Rock in a hard place- the land of outlaw country

Mother Earth scorched, but Austin rocked on

Fire destroyed the first Mother Earth rock club in Nov. 1976. Four years later, the original Whole Foods location opened in a rebuilt structure at 10th and Lamar.

In the thirty-plus years since Billboard started using Soundscan to more accurately measure album sales, rap and hard rock have been dominant genres on the charts. But as of 2022, the live music capital of the world has not produced a single hit rapper, not even close. And aside from Dangerous Toys, whose self-titled 1989 LP on Columbia took five years to go gold, no rock/metal band from the scene has broken out.

In the ‘90s, the weekend didn’t start until KLBJ’s Johnny Walker played “Bonecrusher“ by Soulhat on Friday afternoon. But that’s another great Austin rock band, with two albums on Epic Records,  that never made it too far out of Travis County.

Austin’s repute as a hard rock/hard luck town starts with Too Smooth, a huge local band of the ‘70s, which never graduated from Dillo High. The quartet signed with Woodstock promoter Michael Lang’s Just Sunshine label in ’74 and recorded an album at the legendary Record Plant in Sausalito, Calif., but it never came out. “(Parent company) Gulf & Western decided to get out of the music business, so they sold Just Sunshine to ABC Dunhill,” said Clark. The new folks didn’t know who Too Smooth was, and they didn’t care.

During its 1974-1979 heyday, Too Smooth could outdraw any Austin act besides Willie Nelson. They played the Armadillo 76 times, more than any band besides Greezy Wheels (123) and Balcones Fault (84). And they packed Mother Earth every time, too. But because they weren’t part of the romanticized outlaw country, psychedelic rock or electric blues revival scenes, they’ve become almost forgotten.

After the New Orleans Club closed in ‘71, the rock box circuit of the ‘70s was Mother Earth at 10th and Lamar, the Black Queen on West Sixth, South Door off Riverside and Flight 505 on Neches near Sixth. Besides Too Smooth, the stage-rulers were Fools (with Van Wilks), Lynx, Krackerjack, and the Werewolves from DFW.

A real rock club, Mother Earth sold more Budweiser than any bar in the state- #3 in the country. With Lowell Fowler running the lights, and a powerful sound system, local bands projected as arena acts in the 900-capacity joint. Fowler went on to co-found concert lighting giant High End Systems/Barco.

Mother Earth was a struggling club, open just nine months, when brothers Mark and Steve Weinstein bought it, kept the name, and converted those 11,000 square feet into a rock palace in 1972. In their early twenties, the Weinsteins had club ownership in their DNA. Dad was notorious Dallas club owner Abe Weinstein, whose Colony Club (1939-1973) made Juanita Slusher famous as Candy Barr, and also put him in the Warren Report. Abe’s chief competitor on Commerce St. was Jack Ruby, who ran the sleazier Carousel Club two doors down. On the night of Nov. 22, 1963 the Carousel closed, but the Colony stayed open. When Ruby chastised Weinstein for such disrespect, it spoke to his incensed patriotism, not mob ties, as motivation for the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald.

Besides giving Austin a hard rock haven, the Weinsteins were instrumental in extending the nightclub alcohol curfew from midnight to 2 a.m. in 1975. Their “Don’t throw the lock before 2 o’clock” campaign passed by a mere 101 votes.

Mother Earth hosted Roky Erickson’s first concert after his release from Rusk State Hospital in Feb. ‘73, a sell-out affair billed as the 13th Floor Elevators, though Roky was the only original member. With no managers taking a cut, it was Roky’s biggest payday up to that point.

Fire closed Mother Earth on North Lamar in November 1976, but the shag pack followed the club the next year to the former 1907 Riverside Dr. address of Caesar’s, where Bobby Doyle and other lounge veterans performed. Mother Earth had five years on E. Riverside, one block from the Back Room, regularly hosting Christopher Cross, Eric Johnson, Van Wilks, and the like. Punk came, Stevie came, and the old time rock ‘n’ roll got stale.

Seeing an underserved audience, the Weinsteins converted Mother Earth to an upscale black dance club Tootsy’s in ‘82. That place was an instant success, but only lasted a couple years before going Tejano with Club Festival. After going back to R&B with Tootsy’s Prime Time for a few years the Weinstein’s retired from the club business in 1992. Thanks to Forrest Preece, whose interview with Steve Weinstein in West Austin News provided some of the information here.

Pt. 2: Back Room rocks!

Fire has hindered the Austin nightlife scene almost as much as has the fire marshal. Another significant club that burned down, was After Ours, which had good food and live music on the second floor at Congress and 8th- the old Woolworth Building- until 4 a.m. every day. Opened in ‘77 by a pair of Italian-American writers from the East Coast, After Ours had open mic poetry to go with the blues and jazz bands. It was a late night salon for insomniacs and lip-chewers. At about 2 a.m. Feb. 1, 1980, someone set fire to the 105-year-old building, which had a porno bookstore on the ground floor. W.C. Clark and his band lost not only their equipment in the fire, but the guitarist’s van was destroyed by falling bricks. Luckily, no one was hurt.

This was a little more than a year after the Split Rail at 217 S. Lamar was torched by a disgruntled customer in Dec. ‘78.

A 16-year-old Roky Erickson outside Le Lollipop with go-go dancers Jackie and Patty. From the Paul Drummond Collection.

Some notable clubs that burned down in the ‘60s were Le Lollipop on Riverside, where Roky Erickson and the Spades played in ‘65, and the Playboy Lounge at 53 1/2 Street and Airport Blvd,, the home of Jay Clark and the Velvetones before moving over to the Carousel after the March ‘67 fire.

The blaze that impacted Sixth Street most was when the Black Cat Lounge went up in smoke in 2002. The Black Cat was the last bastion of cool live music on Dirty Sixth, where “parkin’ lot pimpin’” headlines every weekend.