When does an art museum become a music venue? Well, every semester the Blanton hosts a series called SoundSpace where they scatter a handful of musicians inside various art galleries to perform unusual yet fresh works. Iván Brave reports.

Austin City Limits music festival draws nearly 75,000 attendees from around the country per day, but some locals seem to resent ACL’s increasing popularity; claiming the festival has grown too big and misrepresents the music actually being played within Austin’s City Limits. Ivan Brave reports on the emergence of an alternative that bills itself as Ditch The Fest Fest.

On June 8th, 1972, The Flatlanders—made up of Lubbock schoolmates Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Butch Hancock—played at the One Knite, a dive bar on Red River.

The show was casual. A couple dozen friends came and drank beers and chatted while the band played. As Ely recalls, they were getting ready for a few gigs around Austin and used the session as a chance to work on some of their new material.

Little did The Flatlanders know, the sound engineer at the One Knite was recording. And in fact, they didn’t discover those recordings until almost three decades later.

Participate in Flashbacks! Call our hotline at 512-861-8266 to share YOUR stories about bygone venues. Or visit austinmusicmap.com to find out how to share photos and videos.

Austin’s musical history runs deep and wide, and throughout the summer the Austin Music Map will be documenting the bygone venues that helped build the city’s reputation as a music town.

Whether it’s old honky-tonks like the Split Rail, chitlin’ circuit mainstays like Charlie’s Playhouse, Tejano ballrooms like The Rockin’ M, or punk dives like Raul’s, we’re exploring the places where the Austin live music scene was born.

We’re also capturing memories and mementos of more ephemeral musical experiences, like Lead Belly’s final performance in UT’s Gregory Gym in 1949 or Willie Nelson’s famous show in the repair bay of McMorris Ford in the early 1970s.

We need your help documenting this history! Share stories and memories by calling our hotline at 512-861-8266. Your voice might end up on-air. And if you have old performance photographs or videos, upload them to our interactive website. Together, we can build an archive of Austin’s musical past.

Tune in to KUTX to hear musicians reminisce about their favorite places throughout the summer months. And check out a few of our current favorites down below.

This week, the Austin Music Map visits the bright red, steel sided slab of a building on the east side – home to the local “Loyal Order of the Moose.” The venue has become one home of the city’s small but lively Conjunto revival.

Conjunto is a homegrown musical tradition that’s deeply rooted in Tejano working class culture. It was born at the end of the 19th century when the music of German migrants (think button accordions and polkas) collided with the music of Mexican migrants (think bajo sextos and dance bands.)

Conjunto was big in Texas through the 60s, 70s, even 80s, but then began to fade as Conjunto-friendly radio stations were bought out, the traditional audience got older, and the dance halls that had been Conjunto’s home went out of business.

Enter The Moose! With its low ceilings and wood paneling and taxidermied moose heads, it’s captured the spirit of those old venues and is trying to keep the scene alive.

KUTX’s Texas Music Matters is partnering with the national Localore initiative to create the Austin Music Map: a yearlong effort to go beyond the well-traveled streets of the Austin music scene in search of the hidden places where music is being made. We want your help discovering and documenting these places. To find out how to get involved, visit the Austin Music Map website or call our hotline with stories and tips: (512) 861-8266.