(guitar music)
- [Woman] So, we are at the original Threadgill's.
- [Eddie] Yes.
- The oldest one and this place has so much history
when it comes to the Austin music scene
and other things about our city.
So we're gonna to start the tour
with this Threadgill's collage.
Tell us about this, Eddie.
- Well, the collage is an original piece that
survived some of the devastation that's gone on here.
- [Woman] Fire.
- [Eddie] There's a picture of Janis Joplin
when she was back in Port Arthur getting
off from her bad habits the first time she went.
And Dave Moriarty's car.
- [Woman] And this Mr. Threadgill here right?
- [Eddie] Oh, yeah, Mr. Threadgill and The Hootenanny Hoots.
- [Woman] So he was a singer, too?
- [Eddie] He was a yodeler, yes he was.
He was Jimmie Rodgers wannabe prototype sorta.
And the band that he played with,
Dolores and the Blue Bonnet Boys.
There were some incredible musicians.
Joseph Castle taught guitar lessons in town.
I actually took some guitar lessons in town,
but he could tell that I didn't have what it took.
- (laughs) Well, we're glad that you did the things
that you did in Austin history and purchased Threadgill's,
but I want to go over here, because...
So tell us a little bit more about
Kenneth Threadgill, the namesake of this place.
- Well, Kenneth was a--
- And there he is right there.
- In the silver hair period
and there he is about the same time.
And there's the old station that burned,
giving me the opportunity to get it for next to nothing.
- So this was a gas station where
people would come and sing?
I don't get it.
- It was a gas station with beer license number 01 in
December of '33, after prohibition was lifted.
- 1933, okay.
- He stood in line all night and got the first beer license.
- Okay. In the whole city? - Uh-huh.
- [Woman] So you bought this Burnt-out gas station?
- [Eddie] Yeah, this little strip of land here.
I remember I gave him $95,000.
- [Woman] That was a fortune back then.
So was it '81? '80?
- Well, it was a fair price for this,
close to an acre of land.
- [Janis Joplin] (singing)
- [Woman] One of the famous things about Threadgill's
is that Janis Joplin got her--
- [Eddie] Started singing in public here on
a fairly regular basis, irregular but for the--
- [Woman] And this would have been the early '60s?
- Yeah.
- So she was just a singer from Port Arthur, Texas.
- She wasn't just a singer from Port Arthur, Texas.
- I mean when she started here. (laughs)
- She had the Bells of St. Mary's in
her chest and she could rattle a room.
She could make the glasses jump across the table.
- Did she always start as a rock singer or was she
more of a country singer and then turned to rock and roll?
- [Eddie] Well, back then it was blues, gospel,
Silver Threads and Golden Needles, folk music.
- [Janis Joplin] (singing)
- I do wanna show this original part because this
is kind of where it all started, right?
- [Eddie] This little room was the only performance area,
and so people would crowd in here what we would
say belt buckle to buttock and like this.
If you wanted a beer or two or three--
- [Woman] You'd just turn around--
- [Eddie] You hollered for it, somebody would pass it over,
and you would give somebody money.
They would pass it overhead back here,
and never heard an argument about anybody getting shorted.
(bluesy guitar music)
- [Woman] What do you think drew all these
musicians and creative types to keep
Austin weird and put it on the music map?
I mean, Threadgill's was there at the beginning.
- Time, coincidence, a lot of happenstance.
We were the only city around with
artificial moonlight towers.
I mean, how wacky is that?
I mean, we had wacky built in before we upped.
- We were keeping Austin weird before it was a slogan.
- Right, we were making it the best place
we could make it to exist,
unfettered by rules and regulations.
And so we did a lot of things that we might
not have tried to do if we were in Dallas or Houston.
But Dallas and Houston poured people into our scene here.
They heard we were getting away with murder,
and they wanted to come have a piece of that.
(bluesy singing)
- [Woman] So I know recently the big headline
was your world headquarters at Threadgill's.
Why did you have to shut down?
- [Eddie] Property taxes, we started off there
the rent and the taxes were $6,000 a month.
And when I finally folded the tent,
it was pushing $50,000 a month.
And the margin on meatloaf is not possible
unless you're charging $50 a meatloaf.
(bluesy guitar music)
- [Woman] What role do you think Threadgill's
played in Austin becoming the live music capital
of the world and developing this reputation?
- Threadgill's sent me home to come up with a plan,
and the plan turned out to be Armadillo world headquarters.
There was just no separating Armadillo world
headquarters and Threadgill's in my past.
- [Bruce Springsteen] (singing)
- [Eddie] We suddenly got word that day before that our
weekend show was Bruce Springsteen's first performance.
And we had Alvin Crow playing for a dollar,
and I asked Alvin if he would mind splitting that
dollar with this new guy from New York.
- [Woman] Named Bruce Springsteen.
- And he said, "Okay, do whatever you want."
Alvin's my favorite guy in the music business.
And so we got on one radio station and said, "Okay,
"We're gonna have Alvin open and then we're gonna
"have Bruce Springsteen, and it'll just be a dollar."
So Springsteen was very nervous because here
are these 4, 500 hippies out there just going nuts.
And Alvin had called Tiny McFarland to come in,
start playing drums from Lubbock,
and then he told Tiny, he said,
"I can't break you in tonight, there's this guy.
"There's a hot dog from New York named Silverstein
"that we're gonna blow off the stage."
- [Woman] Silverstein. (laughs)
- "And so we're gonna really put it to him."
And so Alvin's just got them going wild,
and Springsteen's pacing back and forth with his guitar.
Mr. Threadgill and I are standing by each other
on the stage, on the side of the stage.
He looks down and he sees this guy with a guitar
pacing back and forth, and he said,
"That young fella's just nervous as an
"old coon dog trying to pass a peach pit."
And that's been in my vocabulary ever since. (laughs)
- And he was describing Bruce Springsteen.
- Yeah. - Wow.
So you've really witnessed the music history in this city.
- I've had my fair share of those golden moments.
(bluesy harmonica music)
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