SIMPLY THE WEST
STUART CLARK looks ahead to SOUTH BY SOUTH WEST 98, which gets underway in Austin, Texas on March 18h and which will feature a varied Irish musical bill of fare.
Stuart Clark
TRAD, rock, indie, pop, torch songs, drum n bass and, er, The Great Western Squares. It sounds like the divider pack you d get if you were starting up your own record shop, but is in fact the range of musical flags that ll be waved by the Hot Press/IMRO-led delegation at the South By South West 98 music convention in Austin, Texas.
Running from March 18th to 22nd, the five-day industryfest is one of the biggest shop windows for talent in the world and will be attended by upwards of 6,000 delegates.
It s not always easy to get noticed in such a competitive environment, which is why Carpe Diem Productions have been brought in to assemble Three Degrees Of Separation: The Irish At South By South West, a CD sampler which will be made available to the convention s prime movers and shakers.
The importance of SxSW in the grand industry scheme of things is underlined by the fact that Virgin America, Radioactive and Setanta Records have all come on board.
It s by no means just unsigned acts, says Carpe Diem s Lisa Tinley. Along with the huge A&R presence, you also get a lot of media people at South By South West who are looking at what s bubbling away beneath the mainstream. Virgin, with Altan, and Setanta, with The Frank & Walters, see it as an ideal way to promote product, while Radioactive are using SxSW to launch a new signing of theirs from Derry, Noella Hutton.
Along with those three, you ve got Jack L, Kila, Nick Kelly, The Prayer Boat, Tony Vaughan, Siniad Brady, The Great Western Squares and the Quadraphonic lads. It s a very varied line-up.
Having been collated by Carpe Diem, the showcase submissions were passed on to the central SxSW listening committee who made the final cut.
There s always the odd artist left off or, indeed, included that you re not sure about but I think they ve done an excellent job, Tinley continues. I m particularly pleased that two newcomers like Tony Vaughan and Siniad Brady, who ll be working their own tapes, have been given a chance.
Explaining why The Frank & Walters were so keen to get involved, co-manager Ger Fitzgerald says: You get a far bigger concentration of radio, TV and print people at South By South West than you do at any other industry event. The Franks are moving over to the States for three months to work The Grand Parade and Austin fits in perfectly with our promotional plans.
Quadraphonic, on the other hand, see it as a means of testing the waters before an all-out assault on the States later in the year.
It s very much an exploratory visit, explains Donal Scannell. Drum n bass is only just beginning to happen over there and we thought it d be nice to get in on the ground floor. We re starting off at the Miami Winter Convention, which is exclusively a dance thing, doing half-a-dozen promotional dates with Bass Odyssey and DJ Razor and then ending up in Austin. If nothing else, it ll be interesting!
For more information on IMRO and Hot Press involvement in South By South West, call Una Johnston or Lisa Tinley at (01) 4970381.
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