CLUBLAND PARADISE: RED RIVER ROCKS!

There was action before Emo's, but Red River was never the same after

Raven’s Garage was at 603 Red River for 50 years before Emo’s. Photo courtesy the Texas Historical Commission.

During the seven years I was away from Austin (’88-’95), living in Chicago and Dallas, the hotbed of music clubs changed from Sixth Street to Red River, with Emo’s leading the charge in ‘92, followed by Room 710, Atomic Café, Cavity Club, Blue Flamingo and Club de Ville.

A “no cover” policy will make you popular in a hurry, and “FREEmo’s changed the Austin music scene overnight when it gave the alternative rock world of hardened white kids a place to show off their tattoos and trucker hats. Eric “Emo” Hartman rush-opened with a catering license for SXSW 1992, then made it official two months later. Before Emo’s, the only rock at Sixth and Red River cost about $20 a pebble. If you were walking down Sixth Street and you saw the Red River street sign it was time to head back.

There was stuff happening on Red River before Emo’s, like Chances lesbian bar that became Club DeVille, and Brad First’s Cave Club, which introduced the apocalypso sound to A-Town with Skinny Puppy and Ministry. And today you’ve got the Mohawk and Stubb’s and Elysium going strong. But Red River hasn’t quite been the same since Emo’s went away in 2011, just a year shy of its 20th anniversary. Neither has Sixth Street.

When Hartman and his manager David Thomson (who came from the original Emo’s in Houston) entered 603 Red River for the first time, the walls held stuffed animal heads and wagon wheels, décor left over from when the club was C&W with Raven’s Garage and then Poodie’s. Those years came back with a bang at SXSW ’94.

Actually, it was a knock on the back door. Who is it?, Thomson asked. “John Cash,” said the voice. Thomson bit, opening the door, and was shocked at who he saw. “I’ll be working for you tonight,” said the country legend, “so I was wondering if I could come inside and see the place.” Thomson said it was the only time he was embarrassed by how Emo’s looked, but Johnny Cash turned it into the Grand Ol’ Dump for the night.

Photo by Daniel Neal

Gerard Cosloy of Matador Records was headed to see the Man in Black, as well as the Man Called Beck who followed, when he happened upon a jarring power pop trio playing the Blue Flamingo on Red River and 7^th. And that’s how Spoon got signed to the home of their favorite band Guided by Voices.

You’ll hear a lot of rearview glorifying about the Flamingo, a former drag bar on Red River and 7^th taken over by punk rockers in the ‘90s, but that’s why you can’t let musicians tell the history. The “greatest clubs ever” are the ones they had the best time playing, but Miss Laura’s joint was just too small, with a capacity of 35 before the band set up. You watched from the sidewalk in a constant jostle of folks headed to Stubb’s in one direction or Emo’s in the other.

13th Floor Elevators established the New Orleans as a rock club in 1966.

The Red River strip’s first heyday was in 1966, when the 13th Floor Elevators played their first single “You’re Gonna Miss Me” at the New Orleans Club (1125 Red River), just steps away from Janis Joplin, Lightnin’ Hopkins or Jerry Jeff Walker at the 11th Door folk club (1101).

But after the New Orleans Club closed in 1971, as part of the Brackenridge urban renewal project that wiped Red River clean from 11^th to 19^th Streets, only short-lived Waterloo Social Club, and the One Knite (1970-1976) kept the music alive on Rio Rojo. Waterloo Social became Waterloo Country, and then went gay with Austin Country at 705 Red River, an address that deserves it’s own chapter in this history.

By the ‘80s, Red River was where you went to dance with straight people at gay bars. Club Iguana was a concept without an address, so it rotated between Hall’s in the Warehouse District, Backstreets Basics (later Red 7) on E. 7th and Austin Country/Oz on Red River each week. The “moveable beast” was a cash cow for partners Brad First, Jennifer Jaqua and Richard Luckett from ‘84-’86, then made like a fad and fizzled. Ecstasy (MDMA) was legal when Club Ig started, but criminalized July 1, 1986. That may have had something to do with the demise.

After Iguana, First took over Oz, painting the walls black, removing the groin-high mirror at the urine trough, and opening the Cave Club on Halloween Night 1986. Things just seemed to get crazy inside that industrial sweatlodge, which didn’t have air-conditioning the first summer and only two small window units- the fruits of a “Cool-Aid” benefit- the next. You’d get a blast of cold air at the entrance, then step inside the swelter of jam-packed shows by Screaming Trees, Scratch Acid, Tackhead, Pussy Galore, Sonic Youth and a hastily relocated Woodshock 1987. Though the glint of Austalgia offers the Cave as a significant venue, it was open only 18 months.

Emo’s mens room.

That was the void Emo’s filled four years later. The club’s glory years were when it expanded southeast into a small room/big room dogleg, with the liveliest patio inbetween. To a generation of Austin misfits, this was their Armadillo.

Not long out of Austin High, punk encyclop Graham Williams booked Emo’s from 1998 until 2007 with almost no interference from owner Frank Hendrix, a burly redhead who bought the club from his friend Eric Hartman in 2000. Though he wore the same Emo’s bowling shirt every night, Hendrix had money, selling his shares in eight automobile dealerships to buy the club, and, eventually the lot it was on. But some long-timers didn’t like Hendrix’s aim to make Emo’s more of a concert venue- the new Liberty Lunch- than a cool hangout. Shows like New Found Glory packed the place with teenagers, but the bar did almost no business. The last of the original Emo’s bartenders, Kevin “Kumbala” Crutchfield, left in 2002 for the Longbranch- East Austin’s first hipster bar on E. 11th.

Emo’s was getting a national reputation- every post-punk touring band not big enough to fill the Austin Music Hall wanted to play there. And in 2006, they all seemed to want to play there on Saturday Dec. 2. Peaches, Circle Jerks, Dead Meadow, Miss Pussycat and Quinton were all trying to get that already-filled date. So Williams went to Tim League of Alamo Drafthouse, with whom he’d collaborated on film/music events, to see if he would back a music festival at Waterloo Park. League agreed. Local heavyweights Spoon, Black Angels, Octopus Project, Riverboat Gamblers and Thomas Turner of Ghostland Observatory provided much of whatever draw the maiden Fun Fun Fun Fest could muster on a frigid Saturday in December.

The Drafthouse lost a little money and was not up for Fun Fun Fun II, but by that time Williams had his Transmission partnership with Mohawk’s James Moody, Michael Terrazas of Club de Ville, and Chris Butler of Super Alright Media. The second Fun Fun Fun, expanded to two days, was  a hipper alternative to the popular kids at ACL Fest. Waterloo Park not only hosted the best in indie rock, metal and hip-hop, but underground comedy. If Triple Fun had a theme it was that punk isn’t a genre, it’s an attitude.

Williams had hoped to retain booking duties at Emo’s with this new entity Transmission, but Hendrix instead hired Graham’s archrivals C3 Presents. The two haven’t spoken since. The original Emo’s closed on Dec. 31, 2011, as Hendrix opened Emo’s East in the former Back Room locale. He sold that East Riverside club in 2013 to C3, who tore down the building and put a new one in its place. Now part of the Live Nation portfolio, Emo’s exists in name only.