Photo by Daniel Cavazos
I drank from two aluminum rocket cans during the music portion of this year's SXSW. One was handed to me by a woman in a bright yellow Lipton T-shirt who had been hired to pass out samples of carbonated iced tea. The other was handed out by QT from the stage at Empire Garage as she performed at PC Music's official showcase.
SXSW is as reknowned for the branding that happens at the festival as it is for its music. This year, McDonald's gave away free hash browns at its very own tent, while Miller Lite was available on the house across the city. These products are free, but not really—they're consumable ads that prime you to actually funnel money toward the brands or products once you return to your real life. It's conditioning designed to look like generosity.
So what happens when you're given a free sample of something you cannot buy?
-=-=-=-QT, the project of A.G. Cook, Sophie, and the artist known as Quinn Thomas, perform with shiny cans arranged on clear shelves and stashed in backpacks around the stage. Thomas maintains an active presence on Twitter and Instagram, where she posts selfies with cans of the energy drink, which is also called QT. She identifies as neither man or a woman, rather a transcendental liquid designed to bring peace to those who drink it. At PC Music's SXSW Showcase, Thomas appeared in a silver PVC dress matched to the drink she was there to advertise, a flesh and blood avatar for a product that doesn't actually exist.
QT is not the only PC Music project to engage the aesthetics of branding, but it is the most agressive of the lot. During the SXSW showcase's first time slot, easyFun performed with video projections resembling airline ads glowing on the screen behind him. Flight attendants smiled and tropical beaches sprawled white for miles while he mixed together a set of his bright, buoyant music. Later, Lil Data played against a backdrop of banal visualizations of the Internet, akin to a powerpoint you'd expect to see at a SXSW Interactive panel on "The Future of Connectivity."
PC Music utilizes the banality and omniscience of branding as an aesthetic tool the way punks deploy teenage agression; it's fundamental to the work. Its artists have hijacked the familiar hooks of advertising—fast, feminine voices that demand connection, bright colors, catchy jingles. The few photos of the English netlabel's artists appear synthetic and pristine; for her album art, Hannah Diamond poses against solid colors in a depthless space, her skin airbrushed to perfection.
When Quinn Thomas appeared onstage to perform QT's only song, she held her cell phone over her mouth and mimed along to a prerecorded bit about a mystery caller interrupting her meditations on how to brand the energy drink. Then she lip-synched and danced along to "Hey QT", the drink's jingle cum single, while cheerfully distributing cans to the audience. I got to hold and sip one. It's a sugar-free beverage that tastes like Red Bull, only a little more tart. There's an ingredient list on the side, along with nutrition facts and a purple bar code that may or may not scan into any database.
The collusion of organic culture and forceful branding has long grated SXSW attendees hoping for something akin to an authentic music experience. It also plagues social media; archives like "Brands Saying Bae" collect instances of faceless multinationals absorbing urban slang into their advertising lexicon, or trading in "feels" on Tumblr. The uncanny valley yawns into a vast chasm when Denny's tweets about "hashbrowns on fleek," in attempt to court virality and bond with consumers via social media. The "bae" tweets and the like are easy to mock, but they wouldn't keep happening if they didn't work.
PC Music operates on much the same mechanism, but throws it into reverse; their critique of late capitalism is more a respite from its aggression. The music's pleasurable in the way advertising is designed to be pleasurable, but you never get milked--or not in the way we anticipate. You cannot buy PC Music. A few of Sophie's singles can be purchased on iTunes, and "Hey QT" is slated for an official release in May, but that's it. I saw plenty of audience members wearing clothing with PC Music logos on it in the crowd at SXSW. They had all made it themselves—there is no merch from the label. There is only a love of the music, and what it inspires people to do.
