Meet Tamizdat's Matthew Covey, the New York-Based Magician Who Wrangles Visas For Pretty Much Ever Foreign Band, Ever

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​Paging M.I.A.--this dude is the truth. Matthew Covey is the 41 year old regular fellow--"somewhere between aging punk rocker and detail-obsessed bureaucrat," reports the New York Times--responsible for obtaining musician visas for pretty much everyone who wants to play here from out of the country, including 200 of the bands presently on their way to SXSW. He is the master of wrangling unreliable human beings--"The vast majority of problems all could have been avoided if the artists got their act together between two and six weeks earlier," he tells the Times. And his success rate is a thing of beauty and sculpture: he is 2,259 for 2,262, for a total of almost 8,000 people. "It's a hassle," Covey told the paper, "but it's not an insurmountable hassle." Well. That depends on who you are, doesn't it? [NYT]