‘A good place for wild music’: New book tells story of punk music in Austin

“Rock ’n’ roll only taught me how to be cool, but punk rock made a man out of me,” writes Austin native Pat Blashill in Someday All The Adults Will Die! The Birth of Texas Punk, out Sept. 2 on University of Texas Press.

A writer, photographer and teacher now based in Austria, Blashill recounts how he fell in love with punk in the late ’70s at dingy Austin clubs like Raul’s. But the book isn’t just Blashill’s story — it’s an oral history constructed from the memories of more than 100 musicians and fans, including members of the Butthole Surfers, Rank & File and the Violators, whose guitarist, Kathy Valentine, would later join the Go-Go’s.

Despite “Texas” in the title and a few quotes from Dallas music-biz polyglot Jeff Liles, the book is mostly about Austin. Today, the capital city is “a disjointed mash-up of junkspace, ugly new houses, and the occasional spot of beauty and wonder,” Blashill writes. But back in the day, it “was a good place for wild music.”

Blashill will give a book presentation Friday at the Wild Detectives, and he invites anyone from the early days of Dallas punk to come and share their stories.

Details

7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 29, at the Wild Detectives, 314 W. Eighth St., Dallas. Free. Thewilddetectives.com.

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