You can freeze all post-
mortems: although the Austin Outhouse was given `til June 30th to reside in its
current location at 3510 Guadalupe, Outhouse owner
Chuck Lamb was happy to report last Thursday that the blue collar bar that
allowed everyone from punk bands to Herman The German to blast its license
plate-covered walls was given another month before they’d have to evacuate the
premises.
“Well, right now I’ve got a month extension `til July 31, which I paid
dearly for, actually!” laughs Lamb, who has been associated with the bar
since its pre-Outhouse days as the Bentwood Tavern. “And I’m lookin’ for a
place.”
The exact reasons for the forced relocation are not easily discussed by Lamb.
“It has to do with my landlord. Supposedly, Flamingo’s Automotive was gonna
expand in there, but that’s not their exact wish, I don’t think. I talked to
them. It’s like, he came to them, he told them that he’s had offers for the
whole building, and they could either take the whole building or lose their
half. I asked them if they’d be willing to sublease to me, and they said they
would. But once again, the landlord said he wouldn’t let them do it.
“Like I say, it’s the owner that wants me out!” chuckles Lamb, an amiable man
with an easy laugh. “Y’know, I’ve been there a long time. We’ve just passed 14
years.”
Lamb has gone from Bentwood Tavern employee to Outhouse manager to part-owner
to owner to partner and back to owner in his 16 years at 3510 Guadalupe. Of the
Outhouse’s history, Lamb remembers, “These guys bought out the Bentwood, and
(Lamb and Howie, the location’s bar tender of 21 years) were gonna work for the
guy that owned the Bentwood. he had a place called the Rutledge Inn down the
street, and it did open right when the building closed. The guys that opened
the Outhouse wanted to have a bar, but they didn’t know anything about the bar
business. At any rate, they had some bikers that lived in one of their rent
houses that they got to run it, and it ended up full of bikers and they were
scared to go in there. A month later, they had a meeting with me and hired me
to take over and get rid of all the bikers. I hired Howie, and it went from
there. I’ve been the sole owner since about `84.”
In recent years, one of the cooler aspects of this eccentric corner taproom
with its bartenders who ask bands to turn down (unless they draw a crowd) has
been its willingness to book off-center acts ranging from Thighmaster to the
Motards (who played one of their earliest shows there at an open mike). Lamb
says the Outhouse’s booking policy has “always been a kinda grassroots deal
where we give everybody a shot. We’re eclectic or whatever, y’know?” he laughs.
“We’ve kinda gone with the scene a little bit. When the blues was real big, we
had blues bands four or five nights out of the week. There was a lotta blues
bands in town. I believe in what we do. This town needs honky tonks that aren’t
all down on Sixth Street, that do that. We’ve had some big deals. I’m trying to
keep it going, but it doesn’t [look] like we’re gonna keep it going there.”
Pocket FishRmen singer Brant Bingamon, calling from Madison, WI, during the
FishRmen’s current tour, recalls his band opening the Outhouse doors for
Austin’s punks and weirdrock contingent alike (a claim Lamb neither confirms
nor denies, although he admits “they were one of the first of the big ones to
play there”).
“The last time the Outhouse was fixing to crash,” says Bingamon, “I went down
there and talked to them. At that point, it was just a biker bar or had just
stopped being a biker bar, something like that. Anyways, no college kids ever
played there. So, we went in and I asked him if we could play, and they let us
play on a Wednesday night. And there were tons of people in there that
night! Like 15 people or something on a Wednesday. That was good, but it’s not
like we’re the ones that allowed him to continue to do that. For some reason
they didn’t actually close down, and from then on, we had our foot in the door
there. Then all these other bands like ST-37 tried to jump in and he kinda
closed the door on them!” he laughs. “Which was sad, but other bands
like Texas Instruments were kinda able [to] make that a place to play.”
“A lotta clubs have closed in Austin,” remarks Texas Instruments bassist Ron
marks, whose band has played at the Outhouse every month since 1989 (“unless
we’ve been on the road”). “A lotta clubs that were real important to us have
closed. But (the Outhouse) was a great one because they let the bands pretty
much put the shows together, and they let the bands keep most of the door. So,
for us, it was a real sustaining gig. And it was always the crowds were – and are! I shouldn’t say `were’ – they know you real well, they know us real well. It gives us a place where we
can play stuff that maybe we’re brand new on, or we’re not sure how it’s gonna
go over. We can always see how things are gonna work there. And they
sell Shiner Premium, which is rarer ad rarer!”
Chuck Lamb, for one, is hoping to continue to sell Shiner Premium to Ron Marks
or anyone else who wants it. Just not at 3510 Guadalupe.
“I’m trying real hard,” he says. “I’ve got some real estate people working on
it, and anybody that comes in, I’m tellin’ `em, `If you see a place that looks
feasible, let me know.’ I am looking, but it’s not the easiest thing in the
world, I can tell ya. Like I told somebody, it really is hard to move out of a
place you like. But in Austin, it’s hard to find a place. The city, they really
want you down there in the zone. It doesn’t have to be Sixth Street, but it’s
kinda like MLK to the river, then the interstate to Lamar. That’s the area
where they want all of it. So, it’s hard to find a place that’s zoned right
that you can get into outside of that. But I’m trying. I’m gonna come up with
something, I hope.”
Concurring with Lamb, Ron Marks remarks, “I live down here by Jovita’s, which
is a good neighborhood live music venue, but there just aren’t very many
neighborhood live music venues anymore of any kind. It seems like the City’s
trying to suppress them or something, push `em all into one area, like all the
music would be in the Sixth Street area. I’m not crazy about that. One of the
things that made the Beach Cabaret a great place was that it was a neighborhood
joint. People could stagger home. We like that about the Outhouse.”n
This article appears in June 30 • 1995 and June 30 • 1995 (Cover).