Cover Story

Margaret Moser Tribute: Denny Freeman

My first memory of Margaret was at Alexander’s Place, in maybe 1974. Alexander’s was a small BBQ joint, in a small community called Kitchenville, if I remember correctly, on Brodie Lane – “the country.” If you knew about it and came there, you were almost automatically in our little blues cult. Because of its size…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Jesse Sublett

Even in 1977, the smart ones knew Margaret was the best fan you could ever have. If she thought you were cool, that was it. You were cool. January 1978: At the Sex Pistols show in San Antonio, Eddie Muñoz and I give Margaret big, sloppy hugs and say, “We’ve got a new punk band…

Oops!

June 23’s Naked City item “LGBTQ Quality of Life Commission Underway” incorrectly spelled Paula Buls’ last name “Buhls.” An item on Kosoul Chanthakoummane’s stay of execution incorrectly identified the body that issued the stay: It was the Court of Criminal Appeals. And the subhead to the online version of “City Council Campaign 2018” was incorrect.…

Headlines

City Council marked the kickoff of its July break with one last CodeNEXT work session on Wed., June 28; the next regular meeting is Aug. 3, though the hiatus will be occupied by ongoing work on the land development code as well as the run-up to August budget deliberations. See “Public Notice,” and “Council: All…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Chris Gates

My first awareness of Margaret wasn’t long after I discovered Raul’s, either in high school or still the earliest days of the Big Boys. At that point, she was predominantly part of the Texas Blondes, a roving group of insane, quasi-groupie girls that basically scared the hell outta me! I was just a kid, 18,…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Kathy Valentine

Success is a funny thing. People are happy for you, but a lot of them, they have a little grain of, “Well, why did it happen to you? Why didn’t it happen to me? Why did you get that?” I’m super perceptive, and I don’t let it get in the way of anything, but I’m…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Eliza Gilkyson

Best advice received from Margaret Moser? Keep your dogs clean, flea-free, and well-groomed so they can be allowed on all your furniture and sleep with you at night. Margaret is attracted viscerally to authenticity. Unless you were Townes [Van Zandt] or Lucinda [Williams], urban folk music didn’t really have much of a place in the…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Angela Strehli

I must have met Margaret at Antone’s on Sixth Street in the mid-Seventies. It was such a small scene then, and we were so committed to bringing blues to Austin. Every single person there counted. In so many ways it was like a secret little club, and she was one of our first cheerleaders. So…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Susan Antone

This summer marks Antone’s 42nd anniversary. I met Margaret sometime that first year in 1975. I went by my brother’s club one afternoon and there was Margaret, trying to set up an interview with B.B. King. I liked her so much right off, and that’s lasted all these years. She does so much for other…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Jimmie Vaughan

I don’t remember a time Margaret wasn’t there. Maybe that’s why I’m not clear on whether we met at the One Knite, or maybe the Armadillo. Could have been the Vulcan, too. Margaret was always there. She was one of us. That’s the way we saw her. Everything back then felt like us versus them,…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Paddy Moloney

A very good friend of ours, Chesley Millikin, who was from Dublin but moved to Austin and worked with Stevie Ray Vaughan and the Fabulous Thunderbirds, brought us to Texas in the late Seventies. The minute I spoke to Chesley, he recommended Margaret, who was a close friend of his. We were lucky to work…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Marcia Ball

I couldn’t tell you about my first encounter with Margaret. It just seems like we were on the scene at the same time. I saw her performing with the fun girls and I always saw her writing. She’s a music writer who writes to enlighten. That’s what built the scene, telling the stories. She’s always…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Jon Dee Graham

You have to understand, Margaret was in the middle of any and everything interesting that went down. In fact, Margaret was always there, though it’s hard to pin down the “when” of meeting. It was at Raul’s for sure, and it was at a Skunks show, so it must have been late 1978. I remember…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Patricia Vonne

She was a trailblazer and a powerhouse at The Austin Chronicle and a spearhead at the Austin Music Awards for bringing recognition to local indie artists. She was always generous with album reviews and help and support. We met at a musical function with her brother and my brother, a family connection. By request of…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Jason McMaster

The first time I met Margaret was at a battle of the bands that Watchtower played at Steamboat when it was on Sixth Street. She was one of the judges. Her and Billy Gibbons were hanging out. Early on, heavy metal wasn’t recognized much locally in a Fender town. By the time Watchtower was putting…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Lou Ann Barton

I met Margaret when I started working with the [Fabulous] Thunderbirds. She was 20, so I was 20, ’cause we’re the same age. This was when Antone’s opened in 1975. I didn’t know anyone in that crowd, really. I knew the guys. Angela Strehli, Margaret Moser, Susan Antone, and Diana Ray were the first four…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Emily Gimble

I first met Margaret at the Austin Music Awards, but the first time I remember hearing her name was when I was 19 and my dad and grandpa and I did a record together called A Case of the Gimbles. It was us trying to record together just to have an album to enjoy. I…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Monte Warden

Margaret has given me two careers. She started my career as the first person to write about me. She was the only reason that [manager] Carlyne Majer ever heard about me. She’s the only reason the guys from Rank & File ever heard of me. Then, after I’d transitioned to just writing songs and making…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Ray Benson

I remember meeting Margaret at the Soap Creek Saloon on a 10-cent tequila night. That musta been 1975 or ‘6. We started talking and she mentioned how much she liked Bob Wills’ music. Never thought that line worked for me, but I was impressed. She, along with a bunch of us aging, physically hurtin’ senior…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Warren Hood

Margaret and my dad [Champ Hood] knew each other, and since I was going to my dad’s shows since I was 5, we probably met then. She watched me grow up, start playing, then do my own thing. She’s always treated me like we were best friends. She’d see me and say, “Warren, it’s so…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Lucinda Williams

The thing that happens when you get older as a woman is that other women are having babies – just because of the fact we’re women and can have babies. So those choices come up, and a lot of women’s lives take a different turn. Meanwhile, I’m still hanging out and drinking in bars and…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Alice Berry

I credit Margaret for getting the name of our band out to the Clash, which led to us opening up for them on the second night at City Coliseum in 1982. She was going around town with Stuart Weintraub, their manager at the time, and they saw the band I was singing with, the Trouble…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Tamir Kalifa

In so many ways, Margaret was a driving force behind Mother Falcon. In the early days, it wasn’t uncommon for the music world to scoff at a band of 17 musicians, and the logistical challenges that would make it difficult to take us seriously. From the beginning, Margaret’s attention provided us with a vital dose…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Chris Layton

I was at Antone’s when I first saw Hurricane Margaret blow in, Sixth and Brazos, 1979. I don’t remember exactly who she was there to talk to, but I remember taking note of her poise and confidence. When she left that day, I asked, “What does she do?” The answer that came back was “Everything.”…

Margaret Moser Tribute: John Cale

The early days of my love affair with Austin – those days when my band and I roamed the hinterlands of Oklahoma DRIVING WEST in an Econoline van packed with sleepy, angry musicians and their gear – we still had NYC in our back pockets. This Welsh boy, now familiar with the 24-hour mania of…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Barbara K

I love Margaret. I feel very deeply about her. The fact that she writes about music, which is a really hard thing to do, is significant in that she’s so passionate about it and the power of music for fixing things and opening hearts. I came to Austin in ’84, and she played a big…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Shawn & Shandon Sahm

Shawn: Soap Creek Saloon was the Sahm kids’ day care center. We used to try and charge Margaret a quarter to park there. We were Neanderthal crazy hippie kids and we were all trying to groove just as hard as the adults were. She looked after us. I don’t call it motherly, but it was…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Alvin Crow

[At Natural Ear summer music camp], she took the orders and made sure the pizza rolls got delivered. They called her “The Lunch Lady.” They looked at her almost like a grandmotherly type. We thought that was funny [laughs]. She was kind. She’d listen to their problems. She didn’t really reveal that side that was…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Augie Meyers

I met her years ago when I had the Western Head Band. She wrote some nice article about me. She’d always call me, ask me about my new music. She was into music. You don’t see club owners who are into music anymore. They’re into selling booze. You can’t replace Margaret. There’s no more people…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Larry Seaman

I met Margaret in ’77, but we really got to know each other at Raul’s. She was a huge music fan and she knew what she was talking about. Rivalries and intrigue all developed as the scene got bigger and Margaret was right in the thick of that. She was a sassy one. Of course…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Joe Doerr

It was 1983 and I was the new kid in town – not really a member of the LeRoi Brothers at that point even though my brother Steve [Doerr] and Mike Buck were campaigning for me to be a permanent member. I wasn’t sure I wanted to step into that world at all. Infamously, [guitarist]…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Eve Monsees

I first saw her name in the paper. When I started learning to play music, I always read her column. I was drawn to the way she wrote and she was interested in the things I was interested in: roots and blues music, younger artists. She was the window into this world I first became…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Joe Ely

There’s so many stories of Margaret. I met her back even before the Chronicle was invented, back in the old Austin Sun days. I was living in Lubbock at the time, but was playing Austin a lot in the late Seventies. Wherever there was music playing, you would see Margaret and [local welcoming committee] the…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Derek O’Brien

Margaret’s always been around. She was everywhere and doing everything. And it was all good. As the years went by, it dawned on me how much Margaret was into all the little obscure things, as well as the things that got a lot of attention. She has to be the biggest Antone’s supporter of all…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Roky Erickson

I first met Margaret at St. David’s church. I would go to church and come out to get coffee and cream, and she would be there, like she was supposed to be there. Right away I knew she was one of the nicest people I’d ever met. I liked it a lot when she started…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Rose Reyes

Margaret not only championed the rock, punk, and blues scenes. She was the leadership in Austin journalism that made sure women, Latinos, blacks, and youth weren’t overlooked. She truly believed we belonged and needed to be recognized for our important contributions. She put four Latinas on the cover of the Chronicle, myself included. She covered…

Rude Mechs on the Move

Having left the Off Center, the theatre company is now planning to #crushAustin in all 10 council districts and opening new studios Downtown

Margaret Moser Tribute: Alejandro Escovedo

It was 1980, 1981, when Rank & File first came to Austin. Margaret was there, Lester Bangs was there. That was when we first met. It was my introduction to an Austin that was very community-minded and had all these brilliant, smart, sharp people being really wild and crazy and having as much fun as…

Soccer Watch

Final reminder: The Austin Soccer Founda­tion’s 2017 Awards Banquet is tonight, Thu., June 29, at the South Congress Hotel. It’s a great group; get more info and $100 tickets at www.austinsoccerfoundation.org. San Antonio FC lost their undefeated record with a 1-0 loss Saturday in Colorado Springs. They’re at the Sacramento Republic this Sat., July 1,…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Rosie Flores

Margaret always made me feel like I was important, which is hard to find nowadays. She would say, “You are one of the earliest women that played rock & roll!” She said, “You were one of the first all-female country rock bands to ever come out [Screamin’ Sirens].” In 1968, I came down from California…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Charlie Sexton

Margaret was always the whole of the action. It was never just one thing, and you never knew what it would be. I’ve been traveling so much, for so many years, and certain things have really picked up speed as far as buildings disappearing and people disappearing. Suddenly, I’ll come back and something isn’t there,…

Mr. Smarty Pants Knows

Princeton did not accept women in graduate physics until 1971, graduate astronomy until 1975, and graduate math until 1976. You can’t recycle Kool-Aid packets. According to New York magazine, last year on Father’s Day, searches for “dad” and “daddy” on the internet porn site Pornhub went up 1,361%. Of that figure, women were 96% more…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Gary Floyd

Margaret was one of those people who, in the ‘real Gary’ headspace, was always there. She was an intricate part of the scene from the very beginning. In The Dicks From Texas [documentary], I remember Margaret saying she used to work at the co-op when I worked there, sporting the Mao badge I used to…

Margaret Moser Tribute: Jeff Smith

I’ve never identified Margaret with one act or scene. That’s one of the great things about her. She finds a way to express fandom and advocate for a wide variety of artists from disparate genres within a journalistic context. She definitely found her initial passion as a writer in the Raul’s scene. The late Seventies…


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