Celebrate five years with Giant Steps Productions

Giant Steps Productions is celebrating five years tomorrow in true Giant Steps fashion at Red 7. James Taylor, the man behind Giant Steps Productions and one of my good friends, has been providing Austin with some epic line ups around town.

I've attended many Giant Steps Production shows. I've been to day long shows like Sweat Fest 2 (the first one gave him his first official booking gig) bouncing back and forth between Red 7 stages with in-your-face rock and metal bands. I've been to Free Week shows where I stumbled onto adorable indieness. James always pull through during SXSW with not only free day long shows but great bands from all over the world in the intimate crowded Plush. But what really makes me appreciate what he does is that a lot of the bands I've covered were introduced to me at a Giant Steps show. That guy spends hours after hours weeding out tons of mostly unknown bands to play in Austin.

In other words, James knows his shit.

Now, he didn't start off booking shows. In an email interview with him, he mentioned that this whole idea just kind of spawned off during his time playing drums with his former band Consider the Source.

"In a lot of ways it did just sort of happen. Two things happened: about five years ago, Consider the Source was taking off and getting asked by a lot of touring bands if we would play with them when they came through town which REALLY means 'Will you help us a book a show... oh and you should play too,'" said Taylor. "Well -- we couldn't play every show but I realized I knew the people doing booking at various bars so I COULD still help them get shows. So that started things on a real small DIY level."

However, a year later, he received an email from Suburban Home Records that pretty much changed the direction of Giant Steps Productions. The label was searching for places to perform during SXSW 2007 for two of their artists at the time, Jonah Matranga (Far) and Frank Turner.

"I was a huge fan of Far so my jaw literally dropped," said Taylor. "I booked an unofficial SXSW show at Plush, had NO idea what I was doing. First time I had dealt with contracts, guarantees, riders, all that but thankfully Jonah and Frank were great and have since become good friends of mine and we reached capacity and had a great time."

And I guess they say the rest is history.

As for the show tomorrow, there are nine bands performing as a sampler of genres James has booked through the years. You can find details of the line up at the Facebook event page.

If you are on Facebook (and let's face it, who isn't?), Red River Noise is giving away free tickets to the Giant Steps Production show tomorrow. So all you have to do is click "like" on the Red River Noise page. So easy right? The winner will be drawn and announced some time today so if you want in on this, better make it quick.