Now you have the barenaked essentials of Austin. I encourage you to grab your map, put on your boogie shoes, and step boldly out the door. The city awaits.
Austin for Dummies
ALL MY ADULT LIFE I'VE BEEN IN THE HABIT OF giving advice to people who are happier than I am. Like most born-again Texans, I'm sure you're thrilled right now about visiting here. Oh, you've no doubt heard stories about the wide-open spaces being mostly between people's ears, but you didn't believe them. Now, the prospect of vacationing in Austin may make you happier than 95 percent of all dentists in America, but that doesn't mean you're going to fit in. Remember, happiness, like Texas, is a highly transitory state. So my first advice to you is the same admonition I shout every time I pass a wedding in progress: “Stop before it's too late!”
But maybe you've really set your ears back, and you're hell-bent on spending your furlough in Austin. In that case, the least you can do is follow these few simple rules of the road for all modern Bubbas and Bubbettes. This, my fine-feathered foreign friend, is friendly advice, freely given. Follow itâor get the death penalty.
Get you some brontosaurus-foreskin boots and a big ol' cowboy hat. Always remember, only two kinds of people can get away with wearing their hats indoors: cowboys and Jews. Try to be one of them.
Get your hair fixed right. If you're male, cut it into a “mullet” (short on the sides and top, long in the backâ think Billy Ray Cyrus). Or you can leave it long on top and cut it short on the sides and back. When you take off your cowboy hat, you'll have what I like to refer to as the Lyle Lovett Starter Kit. If you're female, make it as big as possible, with lots of teasing and hair spray. If you can hide a Buck knife in there, you're ready. Grooming tip: If you can't find curlers big enough, use empty Dr. Pepper cans.
Don't make the most common mistake all non-Texans make when they come down hereâconfusing Amarillo with the armadillo. Amarillo is a town in the Panhandle full of people who don't like being mistaken for armadillos. They're very conservative politically. The armadillo is a gentle creature. It tends to be much more middle-of-the-road.
Buy you a big ol' pickup truck or a Cadillac. I myself drive a Yom Kippur Clipper. That's a Jewish Cadillacâ stops on a dime and picks it up.
Just because you can drive on snow and ice where you come from does not mean you can drive in an Austin downpour. When it rains hard, stay home. If you have to drive, get on IH-35, move into the fast lane, and go no faster than thirty-five miles per hour. If you have to drive at night, watch out for the deer, even within the city limits. Only hit the ones with huge antlers because they make the best wall hangings. Christmas gift tip: Make you a nice fur coat with antlers and give it to your mother-in-law.
Remember: “Y'all” is singular, “all y'all” is plural, and “all y'all's” is plural possessive.
Austinites have a strange way of talking. Get used to it. In my experience, I've always heard the word “Jewish” pronounced with only one syllable, such as, “He's Juush.” When they pronounce the word “Jew,” of course, it's invariably with about eleven syllables. An example of this would be: “She married a Jeeeeeeewwwww!”
Don't call it “soda” or “pop.” It's all Coke unless it's Dr. Pepper.
Don't pet the dog standing in the back of the pickup, no matter how small or how cute. All truck dogs are dangerous weapons. But a dog that is not in the back of a pickup is another story. We Texans love our dogs. Like we always say: “Money may buy you a fine dog, but only love can make it wag its tail.”
It is now legal to carry a concealed weapon in Texas, and this includes within the Austin City limits. As a result, crime has gone down. An unfortunate side-effect, however, is that there are now about 18 million ambulatory time bombs anyplace you go, just waiting for Dustin Hoffman to pound on the hood and shout, “I'm walkin' here!” As for myself, I don't carry a weapon. If anybody wants to kill me, he's going to have to remember to bring his own gun.
Everything goes better with picante sauce. No exceptions.
Be sure you have a favorite football team. Be sure it is the Texas Longhorns.
Don't tell us how you did it up there. Nobody cares.
Practice saying that you're going to Austin for vacation rather than Texas. Austinites know there's a difference.
And the Band Played On, and On, and On . . .
SO WHAT IS IT ABOUT AUSTIN AND ITS OBSESSION with music, you might ask. Well, I'll tell you. Music is the pulse of the city financially, culturally, and spiritually. We have it all here. Jazz, roots, country, folk, blues, rock, punk, reggae, Latin, soul. Hell, we have musicians here who can't be confined to one Zip code. Likewise, you can't capture Austin in one book, or one song, or one lifetime. The best you can do is to experience it. Here are some suggestions for where to start.
Sixth Street in downtown Austin is perhaps the street best known outside the city limits. A bird's-eye view of the entertainment district would show you a rectangle bordered by East Seventh Street in the north, Congress Avenue on the west, East Fifth on the south, and IH-35 on the east. E. 6th St. bisects the rectangle. Notice the written distinction of the number: 6th St. refers to the thing you drive or walk down; Sixth Street refers to the thing you drink or crawl down. Got it?
Sixth Street is the heartbeat of our local live music scene, with its plethora of clubs and bars. Tattoo parlors, casual cafés, fancy restaurants, and the haunted Driskill Hotel (see “Austin Landmarks”) are interspersed with the watering holes. Before the suds kick your eyeballs into the gutter, take a look around at the historic buildings along E. 6th that date back to the 1800s, when it was called Pecan Street. Sixth Street even has a creek (Waller Creek) that passes through the tree-lined 700 block just off the highway.
I hope you're in the mood for music, because there's a sound for every taste: blues, jazz, country, rock, hip-hop, world, and derivations of these and other genres. You can come hungry, too, since the eats are as varied as the sounds. Chili, ribs, Tex-Mex, steak, seafood, and deli coexist next to vegetarian, Indian, Asian, Cajun, and kosher. For dessert, try some fish ice cream. Whatever cuisine you crave, Sixth Street can satisfy.
As you may have guessed, Sixth Street is frequented by the young and trendy. Fortunately for the rest of us, Sixth Street is also frequented by the old and the out of date (we prefer to call them retro), the rich and the famous, the exciting and the boring, the heroes and the scoundrels. You could find yourself pissing next to a Hollywood star, a rising politician, America's Most Wanted, or my future ex-wife. Be ready for anything.
Don't feel left out if night life ain't your thang. Sixth Street is also about fairs, festivals, and anything else that allows the gregarious city to take to the street and socialize. A Victorian Christmas on Sixth Street and the Old Pecan Street Spring Arts and Fall Arts Festival are annual arts-and-crafts shows during which the city closes off the street from IH-35 to Brazos. Vendors line the middle of Sixth in booths that sometimes spill over onto the side streets.
Don't feel roped in by the confines of Sixth Street; you're free to explore the western part of 6th, too. West 6th St. is more daytime-oriented with its antique stores, art galleries, restaurants, and eclectic shops. This area, beginning at Lamar Boulevard, includes Treaty Oak (see “Austin Landmarks”). Whole Foods, Waterloo Ice House, Amy's Ice Creams, and Sweetish Hill Bakery are some of the west side's culinary attractions. (Has it become apparent that Austin likes to eat?) The pointy-headed city planners call this end of 6th St. “the Shopping District.”
Monday nights I recommend you head down to Mother Egan's Irish Pub between the hours of ten and midnight to catch the Seth Walker Band. He has a bluesy, swinging, Southern sound, and if that's not fulfilling enough, just wait; any number of local legendary musicians may show up to sit in on a number or two. Mother Egan's is located on the west end of 6th St. The Guinness is flowing, the decor is authentically Irish, and the crowd is a jolly lot (Guinness, of course, is the drink that kept the Irish from taking over the world).
Tuesday nights you can catch the happy-hour show with Toni Price at the Continental Club. Show up at six to guarantee getting your brontosaurus-foreskin boot in the door because Toni really packs the place. If you don't believe me, just drive by the club any Tuesday evening around seven, and the line filing down Congress Avenue will be too long to snort. The Continental Club is located at 1315 South Congress. The place itself is an Austin institution, and rightfully claims the title of grandfather of all local music venues because it has been here since 1957, when Morin Scott opened the establishment as a private supper club that featured touring groups like Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller. The Continental is believed to have been the first place in Travis County to sell liquor by the drink. In the 1960s it became a burlesque club; in the late seventies my good friends Roger “One Knite,” Roddy, and Summerdog took over the club and began booking future legends like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Doug Sahm, Joe Ely, Charlie and Will Sexton, Steve Fromholtz, Greezy Wheels, The Butthole Surfers, Lee Roy Parnell, and a small but wiry band called Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys.
In 1987, Steve Wertheimer took the helm and redecorated the Continental to reflect the way it looked in the fifties. Wertheimer shifted the focus of the club to the best of retro roots, rockabilly, country and swing. Happy hours here are legendary, and annual events include birthday parties for Hank Williams, Elvis, Buck Owens, and Wanda Jackson, the Queen of Rockabilly. If you're around on Monday night, don't miss the great Jane Bond.
If country is your thing, the Broken Spoke is your place. It's a true Texas honky-tonk, a south Austin icon since its inception in 1964. The Spoke, as it's affectionately called, is known for its low ceilings, friends in low places, wood-planked floor, and chicken-fried steak; my friend George W. proclaims it his favorite night spot in Austin. In fact, a picture of the then-governor Bush hangs on the wall along with photos of folks like Dwight Yoakam and Clint Eastwood. The president's picture is signed, “Thanks for the good times,” and George is shown posing with the owners, James and Annetta White.
In a memorabilia room dubbed “The Tourist Trap,” two-steppers can take a break by checking out Johnny Bush's boots, Bob Wills's beer can, and a chicken-fried-steak plate signed by Randy Travis. My picture hangs in there somewhere, and it's reported that upon seeing it, visitors stop dead in their tracks and openly wonder when and why in the hell Lionel Ritchie played the joint.
The Spoke has hosted country legends of the caliber of Bob Wills, Ernest Tubb, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and a very young George Strait. The Whites also book local legends like the Geezinslaws, Don Walser, Alvin Crow, and the Derailers. The Spoke is a legend in itself; it has appeared in
Entertainment Weekly
and
National Geographic
as an honest representation of a by-God Texas honky-tonk.
Says James White, “On my tombstone I told my wife to just put, âHe provided a place where people could have a good time, and when he got it built, he named it the âBroken Spoke.'” People still have a good time here, and it's probably one of the last joints you can ever go to and order a pitcher of Pearl beer.
If blues is your groove, you can't miss spending an evening at our premier blues club, Antone's. Antone's has always been synonymous with the blues, and before I go any further, let me note that Antone's is pronounced “
ÃN
-tone's,” not “
ÃN
-twan's,” as my pal Billy Bob Thornton always says.
Buddy Guy, Etta James, Fats Domino, Albert King, Edgar Winter, Angela Strehli, and Stevie Ray Vaughan have all graced Antone's stage. Keith Richards drops by whenever he's in town. I even darkened Antone's doors several times; I vaguely remember spending a few hours in the club because I was doing a gig, although I very well could have been there by mistake. Either way, Antone's is probably one of the main reasons Austin has such a strong blues community, and why the genre has thrived here.
Antone's was birthed during the summer of 1975 on Sixth Street and Brazos. Zydeco god Clifford Chenier busted it open, and from day one its owner, Clifford Antone, brought in names like Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, and Jimmy Reed for up to five-night stands. Antone also booked local blues bands like the Fabulous Thunderbirds, W.C. Clark, and Lou Ann Barton. T-Birds guitarist Jimmie Vaughan's little brother spent hours upon hours playing on stage at Antone's before he hit the big time and became one of the biggest of the modern-day blues stars. He was Stevie Ray Vaughan, Austin's hometown boy whose death is still mourned in the city.
Today, Antone's continues the tradition of live blues music. The place has survived several moves, but it is back downtown where it belongs, on Fifth and Lavaca, still playing the blues, and still serving as home away from home for the best bluesmen and blueswomen.
Other clubs you should add to your itinerary are Stubb's, Club de Ville, Joe's Generic Bar, Love Joy's, the Crown and Anchor, the Dog and Duck Pub, and Momo's. Most of the old Austin clubs that began on Sixth Street have been taken over by yuppie bars and glitzy lounges. There's even a Hard Rock Café in the heart of Sixth Street now. See you there! (Just kidding.)
Many Austinites hang out at Ninth and Red River, also known as the Red River District. It's a block of about six or seven bars. Stubbs, the largest on the strip, has an outside amphitheater where the likes of Willie Nelson and Lucinda Williams play. They have an inside club as well, with a restaurant where you can get your choppers on some of the finest barbecue in the world. The Red Eyed Fly is devoted to rock and rockabilly, with popular bands like Echoset and Damesviolet headlining weekend shows. Headhunters is Austin's only true tiki bar, and they have island concoctions that will send your penis to Venus. Room 710 is a favorite gig spot for Hank Williams III, and Club de Ville has a great outdoor patio built into a cliff. This is one of the few areas in Austin where you are likely to run into as many native Austinites as Californians. The city council is currently trying to get a protection agency together to keep this sliver of Austin intact.
Another Austin landmark and pioneer of the Austin music scene is Threadgill's Tavern, founded by Kenneth Threadgill.
Threadgill moved to Austin in 1923. The teenaged Threadgill heard the music of his future mentor and idol Jimmie Rodgers, “the father of country music,” while attending Austin High School. Subsequently, he met the legend when Threadgill worked at the Tivoli Theater in Beaumont, Texas. Backstage, Rodgers heard Threadgill imitating his yodeling and was impressed. Threadgill became a country singer later in life, and incorporated yodeling into his act; the fans loved it.
In 1933, the year Prohibition was repealed, Kenneth Threadgill moved back to Austin, where he bought an old gas station on North Lamar Boulevard. He changed the gas station into Threadgill's Tavern, which still sold gas and food but had the first beer license in Austin after the Eighteenth Amendment bit the dust. In those days, if an establishment allowed its patrons to drink and dance, it would have to pay an extra tax, so Threadgill did not allow dancing in his tavern. He and his wife Mildred ran the place until World War II, when they decided to close for a few years. During the war, Threadgill worked as a welder for the war effort, but he still kept singing here and there; in fact, Hank Williams came through Austin, and when he was late for his show at the Dessau Dance Hall, Threadgill was asked to sing a few Hank Williams songs while the audience waited. As Hank walked in, Threadgill was belting out “Lovesick Blues.”
After the war, Threadgill reopened the tavern. The establishment still seated only about forty-five; it was packed on weekends when Threadgill and his Hootenanny Hoots played, and Wednesday nights became the time when cowboys, college kids, hippies, and normal Joes (increasingly rare in Austin) got together to drink beer, listen to country music, and watch Threadgill dance his trademark shuffle.
Fate guided two members of Threadgill's Hootenanny Hoots to investigate a small band of hippies they saw on the side of the road during a casual drive through Austin. Hippies were not so rare in Austin that they would warrant extra interest, but these particular longhairs had musical instruments with them, so Julie and Chuck Joyce pulled over and invited them to come to Threadgill's. The shows at the tavern were usually open-mike style, so Janis Joplin, one of the roadside hippies, stepped up that night and sang “Silver Thread and Golden Needles.” When he first heard Janis sing, Threadgill was reported to have said, “That girl's really good.”
Kenneth and Mildred befriended the strange young woman with the matted hair and dirty clothes. Janis became the star attraction at Threadgill's on Wednesday nights, packing in the oddly mixed crowd who came to take in the excitement swirling around her. She had yet to develop her own style, but her range and power were evident, and everyone knew she was going somewhere. Threadgill's considered her one of their own kids. After her death, Threadgill sighed, “I thought the world of that girl. I loved her.”
Janis always considered Threadgill's Tavern her home; after she became famous, Kenneth always maintained that she did not get her start at Threadgill's, but rather started herself. Janis loved Kenneth Threadgill, too. In an interview she said, “He was old, a great big man with a beer belly, and white hair combed back on top of his head. He'd be dishing out Polish sausages, hard-boiled eggs, Grand Prizes, and Lonestars. Every Wednesday night, after some coaxing, Mr. Threadgill, as the students called him, would sing Jimmie Rodgers's âT for Texas' or âWaitin' for a Train.' Someone would say, âMr. Threadgill, Mr. Threadgill, come out and do us a tune.' And he'd say, âNo, I don't think so,' and they'd say, âCome on, come on,' and he'd say, âAll right.' He'd close the bar down, and then he'd walk out the front, and he'd lay his hands on his big fat belly, which was covered with a bar apron. He'd come out like that and lean his head back and sing, just like a bird. God, was he fantastic!”