10 for 30: #3 Cactus Cafe
Our countdown of active Austin venues open at least 30 years
CACTUS CAFÉ 1977- present
When the Texas Union reopened in 1977 after a two-year, $5.7 million renovation, it featured a new coffeehouse called the Cactus Café. But long before that, going back to 1933, the space was known as the Chuck Wagon. It was a campus restaurant/ coffee shop that became a beatnik hangout in the early ‘60s- Janis Joplin sang there. During Vietnam it drew radical hippies and runaways, including an 11-year-old called “Sunshine,” whose arrest set off a Nov. 1969 riot. “Pigs Keep Out” was spray-painted on the wall to no avail, as police were called to remove longhaired townies, who resisted. Twenty-one protestors were arrested and many heads were cracked. Days earlier, the Texas Union board voted to restrict the Chuck Wagon to students, staff and faculty.
In defending police action, the American Statesman referred to “potsmoking nonstudent scum” and bemoaned the loss of the catch-all vagrancy charge “that covered every subject from street corner loafing to murder.”
The riot was just a month after Lou Reed, a member of a debauched NYC band, which took its name from a book on sadomasochism and sang love songs to heroin and cross-dressing, spoke to students of English professor Joe Kruppa. What the hell was happening on the beloved 40 Acres?!
With all that history to erase, renovations on the Chuck Wagon space were extreme. In its first two years as the Cactus, the 120-capacity venue was used mainly for plays, dance recitals, meetings and symposiums, like the Nov. 1978 “Is Rock Dead?” panel of famed music critic Lester Bangs, Sterling Morrison (ex-Velvet Underground), writer John Morthland and Alex Chilton, who played Raul’s the night before. The occasional music bookings in 1977 included jazz singer Natalie Zoe, folkies the Shucker Brothers and the Cabaret Revue of show tunes.
Perhaps 1981 should be considered the true birth year of the Cactus because that’s when student Griff Luneburg started working there, first as a bartender who taught himself to run the p.a. on Thursday night’s open mic.
The next year, Griff was promoted to talent booker. He started charging cover- $2- with Nanci Griffith in October 1982. Lyle Lovett played for free his first year at the Cactus and eventually got $3 at the door. There had been a previous folk club in the Union from ‘68-’73 when Le Potpourri hosted singer-songwriters like Michael (Martin) Murphey and Keith Sykes from Memphis for a week at a time. But there was no scene there, no vibe. There almost never is on a college campus, but Griff’s Cactus was different. Townes Van Zandt played there more than 100 times over 15 years.
Guadalupe St. folk club emmajoe’s closed during Luneburg’s second year at the helm, leaving Austin’s best singer-songwriters- and listeners- looking for a new homebase. They found it on campus seven blocks away. As a regular of emmajoe’s, which opened Nov. ‘81, and Alamo Lounge before it, Luneburg knew who he wanted playing the club he modeled in his mind after NYC’s Gerde’s Folk City.
In high school in Houston, Griff bought an 8-track of Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks for something to listen to on the way to the beach, and has been a song freak ever since. That he was able to run a club at age 22 that booked the best songsmiths out on tour was like being called up to the majors outta college.
Not taking that opportunity lightly, Griff was why the Cactus was universally regarded as one of the top listening rooms in the country. He had great taste and knowledge, but that’s not rare. He would go extra, like how he’d configure the seating according to advance ticket sales so the room always looked full. The Cactus made you want to excel as an audience member. A “no talking” sign was not needed.
Distance and volume keep performers safe from revealing too much, but there was no place to hide at the Cactus. Bruce Robison, Carrie Rodriguez, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Kacy Crowley and Slaid Cleaves are just a few of the many popular Austin acts today who didn’t know for sure that they could do this intimate thing until they bowled ‘em over at Griff’s Folk City.
Among the best I saw there were Ralph Stanley, Kasey Chambers, Bill Morrissey, Todd Snider, Maura O’Connell, Gillian Welch, Ruthie Foster and the aforementioned Mr. Lovett. Just as memorable are the now-legendary shows I missed, like Jesse Winchester and Townes Van Zandt so soon before their passings. I saw only one night of Butch Hancock’s 1990 “No Two Alike” marathon of six nights without repeating a song.
But there’s one Cactus night in particular that I’ll never forget. I was one of only 14 people or so to see John Hiatt in the Spring of ‘87. This was right before Bring the Family would revive a career almost destroyed by drink and drugs. Across town that night, the Back Room drew a sell-out crowd of 600 for Richard Thompson’s solo debut in Austin. I just wanted to hear Hiatt sing “She Loves the Jerk,” and head on over to the Back Room.
But Hiatt, wearing suspenders over a white dress shirt with rolled up sleeves, played as perfect a solo acoustic set as I’d ever witnessed. He opened with “Memphis in the Meantime,” followed by other brilliant songs we’d never heard before: “Thing Called Love,” “Tip of My Tongue,” “Stood Up,” all sung with the feeling of new sobriety that becomes addictive. He was in a zone and so were we, “the Cactus 14.” At the end he went to the piano and played another brand new song, “Have a Little Faith In Me.” Think of how great that must’ve been and multiply by five. The Cactus math.
I stopped by the Back Room, but my brain had no more room for music and drama that night. I lasted three songs, though everyone there will tell you Richard Thompson was fantastic.
The Cactus Debacle
In 2009, right before Christmas break, came unfathomable news: the richest state university was closing its world-famous Cactus Café in a cost-cutting move that also ended the informal studies classes available to non-students for a nominal fee. The outrage from the music community was swift and intense, and the protest became a national story. Chip “Wild Thing” Taylor quickly penned “Don’t Let the Cactus Fail” with the opening line: “Will we not walk with heads bowed down/ On the UT side of town.”
The negative press for UT was unrelenting, and eventually the university caved, thanks to KUT stepping in to manage the Cactus and absorb any losses, which had been about $120,000 a year. But Griff became the scapegoat, and his job was sacrificed. Over his 28-year tenure, he’d made the Cactus special, but Griff was getting sloppy with the bureaucratic details that come with a university-funded venture. His demotion to the Union’s underground bowling alley had some folks vow to never come back to their favorite listening room.
The Cactus reopened, but it just wasn’t the same- until someone with a guitar and words jumped the turnstile to your heart. When there’s magic onstage, what’s happening behind the scenes doesn’t matter.
Does anybody go to the Cactus anymore? KUT is no longer bailing out the club, which is aimed more at students than the general public these days. As in 1977. As in 1969, when you got dragged out if you didn’t have a student ID. It’s a magical room, a historic space, in need of a new Griff, not a new set of cultural grifters.
Lovely piece! Our younger daughter, Ellery, started bartending at the Cactus last year when she started UT. Happy to report there is excellent music there regularly. She particularly loves open mic night on Thursdays.
Cactus Cafe was my 'home away from home' during my UT days of '87-91 and breaks thereafter through the 90's. I must have been to about half of Townes' appearances. Other highlights:
Butch-a-thon aka Butch Hancock's "No Two Alike" for all the official shows plus the one tacked on afterwards.
Obscure highlight - 2 Guys w/ 3 Names: Robert Earl Keen and Hal Michael Ketchum flipping a coin to see who would open. I was there for REK. Fortunately for me, Hal lost the toss, so I was treated to the first of several great performances from Mr. Ketchum.