A dream of keeping Houston’s music history alive

January 28, 2016 by Rick Campbell 3 Comments

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers have their eyes on Austin musician Freddie Krc as he talks about his dream of a Houston popular cultural center. The Gilbert Shelton painting once hung in the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin and is now on display at the South Austin Popular Culture Center. (Photos by Rick Campbell)

Freddie Krc has a dream. The Austin musician is on the board of directors of the South Austin Popular Culture Center, and he’s on a quest to see that Houston gets a popular culture center of its own. The Gulf Coast native and La Porte High School grad who’s been active in the Austin music scene since the 1970s believes Houston needs a place to honor its storied musical history.

“My goal, my dream is to have one in Houston,” he said.

I ran into Krc (whose name rhymes with search) at the last Texas Psych Garage Happening at Birraporetti’s in downtown Houston in the fall. He told me about his idea and invited me to come to Austin and take a tour of the South Austin Popular Culture Center, also known as SouthPop.  It took me a while to get over to Austin, but I finally got a personal look at SouthPop last month, thanks to Krc.

As I arrived at the funky building next to a Planet K shop on South Lamar for an after-hours tour, it was apparent that this was not a conventional museum. On the north side of the building is the Memorial Wall, which is filled with photos of figures who have contributed to the culture of Austin, including musicians, authors, artists, and even Darrell Royal and Ann Richards. Next to the Memorial Wall is a stage used for exhibit openings. Across the drive from the Memorial Wall is a Bob Wade sculpture of an airplane with a longhorn head, a cigarette in its mouth and lights for eyes.

Sculptor Bob Wade’s airplane outside the South Austin Popular Culture Center in Austin.

Inside are posters, and lots of them. The walls throughout the small center are jam-packed, with posters from the Vulcan Gas Co., the Armadillo World Headquarters, Soap Creek Saloon and probably just about every other Austin venue that ever used posters to promote acts. In one room is a Gilbert Shelton painting of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers on one wall and the front of the ticket office at the Vulcan on another. The night I visited SouthPop, an exhibition by Austin artist Mishka Westell filled the back area.

Two eras: A poster of Bonnie Raitt at Austin City Limits in 2012 and a mid-60s poster for Vulcan Gas Co. dance-concert with the Conqueroo.

Krc urged me to visit SouthPop’s sister, the South Texas Popular Culture Center in San Antonio, as well, and a few days later I stopped by for a few minutes and inadvertently crashed a birthday party for local music figure Sam Kinsey, who headed up the Teen Canteen, a ’60s hot spot for live music, much like the Catacombs in Houston. Kinsey has donated several pieces of ephemera to the center, known as Tex Pop, including the neon sign from the Teen Canteen. Tex Pop has a memorial wall with shrines to Selena and Freddie Fender, among others. Like SouthPop in Austin, Tex Pop is located next to a Planet K shop. It’s just off Broadway, in the same neighborhood as the Witte Museum.

Check from the Teen Canteen to the Doug Sahm, Moving Sidewalks, Billy Gibbons are display in San Antonio.

Both popular cultures reflect their cities in their own way but have similar missions: to collect music ephemera to preserve local music history and its impact on the region, state and country. SouthPop is an archive of music history while Tex Pop is more of a community center for people interested in South Texas music.

SouthPop’s director, Leea Mechling, told me via email: “We collect music posters, photographs, newspapers, backstage passes, albums, books, clothing, paintings and other ephemera from Austin’s music culture between 1965 and the present day.”

“We have no problem getting donations,” Mechling said.

A lot of stuff is donated by members of the music community, but sometimes SouthPop buys collections with the help of donations from its main financial benefactors.

Posters for the ’60s San Antonio band the Children and Texas psychedelic band Sweet Smoke adorn the walls at Tex Pop.

Tex Pop director Michael Ann Coker director said the San Antonio is like a clubhouse for musicians.

“We have most of our events on Sunday afternoons so musicians can attend; it’s a bonding for them,” she said via email. “Many of the musicians play for free for us or for very minimal pay; their friends see how much fun they’re having and then they ask to play for us; they believe in what we’re doing to preserve SA’s unique music culture.”

A lawn area behind the center can hold several hundred people for concerts.

“We don’t have anywhere near the money or holdings that our Austin sister has.  They’ve been going for over 10 years — we’re coming up on four years in May. They have had generous donors of poster collections; we haven’t. Because we don’t have much in the way of materials on hand, we put together our exhibits on the fly, with our schedule prepared just a few weeks ahead,” Coker told me, also via email.

What the two centers have in common is support from Michael Kleinman of Planet K, who makes space available in Austin and San Antonio. Financial contributions from Kleinman and his Phogg Phoundation for the Pursuit of Happiness have been critical to the centers’ success, Mechling said. In addition, musicians, club owners, artists and filmmakers pitch in to support SouthPop. Jack Orbin of Stone City Attractions footed the bill for some of the remodeling at Tex Pop, turning storage space into a performance and display spot.

South Pop opened its latest exhibit on Jan. 24, about the recording industry in San Antonio and Texas, with an emphasis on the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s and ’60s. It will run through Feb. 28. There is no fee to visit the center. On Sunday, Jan. 31, South Pop will have a concert featuring ’70s West Coast punk movement pioneer Javier Escovedo and Heather Leather.

An exhibit exploring Doug Sahm’s influence on Austin music opens Jan. 30 at the South Austin Popular Culture Center. (Courtesy of South Austin Popular Culture Center)

TexPop is opening a Doug Sahm exhibit on Saturday, Jan. 30, with a concert featuring the Melancholy Ramblers. The exhibit, Doug Sahm: The Man and the Music, will feature albums, photos, posters and other memorabilia that chronicle the San Antonio native’s life and his impact on the Austin live music scene. Although there is a small charge for the opening night festivities, the exhibit is free during TexPop’s regular hours, which are 1-6 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays.

These exhibits show the passion of SouthPop and Tex Pop to keep their cities’ pop music history alive. And that brings us back to Freddie Krc and his dream.

Krc, who landed in Austin in 1974, heads his own band, the Freddie Steady 5. He has played drums with B.W. Stevenson and Jerry Jeff Walker, among others, and with his band the Explosives, he’s backed Roky Erickson. He’s also worked with ’60s musicians and bands including Peter Lewis of Moby Grape, Sal Valentino of The Beau Brummels, the late Sam Andrew of Big Brother and the Holding Company and the pioneering San Francisco band The Charlatans. He is also president of the Austin musicians union. From country to rock to rhythm and blues, he knows music. And he has a strong connection to his Gulf Coast roots.

“Depending on where you grew up in Texas, your scene was the best. But I can tell you, it doesn’t matter where you grew up, Houston had the most and the best,” Krc said. “And it needs to be documented. It needs to be showcased and archived.”

Invoking the name of an Austin writer and film director, he said “Joe Nick Patoski and I are buddies. If you talk to him, Fort Worth was where it was all at. He’s from there.”

But the Fort Worth music scene was nothing like Houston’s, Krc argues.

“Houston had more bands, more clubs, more labels than any other city in Texas. There was one label here — Sonobeat — that was it,” he said, referring to Austin. “And a handful of clubs. Not like Houston.”

Krc believes the time is right for Houston to honor its musical past and thinks a pop culture center would do just that.

“I envision it including the rich blues, zydeco — all of the Houston music,” he said. The focus would be on rock ‘n’ roll, the way he sees it, but would be inclusive of all genres of music and its culture.

“What happens is when these things come to fruition, people come out of the woodwork” with music memorabilia,” he said.

Krc said he’s talked to Pete Gordon of the Continental Club in Houston and is trying to get him interested in providing some space by the venue in Midtown.

“It would be a nice place for it,” Krc said. “I think it would be beneficial to both because I think it might bring some tourist traffic down to that area that might not have been there otherwise.”

The closest thing to this now is probably the Hall of Fame galleries at the Museum of the Gulf Coast some 90 miles away in Port Arthur. The permanent exhibit pays tribute to music legends, sports legends and other notable figures from Southeast Texas and Southwest Louisiana.

Houston has a legendary music history. Artifacts from its musical past are scattered all around. It needs a place for those things to come together. Making that happen will require a lot of dedicated people with time, love and material and financial donations.