It was inevitable armadillos would end up dead center on the mural. For the past few years, Jim Franklin, through sheer passion, perseverance and his own peculiarities, had brought the lowly armadillo up into the Austin zeitgeist. He painted them, kept live ones as models and dressed up like one - but it all started when he put a joint in an armadillo’s mouth. No, not literally, artistically.

Created by Gilbert Shelton, Oat Willie was his comic book character with a rallying cry of “Onward thru the fog.” In 1968 Gilbert entered him as a write-in candidate for Texas Governor. Supporters of Oat Willie's campaign often met at a local head shop Underground City Hall aka Campaign Headquarters. Unfortunately, Oat Willie lost the race but won the hearts of Austin’s anti-establishment. Maybe Oat Willie even inspired Crazy Carl’s multiple runs for City Council and Kinky Friedman’s Governor campaigns which were soon to come.

Doug Brown and George Majewski bought the Underground City Hall and changed the name to Oat Willie's: Campaign Headquarters.

Spencer Perskin’s band sits at the head of the river of the entire Austin music scene. Shiva’s Headband played opening night at the Vulcan Gas Company AND the Armadillo World HQ. His band not only introduced the psychedelic scene to Austin he made these clubs a must-play venue for all touring bands. So everyone played Austin. Which gave Austin a front row seat to the biggest names in folk, rock, country and especially the blues. Like one of Spencer’s live 18 minute fiddle-forward acid fueled songs that swirled the audience into a frenzy the town became a musical petri dish out of which so many formidable bands formed. And thanks to The Vulcan, they had a place to play.

Of course Johnny is peeking out the window of the Vulcan Gas Company because it was here in 1968 he recorded his first album: The Progressive Blues Experiment. Because of this ground-shaking debut, his striking looks and virtuosity on the guitar, Johnny was quickly ‘discovered’ at the Fillmore East, signed to the biggest advance in music history and within a year was on stage at Woodstock (backed by Austin bassist Tommy Shannon). So, he had been to the mountaintop by the time he settled into regular gigs at the Vulcan in podunk Austin, TX.

With the Vulcan as the venue and Johnny as a draw, every blues icon of the day made it a point to stop and jam in Austin. Muddy, Hooker, BB, Albert. Howlin’, Mance and Freddie. What a scene. Mutual respect grew between these artists and the city of Austin in no small part because Johnny continued to produce new albums for many of these blues superstars. After the Vulcan closed, they played the Armadillo. After the Armadillo shuttered, they played Antone’s. And that was where another young white blues guitar player got to riff alongside the greats like Albert King. Stevie Ray Vaughan’s reinterpretation of the blues, and subsequent fame, only could have happened thanks to the foundational groove Johnny Winter laid down before him. Thanks Johnny.

Hey, Cupcake. Torchy’s. East Side Kings. Odd Duck. Via 313. Gourdoughs (above to the right). Oh, and Franklins BBQ. In a town where taking a restaurant concept from food truck, to brick-and-mortar, to nationwide franchise is a proven model it’s hard to imagine a time when selling food on the street would get you locked up. Actually arrested. So who do we have to thank for keeping Aaron Franklin out of the pokie and behind the pits? That distinction falls on the shoulders of UT law school student - Roland DeNoile - who saw a hungry niche of students a long walk from the Texas Union’s greasy cheeseburgers. They needed salvation. They needed Salvation Sandwiches.

After winning the Austin Chronicle’s Best Photographer category 10 years in a row, they just canceled it, because there was never a doubt Alan Pogue would keep on winning it. His documentation of the city's cultural and political life over the last 50 years is unmatched and unrelenting. He shot every iconic institution in town as it was becoming an iconic institution: The Drag, The Armadillo, Les Amis, Liberty Lunch, Esther’s Follies and every fool that sauntered through City Hall. So inevitable he was there, on campus, in the rain, shutter clicking to capture a random moment as it became magic.

Running a comic-book character for governor (Oat Willie). Throwing a party for Winnie the Pooh’s perpetually glum companion (Eeyore’s Birthday). Spamarama. Big ideas like these don’t come from a six-pack of Lone Star. You need imagination, endurance and the ability to suck clouds into your fingertips. Enter peyote. Lots of peyote.

In this film, we travel through the fog to find the earliest heartbeat of Austin’s weird soul.
Much of it centered on The Ghetto — a place where Austin’s emerging counterculture
gathered. The Ghetto lives on in comics and stories but, for the life of us, we couldn’t
find a single photograph.
‍
If you’ve got one, please share it. We’d love to see where it all began.

NOTE: There are also no known photographs of the house where a truckload of peyote was boiled down to extract mescaline. Hence the original illustrations in this film by Kerry Awn.

SPONSORED BY
CLAY IMPORTS

We could only make this film thanks to a generous donation from Clay Imports. They also helped us interview Don Hyde in Mexico. And paid for the post interview beers and mezcal with Don.

For decades Austin provided musicians the grooviest paradise to play. Cheap rent, killer venues and a fervid audience kept the party rolling. But most importantly, Austin gave musicians space. They were thousands of miles from the nearest record company, living totally under the radar and playing all the time (on stage and off). This space allowed them the creative latitude to find their voice and not follow the formula. It happened again and again with Roky, Johnny, Doug, SRV and the biggest of them all, Willie. Austin gave Willie Nelson the space to transform from another Nashville songwriter to WILLIE! – one name superstar. And that transition happened in Austin with the recording of a single song.

Outside of Chicago you’d be hard pressed to find a town as supportive of the blues as Austin TX. From the Vulcan Gas Company to the Ritz to the Armadillo World Headquarters to Antone’s there was always a place for the biggest names in blues to perform. Jimmy and Lil’ Stevie Vaughan grew up in these clubs watching these icons play and then took what they learned to a myriad of bands they fronted over the years. Then the pieces clicked into place for Stevie, lightning struck, the clouds parted and the entire world got to see what had been cooking on the small stages of Austin, TX.

His bandmates Tommy Shannon and Chris Layton tell us what it was like to catch the biggest ride of them all.

Did you know the 23^rd St. Mural has been updated five times over the past 50 years? It has grown just like our city. Kerry, Rick and Tommy keep adding people, places and new landmarks each time they paint. During the 2014 renovation the artists ‘folded back’ the upper left corner of the mural to ‘reveal’ South Congress. SoCo wasn’t on Austin’s cultural map back in the 70’s. Unless you were looking for hard drugs, prostitutes or flop houses!

They included Matt’s El Rancho, Broken Spoke, Sandy’s and even the Greetings From Austin mural from South 1^st and Annie St. So meta! The Continental Club stands on the shoulders of all the great venues that have come before. It is the cornerstone of South Congress and a mecca for music lovers. To this day you can step through the doors and experience ‘old’ Austin in its most perfect form.

SPONSORED BY
THE HAHN AGENCY

We could only make this film thanks to a generous donation from the Hahn Agency, a local, independent ad agency and integral part of the creative culture of Austin.

For 40 years Crazy Carl spun a flower in front of Esther’s Follies on 6^th Street. And if you could distill the special sauce of Austin into one wild man-boob making individual it would have to be Crazy Carl Hickerson. He lived across the street from the Beef and Pie studio. After many afternoons of watching him load buckets of fresh chrysanthemums and wheel his life partner Charlotte into the back of his decoupaged van we knew something special was happening.

We made a film about him: Crazy Carl and his Man-Boobs: An Austin Love Story. As we tell his story — from flower salesman to street performer to perennial candidate for city council – we tell the story of Austin. It’s different than all the shorts on this site (this is a 50 minute documentary) but it’s the reason we started the mural project in the first place. Now before this gets too meta, let’s get on with the show and say thanks Carl, this is one more wild thing you set in motion.

Finished in 1887, the Butler Mansion utilized both Butler bricks and Marble Falls granite that had been shipped in at the same time for the State Capitol. The mansion's unique design featured rooms laid out only in unconventional geometric shapes, with two octagons and absolutely no rectangle or square spaces.It presided over the corner of 11^th and Guadeloupe until 1971 when Louis Marks of Houston bought it and demolished it for a parking lot. It was already gone when the mural was first being painted in 1973. 

This was the home of Michael and Mary Butler, founders of the Butler Brick Company. Butler Bricks were the building blocks of Austin. Warehouses, homes and hotels were all built with their innovative product. Made from the clay fields that formed on the banks of the Colorado River these bricks were used in UT’s Old Main Building, and over 300,000 are a part of the Texas State Capitol.

You can still find Butler bricks all over Austin and you can touch a piece of architectural history at the Zilker Botanical Garden. A window from the Butler Mansion sits amongst the local trees and wildflowers.

Big Rikke was the heart and soul of Austin in the 1970’s. Crowned the Guacamole Queen for her early adoption of the avocado in all its glorious ways; she was the clip that held the joint of Austin together. Frank Zappa and Doug Sahm penned songs in her honor. Anyone who every ate the famous nachos at Armadillo World Headquarters have her to thank. She may not be a famous as the people she fed but was as integral to the scene as any of them. We knew she held a place in people’s hearts, because every time we mentioned the name Big Rikke during an interview it brought a big smile. Then a knowing chuckle. Then a disclaimer about not being able to tell the whole story!

SPONSORED BY
PLANET K

This film was made possible by the generous support of Planet K — a true Austin original. Support local. Support the businesses that support creativity.

If you are standing in front of the mural look over your right shoulder. Do you see that church? Below it, down those stairs a miracle happened in the early 70’s. Idealistic doctors, nurses and a lot of volunteers provided ‘free’ health care for the uninsured people of Austin. And there were a lot of them. This was very much the attitude of the times: the old ways aren’t working – we can find our own way. And this was very much the case for health care and  women’s health in particular. The care they provided grew and grew and grew. The People’s Free Clinic has become People’s Community Clinic a thriving medical facility that provides heath care for over 20,000 underserved Austinites every year. A miracle indeed.

The icon from the mural that connects us to this story is The Smile Guy. He was a fixture on the Drag shouting Smile! Smile! And collecting money for the People’s Free Clinic in a yellow bucket. While the Smile Guy is long gone you can put a smile on a lot of people’s faces by donating some change in his name to the current PCC.

Donate Here.

‍Photography in the film provided by Alan Pougue.