As the number of Latin bands performing at SXSW continues to make impressive gains, this year marks a notable upsurge in Brazilian artists. Close to 30 bands have been confirmed to play at Austin's yearly indie music fest (March 18-22), bumping Brazil up among the top five foreign countries with the largest contingents to descend on Texas' coolest city. Many of them are going the route of Sao Paulo electro-pop darlings CSS, by singing in english. From the cute alterna-pop of Ceara's own Telerama to the irreverent alt-rock of Vinil Laranja, a band from Belem, this year's lineup reflects the diversity of a new generation of Brazilian artists who no longer feel pigeonholed by the sheer size of their country and its linguistic isolation within Latin America. I spoke to publicist Tracy Mann of MG Limited to get the lowdown on the Brazilian invasion. Mann, a SXSW consultant, is an authority on Brazilian music who has worked tirelessly to raise its profile in the U.S. GGC: Why has there been such an increase in the number of Brazilian bands coming to SXSW?
TM: Because my partner, Mark and I, we’re independent consultants at SXSW and public relations and we have been on two trade missions to Brazil in 2007 and 2008, specifically to see bands and meet independent labels and in 2008 Brent Grulke, creative director for SXSW also went with us on one of these trips. So a lot of these bands that you’re seeing are prior bands that either we actually saw when we were in Brazil or we met with their representative and it generated a lot of interest at SXSW.
GGC: Now was Gilbert Gil’s appearance at SXSW a few years ago any indicator that there would be more representation of Brazilian music? Was it in any way a turning point that made you all realize ‘hey this could be something that could take off. We have all of these Latin acts from different countries in Latin America and there’s not as much Brazilian music. Why don’t we go out and find them?’
TM: I’ve lived in Brazil since the 70s and I’ve known Gilberto Gil since that time. And I’ve been working with Brazilian acts touring nationally in the U.S. or releasing records. I certainly wanted to bring that into the excitement I think and the fantastic commercial opportunity at SXSW. I’ve been going to Austin for 23 years so I knew that there was an audience for Brazilian music. I mean they have amazing things there Lissette. They have the biggest Brazilian library archives in the world at the University of Texas library. They have an escola de samba made up of all gringos, you know capoeira school all gringos and when we gave Gil the key to the city in 2007 I mean they had this huge display of capoeira and samba and there was one actual Brazilian in the crowd. So it seemed like a great, very hospitable place to have particularly younger bands come in and get their feet wet in the American market. I would say the real turning point was the year before Gil came when we brought Lenine. And Mark and I and a partner actually financed that cause there was no way to bring him and we were working with him and we were just dying to have him and he played a showcase and it was just you know an incredible thing. He got a booking agent, he got IMN it’s his booking agency, right away, and got all this kind of attention and it was really, really good.
GGC: So you were also directly involved in bringing Gil in 2007?
TM: Yes, yes, because I was working on that record at the time, Gil Luminoso. You know I suggested it and he was coming, it was right when he was starting that tour. I brought it to his attention and I asked him if he would come.
GGC: Let’s talk about some of the bands you’ve listed, there’s too many to obviously name them all. Are there any there that you recognize that you could talk about, or that you’re familiar with?
TM: Well, first of all, I mean to me Patu Fu is just fabulous. They have a long career in Brazil already. They’re post-modern pop, they’re very cool, so definitely one of my picks. But what I wanted to say was that the diversity of music is what blows my mind. I would say a good half of these people sing in English, they deal in alternative rock that people could identify with any number of countries, it’s really not specifically Brazil, they sing less world music per se; people are doing a lot of interesting hybrids, a lot of punk rock in this line up. It’s very interesting.
GCC: During your two recent trade missions in 2007 and 2008, were you able to detect any trends? I know Brazil is such a huge country and to talk about it in monolithic terms is impossible, but are there any trends, specifically with the younger generation, of course the whole thing about the hybridity in music, there’s no such thing as purists in music any more, there is no such things as genres, but were there any trends that you were able to detect while you were there?
TM: Well I would say particularly traveling in the northeast the techno brega continues to be really big and there are a lot of sort of like garage gatherings late at night where people play it all night long.
GGC: And is that going to be reflected at all at SXSW?
TM: There’s no techno brega, there’s one brega, but it’s not techno and that would be La Pupuna, they’re from Belem.
GGC: It’s always been said that Brazilian music is so insular due to the sheer size of the country the market there can support its own vast industry. Has that changed in the last several years as we see more music being exported?
TM:You know I was just really very impressed by stories people told us, in fact from bands that aren’t being represented at SXSW. The people who are doing a great business via MySpace and they’re getting signed to U.S. and Canadian labels just on the basis of the music that they’re putting up on their MySpace. I think that, you know especially with Gil’s leadership on this, I think that Brazilian musicians are very far in thinking in terms of how to use the Internet as a method of communication and they sort of understand that they’re in a somewhat isolated spot, that this is their best tool to reach into the outside world and they’re really into that. I mean a number of these bands that are coming to SX, will be doing full tours of the United States that they booked fully through MySpace and Facebook. No agents, no nothing.
GGC: Yeah I guess that’s the nature of the music industry now, they’re cutting out the middleman.
TM: I will say, it’s quite impressive how music is still regionalized. I mean there are still local scenes, like I said the techno brega scene is happening in Belem, in the state of Pará. We were in Minas Gerais in the summer too, and there you see a very evolved style of music, I mean those people obviously have a really intense musical education, from classical background and it goes into making music that is instrumental in more of a western European tradition perhaps. I think if we mention the great Milton Nascimento, he too has kind of that Minas lineage because his music is so complex melodically and harmonically.
GGC: He was part of the Clube da Esquina scene.
TM: Yeah, yeah, then in Goiania they have a metal and hard rock scene. They’ll be some bands from Goiania.
GGC: Speaking of the Internet have you heard of this singer/songwriter who passed away very young, he killed himself, Yonlu? Luaka Bop is going to release an album.
TM: I did read about that.
GGC: It reflects the whole of idea of communicating through the Internet and making DIY music in your own bedroom…
TM: And getting it out to the world even if you’re in your bedroom, yeah I agree.
GGC: It’s fascinating.
TM: I mean the other thing too that I think is really interesting Lissette is that Brazilians, I mean I’ve been going to Brazil for over thirty years, the young Brazilian musicians are organizing, creating professional organizations for themselves at a rate that really astounds me. This one guy who’s coming with a couple of these bands, Eduardo Ramos, he’s the guy who was originally managing CSS, so you know he’s pretty smart about how to export music, but he also realized that they needed to have a better internal system because touring in Brazil is really difficult financially and organizationally and he set up a network just in the state of Sao Paulo that has 26 venues that bands can come and do around the state and he’s really working on that, not only for the Brazilian bands in Sao Paulo and other states, but also as an exchange with bands in the U.S. who want to come down and you know have a full itinerary in Brazil.
GGC: That’s amazing.
TM: So that’s happening too.
TM: Because my partner, Mark and I, we’re independent consultants at SXSW and public relations and we have been on two trade missions to Brazil in 2007 and 2008, specifically to see bands and meet independent labels and in 2008 Brent Grulke, creative director for SXSW also went with us on one of these trips. So a lot of these bands that you’re seeing are prior bands that either we actually saw when we were in Brazil or we met with their representative and it generated a lot of interest at SXSW.
GGC: Now was Gilbert Gil’s appearance at SXSW a few years ago any indicator that there would be more representation of Brazilian music? Was it in any way a turning point that made you all realize ‘hey this could be something that could take off. We have all of these Latin acts from different countries in Latin America and there’s not as much Brazilian music. Why don’t we go out and find them?’
TM: I’ve lived in Brazil since the 70s and I’ve known Gilberto Gil since that time. And I’ve been working with Brazilian acts touring nationally in the U.S. or releasing records. I certainly wanted to bring that into the excitement I think and the fantastic commercial opportunity at SXSW. I’ve been going to Austin for 23 years so I knew that there was an audience for Brazilian music. I mean they have amazing things there Lissette. They have the biggest Brazilian library archives in the world at the University of Texas library. They have an escola de samba made up of all gringos, you know capoeira school all gringos and when we gave Gil the key to the city in 2007 I mean they had this huge display of capoeira and samba and there was one actual Brazilian in the crowd. So it seemed like a great, very hospitable place to have particularly younger bands come in and get their feet wet in the American market. I would say the real turning point was the year before Gil came when we brought Lenine. And Mark and I and a partner actually financed that cause there was no way to bring him and we were working with him and we were just dying to have him and he played a showcase and it was just you know an incredible thing. He got a booking agent, he got IMN it’s his booking agency, right away, and got all this kind of attention and it was really, really good.
GGC: So you were also directly involved in bringing Gil in 2007?
TM: Yes, yes, because I was working on that record at the time, Gil Luminoso. You know I suggested it and he was coming, it was right when he was starting that tour. I brought it to his attention and I asked him if he would come.
GGC: Let’s talk about some of the bands you’ve listed, there’s too many to obviously name them all. Are there any there that you recognize that you could talk about, or that you’re familiar with?
TM: Well, first of all, I mean to me Patu Fu is just fabulous. They have a long career in Brazil already. They’re post-modern pop, they’re very cool, so definitely one of my picks. But what I wanted to say was that the diversity of music is what blows my mind. I would say a good half of these people sing in English, they deal in alternative rock that people could identify with any number of countries, it’s really not specifically Brazil, they sing less world music per se; people are doing a lot of interesting hybrids, a lot of punk rock in this line up. It’s very interesting.
GCC: During your two recent trade missions in 2007 and 2008, were you able to detect any trends? I know Brazil is such a huge country and to talk about it in monolithic terms is impossible, but are there any trends, specifically with the younger generation, of course the whole thing about the hybridity in music, there’s no such thing as purists in music any more, there is no such things as genres, but were there any trends that you were able to detect while you were there?
TM: Well I would say particularly traveling in the northeast the techno brega continues to be really big and there are a lot of sort of like garage gatherings late at night where people play it all night long.
GGC: And is that going to be reflected at all at SXSW?
TM: There’s no techno brega, there’s one brega, but it’s not techno and that would be La Pupuna, they’re from Belem.
GGC: It’s always been said that Brazilian music is so insular due to the sheer size of the country the market there can support its own vast industry. Has that changed in the last several years as we see more music being exported?
TM:You know I was just really very impressed by stories people told us, in fact from bands that aren’t being represented at SXSW. The people who are doing a great business via MySpace and they’re getting signed to U.S. and Canadian labels just on the basis of the music that they’re putting up on their MySpace. I think that, you know especially with Gil’s leadership on this, I think that Brazilian musicians are very far in thinking in terms of how to use the Internet as a method of communication and they sort of understand that they’re in a somewhat isolated spot, that this is their best tool to reach into the outside world and they’re really into that. I mean a number of these bands that are coming to SX, will be doing full tours of the United States that they booked fully through MySpace and Facebook. No agents, no nothing.
GGC: Yeah I guess that’s the nature of the music industry now, they’re cutting out the middleman.
TM: I will say, it’s quite impressive how music is still regionalized. I mean there are still local scenes, like I said the techno brega scene is happening in Belem, in the state of Pará. We were in Minas Gerais in the summer too, and there you see a very evolved style of music, I mean those people obviously have a really intense musical education, from classical background and it goes into making music that is instrumental in more of a western European tradition perhaps. I think if we mention the great Milton Nascimento, he too has kind of that Minas lineage because his music is so complex melodically and harmonically.
GGC: He was part of the Clube da Esquina scene.
TM: Yeah, yeah, then in Goiania they have a metal and hard rock scene. They’ll be some bands from Goiania.
GGC: Speaking of the Internet have you heard of this singer/songwriter who passed away very young, he killed himself, Yonlu? Luaka Bop is going to release an album.
TM: I did read about that.
GGC: It reflects the whole of idea of communicating through the Internet and making DIY music in your own bedroom…
TM: And getting it out to the world even if you’re in your bedroom, yeah I agree.
GGC: It’s fascinating.
TM: I mean the other thing too that I think is really interesting Lissette is that Brazilians, I mean I’ve been going to Brazil for over thirty years, the young Brazilian musicians are organizing, creating professional organizations for themselves at a rate that really astounds me. This one guy who’s coming with a couple of these bands, Eduardo Ramos, he’s the guy who was originally managing CSS, so you know he’s pretty smart about how to export music, but he also realized that they needed to have a better internal system because touring in Brazil is really difficult financially and organizationally and he set up a network just in the state of Sao Paulo that has 26 venues that bands can come and do around the state and he’s really working on that, not only for the Brazilian bands in Sao Paulo and other states, but also as an exchange with bands in the U.S. who want to come down and you know have a full itinerary in Brazil.
GGC: That’s amazing.
TM: So that’s happening too.
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