Just a few days after Free Week 2026 — two nights of free and donation-based live music in downtown's Red River Cultural District — the district's nonprofit has launched a new zine helping Austinites brush up on the street's local history. The quarterly publication is available now for free at businesses around Austin.

The Red River Zine is written to "document, preserve, and celebrate the people, places, and moments that shaped one of Austin’s most influential cultural corridors," according to the Red River Cultural District (RRCD), which exists roughly to the same ends. Red River Street is packed with small but mighty music venues that help incubate local music outside the mainstream.

Readers can think of the zine as a fun way to get insider knowledge about the local scene, or as a way to keep up with RRCD as both a place and an organization.

Some festival-goers got to preview the zine, which is surprisingly dense. It contains:

• a bit of information about RRCD's Cultural Currents storytelling initiative
• a graphic listing participating Free Week venues' an oral history by Roger Collins, former co-owner of One Knight, the club that later became Stubb's
• a handful of shorter personal stories about the street and its venues
• a historical account about Emma Hartsfield, the Black woman who lived where Elysium now stands in the early 1900s
• some newspaper clippings mostly tracking crimes at the Elysium address over at least several years
• a long interview with Cave Club founder Steve Chaney
• an account of "low-rent gay/trans bar" Blue Flamingo by Greg Beets (borrowed from his book about the Austin music scene A Curious Mix of People); the owner, Miss Laura; and Britt Daniels of Spoon
• a crossword puzzle with local musical trivia
• a map of the district
• some ads and archival photos
• a list of bands and venues on the cover, previewing the contents, including The Fugees, Townes Van Zandt, Stevie Ray and Jimmie Vaughan, Joe Ely, Freda and the Firedogs, The Flatlanders, Butthole Surfers, and Bobby Keys

“So much of Red River’s history exists in memory, passed down through stories, songs, and lived experience," said RRCD executive director Nicole Klepadlo in a press release. "The Red River Zine turns those memories into something tangible, shareable, and permanent. It honors where the district has been while acknowledging how much it has evolved."

Despite Austin's reputation as the Live Music Capital of the World, and despite the fact that there's always plenty of live music to stumble into on every given night, Austinites don't even know how much they don't know about local music. There are books and films (some linked above), but they generally require a buy-in — both of time and money — that the average local isn't offering. And that's all assuming they hear about them when they come out.

Making these histories available for free, in an eye-catching physical product that folks can pick up at record stores and coffee shops, could be a game-changer for music-lovers who don't know where to start.

“Red River’s history ultimately holds lessons about creativity, resilience, and community that still matter today," Nicole Klepadlo continued. "Our new Red River Zine is a commitment to treating those stories with the same care we give physical spaces because when we preserve culture, we preserve identity – and that’s what keeps Red River authentic. This work also sets the stage for future District tours, wayfinding, and placemaking activations centered around music heritage.”

The RRCD team gets help in its Cultural Currents initiative from the Downtown Austin Alliance, Preservation Austin, the Texas Commission on the Arts, the City of Austin, and other donors. Project consulting comes from Acacia Heritage Consulting, API Productions LLP, and Limbacher and Godfrey.

To find the Red River Zine, check out Waterloo Records, End Of An Ear, BLK Vinyl, Antone's Record Shop, Breakaway Records, Drinks Records, Texas Coffee Traders, Wildflowers Boutique, Joe's Bakery, and Love Wheel Records. Some additional copies may be found elsewhere, but the release lists these locations "and more." A second edition is expected in the spring.