So I’ve been living in central Texas for almost nine years now, and in Austin proper for about five. I had to do some time living with an over-privileged college girl in a San Marcos dungeon before I could finally make it to the city everyone thinks is so cool, but I got here as fast as I could. I lived hard and fast while I was free, before Hazzard, er I mean Travis County put me on probation for *gasp* cultivating entheogens that no one wants to admit to consuming, even though I couldn’t keep enough in stock to satisfy the local demand. As such, I’ve kicked drinks back in just about every bar and club there is here in town, or at least the ones that regularly feature live music, and they all left an impression on me.

Impressions, like holes in the ground, exposed to the elements, collect the rain of pensive thoughts, and eventually form the murky puddles of opinions. So here’s my opinion of the most visible bars and clubs in downtown Austin, their decor, the kind of acts they book, and the regular crowds that patrons could expect to encounter there. I love some of them and hate others, but none are immune to my ruthless analysis.

1. Karma

Karma is like, the first club in Austin that everyone hangs out at. (read that line in a Valley Girl accent for maximum effect). It’s a newb crowd. Amateur night. 17-year old raver wannabes. If you ever hung out at Old Karma (on 7th), that was a totally different club than New Karma (on 5th). I liked the old one better, and I think that’s a common sentiment. After the doorman checked your ID, you walked up some stairs, everything was black, and there was more than one room/area. Karma was a really cool place. Then they moved it. The new Karma is street level, a little too open to the public via windows, opulent decor that still fails to create an impression of class, and all one area. I think there might be an upstairs that the locals don’t want to tell the tourists about, but I never get invited up there. Maybe if I dressed in drag.

I was once told by a local that ‘Karma is a great place if you want to pick up some teenage pussy’ (his words, not mine). An aside, this person later scolded me as ‘chauvinist’ for rating females’ looks on a scale of 1 to 10. So that’s Austin: sexists who hypocritically admonish you for being sexist, by way of psychological projection. I guess basic house music and basic bitches are what’s on the menu here. Never tried to bring anyone home from here, but if I did, I would def check ID first. Prepare to be underwhelmed by the music, get sold research chemicals as ecstasy, and face your basic college liberal immaturity from the crowd. If you know anything about dancing, you will impress all the kids who are still learning to string, hoop, break, pop, lock, and do liquid.

Some people laugh because Karma isn’t doing as well as it used to. But I tell those people: ‘y’all are next’, because if young people aren’t getting into EDM, then the scene will die once the mid-twenties crowd gets too old and fat to go out anymore (I think I’m already there), promoters will lose money, and clubs will close. Also beware, as this club has some kind of deal with Asian student groups, so every now and then you will go in there and think it’s a Yakuza/Triad showdown, like in a John Woo film.

I saw a young female DJ train wreck there once, but no one minded because she’s hot. It’s the kind of place where a lot of young EDM ‘artists’ get their first shot, and many of them become good enough to play even better venues! Like Lazy K, he got his start there, and he’s a fuckin’ bad-ass. He plays that dark, hard-edged dubstep I actually like.

I should probably mention Kingdom, the club next door. It’s like Karma, but for 25-35 year-olds. Being inside makes you feel as though you are in a fishtank. I consider it a natural progression from Karma. Same building, same club. But for adults, I guess.

2. Bat Bar

In the early evening, it’s a college rock/blues bar, I think, but I never get there that early. After midnight it’s the kind of trendy, tacky place where they mix dubstep and trap with Top 40 hip-hop, on CDJs. Real freshman crowd. Teasey go-go dancers on stage, the kind of girls with great bodies, but shitty, immature personalities. Don’t look at them too long, or their wannabe pimp boyfriends might demand that you put a dollar in their beggar’s tins. The kind of professional go-go girls who sell photos to tourists, and they might even tell you that they love you, but this is to be taken about as seriously as the ‘I Love You So Much’ sign, which is really just an advertisement for junk food.

The dancers themselves are the advertisements for the kind of junk relationships you could forge in this place. It’s a douchey freshman pickup bar whose decor reminds me a lot of ‘The Max’ on that old teenage sitcom, ‘Saved by the Bell’. I kept expecting to get frozen in place by Zack Morris yelling ‘Time Out!’ Or beat up by AC Slater for looking at his girl. It was the girls dancing in the windows of this place that drew me in, and it was the music that always made me leave after about an hour. An hour of teeny-bopper EDM/mainstream hip hop is about all I can take before I need to hear some punk or metal. Because I am disgusted and enraged by the stupidity of young, trendy people.

I have been bounced from this place before, and I don’t even to this day know why, because I was always perfectly behaved when I went in there, except for that one time I nodded off in one of the booths upstairs. What can I say, I was coping with a bad breakup by chasing pills with booze, and nonchalantly noticing the hotness of girls who were too young for me. Guess I should have gone to a strip club instead, but I’m never looking for that much trouble, nor do I consider strip clubs ethical business ventures. Before I realized the regular crowd was too immature for me, I was a Bat Bar regular (my friend dragged me here a bunch of times because he thought it was the best chance I had at moving on after the aforementioned brutal break-up) who gladly paid for over-priced drinks, until I was kicked out for no real reason. Socio-political conflicts with club trash, probably. In other words, someone slipped the bartender a twenty to alienate me. I have also been denied entry at least once because I was wearing *gasp* a scary leather jacket!

Anyway, a good place to warm up for a night of party-hopping, but for God’s sake, don’t get stuck there all night! I used to get mad props on the dance floor there for my liquid kung-fu style, so that was kind of an ego boost. Then a gay dude pulled me aside, kissed me, and told me I was beautiful. Ego boost gone. Awkwardly, I ran. ‘I ran so far awaaaay…’

3. The Parish

A more mature, artsy-fartsy variant of Karma. The type of acts who are booked there are a bit more refined than Karma or Bat Bar. A tad bit more tasteful. I saw Alex Grey there once, and he was telling a story about how he was inspired to paint a particular piece by making love to his wife. The slightest mention of sex caused certain elements of the crowd to start going ‘WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!’, thus totally and inappropriately interrupting Mr. Grey’s story. So, college art-house lecture, classy people in turtlenecks sitting down over espressos, it was not.

And that’s kind of my impression of this bar. An art bar that tries to be classy, and succeeds to a certain extent, but still manages to attract that douchey fraternity element, even if they are the lone wolves in the back, ruining it for everyone. Parish acts mostly play psychedelic electronica, but you will see an indie band booked there every now and then. Oh, and it’s a mid-level sized venue. So lots of room, more than you would think from the outside. Plenty of room to tear it up on the floor, and take a step that is new.

4. Recess

Arcade games and trap music. Black lights that make the gross stains and dirt stand out. Hip hop kids in college, and the ubiquitous muscle-bound, popped-collar, clean-cut, khaki cargo shorts with Birkenstock sandals, preppy college guys. Cool if you want to pop Adderall and play Street Fighter. Sometimes the music is good, sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes the chicks are hot, and sometimes they aren’t. But the arcade games are always entertaining, even if the people suck, which, this is Austin, so they frequently can. Last time I checked, very opulent and clean bathrooms.

5. Barcelona

Again, more trap, EDM, and dubstep. Mid to late 20’s crowd. Often there are very beautiful people in attendance. A little too crowded and noisy. A tad bit too small. There is some limited booth seating, but it is often full so if you don’t have friends with a table then you aren’t cool enough to sit down in this place. They have a night called ‘Church’ on Sundays that is a townie favorite. The bar is actually in a basement, so you can say you went to an underground party (in a corporate bar)!

Not a bad place, but still not really my cup of tea. Saw Aphrodite there one Fourth of July, and witnessed gay on straight harassment in the bathroom. This guy straight up randomly grabbed this other guy’s ass as he took a piss, and he was like, ‘Really?’ Glaring at the offender, who responded with ‘Yeah, really.’ I thought I might have to get involved. Glad I didn’t, because the offender was a hulking black guy, probably fresh out of prison. I was honestly just grateful that I wasn’t the object of his ‘affection’. But I wanted to tell him: This isn’t a locker room. Don’t grab strange men’s asses. Don’t grab anyone’s ass in the locker room, either. We’re all dudes.

6. Jackalope

Now this is my kind of place. Not exactly a dive, but faux-dive. Divey enough to be real, nice enough not to gross you out too much. I always walk through the front and go straight to the back. Punk and metal on the loudspeakers, with the kind of crowd you would expect that kind of music to attract. The backyard is outdoors, but still kind of indoors. You can see the sky, but there are high walls. There are also trees in planters embedded into the ground. They sometimes have horror movies like ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ playing on the TVs above the bar. Sure beats sports. I like this place. The bathrooms are kind of ghetto, but they have a cool pinball machine right outside of the bathrooms, so I feel like that makes up for it. Oh yeah, they have a great burger that is on sale Wednesday.

7. The Dirty Dog

Every single time I have been there though, the crowd was fratty and douchey, and the music was inauthentic and derivative. So when people who are kind of newbs to metal go there and then say, ‘I’m so metal, I went to a metal bar’, I’m very disappointed that they were sold such a shallow forgery. I guess there is a pretty solid line between military/macho/jock metal, you know, Larry the Cable Guy-lookin’ asses wearing lumberjack shit, and skinny boy/dressed in all black/anti-consumersim metal… And I associate Dirty Dog with the former.

8. Flamingo Cantina

I saw Black Uhuru there, and it was one of those moments in my life where I was really super grateful to be alive and free. Those guys (and girl) are getting a bit up there in years. Seems like their glory days were in the 70’s and 80’s, so as someone who didn’t get into them until like 2005, while I was working at a head shop in East Dallas, I thought I would never see them play live. And that made me sad.

Then one day I saw the show announcement pop up on my Facebook feed: Black Uhuru at Flamingo Cantina. And I thanked God that Austin has a reggae club that is willing to fly artists in from Jamaica, or at least, book them when they are touring the mainland. I sang my heart out to every single one of their songs and it was a great night. The local reggae acts that play there are pretty good, too. The structure of the club is unique, as it is the only ground level club with an elevated patio that looks down on the stage/floor indoors. Obviously they are tolerant of smoking, flowers, oils, and stuff like that. The regular crowd tend to be funky people who dress as though it is still the 70’s.

There is a NORML meeting there every Wednesday. They have bad stand-up comics workshopping new material, who figure a stoner crowd will give them a few easy laughs. One of them told a story of getting rejected in a pick-up situation, the punch line of which was, ‘Well I hope you get raped, bitch.’ That is the one and only time I have ever walked out on a stand-up comic for offending my sensibilities. Still not the club’s fault. But seriously, though: rape and weed. That’s not a connotation we need to create or perpetuate. C’mon, now. I am not known for my feminism, but the chauvinism in this town sickens even me sometimes.

9. The Elephant Room

Now here’s a place to go when you want to hear some totally legit, authentic live jazz. I fuckin’ love it. Expect to see a bass player on stage going: ‘Doo-doo-dah-doo-dah-doo-dah-dah-doo-doo-dah-doo-dah-doo-dah-dah’, a drummer that goes ‘t-sss-t-t-sss-t-t-sss-t-t-sss-t’, and then a horn player comes in and is all ‘bwah-da-ta-ta-da-bah-dah-tee-dee-dee-dee-tittle-diddle-dee-tee-dee-tee’… If you like that kind of groove, this is your place, man. I was beboppin’ and scattin’ all night. Saw The Ephraim Owens Experience there, and they were legit. A more mature crowd. Not too intense, but definitely stimulating. A little off the beaten path, but a great venue worth visiting, and I wish there were more like it, and less EDM.

10. Plush

I think of it as the Drum and Bass club. Sometimes they play other kinds of EDM, but I only show up for the DnB/Jungle. This is one of the few EDM venues I still go to. Jungle/EDM is its own thing separate from the house/trance/bro-step crowd. And I’ve always been down with it, even when I still lived in Dallas. So get you some cammo pants, a yellow Humvee, and a backwards visor and get yo Jungle on. The system is banging, you can feel the bass. The back lounge has cool graffiti on the walls where you can shoot the shit with other club patrons. And the DJs are cool and humble people you can talk to and get to know. One of them helps me fix my car sometimes. All in all, a positive, even if alternative, EDM experience.

11. Red 7

A great punk club that may be closing soon. I’ve seen some really great punk/metal bands here, both local and touring, including but not limited to: Morbid Angel, The Casualties, The Adicts, Swinging Udders, Millions of Dead Cops, Concrete, the Krum Bums, The Fleshlights, and many, many others I can’t even remember because I was too wasted. It pisses me off that they are raising the rent on this club, and the similarly-themed Holy Mountain (I remember when it was Beauty Bar) next door, while at the same time, advertising via realty signage that it’s such a great location for someone to start a new bar. I mean, if the previous establishment of many years went under despite popularity, then then a new bar is going to find it damn near impossible to pay that new rent. So stop false advertising, shady-ass realtors. The landlord ran it out of business, and they will do the exact same thing to the next idiot dumb enough to think he can cover that ridiculous overhead.

From Red7, expect leather, spikes, and friendly moshing. At least until October, then it may become a venue for stuff like this:

Instead of a punk scene, Austin is going to have this now.

12. Elysium

It’s the Goth/Industrial club. Ministry. Skinny Puppy. KMFDM. Nine Inch Nails. Depeche Mode. Black hair dye. See-through mesh shirts. Electrical tape X’s on nipples. Leather pants. Pale-skinned women. Guyliner. Satanism. Stalinism. The Occult. Mostly stuff I don’t like, but some stuff I do. I saw Misfits minus Danzig play here, so there’s that… But beware: this scene, and many others, were taken over by these ‘body type acceptance’ people.

‘Do you want to get laid tonight?’ is the question a ridiculously hot girl whispers into your ear, prompting you to reply, ‘My God, of course!’ right before they wheel in the ugliest, fattest, stankest ho you’ve ever seen in your life. And then, when you retract your statement, they call you ‘gay’ for having standards that don’t get met very often. And you know what the saddest thing is? They’re doing it to you, because someone did it to them. You wanna be a member of the sex club? You gotta pay your dues, just like everyone else paid theirs. You probably wound up here because of bad judgment in the first place. You fucked up somewhere in life, and everyone blamed you and judged you for your mistakes. So if you learned anything from that, you’re trying to have better judgment. But then there are these people who say, ‘Don’t be judgmental’. Even though they are extremely judgmental, especially of those they perceive to be judgmental. And the deeper in you get with these people, the more they will judge you anyway, often for mistakes they themselves have goaded you into making and pushed you to make. It’s a deliberately manufactured slippery slope that will turn you into a whore, and keep you confined to their subordinate whore class, forever. So I’ve learned to tell them: No, I don’t want to get laid tonight. I’m not even remotely interested in the kind of woman who would sleep with me the first night we met. I would love to meet the right person, date her for awhile, and eventually end up in a serious relationship that leads to sex on the regular. But no, I don’t want to get laid tonight. I never thought I’d say that, but I refuse, at this point in my life, to be skank bait. If that makes me gay in your one-track, douchey little mind, then so be it. I don’t give a fuck what you think, anyway. They’ve been pulling this scam since the 80’s, I’ve been clubbing since the 90’s, so at this point, pulling it on me is quite an insult to my intelligence. I really dislike being under-appraised and underestimated like that. Don’t get me wrong, there are hot Goths. Model Goths. And they are totally inauthentic, elitist poseurs. The kind of people real Goths hated in high school: the rich, the beautiful, and the popular. If you really want to get into some kind of bisexual orgy where you are likely to get pounded in the ass by Mister Slave while pity-fucking a fat Goth chick, while prettier girls watch and laugh with their pretty boy beaus, shouting ‘Go! Go! Go!’ the whole time, like it was a football game or a keg-stand, then this is the place for you. But it’s not my scene, man. Kids who make sex jokes, play Magic: The Gathering, pretend to be vampires, gossip like crazy, are entirely too screwy, and after all that, call normal people ‘immature’. They’re also total hypocrites and ruthless takers. If you bring a hot girl, they’ll peel you for that ho and stick you with bupkiss, or an inferior specimen. And the leadership of that organization, a shallow cadre of beauty and money, covets all the hottest local and touring women for themselves. The less wealthy and beautiful guys and ghouls, end up swimming in alpha slipstream, just like any other classist club full of young, slutty Randriods in Halloween costumes. I don’t believe their anti-drug front, either. Where there’s Goths, there’s always ecstasy and cocaine. Always. 13. Beerland Beerland is this funky community bar where they seem to have these weird, community bands like Brewtality Inc. Apparently anyone can be their guitarist. And they have AT LEAST three onstage at any given time. I used to know one of their drummers, but he moved onto better gigs. ‘It’s not a band, it’s a team’, LoL. Anyway, good place to get a start, I guess. There are also good bands that play there. Like Thunderkief, a local doom metal band. They have punk shows there sometimes. It’s a good place to keep an eye on, but it can be hit or miss. I like to drop in if there’s punk or metal, and it’s decent. Sometimes it isn’t, and that’s actually good. Seems like Beerland is where a lot of people get their first stage experience. Good and bad things come out of it. You can get blasted by clunkers and timing mistakes here, but you can also be the first one to see something truly cool, before it has fully gotten off the ground. 14. Mohawk Scene-core. Denim vests with patches on them. Young people who spent too much to get in, too much for their clothes, too much for their hair, etc… Decidedly punk, metal styles, but the clothes are a bit too crisp, and the hair a bit too perfect. But they are cool kids. Just young. I’ve seen some really bad-ass bands play here, and kind of appreciated them through the eyes of a new generation. Nice to see that kids still appreciate punk and metal that was really big when I was their age. Kind of makes me feel like I’m still relevant to the next generation. They do this whole indie-rock, hip-hop thing, too… I never really see that side of it, because I don’t go those nights. I don’t go there to see like, Best Coast or Mos Def, I go there to see the Melvins, Suicidal Tendencies, Propagandhi, Municipal Waste, The Sword, Pentagram, to name just a very few. Anyway, all in all: a good place. I kinda wish I had caught that Mos Def show to see what it’s like when he plays there, but priorities, man… Besides, I hid behind a wall at Red 7 and caught most of a Dead Prez set, and that, I think, will hold me for a bit on rap shows here in Austin. I love their song about how I personally, as a white male, am the source of all the world’s problems, as if the weight of a fascist police state isn’t weighing me down and fucking me over, too. I actually empathize with really depressing shit like that, even if I’m the only white dude there. I’m glad Mr. Bey played Mohawk, though. I’d have seen him if I’d had money to burn. I think the origin of the whole indie/punk/metal/rap alliance was the Tony Hawk video game franchise. Skateboarders. Radio stations like Faction on XM, with Bam Margera. Even, and I hate to say it, but 90’s bands that mixed hip hop and metal, like Korn. But that’s pretty much what Mohawk is. Like, if Tony Hawk Pro-skater 2 was a nightclub. Kinda X-Games-y, kinda Warped Tour-y. I’m sure it was more authentic before they renovated it, but I missed that. I feel like Mohawk, even though it’s thought of as a tad California mainstream, is still under fire, too, as is all of the Red River district. Which sucks, because all the venues on Red River should be preserved for at least another 5-10 years, even though it is surrounded by creeping metropolitan development. 15. Emo’s East East Riverside! Seen several shows there, including Devin the Dude, Bad Religion, and I hate to say it, but Panty Raid put on a decent show. It’s a pretty damn big venue, like, I would say ‘upper mid level’, maybe. Not like a stadium, but bigger than Mohawk or Red 7. Also, cool outside smoking area; I wish it were bigger. Seems to always get packed. But it’s important to have an area like that: quieter, so people can talk or be away from all the music if they are having a rough night. I wish bigger bands booked shows here on tour, it’s totally big enough. Some people lament the death of the old Emo’s on Red River, but I think this is a big improvement. I just hate having to drive here instead of taking a quick bus downtown, because it’s a greater liability. I guess you could take the #7 bus down there and it wouldn’t be that bad. Also, once the show let’s out, you AREN’T downtown, so if you want to go to one of your favorite downtown hangouts after the show, there is a lot of ground to cover. You can’t just walk to Hoek’s Death Metal Pizza from Emo’s like in the old days. You would have to drive now. There are good Mexican restaurants on this side of town, however, perfect after exerting yourself at an Emo’s show. So maybe one of those places could become your new Hoek’s. 16. Hotel Vegas These guys always have really bad-ass SxSW sets for punk and metal. There will be shows every now and then here, too. Doom metal, sludge, stoner rock, punk… and even indie rock. It’s a cool place. The inside is tiny, but when they use the backyard it’s a decent sized venue. I love how their stage has this window that’s open to the street, so sometimes performers will stick their heads out and try to lure people on the street in. You can clearly see the hardcore rocking out that is going on in there from the street, so how could you resist joining in? 17. The Lost Well Another metal/biker themed bar. I love it. Cool bands play here a lot. Doom, thrash, stoner metal, motorcycles, bandanas, denim, leather, patches… Dragon paintings on the wall. HP Lovecraft and Celtic knots. Off the beaten path. Maybe a bit scary to some. The kind of place at the edge of downtown, unlit, where anyone could slip away, be disappeared into the night, and no one would notice, or care… 18. The White Horse Kinda cow-punk. Psycho-billy. The Reverend Horton Heat. Good in small doses. You can meet some interesting people here. Not really a place where bands usually play, but they have a punk rock/outlaw country/rockabilly ambient playlist going most of the time. The kind of place where progressive-minded ladies wear cowboy boots, if yah know what I mean 😉 Also, everyone assumes that the name means cocaine, so I’m sure there’s a ton in the back room. Or someone there has it. One would hope. My probation officer says I’m not allowed in places like this. 19. Liberty Bar Kind of a multicultural, community anarchy bar. I don’t go there out of respect for this chick. It’s like her favorite bar so I don’t really want to ruin it for her. But basically, an East Side tattoo chick thing, you’re gonna see body mods, but also some Chicanos, and even the odd black person! I think they have an East Side King trailer in the backyard: good truck food. I have been met here by bearded hippies with gauged earlobes a few times. 20. The Sahara OK, so those dudes that play Bongos, but DON’T go to Burning Man, because they think it’s totally a privilege party for 1% losers… that’s who goes here. World music people. People who have actually been to Africa, maybe. Like, Peace Corps people. Actually, a pretty hip and conscious crowd. The decor of the place is kinda ‘islander’ but with a touch of African Tribal. A cool space with unique shows, a nice backyard, definitely worth the trip to check it out. It is out there on the edge of town, but totally down to Earth. Conclusion Sorry or you’re welcome, if I didn’t review your favorite bar. I think there will be a part deux of this with the bars I obviously left out. These are the ones that stick out to me as the best, and the WORST. I didn’t even get into South Congress or West Campus. Maybe next time. A word to angry locals about gentrification: A lot of people are mad because gentrification is threatening to close their favorite bars or clubs. I honestly think that gentrification is a side effect of local landmarks not meaning as much to newcomers as they do to the indigenous. So, when the locals are exclusionary and elitist, like typical hipsters, the newcomers are not going to respect what they have been excluded from. When people new to Austin go out and consistently get mistreated, they are eventually going to stop valuing the nightlife, and down it goes. Especially when locals act like their club is packed to a point of annoyance, when in reality, it’s barely scraping by. Real estate development is a money competition, and if that competition is between Austin and the rest of the world, Austin will always lose. So don’t treat tourists, college kids, and transplants as a flock to be fleeced, let them have positive experiences with the local culture, and they might end up valuing it as much as you do! And then they’ll be out there picketing the bulldozers along with the locals. Otherwise, they are going to buy it, bulldoze it, and put up something that suits their fancy, in defiance of the stuck-up locals who left them out.