In his book, Joe Nick Patoski delves into the city’s creative heart and traces Austin’s transition over the past fifty years from funky small city to the global metropolis of international importance it is today, keeping on institutions ranging from the Armadillo World Headquarters, Austin City Limits, Whole Foods Market, the Austin Film Society, Esther’s Follies, Antone’s, Liberty Lunch, Capital Factory and the Cathedral of Junk, and the people who created them. “Austin to ATX” answers the questions: How did it get so weird? Why is it called the People’s Republic of Austin? Who declared Austin the Live Music Capital of the World? What’s the dang deal with moontowers and bats? How did the worldwide phenomenon of women’s roller derby get hatched in a Sixth Street bar? And why do locals always tell you that you got here two years too late?
“‘Austin to ATX’ is a deep dive into alternative Austin through the lens of the outsiders, musicians, free thinkers, artists and entrepreneurs who shaped the city,” said Joe Nick Patoski. “Creatives, drawn by Austin’s counterculture and music scene in the 1970s, developed communities and institutions that have led to film, food and tech becoming cornerstones of the modern, forward-thinking city Austin is today.”
An eclectic mix of innovative outsiders are profiled in “Austin to ATX,” including Stephen Harrigan, Willie Nelson, Terry Lickona, Marcia Ball, Kenneth Threadgill, Eddie Wilson, Rick Linklater, Shannon Sedwick, Richard Garriott, Heather Brunner, Patty Lang Fair, John Mackey, Liz Lambert, Clifford Antone, Steve Wertheimer, Aaron Franklin, Merlin Tuttle, April Ritzenthaler, Roland Swenson, Louis Black, Daniel Johnston, Nick Barbaro, Dewey Winburne, Hugh Forrest, Nancy Schafer, Robert Rodriguez, Elizabeth Avellan, Vince Hannemann, Cecilia Balli, John Mueller and Joanna Wu.
