"If all the wristbands sell," Flemmons says, "then we'll have enough money to cover our costs, but there's no way for us to bank on the fact that it will be a sellout." (While admission to The Flaming Lips/Midlake portion of NX35 was always planned to be free, to attend the remainder of NX35's programming and concerts, fans must purchase wristbands. And those with a wristband will have priority access at the concert venues over walk-ups.)
During the meeting, Booker tells Flemmons to send the Lips' camp the NX35 financials. After that, Booker would talk with Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne. With dark skies above and rain pelting the windshield, Flemmons drives back to Denton after the meeting, knowing he's inching closer to a potential PR disaster. This is all happening at a time when Denton's music scene has been riding a wave of recent signings by out-of-state labels like Waaga Records and national and international media attention, ranging from Paste Magazine's 2008 nod for "Best Music Scene" to repeated mentions on U.K. blogs such as 20 Jazz Funk Greats.
Danny Fulgencio
CHRIS FLEMMONS PORES OVER THE RIDERS FROM SOME OF THE BANDS PLAYING NX35.
Danny Fulgencio
JESSECA BAGHERPOUR (LEFT), JAIME-PAUL FALCON (RIGHT)
AND OTHER DAY BOW BOW WRITERS GEAR UP FOR NX35 IN A MEETING AT BANTER, A COFFEE SHOP AND BISTRO PARTICIPATING IN THE FESTIVAL.
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If Flemmons fails now, he fails big. And he knows it.
"Denton is in a good place right now," he says after arriving back in town that afternoon. "So, it's not a good time to make it look like we're a bunch of fuck-ups."
NX35 may have launched its first four-day conferette last year in Denton, but the event had been percolating in Flemmons' mind since 2002. In 2005, Flemmons organized an afternoon party in Austin during the week of SXSW. The idea was that the party would feature somewhere between six and 10 Denton acts and performers who Flemmons thought deserved to be seen by a wider audience. It seemed like pointing people in the direction of Denton, located on Interstate 35, was a good idea, thus the name North by 35.
"It seemed overambitious and daunting at the time to try to pull it off here," Flemmons says. "So, we started the afternoon parties in Austin to try and build the name a little bit. But the plan was always to eventually have North by 35 be in Denton."
Flemmons thought it would take two years. It ended up taking four. And, last year, it took Flemmons close to six months of working 20-hour days, six (and sometimes seven) days a week to pull it off. He enlisted nearly 50 volunteers from within Denton's music community to help with everything from ad sales and promotion to planning and organizing. Most of the volunteers drop by the office to help out for a few hours after working their full-time jobs.
"It does feel self-abusive at points, and you also start to question what it is you're doing," Flemmons says, pausing briefly before answering what exactly he is doing. "We're really just trying to do something to better the town. That's the big thing. And, really, we're hoping to draw some attention to Denton from outside of the area."
As the founder and frontman of The Baptist Generals, who've been performing and touring for more than a decade, Flemmons had learned the ins-and-outs of the music festival circuit, both stateside and overseas.
"Last year, it was just a first-year event," Flemmons says. "But it was tremendously rewarding. At the end of all that, I was extremely exhausted. I spent, like, three weeks in bed recovering and watching box-set DVDs. But it was rewarding because afterward there was a whole lot of momentum for and interest in putting something like this together."
When Flemmons says rewarding, he doesn't mean money. After he and the volunteers worked from August 2008 through March 2009, the inaugural conferette turned a $200 profit. "I was just glad to end up with the shirt on my back," he says. "When it was all over, I was still driving my car around with the brakes metal-on-metal."
Flemmons says he started pawning instruments and recording equipment to pay the bills before landing a gig helping Oak Cliff barbecue joint Smoke put together some impressive local shows. But it wasn't long before Flemmons had to shift all of his focus back to NX35. How has this year compared with last year? During the run-up to last year's NX35, Flemmons used birthing imagery to describe the process of organizing the first-year event, but this year, from the moment organizers announced The Flaming Lips show, Flemmons says it was like jumping off a cliff.
"Once you announce a show like the Lips, there's no going back," he says.
Nearly every wall of NX35's apartment-size headquarters has been taken over by floor-to-ceiling whiteboards, and The Flaming Lips show gets its own section. The north wall holds a gigantic calendar charting the 200-plus bands scheduled to participate in more than a dozen venues near downtown Denton. That's a substantial increase from last year's 124 bands in nine venues, making this year's event a few bands larger than the first SXSW back in 1987. This year, Pitchfork referred to NX35 as SXSW's "baby cousin." It's an apt description. Last year's SXSW featured more than 1,900 artists on more than 80 stages, and while NX35 is put together by nearly 100 volunteers working after hours and weekends, SXSW employs a crew of 70 full-time staffers.
