i dont even know where to fucking begin in my continuing recap of sxsw. because i dont believe in the faulknerian deconstruction of time, i’ll just start at the last place i left off.
» one of my personal highlights of sxsw wasn’t even the music, it was hanging out with my very good friend adrienne. in short, she is teh rad. this weekend, she has completely disproved my theory that med school students do not know how to rock, a theory previously supported by all the douchebags i dealt with back when i booked doc watsons. in this photo she is diagramming one of the enzymes contained in my package of dissolving multi-vitamins.
» so i participated in this panel called blogs gone wild, which was about music blogging. if you came to this site because of the panel, ill give you five dollars. [total lie.] of course, why would you? i was an unhealthy/ungodly/unwelcome combination of drunk/hungover, food-/sleep-deprived and totally nervous. i also felt fairly out of place on the panel because hey, let’s face it, everyone else there was a legitimate blogger; i am the asshole with an internet connection and a couple minutes to spare each day.
despite the self-deprecating remarks [”talking on this panel is the most promotion i’ve done for my blog”], i really enjoyed the conversation. matt perpetua and mark willett were, as expected, the people who had thoughtful comments, amy phillips put it into a journalistic perspective and dave brooklyn vegan was fairly quiet, leaving us to wonder a) what his last name is, b) how he manages to post so much. a man of intrigue, that brooklyn vegan.
for the most part, i’d like to think i was fairly quiet, partially because i didnt know what to say and partially because i was trying hard not to swear. i know what you’re thinking, “but maria, you’re on the radio, so you know how to talk without swearing!” i suppose this is true but have you actually listened to my on-air banter? first of all, it sounds BO-RING and secondly, i talk really slow and break up my sentences awkwardly. swearing only resurfaces when im annoyed with something but let’s face it — im perturbed by pretty much everything.
and thus, the Q&A portion of the panel. i really hope there’s some sort of audio archive, because i’d be curious to know what i was responding to. the first question i vaguely recall had to do with paid blogging and the concept of selling out, to which i ranted. allow me to recap and clarify some of those points, since my brain was only working part of the time:
first off, i dare you to find a person who isn’t selling out in the broadest sense of the word. we cant find a clean shirt ’cause we forgot to do laundry, so we have to rewear another one; we go for the overpriced bottle of water ’cause there’s no cheap water available; we pre-game at home before boozing it up at shows, etc. we make compromises every day — that’s life.
it’s the economy, stupid: established writing outlets like the village voice can’t afford fact checkers and newspapers are going down the drain; places that can afford to pay writers [and in a larger sense, artists because corporate/commercial work is de rigueur in the photo industry, i speak from experience.] are corporations like toyota because they have all this cash devoted to marketing. [lets not even go into indie publishing, they all expect you to write for free.] this strikes me as completely ass-backwards but since i struggle to pay my bills month-to-month, taking on freelance work is my only choice. when i take on clients, i do my best to make sure im not going to do something ill totally regret down the line. in my mind, blogging for toyota/yaris is more aligned with my ethics/morals/etc than oh, shilling for hummer. if there’s a hybrid or ethanol fueled H2, i certainly havent heard about it yet.
the second question has completly escaped my memory but i certainly recall my response, “what kind of fucking question is that? why would we ever write about bad music on our blogs?” yeah, it was harsh and i am notorious for asking stupid questions but even this was beneath me. and despite my snark, if you paid attention closer, you’d understand the larger point — us music bloggers have to write about things which inspire us or at the very least, find interesting on some level, which is not easy when you’ve got deadlines and such. [interestingly enough, a lot of the records on my year-end lists were records that i struggled with. but let’s not conflate problematic with bad, OK?]
so that was that. only a handful of people bothered to talk to me, but then again, i would have avoided an asshole like me as well.
» post-panel, i had lunch with some nice folks [matt, chris from parts & labor, eppy from ilm, gerry] at ironworks but this is when i knew things had taken a turn for the worse — i stared at my bbq sandwich. STARED, people. i was so far gone that i couldnt even eat and if you know me, i love food.
» in my daze i made my way over to the porchlight pop fest. i recall seeing oxford collapse [uh, again?], air traffic controllers and part of +/- before i decided that heading back to the hotel to check email/recharge would be a smart idea.
» because of a “food glitch” [ie, the restaurant didnt bring our food for over an hour, in fact, we left before being served], i missed out on some saturday showcases. and the line to see the joggers was INSANE, even for badges. so i hightailed it over to antone’s for superchunk and then caught the bats. considering the shape i was in by this point, it was probably better to keep things low-key.
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