On Friday, close to 75,000 people will pack Zilker Park for the Austin City Limits Music Festival weekend two. ACL\u2019s emergence as a premiere music festival, alongside South by Southwest\u2019s international explosion, demonstrates Austin\u2019s evolution from outsider hub to global music powerhouse. Before the city had starpower, though, it had Woodshock.<\/p>\n
After an unhinged first iteration at Waterloo Park in 1981, Woodshock\u2019s attendance grew through the early 80s, becoming a crossroads for the disparate sounds that populated Austin\u2019s DIY punk scene. The 1985 edition at Hurlbut Ranch in Dripping Springs became iconic thanks to an experimental documentary made by \u201cDazed and Confused\u201d director Richard Linklater, the young filmmaker capturing the all-night festival\u2019s controlled chaos with disorienting shots of its makeshift outdoor stage and cliff jumpers splashing into a nearby swimming hole.<\/p>\n
Most bands played for free at Woodshock; the $5 cover fee went to a small production budget that organizer Jeff Smith compared to the cost of 100 beers at ACL. In the 1985 installment, Smith and his country-punk crossover band, the Hickoids, played a delirious sunrise set.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of like the original Woodstock,\u201d said Smith, who spent a few years at UT before dropping out to tour with the Hickoids. \u201cIf you remember it, you weren\u2019t there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith arrived at UT near the height of the Texas punk boom, which had found a home in Austin. \u00a0After leaving California for UT in 1982, Poison 13 guitarist Bill Anderson (RTF, \u201885) said Austin provided an anything-goes alternative to the exclusive macho energy that defined the Southern California punk scene.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t necessarily a style of music,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cIt was more like an approach toward things. The DIY aspect of it, to me, was the most important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though Austin punks sounded aggressive, bands often wove absurd humor and earnest positivity into their message. UT alumna Deb Pastor, who took countless photos at punk shows, including Woodshock, said beloved acts like the Big Boys added a soulful element.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey looked scary, but their music was all about love and friendship and good times, and you could dance to it,\u201d Pastor said.<\/p>\n
The Big Boys\u2019 local peers, including cult heroes like Daniel Johnston, The Butthole Surfers and Scratch Acid, filled most Woodshock lineups. 1985, however, brought influential visitors in the form of Seattle\u2019s U-Men and Sacramento\u2019s Tales of Terror, bands whose blend of heavy metal and hardcore punk influenced the grunge sound that took over early \u201890s mainstream airwaves.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a music writer who passed away a couple years ago named Michael Corcoran,\u201d Smith said. \u201cHe wrote an article claiming he saw the birth of grunge at Woodshock. I wouldn\u2019t necessarily say that\u2019s the exact case\u2026but that\u2019s where it was headed.\u201d<\/p>\n
After being forced out of Dripping Springs in 1987, Woodshock struggled to find a comparable venue, and the punk scene\u2019s gradual decline spelled the end for the festival. Smith made an \u201cill-advised\u201d revival attempt in 2001, and former Austin scenester Clay Allison\u2019s endeavor around 2022 also failed to measure up to the original.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had really no rules and no budget,\u201d Smith said. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty difficult to do anything on that basis nowadays.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Friday, close to 75,000 people will pack Zilker Park for the Austin City Limits Music Festival weekend…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-462847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}