Austin Sound

As we told you last month, Room 710 is shutting down due to, well, being a music club in Austin. This weekend will be their grand finale of shows before they lock up the doors, but they’ve got some good ones. If you’ve missed Tia Carrera’s last happy hour, or the Dicks bringing their insanity to the venue over the last month, you can make up for it before it all fades away. Tonight, some familiar 710-ers take the stage with SuperHeavyGoatAss, Split Hoof, Burn Heavy, Scraps of Life, and New Orleans’ Hawg Jaw, with the onslaught beginning at 9:00pm. Saturday night promises to be even more fun, however, as the ridiculousness that is Hug unloads starting at 8:00pm, followed by locals Pong and Foot Patrol. Too bad they couldn’t book Bankrupt and the Borrowers! (Zing!) We actually expect that Room 710 owner Asher Garber will turn the space into something new with some added investors, maybe even as soon as next year, but in the meantime we can celebrate the hardcore legacy of Room 710 by going out with a bang.

We wondered back when Freddie’s became the victim of the new noise ordinance rules (Did City Council Surreptitiously Screw Live Music in Austin?) what would become of popular outdoor concerts and venues like Shady Grove’s “Unplugged at the Grove” series, and it seems now we know. In a letter to the editor in this week’s Chronicle, the Gourds’ Kevin Russell relates how their show at the Grove was cited last week due to a sound-ordinance violation. As Russell declares, “In its race, which is already lost, to move people Downtown, this city is going to lose something that cannot be replaced,” and he calls upon all musicians and fans to finally take a stand against the ridiculousness of the new noise ordinance rules before it is too late. We couldn’t agree more!

Last week, Red River had some new rental property open up when Spiro’s voluntarily closed its doors, and now word is out that Room 710 will likely be vacating its home across the street by the end of summer. In this week’s Chronicle, Austin Powell reports that unless some last minute deals are struck by Room 710 owner Asher Garber, then the club will be forced to declare bankruptcy and shut down by August 2. What’s most interesting about the write up on nine year old club’s difficulties, however, is where Garber seems to put a lot of the blame. While Garber acknowledges his own mistakes he’s made along the way, much of his going-out-of-business ire is directed toward the city and his Red River competitors. Not only does he say that Room 710 never recovered from the 2005 smoking ban, but he also, according to Powell, cited the apparent “battle” between Emo’s and Transmission Entertainment as squeezing out the smaller clubs from the scene.

On Friday afternoon, one week after the shooting outside it’s doors that left eight bystanders injured, Spiro’s on Red River has decided to shut down. We applaud the decision, for no matter where the blame for this particular incident may lie, it is clear that Spiro’s had become an unruly nuisance for APD, Red River area, and the downtown music scene. This week’s Chronicle laid into the club for it’s problematic rap sheet, as well as their negligent philosophy of what happens outside the venue proper is not their responsibility.

The two suspects in Friday morning’s shooting outside of Spiro’s on Red River, which left 8 people injured, including one still in critical condition, turned themselves in to the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office Friday afternoon. Brother’s Brandon Bruce Hutchison and LaBaaron Demon Hutchison of the La Grange rap group L.G. Allstarz have been charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, but the debate over the fallout from the incident is just beginning.

APD is still trying to untangle exactly what happened last night on Red River as two men apparently opened fire outside of Spiro’s. According to Fox News, at around 2:15am “the two men walked up to the crowd with guns and began firing, keeping their guns low to the ground, consequently most of the injuries sustained were to people’s legs and one woman was shot in the stomach.” Fox also quotes the owners of Spiros as saying that a rap group missed their set earlier in the night and were as to leave when they arrived, ” but later returned at the time of the shooting. Whether that means it was the group that shot up the joint, we’re not sure, but police reportedly have the names of both suspects.

This week the reports have been all over about Freddie’s Place on South First having to finally shut down their outdoor music after receiving a warning from the Austin Police Department for noise violation. The battle between Freddie’s patio music and the surrounding neighborhood has been ground zero in the noise ordinance debate the past few years, and Freddie’s has been careful to maintain a strict policy of no outside music after 9:00pm and that the decibel level doesn’t exceed the traditional level of enforcement for live outdoor music at 85 db. So what went wrong?

This week’s Chronicle has a ,cover story on the Cactus Cafe, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a string of special shows starting tomorrow, February 6. The anniversary shows feature some stellar artists in the intimate venue like Alejandro Escovedo, Guy Clark, and Richard Thompson, as well as several shows of Austin’s best up-and-coming songwriters like Graham Weber and Leatherbag. Cactus Manager, Griff Luneburg, has been running the venerable listening room for 28 of those years, so stop by and say thanks for one of Austin’s best clubs! Check out the month of anniversary shows scheduled below:

The Statesman reported yesterday that the Backyard, or at least Tim O’Connor and Direct Events got approval from Bee Cave to move forward on their new venue. Although they don’t seem to have been put online yet, from what we saw at the farewell celebration to old venue, the plans for the new digs are pretty impressive, and they seem to have taken precautions to ensure that that the Backyard isn’t once again overrun by urban sprawl. (Our money, sadly, is always on urban sprawl).

For years the beginning of the new year has been heralded in with a week of free shows at Emo’s, blasting great, largely local lineups to packed crowds. It’s the best opportunity to catch a ton of local music for free and see bands that you haven’t yet seen or might not even otherwise go out of your way to check out. So we couldn’t be more thrilled that in a recent press release, Transmission Entertainment is expanding the idea to all it’s Red River clubs, which includes the Mohawk, Club DeVille, Red 7, and the Beauty Bar. By our estimation, that’s a little something for the indie crowd, the loungers, the rockers, and hipsters. That’s the kind of unilateral economic stimulus package we’re talking about! All this will be going down January 2 through January 10.

If it seems that Transmission might be honing in on Emo’s hallowed ground, not so! Free week was actually Graham Williams’ idea years ago when he was booking Emo’s and before he left to start up Transmission. He released a statement along with a list of bands booked for the week, both of which you can check out below.