Its the Live Music Capital of the World. 1069 lives in Austin need I say more. Ok, I will say more. Austin has one of the coolest music scenes on the planet.
Yeah; some people seem to doubt this, for some reason. I've mentioned it before.
It really does, though.
Or
did, back in the 80s and 90s. It's become pretty commercial, what with SxSW.
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Austin Texas, Why Is Austin Weird?
keep austin weird
We've tried to stay true to the "Keep Austin Weird" motto, but I think we've failed, to some extent.
When I was born, in the 70s, Austin was still basically a large college town.
In the past 30-odd years, the metro area's population has swollen to over a million and a half people.
The original, funky, offbeat, liberal "spirit of Austin" (in my opinion) is still alive and intact, but it's now confined to a few square miles of South Central Austin, while all around us, surrounding us on every side, a bland, flavorless, generic metroplex has grown like walls of thorns.
"Keep Austin Weird" now basically serves two functions; on the one hand, it's a sort of battlecry/ secret code for "Keep the original spirit of our community intact/ to hell with the newcomers/ stay liberal, think green, shop local, support local live music, etc"
and, in an ironic twist of fate, it's also become a tourist slogan (even as it's used as an
anti-tourist/ anti-commercialism/ don't-sell-out rallying cry).
If you see a guy wearing a "Keep Austin Weird" teeshirt, a "Keep Austin Weird" button on his backpack, a "Keep Austin Weird" hat and a "Keep Austin Weird" bumper sticker on his SUV, chances are he just moved here last month.
Meanwhile the native Austinites are riding bikes and wearing teeshirts that say "Nutty Gringo" or "78704" (the 'hip' urban zip code; there's a grungy cachet attached to living in it).