The bike ride from the old Emo’s location on Red River and Sixth Street downtown and the new Emo’s on East Riverside Drive is about 2.3 miles. The fastest route is to ride down Red River just past Caesar Chavez then scoot over to Rainey Street and keep going until you get to the walking trail along Lady Bird Lake. There’s a public restroom shaped like a modernist sculpture here if you need it. Next follow the gravel trail towards the I-35, weave through the parking lot beneath the 12-lane bridge, and turn up the pedestrian switchback that shoots you out along the highway feeder lane. As you ride across the bridge there’s a nice view of Lady Bird Lake to your left where you can make out the Longhorn Dam in the distance.
Across the river it feels like you’ve entered a new city where bicycles have yet to be introduced. Turn left on Riverside after passing a large apartment complex under construction. You’ll pass several more of these. There’s a wide sidewalk in relatively good condition —follow it for about a mile. Slow down at the bus stops where the sidewalk is marginalized and it gets bumpy. Eventually on your right you’ll see a chrome, windowless building jutting up behind a strip mall and adjacent to a full-service dog facility called Mud Puppies. This is the new Emo’s, or Emo’s East.
On Friday during this year’s SXSW I went to both Emo’s for the first time. The only apparent association seemed to be the old Emo’s posters above the urinals at the new Emo’s. Opened in 1992, Emo’s had been a longtime staple of Austin’s Red River music district before it closed down last year. Even though I’d never been there I knew that it represented the thriving era of musical and cultural proliferation that had gone on downtown. Emo’s had seen Austin, buoyed by SXSW, come into itself as the live musical capital of the world. And then it watched as the city outgrew itself.
Old Emo’s, now called The Main & The JR (although SXSW poster’s referred to it as Old Emo’s), was packed on Friday afternoon, with about a 20-minute wait to get in. A typical SXSW crowd — mostly young, mostly white, mostly hip — swayed and occasionally moshed to mostly young, mostly white, mostly hip bands. I could hear at least three shows going on at once. Tired festivalgoers sprawled across cratered beanbag chairs that caught the low hanging sun. They reminded me of cats. I sat along a bannister and drank a free promotional coconut water bottle as guys in black jeans and t-shirts carted amps back and forth.
After stopping by the Urban Oasis at Red River and Seventh Street for a free Nalgene (courtesy of Brita) and a couple poses in front a photo booth, a hot commodity at this year’s festival, I got on my bike in a rush to get to the new Emo’s by 7 pm, when doors opened. Even though I’d RSVP’d I still needed to buy a $10 ticket, and my friend Ken had convinced me that the line would be long. From what I’d seen downtown I assumed he was right.
The approach was not promising — as I circled around in search of a bike rack all I saw were a few high school kids smoking on the front steps and shaved-head security guards milling about and setting up railings, apparently for the lines they were also expecting. I locked my bike to a gas meter and went in for a closer look. The cavernous venue and deep, elevated stage evoked bands like The Offspring or Green Day. Other than a cordoned-off area for the sound technicians in the middle, the room was wide open with cattycorner bars selling $4.50 Lone Stars. Green Day did happen to be playing a show that night, but at the Moody Theatre, a similarly sized venue in a prominent location downtown that hosts Austin City Limits.
Feeling old, ridiculous and somewhat guilty for having coerced my friend into attending this all ages electronic music showcase that didn’t really get started for several more hours, I suggested we walk down to Lady Bird Lake and enjoy the sunset. Easier said than done. After circumventing some wire fencing and jogging across East Riverside Drive we got on a sidewalk until it ended 20 yards later. From there a well-worn trail in the grass alongside an apartment complex had to suffice.
On the other side of the street there was a very well hidden Dairy Queen and a number of parked semis. A new road had been paved next to an old road, which gave the illusion of a bike path. A recently razed area looked ripe for redevelopment, the trees contained in zoo-like fencing announcing their significance amongst the rubble. We reached the river and sat on a newly constructed storm drain, a sign of the coming lakeside redevelopment, which will include a boardwalk. The large, bright white Austin Chalk limestone rocks used to support the drain contrasted with the murky, trash-laden water below.
It’s possible to imagine that in a decade or two this part of Riverside Drive will have a thriving music scene and mounting cultural cache. The Mexican nightclubs will be converted into pop punk establishments. The seedy apartment complexes will be pricey condos. The Family Dollar will be long gone. Walgreens will probably still be there. There will be an expensive new bike path along the lake and probably even an urban rail along Riverside Drive. During SXSW the entire road might even be closed to traffic. Property taxes downtown along redeveloped Waller Creek and Red River Street will be prohibitive for low-margin venues, and what Emo’s has started will turn into the mass exodus that it has both incited and anticipated.
In February it was announced that another staple of the downtown music scene, the blues club Antone’s, which opened in 1975, will also be moving to East Riverside. It will occupy the space recently vacated by the Beauty Ballroom, which is shuttering for good after inhabiting the venue for just over a year after also relocating from a downtown location.
Back at Emo’s I heard a security guard lamenting another night of kids getting dropped off by their parents. Other security guards were removing the railings. Cars turned up and down the steep entrance to the venue. Cabs approached every few minutes. Bikes still didn’t exist. I felt impossibly far from the chaos downtown. My friend and I stood in the back of the crowd somewhere in the middle of the room, which was about a third full, on the edge of an arc of late-twentysomethings who’d make the trek to the show and were now clearly feeling out of context. I was transfixed by a girl dancing with a flashing hula-hoop. She was young and clearly in love with the hoop. There was a tall, muscular jock wearing a headband and sunglasses. He bobbed around in a sort of circle, marking his territory, which no one seemed particularly interested in challenging. A girl in a striped skirt-jumper thing rubbed a belly dancer-type belt along her backside for most of the night. It felt very strip club. Other than that, a stoner in a headscarf, and a guy wearing a neon glow in the dark hoodie, the crowd was young and nondescript. I related most to the bartender, who was more my age and as removed from the scene as I wanted to be.
In February Emo’s announced they were being sold to C3 Presents, the third largest concert promoter in the United States, fully setting the stage for the venue’s reinvention and the corollary transformation of the East Riverside area. As I rode home after midnight, far before the show ended, I passed through the East Sixth area and then up into the Cherrywood neighborhood, regions of Austin also experiencing drastic change, gentrification and redevelopment. SXSW seems to remind people in Austin how much they love their city when it’s not SXSW. The longer you’ve lived here; the more you anticipate the week ending. How many people will move to Austin after SXSW this year only to lament the changes a decade down the line?
The night before I’d gone to The Broken Spoke for the first time with some Austinites looking to eschew the bloated core downtown. Founded in 1964, almost 30 years before the first Emo’s, The Broken Spoke, located on South Lamar, is a dancehall that prides itself on honky tonk and country music. Picnic tables surround a dance floor that empties and fills back up with each song, as couples dance to waltz, polka and other boot shakin’ tunes played with TLC by the well-versed band. Middle-aged, stoic faced cowboys approach young women and ask them to dance, their gazes remaining distant on the dance floor but their moves in natural unison with the lucky lady. It’s a no frills place with cheap beer and trough urinals that challenged my manliness.
At almost 60 years old The Broken Spoke has seen Austin grow and shift around it to become an altogether different beast, where marathons are run, Segway tours are given, and houses morph into pulsing nightclubs. I saw a hint of this next incarnation during this year’s SXSW and I can’t say it didn’t scare me.
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