#raul's

[benaboutown]

I'm a little too obsessed with Raul's considering I've only been there twice.

[theunderestimator-2]

“Oh, to be young. To still be one's own hero.” (David Guterson): the late Marilyn Dean & Kathy Valentine, drummer & guitarist of The Violators, Austin's 1st (?) punk band, here at Randy's Rodeo for The Sex Pistols show in San Antonio on Jan. 8, 1978, as captured by Tom McMahon.

austinchronicle.com/ :"When The Violators and the Skunks invade Raul's, fourteen days after the Sex Pistols break up and mainstream media declares punk dead, Austin's scene begins at a Tejano bar…", [before a crowd of no more than maybe 50 or 60, since a 100 was a big crowd at Raul's at those first shows.] "The Violators were very young kids," says [The Skunks'] Blackmon. "Marilyn was like 16, Kathy was 16, Carla was probably 21. Jesse was probably the best musician in that band, off the top of my head. Carla was good. They were just kids playing fast English punk music. Those were our influences at that time." "It was mainly people who didn't seem to know what to make of cute girls playing guitars and drums," remembers Valentine. "More than the music, it was the fact that we were female that they had no reference for. The only females in Austin doing this played fiddle – Marcia Ball was the only real musician in a band. Everybody else played fiddle or sang or were folk people." "…More than anything, it was the shock of the new. The Violators were mostly young, attractive women playing loud, fast, Sex Pistols-meets-Ramones punk. And they were doing this in a Tejano bar on the Drag, in a town musically ruled by Cosmic Cowboys and white bluesmen. Everything was changing. You either changed with it, or you opposed it. There was no room for the lukewarm…."

Marilyn & Kathy met in high school & quickly became best friends, the teen kind that does everything together: as Kathy Valentine recalls, they started bands, went to clubs, met boys and dreamt of big things in life, even moved out to LA together in 1978 but as it so often happens in life, they drifted apart after a falling out. Kathy later went on to play bass in The Go-Go's and sadly Marylin Dean passed away in recent years.

Photo & info via Tim Stegall's 'Austin Punk Chronicles' at austinchronicle.com.

(via, via & via)

[quickienewyork]

[theunderestimator-2]

Phil Tolstead, singer for Austin punk band The Huns, getting arrested and charged for participating in a riot after kissing a cop on the lips during the band’s very first gig at Raul’s night club in Austin, Texas, back in 1978.

Tom Huckabee, the band’s drummer, remembered a member of the audience at their second show telling a reporter that they would be nothing if it wasn't for the cops in the first one: “How right she was; we sounded like the Pistols with Sid on every instrument!”

“...During the next song, "Eat Death Scum, City of Austin officer Steve Bridgewater entered the club, ostensibly answering a noise complaint. He stood by the door for a few minutess, observing the appearance of chaos around him. In the middle of the song, Tolstead spotted Bridgewater, pointed his finger at him and, improvising a new line, chanted, "I Hate You, I Hate You."

Slowly, Bridgewater made his way through the crowd, approaching the stage as if drawn there by Tolstead's pointing finger. Tolstead continued to chant "I Hate You, Eat Death Scum" at the police officer, while Bridgewater stood two feet away from the singer (...) the two appeared to be nose to nose (...) Bridgewater screamed over the music, ordering Tolstead to stop. With the cop only inches from his face, the singer leaned over and, in another gesture of disrupted expectation, kissed the cop on the lips. This disturbance of gender rules was more disorder than the officer could stand. He snatched at the singer's wrist and slipped one handcuff on him. The singer grabbed the microphone with his left hand and shouted out over the P.A., "Start a riot. Start a riot"...

...Three weeks later, in a judicial act of interpretation, Phil Tolstead was convicted on a charge of disorderly conduct. Judge Steve Russell based his verdict on the opinion that "Tolstead displayed assaultive behavior toward Bridgewater. The decision of the court was that Tolstead's gestures, his singing, and his kiss consituted assault, justifying the closing down of the performance and the handcuffing and jailing of six persons from the club....

...This rock 'n' roll trully challenged people. It was not safe to like it; you could get beat with a  billy club; you could get arrested. The ability to derive pleasure from punk rock gave an instant aura of danger, independence and power to any individual (...) Soon Raul's was packed every night with students longing for that identity streaked with power and danger...”

“Dissonant Identities: The Rock'n'roll Scene in Austin, Texas" by Barry Shank

(via)

[someday-all-the-adults-will-die]

Divine was a big influence on Gary Floyd, the toughest Texas punk to ever walk the Earth. Here he poses as his hero with another hero, Joseph G., who ran Austin’s first punk club, Raul’s.

[someday-all-the-adults-will-die]

You wanna talk about the real junk? Making a flyer with your tax form. That's punk. The Records were folk punk troublemakers and no doubt quite sweet. Austin, 1979 A.D.