Hotels and high-rises now loom above Austin’s unofficial gay district on Fourth Street. Photo by Dave Creaney.
On a chilly night in December 2020, Maggie Lea found herself sitting alone on the patio of Cheer Up Charlies, the popular Red River hangout she owns with partner Tamara Hoover. The venue had been closed for the better part of a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but Lea had to check on it almost daily amid a flurry of break-ins. Each visit to the empty bar made it feel increasingly abandoned, but Lea caught a glimpse of the string lights hanging above the patio and nostalgically flipped them on.
Sitting beneath the venue’s signature rainbow parachute, Lea glanced up at the silhouettes of the Hyatt House and the Hotel Indigo looming above, and thought: The city is just not the same as it was when Tamara and I opened a little bar that could.
Debuting in 2009, Cheer Up began as an East Austin trailer that just sold chocolate and coconuts. But soon after, they moved into a tiny building next door where they began hosting live music, and immediately found themselves at odds with neighborhood groups that frequently complained to Austin Police about late-night noise. After a few tumultuous years, the bar’s landlord abruptly terminated their lease, and a hotel project popped up in their wake.
Lea and Hoover landed on their feet weeks later with a prime location on Red River Street in 2013. But Austin’s relentless downtown development would rear its head again, as construction began on the Hyatt House shortly after their relocation. While they grappled with extensive scaffolding and netting that prevented the venue from hosting shows on their outdoor stage, the skyline quickly morphed around them.
The cranes and ambitious vertical ascension of its high-rises provides a quick visual summary of its change, but there’s a quieter, less conspicuous story playing out beneath the surface. With many of Austin’s venues already at a tipping point, the pandemic paved the way for outside interests to step in and opportunistically buy low, subtly altering the fabric of its cultural identity. Many of Austin’s most iconic brands, from South by Southwest and Austin City Limits to Stubb’s and even the University of Texas have recently taken on partners or brokered relationships that give new corporate investors a hand on the wheel.
In April of last year, SXSW, the city’s most prized musical asset, sold half its stake to P-MRC (a corporation that owns Rolling Stone, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Billboard, among others), which is headquartered in New York and LA. In October 2021, Stratus Properties, the ownership group behind the Second Street district’s Block 21—home to ACL Live at the Moody Theater and the W Hotel—announced that it would sell to Ryman Hospitality, a Nashville-based entity that owns the Grand Ole Opry and the Ryman Auditorium.
In February, concert promotions group Live Nation not only acquired Stubb’s, but the land on which it sits. The nearby Moody Amphitheater is situated in a city-owned park run by the Waterloo Conservancy, but the venue’s booking and operation will be handled by Live Nation. And this April, the Moody Center opened, bringing a new, state-of-the-art arena to the University of Texas campus. The venue, which was funded entirely by private entities despite its location on public school grounds, will be operated by an alliance between the LA-based Oak View Group, Live Nation, Matthew McConaughey, and the university.
Within a brief two-year span, Austin experienced a total sea change in who controls premier venues in the “live music capital of the world.” That development begs the question: Will deeper pockets and industry-entrenched investors make it easier or more difficult to retain the magic of Austin’s musical identity?
“I’m not sure we know the answer to that question,” says Austin Mayor Steve Adler. From his perspective, these corporate entities bring resources that could bolster the city’s music ecosystem, but he also acknowledges that it’s important for those same businesses to understand what makes the scene so special. “If it becomes a homogenized national product,” he warns, “it won’t be who we are.”
In a sense, Austin’s desire to maintain its laid-back, free and easy lifestyle merely created an opportunity for developers and venture capitalists to snap up what the city had to offer. Austin was for sale, and it got bought.
Truth be told, change has been Austin’s brand just as much as live music. Even before the flurry of recent moves, Austin’s independent venues have struggled with affordability. Over the years, Beerland, Holy Mountain, Plush, The Sidewinder, Red 7, Red Eyed Fly, the North Door, and many more have risen and fallen due to market pressures and the rising cost of doing business in one of the country’s fastest-growing cities. So ubiquitous is change, that cranes now appear as part of the backdrop used in Austin City Limits’ famous television program.
Through it all, Cheer Up Charlies has managed to persist, in part due to its status as a queer hub. It functions as a communal gathering spot for Austin’s LGBTQ+ community. But it also represents Austin’s cultural assets at large, hosting national touring acts like Megan Thee Stallion, drag shows, country-themed DJ nights, dance parties, and local indie rock and punk shows.
“With the hotels and the divvying up of downtown to real estate developers, and the breaking up of our clusters, it has just felt like riding a wave,” Lea says.
And that wave hasn’t crested, as downtown properties continue to be scooped up and redeveloped at a breakneck pace. Cheer Up Charlies’ lease ends in March 2024, a deadline that looms ominously for the couple. Many of the Red River District’s buildings have some protection thanks to Capitol View Corridors, a series of construction restrictions aimed at preserving sightlines that radiate out from the Texas State Capitol. Under Austin’s laws, structures within those corridors must stay under a certain height, usually just a few stories. But Cheer Up Charlies has the unfortunate geography of being one of the few that fails to fall within that definition.
As a bastion of the queer community, her concerns are acutely warranted, since Austin’s unofficial gay district on Fourth Street will soon give way to proposed high-rise developments. Some, like Coconut Club, will be lost. Others, such as Oilcan Harry’s, will be scraped to the ground—the original bricks cleaned and reassembled to form the first floor of the new Hanover apartment building (which is still in the process of approval). “How will it be the same if you’re under this shiny new high-rise and they redo the whole façade?” Lea wonders. “When it comes to community spaces and identity spaces, how will you recreate that?”
When winter storm Uri hit in February 2021, Lea emerged from her home after several days sans power to check on the still-shuttered bar. Pulling up, she found the rainbow parachute that once sheltered the patio sagging just a few feet off the ground, crushed by the weight of several inches of snow and ice. Taking an old set of gardening shears, she cut its tethers and watched it crumple to the ground.
It felt like a fitting moment, because sometimes there is no parachute. Sometimes, you’re simply in free fall.
James Moody returned to his North Austin home late one night in July 2020 and poured himself an old fashioned—his drink of choice for moments of heavy meditation. It had been a long day of calling people who held a financial stake in his venue, the Mohawk, to inform them that he’d decided to close it down permanently. Though he was heartbroken, he just couldn’t see a feasible way forward. The venue had laid off most of its staff in the weeks after the pandemic hit, and there was no incoming revenue stream to speak of.
But dissolving a business that has existed for 14 years can’t be achieved overnight, and as Moody continued wading through the process, new information kept trickling in to muddy the landscape. Reports swirled of vaccines, federal funding, and local grants, which made his head swim with a chaotic cocktail of possibilities. Before a meeting with Mohawk’s landlord, Joe Joseph, Moody climbed the stairs up to the rooftop balcony and looked out over the Red River District, a much different quarter than the one that existed when the Mohawk opened in 2006.
Gone is the Reddy Ice building, now a massive condo development. Gone are Beerland, Club Deville, and the Red Eyed Fly. Moody turned his gaze to the Mohawk’s vacant stage and reminisced about the nights Iggy Pop, Ice Cube, and Dinosaur Jr. all plugged in and filled the night air with raucous melody. Overcome with emotion, he had the sudden sensation that he had become part of something bigger than himself—something that desperately needed protecting.
Back downstairs in the dim bar, Moody and his business partner, Will Steakley, talked with Joseph about the future of the business. At the time, every landlord’s revenue stream had dried up just like their occupants, and Joseph had a rooting interest in keeping the lease going. Moody knew that even if the Mohawk could survive, they’d be entering a different market with far greater uncertainty and risk moving forward. So, he broached the idea of including an option to purchase the property in a new contract, and, shockingly, the owner agreed.
“I don’t think that they thought we would really do it,” Moody admits now. After mulling it over for a few months, the partners moved forward with the arrangement, reasoning that it was the only pathway to ensuring the Mohawk’s longevity. In December, Joseph and the club’s duo entered into a seller-financed agreement, meaning the parties will share a financial stake until the property is paid off over time.
In this unpredictable world, where the pandemic still lingers, nothing is guaranteed, of course. Moody knows that, and his self-described “Hail Mary” is simply a way of decreasing the outside risks facing the venue.
“There was probably going to be a day when we were going to get the call,” he says, insinuating that his landlord could sell out for the right deal. “Not only are some of these big outside companies coming into town, local buyers are making moves as well.”
The swelling population, particularly transplants flush with expendable incomes, are part of his calculation though. He’s hoping that more people means more customers, and an affluent economy that can sustain a flood of live music.
Austin’s Capitol View Corridors may also play to Mohawk’s advantage. Even with their new seller-financed agreement, there remains the possibility that a company could make an exorbitant offer that would be difficult to refuse. However, Mohawk sits directly in a codified area. Restricted to a few stories, anything that hypothetically replaces the venue would be much less profitable than a hotel or condo complex.
Still, the deep roots the Mohawk has made in the community will likely be necessary to compete against the bigger, more powerful venues that surround it. But the tactic that Moody employed is essentially the same as the one Live Nation implemented, which increased stability at Stubb’s through land ownership.
Cody Cowan, executive director of the Red River Cultural District (RRCD), says that Live Nation’s acquisition constitutes the best possible outcome for Austin music fans. With the entire block up for sale, Stubb’s’ future was far from certain, but now Live Nation has a vested interest in keeping it music-oriented. And as far as any concern about corporate-backed behemoths squeezing out the little guy, Cowan actually thinks the competition could benefit smaller outfits like Mohawk. “I think in Red River’s instance, we’re an example where there’s a rising tide that will lift all ships,” he says.
Comparing Austin’s hallowed independent clubs to the newly constructed concert venues is a “very different bathroom experience,” according to Cowan. He got his start working the door at Emo’s back when the club sat on the corner of Sixth and Red River. The venue’s restrooms had doorless stalls covered in a layer of grime and band stickers, and the urinal was just a metal trough with ice poured into it to staunch the smell of piss—a world apart from the pristine tile backsplash, marble countertops, and hands-free soap dispensers at the new Moody Center.
Despite his optimism that these tiers of entertainment can coexist, Cowan says that bar sales have not rebounded in smaller spaces whose primary business plan is local live music—places like Chess Club, the Green Jay, Valhalla, and Elysium. On the other hand, big tours have returned to form. In May, Stubb’s hosted 25 outdoor shows, a record month in the venue’s 26-year musical history.
Even if these new interests aren’t in competition, the arrival of luxury concert experiences has altered the expectations around seeing live music in Austin. Ticket prices have remained relatively low for decades, but contrast that with the cost of living here today. In the early aughts, you might find a spare room in a house in Hyde Park for $400. By May 2022, the average rent on an apartment was $1,735 a month. If working musicians are going to be able to make it in Austin, the public can’t expect a show with four local bands to cost the same as a cup of coffee. What’s little known is that when the price of a ticket increases, that’s generally passed onto the artist, not the venue (which profits mostly from bar sales). That’s why advocates like Cowan feel that it’s due time for Austinites to make their own investments in the music scene, particularly with local acts.
“This is millennia-old wisdom—change is inevitable,” Cowan says. “My pitch for Austin’s music culture is: Do we want to be changed by change, or do we want to be the arbiters of our own change?”
Moody has taken charge of his own fate, but there may be more than one way to address downtown’s affordability crisis. If the center simply cannot hold for the capital city’s more eclectic spots, the quintessential Austin experience might just be found further out. Lawrence Boone, the talent buyer at The Far Out Lounge, located on a stretch of South Congress Avenue past William Cannon, says the venue just hosted their biggest show to date when a crowd of nearly 3,000 showed up to watch the punk band Bikini Kill.
The event was a watershed moment, as similar bookings had never taken place on Austin’s outskirts before. It lent credence to the notion that there’s still a hunger in Austin for a less-polished live music experience—one that eschews the hassle of downtown parking, costly rideshares, and tickets in excess of $100. But Boone believes there’s a place for everyone in Austin. “There are so many people here now that even if people like us don’t want to go downtown, there’s two other people who just moved here, and that’s all they want to do,” he says.
The Far Out Lounge’s Old Austin sensibility works as an argument that the town’s cultural tapestry may not be lost so much as it is displaced. Yes, the city has added a new tier of nightlife experiences, but a vestige of what once was remains. Concertgoers simply have to look just a little bit harder to find it.
Standing in front of the red glow of The Continental Club’s indoor neon sign, Torrence and Thurman Thomas of THEBROSFRESH performed their first show in July 2021. A rising sibling duo who play in a genre all their own (think touches of electropop, R&B, and rock), they’d frequented Austin for around a year, swooping in for one-off shows before returning to their hometown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And while they pined to make the permanent move themselves, the skyrocketing cost of housing held them back. Unlike the artist-friendly zeitgeist of the ’60s and ’70s, Thurman says it’s incredibly difficult for musicians to live and work in Austin today. “One does not just move to Austin, Texas,” says Torrence, echoing his brother’s sentiments. “You gotta get your sh*t together.”
Finally taking the leap this March, they say the move has already paid off, as they’ve been able to snag bookings at venues like Cheer Up Charlies and Continental Club. THEBROSFRESH have played the Soho House several times and performed at a show sponsored by PNC Bank at ACL Live. “When these companies hire local talent for a private event, they want that authentic ‘Austin’ energy,” says Torrence. He adds that the larger budgets for private events also enable artists to afford the town’s increasing cost of living. “The money is fixed, and it’s going to be substantially more than a night at a traditional venue.”
Recently announced on the fall ACL Fest lineup, the band exemplifies the town’s shifting musical demographic. It also evidences the magnetic pull the city still holds over artists everywhere. Even as local musicians struggle to afford Austin’s ballooning price tag, others seek to capitalize on the newfound opportunities that deeper pockets have brought to the music economy.
Artists aren’t the only ones being lured here, as major industry players like performance rights organization BMI have also expanded to the capital city. Located in South Austin since March 2019, the nonprofit seeks out royalties owed to artists registered with the company—something executive director Mitch Ballard highly recommends to any musician seeking advice or feedback on how to start a career.
Ingratiating themselves to the community, BMI hosts a monthly songwriter showcase at the Saxon Pub and has sponsored a stage at ACL Fest since 2003. A native Texan, Ballard says that after a decades-long involvement with the Austin music scene, the company couldn’t justify not taking up residence here. “I think over the next five or six years, we’re going to see more industry develop and have a permanent presence in Austin,” Ballard says.
If the underground was formerly the mainstream, that free-spirited attitude has undoubtedly lost a foothold of late. With bigger players and greater resources, this newly transformed Austin requires a plan of attack. It’s a lesson Lea and Hoover have learned as they plan for their latest project, She She Lounge, a new bar set to open on the East Side later this year. Whereas Cheer Up Charlies was an intimate family affair, the pair have sought out investment partners for She She Lounge, and are even in the process of establishing a hospitality group to manage the venture. “I wanted it to be like Cheer Up, just two people, and small,” says Lea. “But to be honest, we just accepted and realized that we cannot do it again on our own.”
In the weeks leading up to Cheer Up Charlies’ reopening in May 2021, Lea was riddled with doubt. Beaten down by the pandemic, not to mention financial insecurity and a world now weary of large public gatherings, they’d admittedly lost some of their spark. To amend that, the pair hatched a plan to make a huge statement upon their return. With their iconic rainbow parachute lost to Uri, Lea quickly drew up a design for some neon artwork that would jut directly out of the rock wall behind the venue’s outdoor stage. It would be a new calling card: a lighthouse beacon that everyone in the city could recognize.
Commissioned and installed just days before reopening, Lea decided to give it a test run before the art was revealed to the public. The night before she welcomed back the community, Lea stood on the patio alone and flipped on the lights just as she had done six months prior. Standing before that sign, a smiling face radiating neon joy, Lea broke down into tears.
Diagnosed with cancer in the spring of 2019, Lea had spent months in chemotherapy and radiation treatment up until the precipice of the pandemic. The illness gave her a new perspective on life, as anxiety gave way to optimism. She has no illusions about the harsh reality of being a small business owner in an industry going through major upheaval. And she knows that turmoil isn’t slowing down anytime soon. Yet she feels confident. “Nothing is forever,” she says. “We lose our spaces, but we’ll find more.”
She’s talking about the queer community along Austin’s unofficial gay district, but it’s a sentiment that people like James Moody, Lawrence Boone, and Cody Cowan would undoubtedly share. “It’s OK to have hope,” she says. “You fight, and when it doesn’t work out, at least you’ve done all you could.”
1712 Rio Grande Street, Suite 100 Austin, TX 78701
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1712 Rio Grande Street, Suite 100 Austin, TX 78701
Website by Web Publisher PRO