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Music (and Film) Interview: Talking SXSW with NPR's Carrie Brownstein
Austinist: As someone who’s attended SXSW as both a musician and working for NPR, do you have tips for a first-time festivalgoer or a first time band?
Carrie Brownstein: [Laughs] I think if you’re a first time band, the trick is that you shouldn’t plan on seeing anything. You have to hope that you’re on a good bill and enjoy the venue and whatever is immediately in front of you. Because it’s like a tour stuffed into a tiny box, and it’s very, very hectic, but it’s really fun. Just it’s like a real sped up version of a tour. As a festivalgoer, I think you have a much better chance of enjoying yourself. You should bring water, band aids, and earplugs, and you should plan on not seeing the shows you want to see, and walking into the emptiest venue, which is often where you see something great and unexpected. I feel like it’s a very nomadic experience as a festivalgoer. There’s a lot of movement.
Yeah, and it doesn’t seem to compare even to CMJ. There’s nothing else that we’ve seen, that’s like this in any way.
Yeah, it’s just these large hordes of nomadic people drifting in and out of venues, and it gets hotter and smellier and drunker as the day goes on. I think it’s…... really kind of humid, strangely sensual experience. I don’t mean sexual, I really just mean it’s this very sensual… It’s just steamy and weird, but I love it. It’s probably my favorite festival.
So, in your guise as commentator and blogger for NPR… NPR always puts on a big show at Stubb's with some more established names, and then a smaller one at The Parish Room with some up-and-comers. Are you involved with the programming of those bills at all?
I am. There’s a group of us at NPR Music that start to hold meetings and send ideas back and forth a couple months in advance of the festival. We look for band availability; first and foremost, who’s going to be there or who could be convinced to come there, and try to put together an interesting bill. I think that all of us have personal favorites who never make it on there, and there’s a lot of compromise and discussion but for the most part, I’m involved as much as I can be with my remote location away from Washington, DC.
I think a lot of people don’t understand, just the logistics involved. That it’s not just if you like them and if they want to do it, but when is their flight and what do they have that night? There’s so many things that make it complicated to book any sort of a show at South By.
Yeah. Unlike other single tours, or another festival, bands are playing two, sometimes three shows a day. So it takes a lot of luck, and then just a lot of negotiation to put a bill together that doesn’t emulate someone else’s bill, because you get a lot of bands that just sort of inadvertently get paired up over and over again. You try to put something together that’s a unique combination of bands.
Speaking of you suggesting bands, we read an article from you a couple of years ago on your blog praising Brazil's Garotas Suecas, and consequentially booked them for our Austinist day show last year...and absolutely loved them. Do you have a few things that you’re going to try and see in the midst of all of your obligations here next week?
Certainly. There’s a label out of Chicago called HoZac Records that I’m really excited about right now. They put out The Smith Westerns, which is probably their biggest band right now, even though it’s still very much an underground label and an underground band. But they put out a lot of rock and punk and garage and it’s all very unpolished and gritty, but just teaming with really wonderful melodies underneath all the fuzzed out guitars and brattiness. And they have a showcase I’m definitely planning on going to, and they have a bunch of bands like Wizzard Sleeve and Mickey and The Girls at Dawn, all of whom I’m really excited to see at their showcase or around the festival. There’s a band from Portland that I’ve loved for the last decade called Quasi who have an amazing new record out called American Gong, who will be playing the Kill Rock Stars showcase and the TapeOp showcase, and I believe the Billions showcase. There’s so many young bands at South By Southwest and sometimes it’s nice to see a little bit of a veteran band like Quasi that can really show other people how it’s done - they put on a really amazing live show. So I’m excited for them. There's also a local, I think, Austin band called Yellow Fever who I’m excited to see, and a band out of the UK called Wet Dog. So yeah, I’m going to be drinking a lot of Red Bull and coffee and just fluttering around from venue to venue. I think everybody overestimates what they can see at South By Southwest, and I do that too, but I just basically count on not getting a lot of sleep and resting when I get home.
I wanted to switch gears for a second because I primarily think of you as a guitar player and as an NPR correspondent. But you have a feature role in a film at South By Southwest this year that’s premiering on Sunday.
I do, yes. I’m going into that too.
Could you tell us a little bit more about that?
It’s directed by a Portland filmmaker named Matt McCormick who, up until writing and directing this narrative film, was mostly known for his short form experimental and documentary films. He’s a huge part of the Portland filmmaker’s scene. He's put on festivals and supported other filmmakers and works closely with the film community here. So it was a real celebratory Portland effort…, the making of this movie, which we shot in the summer of 2008. It basically follows two main characters, played by myself and James Mercer from The Shins. So he cast a lot of indie musicians in it! Both our characters are, I think, searching for signs I guess. Balancing between being self-directed and also that secret hope that everyone has that some kind of fate will step in and save us from our sorry lives. I think most of us hit that realization that that’s not going to happen, and I think that moment can be a little bit devastating in a young person’s life. I think it captures both of us as we cross over from being wanderers to hopefully being a little more of intentional seekers.
It sounds very serious in tone, but pretty fascinating. And as you said, James Mercer is in that film, and he’s also here with Broken Bells this week, who I believe are playing one of your showcases, right?
Exactly. It’s very intertwined.
So, staying with films, there’s another film playing at South By that you’ve been blogging about, which is the documentary about Steven Merritt and The Magnetic Fields. Have you gotten a chance to see that yet, or is that on your list for next week as well?
It is, yeah. I’m planning on going to that… Let’s see. [sound of papers turning] It looks like that's on Monday night. I had to look at my calendar. That’s actually made by a good friend of mine, Gail O’Hara, who I’ve known for years, although I have not seen a full cut of the film. And I’ve always been a huge fan of The Magnetic Fields. Actually, Gail was the one responsible for turning me into a fan, so I feel like this is kind of a culmination of not just my friendship with Gail so far, and my affection for The Magnetic Fields, but...I think it is a real prize for any Magnetic Fields fan. To hopefully peel back some of those strange layers of Steven Merritt and company, and hopefully tell us something that we don’t know. But not tell us too much, so we’re still interested in listening to his music.
Finally, just one last question and that is, do you have any particular South By Southwest story or moment that you think of as being the archetype of the festival experience? Or something that you think of as your South By Southwest moment?
I think one of the strangest things about South By Southwest is that there’s a very odd amalgam of people. You have the music fans, and you have all the people in the music industry, and the bands. Then you have these characters from what many of us would consider outside of the music industry. Like Rachael Ray.
Right!
And I remember eating at this Mexican restaurant up on- what’s the street when you cross over the river? Is it Lamar? No, South Congress maybe?
Yeah, South Congress.
So we're at this really great restaurant, and all of a sudden, this woman comes over to our table and is sitting with some other musicians. And this woman said: "We just want to let you know that Rachael Ray would like to meet you guys and would like to invite you to her showcase." And we look over, and I sort of say, “Who’s Rachael Ray?” And the woman was aghast that I had not spent more time watching TV and knowing the wonders of Rachael Ray. And we ended up having a long, awkward conversation with Rachael Ray and her rocker husband and her entourage. Nowhere else but Austin, Texas and South By Southwest do these kinds of different people come together under the guise of being music fans to create these experiences. That, I think for now, is one South By Southwest experience, and the other I think of is when I was playing in Sleater-Kinney, Corin [Tucker] came rushing into my hotel room screaming. I thought somebody had died, that’s how loud she was screaming, but she just wanted to tell me she met Robert Plant. I was so mad. I was not mad because she met Robert Plant; I was mad because she made me think something devastating had happened. But I think it’s good, because even if you’re in a band, you can still be a huge fan at that festival.
Some Days Are Better Than Others shows today at 2:30pm at the Alamo Ritz, tomorrow at 11:30am at Alamo South Lamar, and Friday evening at 7:15pm at G-Tech. NPR's showcases are Wednesday evening at Stubb's BBQ (badge or wristband required) and Thursday afternoon at The Parish Room (open to the public, but line up early).
