After decades of neglect, could San Antonio become a live-music capital again?

Pick a day. Any day. Check out what bands are coming to, say, Austin. Then look to see what other cities they’ll be visiting. Most won’t be coming to San Antonio. They’ll go to Austin, Houston, Dallas. Even Edinburg. But SA? No way.

England’s Yuck played Austin, Dallas, Houston, and even Chapel Hill, N.C. No SA.

Penguin Prison went to Austin, Dallas, and Houston.

Matt White? Austin and Dallas.

Moondogies? Austin and Dallas; same as Destroyer.

Seattle’s The Head and The Heart prefer the triple treat: Austin, Houston, and Dallas. Fuck San Anto.

There are exceptions, of course. We Came As Romans put San Antonio on their to-do list. Mexico’s rock powerhouse Zoé hit SA’s Club Río last week. And Santana regularly plays both Austin and SA. As do the Misfits.

Just when you start feeling better about things, you read that the Robert Johnson Big Head Blues Club tour headed by Big Head Todd & The Monsters’ Todd Park Mohr went to Dallas and Austin but skipped the very city where Johnson recorded 16 of his 42 songs, arguably the most important recordings in the history of blues.

Worst of all: Arcade Fire played Austin, Houston, and Dallas earlier this year, and will return to Austin for Austin City Limits on September 18. Screw San Anto. The South By Southwest spill-over phenomenon won’t be happening then — most of ACL bands won’t be coming to SA.

Some say there are not enough people in San Antonio for Arcade Fire. Really? The seventh largest city in the U.S. doesn’t have enough people to see one of the best-loved bands in the world? We’re lamer than I thought. Perhaps we’ve been a “secondary market” operating in Austin’s shadow for too long. Or maybe, as some think, our promoters are just too cheap and lazy.

“Secondary markets have secondary-minded people, while primary markets have primary-minded people,” said a national booking agent from a major L.A. firm who asked to remain anonymous. “Almost every time I’m booking a tour, it’s easier to get Austin to react than it is San Antonio. It’s much easier to get a quality offer in Austin.”

Better venues with more money means “a better class of promoters,” he said. Better promoters put pressure on the clubs to up their game. “And the cycle grows.”

Austin, the L.A. promoter continued, “represents a number of large-scale festivals. Conversely, there are no major festivals in San Antonio that are on my radar.”

 

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It wasn’t always this way. Margaret Moser, long-time music writer for the Austin Chronicle, keeps at her desk a poster from 1969 that says it all. It features a cartoon drawing of the state of Texas as a woman holding two men labeled “San Antonio” and “Austin.” It reads: “Open Air Concert, Sunday, September 21. Austin and San Antonio are getting together at the Sunken Gardens Theater. From Austin — The New Atlantis and Plymouth Rock. From San Antonio — Virgil Foxx and Doobey.”

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