Was Austin All That Great to Begin With?

Spend enough time in our state capital—say, an afternoon—and you’re almost certain to hear a version of “the Austin jeremiad.” It’s a parable of declension, with the narrator wailing that the Austin of today isn’t nearly as appealing as the city of yesteryear. Early iterations of this tale stretch back at least to the dawn of the eighties, prompted by the closure and then the razing of the Armadillo World Headquarters, the legendary music hall that played host to the likes of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Given the city’s billing as the Live Music Capital of the World, it’s no surprise that subsequent generations have pegged Austin’s fall to the disappearance of other venues, like the Electric Lounge and Liberty Lunch,…

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