Back Room: Rockin' Out in Rivertowne
Austin's home of pinball and hard rock brought fans to East Riverside for 33 years
The Back Room’s business model was described by former club employee Ray Seggern in six words: The door. The bar. The games. If the last two were making money, the first one didn’t matter, so the club with a 600-capacity could overpay bands, with a relatively low ticket price, and still turn a profit. Therefore, we got to see Public Enemy and the Ramones and Motorhead and Jane’s Addiction and Marilyn Manson and Warren Zevon and many more music hall acts in a rock n’ roll club.
When the Back Room closed in 2006, to be torn down and “replaced” by Emo’s, Austin’s hard rock fans went into mourning. There were still metal shows at Redrum, in the former 401 Sabine location of City Grill, but that didn’t last. It was the end of an era.
The Back Room’s reputation as a hair band club for men came mainly because its pets Dangerous Toys and Pariah were signed to major label deals after SXSW showcases there (Toys with Columbia in ‘88 and Pariah with Geffen in ‘90). Plus all those bands from Decline II came through on tour.
The Back Room was where satin had a smell- hairspray and spilt wine coolers. Located in Rivertowne Mall, in kind of a rough neighborhood, it’s as close as Austin nightlife got to New Jersey. But they had the best p.a. And all that free mall parking.
During the years Jim Ramsey booked it (1985- 1993) the Room had as many as 15-20 roadshows a month, from all over the musical spectrum, but mostly hard rock. The biggest independent promoter in town, Ramsey drew 31,000 to see the Police at Southpark Meadows in 1983, but a falling out with landowner Abel Theriot left him looking for new venues.
You have to credit owner Ronnie Roark for letting Ramsey do his thing. He had the risk and he had the room, but Ramsey just took it higher than you thought it could go at a club whose full name was Back Room Amusements Bar.
“Had (Roark) not been willing to put up the money for road shows, they wouldn't have happened,” Ramsey told the Austin Chronicle in 2006. Ramsey left the Back Room in 1993 to book Rockefeller’s in Houston, but left the music business soon to start a successful ad agency. He passed away in 2010 from cancer.
Originally located at the current home of Thundercloud in the same Rivertowne Mall, the Back Room grew out of the pinball craze in 1973. That was also the year the legal drinking age dropped from 21 to 18 in Texas, putting a serious crimp in the fake I.D. business, but filling the Back Room clubs with UT students living in nearby apartments.
Even in that small room, Roark booked music- Angela Strehli’s Southern Feeling, Blind George, Ace in the Hole (not George Strait’s band). He was a wizard with the foresight to buy his own pinball machines, bypassing the vending companies and eventually growing into one of the biggest quarter-gulpers in town. If you ever played pinball or pool at the Hole In the Wall, Continental Club, Mother Earth or Raul’s you gave some of your money to Mr. Roark, and thereby subsidized the live music at the Back Room.
Roark bought the building at 2015 E. Riverside that we all know as the Back Room around 1977. With it came the adjoining Copper Dollar, formerly a bikers’ bar that Roark filled with pool tables. This version of the B.R., booked by Wayne Nagel from ‘81 until he left to tour-manage Charlie Sexton in ’85, had a few booths and tables, with a small dancefloor, and a capacity of about 100 for live music. It’s where I saw the Commandos in 1984 on my second day in town. Also W.C. Clark, Lewis and the Legends, and the LeRoi Brothers that first month. There was never a cover.
The biggest rock club in town, Mother Earth, was the Back Room’s neighbor from 1977 until about 1982, when it became the upscale black dance club Tootsy’s Prime Time, then a series of Tejano bars.
But there was not much reason to go to East Riverside, a UT student ghetto, besides the Back Room, whose first big regular draw was the Friday evening residency of Dan and Dave, which went back to ‘75 in the original location. Moonlighting executives Dan Burke and Dave Henry, with Dr. Hans Langsjoen coming down from Scott & White in Temple to play bass, were kind of like the Smothers Brothers, with a lot of witty repartee, but they played country music, not folk. Townsend Miller loved ‘em. Hell, everybody did. Legends in Our Spare Time was the album sold at their gigs.
The Back Room doubled in size in April ‘85, by knocking down some walls and combining the Copper Dollar. All the games went to that room, which opened up the live music venue.
The Ramones in Jan. ‘88 was the greatest Back Room show that I remember. It was the best of about a dozen times that I’d seen them. It was also the best place to experience the rock n’ roll side of Joe Ely, especially when he had Bobby Keys.
INFAMOUS NIGHTS IN THE LIFE OF THE ROOM
October 1991- Less than 100 show up for Pearl Jam on their third show of the 10 tour. Still, Eddie Vedder climbs the rafters, as would become his trademark. Only this time he catches his hair on a sprinkler and has to yank it loose. A clump of Vedder’s hair stays up there for years.
Nov. 1991- Pantera blows out the sound system with its first note of the night. Show is rescheduled for a week later.
March 1993- Rage Against the Machine opens for House of Pain and blows everybody away.
June 2 1993- APD shows up in force to protest the appearance of Ice-T’s hardcore band Body Count and their revenge record “Cop Killer.” No incidents are reported. Also, nobody really cares about Body Count but the police.
May 1996- An all-out melee breaks out during 2 Live Crew, calling for the police riot squad, especially with the Crew egging on the brawlers from the stage. Tip jars and cash registers are pilfered and two Back Room employees were hospitalized after being hit with bottles.
Thanks for profiling this venue. Unforgettable shows even 30 years after the fact. Richard Thompson solo with warm-up acts Eliza Gilkyson and Glass Eye. And Warren Zevon in 1990 or 1991 with Jorge Calderón on guitar and Bill Bruford (!!!) sitting in on drums. Inconceivable!
I was there for the Pearl Jam and Ice-T shows - and the Ramones. I don't know how many times I collided with that stupid pole in the middle of the floor. Glad they put cushioning around it.
Another highlight for me was Smithereens. "Green Thoughts" tour, I think. Strange they didn't play LL.
And, Green Day's first show in Texas. I was friends with a few people who were being courted by Kerplunk at the time. Not a one of us - Green Day included - was old enough to drink that night. I think there *may* have been 50 people in the club. The label got us a table in the back and the band came back after the show to make their pitch to join Kerplunk. Not sure what record label they went with. Polyvinyl I think, but it was a fun show.