Brent Grulke, creative director behind Austin, Texas's South by Southwest, has died of a heart attack at the age of 52, the festival site announced earlier today.
Grulke had been the creative director of SXSW since 1994. If you or your band got a gig there, it was likely Grulke who gave it to you.
SXSW, or "South by" to the locals and those who have been, is one of the most coveted gigs in the industry side of the music world. Over 2,000 bands from around the world converge on the capital of the Lone Star State for a week in mid-March every year.
Those bands are followed by record labels, managers, agents, publicists, promoters and all manner of music industry types eager to do business. Grulke was there at the inception of SXSW in 1987, when 700 people registered for the first conference. In recent years, that figure has grown to almost 20,000.
“The reason that 2,000 acts play SXSW every year, instead of a more manageable 700 or 800 is, in part, because Grulke just wanted more, more, more when it came to music,” states music writer Michael Corcoran in a blog commemorating his longtime friend.
Over the years, Grulke's desire to be bigger and better drove him to book bands from all over the world. There is hardly a region of the planet not represented somewhere among the 100-plus venues. Canadian bands have always been a major draw at SXSW. Grulke could often be found at music events across Canada, including sister event NXNE in Toronto, discovering new acts and spreading the word of SXSW.
Grulke has always been active in the music industry. Prior to his SXSW career, in the early 1980s, he was a sound engineer and tour manager. Grulke is survived by his wife, Kristen, and son, Graham, as well as brothers Brad and Brian.
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