I feel a bit sorry for people who turn up their noses at ‘tourist traps’, imagine never seeing the Sydney Opera House?
Anyway, probably the most touristy seeming thing to do in Austin Texas is to go to the Broken Spoke, a dance hall seemingly frozen in time in a rickety, low ceilinged shed with wonky floors. It’s all about country music and dancing the 2 step, a lovely twirly dance which is beautiful to watch as the whole dance floor progresses around the floor. You can eat chicken fried steak, have dance lessons, then dance to the band all night and its completely wonderful.
Unfortunately we missed the dance lessons as we were hearing some excellent Latin jazz from a band called Mente Clara in a fantastic, also frozen in time, rickety low roofed shed called the Sahara Lounge .. we’ll be back there tonight for African night so more about that later.
But back to the dancing
Cornell Hurd and his 7 piece, rock solid outfit were tearing it up when we arrived at the Broken Spoke, the dance floor was in full swing, the $3 beers were flowing and everyone was having a ball. The crowd seemed to be mostly local (there’s that tourist trap myth blown again), with a smattering of tourists.
Dancing definitely seems to be a Texas thing – the White Horse, where we were on Thursday night is a country music dive bar, yet another low roofed shed like bar with beer signs and a pool table. It was filled with all kinds of people of all ages – hipsters and oldies, and it seems that the 2 step is the thing to do, no matter how hip or how old you are.
Back to Red River Road to check out a few more bars and bands and we were grateful it was free week! After a couple of fairly dire mistakes (yes there is some really really bad music in Austin, as the doorman at Beerland said – ‘any idiot with a guitar can get a gig in this town’).. we landed at Beerland for some excellent old school Stooges style punk in a smallish bar, just as its meant to be heard, with a great moshpit going mad & sweat flying everywhere. Aaaaah – it was just like the old days!
Today – San Antonio and the Alamo