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Candid Cameraman Spoofs South By Southwest Music Showcase

John Hiatt, High Llamas' Sean O'Hagan, record and magazine execs all taken in by filmmaker's prank.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Imagine breezing through the strip of clubs

at Austin, Texas' South by Southwest, the annual music-industry

showcase, with no thought beyond catching the next band and grabbing

another beer.

Suddenly, a guy with a strange German accent sticks a video camera

in your face and starts asking absurd questions.

That's exactly what filmmaker Fred Armisen did to a host of artists

and music-industry insiders at this year's South by Southwest

new-music celebration. The result is "Fred Armisen's Guide To Music and South By Southwest," a candid-camera-style film currently being showcased in major cities around the United States.

"If there's anything I hate in the whole world, it's people going places to enjoy themselves," Armisen said. "Like I really hate New Orleans because everybody's smiling that silly smile and puking, and everyone going to Austin, that's what their whole deal was."

South by Southwest -- an annual gathering of thousands of music-industry people for four days of panel discussions and performances focusing on up-and-coming artists -- has grown exponentially in its 13 years of existence.

For 1998, 4,100 bands applied for the 800 showcase slots. Two hundred companies and 8,600 industry types signed up to attend the trade-show portion of the conference.

The 31-year-old Armisen introduced his project at San Francisco's

Bottom of the Hill nightclub Oct. 25. The filmmaker screened

the 20-minute film the previous evening in Los Angeles and plans to show it Friday at Brownie's in New York.

Armisen is a musician by trade; his primary reason for going to Austin was to sit in on drums behind the Waco Brothers band. But the idea of having to sit through the schmooze-fest solely as a participant was more than he could bear.

"The deal was I had to go play down there ... with the Waco Brothers," he recalled. "Well, I gotta go down there. I'm going to get bored. I get bored really easily. I get bored going to visit people at their houses on a farm somewhere."

He found he couldn't resist the chance to gather some unique footage along the way.

While his girlfriend, Sally Timms (of the eclectic art-punk band the Mekons), wielded the camera, interviewer Armisen drew on numerous characterizations he's perfected over years of touring. They include: a German techno artist; a blind man; a deaf man; and a frat guy from Hofstra University.

Explaining his motives, Armisen mimicked a typical conference attendee: " 'We're going to go down here, and we're all going to see each other,' and I'm like, 'It's going to be so lame. I'm going to bring a video camera and I'm going to interrupt the panels with stupid questions because this is ridiculous,' and that's what ended up happening."

The movie chronicles some choice moments. To the stupefaction of one gullible bandmember, Armisen posed as the owner of the New York club the Knitting Factory and outlined some unusual policies, such as having bands play simultaneously, targeting 4- and 5-year-olds as the club's prime audience and having bands audition by calling and singing over the phone.

A sit-down discussion between Rolling Stone writer David Fricke and former Capitol Records president Gary Gersh came to an awkward standstill as Armisen urged the two men to kiss.

A conversation with an otherwise happy-to-accommodate John Hiatt turned

awkward when, in his blind-man pose, Armisen wondered aloud at the

interview's end if singer/songwriter Hiatt were still there.

Prior to rolling the film Sunday, Armisen performed a series of skits making fun of America's obsession with safety. His helpful hints included suggestions for how to fend off muggers, such as sticking a pen in the trigger guard of a potential assailant's gun and waving your arms to distract attackers.

Sarah Jacobson, 27, an underground filmmaker in her own right ("Mary Jane's Not A Virgin Anymore," "I Was A Teenage Serial Killer"), raved about Armisen's send-up of the South by Southwest convention culture.

"I love that moment when the celebrities are not sure whether to take

the guy seriously or not -- whether it's going to help them promote or

not, if it's worth putting up with this kind of bullsh--," she said.

"I think there's definitely some jabbing at any kind of convention in general. Anyone who's ever been to a convention and sat on a panel can relate to that kind of thing and how inane it is," Jacobson added.

Armisen successfully ambushed plenty of people, including Sean O'Hagan of the British pop-band High Llamas, who seemed uncertain how to respond when asked if he makes music for deaf people.

But the filmmaker generally allowed the convention's self-important atmosphere to tell its own story.

"I was looking through the guide," Armisen said. "They have this book, and it says, 'The Art of the Interview,' 'How To Give An Interview,' and I'm like, 'You're kidding me.' ... This is insane. And I go there, and there's a woman with little charts going, 'How do you get the most out of your performer?'

"I sat there with my mouth open the whole time."

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