If these Walls Could Talk

Austin's musical history on display at this colorful South Lamar spot

Micael Priest's iconic cosmic cowboy look was used on more than just country bands.

Micael Priest/South Austin Museum of Popular Culture

The South Austin Museum of Popular Culture, better known as SouthPop, is keeping Austin’s music history alive by showcasing photographers, poster artists, print makers, and other creatives who have covered the city’s increasingly diverse music scene over the years.

Located next to the Planet K on South Lamar Boulevard, visitors to this colorful spot are greeted with a surprising array of art upon pulling into the lot, from a mural from famed Armadillo Art Squad artist Kerry Awn to a humorous series of work from Bob “Daddy-O” Wade titled 40 Years of Blood, Sweat and Beers. And inside, more surprises await.

“SouthPop is a very Austin-centric place that is an example not so much of the 'Keep Austin Weird' aesthetic, but the eccentricity, sense of community, and creativity that brought us here today,” says Stephanie Donahue, director of community outreach and communications.

Currently, SouthPop, which opened in 2004, is showing work from poster artist Micael Priest, which will be exhibited until mid-June. Priest, who died in 2018, was part of the Armadillo Art Squad, a group of artists tasked with creating work for the legendary Armadillo World Headquarters.

“Priest was one of the most prolific artists of the Armadillo Art Squad during the rollicking, merge of hippies and the cosmic cowboy culture [in the 1970s]," explains Donahue. "The posters are really important because they were a takeaway for each show. People still collect these, and it especially meant a lot if you were at that show.”

In 2006, Margaret Moser wrote a profile on Priest for the Austin Chronicle titled "A Lot of Cojones and a Little Faith," for which the retrospective is named. Wrote Moser, "To many, Priest rules as the godfather of poster art in Austin because his work is among the most enduring."

Indeed, Priest's work — along with the work of his fellow artists — became the enduring imagery of Austin's culture in the '60s and '70s.

“[There was a] huge convergence of creatives coming into Austin because young people around Texas were finding out if you're a hippie it was the place to be,” Donahue adds.

And due to this influx, the city became known as a destination for musicians, drawing the likes of The Pointer Sisters, Frank Zappa, The Talking Heads, and Bruce Springsteen, among others, and eventually gaining the moniker Live Music Capital of the World.

“Poster art really informed the culture of Austin back then,” she says. “Now, SouthPop seeks to create a bridge between this time period and today to let people see that it's a template for what's going on now.”

In addition to curating rotating exhibitions like the Priest retrospective, SouthPop also hosts album re-releases, which further educates today’s Austinites of the city’s past.

“The show we had just before this exhibit[ion] was a really cool,” Donahue says. “It was the re-release of the album Live at Raul's that was recorded 40 years ago with punk bands from the late '70s and early '80s. We had a mixed crowd of young and old coming to see these great photos, flyers, posters from the punk era and to buy the album.”

SouthPop also has a free music series the last Sunday of every month on its outdoor stage, and curated by the VP of the board/director of events Freddie Krc.

While patrons enjoy the live music, they are also invited to check out more of SouthPop’s artistic offerings. For example, in front of the outdoor stage, there are art cars, including a succulent-and-cactus filled one, that came from Planet K owner Michael Kleinman, a co-founder of SouthPop and big supporter of the arts.

There’s also the memorial wall, which is one of the museum’s biggest draws.

“The wall is here to pay tribute to the movers and shakers of Austin: musicians, politicians, artists, and creatives of all stripes,” Donahue says. "We are constantly in the process of updating it and upgrading it. People come to help us clean the altars put fresh flowers and really take care of it. It means a lot to our patrons, especially if they have a family member on here.”

SouthPop is also hoping to expand outside from its space with eventual pop-ups throughout Austin. And, fans of art cars can expect more of those as well. The board of directors is currently in talks about driving forward with an art car movement.

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See "A Little Cojones and A Lot of Faith" on display through June 16 during SouthPop’s regular hours, Thursday through Sunday 1-6 pm.

music museums

Theatrical History

New play weaves stories of real Austin women together from 1950s on

Photo courtesy of

A photo from the She Was Here dress rehearsal ahead of its world premier.

On January 17, She Was Here, a play about real Latina women in Austin, premieres at Austin Playhouse's new interim theatre space off of West 22nd Street. Although the story is fictional, it was compiled through interviews, making it a truthful rendition of Austin across 70 years.

Written by Austin's renowned Raul Garza and directed by Jerry Ruiz, this poignant but lighthearted play is about how Austin, and culture more generally, have changed over the decades. It's about how women's roles are shifting—moving forward, and sometimes backward; it's about mothers and daughters, and it's about the relationship between people and the space around them.

As Garza puts it, "What imprints do places leave on our soul, and what imprints does our soul leave on [a] place?"

The play was originally written and developed during the pandemic. Garza had received a grant from the city during a time when theatre could be written, but not attended.

"It was a time when there was nothing going on," says Garza, "so we just kind of got reacquainted with what was around us."

For this play's devising team, which included Garza, director Jerry Ruiz, Katie Bender, and mother and daughter Giselle de la Rosa and Chamila Muñoz, what was around them was Austin.

"I wondered what it would be like to wake up 50 years in the past, 60 years in the past, and revisit the exact same physical space but with a new sensibility," says Garza.

Ester A photo of Ester, one of the women whose stories inspired the play. Photo courtesy of Raul Garza

With this idea, Garza and the team began talking to multiple generations of Latina women from Austin, starting with Garza's own mother who went to UT. From there, they expanded their conversations to include multiple groups and multiple family members—activists, mothers, daughters—all via Zoom or the phone. They asked them, How did you get here? What hardships did you encounter? What was it like for you then?

The story that began weaving itself together showed that despite changing times and a changing place, the little things in life always remained the same.

The play, starring Tonie Knight, Alyssa Hurtado, Vivian Noble, and Yesenia García Herrington, is inspired by these stories; but it doesn't focus on any one of them autobiographically. Instead, it follows the lives of two imagined families in one imagined house over the span of decades.

"We see this one consistent place, a physical house, that we imagined was somewhere in the Rainey Street neighborhood," says Garza. "And we see what happens to the lives of the people who inhabit that space, from the 50s through 2020. So it's like you're a fly on the wall, if you could be a fly on the wall in your grandmother's house. The setting is definitely a character."

Joann and her family Joann, pictured here with her family, was one of the women interviewed for this play.Photo courtesy of Raul Garza

At first, this might sound like a play about how things are getting better over time, but of course, it's not that simple. Austin is being developed, and depending on who you ask, we're better or worse off than we were a few decades ago. The same goes for women's rights; it certainly hasn't been a linear progression.

"In the wake of our latest election, it really made us stop and think," Garza says. "Wow, they're talking about the ERA March in 1975; we're talking about the ERA March in 2025. What is going on here?!"

Though the play covers some important and at times heavy topics, Garza says it's also a lot of fun; he hopes the audience comes away with a new appreciation for Austin, for those around them, and for the stories we all hold.

She Was Here is showing at Austin Playhouse Theatre at 405 West 22nd Street, from January 17 though February 9. Tickets range between $24 and $38 and can be purchased online.

theater plays women history