Woodshock and the birth of grunge
Austin's greatest music festival cost $5 (psychedelics not included)
I’m not sure how many Woodshock punk festivals I went to in the ’80s — it was either three or four — but certain images will never leave me. A tattoo-scarred kid with a mohawk swinging on a rope over Dead Man’s Hole, his body framed by the rocks as he did a scissor-kick before falling into the crystal clear water with a healing shriek. A dust storm in the mosh pit as the Offenders, Not For Sale and Cargo Cult shredded well past midnight. So many memories of anarchy tamed by nature in Tripping Springs, when punks turned into hippies if only for the longest day.
Musical history was also being made in the same Hurlbut Ranch location as Willie Nelson’s first Fourth of July Picnic in 1973. My mind’s camera clicked that moment of the day just before the sun rises, when the darkness positively glows, and onstage was a band from L.A. called Tex and the Horseheads, whose singer’s hair seemed to erupt from her head.
Next to the stage was a party revolving around members of Seattle’s U-Men, San Francisco’s Tales of Terror and the Austin bands Poison 13 and Scratch Acid. They were toasting the performances they’d given earlier in the evening, which demonstrated an uncanny musical kinship. They were all considered punk bands, but there was something different going on, from the U-Men’s melding of Captain Beefheart and Pere Ubu, Tales of Terror’s manic metallica, Poison 13’s assertion that Howlin’ Wolf was the original punk rocker and Scratch Acid’s big bottom sound, which was closer to Led Zeppelin than to the Sex Pistols. It was the morning of June 30, 1985, the last day that Ecstasy was legal, and pop music had changed right before the dilated pupils of the 600 or so still in attendance. This blessed fest had kicked off 18 hours earlier with Daniel Johnston singing “The Marching Guitars.”
This new style of music — metal/art rock played with punk attitude — wouldn’t have a name until six years later, when Kurt Cobain, a big fan of the aforementioned bands, led Nirvana to the top of the charts, and the U-Men’s manager Susan Silver guided Alice in Chains and Soundgarden to the platinum promised land. The seeds of grunge were sown at the same Hurlbut Ranch where, in 1972, the “outlaw country” movement got its wings with the Dripping Springs Reunion concert featuring Willie and Waylon and Kris with Loretta Lynn, Roy Acuff, Hank Snow and Bill Monroe. That land is sacred in the annals of American music.
Every young man and woman should have an experience like Woodshock, where you lose yourself in the music and the camaraderie, shaking your mind to get rid of the excess brain cells that are holding you down.
The 1981 debut, organized by Chris Wing of Sharon Tate’s Baby, was a free BYOB event on the deck near the west entrance of Waterloo Park downtown. Asked about the maiden ‘Shock, one musician with the Court Reporters couldn’t even recall playing the event. Someone else had memories of a band launching live chickens into a crowd of about 200. Memories are blurry except that it was a magical day.
A group of would-be impressarios, including bouncer/actor Charles “Doug the Slug” Gunning III (Newton Boys) and musicians Mike Alvarez (Max and the Make-ups) and Jeff Smith (the Hickoids), decided to make Woodshock an annual campout. After three years at the Hurlbut Ranch, the concert moved to Camp Ben McCulloch, just across from Salt Lick barbecue, in ’86. That fest is remembered for two things: 1) an amazing set by the Butthole Surfers, whose singer Gibby Haynes used a bullhorn after the P.A. went out, and 2) someone giving LSD to Daniel Johnston, who suffered psychotic episodes in the following weeks.
The last I saw Daniel that night he was charming, funny, ecstatic to be part of such a cool event. “Come here,” he said, pulling me by the arm toward two women he had been talking to. “Tell them about me, you know, how I’ve been on MTV and all that.” Not long after, Johnston would be up to his knees in Waller Creek, yelling incoherently until the APD took him away. He was never the same.
Neither was Woodshock. In 1987, Dripping Springs neighbors nixed the show, and it ended up at the Cave Club (currently Elysium) as a last resort. After skipping ’88, the fest moved to the rugby fields at U.S. 183 and Loyola Lane, but the original spirit of the event, heightened by the knowledge that cops would never drive their cars up the mile of rocky road that led to the Hurlbut Ranch, wasn’t there. A couple of other “Woodshocks,” with new organizers, took place in the ’90s, but those half-baked events were in name only.
Watch this 7 minute film by Lee Daniel and Richard Linklater (his first) to get the real spirit of the original, never to be duplicated. There have never been more beautiful, more meaningful days in the lives of us paradise gutter rebels who just wanted to be loved and belong. And then there was the long drive back to Austin.
I can still hear T of T talking about having an Elvis tattoo on the tip of his cock!
How many episodes did DJ have in Waller Creek? I was sad witness to the one that resulted in the police taking him off to Brackenridge, but that was in December, right around the holidays, whereas Woodshock was a summer event. I had followed DJ all the way from Record Exchange to Waller Creek after getting a call about his condition and a request from the store employees to see if I could help him. Not that I had any qualifcations for this task, but I got the call. Followed him at distance all the way up the Drag, across 26th Street and then to Waller Creek. DJ then climbed down into Waller Creek, stood in the cold ankle deep water and started unspooling some of his cassette tapes, which I believed were master tapes, though I don't recall now how I would know if these were the masters or copies. He was ranting about having "seen the twisted trees in Abeline" after having been given some acid. He was being poetic but also clearly not in his right mind. He wasn't listening to my pleas to come out of the creek, and I knew it was just a matter of time before the police were called, so I went to a pay phone and made some calls, resulting in Louis Black being dispatched to the scene. Louis and I tried our best to talk Daniel into coming out of the creek, but he wasn't having it and sure enough police arrived before any mental health crisis people could intervene. Being the holidays, the mental crisis people were backed up. The police took him down like he was some kind of dangerous criminal, over our protests and his wailing and resistance. So I think you may be off on your time line that has DJ in Waller Creek the day after Woodshock, unless there was more than one major episode in Waller Creek.