Austin is an old town and a new town, with cutting-edge modern architecture butting right up next to, and peacefully coexisting with, many layers of historical buildings.
The clock tower on the administration building of University of Texas downtown rings a distant visual bell – and then you remember that a Charles Whitman climbed to its parapets one bright morning in 1966 and started shooting.
Just a few degrees across the horizon is the state capitol building, whose dome is more familiar to all of us than most state capitols, since the current resident of the White House once spent some time there.
The city is built into a tapestry of gently rolling hills. There are more trees than you expect in a biggish city, and many old stone buildings. A river runs through it, tech companies are growing the economy, and music seems to ring from everywhere all the time.
Legendary clubs like The Continental and Antones have been home and launching pad for internationally known greats like SRV and his older brother Jimmie, ZZ Top, and Eric Johnson – not to mention perennial regional favorites like Kinky Friedman and the host of great musicians who call Austin home and play locally and throughout a regional southern circuit.
To drive down 6th Street and through a handfull of scattered arts neighborhoods any night of the week is to hear a panoramic variety of passionately played music ringing from open doors and through the streets, swirling and mingling like the regional flavors in the Tex-Mex food available at countless local eateries.
It's American music in all its variety, and Austin, along with Nawlins, Nashville and Chicago, is one of its regional capitals.
What better place, then, to hear uniquely American rockabilly in all its versions?
And I'm having a hard time imagining a better venue than Stubbs Amphitheatre. I'm told Stubbs began as a barbecue joint (it still is one), established by a restauranteur from Lubbock. The place is built in a series of old stone buildings around the perimeter of a large corner lot, just uphill from a scenic creek.
The upstairs-downstairs restaurant is in the largest building; the balconies and porches on its back side open on a large dirt-n-gravel lot which faces a stage of perfect size under a beautiful sail-like canopy.
A series of small outbuildings around the perimeter of the lot provide production offices, dressing room, serving counters for beer and barbecue, y'all. Trees provide shade.
The temperature is in the low 80s, and it couldn't be a finer day for Rockabilly Magazine and Gretsch guitars to sponsor this event.
I'm pleased and honored to be your host on behalf of Gretsch, the magazine, and the festival. I'm wearing an all-access media pass, and will bring you pics from behind the scenes as well as up close to the stage.
In fact, my station is a desk in the air-conditioned dressing room, complete with high-speed internet, a fridge, couches, and unparalleled access to the bands.
Ready for more hot news? I can't tell you what it is...but you'll like it.
brent
