Paying her debt

In some ways, Kathy McCarty's career trajectory is a blueprint for everything that's wrong with the music business today. Despite all the high-profile things she's done--among them appearing in Austin director Richard Linklater's Slackers and performing the opening and closing songs for Linklater's film Before Sunrise--she is seemingly invisible to L.A. eyes. The powers that be, supposedly intent on finding new talent, have been given every opportunity to hear and sign her. But because her tape is not being shopped to them by a lawyer, she is also somehow inaudible to those who write blank checks to artists far less talented.

McCarty's career is indicative of the biggest myth that surrounds South by Southwest, which is that struggling young bands can get signed there. In fact, very few unsigned acts play SXSW (about 30 percent of the nearly 900), and those that do are generally ignored by bizzers and badge-holders in favor of bands with big buzzes and albums shortly due in stores. The few unsigned bands who do bring out droves of A&R people--the way Beck and Veruca Salt have in recent years--have long been stalked already. The A&R brigade is only there to check out the competition.

McCarty has played a showcase at 12 of the 13 SXSW festivals. At most of them, she was pick of the night by the Austin Chronicle and drew standing-room-only crowds of artists and critics. Last year was the first year she skipped the conference, discouraged because Dead Dog's Eyeball had done so well and yet, despite the universal raves, there seemed to be no interest in her at all.

She was going to skip this year's conference too. Then, a week before the conference began, she got a phone call out of the blue. She called me up to tell me the news.

"Guess what," she said. "Chuck D. is coming to see me play at South by Southwest, and he might sign me to his label!" She was ostensibly referring to the Public Enemy frontman.

I was dumbstruck. "Chuck D? Are you sure?"
"Yeah, you know--he's in a rap band?"
A picture of McCarty in big pants with a gold chain around her neck, singing a duet with Chuck and Flavor Flav, entered my mind. "Are you sure he said Chuck D?"

"Yes, and the label's called Grand Royal."
All was explained. "Kathy, that's Mike D., not Chuck D." I shouted, and apparently just in the nick of time. Mike D. is a member of the Beastie Boys and part-owner of Grand Royal, the world's hippest record label. It would, in fact, be the perfect home for a quirky artist like McCarty, who would fit right in with other Grand Royal artists such as teen-rocker Ben Lee, Luscious Jackson, Bis, and Sean Lennon.

A representative from Grand Royal had asked whether McCarty could set up a showcase for the label to check her out. For most people, to a request like that, coming a mere 10 days before SXSW, the answer would be no. But McCarty used to work for the SXSW organization; in addition, two weeks ago, she was voted into the Austin music Hall of Fame at the Austin Music Awards, a fact she was unaware of at the time. Thus, she was given a prime slot at midnight on Friday on the patio of the Buffalo Club on Seventh Street. She set about furiously practicing a set with her performance partner, guitarist-singer Kris Nelson. Because of her recent marriage, McCarty had played only twice since August; the duo needed a lot of practice.

When the conference began, McCarty was again contacted by Grand Royal reps, who explained that Mike D. was not coming to the conference after all. Instead, she was told, she needed to win over Mark Kates, a former Geffen A&R man responsible for Beck and repping Hole who now works for the Beastie Boys-owned label. "What's Mark Kates into these days?" McCarty nervously inquired of a friend.

"Baseball and drum-and-bass," was the disheartening reply.
McCarty winced. "Gee, I can't even fake those things."
She was nervous the night of the showcase. It didn't help that the club at which she was appearing wasn't particularly appropriate for an acoustic artist, or that the soundman didn't even know she was playing until Brian Beattie, McCarty's old partner in Glass Eye and still among her closest friends, informed him that yes, Kathy was on tonight's bill. Worse, the stage was outdoors beneath a shoddy tent, and had sound bleeding into it from both the indoor club and a club across the alley.

But McCarty's so professional, you wouldn't have known that anything was the matter. She and Nelson did a stellar set that included both new songs, such as "City Song" and "Summer Country," and old ones, including Glass Eye's "Christine" and "Living Life" off Dead Dog's Eyeball. She earned an encore, a hilarious cover of Ween's "Don't Get 2 Close (2 My Fantasy)." If I had been an A&R person, I'd have signed her for that alone.

Mark Kates, alas, was not in the house. McCarty was introduced to him at Waterloo Records the next day, but his disinterest was so manifest--according to McCarty, he rolled his eyes when he heard her name--she couldn't go home even pretending she had a hope.