TCB

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FADE TO BLACK

Management announced last week that the Back Room, one of Austin's longest-running live-music venues, will go dark July 29, four months shy of its 33rd anniversary. The property, including the adjacent Rivertowne Mall, has been sold to an unnamed developer, general manager Sean McCarthy said Tuesday. "I'm sure something this big has been in the works for a couple of years," added McCarthy, a 16-year employee of the club who said he learned the news last Thursday.

The Back Room opened in November 1973 in what is now the ThunderCloud Subs at 2021 E. Riverside, and moved into its current location, 2015 E. Riverside, in the late Seventies. A SXSW venue every year since the conference's inception, it originally featured local folk and blues acts and began doing so again when its outdoor beer garden opened last fall. In the Eighties, it hosted an eclectic array of roadshows including Iggy Pop, Jane's Addiction, Steve Earle, and Warren Zevon.

Shortly thereafter, the success of major-label Austin bands Dangerous Toys and Pariah helped the club become best-known as the city's heavy-metal headquarters, a reputation it has more or less maintained ever since. Most recently, the Back Room found success with local and regional hip-hop shows, but according to McCarthy, clubs that confine themselves to one or two genres are rapidly becoming obsolete.

"If you're not mixing it up in your bar, you're not going to make it right now," he said. "You've really got to get out and search for everything."

Nevertheless, McCarthy said business at the Back Room had been "fantastic," and even after Austin's smoking ban took effect last September, the club had increased its sales every month until April, when increased gas prices and TABC scrutiny, among other factors, caused an industrywide downturn.

"The bottom dropped out for everybody," he said. "You're talking restaurants and everything. Entertainment dollars aren't being spent anymore. It's come back a little [since then], but not full force."

McCarthy said he hoped the Back Room's bands would land at the Red Eyed Fly; his son James Dean, who has been booking the weekly hip-hop shows, wasn't sure where those would end up. The Back Room's closing marks the end of a chapter not only in Austin's musical history, but also for its largely Hispanic, working-class neighborhood, now the focal point of the Eastside's ongoing gentrification. McCarthy said he thought it would be unrecognizable in a few years' time.

"With Town Lake sitting right there, it's one of the prettiest spots in town," he said. "My understanding is that everything is coming down around here."