An interesting take on how the net is changing how we often discover new bands and the people behind the scenes from the NY Times’ critic at Kelefa Sanneh at SXSW:
"…For many of the savvy listeners (even, perhaps especially, the amateur ones) in town,
this week might be the only time all year they’re likely to see a band live without first having visited the site and downloaded an MP3. For a few days, an ancient tradition — checking out a band simply because a friend says it’s good — comes back to life…"
"…But in another sense, SXSW provides a useful corrective to the world of MP3 blogs. When those songs get beamed around the Internet, it’s seductive to think that bands and listeners have eliminated the middlemen: music goes straight from the recording studio to your laptop. This conference is a reminder of how many professionals it takes to turn an amateur band into a popular MP3. Here, "behind the scenes" is the scene: the place is packed with publicists (right now, Envelopes should be thanking theirs) and managers and booking agents and marketing teams and even a few old-fashioned radio D.J.’s. This is a big part of what makes SXSW tick: middlemen as far as the eye can see."
