UPDATE: a great little review of the actual showcase (which we missed) at our friends Layabozi HERE.
As reported HERE, Beijing based label Maybe Mars have been in Austin for the last week at the biggest festival for emerging artists, SXSW. Label stars PK14, Carsick Cars and AV Okubo played a bunch of day shows which culminated in a showcase at the Speakeasy on Saturday night, which attracted in excess of 300 people. We caught tour manager, publicist and label jack-of-all-trades Nevin Domer very briefly after the Houston show last night (which was unfortunately less well attended at around 30 pax). We will try and precis our scattered conversation and give you an insight to the tour so far:
Maybe Mars were severely let down by their local partner, the non-profit organization Dart International. MM paid Dart a significant amount of money to secure, organize backline and logistics and promote the entire tour. Dart sadly dropped the ball, with backline a last minute scramble, many of the promised shows failing to materialize and promotion almost non existent. Having said that, the tour so far has been a pretty decent success. When asked what the aims of the tour were, Domer answered:
…we really just wanted to get our bands out there and let people see what’s going on in China. SXSW is an experience different from everything else so it was really just figuring out how everything worked, really…
It seems like the media have (once again) lapped up China’s offering. David Malitz from the Washington Post even picked Carsick Cars as his favorite band in Austin for SXSW 2010.
When asked which bands had tickled the fancy of the various band members, Japan’s Acid Mother Temple rated high on the list, with China tour veterans F***ed Up and These are Powers still firm favorites. To wrap up, check out the two photos (one above) that made Spin Magazine’s top 40 of SXSW. The full gallery is HERE.
You can see the rest of the US dates on the tour HERE.