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So did you start working at bars back then? We played huge shows, we were big, even back then. I played in a band called The Psychos I was the bass player. We started gravitating toward Sundays at CBGB’s when hardcore matinees started to get popular.
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So in 1980, I was hanging out in a bar called A7 where the New York hardcore movement began. I’m one of the founding fathers of New York hardcore punk. My band has been touring for 32 years and I played my 50th birthday five years ago in France to 90,000 people and we opened for bands like Iron Maiden and Slayer. I’m going to Russia and Greece with my band M.O.D. I am a platinum-selling musician myself and a platinum record manager as well, and I still play. I’ve produced a ton of records and I mean for record labels, not for people’s fuckin’ demos. I did front of house, mixing for 30 years. Other nights she can be found down Red River Street at the door of fog-filled ’80s haunt Elysium or quipping with a cast of characters outside Rain, one of the Warehouse District’s vibrant gay clubs.Įach of these bars and their gatekeepers shows a side of Austin that is still quite boisterous, and yes, sometimes even weird.
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At Nickel City, a Rust Belt–inspired eastside dive bar serving Detroit-style sliders and pouring some of the best whiskey in town, bar veteran Billy Milano can be found outside the door playing music on his portable speaker, passing out treats to neighborhood dogs and laughing with a friend on FaceTime as he greets regulars in his thick New York accent.ĭue south on East Sixth Street, martial artist Moe Martin keeps revelers in check at the raucous Volstead Lounge with his kind smile and Zen presence, while a mile west at the iconic venue Mohawk, the leather-clad and studded Marina Lebedeva holds her own with humor, but quickly turns fierce as needed.
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It reads “Austin, Texas: A Sleepy Little Drinking Town With a Live Music Problem.” Sure, we now have a population of 1 million, but we all fit inside this place that manages to maintain its small-town vibe, and not a single ordinance could ever extinguish our musical lifeblood (or the multimedia mothership known as South by Southwest).įor this installment of PUNCH’s “A Night at the Door,” we talked with bouncers who keep the peace at three very different establishments in what can, at times, feel like an adult playground of a city. And these days, the iconic “Keep Austin Weird” tie-dye is a darkly comedic plea in a city where luxury high-rises supplant the record shops and food trucks that earned the capital of Texas its reputation in the first place.īut if you find yourself on Dirty Sixth Street (every visitor will, and even we locals end up there occasionally, despite our better judgment), make your way through the cacophony of dollar-shot offers and into one of those tacky tourist shops for the one T-shirt that accurately sums up the city. In Austin, “Live Music Capital of the World” shirts warrant eye rolls from local musicians who are all too familiar with the increasingly strict noise ordinances that have sobered the city’s soundscape.
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As a general rule, tourist shop T-shirt slogans aren’t peddling the most sage of wisdom.