Sarah's SXSW Music Blog

Real local coverage by real locals

By: Sarah Vasquez

Issue date: 3/2/09 Section: Life & Arts

Hi. I’m Sarah Vasquez and I’ve written for the Accent’s Life & Arts section for the past year. This is my fifth year attending South by Southwest Music Festival but this year I get to fully experience the festival with the help of the paper.

In the past, I attended all the free shows I could thanks to the direction of Austin Showlist (www.showlistaustin.com) and various festivals that occur during the week such as RedGorilla Music Fest and Texas Rock Fest. Because my website (www.somanybands.net) mainly features unsigned/underground bands, these free shows were great places to discover new talent to showcase on my site. I’ve met many friends through the years attending, some out of towners who have come back year after year to perform.

When the editors approached me to do a full coverage on the festival this year, I quickly jumped on it. Not only do I have the free shows to look forward to but also there are a lot of official showcases available for me to check out. Of course, when I started the sorting out process of all the bands South by Southwest had on their site, I began to feel overwhelmed and excited at the same time.

Every year, my game plan is to try to schedule as much diverse bands as I can but, every year, that never works out. See, the downside of free shows (not all of them) is that bands cancel, there’s miscommunication on what time a band is suppose to play, police shut down the party, there ends up being a “recommended donation” at the door, turns out you were supposed to RSVP to attend or I miscalculated the amount of time it takes me to get from a show on the Drag to 6th street so during those mishaps, I tend to walk around aimlessly until I hear something that grabs my attention.

Because there wasn’t enough time to sift through the massive list of bands performing, I am pretty sure some bands were overlooked because the one song provided on SXSW’s website isn’t enough to show what a band has to offer. I listed more than one show for one night. It's smart preparation to have backup plans in case there’s a really long line or the venue met its maximum capacity, etc.