Austin: Emo’s

Johnny Cash asked to see the club before his own show. He ended up playing it instead.

Emo’s traces back to a Houston punk club that opened in 1989; Eric “Emo” Hartman brought the name to Austin in 1992, taking over a former auto-repair garage at 603 Red River Street with manager David Thomson in tow. For its first two years the all-ages club charged 21-and-over patrons no cover at all, and it grew into a roughly 1,100-capacity anchor of what became Austin’s Red River Cultural District. The most legendary night in the club’s history came at SXSW 1994, when Johnny Cash reportedly asked to visit before that evening’s show and ended up performing solo acoustic, later joined by the Tennessee Three, on a bill that also featured Beck.

A Farm Team for Fame

Long before headlining arenas, Modest Mouse played Emo’s in May 1998, and the White Stripes stopped through twice in 2001 — both years ahead of the commercial breakthroughs that would follow. Arcade Fire opened for the Unicorns here in June 2004, the Decemberists played in April 2005, and regulars over the years read like a college-radio playlist: Neurosis, US Maple, New Bomb Turks, Jawbox, and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, alongside Austin acts like the Phantom Creeps and the Motards. For nearly two decades, the original Red River location was a friendly, dive-bar “home away from home” for the city’s punk, indie, and alternative scene.

Emo’s East

That original club closed in late 2011 after 19 years on Red River, and Emo’s relocated to East Riverside Drive, reopening on the site of a former venue called the Back Room. C3 Presents acquired Emo’s in 2013, and the venue now operates under the Live Nation umbrella with a listed capacity of roughly 1,700 — considerably larger than its scrappy Red River original, and a short drive from Red River neighbors like Mohawk. It remains an official SXSW venue, running up to four stages during the festival, and is still counted among the handful of clubs that built Austin’s reputation as an incubator for the next generation of touring acts.

I’ve been here ♪