Austin and South By Southwest (SXSW), talk about your love/hate relationships. As I recall SXSW started as a townie, insider-only deal that took advantage of everyone being out of town instead of the global destination towards Austin that it is today. Back in the Spring Break of those days, local bands played in near-empty bars to dedicated local folks. It was Louis Black and The Austin Chronicle folks that got the good idea of a one-ticket, all access festival.

I think it was the third year of operation that I heard my first "South By is just too crowded now!" complaint... they hadn't seen nothin' yet.

If anyone has images from those early days, post them here!

Went to hear Waylon Jennings in either 1976 or 77 at Gregory Gym on a Sunday night

Had a big crowd

Heard Peter Frampton at a concert somewhere off I35 back in 1977

It was a very hot day and I remember bringing a cooler of Lone Star Beer

Went with my cousins and I remember meeting a girl there and we dated for a while

Wish I would have remember who else played their

I think concert was called Spring Break
Had a great time there and it was a long day

With my partners Roddy and Roger I ran this club from 1970 through 1976. Those who are interested can find a couple of Facebook pages on the place, one call The One Knite and the other called Survivors of the One Knite. The latter contains lots of my old poster art for the place and, later, for the Continental Club and La Zona Rosa, and it also contains recordings I made at the dive in the early 70s, of The Storm, Freda and the Firedogs, D.K. Little, and Moon Pie.
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Scroll down to Older Posts to find the recorded music.
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And, for the guy who remembered on your site the Last Bash on the Hill concert -- we threw that in 1973 on Crady Bond's land on the way to Lake Austin, just before the land was sold out of Crady's family.
It was Willie Nelson's second gig after moving to Austin -- his first had been at Roundup, and, though he agreed to play too late to make my poster, he did appear onstage before The 13th Floor Elevators, briefly united after Roky's release.
The media claimed it drew 10.000, after Dallas and Houston radio started reporting on it. Admission was free, and we took in enough contributions from hippie businesses to give out 70+ kegs of Lone Star.
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I first heard Rusty Wier (playing drums), Layton DePenning, and Leonard Arnold, in the Lavender Hill Express, opening for Steppenwolf in '67 or '68 at the Memorial Auditorium. Although a 60's band, LHE had all the right folks in it (Wier, DePenning and Arnold) to lay down the basic track for the Austin Sound in the '70s. Later when I grew some brains, I started hanging with these music guys (Rusty Wier, Bobby Bridger, John Inman, Charles John Quarto, Steve Fromholz), even shooting photos, and carrying a guitar case or two. But they always got the girls, and I got to be a 'friend of the band'. (Oh, per usual, the local band outshown John Kay, who was loaded).

Just another Bozo on the bus...

Happy 2010. Any known where abouts of the remaining memebers of Balcones Fault (any still playing music locally)? Have some great memories of seeing them numerous times around town in the mid 70's.

Rusty passed on yesterday. He was such a showman, working until the end. It's funny how you take the familiar for granted... Rusty worked so long in Austin, he seemed to be a part of the landscape. His music was simple and simply delivered but it was his personality that made folks pay attention. The days of "good old Austin beer drinking music" have passed and the haunts of the folks from those days are getting scarcer and scarcer. Unfortunately, the folks themselves are getting scarcer too.

We used to follow the Lotions around wherever they played, mostly. They were a big part of the raggae movement in Austin. I can't believe no one has mentioned the Armadillo World Headquarters yet, gee whiz Wally, I spent way more time there than I did at my high School, the beer garden was always a place to score, eat, drink, socialize. I even saw Rush play there, Turk Pipkin performed, hundreds of bands did, usually admission was only 8 bucks! The only time I ever got to see Zappa was at the 'Dillo. All the way out cool artwork on the walls from Michael Priest and others. I remember being at the last dance at the 'Dillo, their last show, on New Years Eve, During Kenneth Threadgills set, our friend Rusty fell under the stage and passed out, the front of the stage had a curtain across it, so when he fell, the curtain sung back, and rusty disappeared behind the curtain, and we couldn't find him till he woke up at the end of the show when the hall cleared out.. yeah good times!!

Skating down the hill at auditorium shores on a cardboard box, during the free Sunday concerts, I remember taking our bong into those.
We even took our bong into city colosium, (the old army hanger by Palmer auditorium), we saw Styx there and Fleetwood Mac.

Used to have breakfast, or lunch with Clifford Antone at Trudy's pretty often, Cliff was good people, don't believe the horseshit, he gave lots of guys their break, and lots of people a job.

Miss the Stallions slightly green gravy on the CFS, a good meal, I cried when those places were torn down, I still have a t-shirt with an angry armadillo coming over the top of Texas Bank.

I worked on and off, (mostly spent the night on the couch), at Riverside Sound Studios, and worked or hung out with Herschel C, Eddie H, Bill J, Ricky M, Lloyd M, Jim Yanaway, Bob Livingston, I fondly remember very sweet Connie Hancock, and all the Hancock ladies, Tejana Dames, the jazzmanian devil himself, and lots of others, it was the place that made the Austin Christmas Album..... and Austin Records put a lot of bands on the Austin music map.... It closed in 1989... I was the guy that ripped out most of the electronics...I really missed that place.