Today starts South By Southwest 2010 and throngs of people, bands, filmmakers and bloggers have made their way to Austin to tweet, screen and rock throughout next nine days. Today starts the interactive and film part of the conference with sessions on new media and a whole lot of film screenings. The music officially starts Wednesday, Mar. 17.
Although I won’t be making it down there, I did take a look over the schedule to see how gay the conference is going to be. Not counting the unknown gay actor in that movie or the lesbian keyboardist in this band that would be too tedious to track down, I went through and checked off the obvious LGBT stuff. It just so happens, there isn’t that much. Not a surprise really, but I’m beginning to think that it would be nice if there was an actually LGBT-specific aspect to SXSW. Or better yet, just create one here in Big D. I guess that’s a whole other topic.
If you’re making the road trip down to Austin, you can look at my created schedule of meet-ups, films, bands and other events with gay content if you’re on the lookout. Don’t let the site’s schedule be the end all for your searching though. Anne McCue, who we featured in this week’s issue, is performing but not on the SXSW scheduler. Nor is bounce artist, Vockah Redu. Let me know if I missed anything!
And don’t forget on the last day of the conference (although not part of the official festivities), GayBiGayGay, pictured, starts at noon. They don’t give many details on their site but this last day alternative is an honest representation of queer music culture. The DIY-type music fest solely consists of LGBT bands and artists.
I’m not sure what ‘an actually LGBT-specific aspect’ would be. Stereotypical qualities and aspects belonging to gay people are remnants of a time long past.
We’ve grown past the age of music and film being exclusively straight or gay.
Not all gay people love the same music and films and not all straight people love the same music and films.
A lot of gay people love the music straight people do, and a lot of straight people love the music gay people do. SXSW is a wonderful mix of a specific type of music and film, that like many clubs and events in Dallas, appeals to both straight and gay. Straight and gay together loving music and film as one natural culture.
Music and film are inclusive and not exclusive to letters representing LGBT or S for straight and not limited to particular days of the conference.
Lots more independent queer acts will be there. Also, follow #sxswhomo on Twitter.
Girl in a Coma tweeted this – “another free sxsw show added! check out myspace.com/girlsinacoma for all dates.