CABQSXSW— The rejection notices have been doled out. Just in case you had any lingering doubts, we regret to inform you that your band didn’t make it. We can say this with complete confidence because only one Albuquerque band was accepted onto this year’s official South by Southwest Showcase roster. That band was Beirut. Which is really, in a roundabout way, a reflection of Santa Fe (central figure Zach Condon was born here but raised there). But Beirut is from New York, not New Mexico. Its band members don’t live here. Their practice space isn’t out here, and neither is their record label. As far as I can tell, the only time Beirut has ever claimed Albuquerque as their home has been on their SXSW applications. I’m terribly confused by the whole arrangement. But I digress.So it didn’t work out the way we’d hoped for you, Sporto, but keep your chin up. (By the way, can we call you Sporto?) You can still have a somewhat meaningful presence at the festival, and without having to shell out for five tanks of gas. The City of Albuquerque is sponsoring a big, beautiful booth, designed by Zygote Pro-Creations, to represent New Mexico at the festival. Film, music and other locally produced stuff will air on three quasi-interactive video displays. There’ll also be two nice little community conference areas for any New Mexican creative types at the festival to use for business, networking, interviews and what-have-you.Here’s what you need to do: Gather up your music videos and high-quality live footage, and put it on a DVD. Make sure you do a little creative editing to get your name in there somewhere. At the very least, type up an info sheet with the name of your band and any songs featured on the disc, maybe a brief bio and some contact information. (Barring that, just print out your MySpace page.) Then stick it in an envelope, affix the appropriate amount of postage to it and mail it off to this address.Economic Development DepartmentC/O Tom Frouge, Albuquerque Music LiaisonOne Civic PlazaP.O. Box 1293Albuquerque, NM 87103Do that and you just may be selected to have a spot at the booth. If you’ve got questions, or if you plan on going down there and would like to have first dibs on a specific time at the booth, e-mail Tom at tfrouge@cabq.gov.
Music To Your Ears
Boring But Useful— You should know that a brand-new additional access road to the Santa Ana Arena opened last Friday. It’s called Arena Drive and it hooks right onto Unser. Try it out this weekend and prevent a bloody, bottlenecked stampede from delaying The Moody Blues’ concert.
