South by Southwest is one of the largest showcases of independent music in the world, and music from Columbus will be fully represented this year. A group of local musicians are putting together “We Are Columbus – Ohio By Southwest“, a musical showcase taking place on March 17th at The Treehouse Bar in Austin. Additionally, two upcoming events at Kobo will serve to help promote the SXSW event and to raise funds to support the show in Austin.
We recently spoke with Chris Shaw of the Andy Shaw Band for a Q&A session to find out more about We Are Columbus.
Q: Tell us a bit more about the idea behind this Columbus music show in Austin. How did it come about?
A: Basically we went down to SXSW last year and saw a bunch of really cool unofficial showcases. Anything from funk, to hip hop, to reggae, to electronica. We happened upon some city showcases like New Orleans, Milwaukee and Los Angeles and we started to get the idea of our own Columbus showcase. We already saw a few Columbus musicians performing there, like Two Cow Garage and Lydia Loveless… but nothing under one roof. Or, if it did happen, we missed it with everything else that was going on. I know CDR has done some great stuff and Donewaiting has been a huge Columbus SXSW blog, so we definitely appreciate all of that. We really wanted to play at SXSW ourselves and had not gotten the opportunity to do so, so we created this showcase to do that and bring the community along with us.
Q: Would you say that there is a “Columbus Sound” to be showcased and if so, how would you describe it?
A: I think a lot of towns have a “sound” and sometimes that can be very limiting. If you go to Nashville Tennessee you expect a certain thing. In my experience, it seems like the rock or indie musicians down there are struggling to get that stereotype off of their town, digging their way out of the honky tonk scene and trying to make a mark. That is why Columbus is cool because no one has said “Columbus sounds like this”. I have heard some people say the punk or alt-country folk thing is prominent but once you dig more you find so many different genres. The “We Are Columbus” showcase will represent hip hop, country, rock, reggae, soul, pop, singer-songwriter, indie, and more genres mixed in. We really tried to get a diverse group of musicians from different scenes too. The hardest part was picking the bands and still trying to include everyone.
Q: What’s the desired outcome from this event? Do you want to see more national musicians traveling or relocating to Columbus? Or just looking to raise general awareness raised about Columbus?
A: We want to show Austin, and everyone who comes to Austin, the diverse and awesome music scene that we have. This is just a window to the great scene we have and hopefully it will get people interested and at least let people know that we are a contender. I think it’s only a matter of time. Things like this really can help that perception of our scene. As for more musicians relocating… sure, it’s a great city to be a musician. Columbus is not too big where you can’t make a name for yourself. It’s a cheap place to live and we have an amazing community of nice people willing to collaborate. Everyone has been so supportive of this endeavor and to me that represents our scene… the helpful nature of everyone.
Q: There’s been a lot of recent discussion about city-wide “branding” efforts in Columbus. What do you think our “message” should be? Also, do you think programs like “We Are Columbus” help to sell our city to a specific audience or deliver a specific message that a larger entity like Experience Columbus couldn’t do as authentically?
A: I have thought about this a lot and I appreciate the efforts that are trying to put a name on our city. I’ve lived here my whole life and I have been able to see the tremendous growth that has happened. Everything seems to be coming together to really make Columbus a greater city. People are finally excited and doing the things that need to be done to move it forward. But the fact is, no matter what sort branding you have, if the culture doesn’t really actually exist, the branding won’t do anything. To me, Columbus is a place where creative people come together for a bigger cause. I think the message for Columbus should be about creatives building community. We Are Columbus will hopefully help sell the city to some innocent bystanders. “Hey this stuff’s good… where is it from? Columbus? Oh, cool!” I try to think of marketing in that way… it’s all about the common man and the public perception. It takes time and authenticity for that stuff to come through, but we have all the ingredients to really put us on the map.
Q: Last but not least, tell us a bit more about the two local “kick off” shows coming up.
A: We have shows on February 10th from 7pm – 2:30am and March 5th from 9pm – 2:30am, both at Kobo. The bands will be split among the shows and there will be a silent auction to raise funds for all the bands for the trip down. There are some really interesting prizes like house concerts from the musicians, a Yamaha acoustic guitar, gift certificates from a ton of local businesses, and even a date with a musician which could go great or fail miserably. The showcase in Austin is a free event, so our goal is to hopefully break even for our expenses. We want this to be a community event celebrating not only music, but also our local businesses, artists, and everything else.
More information can be found at WeAreColumbusOhio.com.