SIXTH STREET began as a black neighborhood’s soulful restaurant row. Family and friends played raucously electrified blues in screen-door cafés as a way to lure paying customers inside. Funny that all this hullabaloo began over a plate of smoked ham hocks and collard greens. Today most of the live music has moved to cool venues on Red River, while Sixth Street itself has morphed into a silly back-lot movie set.If you’re a fan of underground music history, wander by the Ritz Theater and imagine Black Flag, the Misfits, Minor Threat, Bad Brains—as well as Austin’s own Big Boys, Dicks, Scratch Acid, MDC, and Butthole Surfers—all tearing across its rundown stage in a time before the street was filled with carnival barkers and tattooed meatheads. But fear not, burgeoning hipster, there are still a few places where you can get your local on without bumping into Nick Lachey doing body shots off of Johnny Knoxville’s midriff.
Emo’s (603 Red River) The granddaddy of today’s Sixth Street clubs. Erik Hartman opened Emo’s in 1992 and, though he is no longer the main man, everybody in Austin owes him a thank-you. A huge venue with two stages, a great outdoor area, and some of the worst restrooms this side of Paraguay, it’s still an irresistible draw to the young inked-and-punctured crowd. If you are really smooth and know the password, you can talk your way in the back gate.
Casino El Camino (517 E. 6th) The charismatic Casino rolled into town a while back to show Austinites a thing or two about how to run a happening bar. The resultant spot is a local’s paradise, with massive burgers, cheap hooch, and the best jukebox on the street. It’s the perfect place to run into the boy whose name you can’t remember, because it’ll be so loud he’ll never have any idea what you’re saying anyway. It gets crowded, but isn’t that why you are in Austin, to rub elbows?
Side Bar (602 E. 7th) This neighborhood lounge has a nice outdoor area and a solid beer-and-booze setup. It’s the kind of place you expect quintessential Texas characters like Eric Bloodaxe to wander into with a coed on each arm, hollering for a drink like he had just been around the corner a minute. If he does, buy him one for us.
Chain Drive (504 Willow) When you have had it up to your ears with marginal bars and boring clientele, head here. They might not solve your problems, but will happily look into them. This place is the last of a dying breed of gay leather bars in a city increasingly worried about its reputation. The Chain Drive attracts colorful characters, curvy dames, and furry men of all sorts.
EAST AUSTIN is home to the most dangerous of Austin’s attractions and is therefore the best time. Ever been to Rio de Janeiro? The same adage holds true in Austin: Head uphill to the slums if you wanna have fun.
Victory Grill (1104 E. 11th) is the most famous nightclub east of the InterRegional. Opened in 1945, this blues stalwart was for decades a mainstay on the Chitlin Circuit and is currently on its ninth life as a place where on any given night you can settle into a blues spell or hype up on new acts like M.I.A.. We can long be grateful to the Victory Grill for giving us the first electric guitar. No shit. Hooray for inventors.
Long Branch Inn (1133 E. 11th) This east-side saloon is one of the last bastions of old-school Austin insanity. The proprietors are Southern gentlemen—one a hillbilly dandy who looks like he just hopped off his yacht, the other an oversexed blonde who bears a shaky resemblance to pulp-fiction superhero Doc Savage. Girls drink free here, so it’s full of girls, but tread lightly, my brothers, as courtesy is the LBI’s middle finger.
Red’s Scoot Inn (1308 E. 4th) Ex-heroin bar rescued by Mexican cowboys with an awesome outdoor patio featuring a fountain made out of a BBQ pit. Drink Budweiser longnecks, jam to the Texas Tornadoes’ “Is Anybody Going to San Antone?” and ignore the spent points. The Scoot is the perfect spot to while away an afternoon or three.
SOUTH AUSTIN is the proudest of Austin’s regions. No longer shored up by blue-collar cedar choppers, the area has turned into a hipster paradise of coffee shops and “funky” restaurants and bars. The place has tried to maintain its edginess by promoting the hollow, homegrown tagline “Keep Austin Weird.” If anything, it’s “Keeping Austin Queer,” which I find a little snappier and more to the point.
Ego’s (510 S. Congress) Once home to a large percentage of Austin’s geriatric drunks, this dive—hidden in a parking garage—has lost some of its old charm. But it’s still a weird place to wobble out of at three in the afternoon dressed in plus-fours and wrecked on Baja Mule Dogs (the same as a Colorado Bulldog, but twice the vodka, twice the Kahlua, and only $2).
Continental Club (1315 S. Congress) One of the longest continuously operating juke joints in Austin, Steve Wertheimer has kept this 50s-styled place cruising along with stellar roots-rock and blues Happy Hours. They deserve a lot of the credit for South Congress’s booming cool-cat zone. This is a great place to hang out if you are crafty enough to be staying at the San Jose, as the stumble home is a mere 20 steps.
Horseshoe Lounge (2034 S. Lamar) This padded bar is what Austin used to be like when real cowboys like Lyndon Baines were blasting around in ragtop Cadillacs singing about pissing in the wind. It is the embodiment of drinking evil—dangerously dank, with a clientele that’s prickly at best. The Horseshoe is the kind of place that has “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” on the jukebox, so if you are from north of the Mason-Dixon line, try not to do too much talking out loud. It makes the Horseshoe Bar at 7th and B in Manhattan look like a foppish English teahouse.
CAMPUS AREA
The University of Texas is a cool place to wander if you don’t have time to get out of town. The often unlocked limestone buildings provide a myriad of opportunities to have semipublic sex with the record-label manager from Minneapolis you met at the Long Branch Inn. It is the only American campus that can rival Montreal’s McGill for most free-ranging beauties. The Hole in the Wall (2538 Guadalupe) A legendary storefront venue for live music, where locals gather for the Sunday night “Rock & Roll Free-For-Alls,” as well as Monday’s “Unplug This” showcase. This old bar has done more damage to the health of Austin musicians than just about any other club in town. Ask the Hickoids. The Texas Showdown (2610 Guadalupe) This large watering hole, formerly known as Raul’s, is where bands like the Skunks started Austin down its path to punkdom. You’ll find pool tables, games, and numbered mugs behind the bar for regulars, which makes the curt “take a number” a bit more palatable. Famous for their Happy Minutes, from 3:00 to 3:15 PM every day, when they serve 40-cent draft beer. Crown & Anchor Pub (2911 San Jacinto) A classic student joint in the shadows of UT’s mysterious engineering department. Nearby, in an unmarked basement, lurks a small critical-fission nuclear reactor. For fun, purchase a cheap Geiger counter and send the annoying girl from New Jersey in the terry-cloth tube top to look for it while you order another pitcher and some burgers. Scholz Garden & Saengerrunde Hall (1607 San Jacinto Blvd.) This tree-lined beer garden and Bohemian hall dates from 1862. The complex was designed, built, and used by the original German freethinkers who founded central Texas. Order a Shiner Bock, and imagine yourself an enlightened Tex-Czech émigré. There is bowling in the Saengerrunde Hall, if you have the gift of the language and a free afternoon. All the pins are hand-set. NORTH AUSTIN is a monstrous region, spreading upward from the Colorado River almost all the way to Bubya’s ranchette in Crawford. Its quirkiness, though a bit muted, can still be experienced by pushing past the endless strip malls and fast-food drive-thrus to these three outposts. The Carousel Lounge (1110 E. 52nd) This joint is a bizarre world of rat-packy musicians and circus figurines. Bands play beneath a huge pink papier-mâché elephant, while Swingin’ Stella serves beer and setups in a hip hideaway. Think Twin Peaks meets Dallas. Lala’s Little Nugget (2207 Justin) Every day is Christmas at this earnest strip-mall dive brightened by holiday lights and a decorated tree complete with presents. They’ve got 45s on the juke and dancing for the ladies. Put on the song “T for Texas,” and work on Jimmie Rogers’s dream of getting more women than a passenger train could haul. Ginny’s Little Longhorn (5434 Burnet Road) The only true honky-tonk in North Austin. This family-run joint specializes in classic country music. They’ve got pickled eggs on the bar, Merle on the jukebox, and there is no better place to indulge in a hankering for some boot-scootin’ action. Pay close attention to Ginny’s posted rules while visiting, however. THE “SPAGHETTI” WAREHOUSE DISTRICT lies west of Congress Avenue on 4th Street and is recognized primarily for its cheesiness. It once housed a number of infectiously dangerous gay discos and Liberty Lunch, but today it is essentially one extended outdoor fern bar for the cigar-and-scotch crowd. Alamo Drafthouse (409 Colorado) This is the coolest spot in the SWD by light years, and one of the best places in the U.S. of A. to drink alcohol while watching rare and quality movies. It’s also home to Quentin Tarantino’s yearly Fall Festival.
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The University of Texas is a cool place to wander if you don’t have time to get out of town. The often unlocked limestone buildings provide a myriad of opportunities to have semipublic sex with the record-label manager from Minneapolis you met at the Long Branch Inn. It is the only American campus that can rival Montreal’s McGill for most free-ranging beauties. The Hole in the Wall (2538 Guadalupe) A legendary storefront venue for live music, where locals gather for the Sunday night “Rock & Roll Free-For-Alls,” as well as Monday’s “Unplug This” showcase. This old bar has done more damage to the health of Austin musicians than just about any other club in town. Ask the Hickoids. The Texas Showdown (2610 Guadalupe) This large watering hole, formerly known as Raul’s, is where bands like the Skunks started Austin down its path to punkdom. You’ll find pool tables, games, and numbered mugs behind the bar for regulars, which makes the curt “take a number” a bit more palatable. Famous for their Happy Minutes, from 3:00 to 3:15 PM every day, when they serve 40-cent draft beer. Crown & Anchor Pub (2911 San Jacinto) A classic student joint in the shadows of UT’s mysterious engineering department. Nearby, in an unmarked basement, lurks a small critical-fission nuclear reactor. For fun, purchase a cheap Geiger counter and send the annoying girl from New Jersey in the terry-cloth tube top to look for it while you order another pitcher and some burgers. Scholz Garden & Saengerrunde Hall (1607 San Jacinto Blvd.) This tree-lined beer garden and Bohemian hall dates from 1862. The complex was designed, built, and used by the original German freethinkers who founded central Texas. Order a Shiner Bock, and imagine yourself an enlightened Tex-Czech émigré. There is bowling in the Saengerrunde Hall, if you have the gift of the language and a free afternoon. All the pins are hand-set. NORTH AUSTIN is a monstrous region, spreading upward from the Colorado River almost all the way to Bubya’s ranchette in Crawford. Its quirkiness, though a bit muted, can still be experienced by pushing past the endless strip malls and fast-food drive-thrus to these three outposts. The Carousel Lounge (1110 E. 52nd) This joint is a bizarre world of rat-packy musicians and circus figurines. Bands play beneath a huge pink papier-mâché elephant, while Swingin’ Stella serves beer and setups in a hip hideaway. Think Twin Peaks meets Dallas. Lala’s Little Nugget (2207 Justin) Every day is Christmas at this earnest strip-mall dive brightened by holiday lights and a decorated tree complete with presents. They’ve got 45s on the juke and dancing for the ladies. Put on the song “T for Texas,” and work on Jimmie Rogers’s dream of getting more women than a passenger train could haul. Ginny’s Little Longhorn (5434 Burnet Road) The only true honky-tonk in North Austin. This family-run joint specializes in classic country music. They’ve got pickled eggs on the bar, Merle on the jukebox, and there is no better place to indulge in a hankering for some boot-scootin’ action. Pay close attention to Ginny’s posted rules while visiting, however. THE “SPAGHETTI” WAREHOUSE DISTRICT lies west of Congress Avenue on 4th Street and is recognized primarily for its cheesiness. It once housed a number of infectiously dangerous gay discos and Liberty Lunch, but today it is essentially one extended outdoor fern bar for the cigar-and-scotch crowd. Alamo Drafthouse (409 Colorado) This is the coolest spot in the SWD by light years, and one of the best places in the U.S. of A. to drink alcohol while watching rare and quality movies. It’s also home to Quentin Tarantino’s yearly Fall Festival.