With the exception of 2020, when the whole event was cancelled due to COVID-19, this was my 13th South by Southwest in a row, including two years covering it virtually. I was long accustomed as to what to expect and endure. Or so I thought. The 2023 instance of the highly anticipated international tech, film, and music conference was unlike any I’d experienced before. The crowds were reasonable and very navigable even for high-attendance performances, the usually overwhelming number of free day parties and unofficial night time events was shrunk to an unobtrusive and barely noticeable number, and there was no single, galvanizing performer as in previous years which have included shows by Bruce Springsteen, the late Prince, Lady Gaga and Green Day. Essentially, it was a year without any fear of missing out because if you missed something this year that was a deliberate choice.
While I’ve always found a lot of value in attending SXSW, this was the first year that appeared to resemble anything close to what the old timers describe as “the way SXSW used to be.” Of course, they’re not referring to a festival whose major presenting sponsors included Porsche and “Latin America’s biggest financial institution” Itaú Bank as this year’s did, but I know what they mean.
To me, what this sentiment means is an event where major superstars and their attendant hype didn’t elbow out, even psychologically, up-and-comers as well as the completely unknown. To be sure, there were plenty of legendary legacy acts including New Order, The Zombies and Robbie Krieger (The Doors). And while each of these drew sizable, if not packed, audiences their presence in no way overshadowed the scrappy hundreds of other acts working their way through the week.
The first thing I did when I hit the ground in Austin was see Boots Riley (The Coup) in conversation with pop culture journalist Hunter Harris. Riley was in town promoting his new film I’m A Virgo, which he wrote and directed. Riley took the audience on a journey through his life in activism and his transition from music maker to filmmaker.
Immediately afterward, I sat in on the conversation between Harry Halpin (CEO of internet privacy firm Nym Technologies) and privacy advocate Chelsea Manning who spent seven years in prison for leaking classified documents to Wikileaks. It was harrowing to listen to these two esteemed experts basically admit that we live in a nearly completely surveilled environment now, although they’re each pushing back against it. Manning said, “I’m constantly thinking about what’s going to be happening in the future. But one of the things that brought me and Harry together to work on various projects is I was very concerned about privacy as the surveillance methods post 2010, post 2013 have solidified and it’s become cheaper, become easier to do large scale surveillance. Where it’s not just government agencies like the British GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) or the American National Security Agency. Now corporations have become able to surveil people and collect large amounts of information quite cheaply.”
A lot of what Manning and Halpin spoke about was high level, technical talk and, thankfully, both managed to impart a lot of knowledge without ever speaking down to the audience. One particularly fascinating aspect of their conversation was when Halpin mention that Manning had identified privacy issues all the way down to the very hardware we use on the Internet. It was an angle I’d never heard before and, while Manning is an advocate for cryptography (and distinctly not a fan of cryptocurrency) there is still the ongoing feeling of always being watched. “I keep getting this feeling, deep inside me every time I’m on a Zoom call or scrolling down TikTok or when I’m stuck on my phone at 1 a.m. looking for meaning,” Manning said. “I’ve never felt more alienated in my entire life than the last few years, and I’ve been to prison.”
Needless to say, the irony of watching Halpin and Manning speak and then immediately being able to walk downstairs to the Creative Industries Expo and visit booths hosted by the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (which I previously had no idea even existed) was not lost on me. On some level, the intelligence agencies of the United States have also leaned into irony. To wit, at the CIA booth the host gave me webcam covers stamped with the CIA emblem. I remarked that she surely must see the hilarity in this and she laughed and said she did. Then I popped over to the NSA booth and told them the CIA had sent me and that I’d gotten CIA-branded webcam covers. Without missing a beat one of the dudes with the NSA said, “Hey, you want one of ours?” So now I own webcam covers from both externally and internally facing federal agencies, and while obtaining them everyone concerned had a nice time joking around about it. In the moment, it was a lark but after further reflection it just felt like living deeply in some science fiction future where the joke’s on you but, hell, you can’t do anything about it anyway so why not have a laugh about it. At least a small part of me wishes I could have had Chelsea Manning with me when I wandered into the “intelligence community” area of the Austin Convention Center’s trade hall.
Don’t worry, we’re gonna get to the music soon. I’ve still got a few more speakers to talk about first.
The RZA (AKA Robert Fitzgerald Diggs; Wu-Tang Clan) was in town to talk about Hulu series “Wu-Tang: An American Saga” of which he is a head writer. He spoke in conversation with Evan Narcisse (Brass Lion Entertainment). This session was titled “36 Chambers of The RZA” and that was pretty spot on as their conversation went through the whole of RZA’s career and life. After going through many high points of RZA’s life, Narcisse asked, “What does it feel like to remix your own life?” RZA responded, “I don’t know. It’s not that I’m remixing it, I think that as an artist I’m striving to evolve, right? If we would have stayed in the cave we wouldn’t have gotten to the fire and then the fire to cooking our foods to the skyscraper. I think art is a wavelength and everybody has the ability to express art. And, for me as an artist, I just always find different ways to express myself.”
Seeing Cheech Marin (of Cheech & Chong fame) speak with Daniel Cassady (ARTnews) about his art gallery located in Riverside, CA was fascinating. Marin had been a collector of Chicano art for a very long time and Riverside wanted to build a new library to replace its legitimate mid-century modern library. The city contacted Marin with an offer. If you donate your collection to the city, we’ll provide a gallery for it. Thus, incredibly, Riverside now has Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of Riverside Art Museum, also known simply as The Cheech.
Hands down, though, by far the most entertaining and hilarious session I’ve ever seen at SXSW came courtesy of William Shatner. The new film about Shatner’s life You Can Call Me Bill was screened at the conference. The now 91 years old actor and national treasure spoke in conversation with Tim League of Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas. Shatner had a great time fooling around making jokes with League and even made a poke at his host’s powder blue leisure suit. Full of one-liners, giving casual hilarious takes on various issues, and sharing well-remembered stories from his past, Shatner was as charming as expected if not more so. Actually, it was more so. There’s not enough space to comprehensively go over everything he talked about, but of particular importance to Shatner is environmental protection, the importance of which was brought to crystalline clarity upon his opportunity to venture into actual space via Blue Origin. He remarked that looking out into the blackness of space was like a visual representation of death but looking back upon Earth he saw life. About this experience, observing Earth from space, Shatner remarked, “I felt this sadness. I didn’t know what it was…I found myself crying. I thought, ‘What am I crying about? Why am I crying?’ I went and sat down some place to gather my thoughts and I realized ‘I’m feeling grief. What am I feeling grief about?’” He then further explained, “I’ve been an ecologist for a long time…I knew from books that I’ve read and people I’ve talked to what was coming this way. But there were a lot of people who didn’t want to look at global warming coming this way. But I knew about it and knew that it was gathering steam. And I knew that, even during the time I was up there, there were entities going extinct.”
And, now, let’s talk music as that’s always been ostensibly my main reason for attending SXSW.
New Order’s show at the Moody Theater was more packed than I’d anticipated but still held everyone comfortably. They were introduced by Andy Burnham, the mayor of their hometown Manchester, England. Sure, he’s no Kelly Girtz, but seemed like a decent enough fellow. He also introduced the group when they did their keynote interview session with Times of London Chief Rock and Pop critic Will Hodgkinson. He even used most of the same speech, so let’s hear it for recycling.
But, now let’s get back to the band. Ever since the exit of founding bassist Peter Hook, New Order has struggled to maintain the intensity he brought to the group and, unsurprisingly, has failed to recapture his signature sound with other bassists. Even so, the band dutifully plowed through multiple fan favorites such as “Sub-Culture,” “Bizarre Love Triangle,” “Blue Monday” and more. The three song tribute to the group’s origin, that being Joy Division, featured “Atmosphere,” “Transmission” and that group’s signature tune “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” which would have been totally wonderful if it weren’t for singer-guitarist Bernard Sumner forgetting its lyrics.
Speaking of forgotten lyrics, though, nothing beats the revolving door of singers who performed with Doors guitarist Robby Krieger at The Belmont. Now 77 years old, watching Krieger’s magic fingers slide effortlessly across his guitar while plowing through a massive set of Doors hits and even some relatively deep cuts was a very special treat. He had several singers come up and perform with him, including his own son Waylon. Maybe it’s the music itself or how we’ve become conditioned to experience it, but every single person who sang with him aped the moves of late Doors singer Jim Morrison. Some more than others, but it was all very observable to anyone who’s ever watched live Doors footage. Thing is, though, if you’re going to do rock star karaoke, at least have the decency to be well rehearsed enough to know the actual lyrics to completion. As much as I cannot tolerate music stands on a rock and roll stage, the absolute worst is watching a singer use his cell phone as a prompt. Other than that—which is admittedly a big “that”—the performance was spectacular, and Krieger’s song selection only suffered by the non-inclusion of “L.A. Woman.”
Seeing The Zombies at Stubb’s for the second time in eight years was nice. Still featuring founding members Colin Blunstone (vocals) and Rod Argent (keyboards), the group’s set was notably harder edged this time around even while featuring signature songs such as “Time Of The Season.” “Tell Her No.” “This Will Be Our Year” and “She’s Not There.” Unfortunately, Rod Argent—who formed popular rock band Argent after The Zombies’ original demise back in 1969, decided it would be a great idea to also play one of that group’s biggest hits, “Hold Your Head Up.” Offering some clarity no one asked for, he volunteered that the lyrics are actually “Hold your head up, woman” and not “Hold your head up, whoa!” I’d have been more than happy for the whole set to just end right there with that explanation but, no, Argent and the gang proceeded to play a massively extended version of the song. It went on so long that at one point I turned to my colleague photographer Mike White and said, “Who do they think they are? Widespread Panic?”
All the above said, I recognize full well and am entirely cognizant of the enormous privilege it is to stand fewer than 10 feet from legendary musicians and watch them work their magic. Specific criticisms aside, being able to be so close to two founding members of Joy Division (New Order’s Bernard Sumner and drummer Stephen Morris), a member of the Doors, and even Rod Argent himself was very cool and I’ll not forget it anytime soon, if ever.
But this was the year that brought into full relief what I’ve always really enjoyed the most about SXSW. That is, music discovery and watching known up-and-comers. To this end, I was rocked by Los Angeles’ Seán Barna, Militarie Gun and Death Valley Girls; Philadelphia’s Ron Gallo, and New York’s Been Stellar.
Additional highlights were Asheville’s Indigo De Souza, Irish and Catalan composer Núria Graham and Canada’s Softcult. Washington, DC’s Bartees Strange was great to see and his deftly gentle music with its forceful nature seemed resolutely defiant. Philadelphia rapper Armani White and his “happy hood music” was cheered by a relatively small but quite enthusiastic crowd at the Amplify Philly showcase.
Both the lovely Hello Mary and the reinvigorated Chickasaw Mudd Puppies performed admirably at the Athens In Austin daytime and nighttime showcases, respectively. In other Athens-band news, Vision Video’s Dusty Gannon further solidified his status as the Tony Robbins of the modern goth/deathrock scene. In between nearly every song Gannon shared words of positivity, unity, etc. which heretofore was never imagined by me to be anything someone would look for in the goth scene. I mean, I certainly haven’t. However, Gannon’s “baby bats” were well in attendance with most hanging on his every word and more than a few singing along with every lyric. So, his message is resonating somewhere out there. Performance-wise the band was in tip-top shape and featured touring bassist Tom Ashton (March Violets).
I was less impressed by a long shot with Hermosillo, Mexico’s Margaritas Podridas whose records I’ve enjoyed but whose live show sounded like a bunch of Melvins B-sides. Scotland’s much-hyped Dead Pony was a total dud. If it weren’t for the group’s accents—because, face it, American’s are always impressed by foreign accents—their probable status as Glasgow’s greatest 1990s-2000s sounding bar rock band would have been much clearer.
Also, one of the bands opening for New Order, Manchester, England’s Loose Articles was simply awful for the first half of its set. As in it was so bad, so approximately by-the-numbers wannabe post punk, and so poorly played that I began to assume it was all a big put on. I don’t know what happened, but the second half of their set was catchy, extremely tight and enthusiastic.
Out on the actual street, I ran into a great corner performance by New York’s A.N.T.S. (Artistry Nourishing The Soul) as well as a casual and spontaneous performance by New Jersey’s own Israeli-American rapper Kosha Dillz who was hosting his own, much larger showcase elsewhere during the week.
At the end of the week, after I’d already seen plenty of great bands, I have to say I was most impressed by and thoroughly enjoyed the sets I saw by Austin rapper and singer Jake Lloyd and Austin’s premier psychedelic Cumbia music group El Combo Oscuro.
The 2023 SXSW made it clear where the money is (i.e. technology and technology services and film), and where it’s just not (i.e. music and music-related industries). To be sure, there were plenty of labels and publications hosting their own showcases but nowhere near as many as previous years. And while there were still a few large-scale brand activations it was easy to forget how much cash it takes to make this thing run whereas in previous years the branded experience was unavoidable.
The smaller crowds could have been due to a number of things: the fact that the University of Texas was on spring break, rampant inflation and the high cost of travel and lodging, and perhaps a serious crackdown by SXSW and Austin itself on the type of fever-pitched frenzy the conference had engendered during the 2010s.
This year was noticeably more even-paced and I dare say ultimately more enjoyable for it, though.
If you read other published accounts of this year’s events, you’ll likely read an entirely different story and, indeed, there’s plenty more in my notes I could talk about here. But if I haven’t said it yet as we approach the 3,000 word mark chances are more than good I wasn’t ever going to.
Every year at SXSW provides multiple opportunities to learn, discover, and dig in, but this year in particular really felt intentionally geared this way and I’m thankful for that.
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