Documentary reveals music scene’s underbelly

The politics behind the music in the "live music capitol of the world" is something tourists rarely see.

A new documentary, Echotone, which opens April 24 through 27 at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz, sheds some light on how city ordinances and other decisions directly affect the Austin music scene.

Echotone's director, Nathan Christ, originally began the documentary to follow the synth-pop band Belaire. He was already in talks with the band when he realized there was something else brewing that needed to be seen.

"I realized that musicians were being called terrorists downtown. There's noise ordinance and midnight curfews," said Christ. "I was like holy s---, maybe the story of the city could somehow mirror the careers of these musicians in some way, how a city defines itself, how artists define themselves in 2008."

Instead, Echotone now reveals how the music scene is threatened with sound ordinances that make music venues turn down the noise while condos fill up the Austin skyline from 2007 through 2009.

"I understand from the beginning [the slogan is] a marketing angle," said Christ. "It's a good way to talk about what's happening in our city. A city that prides itself so much on its music culture and talks about it so loudly and proudly, and there's this very specific thing that might potentially be threatening in the future."

While the film presents both sides of the argument with the city and the music scene, it doesn't show a solution to fix this conflict. Instead, Echotone focuses on compromise.

One example from the film focuses on the well-known Red River venue Mohawk. When apartments were built across the street from the Mohawk, the venue, with the help of the apartment complex,  built a wall to control the sound at their outside shows .

In Echotone, Christ also follows several Austin favorites such as Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears, Belaire, and The White White Lights, who each have their own story to add to the melting pot of the music scene.

Appearing sporadically throughout the film recording sound clips was intelligent dance music duo, Machine, who brought the two colliding worlds of live music and downtown living together.

"They're the ones that are in the background walking to the construction site, recording all the sounds, the hammers, the saws, nail guns, and all that, and eventually turning it into music of its own kind," said Christ. "And after all the hullabaloo on all of the music, noise pollution, ‘musicians are terrorists,' they actually are the echotone in a way, because they blend the sounds of the city, and they turn it into something beautiful and constructive."

So while the debate continues (recently, city officials passed a new ordinance that extends downtown parking meters' hours to midnight), Echotone gives those on the music's side some comfort.