Albuquerque Journal from Albuquerque, New Mexico • Page 32

-C5 ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL Friday, October 25, 1985 Austin Cashes In on Music Scene DALLAS MORNING NEWS eyecatcher Fashion excitement from Palizzio! "Transam" an elegant pump with striking detail. Choose cerise, or black kidskin. played in a wide-ranging scene from blues at Antone's to country at the Broken Spoke to jazz at Maggie Mae's. Until this year, the Chamber of Commerce had little to do with it, aside from producing a brochure that mentioned the city's "country-music experience." Even that was badly out of date, as Lord discovered when he came to Austin two years ago. "I'd been here about two weeks and I had all kinds of things going, and Ernie Gammage came in to see me," said Lord.

"He said, 'I don't mean to be rude or anything, but this brochure that y'all have been printing for the last several years on the Austin sound all that ended in 1974 or whatever. There is still good country-western music, but there is so much more and the chamber really needs to get with Gammage, who heads a rowdy soul band, Ernie Sky and the K-Tels, said he was particularly struck by the phrase, "You can see the natives dancing with their hats and boots on." "It was like we were from Mars or someplace," Gammage fumed. In retrospect, it was a meeting involving the right people at the right time. "At the time, we were looking for a marketing hook. It's as basic as that," Lord said.

segment broadcast coast-to-coast spotlighting young Austin musicians. When a reporter for Rolling Stone magazine came to Austin to do a story on the music scene, he surveyed nightclubs, rehearsal halls and other favored haunts of the music crowd. And then he did something else, something rock music writers typically wouldn't do when gathering information for a story: he went to the Chamber of Commerce. The writer found out that more than a decade after progressive-country singers Willie Nelson and Jerry Jeff Walker defined the Austin sound, the Chamber of Commerce actively begun to promote and assist the local music scene. "All of a sudden, we realized that this isn't just tourism, what people want to do when they visit here," said Lord.

"This has to do with the quality of life, with people who live here. Unless a city is a good place to live and to work, then businesses aren't going to want to move here and they aren't going to want to stay here." In other words, the mere existence of so much live music makes Austin attractive to students, tourists, young professionals, incoming high-tech employees. But two years ago, University of Texas Professor Dowell Myers verified a prevailing suspicion that the local music scene, considered by 80 percent of those surveyed to be a vital part of Austin's quality of life, was being threatened by the city's explosive growth. One of his graduate students produced a thesis confirming that soaring property values had forced a number of live-music nightspots out of existence. AUSTIN, Texas When David Lord introduced the Chamber of Commerce to Omar and the Howlers, he meant business.

In Austin, music is business, and Omar plays music. And Lord figured it was time the chamber got into the act with a half -page ad in a recent issue of Billboard magazine promoting Omar's rock 'n' blues trio and the rest of the music scene in "Austin The Live Music Capital of the World." "Austin is different," said Lord, the chamber vice president responsible for a fledgling alliance between the city's button-down business community and its laid-back music scene. "Maybe it's just a feeling that in some cities business is business," he said. "But in Austin, there'd better be some fun, too." Earlier this month, more than 300 people packed a seminar sponsored by the chamber to teach local music industry people how to find money to finance their music projects. Singers have begun taping television spots promoting Austin music at the behest of the chamber.

And when a crew from MTV, the music cable network, expressed interest in visiting Austin, the chamber responded as if it were an advance team from a new high-tech company or Shriners in search of a convention site. Quickly, Lord rolled out the red carpet, tapping businesses to donate five airline tickets, five rooms for seven nights and two rental cars. "Last year, I don't think we would have gotten it," he said. "But now, because we have made (music) important, we had it within 24 hours." The result was an hour-long WINROCK ONLY Despite those phaseouts, there remain in Austin about 70 places where live music is i r- Toy Introducing Our "New Baby," BRAND NEW IN Heavy Duty Domestic VACUUMS i f-rnmorr-in i -w mm WWII II I IV I VIMI ft i Now! Quality So Luxurious That Your It Customers Will Feel As Though They Ought To Dress Up When They Take li'is 1 MANUFACTURERS Out Their Compact. caie Bniren SUGGESTED LIST $399.00 i( VTAT.i Hey Santa, Every toy We Also Carry Reconditioned in stock is now (d)9S fine shoes OFF FURSKINS BEARS.

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