Retro Austin

10 original Austin music venues that still rock today

Antone's was a leader in creating Austin's reputation as a live music mecca.

Photo by Chad Wadsworth

Live music venues abound in Austin, aka the Live Music Capital of the World. The world also knows the Capital City for its music festivals, particularly ACL Fest and SXSW. But Austin had a vibrant live music scene long before the slogan, festivals, and the plethora of clubs and stages in trendy areas — long before many Austin music-lovers were born, in fact.

Here are 10 places from those early days that still rock today.

Antone’s Night Club
Antone's opened in 1975, one of the original music venues on Sixth Street and a leader in creating Austin's reputation as a live music mecca. Notable musicians who have performed here include Clifton Chenier, Fats Domino, John Lee Hooker, Delbert McClinton, Pinetop Perkins, Muddy Waters, Albert Collins, Jimmy Reed, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, B.B. King, and Gary Clark Jr. Now located on East Fifth Street, the club offers live music seven days a week, sometimes for as little as a $5 cover.

Cactus Café
The Cactus Cafe & Bar, an intimate venue, opened in 1979 in the University of Texas Student Union. It books local, regional, national, and international acoustic music acts. Many well-known artists played here early in their careers, including Lyle Lovett, Robert Earl Keen, Lucinda Williams, Shawn Colvin, Nanci Griffith, and Ani DiFranco. Others that have graced the stage at this music room include Alison Krauss, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock, Townes Van Zandt, Loudon Wainwright III, Bill Monroe, Richard Thompson, Guy Clark, the Dixie Chicks, and Patty Griffin, just to name a few.

Continental Club
The legendary Continental Club opened in 1955 and ranks as one of Austin’s oldest continuously running clubs — at one point a swanky supper club, burlesque club, and blue-collar bar that opened at 7 am. As a live music venue, it hosted Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, Paul Ray and the Cobras, Joe Ely, Bill Carter and the Blame, and many others in the 1970s and '80s. A 1987 renovation returned the interior to very nearly its original 1950s version, and the club continues to present “roots rock, traditional country and blues, rockabilly, and garage rock.” Acts that have performed on this stage include Junior Brown, Robert Plant, Alejandro Escovedo, Wanda Jackson, Toni Price, James Burton, Dale Watson, James McMurtry, Jon Dee Graham, and Heybale.

Deep Eddy Cabaret
This self-proclaimed dive bar, named for a former swimming hole on the Colorado River, opened in 1951. Free red beans and rice and live blues music every Tuesday night, occasional live music other times, as well as movie nights, pool, and screening of UT football games.

Donn’s Depot
Donn Adelman entered the Austin music scene in 1961 and still plays piano and sings, often accompanied by a bass player and a drummer. He established Donn's Depot in 1972, in an actual train depot and railroad cars, and performs there on Tuesday and Friday nights. The rest of the week, the club showcases a cast of regulars, with rotating acts on Saturday nights.

Hole in the Wall
Founded in 1974 on the Drag across from the University of Texas campus, this aptly named venue helped launch a number of local bands to greater success, including Spoon, The Gourds, Shakey Graves, Timbuk 3, Bob Schneider, Fastball, Black Joe Lewis, and Gary Clark Jr. Often, big names drop in to jam, listen to music, or play pool or arcade games. Describing the stage and club as “cozy” is decidedly an understatement, although large front windows help.

Saxon Pub
This South Lamar Boulevard icon opened in 1990 and has hosted well over 22,000 performances. The listening room is a preferred venue for local musicians — Kris Kristofferson even likened it to “playing in his own living room.” After talks of moving to a new development in South Austin, the legendary Saxon Pub has announced it will stay put in its storied home.

Stubb’s Bar-B-Q
A barbecue and music joint established by Christopher “Stubb” Stubblefield in Lubbock in 1968 until the mid-1980s, the original hosted big music names such as Johnny Cash, Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, B.B. King, Willie Nelson, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Muddy Waters. Stubb moved the barbecue and live music joint to Austin in 1986, located on north I-35. He closed that location in 1989. After his death in 1995, partners revived the operation in the historic building at 801 Red River St., with a large outdoor stage and amphitheater.

Threadgill’s
From the 1930s through the 1960, the original Threadgill's on North Lamar Boulevard, a gas station that sold beer, was the Austin music scene. Founder Kenneth Threadgill brought together a wide range of musicians and fans, creating an open-to-anything culture that helped to make Austin weird in the first place. When the famous Armadillo World Headquarters was forced to close, owner Eddie Wilson bought Threadgill’s and picked up right where the Armadillo left off on New Year’s Day, 1981. He added a Southern style restaurant inspired by the menu at the Armadillo, so folks can enjoy a hearty meal along with live music.

Waterloo Records
Yeah, this place is technically a store selling recorded music, but it also stages regular live performances — most of them free. Waterloo Records opened its doors on April 1, 1982, in a tiny space on North Lamar Boulevard, later moving to a larger space at Sixth and Lamar.

music

Tejano Treasures

Nostalgic new Texas Monthly podcast asks what happened to Tejano music

Photo courtesy of Texas Monthly.

Host J.B. Sauceda interviews a guest for Texas Monthly's new podcast, Viva Tejano.

On November 12, Texas Monthly is releasing a new podcast all about Tejano music called Viva Tejano.

In this 10-part series, host J.B. Sauceda (who is also the host of Texas Country Reporter on KVUE) interviews Tejano fans and legendary artists like Los Texmaniacs' Max Baca and Grammy-nominated artist, El Dusty, to celebrate and explore Tejano music, past and present.

Latin music is currently the fastest growing genre in the U.S., and in this podcast listeners can learn how Tejano music, which originated in Texas and northern Mexico in the mid 19th century, informs some of today's biggest names like Bad Bunny and Peso Pluma.

When Sauceda was a kid in the 80s, Tejano music was everywhere — a sort of consistent background noise at family and social gatherings for Texas Mexicans. The 80s and 90s represented a sort of golden age of Tejano music for many; its rise in popularity was largely thanks to the belovedJohnny Canales Show, a musical variety show that aired on Univision and Televisa from 1988 to 1996.

But in the mid- to late-90s, several things happened that led to a sort of muffling of Tejano music. First was the death of Selena in 1995.

"Her death was a huge kick in the gut,: Sauceda says. "After talking to several artists, a lot of people felt that way. There was this belief that [this music] could win; but her death was so devastating, it really demoralized people in the industry."

Quickly after, radio stations became deregulated — meaning, a lot of the local Tejano music playing on Texas radio stations was replaced with more regional Mexican music. And almost immediately after that, the Johnny Canales Show stopped airing on Univision and Televisa.

So, a big part of Sauceda's goal in this podcast is to answer the question: "What happened to Tejano music?"

The polka-style, orquesta beat is one reason Sauceda says Tejano music is currently making a comeback; it lends itself well to other hugely popular genres like hip hop.

The sound is not exactly the same as it used to be, since in the 80s and 90s, the horns were replaced with electronic keyboards as technology, trends, and practical needs shifted. But always, the subject matter of Tejano music remains love and loss.

Paradoxically, Sauceda says, "It's the party music of the Baby Boomer generation of Mexican Americans that grew up in Texas; it's upbeat and fun to dance to."

As any evolving genre, it's not always easy to nail down what fits and what doesn't, nor to assign language to it. Sauceda points out that the artists he interviews fit the bill culturally, if not strictly musically. "Many of the artists [I interviewed] would probably refer to themselves as Tejano as people; but they probably wouldn't call their music 'Tejano music,'" he says.

J.B. Sauceda with Phanie Diaz and Jenn Alva, band members of Girl in a Coma and Fea. Photo courtesy of Texas Monthly

For example, in one episode, Sauceda visits San Antonio to interview Phanie Diaz and Jenn Alva of the bands Girl in a Coma and Fea. Girl in a Coma sounds a bit like soulful ska and Fea sounds more like Chicana punk, but both bands have roots in Tejano music. In the episode, Sauceda, Diaz, and Alva discuss growing up in Spanish-speaking households—but being dissuaded from learning how to speak Spanish by their parents, as at the time it was "looked down upon."

The three also wax nostalgic on the role Tejano music played in their childhoods. Even though this was their parents' music more than their own, Tejano music has influenced what Diaz and Alva have created all these years later. They've taken it and made it into its own, more punk rock thing, singing about queer and Chicana pride, race, and immigration in their all-female bands.

Aside from discussing music in this podcast, Sauceda says he and his guests get into what's currently happening in America, and Latin culture in general.

"After the election yesterday and how much discussion there has been about the population in the Rio Grande Valley...this podcast is actually going to touch on that in a lot of ways," he says, referring to many people's surprise that voters in the area largely voted for Donald Trump, a substantial flip from the last election. "It helps kind of enlighten people of the complexities and differences in Latinos."

Viva Tejano launches today, November 12 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and the Texas Monthly website.

texas monthly podcasts music tejano politics