The Corner of Red River and Seventh

From the outside it does not look like much.  Band posters and abandoned staples cover the outer walls, and a simple circular sign hangs above the red double doors informing pedestrians of the club they have reached.  However, once you step inside, you’ll know that, with its perfectly fitting grungy appearance, variety of music genres, and friendly staff, the Red 7 is a great place to experience some equally great music.

            Behind the blood red doors, it is dark, day or night.  One of the few light sources comes from the stage, which is elevated about three feet off the ground. The backdrop for the stage is the words “Red 7” written in a faux chipped lettering with red paint. Fluorescent Camel™ cigarette and Budweiser™ beer signs emit a low purple glow from the walls.  Alongside these signs, band poster after band poster dangle, and, similar to the exterior, discarded staples poke out from previous posters.  Some parts of the walls bear no posters, but these spaces are not blank.  These spaces are filled with graffiti. Black Sharpie™ words, drawings, and all sorts of profanities litter the place from the floor to the walls to the doors, and even on the bar, at which I stand watching the ‘80s flick Ghost with some of the Red 7 employees. Almost all, the guys wear black band shirts and cargo shorts, have numerous tattoos and piercings, smoke cigarettes, and have either long, unruly hair or a slick shaved head. 

After looking around and realizing that I am the only female in sight, intimidation flashes through my mind, but that soon fades away when I find out that these are genuinely friendly guys.  They ask me if I’m hungry, if I want to change the movie to “something other than this s**t,” and all of them are curious as to why I am here. After learning I am waiting for General Manager Jared Cannon, they all start in with their own witty banter about Jared.

            “Jared’s always late!”

            “He might never come in today.”

“Don’t worry, if that a** hole doesn’t show up, I’ll do the interview with you.”

            As I wait, Bleed the Sky, a band performing later in the night, arrives and starts to set up gear on the stage.  This is the beginning of the most familiar part of the Red 7:  the actual show.   Bleed the Sky is the typical hardcore band wearing all black, long hair, piercings, tattoos, all the guys are in their late 20s, and the audience will be very similar.  However not all bands and audiences at the Red 7 share these qualities. A week earlier a band under the name Edison Chair played a show at Red 7.  This band was taking advantage of the fact that the Red 7 is an underage club, and all the members of Edison Chair are in their junior year of high school.  As a result of this, the audience teems with mostly of high school kids.  As the band starts to play covers of The Strokes, The Vines, and some of their own originals, the crowd gathers around the stage in the small, dark, tobacco-scented room.  After a few songs, I head to the bar to get a Monster, and there I am met by more friendliness from the employees.  My request for a Monster is turned down because the bar does not carry the brand, but after seeing the disappointment on my face, the bar tender hands me a Jimi Hendrix energy drink.  “It’s on the house,” he assures me.  The drink tastes like carbonated grape Kool-Aid, but it’s good.

            Back at the bar, Jared shows up at about 7:30 p.m. with a brown paper bag full of food.  I watch as he sets up a table and from the bag pulls out lasagna, peas, two pastas (“one with tomatoes and one without tomatoes for picky people”), and cookies.  Employees and musicians crowd around the table to dig in, and then sit around the bar to enjoy their “family” dinner.  One of the guys offers me some food, but after thinking about it for a second, I turn down his offer.  I would feel so guilty taking food from these starving musicians, when back on campus I have a huge meal plan I have barely touched. When Jared finishes his preparation duties, he turns to me. “Ready?”

            We go out to the back patio that is also used to host shows.  The patio looks pretty much the same as the rest of the building with a similar décor of weathered posters, rusty staples, and graffiti.  The biggest difference is the set up of the stage.  Compared to the inside, the outside stage has a more DIY look about it:  wires run through tree branches, the stage looks shaky and thrown together, and random mismatched chairs are scattered across the cement.  But, today the backdrop for the stage is getting a fresh paint job.  The painter, a tall, skinny man with dreadlocks tied back in a colorful bandanna, lip-syncs to whatever song is on his iPod.  He shouts to Jared that the paint will be dry before the first show of the night, and goes back to painting the words “Red 7” in red and yellow paint.

            One regular for the outside stage is the hardcore band The Cabaret.  Another underage band, The Cabaret draws people of all ages and all styles.  At any given show, you can see a wide array of guys in girl pants, black clothing, tattoos, piercings, band shirts, American Apparel, straightened “emo” hair, and bandannas--but also a few polo shirts.  However, as soon as the music starts, everyone rushes the stage and simultaneously starts one big mosh pit.  The combination of the lead singer’s screams, the guitar riffs, and the kids hardcore two stepping and moshing creates one heck of a show.

Back on the patio, Jared pulls up two rickety and decrepit chairs for us, and I sit down cautiously, half worried the chair is going to collapse. We begin.  The history of the Red 7 begins exactly two years ago this September.  Before the club, the building housed a variety of buildings including a salsa club, hip-hop club, and even a home for raves.  Nowadays the club focuses on mainly punk, metal, hardcore, and the occasional indie rock band.  Of these genres, a few big names have rocked the two stages including the likes of NOFX, Hatebreed, At All Cost, Between the Buried and Me, Dead To Fall, The Audition, Four Letter Lie, Hot Water Music, and many others. 

To make all of these bands sound as good as they truly are, the Red 7 has invested in some pretty heavy-duty sound equipment.  The most prominent piece of technology is a thirty-two-channel soundboard.  “It’s awesome,” Jared remarks.

Maybe a soundboard can be considered “awesome,” but what I think would be even more awesome is a good story.  After working at the Red 7 for about two years, Jared I figure has seen loads of story-worthy events, and boy, am I right.

“There was this one Cabaret show,” Jared recalls as he rubs his unshaven face in thought.  “Some kid kept kicking people and wouldn’t stop, so I physically picked him up and threw him out.  When we got outside of the club, I smacked him like a girl smacks a boy, and he started crying.”  He finishes his story with a good chuckle.

At the end of the interview we stand up, shake hands, and I thank him for his time.  I could not be more grateful the chair did not collapse that whole time, but there was still one question lingering in the back of my mind.  As a native Austinite and regular concert goer, my curiosity led me to one last thing:  the SXSW line up. 

With a sigh disappointment, Jared says, “It’s too early to know yet.  You’ll have to come back and find out.  All I know is it’ll be good.”

Edison Chair: Martin Aker, Wes Armstrong and Nathan Thrash

Click on Martin or Nathan's faces to learn more about the band.