• Benjamin Wesley
• B L A C K I E
• Davie Graves
• Days Drive
• Desmond Zavala
• Dizzy Pilot
• Espantapajaros
• Fat Tony
• Female Demand
• Giant Battle Monster
• Glasnost
• Golden Cities
• Insert Name Here
• Motion Turns It On
• Narreme
• Prairie Cadets
• Something Fierce
• Tambersauro
• Tax The Wolf
• The American Sharks
• The Bottom Four
• The Liquid Kitchen
• The Snake Charmers
• The Tontons
• The Western Civilization
• Wall With One Side
• Warblerpl
• Wayside Drive
• You (Genious)

Musicians come from all over the world to attend SXSW but most are from our home continent of North America. Looking at Figure 1, SXSW Showcases by Continent, you can see that North America has dominated SXSW over the past 5 years, greater than all other continents combined. Total showcases are down 6% this year (not shown in this graph) and from the graph we can see that this is due solely to the reduction in the number of showcases from North America. All remaining continents experienced an increase in number of music showcases at SXSW 2009. Looking at some of the more underrepresented continents, while Oceania and Asia show significantly lower numbers than Europe and North America, they have had a consistent presence at SXSW from 2005-2009. Additionally, it seems that SXSW is making an effort to incorporate a broader musical cornucopia because showcases from South America have increased every year; in fact, in 2009 there are more artists from South American than Australia. Finally, while Africa has been poorly represented at SXSW over the surveyed time the number of showcases in 2009 has more than doubled from 2008 numbers.

If artist showcases are only down for the North America, next we should look at which cities have been affected. First, let’s look at the 10 most populous US cities to answer this question. Those well versed in the musical communities of the United States will immediately comment that this type of analysis excludes valuable music communities like Seattle, Portland, Omaha and Athens. I agree. This data will be published in Part 2. Chew on this for now.

Figure 2 shows the number of showcases for the 10 most populous US cities. As expected, the number of showcases decreased in 2009 save for Phoenix and San Diego. San Diego based artist showcases increased by 2 in 2009, for a total of 15. Phoenix based artist showcases increased by 1 in 2009, for a total of 4. Los Angeles based artist showcases decreased by the lowest percentage, posting a 9% reduction in showcases from 2008 numbers. Houston based artists experienced the greatest percentage decrease in number of showcases, a 66% decrease from 2008 showcases, from 64 to 22. By numbers, New York based showcases reduced by the most, dropping from 263 showcases to 186 in 2009. As further illustration that population is not related to size or strength of a music community, San Jose, the tenth most populous US City has not had a showcase appearance from 2005-2009.

The significant drop in New York numbers might indicate that the US economy has had an effect on artists submitting or deciding to attend SXSW. Or it could mean that SXSW reduced the total number of available showcases. Without application data though we can’t arrive at a complete answer but we can use the available data to draw some conclusions. Let’s look at cities close to Austin to see if there was an effect of distance on number of showcases. In Figure 3, SXSW Showcases by Texas City, we see that every Texas city experienced a reduction in the number of showcases from 2008 to 2009. Austin had the largest reduction in number of showcases, 193 showcases in 2009 as compared to 239 showcases in 2008. Still, Austin showcases are almost an order of magnitude greater than the number of  any other large city’s showcases in Texas. Houston again has the largest percentage reduction, 66% less showcases than 2008. Dallas’ showcase numbers are erratic for the dates surveyed and San Antonio has always had low numbers of artist showcases.

In Figure 1 we saw that SXSW has included more showcases from previously underrepresented continents, it only makes sense that there would be a visible difference in the included genres. Over the past 5 years, SXSW Music has used 40 genre categories to classify artists. SXSW has shown consistent numbers in their standard genres of Alt Country, Avant/Experimental, Bluegrass, Blues, Country, DJ, Electronic, Hip Hop / Rap, Jazz, Latin Rock, Metal, Pop, Punk, R&B, Rock, Singer-Songwriter and World. In the past two years, additional genre categories have been added which feature non-traditional or previously underrepresented genres at SXSW. In 2008 genre categories Acoustic, Alternative, Americana, Celtic, Chantuese, Classical, Electronic/Dance, Folk, Funk, Latin, and Ska were added. In 2009 genres A Capella, Adult Contemporary, Cajun, Children’s Music, Jam Band, Soul and Tejano were added. Viewing specific genre categories explains the makeup of SXSW artists. There are greater than three times as many Rock acts as the next most popular categories of Pop, Singer/Songwriter, Hip Hop / Rap, Punk, and Avant/Experimental. The decline in popularity of certain genres at SXSW can be seen by looking at the steady decline of Alt Country and Bluegrass who have 35% and 70% less showcases, respectively, from 2005 numbers.

In Part 2, more US cities will be looked at to localize the largest decreases in showcases. For now, what are your impressions of all of this data? Are there any conclusions that should be included that were missed?

Please comment…

Methodology
Genre and Geography were surveyed for SXSW’s musical showcases from 2005-2009. This information was taken from the archived data at http://200x.sxsw.com and the current http://sxsw.com/music. Attempts were made to reduce errors due to redundant data, missing genre or geography. Missing information was ignored from geography or genre specific data but was included in total number of showcases or genres. The designation of “showcases” was used instead of “artists.” Applications to SXSW are made for one showcase but each showcase may include multiple individual artists, specifically in the Hip Hop genre. In most cases however, “showcase” is synonymous with “artist” and for simplification of data analysis, “showcase” was used instead of artist. Possible source of error: 1. Missing geographical or genre specific data. 2. SXSW may add new artists up to the point of the conference itself, this could shift percentages one way or another but unlikely that gross conclusions would be shifted as a result.