South Austin is a Music Legend

Another Musing from my friend David Dunn

MUSINGS:
I see that the City of Austin Noise Ordinance is once again rearing its rowdy head, or at least a few squeaky wheels are are making a lot of noise wanting to be heard over the music.
I really don't understand people moving into a neighborhood adjacent to existing venues, then complaining about the music, other than when it's outside the limits of the existing ordinance. I agree that if a new venue pops up in an old neighborhood, sure, they should work with the residents to keep the levels and times acceptable to the standards of the folks who were already there, but don't go killing off venues thatwere already there.

Some guy quoted in Thursday's paper was complaining because his backyard butts up to Freddy's Place on South First, right next to Jovita's. Seems that some evenings he can't sit out on his deck without hearing music that sometimes goes, OMG, as late as 9 PM! I don't know how long you've been there, Mr. self-proclaimed idiot, but live music venues have supported that stretch of road for a helluva long time. You're just pissed because you didn't do your due diligence before you bought or rented the joint.

Let's see, you get to sit on your deck in the privacy of your own backyard in the heart of South Austin, drink your own beer, not pay a cover or tip the barmaid, and you have as good a seat as half the people at the venue. Did you just move from the lake, because those constantly annoying, bright, multi-hued sunsets, their reflections glimmering and dancing through the soft ripple off the water's surface were hurting your eyes? Damn the City of Lakeway for not building you a six-foot fence to protect you against it! You know, I'm pretty sure I'm allergic
to my neighbor's 30 year old cedar tree - I should complain to the city and demand that he cut it down. Or do something about those trains going by, just half a mile away. Sometimes I can't hear what letter was called during “Wheel of Fortune.”

How many millions of dollars were spent during the nearly 10 year delay of building Lakeline Mall, because of the endangered cave beetle we didn't know was there? OK, they were there first, not quite since the dawn of time but maybe not long after, and we couldn't ask the poor little blind buggers to just up and move for our convenience. To the overcrowded musician population of Austin, good venues are an endangered species, and we shouldn't be messing with venues that have been around, some since not long after our own dawn of creation, others a bit later but established nonetheless; the “Dawn of Creation” on the Live MusicCapital of the World time line of course being October 3, 1954 (Extra points if you know why without Googling it ... hint: nothing to do with Al Sharpton or some Indian actor.)

Dude. Go back to Iowa, or Alaska, or Leander, or whatever quiet boring place you want Austin to emulate. Or crawl back into your cave and play with your pet Rhadine Persephone colony, and let the musicians and their audiences pay tribute to their own favorite Beatles, in their own way.
Some of these people just make me wanna scream. At more than 85 db and after 10:30PM !