Gilbert Shelton is an American cartoonist and a key member of the underground comix movement. He is the creator of the iconic underground characters The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Fat Freddy's Cat, and Wonder Wart-Hog.
Austin's official motto is the "Live Music Capital of the World" due to the high volume of live music venues in the city. Austin is known internationally for the South by Southwest (SXSW) and the Austin City Limits (ACL) Music Festivals which feature eclectic international lineups. The greatest concentrations of music venues in Austin are around 6th Street, Central East Austin, the Red River Cultural District, the Warehouse District, the University of Texas, South Congress, and South Lamar.
Douglas Wayne Sahm was an American musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist born in San Antonio, Texas. Sahm is regarded as one of the main figures of Tex-Mex music, and as an important performer of Texan Music. He gained fame along with his band, the Sir Douglas Quintet, with a top-twenty hit in the United States and the United Kingdom with "She's About a Mover" (1965). Sahm was influenced by the San Antonio music scene that included conjunto and blues, and later by the hippie scene of San Francisco. With his blend of music, he found success performing in Austin, Texas, as the hippie counterculture soared in the 1970s.
Armadillo World Headquarters was an influential Texas music hall and beer garden in Austin at 5251⁄2 Barton Springs Road – at South First Street – just south of the Colorado River and downtown Austin. The 'Dillo flourished from 1970 to 1980. The structure that housed it, an old National Guard Armory, was demolished in 1981 and replaced by a 13-story office building.
The Sir Douglas Quintet was an American rock band formed in San Antonio, Texas in 1964. With their first hits, they were acclaimed in their home state. When their career was established, the band relocated to the West Coast. Their move coincided with the burgeoning San Francisco psychedelic rock scene of the mid 1960s to early 1970s. Overall, the quintet were exponents of good-times music with strong roots in blues and Texas-regional traditions. The band's songs were most noted for the instantly distinguishable organ sound of Augie Meyers' Vox Continental.
William De White, better known as Guy Juke, is a Austin, Texas–based graphic artist and musician. As a poster artist he created memorable imagery for nightclubs such as Armadillo World Headquarters and was one of the 'Armadillo Art Squad'. His work is recognized for its blocky, sharp-edged figures on angular, geometric settings. Often darkly detailed, his work include shadowy and angular figures inspired by horror films, haunting western landscapes, and loopy cartoon characters.
Shiva's Headband, was an American psychedelic rock band, formed in Austin, Texas, United States, in 1967. Original members included fiddler Spencer Perskin and his wife Susan, keyboardist Shawn Siegel, guitarists Kenny Parker and Bob Tom Reed and drummer Jerry Barnett. The group was the house band at the Vulcan Gas Company, a late 1960s Austin nightclub. The band is credited with a significant role in the founding of the Armadillo World Headquarters. The band's first royalty check opened the club and hired Eddie Wilson as manager. Shiva's Headband was also the first band to perform there. Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, the band played with touring acts such as Spirit, Steppenwolf, ZZ Top, Janis Joplin, Canned Heat and Steve Miller. Austin psychedelic bands contemporary to Shiva's Headband included The 13th Floor Elevators and The Conqueroo.
Jagmo, born Nels Jacobson, is a US artist and poster art historian born in Chicago in 1949. He moved to Austin, Texas in 1978 and began creating rock posters in 1981. For three years during the early 1980s Jacobson served as bar manager and promotional director for Austin's Club Foot. He has designed posters for live-music venues such as Liberty Lunch, Cain's Ballroom and The Fillmore, and for performers such as Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Ramones, Divine, Roky Erickson, Etta James, Dead Kennedys, the B-52's, Bonnie Raitt, Joe Ely, Los Lobos, the Pixies, Iggy Pop, Willie Nelson, Fela Kuti, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Jerry Jeff Walker. In 1987, Jacobson helped organize the Texas-U.S.S.R. Musicians' Exchange tour of the Soviet Union and accompanied the performers to Leningrad, Moscow and Kyiv. He was art director for South by Southwest (SXSW) during its first six years, designing the original logo, and in 1998 founded the SXSW Continuing Legal Education program, which he continues to oversee in 2019. Jacobson has served on the packaging Grammy Award committees for the Texas and San Francisco chapters of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, and is a founding Director of the American Poster Institute and the South Austin Museum of Popular Culture, and a board member of The Rock Poster Society (TRPS).
The Austin Museum of Popular Culture (AusPop) is a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit organisation dedicated to collecting, preserving, and exhibiting art and memorabilia that reflect Austin's eclectic contributions to popular culture worldwide.
The Rag was an underground newspaper published in Austin, Texas from 1966–1977. The weekly paper covered political and cultural topics that the conventional press ignored, such as the growing antiwar movement, the sexual revolution, gay liberation, and drug culture. It encouraged these political constituencies and countercultural communities to coalesce into a significant political force in Austin. As the sixth member of the Underground Press Syndicate and the first underground paper in the South, The Rag helped shape a flourishing national underground press.
The original Vulcan Gas Company was the first successful psychedelic music venue in Austin, Texas. The Vulcan opened its doors at 316 Congress Avenue in the fall of 1967, and closed in the summer of 1970. Gary Scanlon, Houston White, Don Hyde, and Sandy Lockett started the VGC. By 1969, management was primarily by White and Lockett, along with Jim Franklin. There was a substantial sound system installed by Sandy Lockett. Charlie Sauer was the principal audio engineer for the last year of operation. Bobby Hedderman and Marty McDermott managed the club for the last few months. Underground cartoonist Gilbert Shelton became their art director in 1967 and drew their weekly posters.
Bill Narum was an artist, illustrator, and Texas counter-culture icon known for his work in popular entertainment, and for being one of the few non-natives to have lived with the Tarahumara tribe of northern Mexico in Copper Canyon.
Keep Your Soul: A Tribute to Doug Sahm is a 2009 tribute album to the late Doug Sahm, released on Vanguard Records.
Thorne Webb Dreyer is an American writer, editor, publisher, and political activist who played a major role in the 1960s-1970s counterculture, New Left, and underground press movements. Dreyer now lives in Austin, Texas, where he edits the progressive internet news magazine, The Rag Blog, hosts Rag Radio on KOOP 91.7-FM, and is a director of the New Journalism Project.
Kerry Fitzgerald, better known as Kerry Awn, is an American cartoonist, actor, muralist, comedian, musician, iconographer and poster artist. He is best known for his comedy and the iconic 'Austintatious' mural near the University of Texas campus, a landmark he created with two other artists. Born in Houston as Kerry Fitzgerald, Awn became prominent on the Austin countercultural scene in the 1970s as a concert poster artist and as a member of the Uranium Savages.
Doug Sahm and Band is the debut solo album of American singer-songwriter Doug Sahm. In 1972, after leaving the Sir Douglas Quintet, Sahm moved to Austin, Texas. He was signed by Jerry Wexler to the newly opened country music division of Atlantic Records, and started the album sessions by October 1972. It featured appearances by Bob Dylan, Dr. John, David "Fathead" Newman, Flaco Jimenez, David Bromberg and Kenny Kosek.
Micael Priest was an American artist and raconteur. Due to Priest's color-blindness, his primary medium was pen and ink, which he put to great use in inexpensively printed, highly graphic, rock posters. Often printed in single color or split-fountain reliefs, the posters were done mostly for Armadillo World Headquarters, a music hall in Austin, Texas that operated from August 7, 1970 to December 31, 1980.
Groover's Paradise is an album by Doug Sahm, produced by musician Doug Clifford and released on Warner Records in 1974. Following his return to Texas after his success with the Sir Douglas Quintet in California, Sahm settled in Austin, Texas. As the local music scene thrived, he was featured as the main attraction in local clubs and he recorded his debut album for Atlantic Records.
Hell of a Spell is an album by singer-songwriter Doug Sahm released by Takoma Records in January 1980. Sahm was signed to the label in 1979 after it was acquired by Chrysalis Records the same year. Upon request of the president of Takoma, Sahm recorded blues numbers and he dedicated the record to Guitar Slim. While the album was well received by the critics, it was a commercial failure.
The Return of Wayne Douglas is the last studio album recorded by Doug Sahm. It was released by his own label, Tornado Records.
