In the middle of March in Austin, Texas, SXSW badge holders permeate the city. The music festival scatters official events across dozens of venues, while some bars and clubs host surprise or well-publicized unofficial events. That doesn’t account for street corner crooners, freestyle rappers in hotel lobbies or DJs spinning house music in the tiniest taco shops.
SXSWers can discover their new favorite bands in venues as diverse as the acts themselves. Over the past week, five MTSU students have gotten to know some of these places intimately. The bars, clubs and churches serving as Austin musical havens grew familiar after long, late nights resetting stages, manning doors and getting the sound just right.
St. David’s Sanctuary
Audio production student Kendall Burrill worked in a holy place.
“I was in a church,” Burrill said. “So obviously, it was a very cool venue with stained glass windows and stone walls.”
St. David’s Episcopal Church began construction in 1854, making it one of the oldest venues — and buildings — in Austin. St. David’s hosts concerts throughout the year, which is understandable considering how ethereal music sounds floating to the rafters. During SXSW, the church’s intense schedule featured 14 bands. The lineup was mostly folk-leaning, along with some indie and experimental music, Burrill said.
Walking up the hill to St. David’s delivers music lovers to a listening room without a bad seat. Hard wooden pews stretch across the room under night-darkened stained glass windows.
Working in a church does have its challenges.
“The space is very reverberant,” Burrill said. “But you just have to be cognizant of that, which my engineer very much was.”
British Music Embassy at Palm Door
Over 60 UK bands held their own British invasion on 6th St. when The British Music Embassy took over Palm Door for SXSW. The assortment of artists stepping onto the indoor and outdoor stages were all British, all the time.
Palm Door is spacious with room for an indoor and outdoor stage, as well as a bar. Plentiful seating allowed guests to chill during performances and mingle between them.
Music business major Erinn Rebhun had an unexpected duty at the Embassy: security.
“The British Music Embassy brought their own team over, so we didn’t have to do any of the specific stage crew type activities,” Rebhun said. “We learned how to do more of the security type jobs, and then we got to be at the artists’ entrance. So it was nice getting to meet all the artists and all their crew.”
Driskill Bar and Grill
Imagine the quintessential swanky bar in a swanky hotel: that’s The Driskill. Dark wood, plush carpet, decorative ceiling tiles and leather furniture all served as clues that the drinks would not be cheap. SXSW artists performed in a small side room.
“It’s a very intimate venue,” Brooke Colebank said. “It was super cool in there. There were a lot of different kinds of music. We had everything from beatboxing to Latin to folk music.”
Colebank, an audio production major, acknowledged the challenges posed by such a small workspace.
“The biggest one is just getting around people,” she said. “Where we had the sound booth was kind of in the back corner and it was a small stage. So it was really more just, like, how to maneuver around people. There’s lots of tables and chairs that people would drag around … But I feel like there was a pretty solid process of how things went.”
Central Presbyterian Church
Central Presbyterian Church provided another SXSW religious experience. At Central Presbyterian, velvet cushions softened the pews, and artificial light illuminated the stained glass. The alcohol-free venue was an ideal location for underage volunteers.
And like St. David’s, the space produced impressive sound quality.
“It was surprisingly good, because it was like a big church,” audio production major Audrey Lapp said. “So you’d expect it to be like, kind of muddy and very reverb-y, but it wasn’t. It was really clear and it sounded really good for the space it was.”
When Swedish singer Sarah Klang took the stage March 13, her voice rang like a bell throughout the sanctuary.
Central Presbyterian hosted 17 acts from eight different countries. Some of the genres that filled the space intrigued Lapp.
“There was an electronic artist that was super cool,” Lapp said. “And also it was just cool to see an electronic artist in a church. I feel like you never see that.”
Elysium
Of all the venues where MTSU students worked, Elysium may be the closest to a traditional rock club. It’s loud, dark and a little dingy, with pool tables and pinball machines to keep fans busy during lulls in the music. A small TV screened “Pulp Fiction” behind the bar.
On March 14, Friends From the East Festival presented Chinese and Japanese artists, including miso808, a multi-disciplinary artist originally from Shanghai. Saxy G from Austin new age R&B trio Smooth Nature added local flavor by accompanying miso808 on saxophone. The content crowd drank, chatted and enjoyed the vibe of it all.
Nia Wilkerson, a commercial songwriting major, spent her volunteer shifts at Elysium — and her night off, too.
“Yeah, I did go back on my day off,” Wilkerson said. “Just because I enjoyed it so much and I like being around them. They made me feel very comfortable. It’s a special place.”
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