Ani DiFranco News

Performers at the nation's biggest gathering of bands here always face Vegas-style odds.

Yet acts ranging from major-label properties to unsigned regional groups -- more than 1,200 in all this year -- flooded the South by Southwest Music Conference (SXSW), hunting a break.

"Sure, it's a crapshoot," says Peter Jesperson, head of A&R for New West Records in Los Angeles. "But it's less of a crapshoot than staying home."

This year's conference, which ran March 17-21, hosted an average of 300 showcases per night in more than 50 official venues.

Label heads and A&R reps say they continue to troll the event looking for hot, unsigned talent, albeit to a lesser degree than in years past.

"Artists can still get hooked up with labels here," says Andy Kaulkin, president of Los Angeles-based indie Epitaph Records. The label signed the Frames after seeing them here last year.

But "realistically," Warner/Chappell Music VP of A&R Greg Sowders says, "it's for a band that's built some momentum before they get here."

The Von Bondies from Detroit were one of the buzz acts of SXSW '04. But singer/guitarist Jason Stollsteimer points out that his group did five U.S. tours before appearing at SXSW last year.

"Ninety-nine percent of the bands who come here think they're going to get signed, and they're not," he says.

Many of the performers who play SXSW realize that their expectations should be kept in check.

"I went at it as a way to let people know I'm playing music. It's a new thing for me to play solo under my own name," Javier Escovedo says. He is the brother of Austin musical icon Alejandro Escovedo and leader of his own L.A.-based band.

MAKING AN IMPACT

With incredible competition for attendees' attention, indie-label operators are divided on the value of SXSW showcases.

"People get to know the label more," says David Katznelson, head of the Birdman Recording Group in San Francisco. "The more our logo and our band names are in people's faces, the better."

Michael Krumper, executive VP of Artemis Records in New York, brought just two acts, R&B singer Ellis Hooks and singer/songwriter Jesse Malin, to Austin.

He believes that an act should play multiple shows during the festival to maximize its exposure.

"The only way you can make an impact is by planning as many appearances as possible," Krumper says. "And that's no guarantee -- how many parties are there?"

But, he adds, "if you hit it, the good news is, an act can spread like wildfire."

NIGHTMARE SCENARIO

The annual influx of SXSW bands taxes Austin's nightclub capacity to the limit.

"What we have to do is find enough venues to accommodate all of the people who are going to come down here," SXSW managing director Roland Swenson says. "It's a function of making space for everybody."

Some labels are forced to mount their acts in spaces that are less than ideal for their music.

A case in point was Welk Music Group's March 18 showcase, which featured newly signed Sugar Hill artist Allison Moorer and Vanguard breakthrough act Mindy Smith.

The artists played at Coyote Ugly, a Sixth Street bar. A stage was jerry-rigged there a day before the show, the venue's overtaxed power blew out frequently during the showcase, and the club's female bartenders danced on the bar during the sets.

"By trying to expand the festival, it seems they're throwing music into any square footage they can get their hands on," Sugar Hill GM Bev Paul says with barely restrained anger. "Any value to us of doing a showcase at South by Southwest was totally blown."

Madjack Records artist Rob Jungklas, who played a set of his dark, intimate music in the same club the following night, seconds Paul's sentiments.

Jungklas says drily, "Nothing like singing about the vagaries of fate and the wrath of God to balance out girls in wet T-shirts dancing to Def Leppard."

Reuters/Billboard