Guero's Taco Bar

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Geuro's Taco Bar on South Congress in Austin is one of our favorite places to hang out. Good Tex/Mex food of course but especially fun on the weekend when the weather is fine. On the weekends they have live music in the afternoon under the live oaks in an area that had been used as a waiting area for those waiting for a table in the restaurant. These days it's just one of the better music and dance places in town. They also make fine margaritas which we really enjoy -- shaken, no salt please. It's always a busy spot.

An especially great treat for us happened on our last night in town. We had stopped in at "Home Slice" pizza across the street to pick up some pizza for our dinner. Only to discover that Joe Ely was playing live for KDRP radio at Guero's. It was a very cool night but a really great show. We only caught the last half hour but Joe was in fine form. Another instance where we ought to have been prepared and investigated ahead of time.

If you're visiting Austin Texas, check out Guero's and the scene on South Congress. When the music is playing it's a great place to be.

Here's a photo album.

Joe Ely, Guero's

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I've told this story before, but on the occasion of Joe's passing (December 2025) I'll tell it again. I've filed this in our blog on the day of the event.

On the last day of our winter retreat to Austin, Wednesday March 5, 2014, we loaded up our car (I'm not sure how we got all the gear in but we did) and headed up to the Little Longhorn Saloon on Burnet in north Austin. We were curious about this bar and hadn't found the opportunity to visit. It's famous for Sunday afternoon "Chicken Shit Bingo" (use your imagination) and hot nights where the band plays to a crowded dance floor. We didn't catch either of those but have high hopes for next year.

What we did catch that night was a smoking live show by Joe Ely at Guero's. We just happened onto that event. This was the best of all our music experiences -- the lucky happenstance of catching Joe Ely's live to radio KDRP at Geuro's on our last night in town was definitely "One for the Book". We were aware of the KDRP radio broadcasts but hadn't investigated who played at them (they're not listed in the Chronicle). We had stopped into a pizza joint across the street (Home Slice Pizza) and recognized Joe voice singing when we got out of the car. We dashed over and caught the last half hour of the set. We wish we had known before hand.

Joe had with him Warren Hood on violin and Jeff Plankenhorn on guitar. We were aware of who Joe was, and had several of his albums (our friend Pat was keen on Joe, Butch and Jimmie of the Flatlanders) but we had never had the opportunity to see him. This was the first time.

The album at left is pretty much all the pictures we took at the show.

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Ps. Radio station KDRP played a Special Texas Radio Live Archive with Joe Ely to honor Joe's passing in December of 2025. It's well worth a listen; I've cribbed it into my iTunes collection.

El Mercado

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The El Mercado is a Tex/Mex restaurant on South 1st Street a short bike ride from where we stayed while visiting Austin. There's another version of the El Mercado on Lavaca up by the University. Austin has lots of good Tex/Mex restaurants and the El Mercado is no exception but we were there for the music on "Mystery Mondays".

Mystery Mondays is a regular Monday event at the El Mercado hosted by Christine Albert. While we were there it was co-hosted with Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Every week they would have a "mystery guest" to accompany them and they'd play a couple of sets. Mostly an unrehearsed grab-bag of music shared by friends. And often they'd bring a friend out of the audience on stage to sing a few songs.

We stumbled onto this regular event when I saw a brief mention in the local newspaper. It's not advertised in the Chronicle, the local bible to what's happening. Apparently Christine Albert and Sarah Elizabeth Campbell had hosted a long running event of exactly this sort at Artz Ribs on Lamar (we happened to see Sarah at Artz many years ago). The regular Monday event moved to El Mercado when Artz closed a few years ago. Jimmie took over Sarah's role as cohost when she passed away in December of 2013 after a battle with cancer.

It's a fine music tradition on Monday nights. There's good food, if you're hungry. And the entrance is free -- they pass a tip jar. We enjoyed it so much we made it our regular Monday night event.

If you're in Austin, check out Monday Mystery nights at the El Mercado on South 1st. You will be pleasantly surprised.

Here's a photo album.

Strange Brew

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Strange Brew is a 7/24 coffee shop in a strip mall on Manchaca in South Austin (sort of way south Austin as it's south of Ben White) that happens to be one of the better venues for live music in the city. Kate and I went to several events during our winter stay in Austin and saw lots of acts. We like Strange Brew because it's the kind of place where people listen to music -- it's not a noisy bar like those on 6th St. downtown. But it does have beer and wine along with coffees and various sandwiches. Check out the photos in my Strange Brew Album.

The photo at left is Alejandro Escovedo (an east Austin original) and Rosie Flores (a San Antonio native) playing together at Strange Brew at a benefit concert for Alejandro's son-in-law Matt McCormick who lost his Onion Creek home in a flash flood late in 2013. This was one of the few events where we stayed up late. Often times we'd catch one of the early shows and be home in bed at a sensible time. There's often 4 shows each night starting at 4:00pm and ending by midnight. The benefit was an evening filled with many acts headlined by Alejandro and Rosie.

We had caught Rosie last year at a MapJam concert at the Scoot Inn in East Austin but didn't get to see much as the place was very crowded. For Matt McCormick benefit event we purchased tickets on line which gave us early access to good seating and several raffle tickets. We had front row seats and got some good pictures of many of the acts. One of the best tunes at the concert was the duet by Alejandro and Rosie of "Goodbye Again" a song Rosie made famous as a duet with Dave Alvin on the 1994 "King of California" album. Alejandro also sang a smoking version of the Rolling Stones "Beast of Burden" which has been posted on YouTube.

It was an evening of great acts. One that stood out was Kacy Crowley with Will Knaak on guitar. We saw them last year and she did some of the same songs – "A Funeral for Spring". He did a great song "Take It All Away" and has just put out a record that he funded through crowd sourcing -- we've contributed and hope to see the CD soon.

We caught John Imnon several times at Strange Brew. He's a guy about our age who had played with Jerry Jeff, Marcia Ball and various others. Most of his career as a sideman but during February he was doing an early gig at Strange Brew to try out as a front man. We caught that act twice. The first time his set ended when he said that was all the songs he knew but that he would try to learn a new one each week! I'm not sure how well that went. He's well respected and we saw him another time with Jimmie Lafave.

On Valentine's day, when I was not at all well, we saw Butch Hancock at Strange Brew (with his son who looked about 14-15 noodling on the electric guitar, a guy playing fiddle (whose name we didn't catch) and Bob Livingston  (who looks a bit like Phillip Hoffman Seymour) on bass. Butch is one of the folks we really like to see and this year we caught him guesting several times at the El Mercado on Mystery Mondays. It was another good show at Strange Brew and early in the evening. Butch did some favorites that he wrote ("If You Were a Bluebird", "Thank God for the Road" ) as well as the Townes Van Zandt classic "Pancho and Lefty"  Butch leads a birthday tribute to Townes every year at the Cactus on March 7 (Townes’ birthday) and we missed that again having to return home -- next year we should be able to catch it. We were right up close to the stage on the side where we have sat the previous times there and got some good pictures. He told some funny stories including one about bringing his jeep back from Mexico to Terlingua after the jeep had been impounded by "The Federales" for a couple of years. The show was over by 10:00pm – another band was coming on.

On Sunday March 2 we had several entertainment options for the afternoon – there was a Sarah Elizabeth Campbell (long time host of Mystery Mondays at the El Mercado) memorial in Kyle with music by Christine Albert and others but it’s about 30 miles south of Austin and was in a hall but still the weather was crappy. The Lost Gonzo Band (Jerry Jeff Walkers old band with John Imnon, Gary P Nunn, Bob Livingston, Lloyd Maines, etc.) was having one of their reunions at the South Austin brewery just south of Ben White between IH-35  and Congress but we had gone to check it out and couldn’t figure out how they would be able to fit everyone inside plus there would probably be a lot of standing for Kate's new knee. So we went to see Sam Baker and friends at Strange Brew. Sam Baker was recommended by a fellow who works the door at Strange Brew who we had bumped into at an El Mercado Mystery Monday event. Kate liked Sam Baker and his music a lot  and bought all 4 of his CDs. I was not so keen -- his music is more spoken word poetry than song but still there were some very nice songs. It was an entertaining evening and went from 6pm to 7:30 so the timing was good. We also bought the "Caldera" CD of one of the women who was playing with him – Raina Rose. Her music is very nice and reminds me a bit of Sara Harmer (the Canadian singer).

One of the odder stories about Strange Brew is a camera story. While I really like the place for music and how close you can get to the stage I do have to complain about the lighting -- it's very minimal and therefore very hard to get good natural lighting photography without a high ISO rating and fast lens. While I can push my camera pretty high on film speed (the Canon T4i can shoot at ISO 25,000) and I do have a short 50mm f1.8 standard lens I sometimes resort to using a flash have done so many times at Strange Brew. Others, who have way deeper pockets, come with very expensive fast zooms -- like the Canon 7-210 f2.8 L series. One night, while shooting pictures of Jimmy Lafave, I decided to shoot some flash pictures and was clamping on my Vivitar 285 flash (it's big, ugly and very powerful) when a photographer nearby came to me and said "You can't use that!". I am aware that performers don't like flashes in their face and do try to be unobtrusive. The place doesn't have a no flash policy -- there are lots of point and shoot flashes going off.

Gosh, there's lots more I could write about Strange Brew but suffice to say -- it's one of the nicer places we have found for live music in Austin and we kept coming back. If you're in Austin, do check it out.

[PS. Strange Brew is no more.]

Sam's Visit to Austin

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Our friend Sam came to visit us in Austin for a few days. We caught some music at Z-Tejas (Sam is a fan of Stephen Doster), Guero's (of course) and the Continental Club. We did some shopping on South Congress and we took her to Sway on South 1st for another great Thai lunch. Got a nice postcard photo with Kate and Sam under the "I Love You So Much" graffitti. We had fun, as always

This photo album shows our adventures.

[This is a repost from 2014 on Google+]

Austin Adventures with Cindy

Reg & Cindy at Saturday Market

Our friend Cindy, who has travelled with us many times over the years, came to visit us in Austin during our winter retreat from the snow in 2014. She came just after my birthday in February when, unfortunately, I was sick as a dog with a cold or flu. But we did have some fun and got to some events together -- check out the photo album.

She flew in for a few days; however, her arrival did not start well. We had the right flight number from Chicago but were at the airport a day early on Wednesday. So of course she wasn't on that flight and the front desk folks for the airline are really reluctant to tell you who was or was not on the flight. Back at our cottage we discovered our mistake and laughed it off.

But then the next day, a Thursday, Cindy wasn't on the flight and again we were left waiting at the airport. Back at the cottage we had some email and then a phone call with Cindy. Winter weather conditions in Detroit and Chicago meant that she missed her connection and wouldn't be arriving until late in the evening. Rather than make one more trip out to the airport we encouraged her to take a taxi and we went out for dinner at Guero's. She arrived at about 10:00pm -- I greeted her but went off to bed to nurse my cold. Kate and Cindy stayed up to all hours of the evening talking, drinking and having some quality time together.

Kate & Cindy - Lunch at Sway

Kate and Cindy had a lunch at Sway (modern Thai cuisine) which is one of our favorite restaurants in the area. It must have been a nice day as they ate outside on the patio. It's always a good lunch there and it's so convenient for us -- it's on South 1st very near, but across the road from, El Mercado (of Mystery Monday fame)

We then had an evening down town where we went to "Life After Lubbock" at the Stateside Paramount on Congress. That night Jaston Williams (of Greater Tuna fame) had Jimmie Dale Gilmore (who must have thought we were stalking him!) and Jo-Carol Pierce (who had been married to Jimmie Dale years ago in Lubbock). Jaston read some stories, Jo-Carol and Jimmie did some songs and they recalled their early days in Lubbock. Jo-Carol sang "Has God got us by the twat or what!" from "Bad Girls Upset by the Truth" (1996) -- we are fans and had even weaseled her phone number on a previous visit.

We went for drinks at the Driskill (Guy Clark lyrics: "Stayin' up all night at the Driskill Hotel, Ramblin' Jack and Mahan was cowboyed all to hell..") before the show where it was quite the noisy gathering of young people in cowboy boots and western wear – some in little dresses and big shoes. But we can’t complain as the drinks were less than $5 ($12.99 for 3) – a happy hour deal we tried to repeat another night with Sam and less success.

We walked down 6th Street to El Sol e La Luna (Kate walked about 6 blocks!) where we had half-price margaritas and appetizers -- we each ordered a quesadilla and I also ordered some jalapeno rellenos (Kate and Cindy didn't want to share their quesadillas with me -- bad mistake). The quesadillas were made with two huge flour tortillas with cheese and fillings in between. Each of them was the size of a large dinner plate! We barely ate half of them but will know better how much to order next time! One order would have been plenty, three orders was silly.

Kate's knee is much improved and she was able to comfortably walk 6th Street to the restaurant and back.

We took Cindy to the Saturday market in the morning (that's her and Reg in the photo at the top), toured around UTexas and drove by Franklin’sBBQ (voted best BBQ in all of America) in East Austin to have a look – the line-up went around the block! People were sitting on lawn chairs in the line with coolers, kids, Frisbees and having a good old social time waiting to get an order of BBQ. There was even a guy renting lawn chairs! The irony is that they only serve until the meat runs out so some of the people in line might not get anything.

We went to the Radisson to sit on the balcony looking over Town Lake and the Congress Street bridge (with the cool weather the famous bats were not expected). In part we dropped in so Cindy could see how much it had changed from when it was the Austin Crest when we were first here in 1990. Unfortunately they had renovated and no longer had a balcony. It was quite lovely bar and restaurant with floor to ceiling glass but we wanted to be outside. The only place we could think of with a view was Joe’sCrab Shack – where the food was not so exciting.

Afterwards, Reg was still pretty sick so he went home for a nap while Kate and Cindy went to Gueros to enjoy the music and so Cindy could look in a few shops on South Congress. It is a bit of a mad house on the streets and sidewalks on the weekend though so she didn’t do a lot of shopping.

We went to Barley Swine on South Lamar for dinner on Saturday to show Cindy some fine dining. We arrived early as we could not get a reservation for another month -- it's a popular, but very small spot. Fortunately there had been a cancellation so we got a table. We had been before last year but they now have a prix fixe menu ($70 for 13 courses (sic!)) – still smallish tapas sized portions for sharing but it was too much food and not all of it exceptional. Apparently, the meat dishes (quite frankly rabbit is not that interesting) were not that great – Kate had one or two dishes less than Reg and Cindy because she didn’t get the meat dishes but she got her own and didn’t have to share. There were far too many courses in this dinner. We got to the stage were we didn't want to even see another plate only to then have three (3!) dessert courses. If I were to make a suggestion it might be better if one were able to select dishes from the fixed presentation list. Even as a slow food dinner, we were there from 5:00 until 7:30, it was way too much.

That evening we went to see Ira Glass of "This American Life" at the Paramount itself (the Stateside is smaller and next door). No photos allowed so none taken.  It's essentially a one man show but he did have a couple of dancers with him. He's very funny and we really enjoyed the show where he talked about the radio show and how radio, especially "This American Life", has a unique perspective when telling stories. He's best described as quirky as are the stories on the show. It's a podcast we both enjoy.

Our seats were in the front row of the first balcony which had no leg room and a bar blocking the view (for $77 – we could have gone to see Kinky Friedman at the One-2-One (he's campaigning for office again) or Billy Joe Shaver at the White Horse had we known before we bought the tickets that they would be playing … or even Joe Ely in "Life after Lubbock" next door at the Stateside). Ira Glass was nevertheless really interesting and he had some interesting modern dancers as well.

Cindy flew back on Sunday. A short, but fun visit. Perhaps we can repeat it next year and I'll be in better shape for adventures.

#Austin

Hill Country Wine Tour

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Kate took over designated driver duties one day in February of 2014 during our vacation in Austin. It was a birthday present for me. We did a quick tour of some of the "Hill Country" wines in the Dripping Springs area just a short drive west of Austin. There's quite a few wineries between Austin and Frederiksburg, we visited three which where quite close to Austin. All were a pleasant surprise.

Driftwood Estates Vineyards is on a hillside with a a nice patio and a commanding view of the valley below. Duchman Winery has an attached Italian restaurant and makes fine wine on site for themselves and for others. The Salt Lick Winery has some very fine wines -- I was stunned by their version of a GSM (Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre -- the Cote de Rhone blend) which is made from grapes grown locally. While many are growing some grapes in the area lots bring in grapes grown in the Lubbock area.

The Salt Lick BBQ is a huge BBQ restaurant attached to the very small winery tasting room. It serves Texas BBQ in a rustic setting on rough hewn tables which you might share with others when things are really busy. They also serve out on a nice patio under the live oaks. And the "No Soft Drinks" rule means you'll enjoy the wine you purchased at the winery. I'm not sure, but I expect they have beer as well -- heck, it is Texas.

I really enjoyed my beef brisket BBQ at the Salt Lick. A huge serving (Texas sized of course) with a choice of sides. Then a dessert of pecan pie. Mmm... Mmm... ain't that Texas cooking something.

If you're ever in Austin it's well worth the short drive to the wineries around Dripping Springs (town motto: Just West of Weird). There's some good wines to try and do stop into the Salt Lick BBQ and tuck into some Texas cooking.

We'll be back for more next year!

Here's a photo album of our adventures.

[This is a repost from 2014 on Google +]