AUSTIN, TEXAS - You could hear the grumblings everywhere you went during the South by Southwest Music Conference: Record companies are in the toilet, music fans under age 25 don't know you're supposed to pay for music and the only albums that do sell are "American Idol"-ized fluff.
So why, then, did a record number Minnesota rock bands bother to make it to Austin this weekend to be a part of the music industry's biggest convention -- where the goal in past decades was to land the big record deal?
Turns out, many of the 30 or so Twin Cities acts that came to the 22nd annual installment of South by Southwest (SXSW) now see the industry's woes as an open window for independent musicians.
"I'm happy about the major labels going away -- all they've ever done is made empty promises over free lunch," said Minneapolis singer and pianist Mark Mallman, a SXSW vet who returned this year to promote his new band, Ruby Isle.
The music industry isn't doomed, Mallman said. Instead, "the power has diversified."
SXSW first-timers the Alarmists -- who weren't even awarded a sanctioned nighttime showcase in the festival -- took the power into their own hands and crashed the party. The rock quintet played a couple daytime shindigs and gave away CDs. (Forget selling them.)
"We're giving them out to important-looking people with (SXSW registration) badges -- and to pretty girls," Alarmists frontman Eric Lovold quipped Friday afternoon as he loaded up more of the sampler discs into his shoulder bag.
What was the band's aim this weekend? "To be able to play anywhere, anytime," Lovold said.