The very popular, and relatively new, Westin Hotel in Austin, TX, is suing their next door neighbor, the Nook, a well-established music and party bar, over the noise of the live music that makes this venue successful.
http://keyetv.com/news/local/hotel-...-music-district-files-lawsuit-over-loud-music
For the past 5 years I have had to watch classic venues, restaurants, bars, and BBQ joints go extinct. The performance homes of the great Austin musicians that made this town the "Live Music Capital of the World" are now history.
Why? Death from its own popularity. People LOVE Austin and are moving here in shocking numbers. It is said that on average 17 people relocate to the Austin area every day. It has been this way for over a decade. Heck, I am one of those interlopers who moved here in the mid-1990s in search of my fortune and future life.
Austin used to be packed with live bands playing from 10pm until 2am, and sometimes later at the clubs who got all-night permits (not serving drinks after 2am). One could park on 7th Street and walk around for a dozen blocks in nearly any direction and find hundreds of acts jamming their tunes. Today most of the classic venues are shut down, though some have re-opened under new owners in new locations (most of those are not anything close to the original - they are more like museum halls, or the Hard Rock Restaurants, full of photos and memorabilia, but not the vibe or acts that made the old places legendary).
The residential buildings that sprung up in downtown Austin were seen as a huge boost for the city, but the people moving in realized that what brought them to Austin, the free-thinking, fun-loving, music watching nightlife party atmosphere was not conducive to sleep, concentration, and maintaining a good job, life balance, or raising children. They started seeing if they could use existing rules and ordinances to quell the all-night distractions, and while that wasn't enough to help them sleep, they started flooding into city council meetings, registering complaints on a daily basis, and running for office. They are now winning. Every week there is a new story about some new and more restrictive ordinance, or lawsuit, or club shutting down. Smokers at the classic BBQ joints are turning off. Even restaurants are vanishing only to be replaced by big national chains who are bringing a totally new atmosphere to the city. The "Keep Austin Weird" organization, who's mission is to try to maintain local business ownership and keep national conglomerates out of the city, is struggling to maintain the classic city.
Many venues can no longer have a live band after 10:30pm because of the noise and instead put on a DJ where the SPL can be controlled. Back in the day you didn't leave home to see your favorite bands until 10:00pm and the bands played until 1:30 or 2:00 am. Now, if you want to see your young, creative, unsigned band, you have to catch them at 8:00pm because they are often off the stage by 10:00pm. This really sucks.
There are still about two dozen venues which can play music all night, like Stubbs BBQ and the Parish, but those are fading as the vibe of the nightlife in Austin changes. Today more people go downtown for wild abandonment, excessive drinking, drug use, and getting laid. More and more people are passing out on the sidewalk than ever and the drug problem is growing to the point the police are asking the public for help. The party bars are well known for selling super-cheap liquor to youngsters and they cannot handle the masses of people who crowd their doorways. The classy places start dying down after 9pm and everything becomes a hedonistic orgy of alcoholism, bad decisions, and crime.
While I missed out on the creation of the amazing Austin music culture, I lived in it and enjoyed it for a decade before it started going to hell.
Of course, change is inevitable. I have to accept that no city, like Austin, and triple in size in 20 years and not become a totally new city. I get that. I just hate to see it happening. It is changing in more ways I don't like than in ways I do like. I like it that the streets are cleaner, easier to walk, and the new businesses are clean, trendy, and pleasant. But I hate that I cannot find a good life act unless I spent days researching and planning every step. Use to I just went down town and I always eventually found something amazing to watch and listen to.
It is a shame.
RIP Austin, the Live Music Capital of the World.
http://keyetv.com/news/local/hotel-...-music-district-files-lawsuit-over-loud-music
For the past 5 years I have had to watch classic venues, restaurants, bars, and BBQ joints go extinct. The performance homes of the great Austin musicians that made this town the "Live Music Capital of the World" are now history.
Why? Death from its own popularity. People LOVE Austin and are moving here in shocking numbers. It is said that on average 17 people relocate to the Austin area every day. It has been this way for over a decade. Heck, I am one of those interlopers who moved here in the mid-1990s in search of my fortune and future life.
Austin used to be packed with live bands playing from 10pm until 2am, and sometimes later at the clubs who got all-night permits (not serving drinks after 2am). One could park on 7th Street and walk around for a dozen blocks in nearly any direction and find hundreds of acts jamming their tunes. Today most of the classic venues are shut down, though some have re-opened under new owners in new locations (most of those are not anything close to the original - they are more like museum halls, or the Hard Rock Restaurants, full of photos and memorabilia, but not the vibe or acts that made the old places legendary).
The residential buildings that sprung up in downtown Austin were seen as a huge boost for the city, but the people moving in realized that what brought them to Austin, the free-thinking, fun-loving, music watching nightlife party atmosphere was not conducive to sleep, concentration, and maintaining a good job, life balance, or raising children. They started seeing if they could use existing rules and ordinances to quell the all-night distractions, and while that wasn't enough to help them sleep, they started flooding into city council meetings, registering complaints on a daily basis, and running for office. They are now winning. Every week there is a new story about some new and more restrictive ordinance, or lawsuit, or club shutting down. Smokers at the classic BBQ joints are turning off. Even restaurants are vanishing only to be replaced by big national chains who are bringing a totally new atmosphere to the city. The "Keep Austin Weird" organization, who's mission is to try to maintain local business ownership and keep national conglomerates out of the city, is struggling to maintain the classic city.
Many venues can no longer have a live band after 10:30pm because of the noise and instead put on a DJ where the SPL can be controlled. Back in the day you didn't leave home to see your favorite bands until 10:00pm and the bands played until 1:30 or 2:00 am. Now, if you want to see your young, creative, unsigned band, you have to catch them at 8:00pm because they are often off the stage by 10:00pm. This really sucks.
There are still about two dozen venues which can play music all night, like Stubbs BBQ and the Parish, but those are fading as the vibe of the nightlife in Austin changes. Today more people go downtown for wild abandonment, excessive drinking, drug use, and getting laid. More and more people are passing out on the sidewalk than ever and the drug problem is growing to the point the police are asking the public for help. The party bars are well known for selling super-cheap liquor to youngsters and they cannot handle the masses of people who crowd their doorways. The classy places start dying down after 9pm and everything becomes a hedonistic orgy of alcoholism, bad decisions, and crime.
While I missed out on the creation of the amazing Austin music culture, I lived in it and enjoyed it for a decade before it started going to hell.
Of course, change is inevitable. I have to accept that no city, like Austin, and triple in size in 20 years and not become a totally new city. I get that. I just hate to see it happening. It is changing in more ways I don't like than in ways I do like. I like it that the streets are cleaner, easier to walk, and the new businesses are clean, trendy, and pleasant. But I hate that I cannot find a good life act unless I spent days researching and planning every step. Use to I just went down town and I always eventually found something amazing to watch and listen to.
It is a shame.
RIP Austin, the Live Music Capital of the World.
). The PLSS program eventually got cancelled, the Lockheed Martin plant was eaten by crickets, and I moved to the nuclear weapon world.