"Drawn To Weirdos" - Former Chronicle Music Writer Audra Schroeder Explains Herself [Interview]

Image From Audra Schroeder

With her story "The Girls of Summer Redux" on the cover of last week's Austin Chronicle, music writer Audra Schroeder bids farewell to five years of work for our city's premiere alt-weekly. It's a fine cap to a career that has taken Schroeder into the wilds of Austin's underground, where she frequently explored the freaky, the avant-garde, and the feminine subcategories of sound. Part of a triptych of new blood in the Chronicle's music staff rounded out by Austin Powell and Doug Freeman, Schroeder lent a fresh viewpoint to a scene that alternately cleaves to the past as it itches to move forward.

Schroeder talked with us about becoming a music journalist, her affection for weirdos, and where Austin music stands right now.

How did you end up here, and what's your background in terms of coming to Austin and writing?

I was born and raised in Florida, and I started out writing at twenty-two or twenty-three. I got a job at one of the New Times chains there - the Broward/Palm Beach New Times. I just was writing CD reviews, and I happened to send in one that somebody wanted to print. I was freelancing for them for a while, and then got offered a job as music editor. I worked there for about a year, but at that point in my life I was just kind of ready to get out of Florida. I think it was South by Southwest 2004 when I was sent by The New Times to Austin to cover South by Southwest, and like everybody, I was like, "This is awesome, this is how it is all the time, I want to live here." I had some friends here that have moved from Florida who are in a band called The Baby Robots, and I just was like, "I'm gonna do it." And so I did. I started freelancing for the Chronicle pretty much when I got here - did that for about a year. Then I was offered the job.

When you said you'd been writing about music for ten years - this is five for the Chronicle, and then five elsewhere?

Yeah. I also did a 'zine in Florida called So Like Yeah. A friend and I started and we did two issues, but it was a lot of Florida bands and what was going on in that scene. This was south Florida, like Miami area, Fort Lauderdale. In comparison to Austin, the music scene there is just, like, there was nothing really going on. I don't know about now. Miami definitely has its pockets of experimental outsider music, like Rat Bastard. There's definitely that going on, and there's like more commercial kind of hip-hop, dance music down there.

So you came here.

Yeah, 2000 2004 - it was the day after Bush was reelected. I moved to Texas.

What drew you to write and music in general? What was it that excited you about that?

I don't know - I mean it's just always something that I've loved. You know...I hate to put it in this perspective, but I started dating musicians when I was like sixteen. As much as those relationships didn't work out, each guy that I dated taught me something about music, or exposed me to music I didn't know about. I got really into that kind of discovery of music when I was just starting out in college. 'Cause I was listening to bad music in high school.

Marilyn Manson's from Florida, right?

Uh huh.

Just checking.

Yeah, when I was sixteen or fifteen, Marilyn Manson was shooting a video in Ft. Lauderdale for "Lunchbox," I think the song was called, and they were just like, "Anybody show up." It was at a roller rink, and I stayed and did that video.

Oh, cool! Can you see yourself when you watch it?

Not really.

Okay, but you knew you were there.

I was there. And I never met Marilyn Manson, but I knew other people who knew him. Got some good stories.

I bet. So, was the Mr. Show review the first thing you wrote for the Chronicle?

Probably.

You started off writing about television, and then you became the hot dog eating correspondent, for, it looks like four or five articles. Did you just get pegged with that or if it was something that interested you?

The competitive eating?

Uh-huh.

I don't remember how that came about, but Mark Fagan, who's the sports editor there, just asked me if I wanted to cover, I forget what it was, maybe it was the State Fair?

There's a veggie hot dog one here, too.

And there was some sort of french fry eating competition. I don't know, I'm really just drawn to weirdos, and being a competitive eater seemed interesting to me. I wanted to follow that beat for as long as I could. I'm sure there's still stuff that happens, but I didn't want to get pigeonholed (laughs).

I'd like to know what sort of insights you think you've gleaned looking back...maybe in regard to the music business, but also in the way you appreciate music.

Like in terms of writing about music?

Yes, or even listening.

Yeah. I mean, when you go to school for journalism, sure, you learn about things and news room process and all that, but nothing compares to actually writing review after review after review after review and learning to listen to something a little bit more critically. When I was starting out, I would make listening to an album kind of like an event that consumed an hour of my life, and that's fine. Everyone has their process, but as I did more and more writing, I kind of learned like how to pick a song apart better. I don't know if that makes sense.

Yeah.

And to get to the root of the song instead of just making listening to an album about me. But in terms of listening to music, when I first started out there was Napster, but there wasn't any sort of social media. You had to have a connection to somebody who could turn you on to stuff. There wasn't this whole kind of chorus of people you could go to and be like, "Well, what does this person like, what does this person like," and finding music and discovering music had more of a sentimental value to it back then, I think, than it does now. I don't know how to describe music right now. It's so fragmented and everybody can write about it. Everybody's a critic, and so everybody can shout into that void. It's an easy way to find out about music, but I think music writing has lost some of its story telling. Everything is just like bits, news, blurbs and taking things from other sites. I know that everyone's got to have their constant stream, but I think approaching your subjects as a story is missing from music criticism today, and I've always tried to do that with my writing.

Going back to what we talked about with picking apart music and listening more carefully - I saw on the Chronicle website that there were twenty nine music reviews in 2001, and a high of seven hundred and seven in 2008. Does this seem to you like just a swarm of music - do you think its almost too much to handle now?

I will listen to the first two songs on an album, but if it doesn't grab me then I'm probably not going to listen to the whole thing. You know? And I hate that my attention span has been so deluded diluted. But I think that's just a product of how we gather information now. You know there's a lot more music these days, and there's a lot more people doing it independently. Doesn't mean it's all good.

Sure.

I feel like bands kind of go in cycles these days, and staying relevant is a lot harder. Like this new thing is the next thing and sixth months later it's not the next thing. It just takes listening a little more carefully. I've told lots of people about the band tUnE-yArDs, for instance. I saw her, I heard her, and I was just like, "Yes. She is doing something different." This doesn't sound like the Beach Boys or, you know, pick any other band that people compare bands too. I appreciate when I can't put my finger on what their influences are, or where they're coming from, and it's something that makes me go, "Oh, okay. I'm excited about music again."

It's a welcome challenge.

Yeah. And I think a lot of adjectives should be banned from reviews. I'm not going to be think of any right now, but I think the way people describe bands has gotten kind of tedious. And I've run out of adjectives before, too.

There's only so many till you start making them up, I guess.

Yeah.

You said you were drawn to weirdos, and I guess that's kind of how you got interested into more experimental strange music. What do you think of the state of the scene in Austin right now? Do you think its under-appreciated, and where do you think it's going?

I mean, yeah I think its under-reported. You know Cherrywood Coffeehouse on Wednesday nights do their "Outsiders outside" series - that's free entertainment and just people doing their thing. And stuff that happens at the Church of the Friendly Ghost is probably not getting as much exposure as it should, and I don't know if there's just that crowd that's going to go to every one of the shows and that's kind of it, you know? Or if there is an audience that wants to be turned on to that stuff. Other people have written about it - I don't think I'm the only person - but yeah, I enjoy going to some weird art space and seeing someone I've never heard before oftentimes more than going to a bar or club where I know I'm going to have to yell at somebody over a band playing. It's just nice to have that other option, you know. I think the scene is healthy, and there are a lot of people doing different really cool things right now. And I don't know if the people in those scenes want more exposure. I mean, I'm sure they do, but Austin's in this kind of...I've lived here seven years, and in the last five years alone Austin has completely changed. There's this new Austin and there's still the old Austin. I think if that experimental scene could just keep stepping along with the new Austin...and, of course, there's always going to be weirdos here.

Yeah.

And the city needs that - that scene can't go away. And I'm happy that that's still going on, that there are still people doing their thing in the underground. There's an underground here. And I hope I can continue to talk about that stuff. I don't want that to just go away.

I'm going to ask a leading question. People have been talking about live music having trouble sustaining itself, and growing pains and all that. What would be the biggest real danger to live music in Austin, or to a healthy scene in Austin? Is there one thing that you've thought about where you just went, "I wish that would end, and everything would be better?"

I don't know. I mean, there was that piece in the Dallas Observer that you read about how Austin is a shithole, which was laughable because it was a very uninformed piece. But I think that - let's see how I can phrase this - I think South by Southwest is what a lot of people know of Austin, and I think that festival is going to keep getting bigger and bigger. But in reality it could also splinter off into so many other musical outlets. I don't know. I don't really think the Live Music Task Force and the noise ordinance are really the answer to Austin's problems. I think maybe there are too many chiefs and not enough Indians.

I'd like to ask you about the opportunities for women in music - have we seen that change, and do you feel like there's more opportunity than when we were younger? Especially in Austin with regard to the Girls Rock Camp, with that being your last piece [for the Chronicle]. That has got to be a very positive force here in Austin for girls who are interested in music.

Definitely. You know, I was thinking about this today. The first show I ever went to, outside of my parents dropping me off somewhere, was when I was sixteen and I went to see Machine Head. You remember that band?

Yeah.

I don't know if they're still around, but they played this little club in Hollywood, Florida. And I remember looking around and I was literally the only woman there. And that scene repeated itself many times over in my career of writing about music. I remember seeing The Sword at Room 710, and same thing - I was the only woman. I never really felt intimidated by that. I approached my job as an anthropological study, and it was more humorous to me that I was the only woman at a show. But I'm very happy that there are so many women in awesome bands right now. Schmillion. Agent Ribbons. Ume. Soft Healer. Those are all fantastic bands. And I think the girls’ rock camp has a really big impact. I wish I had that when I was twelve or thirteen. I’ve talked to so many of the girls at the camp and that was just a pivotal summer in their life, where either they go on to continue making music or writing about it or wanting to be involved in it somehow. It's exciting that these girls that are fourteen or fifteen years old have so much confidence. They’re being raised in a way that's like: "You can do anything." Not to say that other generations of women haven't, but especially in Austin, so many people who are in bands, who had kids...now their kids want to be in bands. That seems to be what happens here. I think Austin is a very, very female-friendly town and I think there needs to be more of that. I don't feel like there are enough female writers in this town.

Who was inspiring to you coming up?

The first two bands I can think of that perked my ears up were Sonic Youth and The Breeders. Sonic Youth just because I couldn't believe a band could sound like that. And The Breeders because Kim Deal was kind of my ideal. She wasn't the hot chick in the band. She had oily hair and smoked cigarettes. She had this almost maternal feeling to her and to her lyrics. She was a storyteller and I was attracted to that. When I got to interview her last year for the Pixies show, that just brought it full circle. I was just like, "I could be done right now." I never really tried to sweat it, being a woman out at shows. A lot of times you get uninvited comments. You get looked at a different way, like, “What are you doing here?” I never let that bother me because I deserved to be there, just like everyone else did. And I was good at my job, and fuck 'em, you know? I still have that mentality when I go out to shows. I have been elbowed in the boob like so many times. You just have to laugh it off, because when going to a show seems like a chore or job, or something you’re not looking forward to, you’re looking at it the wrong way.

I’ve never tried to look at it in terms of “I’m a female writer in this field.” I'm just a writer. Some people want to put it to me that I'm a girl in a guys’ world. But I never tried to look at it like that because it’s kind of defeatist. (laughs) Especially in 2011, I don’t think there should be categories like that. But I’ve had a wild time. It’s been great. It really has. I’m still going to be out at shows.