Glass Eye and Brent Grulke and all the other people who told you about music were always raving about Richard Thompson.
Across town that night, the Backroom was packed for Richard Thompson’s solo show. This was right before Bring the Family would revive his career. Among the best I saw were Kasey Chambers, Todd Snider, Maura O’Connell, Gillian Welch and Lyle Lovett.īut the one Cactus night I remember most fondly was when I was among 14 people to see John Hiatt in the Spring of ‘87. Think of anybody who’s written a song in the past 30 years that gave you goosebumps- they almost all played the Cactus. As an emmajoe’s regular- and Alamo Lounge before that- Luneburg knew very well who were the best singer-songwriters in town.īuilt in 1933, the Chuck Wagon became the Cactus in 1977. folk club emmajoe’s just closed and the likes of Butch Hancock, Eliza Gilkyson, Nanci Griffith, Lyle Lovett and Townes Van Zandt were looking for a new home. He started booking the Cactus full-time in 1983, which was good timing because Guadalupe St. Then he was in charge of the Thursday night open mic. Perhaps 1979 is considered the birth year of the Cactus because that’s when student Griff Luneburg started working there, first as a bartender who taught himself how to run sound. The occasional music bookings in 1977 included jazz singer Natalie Zoe, folkies the Shucker Brothers and the Cabaret Revue of show tunes. 1978 “Is Rock Dead?” panel of famed music critic Lester Bangs, Sterling Morrison (ex-Velvet Underground), writer John Morthland and Alex Chilton, who played Raul’s the night before. In its first two years, the Cactus was used mainly for plays, dance recitals, meetings and symposiums, like the Nov. But student IDs continued to be required until 1973. Charges against almost all the “Chuck Wagon 21” were later dropped. Days earlier, the Texas Union board voted to restrict the Chuck Wagon to students, staff and faculty. “Pigs Keep Out” was spray-painted on the wall to no avail. 1969 riot, when police were called to remove longhaired townies. During Vietnam it drew radical hippies and runaways and was the site of a Nov. It was a campus restaurant that became more of a beatnik hangout in the early ‘60s- Janis Joplin sang there. But long before that, going back to 1933, the space was known as the Chuck Wagon. After all, who would pass up the chance to play a gig at this place?Īll these photos were taken from my chair at our table near the front of the stage.When the Texas Union reopened in 1977 after a two-year, $5.7 million renovation, it featured a new coffeehouse called the Cactus Café. So, in tribute to this fine Austin venue being rescued, here’s a gallery of Amy Cook performing songs from her album Let The Light In, produced by local legend Alejandro Escovedo, who didn’t miss a chance to get up and play few songs with Amy. Thankfully, public outcry has seen a compromise where gigs performed at the cafe will now be ran in partnership with Austin’s well-regarded radio station KUT Radio.Īs with the closing of the legendary CBGBs in New York, to a foreigner it’s bewildering that some Americans are so proud of their performers – after all, the USA gave birth to country music, rock ‘n’ roll and folk – but not of the places that allowed these artists to mature and hone their craft. But recently the venue nearly closed due to some short-sighted penny-pinching from the administration of the Texas Union, whose motto, somewhat ironically, is “…more than just a building.” When we met John Kunz, owner of Waterloo Records, who created an Austin soundtrack for our Playlist series, he was leaving us to go to a meeting about the future of the Cactus Cafe.
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