SXSW wrap-up, plus a 'critique' of 'rock' music

The remnants of this year's SXSW festival still linger here in Austin. The chain-linked enclosures to various outdoor venues appear battered and, in many places, defeated, as if in a final gesture of obnoxious enthusiasm, fans had stormed the shows either en masse, or in Land Rovers. The skeletal remains of stages await transport, standing half-collapsed and bare, and the trash that homeless people were originally paid to pick up, has once again descended in the form of broken beer bottles, abandoned T-shirts, and plentious flyers advertising shows, just in case atendees didn't have every moment of every day planned out already.

Personally, I am relieved. For one thing, I can step out of doors at any given moment without witnessing 6-10 traffic violations. I can drive home from work without having to flip anybody off, and I can sleep at night without the steady pulse of bass drums taking over my dreams, or having to worry about vomit appearing mysteriously on my door step in the morning. Needless to say, the, uh, enthusiasm of this year's event has given me ample cause and opportunity to consider my own lack thereof.

When people asked me this past week whether or not I had any "crazy plans for south-by", I generally would respond that I'm not all that in to music festivals. This statement was as much a surprise to me as to those I was speaking to, because after all, I really do enjoy music. For whatever reason, the fact of its being "live" doesn't really add much to what I already appreciate about the music. The allure of live music, as I see it, is not the music itself, but the excuse it gives us to party. The emphasis is not on the "art", but on our collective, communal appreciation of it. And I think that is a distinguishing characteristic of rock music from other art forms; the fact that it often develops as live performance, or anticipation of it. A rock song is a cultural object throughout nearly every stage of its development, and to me, that fact compromises its status as Art, in the upper-cased sense of the word.

My own understanding of what Art is, is constantly developing and redefining itself, although I would say that one critical aspect of artistic experience is recognition. That is, rather than engaging an audience directly, as in rock performances, the artist first delves into his/her Self, past easy emotions and modes of analysis, and attempts to represent what is there by way of visual, textual, and/or musical media. See the difference? The one involves a multi-step process in the way Artist approaches Public:

Step 1: Artist participates in Introspection
Step 2: Artist engages in Creation
Step 3: Artist makes work accessible to Public
Step 4: Public/Viewer-Listener-Reader either does or does not experience Recognition

The process in rock music, I believe, is much more slurred and, as a result, reaches people on a more topical, general level. Thus, we arrive at the distinction between pop art and what I would term, "serious" Art: The one touches many, lightly, while the other touches few, deeply.

I'm aware of how seriously lame I must sound right now. Just to clarify, I enjoy lots of rock music, and live music also. Art doesn't always have to be "serious" in order to be enjoyable, and even then, there are plenty of kinds of music and musical performances that, even by my standards, qualify as "serious" Art. As an example, I'll describe the one show I went to this past week: It was a "secret show" put on by the folks at the Annie Street Arts Collective (the members of which comprise a number of local bands I enjoy seeing here in Austin), and was held in an abandoned building that used to be the Austin State School. There was no electricity, so the room we were in was lit mostly by candles, and the performance had to take place with little amplification. It took about ten minutes hiking across a wet field to get there, and the bands that played were Sunday Parish, Some Say Leland, and this girl from SC named Alexa Woodward (who, by the way, was awesome). As I said, there was little amplification, so the mood was fairly quiet, with everyone's attention directed solely on the music. Yes, there was beer, which we brought ourselves, and plenty of other substances drifting around, but the experience still seemed fundamentally different than that which I described earlier. The principal adjective I would use to describe it is not "fun", or "awesome", but "inspiring". And that is not even to mention the music itself, which was soulful and poetic and in many cases, did seem to spark in me instances of recognition such as I mentioned before.

So, to sum it all up: See? I'm not that lame...