According to a Liverpool Daily Post article yesterday, Parr Street studios in Liverpool will host next month a “school of rock” event to help Merseyside musicians to go to South By Southwest (SXSW) festival next year.
I say…silly, billy. Dirtblonde went to SXSW 2009 without any help from Liverpool Sound City, UKTI North West etc.
Not that we didn’t try to get help from them…we sure did, but in the end we were probably deemed not good enough for them, or whatever was their reason.
But did it stop us? No it bloody didn’t. If you believe in your music, you should just go for it, bite the bullet, risk it all. If you have the will to cross an ocean for your music, you can do anything. This is rock’n’roll.
No one really needs the approval of bureaucrats…how rock’n’roll is that?
And in the end, it was totally worth it. We had an amazing time in Austin, we just loved it.
People loved us too, and proving that money can’t buy everything, Dirtblonde’s one and only official set at SXSW 2009 took place at a better stage than that of ANY of the other Liverpool bands who Sound City took to the festival (Hot Melts, Wave Machines, etc).
AND, on top of it all, we were the only Liverpool band named as a “must-see” highlight of the festival, as the local press listed us alongside names such as Primal Scream! And we achieved this despite the fact we didn’t enjoy the publicity push that all the other Liverpool bands, who played at the Sound City BBQ, enjoyed.
The lesson? If you’re in a band and you want to go to SXSW 2010 and want to attend all that school of rock crap, apply for funding etc etc, ok go for it, you got nothing to lose! But in the end, if you can’t get the support of all those “official” bodies, you should still try to do things by yourself…it can be worth it!
cheers
Ivan
Dirtblonde | Rock'n'Roll band from Liverpool, England 