NX35 Music Conferette

Festival coins a word, just to keep it 'beard'

What: NX35 Music Conferette
When: March 11-14, 2010
Where: Downtown Denton
How much: All-access wristbands - $65. All-venue wristband for all single-night programming - $20. Saturday single-night wristbands are sold out. Patrons must present valid ID and a voucher to pick up their wristbands at artist and registration check-in between noon and 8 p.m. No walk-up wristbands will be sold. Buying early is wise. Register for your wristband at www.nx35.com

So, what's with the whole "conferette" part of North By 35 Music Conferette?
We asked the guy who could get the credit or the blame for this foundling of a word - festival director Chris Flemmons.

Flemmons started his explanation with the festival's brand, NX35.

"This started out as an afternoon fest at [South By Southwest,]" Flemmons said, suspending the rule prohibiting mentions of the big behemoth to the south known by its brand, SXSW. "We'd have this late afternoon party of acts from Denton that deserved to be seen along with groups that had a critical draw."

After years of talk about staging a festival in Denton just a week before SXSW, Flemmons and a team of spunky volunteers broke a champagne bottle (or some other, cheaper spirit) against the inaugural NX35. Which was branded a "conferette" from the start.

"From the get-go, it was 'what do you we call it?'" said Flemmons, a longtime Denton resident and guitarist for The Baptist Generals. "We suggested something you can't print. SX [expletive] You. We wanted people to get that this was some sort of antagonistic, off-festival thing. I thought it would be cool for the title to be directions to Denton."

Like a bucketful of Denton musicians, Flemmons is connected with a lot of people who know music, music culture and all its regionalisms. For every scenester who wants nothing more than to lift a glass and do a weird dance at one of Denton's venues - nearly all of them connected during the festival by a chain of rip-snorting bills - there's another who wants to get a dose of egg-head data about The State of Things. For those folks, Flemmons & Co. prepared a schedule of panels.

Also known as the conferette.

"We wanted it to be a dressed-down thing," Flemmons said. "Because this is supposed to be a casual thing, I wanted the discussion part of it to be small and hassle-free. We wanted the event to be walkable. I wanted the discussion part of this to lend itself to being smaller and easier."

Smaller than easier than what? The road-glutting phenomenon that is The Other Festival That Shall Not Be Named. In Austin. Anyway, conversations about nursing a music scene that isn't commercial in a Nashville or Los Angeles sort of way were bound to happen anyway. Festival organizers were smart to line-up moderators and air conditioned buildings for the inevitable.

The crew at NX35 has talked about "conferette." Flemmons said they went as far as to Google it. Flemmons found an antique microphone model with the brand, but nothing else.

So "conferette" it is. And if the term offends you, you don't have to use it to acknowledge it or attend the discussions. NX35 folks are laid back that way.

And for the cranks out there, maybe time will soothe your rage. After all, The Denton Arts & Jazz Festival started out as the pert and breezy "Spring Fling."

- Lucinda Breeding