10 for 30: #1 Flamingo Cantina

Saluting 10 current Austin music clubs open at least 30 years

The only true motivation for opening a live music venue in Austin is a passion for the music and community around it. It makes no financial sense, as the life of a nightclub with entertainment is about as long as the career of an NFL running back. Five years is OK, and ten is great, but 30?!

Highlighted here in an occasional series the next month or two, will be 10 Austin clubs with rare endurance in this crazy real estate market. Run by the overworked and underpaid, these venues are not physically impressive- in fact, most are dumps- but you don’t go to a music venue because of how it looks from the street. You pay your cover because you’re chasing magic. It doesn’t often happen, but you don’t want to be home watching King of Queens reruns when it does.

FLAMINGO CANTINA 1991- present

Austin’s reggae headquarters officially opened Nov. 1, 1991, but the club made six months rent the night before when then-manager, now-owner Angela Tharp sold fajitas and beer on Sixth Street’s massive Halloween party. Oct. 31 was SXSW for a day.

The Cantina is all for the love of Irie, known for Jah-dropping reggae, ska, worldbeat, and Latin jazz. This tiny club with tiered benches and a rooftop ganja deck was Jamaican dub legend Lee “Scratch” Perry’s Austin homebase- and you can’t get a greater endorsement  than that. Perry played the Flamingo at least 20 times before he passed away two years ago at age 85.

Sista Angela Tharp and Lee Scratch Perry.

A former Austin Music Commissioner, Tharp has always been an outspoken advocate for clubs and musicians. She was part of a group of club owners that successfully sued the city in June '98 to get a more reasonable noise ordinance- 85 dB before 10 p.m. and 80 after 10- with the measurements coming at six feet from the front entrance. The city was pushing for 75/70, which is slightly louder than Fran Drescher’s laugh.

Before the Flamingo, 515 E. Sixth was Esther’s Pool, the home of Esther’s Follies, with a back alley entrance. But the building burned down in ’83, and the Follies went into the Ritz Theater until ‘87. Then came the move to 501 E. Sixth (later Coyote Ugly), but when owners Shannon Sedwick and Michael Shelton got a chance to own the former Triple J bar at Sixth and Red River, they dove right in.

From the rubble at 515, the landlord used bricks to build the restrooms and a small office, but the rest of the property was open space front to back. For about a year and a half, it was home to Sixth Street Yacht Club, a soul/funk cover band bar, which closed in the summer of ‘91.

Father Gerry, brother Rich and sister Angela: The Tharp family on opening night of the Flamingo.

Flamingo Cantina was originally the name of Tharp’s food truck, which she parked in front of the building. After the Halloween windfall she had funds to build a stage, with a canopy cover, and the bleachers. With a committed reggae critic at the Statesman in Michael Point, the Flamingo cultivated a scene early on, with reggae bands that used to play Liberty Lunch. But as with the early, open air years of that club, rain washed out many shows. In 1996, Tharp raised money for the metal roof, with Flamingo Fest at Fiesta Gardens. Headliner Black Uhuru drew a huge crowd, with club regulars Killer Bees, Tribal Nation and Raggamassive rounding out the bill. A second stage featured punk bands like El Flaco and PocketFishRmen that Tharp also booked.

In the ‘90s, there was live music up and down Sixth- Steamboat, Cannibal Club, Black Cat, Maggie Mae’s, Mercury, Joe’s Generic, Headliner’s East, Babe’s and so on. But these days, on most nights, Flamingo Cantina is the only club on Sixth Street pumping out live original music. It’s a holdout, with Wednesday’s Dreadneck Night residency of reggae (Mau May Chaplains) and country (Stop the Truck)- featuring the same members in each band- going strong for two decades. You’ve gotta admire Angela Tharp keeping the Cantina going all these years, with all the changes on Sixth Street.