The Great Psychedelic Armadillo Picnic (8 page)
Waterloo Records and Videos has been voted Best Record Store in the
Austin Chronicle
readers' poll since the store's first year in 1982. It has always been a home for the music lover; it pays attention to what matters to its customers, not what matters to some random marketing strategy devised by business major interns who never see the light of day beyond their Dilbert cubicles. You can listen to any record in the store before you purchase it. If you purchase a record, take it home and play it, you still have ten days to return it for whatever reason you choose. All you have to do is bring it back with your receipt within ten days and you will get an exchange or store credit. When was the last time you heard of a music store doing that? I will take the liberty of answering my own question. Never. Do like the Kinkster does, and go to Waterloo Records and Videos for all your music needs (speaking of yourself in the third person will only impress the sales-person).
WHEATSVILLE CO-OP
Wheatsville Grocery
3101 Guadalupe
512-478-2667
Â
Wheatsville Co-op is owned and operated by its members. In operation since 1976, what makes Wheatsville different from any other grocery store in Austin is that it is owned and operated by people who work together to provide for themselvesâin other words, its members. You become a member of the co-op; when the co-op makes a profit, it is cycled back into Wheatsville to increase services to its members, or, if enough profit is made, it is given back to the membership in the form of a patronage refund.
When Wheatsville first started in 1976, it relied completely upon the members to run the store on a volunteer basis. These days they have a paid staff who handle the day-to-day operations, but members can still volunteer. Wheatsville offers a 10-percent discount to members who volunteer, whether it be helping out in the store, working in the office, site maintenance, writing for the newsletter, or serving on the co-op committees or board of directors.
Wheatsville has a variety of membership and payment plans. If you are interested in joining, call the store or visit it at the address listed above.
AUSTIN HAS AN EXCELLENT NEWSPAPER called the
Austin
American-Statesman.
In it you can find your usual city newspaper things like news, sports, classified ads, and comics. Most important, you can also find my friend John Kelso's column in the
Statesman.
He has a real eye for the city, and he hits all the humorous angles with guided-missile precision.
IF YOU WANT TO GO beyond the norm, here's a paper you should get. You can find it just about everywhere in town and it doesn't cost a cent: the
Austin Chronicle
. Still wild and free, fresh on the stands every Thursday, the
Chronicle
was voted the best news source by its own readers in 2002. The personal ads alone provide better reading material than any tabloid rag available. Austinites call Thursdays “Chronicle Day.”
ON THE NEWSSTANDS, don't miss
Texas Monthly
magazine (I write a regular column that appears on the last page). The magazine is a dead-on guide to all the people, places, and events all over Texas. It's been in business for over thirty years and has over 2 million readers. Writing for
Texas Monthly
is the first real job (other than hand) that I've ever had in my life.
ON THE AIR
Given our obsession with music, it's not surprising we also revere our local radio stations.
KGSR, 107.1 FM
FM 107.1, or KGSR, is a tireless supporter of local musicians, despite being a major radio station that could afford to be lazy by spinning rotations of whoever the latest tattooed, pierced, Botox-injected fifteen-year-old of the moment happens to be. By playing local artists, the station exposes their work to the listening public who, in turn, drop a dime to go to local clubs to see them perform. This benefits all areas of the local music scene. Kevin Con-nor is my favorite at the station, though he's on too early in the morning. (Request line: 512-390-5477.)
KUT, 90.5 FM
KUT is a public radio station that makes its home at the University of Texas. Despite the fact that KUT airs standard NPR programming (which tends to make all public radio stations sound alike, whether they broadcast from Charlton Hestonville, California, or Earthmother, Vermont), KUT strives for variety in its program schedule by airing plenty of local programming that is uniquely Austin. John Aielli's
Eklektikos
is a good example of this. The show started in the early seventies when host Aielli was in his twenties. It is now KUT's longest-running radio show, and its programming reflects John's eclectic tastes. During any given show, listeners can hear a wide variety of selections from a deep pool of musical, literary, and theatrical sources.
Larry Monroe, who, I believe, has been at KUT even longer than John Aielli, has what I consider the most soulful late-night music show on the planet. Monroe's love of, and grasp of, virtually any music that's good is truly remarkable. And his personal CD collection may possibly be more extensive than the entire inventory at Waterloo Records. When it comes to music, Larry Monroe's emotional heritage is richer than almost anyone I know. And I'm not just saying that to get airplay. Though it couldn't hurt.
The station is one of the city's favorites, frequently ranking above commercial radio stations, according to Arbitron, the radio industry's most important collector of audience data. Because KUT is a public radio station, it is dependent upon listener contributions; in strong shows of audience loyalty, KUT regularly raises more money than public radio affiliates in Houston and Dallas, whose markets are much larger than Austin's. (Request line: 512-471-2345.)
KLBJ-FM AND 590 AM
Would it be too obvious to state that KLBJ is owned by the Johnson (as in Lyndon B.) family? I like the AM station because it carries Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura. Every culture gets what it deserves.
(KLBJ AM listener call-in line: 512-836-0590. KLBJ FM request line: 800-299-KLBJ.)
KVET-FM, 98.1
KVET-FM hosts The Sam and Bob Morning Show, Austin's number-one morning show. My old friend Sammy Allred teams up with Bob Cole to host the only major call-in show in America that does not employ a call screener; the result is a spontaneous, uncensored, unique platform where Austinites can dictate the topic of the moment, no matter what it is. Sam and Bob's guests are not interviewed. Instead, they sit in and participate, like the time Governor George W. Bush sang “Jingle Bells” with Larry Gatlin, or when I challenged Dwight Yoakam to reveal at what age he lost his virginity (he deftly side-stepped the subject). You never know what you're going to get when you tune in, which is a rarity in these timid times of rigidly formatted radio.
I don't know if it's because I'm growing older or going insane, but I've become increasingly fond of Bob Cole in recent years though not in a sexual way. As for Sammy Allred, unless you're a constipated, humorless prig, he's funny enough to make you shit standing. But there's more to Sammy. He's also a philosopher, a musician, and a storyteller. He gets my vote for being the Oracle of Austin.
(KVET request line: 512-390-KVET.)
LOCAL TELEVISION EXISTS on our cable access stations, but why would you want to watch TV when you can just go to Sixth Street and see more in five minutes than you would see in an entire hour of
Queer Eye for the Straight
Guy
? The only thing I will say about television is:
AUSTIN CITY LIMITS
In a nutshell,
Austin City Limits
is live music. Pure and simple. This phrase has been the motto of the show since its premiere in 1976. The show presents the best of America's music from country, blues, and folk, to rock and roll, bluegrass, and zydeco.
While the Armadillo World Headquarters was nurturing the live music scene in Austin back in the early seventies, the creators of
Austin City Limits
were taking copious notes. In the years since its inception, the show has featured more than five hundred different regional and international artists, from Willie Nelson (who headlined the first
Austin City Limits
show aired on PBS) to Roy Orbison, Fats Domino, Lyle Lovett, Dwight Yoakam, Leonard Cohen, and John Prine. It can safely be called an Austin Institution. I did a show for them once with the Texas Jewboys, but it was never aired. Imagine that.
For those who wish to visit the studio (contrary to popular belief, the show is not filmed out of doors), KLRU's
Austin City Limits
studio doors are open to the public for official, organized tours every Friday beginning at 10:30 a.m. Admission is free. Visitors can pose on the stage in front of the famous Austin skyline backdrop and have their picture taken (bring your own camera).
Austin City Limits
hotline for taping information: 512-475-9077. To schedule informal tours at other time, call 512-471-4811.
Lost in Austin
THIS IS THE FAVORITE TIME FOR ANY AUTHOR. IT'S called, in Truman Capote's words, “Having written.” But, looking back on this little book, I can't help realizing the vast number of seminal people and magical places I have been unable to include, mostly because of space constraints and personal sloth. Texas music alone is an impossible task to chronicle faithfully. You have to dig like an archaeologist through thirteen levels of shit before you reach the lost city. When you get there, all you might find is Bob Wills's cigar next to Mance Lipscomb's guitar.
People will no doubt ejaculate: “How could you write a book about Austin without mentioning the legendary what's-his-name?” Easy, actually. This is the Austin that I know. Most of the Austin I used to know, along with most of my mind, is gone anyway, so everything comes out in the wash if you use enough Tide. As the Beatles once sang: “There are places I'll remember / All my life though some have changed.”
Some of the personality profiles in this book previously appeared in my regular column on the back page in
Texas Monthly
magazine.
Texas Monthly,
as I have mentioned, is a cultural, not to say mental, institution based in Austin, from which my editor, Evan Smith, has vowed to “fire me out of a cannon” on the day I officially announce my candidacy for governor of Texas. Hell, I don't even have a platform. If I did, they'd probably try to put a trapdoor in it. Anyway, if you do come to Austin and you see me being driven around in a long black limousine, you'll know I'm either dead or governor, both of which, in Texas, have often amounted to pretty much the same thing.
If you should run into me on the street and I'm pleasant, thoughtful, and engaging, it probably isn't me. It's probably a Kinky impersonator. There's a lot of them in Austin. Don't be fooled. If, by some fortuitous circumstance, you should run into Willie, please kiss him for the Kinkster and give him this message from me: “How can I meet you on the bus if you keep moving it?”
WILL THIS BE ON THE TEST?
You Know You're from Austin If . . .
You mourn “the old Austin” even if you weren't there to experience it.
Your music collection contains CDs from bands no one outside South Austin has ever heard of.
You've eaten a hamburger at the original Hut's.
You're registered to vote, have firm opinions about the candidates, but have never actually cast a vote on election day.
You have bared buns at Hippie Hollow before they charged an entrance fee.
You say you're from Austin rather than from Texas.
You have lost sleep over the fate of the endangered Barton Springs Salamander.
You think Willie Nelson should be president.
Are You New Austin or Old Austin?
If you wear a straw cowboy hat with hair down to your ass, you're old Austin.
If your white Beemer convertible has an “I love Michael Dell” bumper sticker, you're new Austin.
If you think Armadillo is the name of a city in the Panhandle, you're old Austin.
If you think that Bat Guano is the name of the Congress Avenue Bridge, you're new Austin.
If you think that Sixth Street is one big fern bar, you're old Austin.
If you think Kenny Chesney is playing tonight at the Broken Spoke, you're new Austin.
If you have an original poster by Jim Franklin, you're old Austin.
If you have a reprint of an original poster by Jim Franklin, you're new Austin.
If you remember Oak Hill as being way the hell out of town, you're old Austin.
If you think of Dripping Springs as being way the hell out of town, you're new Austin.
If you love Willie Nelson, you're both old and new Austin.
GLOSSARY
Austin.
1. The capital of Texas. 2. Stephen F., the father of Texas. 3. An overused name sported by bullet-headed children from Texas.
Convict Hill.
A street that has existed in Austin since before last week.
The Drag.
Shopping district located on Guadalupe Street from Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard (or MLK) to 29th Street. Named for the impossible parking situation.
Dubya.
George W. Bush. Texans like to assign a nickname to anything with a heartbeat, so it was only natural we would take a single letter, give it two syllables, and slap it on our governor.
MoPac.
A highway, also called Loop 1. MoPac was named for the train that barrels down the center of the damn thing (Missouri-Pacific). It is thought of by many old Austinites as the Blacktop Beast, for the way it has changed the landscape of some areas. When you approach the city from Oak Hill, the sweeping, elevated, double-decker highway is usually the catalyst for such comments as “What the fuck! What
is
that? This part of town looks
nothing
like it used to! Where'd Convict Hill go?”
Sixth Street.
The entertainment district.
SoCo.
The South Congress Avenue area, where you can buy all kinds of shit you couldn't buy at its Yankee sister, SoHo.
Tejas.
What Texans sometimes call their state. Texans themselves as
tejanos
. A
tejano
can also be a type of Mexican country music that features the instrument of Satan: the accordion.
University of Texas.
Also called “Texas,” or “the Longhorns.” The Longhorns are the only football team you are supposed to follow; if you are caught following another team, you will be hung from the Tower and pelted with bad poetry from the university's Lit. 101 class.