The Press Surveys The Scene, in Time for the HPMAs
Nice, nice, nice. The Houston Press‘s Chris Gray has a piece in this week’s dead-trees version of the paper called “Progress Report”, where he marks the coming of this weekend’s Houston Press Music Awards Showcase by taking an overview of the scene here in our currently-overheated city.
For the most part, I think the article’s spot-on. Houston seems to be hitting this weird moment where there are A) a veritable shitload of great, great, wildly varied bands & musicians (see decidedly non-comprehensive personal list here), nearly all of whom seem to be B) releasing new stuff every few months (if not more), to the point where local music cover-ers like yours truly find themselves with a gigantic pile of excellent Houston-born albums/EPs/7″/etc. to listen to, and many of whom are currently C) touring the rest of the state and country like mad, trying to get their name (and Houston’s name in general) out there for all to see.
I do disagree with Chris on his assertion that “Houston has only relatively recently decided it even wants a scene” — anybody who remembers the late ’90s here knows that’s a goofy statement to make — but the rest of his article had me nodding and muttering under my breath in agreement, and he correctly notes that a “scene” isn’t made up solely of bands but of the labels, media, venues, graphic artists, booking agents, & the rest that work with and around those bands. H-town’s attempts at scene-dom in the past were hampered not by a lack of good bands (although as I’ve said elsewhere, no time since I’ve lived here compares to now) but by the lack of infrastructure.
And, maybe, by a lack of confidence. There’s a part of me that loves Houston’s screw-you-we-do-what-we-like attitude when it comes to promoting and pushing music made here elsewhere, but honestly, that’s an unsustainable model. You can only make music for your friends for so long before it becomes a pointless exercise. So parts B & C above feel like a huge step forward in this vibrant-yet-unknown scene’s life; bands here aren’t content anymore (well, not all of ’em, anyway) to just sit back, play shows where most of the crowd is in another band themselves, then go home & play PlayStation. A lot of ’em — the best of ’em, in a lot of cases — are working their asses off to be able to play bigger shows to more people, sell more records, get written up in the press, and travel further & further from home. And that’s an awe-inspiring thing to be able to witness.
My hat’s off to all of y’all, seriously. I’ve blathered before about the great bands, but Gray & company are absolutely correct that they’re only part of the equation, the other parts of which are finally (finally!) falling into place. The Press piece is a good read, as is the companion blog post with Eggs of Breakfast on Tour.
Of course, a scene is only truly a scene if it has fans. Which makes this weekend’s Awards Showcase shows the perfect damn time for anybody and everybody who reads this (I know there’re a few of you, and you’re not all in bands) to get out & hit downtown, bouncing from venue to venue to see as many of the bands in part A as you possibly can. These bands, they’re us. They’re our music, from our city, and they deserve to be celebrated.
So skip hanging out at The Woodlands tonight trying to snag Coldplay tickets for too-damn-much money and spend that cash on a wristband this Sunday (July 26th, if you were wondering), instead. Roam the downtown clubs and bars, and I guarantee you’ll find at least one band/musician you’ve never heard before that’ll make your jaw drop. If you don’t, well, you should probably just carve your ears off now, Van Gogh-style, because you’re obviously not using them correctly.
C’mon, Houstonians — do it for your city.
There's a part of me that loves Houston's screw-you-we-do-what-we-like attitude when it comes to promoting and pushing music made here elsewhere, but honestly, that's an unsustainable model. You can only make music for your friends for so long before it becomes a pointless exercise. So parts B & C above feel like a huge step forward in this vibrant-yet-unknown scene's life; bands here aren't content anymore (well, not all of 'em, anyway) to just sit back, play shows where most of the crowd is in another band themselves, then go home & play PlayStation.
Jeremy, I'm very disappointed to hear you express this attitude. Failing to promote your band to the arbitrary level defined by music journalists and scene captains as "sustainable" does not make your music "pointless." What's "pointless" is using pop music as a springboard to glory, whether it accrues to the individual or the community, because there a thousand things that a musician could be doing instead that would provide more concrete benefit to themselves and their community. The idea that musicians have some kind of responsibility to market their art has no basis. The only responsibility an artist has as an artist is to himself, because art, especially pop music, is an essentially self-indulgent pursuit.
Futhermore, I cannot believe that you, of all people, would repeat the idiotic mantra of musical hustlers that bands who don't spend all their time trying to get famous prefer to "go home and play Playstation." You know as well as I do that there plenty of good reasons not be out selling yourself 24-7. Some of us have jobs. Some of us have families. Some of us are uncomfortable with self-promotion; some of us are not very good at it. Some of us simply aren't interested. How dare you tar everyone who isn't doing everything they can to cram their music down the public's throat as lazy. You know better.
As someone who has run a zero-margin zine for more than a decade, and has repeatedly proclaimed himself a fan of bands, such as mine, that basically do nothing at all to sell their music, you know that what's important in creative pursuits is the quality and motivation of your work, not its popularity or marketing savvy. These yearly "state of the scene" conversations are all well and good, but I'm tired of the implication that music is not worthwhile unless it's marketed properly. Drawing attention to yourself is not what indie rock is about. Anyone who gets into it thinking that they're going to be the catalyst in a nationwide shift in attitudes about Houston is probably kidding themselves, and certainly doing it for the wrong reasons.
Yeowch. That's not quite what I meant, Danny, although I do disagree with some of your assertions…
First off, I think you're selling yourself short — I happen to think you Jonx guys work your asses off doing what you do, at least as far as humanly possible. If you didn't work at it, whether writing songs or promoting and playing shows, all of which I know you do, what would be the point? If you didn't want to do anything to "sell" your music, why play at all? (I'll get back to that, though.)
I'm well aware that the majority of folks in bands in this city have jobs and families and all the rest; that's partly why I admire people like y'all, because you take the leap and make music when there're definitely tons of other real-life things to deal with. I mean, hell, I tend to avoid self-promotion like it's the plague, both because it scares the living crap out of me and because — truthfully — it's hard work. And I'm inherently, pathetically lazy.
In this case, though, I'm not talking about "promotion," as somebody thrusting themselves at every label they can find or relentlessly blasting the universe with nonstop shows every single weekend. I don't mean marketing yourself, but promoting your music using your music. There's a difference.
To me, the absolute best type of "promotion" is to do A, B, & C — write good music, release it in some form, and then try (at least occasionally) to get out of town. Playing Houston is great, yes, but in a way, it's easier to get more notice here if you leave town from time to time.
Does the fact that somebody can't go out on the road automatically mean they suck? Hell, no. If that's how it sounded, I apologize. You realize, though, that you guys yourselves have already hit Parts A & B, right? I'm just heartened to see that some of the folks here are able to do C, because I think that helps everybody involved, even those bands who aren't able to tour every six months.
On a more fundamental level, I disagree that art is essentially self-indulgent. If that were truly the case, why bother displaying it, whether it's hanging paintings in a gallery or putting a song up on MySpace or on a CD? By that logic, wouldn't all the time and money involved in recording and releasing an album be a colossal waste of time? People don't make art just for grins, but because they feel something, right? And then they want to somehow transmit that feeling to other people; it's a natural instinct to want to display your art so that you can get that feeling across.
Does the act of displaying that art automatically make you a sellout who's pandering to the people who consume it? Not unless the worlds of art and music are full of nobody but sellouts, even in the realm of indie-rock.
Indie-rock bands don't draw attention to themselves? What? You obviously haven't seen my Inbox (or P.O. Box) lately. If indie bands weren't doing promotion, or hiring people to do it for 'em, their music would remain primarily in their bedrooms. I can only think of a handful of musicians in the past several decades who absolutely refused any kind of promotion, and hell, even they probably sent in their records to MRR.
[Damn comment text limits…]
Now, is music going to save the world, or even Houston? Nah, I don't think that — c'mon, man. I think you're thinking on a far bigger scale than I am on that front. Of course there are things that'd be more beneficial to society as a whole than musicians making music (although I happen to think some form of art is necessary for a functional society). I'm not delusional, and I don't think turning Houston into '90s Seattle or '00s Brooklyn would be good for anyone in the long run.
What I would like to see, though, is a music scene that's self-sustaining, that does well enough to keep itself alive. I'm tired of watching Talented Band X implode after doing awesome things for a few years because they get bored and burned out from playing empty rooms. There's an inevitable lifecycle to any music scene, certainly, but Houston's seems to me more and more to be a bitterly self-destructive one.
I can't help but feel ill when I look back and see all the promising, talented folks who've come and gone since I've lived here. They live on — for me, at least — in "remember when…?" conversations on the Hands Up board and in the stacks of records littering my office & garage, but most likely, the rest of the universe will never even have the chance to know they existed. And that's a shame, because they'll never know what it feels/felt like to listen to, say, Celindine for the first time.
Is the point to get famous? Nope. I don't think I've ever interviewed or talked to a single person from here who's declared getting famous as their overarching goal. (Okay, except for maybe Damon from Casino. ;^)
Known, however, yeah. I'm all for that. "Known" means Talented Band X can maybe continue to write the music they want to write, maybe play to bigger crowds, and maybe keep themselves alive for a while. And I don't think that goal is at odds with wanting to make art for art's sake. I think "known" helps artists keep doing their art, and that, to me, is the thing to shoot for. Make Houston a place where musicians can do what they do best and be successful to the point where they don't feel like they have to leave or throw in the towel because making their art has become not much more than a pain in the ass.
And believe it or not, this is all a large part of why I've run this thing all these years; a major aim from day one, one I've never (well, hopefully never) made any bones about, was that I wanted to put Houston-made music up on a level playing field with music from elsewhere. That's why we review whatever we can get our hands on, and not just stuff from here. Because I want to demonstrate that Buxton's A Family Light is just as damn good (hell, maybe better) than the new Iron and Wine album (to pull something completely out of my ass).
Does that mean I've been going about this all wrong all this time? Nah, I don't think so. What's happening now here in town is a good thing, and I want to see it continue, not because I think it's the way for bands here to get rich or magically show up in magazines, but because I think it's the only way for Houston music to stay alive and move forward.