Many of our Pride Month profiles have shared the same side character: legendary Texas punk club Raul’s.
The club was founded by Joseph Gonzales and Roy “Raul” Gomez in 1977 as a Tejano club, but things shifted fairly quickly, and by the 1980’s Raul’s was famous for being THE stage for Texas punk bands. Located on the Drag parallel to the UT campus, Raul’s was just down the street from the Hole in the Wall in what is now the Mockingbird.
Welcoming punk and new wave bands made Raul’s not only the only club of its kind, but in that way, became a safe space for all of the era’s local and touring queer musicians. Randy “Biscuit” Turner of Big Boys donned his negligees and tutus on stage, it’s where Gary Floyd of the Dicks famously pulled chocolate frosting and liver out of his granny panties and threw it into the crowd (separate occasions), and in 1981, UT film student Phil Tolstead of the Huns made Daily Texan after kissing a police officer on the lips while he was attempting to arrest Tolstead due to the groups anti-cop lyrics. Tolstead called for a riot, and chaos erupted, becoming a watershed moment for Raul’s reputation for being the antithesis of Austin’s blues and cosmic cowboy sensibilities. A change was in the air.
The story of Tolstead at Raul’s found its way into Rolling Stone and NME, further fanning the flames that the sound of Austin, Texas might be changing. In the 1980s, established and soon-to-be legends performed at and visited Raul’s, including the Psychedelic Furs on their first US tour. Members of Devo stopped by, along with Elvis Costello, who jumped on stage to play a song with one of the club’s hallmark bands, the Skunks. Not long after, Patti Smith would make a point to stop by to do the same thing.
Raul’s became not only the premier stage for Austin punk and new wave bands, but also the indisputable launching pad for Texas punk as a distinct subgenre. It set the tone for legendary Austin venues like Club Foot, Liberty Lunch, La Zona Rosa, and what we now refer to as “Old Emo’s”. Raul’s gave Austin its reputation as a city that champions artistic experimentation—and as a dream destination for young queer musicians looking to escape their hometowns and find their peopleor young queer musicians looking to break out of their hometown and find their people.
