Has Austin Lost Its Soul?
Moving to Austin in the 90’s was exciting. The music scene was enthralling. So many good bands, a scene of legends! Oh yea, 6th still had its share of drunk frat bros blowing off steam, getting so drunk they’d puke on their new Adidas but they still had enough sense to make it home in one piece and not hurt anyone. Most of the time anyway. It’s funny I never thought I’d be the tainted Austinite that told everyone to go back to where they came from and I still don’t believe I am, but something honestly feels like it has changed, it’s probably me 😂.
When I think back to the days of the Liberty Lunch, the Black Cat, Steam Boat, Lucy’s Retired Surfer Bar, I have very fond memories of a crowd of fans and friends that just loved music. It seemed every night of the week you could see a local bar star in every club on 6th or Red River. I remember at the time, that the big national bands always skipped Austin for cities like Houston or San Antonio but that didn’t matter we had something better, more intimate, more real. We had bands like The Scabs, Heebie Jeebies, Vallejo, Dexter Freebish……. Heck I even had a Monday stay at Steam Boat my bands Otis Pinto, Green Rosetta man we played every venue that would put up with us. It was a home for us musicians who just wanted to play as much as we could, heck you could be in 5 bands and nobody gave a shit, even the club owners. As long as there was a two dollar pint they would fill the house on a Tuesday. Maybe even a Monday if you had Bob and it wasn’t just college kids, it was true music lovers. It was a music scene! It was guys standing in front of the stage offering a spin on a homemade lazy susan for people, if they could lol. It was random patrons buying shots for the whole band, it was multiple day festivals in small clubs with people wrestling in jello — yup, in jello — and The King. You could also count on Leslie showing up somewhere too just to make the conversation interesting.
It was before the big festivals hit the scene, it was when C3 were just starting to figure out what a good show really was. Oh and the streets around town were still free to park. I’ve always been an advocate for growth in Austin so I’m not disappointed in the fact that downtown skyline looks great in photos or that finally we got some great national acts deciding to finally stop in this great town but I wonder if we lost something, a bit of that real support for growing musicians in this town. I mean most of us at a young age would play for free just to hone the skills we so desired to show off to the world, but back in the day I could go to an Italian place and get a free spaghetti dinner for playing 3 songs and let me tell you when you’re hungry you play your heart out! Oh I think they offered another option, I just loved the spaghetti!
Austin is a great town to live and play in so hopefully we will find our way back someday, lets start tomorrow, go out and see your friends band! Come on, you know you got one.