Sanctuary of a Scene
For music fans in the '70s and '80s, the Drag went from Inner Sanctum to Record Exchange
“A scene itself can be defined as an overproductive signifying community; that is, far more semiotic information is produced than can be rationally parsed. Such scenes remain a necessary condition for the production of exciting rock n’ roll music capable of moving past the mere expression of locally significant cultural values.” - Barry Shank, Dissonant Identities; The Rock n’ Roll Scene In Austin, Texas (Wesleyan University Press 1994).
Shank played guitar in ‘80s Austin band Black Spring before writing a masters thesis in the dense style of academia that worked because he’s now Professor of Comparative Studies at Ohio State.
Having attended high school in Hawaii, I’m barely educated, but I see a scene as where you can have fun every day without making plans, semiotic or otherwise. It’s a cool club that anyone can be a part of for the price of a cover charge, or the ability to thumb through albums for two hours with fifty cents in your pocket. A scene requires at least two good bands, for the purpose of arguments, and a dozen charming lousy ones to get drunk to. An adventurous radio station is nice, but not required, as the requisite cool record store is fully capable of turning kids onto new music.
In Austin, from 1970- 1997, that was Inner Sanctum, the record store/ community center which began on 24th St. as the place to buy the progressive country records heard on KOKE-FM, then became new wave central as Raul’s was switching from Tejano to punk.
A little later came Record Exchange at 21st Street, which became Sound Exchange when CDs took over from LPs. The Exchange was slightly heavier than I.S., and less inviting. But they paid good money for the heavy metal records Louis Black would let me sell to make money for lunch (and to wet his beak).
When I moved to Austin mid-’80s, Inner Sanctum was really pushing Paisley Underground bands like Dream Syndicate, Green On Red and Rain Parade, plus everybody bought that Rainy Day album.
Joe Bryson opened Inner Sanctum on Aug. 28, 1970, three weeks after the Armadillo World Headquarters, in the former location of Phil’s Records on W. 24th St. at Rio Grande. The 22-year-old UT senior from Corpus was a rockstar-looking guy, the face of Inner Sanctum, but the employees made the place. (Which Bryson sold in 1982.) Buyers James Cooper, Neil Ruttenberg and Richard Dorsett knew what the people wanted.
Soon after Sanctum moved to 504 W. 24th - Bluebonnet Plaza- “Cowboy” Cooper decided to move up from Les Amis to manage the record store he watched through the restaurant window above. That was just too enticing for a fan who, as his nickname implies, knew progressive country inside-out. Former shoppers at CBS-owned Discount Records (2310 Guadalupe) started going to Inner Sanctum to see if the Plum Nelly record was out yet, or to replace a record they barfed on. (Never remove the plastic wrap of Viva Terlingua!)
Until the labels found out and freaked out, Inner Sanctum had a $1 rental policy for LPs, which were usually taped, returned and reshelved at 50 cents off. They also started the record store keg party on Fridays, and had bands play regularly in the parking lot. That’s how you start a scene.
On days where I had nothing much to do, which was most days, I’d start with an avocado cheeseburger ($1.86) at Mad Dog and Beans, then go next door to Inner Sanctum, more to see what was going on than to spend any money. The clerks, Melissa Merryman and Laurie Greenwell, were two of my first friends in town. They’d just brighten your day, and send you off to Record Exchange in a good mood.
That was the scene- record store to record store on the Drag- working up the hunger for cheeseburger #2, a full-pounder at G&M Steakhouse, which we called S&M because the owner was borderline sadistic. Much nicer were the Vietnamese folks at the eggroll cart, who were maybe too nice to homeless “Drag worms,” who would trade appliances and such for eggrolls. (The owners were arrested in 2002 for running a fencing operation, but charges were dropped because there was no evidence that they resold anything. They were just Good Samaritan hoarders.)
The Drag was like paradise without tourists. It had everything I needed, and was never a waste of time. Walking up and down the boulevard that separates UT from the real world, you’d always run into people you knew. Usually bands putting up flyers or that kid in the McDonald’s uniform who thought he was a songwriter. You got to know which crazy street people to give a wide berth to when passing. And which hippies had loose joints for sale. There was a scent of danger, but it wasn’t stronger than patchouli.
“The constitutive feature of local scenes of live musical performance is their evident display of semiotic disruption, their potentially dangerous overproduction and exchange of musicalized signs of identity and community. Through this display of more than could be understood, encouraging the radical recombination of elements of the human in new structures of identification, local rock n’ roll scenes produce momentary transformations within dominant cultural meanings.” - Shank, who else?
The over-production of live music in Austin to which Prof. Barry alludes is why the working title of this book is Overserved. Someone said that sounds like the name of a Chelsea Handler Netflix special, so I have to either work hard to show that the sheer tonnage of music that the people of Austin have enjoyed in the past 150 years overshadows my adventures with beer and meth, or I have to change the title. I’m fine either way.
I’ve been cranking out these advance, first-draft chapters almost daily since Nov. 15’s post about Southpark Meadows. You subscribers have given me all the motivation I need to see this personal history of the Austin music scene all the way through. I’ve been posting with a disregard of chronology because I just want to get the information to a place where I can better organize and assemble the sections of the book.
I’m there now, so I plan to spend the next week or so putting all the pieces together. Some folks have wondered why put the book online two years before it’ll be published. Who’s going to buy a history they’ve already read? My experience is that very few people will buy a Texas music history book they haven’t read, so what’s the difference? I’ve seen great results with this process. Three of my most-read chapters, over 3,000 views each, are on Eric Johnson, Krackerjack and Jerry Jeff Walker- three acts I’d written almost nothing about in my previous 35 years in Austin. I’m learning so much!
I have a lot more writing to do, especially the memoir stuff that I hope will make this history more interesting. Some of those most-personal posts will go out to paid-subscribers only. No chance of blowing a sale with too much information: they’ve already bought a book. I love my free subscribers, too. I work hard to keep you all enlightened and informed. And I’m really loving the work!
One note: Barry Shank played in Black Spring, not Black Sand. I took that as left over from the (very well-played) Giant Sand joke in the SXSW piece.
Black Spring was very good.
Michael - I like your approach. I've been working on my journey as well. In my 50+ years in the music biz I've been writing my adventures, mostly through questions people ask me about (what was Dolly like or Cher and was Eric really an Animal?) but I launch into a story in reply to an email or FB post and collect them that way. You go into detail. And it's not only informative but detailed as well. Great writing....