Austin360 blogs > Out & About > Archives > 2008 > November > 24
Monday, November 24, 2008
Guest blogger Alison Willis: Red River Street
We’ve been working on the December XL club and bar guide. Guest blogger and St. Edward’s University student Alison Willis provided this excellent run-down on the Red River Street scene. Remember, these are her conclusions.
Emo’s: A name synonymous with live music for many years now. In addition to a small indoor dive-y venue, Emo’s also has a large outdoor venue that attracts many big-name artists. They also run a lounge next door, but I heard that they were closing it to put in El Sol Y La Luna (a restaurant on Congress). Not sure when that will happen or the details. Also known for the nastiest bathrooms in town.
Plush: A lounge club that specializes in dance, hip-hop, primarily DJ-based music.
Elysium: Goth-y dance bar straight out of the ’80s.You will see people clad in black with tons of eyeliner looking like they are carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. They also have a good ’80s night, where old people like me can dance to all the favorites from high school and junior high. They also attract a gay/lesbian crowd. Elysium features live music from time to time.
Beerland: Dive bar featuring live music. Usually punk-y bands, with a good mix of indie and garage thrown in. Problemmatic sound if you happen to be playing there. Love the name.
Red-Eyed Fly: Another dive bar. Has good-sized stage and bar in outdoor area. Think that this bar is mostly metal and hard rock, with a few hair metal-ish bands thrown in for good measure.
Room 710: Live music. Metal, metal, metal! Used to be a little more diverse in its musical tastes, but seems to be steering towards the heavier bands these days. Gutter punks and aging metal musicians (the old skool Red River crowd) are at home here.
Headhunters: The name says it all. Another bar that caters to old skool Red River crowd. Usually the same mix of people. Metal and hard rock.
Stubbs BBQ: Premier live music venue. Music featured outdoors and indoors. Outdoor area showcases touring bands that have achieved a larger measure of success. Indoor is more local bands and smaller touring acts.I heard that they were doing a renovation of the outdoor area to make the stage more accessible and expanding to make the capacity higher.
Club Deville: A hipster hangout. Great outdoor area that now features bands often. Indie-rock is the main staple at this joint. Mostly local bands, but sometimes touring bands are featured.
The Mohawk: Another hipster hangout for the late-twenties/thirtysomething set. Owners have been successful in turning this formerly cursed location into a crucial component of the live music scene. Indie-rock/pop/dance touring acts frequent the outside stage, while the inside stage keeps it mainly local. Transmission Entertainment, which features Graham Williams, the former booker of Emo’s, and another local booker, Rosa Madriz, is the main reason this bar is so successful.
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George Bernard Shaw on marriage timely again
Every 10 to 20 years, George Bernard Shaw comes back into fashion. I don’t mean his plays. The major titles — “Pygmalion,” “Heartbreak House,” “Major Barbara,” “Arms and the Man,” “Mrs. Warren’s Profession,” “Candida” — are never far from the theatrical boards.
Marriage is back in the news, thanks to the unexpectedly quick acceptance of gay partnerships and the political backlash against their advances on the social front. So Different Stages, Austin’s most literate community theater, has revived Shaw’s “Getting Married” at The Vortex.
Shaw zeroes in on the difficulty of divorce in the English civil sphere, but also hashes out the age-old entanglements between church and state on the issue. At one point, the unhappily single or married relations attempt to hammer out a “partnership contract” to replace marriage.
Director Norman Blumensaadt’s cast handles the language pretty adroitly — Tyler Jones is unusually adept at turning a conventionally snobbish juvenile into a credible leading man — so I smiled for almost three hours. One entirely un-Shavian scene dramatizes a ecstatic religious vision by one character, played with zest and zeal by Emily Errington.
Almost everything else transpires on an intellectual plane and the marriage debate sounds as timely as this morning’s headlines.
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Benolds Holiday Spree for Legacy of Giving
We usually publish our own party pictures. Yet connector Lisa O’Neill was gracious enough to forgive my absence from the Benold’s holiday party for the Austin Community Foundation’s Legacy of Giving program that I thought a few snaps from the event would help salve the wound. Looks like some social heavy hitters attended the jewelry and charity event.
Judi Knotts, Milton Doolittle (owner of Benold’s), Lynn Meredith, Linda Brucker (executive director, Legacy of Giving) and Kenneth Gladish, (president/CEO of Austin Community Foundation)
Sally Rivero, Valerie Lyng, Joy Selak
Lauren Peters, Linda Brucker, Renee Francese
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education
World’s best orchestras?
Gramophone has released its Top 20 orchestra rankings ahead of the UK magazine’s December edition. I don’t pay sustained attention to these things, but it looks like Boston and New York are slipping, while Los Angeles, justly, is in the ascendant. The Top 5 are hard to argue with, but I reserve mixed feelings for No. 6, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (through recordings only).
Houston and Dallas? Not even close to this list. Perhaps in the Next Next 20.
The Top 10: 1) Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterda; 2) Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra; 3) Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra; 4) London Symphony Orchestra; 5) Chicago Symphony Orchestra; 6) Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; 7) Cleveland Orchestra; 8) Los Angeles Philharmonic; 9) Budapest Festival Orchestra; 10) Dresden Staatskapelle
The Next 10: 11) Boston Symphony Orchestra; 12) New York Philharmonic; 13) San Francisco Symphony; 14) Mariinsky Theater Orchestra; 15) Russian National Orchestra; 16) Leningrad Philharmonic; 17) Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra; 18) Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; 19) Saito Kinen Orchestra; 20) Czech PhilharmonicPerhaps if the acoustics at the Bass are actually fixed, the UT PAC could host one of these a year for the next 20 years. Would be educational. Of course, the College of Fine Arts must pick a permanent successor to Pebbles Wadsworth first.
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Eastward toward Prozac
Maybe it was the East Austin Studio Tour earlier in the day. Or maybe The Good Knight has really caught fire. But when I stopped by the hidden East Sixth Street gem for a quick snack during my late-night hike to The Peacock, the joint was jumping. Billy Stockton, sound-man-turned-restaurant-owner, recognized me and waved me toward the plump fried green tomatoes.
Turns out journalism runs in Rose’s background. He interned in Washington D.C. with Scripps Howard, but he couldn’t stomach the sight of veteran reporters squeezed by the new realities of the newspaper industry.
Rose came to town to work in film. Stayed to labor on Web sites. He writes short stories on the side. I discovered this last bit by spying on his neatly replete notebook. (I couldn’t read any words over his shoulder, but I could tell that part of his brain always roamed back to his stories.)
After forcing some dollars on Stockton, my new acquaintance and I headed in separate directions.
The sidewalks on East-East Sixth Street were deserted, although the Latino bars reverberated with revelry. Farther east, I was disappointed to see absolutely not a soul walking to or from the many lofts, condos and apartments that have sprung up along this vital artery. The coffeehouses and other businesses had closed early. This was the time of night when a city needs to be a city.
The Peacock didn’t disappoint, however, as friends of inveterate socializer Christopher Carbone mingled with a soccer team fresh from a game or practice. That kind of encounter seems easier these days. Don’t know why.
I spoke to a fifth-grade teacher from San Antonio, and then two young men arguing over the name of a band. The shorter fellow, Ryan Morris, had dubbed his group Fluoxetine after the chemical name for Prozac. The bigger dude, Zac Folk (founder of CommonThreadz.org) and I agreed that tongue-slipper was going nowhere. Big guy voted for The Cranks.
Someone’s really got to start a business renaming Austin bands.
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Thai pleasures at the Monarch
I went for the view. I stayed for the conversation and cuisine. Not long, as readers like Dreambrother (see comments) are just discovering: I cover the social waterfront. Yes, something like a butterfly.
Charles Gentry, Craig Rancourt
This butterfly landed at The Monarch at one point on Saturday. The three-bedroom south-end apartment of Oliver Everette and Craig Rancourt demolished the conclusions I’d drawn — that Austin’s modern high-rise living spaces were too cold and too small. At 3,000 square feet, this cozy retreat was warmed by wood floors, select carpets and wisely overstuffed furniture.
Edson Enriquez, Ingrid Enriquez
I dropped in on a dinner party designed by Everette and Midlife Gal Sally Jackson, whose expertise at Thai food is justly renowned. (She makes her own pastes, etc., and almost everything from scratch.) I lapped up my tangy coconut soup and noshed on spring rolls, met jewelry designer Edson Enriquez and caught up with longtime Austinite Charles Gentry, who moved into the 360 Tower across the way (joining Forrest Preece and Linda Ball, also in attendance).
The Everette/Rancourt residence looks west and east, as well as south. The views from four decks are ravishing. Just another reason to like these recent immigrants from the Northeast.
David Allen, Anita Tschurr, Joe Eifler
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