Texas has long been viewed as the world’s leading exporter of oil, cowboy hats, beauty queens and barbecue. Now we have something new to add to the export list: South by Southwest.
The first London edition of the Austin festival took place this summer in London’s hip neighborhood of Shoreditch.
I’ve been going to SXSW since before the internet existed, so I thought I had a pretty good idea of what to expect at SXSW London. I was so very wrong.
SXSW London was just … weird. The festival motto was: “Beautiful Collisions.” It was on the tote bags, it was on the T-shirts, it was painted in giant letters on walls around Shoreditch. That motto works only when people arrive at an event via efficient public transit. At least no one I spoke with complained about parking, a SXSW first.
Opinion
During SXSW London I sometimes had a hard time paying attention to the conference speakers because I was enchanted by the architecture. When King Charles III stopped by the festival, he popped into an art exhibit in the crypt of a church built eons before Paul Revere and Betsy Ross were even born. Sadly, I didn’t get to say howdy.
Instead of seeing SXSW bands at a sticky bar on Austin’s “Dirty 6th” I went to see acts in a place called “The Old Blue Last.” That joint is called “old” because it was built in 1700 — before the Alamo.
SXSW Austin, or, as I think of it, “SXSW Classic,” grew from a music event in the party district of 6th Street. It was fed by music label money, then later grew because of an influx of funds from the film, tech and marketing industries. SXSW Classic is mostly a party with a conference attached, so that everyone has a reason to have their company send them to the shindig. The Austin event famously runs on volunteer labor, because people are willing to make an effort to finagle themselves into a good party.
In contrast, SXSW London was very much a work conference with a party on the side. Everyone I met working the London festival was getting paid in actual money, not in hipster points.
Wren, a musician who now lives in London, was confused and disappointed that there was no party in a park near the event, especially as the park was dominated by a giant 3-D SXSW LONDON sculpture. She tried explaining to some locals that on Friday afternoon during SXSW Austin, any open space would have a band playing and maybe a taco truck.
SXSW London didn’t feel very Texas at all, with the notable exception of the “Texas House,” a venue for Texas speakers to hype the “pro-bidniz” climate of our state, a place without those pesky regulations often found in Europe.
The Texas House also featured Dallas-born Joe David Walters, aka “Texas Joe.” Walters is a London-based collector of vintage Western stage wear who presents what he terms a retro version of a cowboy in his daily fit. Among his multiple ventures, Walters runs “Texas Joe’s Slow Smoked Meats” in Central London. When they passed out the vittles from his restaurant, I finally felt like I was at SXSW, though I got a double take from the server when I asked for fat brisket and burnt ends.
I couldn’t resist a visit with Walters at his London BBQ joint. From the moment I opened his front door with its faded vintage Houston Astros logo, I felt right at home.
He’s got posters from Austin’s famed Armadillo World Headquarters concert venue along with decommissioned Texas road signs. Since he can’t find post oak in England, he told me he smokes his meats with slow cured English oak from a royal estate.
Remarkably, both Walters and I had been at the University of Texas at Austin in the early ’90s. I even remember listening to his ’90s late-night radio show “The Other Side” about British import music on Austin’s beloved ’90s music station KNNC. Now he’s doing a similar thing — bringing culture across the pond, but in the other direction.
Deeply unsatisfied, I went seeking some Texas fun in London. Luckily H-Town royalty Beyoncé was in London for her “Cowboy Carter” tour, which took place at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. That’s where some local lads play something they call football, as seen on telly on the programme Ted Lasso.
Beyoncé flying over the heads of the cowboy-hatted audience in her illuminated horseshoe was way more Texas than anything at SXSW London.
Would I go back to SXSW London? Sure! I’d just go knowing that it’s not a clone of the ATX event. The blueprint might be the same, but the vibes have a very different accent, and they come at you very quickly, from the wrong side of the road.
Anna Hanks is a writer from Austin.