mohawk

One of the reasons why we wanted to come to Austin was to check out the live music scene.

Unfortunately/fortunately, we were a week late for SXSW. The city that bills itself as “The Live Music Capital of the World” understandably has a large amount of it, so where to find it? The Austin Chronicle was actually a great resource- they have an event calendar which covers the days music and events with recommendations. The venue. Mohawk, was mentioned elsewhere, and so we walked out there after catching the bus from the hotel to downtown. Dad was concerned about standing out as the only “old guy” so we made a deal that if there were only people there half his age, we’d bail and go do something else.

Mohawk is on Red River road, which crosses 6th street close to the end of the street, farther from its tourist center at Congress. There’s actually lot of venues along Red River. It’s a quieter, more industrial area, not as populated, and it feels a little less safe than the touristy noise of 6th st. The posters out front from past and upcoming shows featured bands I’d actually heard of before. We were there way too early so there wasn’t even a line yet for the show, but we were the first ones in at doors open and snagged the only table with a view of the stage in the next room. The cover was $5. We hung out and drank and talked for about an hour, listening to the first band of the night warm up, and I actually liked them a lot. They’re a band from Mexico called ‘Como Las Movies.’ We listened to them play for about 45 minutes, and then hung around a bit more to see what the second band of the night was going to play. Didn’t like them as much, and the club had reached its full capacity, so when we left around 11, there was a huge line out front of people waiting to get in. I really liked the place actually, felt really local, big mix of people, ages, styles. Dad wasn’t the oldest person there by any means. Lots of people in middle age and older.

We took a cab back to SoCo to the only music venue on that street, the Continental Club. Based on the $10 cover at the door, and the kind of fuddy music coming out, we decided to give the club a pass and walked with great purpose and speed back to the hotel to use the bathrooms.