Community, connections and chords: How Austin maintains its live music reputation

AUSTIN (KXAN) — All of the big-name cities have their own unique nicknames, New York City: “The City that Never Sleeps.” Paris: “The City of Lights.” Philadelphia: “The City of Brotherly Love.” What is Austin? Only the “Live Music Capital of the World.”

Austin has grown since coining the term in 1991, according to city council minutes. With large festivals such as South by Southwest and the Austin City Limits music festival, musicians flock to the city to perform and hopefully get noticed enough to book a gig or two. But that isn’t the only way musicians can get noticed.

How Austin became the ‘Live Music Capital of the World’

If you search ‘live music in Austin tonight’ any given night of the week, you will more than likely find at least 10 options available. With over 200 music venues in Austin, there are options on practically every street. It’s everywhere in the city: small coffee shops to outdoor restaurants, and even larger venues like the Moody Center on the University of Texas at Austin campus.

Venues and musicians work with each other and the city to shape Austin into an inviting space. Whether musicians are just starting their band in a tiny apartment, or they are discovering their solo career, the opportunities in Austin are unlike any other. With over 30 years of Austin being the “Live Music Capital of the World,” how does the city maintain its title?

Starting a band in Austin

Philip James Lupton and Truett Heintzelman shared a dream of performing while attending the University of Texas.

When they first formed their band, Briscoe, it was playing backyard parties and college events. They embraced playing weeknight times that fit in with their school schedules, but slowly, gig by gig, they worked their way up to larger venues.

“We were kind of like bug-eyed at the opportunities around,” Lupton said. “There’s just so many places to play, so many historic and cool venues… There have been just such incredible musical legends that have played here.”

They saw the potential they had in Austin, but also the success that others had. However, despite having to compete with well-known musicians, who come into town to play at the city’s largest venues, they feel the city still supports them.

“It’s hard to compete with that. Sometimes we’ve been fortunate. I’ll speak on our behalf, but Austin has really done a sweet job of championing us as hometown artists,” Lupton said.

Briscoe just released their new album and is venturing out of Austin to begin their tour.

“People know that we started this in the city of Austin, just a short year and a half, two years ago,” Heintzelman said. “To be able to have that progression in our back pockets as we go out, I think the goal is to just continue to do what we’ve done in Austin in these other cities.”

Briscoe isn’t the only band to come from the streets of West Campus. Logan Madsen and Gabe Acevedo moved to Austin from Atlanta, sharing the same dream to perform. They held jam sessions in their West Campus apartments, and posted flyers seeking musicians to find a drummer and bass player. After only a few auditions, the two college students formed their band, West 22nd.

Starting out, they played for Greek Life organizations and events on campus, opening for Remi Wolf. It was easy to engage and book these gigs since the audience was their fellow UT peers, Acevedo said.

“And from then, we felt like we were the UT band in Austin, and we wanted to be more than that,” said Acevedo. “We want to be the Austin rock band of this decade, and that meant playing the venues and that’s a totally different circuit.”

With cold emails, they started to get their foot in the door. Hole in the Wall by campus was one of their first venues to play at, and from there they used their networking skills from the UT business school to connect with more bands and venues that would have them. That is when their venue roster and their community started to grow.

Supporting the locals

James Bookert, known musically as San Gabriel, has seen the Austin community support local musicians like himself in times when music couldn’t be the only answer. After leaving the band Whiskey Shivers, Bookert wanted to explore producing music on his own.

He toured all around the world, and when he started to write his own songs, he ended up writing them behind the counters of J & J Spirits, where he worked for several years. Once he reached a point in his own career where he could support himself with his music, he quit the liquor store and put everything he had into his own music.

While Bookert was with his band, they started to play HAAM Day, a day dedicated to musicians playing all around the city planned by the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians (HAAM). When he turned solo, he reached out to HAAM again to continue playing.

HAAM started in 2005 as a way to support musicians who cannot afford health services. The alliance has a variety of services including health insurance, dental services, mental health resources and a partnership with the YMCA.

There is an application process that musicians can go through to find the services and plans that they would qualify for. Then, HAAM partners with Foundation Communities to help their musicians navigate the marketplace, otherwise known as the Affordable Care Act, Nikki Hardy, HAAM’s vice president of donor relations and community engagement, said.

Eight years ago when Bookert had his first seizure, he did not have health insurance or any other way to pay for his hospital bills.

“I woke up in an ambulance, went to work the next day. [It was a] nightmare,” Bookert said.

However, when he had his second seizure a few years later, he wasn’t worried about logistics because he knew he had support.

“In 2020, I had another one but this time I had HAAM. So, I got to see a neurologist, which is exactly what you should be doing,” Bookert said.

As a member of HAAM, Bookert said he does not have to worry about paying expensive insurance bills, and can put the money earned from his music towards other life expenses. He continues to play HAAM Day as a solo artist and values the connections he has made with the organization.

Nagavalli Medicharla said she is first and foremost a musician, but also the chair of the Austin Music Commission and Mayor Kirk Watson’s appointee to the Arts Commission.

The music commission is made up of appointees from every council district to advise the city council on music developments that involve the community. Through the commission, the Live Music Fund was created to support the local music industry by offering grants to musicians, bands and independent promoters.

Medicharla said she wants the city to continue to give opportunities to local musicians in the community.

“There was a focus on diversity [this year],” Medicharla said. “[We wanted to make sure] that the funds are serving underserved communities [and] underserved genres in a meaningful way.”

During the monthlong application window earlier this year, 660 applications came through, 80% of which were musicians. A total of $3.5 million was awarded to 369 of the applicants. Medicharla said the feedback from the community, good and bad, will allow the council to evolve and expand the funds in the future.

“In the next rollout, the funds will be going to musicians, independent promoters and venues will be in the picture as well,” Medicharla said.

Medicharla said the commission wants to ensure that artists and venues can use the live music funds for multiple purposes, therefore allowing the funds availability to stretch beyond live performances and go towards other projects such as a music video production.

“[Filling out grant applications] worked out and to me, that symbolizes there is at least someone in Austin government or, some faction of people that care about keeping Austin musicians here,” Bookert said.

Building community

Ginny White, daughter of the owners of the Broken Spoke, said she felt the community of Austin when her dad and founder of the historic dance hall passed away.

“I wish everybody that has a loved one that passes away would get the amount of love that we got, because it really helped me through it,” White said.

Broken Spoke receives historical designation from the city

Regulars still pour onto the dance floors to hear the weekly musicians play at Broken Spoke, keeping the traditional country scene that James White created. But the Broken Spoke does more to help musicians than the regulars see.

“We’ve had a lot of bands tell us that the Broken Spoke gig pays [their] mortgage every month, and so that makes you feel really good,” White said.

White has been coming to the Spoke since she was 11 days old. She can share countless stories about the 60 years that musicians and customers have been visiting the traditional honky tonk: the time Garth Brooks surprised customers, Alvin Crow’s legacy, and how she didn’t plan on working here growing up but she couldn’t get away from the country music that grew on her. Visitors often mentioned that they would come for the weekend and end up spending all of their time in Austin at the Spoke.

“That’s like kind of our motto, that we ain’t changing nothing to try to stay the course. That’s what has worked for us, to not change,” White said.

From venues supporting musicians, to organizations supporting musicians, and even musicians supporting musicians, the music community is tightly bound in Austin.

HAAM has found a special place in the industry and has built its own community within that.

“I think the beauty of HAAM is that, I mean, I feel like we always hire a bunch of unicorns,” Hardy said. “Everyone that works here is not only just an incredible human being. A lot of our staff are pretty intertwined in the music community, and I think that that really helps us build trust within the musicians community.”

Through its four main events, HAAM fosters connections and celebrates musicians, leaving a mark on the entire city.

Mentors and mentees have connected through the community to build an inclusive and supportive environment for young musicians as well.

“I think one of the best parts about being in Austin is getting to meet these other bands and just kind of getting to learn from them and play with them,” Madsen said.

“We’ve just been able to meet so many great folks as we start to climb our way up the ladder,” Lupton said. “We’re just fortunate to be a part of such a great scene — a scene that allows you to keep growing, keep building without having to, you know, move to LA or move to Nashville or whatever. We’re happy to be in Austin, where there is room to grow.”

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