Allow and indulge me, dear readers, to engage in a wee bit of favoritism, travel back to a past that surrounded me, and in the process do some full disclosure. All for the purpose of touting an especially deserving book.
“A Curious Mix of People,” published by University of Texas Press, is subtitled “The Underground Scene of ’90s Austin.” Yes, perhaps a slightly obscure topic, though one that merits being documented and has larger and wider significance.
I moved to Austin a month-and-a-half before the dawn of the 1990s, into the era’s indie music community that the book covers. I was a somewhat minor yet still significant player within the scene in “A Curious Mix…” as the music editor of Austin’s alternative newsweekly from the early to mid-1990s and then writing about music and many other things as a freelancer for the local daily as well as about Austin acts for the weeklies in Houston, Dallas and San Antonio.
One of the book’s co-authors, Greg Beets, was a regular freelancer for me at the Austin Chronicle weekly. His work was always well-written and smart, and I thoroughly trusted his musical tastes and opinions as he wrote about local acts as well artists with a national/international profile. I knew he’d produce a good book with his collaborator, documentary filmmaker Richard Whymark.
But as I started reading the introduction, which sets the cultural and historical context for its topic, I marveled at how even that basic stuff was superbly documented. The Texas capital city was in a severe economic downturn between a 1980s Texas oil boom and bust and the hurlyburly growth and development to follow. “A Curious Mix …” unfolds within what was the last gasp of the old weird Austin that fostered the city’s reputation as a city rich with music and bohemian living. See Richard Linklater’s definitive film on Austin’s eccentric fin de siecle lifestyles and characters, “Slacker,” for a sense of what the city’s creative underbelly was like at this time.
Rent and living was dirt cheap, which fostered not just the ability of musicians to start bands but also clubs, recording studios and indie record labels. Some local entrepreneurs had started a small grassroots music conference and festival called South By Southwest that would in time burgeon into a leading international event at the cutting edge of not just music but film and high tech. Beets and Whymark write about it all in an authorial voice that is authoritative yet at the same time warm, witty and friendly.
Unlike the Seattle scene of the ’90s, which launched numerous bands to great success, most of them playing a variation on a style dubbed grunge, the music created in Austin was all over the map musically – an adventurous buffet of post-punk and college rock styles and admixtures thereof that was enjoyed by a supportive local audience. Many of the acts within the scene won major and indie record label deals but failed to break into the big time, unlike the Seattle rock music boom. Only the band Spoon was able to grow within the scene and beyond to become a model for sustained classy modern rock acclaim and prosperity outside the mainstream. The recollections of those who were there imbue a sense of you are there too.
“A Curious Mix” is largely an oral history rich with pithy quotes, tales and observations. Its chapters roll through the underground musical infrastructure of clubs, record labels and stores and media with cogent introductions and accounts that summon up a time and place that was also tons of fun for clubgoing fans as well as the musicians.
The book is musical and cultural anthropology at its most entertaining and insightful. It can lead music fans to worthy, unique and highly engaging acts that may have never sold that many records – remember them? – but left a mark that reverberated beyond the city. It was a special place in a special time with music and a scene around it well worth remembering.
TV Documentary Series: “Lucy Worsley Investigates” – The noted and whip-smart and charming British historian, author and BBC host deep dives into major events in her nation shrouded in mystery like the princes in the Tower, the black death, a witch hunt that began in the late 16th Century and the madness of King George, often to revelatory results.
TV Series: “The Santa Clarita Diet” – A suburban couple played with giddy delight by Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant are thrust into a bizarre yet amusing new way of living when she is transformed into a flesh-eating undead human. Good and wacky fun from a show sadly cancelled by Netflix after its third season.
Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. See more columns at rpatterson.substack.com. Email robpatterson054@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, December 1, 2023
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