There may be vast political and cultural differences between Austin’s roots music lovers, San Francisco’s rockers, Nashville’s racers, and New York’s barrio artists, but they all treasure heritage enough to fight for its survival. In New York’s East Harlem, a non-profit art gallery and theater space fought eviction from a city-managed arts center, after a councilwoman challenged its commitment to community access and cultural diversity. In Nashville, auto-racing fans struggled to save a historic speedway, threatened by redevelopment. In San Francisco, another group of music lovers has tried to prevent a private university from selling a rock radio station, staffed for decades by student and community volunteers. The fight for the Cactus Cafe mirrors other struggles across the United States, as people strive to preserve local heritage in the face of fiscal belt-tightening, growing homogenization, and political infighting. The resulting battle pitted administrators against the community, the community against members of the student body, and students against one another. UT’s new message was, in effect, the kids did it, turning their own students into sacrificial lambs. In a calculated campaign, they switched gears and claimed that closure was due to student demands for a cafe that was more relevant to contemporary needs. Confronted by an unexpectedly fierce popular uprising, campus administrators fought back. But it seemed oddly uninterested in accepting the donations that might keep the Cactus alive, prompting students and community members to see a crass willingness to forsake Austin’s artistic heritage. The university - known colloquially as UT - insisted at first that closure was the unavoidable response to recurring financial shortfalls. For many, its looming demise was the final straw in the steady dissolution of Austin eccentricity. ³ The 150-seat Cactus, a crucial component of Austin funkiness, had, for three decades, presented the finest in American and international roots music. With each loss, a bit of the city’s charm seems to die, prompting a onetime city councilman to complain the infrastructure of funk is being forced out of town. Austinites have watched with dismay as beloved music venues and other landmarks have closed over the years, the victims of business trends or urban redevelopment. Officially, the town’s slogan is the Live Music Capital of the World, but countless citizens embrace the more expansive catchphrase, Keep Austin Weird. commerce, the generation gap, the funding of public universities, campus and community relations, the duplicity of bureaucracy, and even the value of college football.Īustin, the heart of a metropolitan area then-encompassing a population of over 1.7 million, contains a creative community that cares deeply about maintaining local culture and resisting homogenization. Spurred by Facebook, Twitter, and a multitude of blogs, the battle for the Cactus Cafe spawned an acrimonious debate that touched upon art vs. ² Powers understood that closing the university-owned cafe was unpopular, but he didn’t know that it was about to spark a campus and community rebellion that would endure for more than seven months. Powers, the president of the University of Texas at Austin, had been defending the decision to close the Cactus Cafe, a tiny live-music venue tucked into a corner of the Texas Union, sometimes called the campus’ living room. ¹Īfter more than two hours in front of an angry crowd, Bill Powers looked dog-tired. The music is soaked into the walls, into my blood. I’m very proud of the legacy we’ve created here. Griff Luneburg, longtime manager of the Cactus Cafe: To learn more about the history of the Cactus Cafe, and to enjoy news articles, photos, audio, and other artifacts of the battle for its preservation, visit the Cactus Burning website. in American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, and is the author of The Never-Ending Revival: Rounder Records and the Folk Alliance (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2008, 2013). The Cactus is Dead Long Live the CactusĪcknowledgements and Notes on Methodology Cactus Conversations: Engagement or Charade?ġ1. Fries With That? The Commodified CampusĨ. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, physical or electronic, without written permission of the author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages within a critical article or review.Īnd to Doreen, Colin, and Kara, with loveħ. Austin, Texas and the Battle for the Iconic Cactus CafeĪll rights reserved.
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