For baby bands, the annual South by Southwest Music Conference and Festival in Austin, Tex., can be like screaming into the abyss as thousands of struggling musicians spend their own money to play a marathon of unpaid concerts for industry machers.
Big breaks can prove elusive for unknowns amid stiff competition for attention; Snoop Dogg and Miley Cyrus, for instance, showed up to perform last week. But for the Prettiots, a New York City trio playing sassy ukulele songs, a $10,000 investment in their first tour, which culminated in five shows at SXSW, paid off.
Based on the group’s performances in Austin, the Prettiots (pronounced as a combination of “pretty” and “idiots”), who were previously unsigned, have garnered inquiries from at least a half-dozen record companies, said Asif Ahmed, the band’s manager, including two major labels and a few major indies.
For now, Rough Trade Records, the storied London label that helped to start the careers of the Smiths and Arcade Fire, plans to release a seven-inch vinyl single for the Prettiots’ song “Boys (I Dated in High School).” Rough Trade is also interested in putting out the Prettiots’ debut full-length album; Geoff Travis, the company’s founder, saw them perform three times at SXSW.
“It was just love at first sight — the kind of analytical and protracted hand-wringing that characterizes all our A&R decisions,” Mr. Travis wrote in an email. “They are wonderful.”
At one afternoon show at Austin’s W Hotel, sponsored by the magazine Nylon, the Prettiots played to a distracted ballroom, winning more notice from the chatty crowd as the tight set went on. In between original songs about Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni’s character from “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”) and what to do when you’re dumped during a New York winter (“Move to L.A.”), the band covered songs by both the R&B lothario Miguel and the punk band the Misfits. Mr. Travis stood in front, although no listeners were closer than 10 feet from the small stage.
From up there, Kay Kasparhauser, the lead singer of the Prettiots, was steady and self-deprecating. “This song’s a new song, although they’re probably all new songs to you,” she told the crowd, dedicating one to her therapist.
“On a scale of one to Plath, I’m like a four,” she sang over ukulele strums and a simple rhythm section. “My head’s not in the oven, but I can’t get off the floor.”
Upon returning to New York, where the band played two additional shows, Ms. Kasparhauser said her first-ever tour and SXSW experience had been worth the energy and financial sacrifices. “It’s this weird endurance test, and then it pays off,” she said. “You’re living off of avocados and beef jerky for three weeks, and then you get to South by, and people are throwing free stuff at you everywhere, telling you how great you are and trying to talk business.”
“Where were you when I was eating Corn Nuts for dinner?” she added.
In addition to interest from labels and music supervisors, which could place the Prettiots’ songs in commercials or film trailers, the band was also asked to perform one of NPR’s influential Tiny Desk Concerts in the near future, after Bob Boilen, the “All Songs Considered” host, watched the group play to a nearly empty room around 2 a.m. on Saturday, Mr. Ahmed said. (The band’s manager added that a SXSW article in The New York Times, which featured the band prominently, had not hurt when it came to industry buzz.) Ms. Kasparhauser said she and her bandmates were “bugging out” at the response. “We definitely drummed up some industry interest. That was the entire goal, trying to get signed,” she said.
Now, because of South by Southwest, she added, the Prettiots feel “like the hot new kid in class.”
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