This weekend, nearly 40 Bay area acts and a handful of out-of-towners will participate in the Southeast Music Conference, a two-day, four-stage showcase aimed at drawing some much-needed attention to the region's original-music goings-on.
It's quite possibly the largest musical event focused on unknown talent staged on either side of the Howard Frankland since the similarly named Southeastern Music Conference ran for five years in the early '90s. It's certainly the biggest and most eclectic congregation of local talent ever assembled for one event.
The conference takes cues from such monster industry to-dos as Austin's annual South by Southwest festival as well as smaller celebrations like Gainesville's The Fest (taking place at the same time), the aforementioned Southeastern Music Conference and Orlando's Florida Music Festival. Like SXSW, the upcoming SMC will feature discussion groups chaired by panels of industry employees. Like the Orlando event, it boasts a schedule heavy on unsung local heroes (X member/actor/singer/songwriter John Doe is the SMC's only high-profile national act), more intent on exposing the scene than on putting big names on the stage.
And like all music confabs, it seeks to attract both national industry players and uninitiated local music lovers by putting a large number of promising bands together at one time, in close proximity, for more-or-less convenient consideration.
Of course, the scale is much smaller than just about any music conference one might know by name. But then again, most of those are controlled by corporations formed for that express purpose, with year-round staffers and an army of volunteers.
The SMC, on the other hand, is the product of a few local musicians and fans with a lot of motivation, and no idea what the hell they were getting themselves into.
"My idea was originally to do a hybrid between [North Carolina's] SleazeFest and [Georgia's] Ath-Fest, something that was more about friends and locals than national bands," says Crippled Masters bassist Roger Peterson. "I wanted to promote all of us, and if in the meantime we could bring in some [big-name] outsiders to help out, that would be great.
"[Southeast Music Alliance principal] Joran [Oppelt] and I ran into each other, and he told me he was looking at October to do something big too, so we decided to work together."
Oppelt was more inclined to try to book national headliners for each stage, while Peterson favored a largely local bill. The two split the difference, and attempted to get a few fairly well-known acts. Under their time constraints and operating budget, however — most of which came from the Southeast Music Alliance's meager coffers and some sponsor backup — they had a difficult go of it.
The SMA put out a request for submissions and received more than 70 of them from unsigned bands as far away as Dallas, no mean feat for a first-time festival without a promotional machine or cachet. A council of five volunteers went through every entry, winnowing the field down to about 30 confirmations; once it became apparent that there was room for several more, the committee put in calls to local acts they liked but which hadn't submitted, urging them to do so.
Several bands that were rejected were incensed — one went so far as to demand the return of its $25 submission fee. Others took a look at the finalized lineup and complained that several of the bands confirmed were friends of Oppelt and/or Peterson, that several bands' members had been involved in setting up the SMC, that it included the same bands that play Southeast Music Association gigs. (Interestingly, some of the groups doing the bitching hadn't bothered to apply for the SMC in the first place.)
"There are a lot of bands on there that we like, and that was one of the aspects I was looking for," reasons Peterson. "I called the organizers of SleazeFest back in March or April, asked them how they went about it, and they said they just called up the bands they like and asked them to come play. Joran was looking for more of the South by Southwest conference vibe. And most of the bands were [selected that way]. But there were also bands I think we would've asked anyway, bands we were hoping would submit."
Mark Willis, an Atlanta band manager and show promoter who, along with two other industry veterans, owns the company that puts on the seven-year-old, four-day Atlantis Music Conference, says such things are unavoidable.
"People will always say 'Oh, you guys are political. You're picking all your bands in advance.' I've heard it all," he says. "But the reality is, we pick the best bands, so there's gonna be a lot of unhappy bands. That happens at a lot of music conferences. Do politics come into play? Hell, yes. That's just part of it."
Sniping and sour grapes aside, the SMC crew has managed to put together a formidable display of Bay area talent, running the gamut from metal to world beat. It's the sort of event most area musicians say is welcome, high-quality and long overdue.
"I'm impressed with the lineup. All the bands on there I like, so I'm gonna be hanging around to see the whole thing," says Shawn Kyle, guitarist and singer for Tampa rock outfit The Beauvilles. "Any time it becomes more than a gig at a bar, even a touring gig, it lends credibility to the whole situation. More people take notice."
Naturally, most of the scene is holding its collective breath, waiting to see if the SMC lives up to its own inherent potential. Which begs the question of next year. And the year after that. Could this weekend's shindig birth an annual franchise?
"I really do [think so]," says Hillsborough County Arts Council principal Lynn Norton, who, with Morrisound Studios owner/producer Tom Morris, spearheaded the Southeastern Music Conferences a decade ago. "I know that over the past few years, people have tried now and then to do something like this. Maybe now, with [Tampa Creative Industries Manager] Paul Wilborn and [Tampa Mayor] Pam [Iorio], just maybe the community is ready to embrace something like that. I think it's time."
"It's an experiment," says Peterson. "We want to see people turn out for it. Originally, our dream was, 'Let's show everybody that Tampa Bay has this big music scene.' Now, I think it's, 'Let's show ourselves that we can pull this off, that we can create a buzz and expose the scene.' The next step is to expand it."
Scott Harrell can be reached at 813-248-8888, ext. 109, or by e-mail at scott.harrell@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Oct 16-22, 2003.