Justin here with a review of the documentary, Echotone, which recently played as part of the Reel Sounds Film Fest as part of the Denver Underground Music Showcase, which was curated by TMA founder, Ben Martin.
It was the Saturday of The Underground Music Showcase. I woke up around two with a hangover on my bandmate, Eric’s, couch. Our band, Lil’ Slugger wasn’t set to play until the next day in the afternoon. We had a whole day to wander around Denver getting drunk as cheaply as possible taking in bands and talking to friends. The stage was set for an awesome day.
The UMS is the closest thing Denver has to SXSW. Every year, 150 or so bands play in bars, art galleries, and shops along a few blocks on Broadway. The UMS encapsulates all my favorite things about being a musician, the sense of community, the excuse to act like a teenager, free booze, and performance.
After a couple of drinks and a couple of bands, I headed down to the film fest part of The UMS with my good friend Susie from Fingers of the Sun. We had a packed schedule for the day, but wanted to support the film fest. We figured we could watch half an hour of Echotone and then go catch some more acts. What actually happened was quite different…
Echotone managed to suck us both in completely. This isn’t so much a movie about a group of musicians and their scene as it is a movie about all musicians and all scenes. The filmmakers managed to cover Austin at this crucial moment. Austin evolved from a smallish, relatively tight-knit scene like Denver to become something that could someday challenge New York or Chicago in terms of volume of music. This is a movie about those growing pains.
On one side are the venues from the music district that have to contend with new condo and business buildings springing up in what were once cheap neighborhoods populated by musicians and hipster kids. The venues’ new neighbors moved in for the rich cultural scene, but at the same time can’t deal with the noise, the kids, and the yahoos who flood Austin every year for SXSW.
Several different struggling musicians are the focus of the rest of the movie. While I wasn’t familiar with any of them, or really like their music, I wholly identified with them. Black Joe Lewis and his hard rocking soul band resonated the most. It’s clear that Joe is extremely talented and passionate about his music. He’s even inked a record deal and has the opportunity to play with big and popular bands. During the day though, he delivers fish. The modern struggling musician is like a superhero. At night, you’re out with the Avengers kicking all kinds of ass, but during the day, you’re broke-ass Peter Parker. Joe Lewis epitomizes this. He’s trying to sell out so he can quit delivering fish. This means awful PR stunts, photo shoots, and dealing with out of touch A&R men.
For every Joe Lewis though, there are bands that will never get any label attention and have less of a chance of making it. Even the idea of “making it” gets some consideration. Has a band like Candy Claws, who are well-respected and can (as far as I know) tour when they want to and make great albums made it? Has The Fray? They make all kinds of money and I’m sure they have all kinds of groupies but their music is hollow and emotionally bankrupt. I’m sure they have at least one band member who thinks the same.
I had two thoughts that entered my head again and again while watching Echotone:
1. Trying to succeed in music is like volunteering to be Sisyphus rolling that damned rock up the hill every day. In that sense, it’s no different than having a 9 to 5 job.
2. Whatever scene you belong to is a ghetto. Sometimes you can escape into a nicer ghetto, but it’s still a ghetto.
This then begs the questions: why the fuck would anyone want to do this? Why am I here at this music festival waiting to play tomorrow?
The answer: Because I love every second of it. I’ve been playing music since I was about 10. I’ve been in bands since I was 17. There was about a 2 year period where I wasn’t in a band and I practically went crazy. I love performance. It’s something that you really can’t put into words. Like the cliché goes, it’s like trying to explain sex to a virgin. I know that my band will never make it. Hell, we’re almost definitely not going to exist as a band by the end of the year. Maybe because I know that, and I don’t let it stress me out that I can deal with it.
Echotone is a very good movie, and it’s also a very melancholy one. I’m really glad I saw it, but I would question the wisdom of playing it to a festival full of struggling musicians. Everyone in a band should see it. Everyone who is dating someone in a band, or a family member of someone in a band should see it too. This is as close to what being in a band is like without actually having to beg venues for shows, deal with lousy promoters, playing to empty bars, getting paid in drink tickets, and suffering band break-ups.