At SXSW, chaos is music to the ears

By Greg Kot

There’s a mix of Hollywood glitz and scruffy upstarts at the festival.

AUSTIN, Texas — One of Peter Jenner’s favorite phrases is “monetize the chaos,” and it was heard several times over the last few days at the 22nd annual South by Southwest Music and Media Conference, which ended Sunday.

Jenner was Pink Floyd’s first manager, and Billy Bragg’s current one, and he’s figured out how to make a steady living in an industry not known for its steadiness.

In a sense, Jenner’s long and illustrious 40-year career is what most of the estimated 12,500 registrants at the conference covet.

If nothing else, the conference was a window into how drastically the music industry has changed in the era of music file-sharing and shrinking record-sale revenue. Record companies are no longer dominant.

In their place, a new power elite has arisen that includes music supervisors (who license songs for placement in ads, TV shows and movies) and booking agents (who line up the tours where bands make most of their money).

The Big 4 major labels were barely a presence at the year’s most prestigious music conference, but corporations with tenuous music connections were throwing money around with impunity.

File-sharing has led to a world in which “music is valued at zero,” said Jeremy Wineberg, a talent scout for Invisible DJ Records, “but it’s used to sell other products.” Wineberg participated in a panel devoted to the notion that artists need “more consumer touch points” than ever to have a career, which is corporate-speak for what used to be known in the punk community as “selling out.”

“When you work so hard and so long for free, it’s awfully hard to turn down big money from some stupid corporation,” Wineberg said.

While the Hollywood glitz factor has seeped into South by Southwest, there were still plenty of scruffy upstarts bent on changing the world with their music, if not their business plan. Independent labels such as Domino, Merge and Arts Crafts each showcased their bands; the early-evening crowd for the Domino showcase at Antone’s was so dense that even the label representatives couldn’t get into their own party, blocked by security personnel adhering to local fire codes.

The music was often worth the wait.

Los Campesinos, a coed septet from Wales, roared through a frantic set in the early hours of Sunday morning at the Parish; at times it seemed the only thing keeping the double- and triple-time tempos from splintering was the sublimely melodic violin-playing of the ultraserene Harriet (nobody in the band uses their last names).

Brooklyn’s Yeasayer adeptly filtered a cross-section of rhythms and textures from Europe, Africa and the Middle East through expansive arrangements that, in an earlier era, could’ve passed muster on a Yes album.

Dark Meat, a ramshackle collective from Athens, Ga., somehow managed to squeeze 18 people, including a horn section, onto the tiny stage at Vice, and played extended rave-ups with freakish abandon.

She and Him paired ace guitarist M. Ward with fledgling actress-turned-singer Zooey Deschanel on a series of soaring pop-soul torch songs.

Some of the biggest buzz surrounded Santogold, who delivered with a series of reggae-inflected dance grooves punctuated by her knack for big, singalong choruses.

The Ting Tings are a British duo that flips the White Stripes’ script: male drummer and female guitarist, who knocked out enthusiastic, cleanly played melodies with a minimum of fuss.

Best of all was the Israeli trio Monotonix, who shunned their stage setup to play most of their set in the middle of the 100 or so people fortunate enough to see them. The band ripped out a crude, distorted brand of hard rock derived from the MC5.

But the recordings don’t do them justice. By the end of their 40-minute set, the beer-soaked band was levitating, born aloft by dozens of grasping hands, the drummer still slamming away on a kick drum held by the audience. That’s the type of chaos that no one in their right mind would try to monetize.