Owner John Kunz inside Waterloo Records, 2015 (Photo by John Anderson)
Doyle Bramhall II glanced over his shoulder and gave me a piercing look. Queued up at the vinyl room register in Waterloo Records, I flashed back to my fourth day in Texas: Fourth of July, 1992. Crossing over through El Paso 72 hours earlier, this native San Franciscan rolled into San Antonio in an un-air-conditioned Datsun 280ZX only to discover abuelita hospitalized and a musical christening scheduled for historic Hemisfair Park via an Alamo City/Austin dual commemoration, Freedom Fest: Arc Angels, Stray Cats, Cheap Trick, Leon Russell, Bruce Hornsby & the Range. Kicking about in front of the towering wooden stage, I peered between the slats to find Bramhall staring me straight in the eye. He winked. This time, decades later, a dark countenance across his face read easily enough: “Do I know you?”
John Kunz, by contrast, rarely wears anything but curiosity and a grin on his beardy mug, and last Friday, April 1, Waterloo’s 40th anniversary, the store’s first and foremost greeter lit up his black ensemble like Independence Day. Watching bard eternal Ray Wylie Hubbard enthrall an in-store assembly for the first time in two years, he stared intently as hardcore live music capitalists buzzed around him as giddy as guests at a wedding. Debuting at 221 S. Lamar in 1982, Austin’s Smithsonian library of sound relocated seven years later. Kunz pointed down at the floor, silently, “Right here.” Thirty-three years right there, smack-dab at Sixth & Lamar. Their vinyl annex where Lululemon now sits ran 1990-93, followed by Waterloo’s video rental venture in the same space, 1993-2008. “Let’s talk after Ray Wylie,” turned back the store’s owner.
“‘Ello, this is Robert.” After back-to-back ACL Live blowouts, I’d met the legendary ex-local twice, once backstage and again the following night upstairs in a roomful of very wealthy fans. Exiting the meet and greet, the lion and his pride moved quickly down a hall wherein my conduit turned around, gave me the nod, and I moved in for the pitch – favor for a son of Skip Spence. When my cell vibrated an unknown number the next morning at an Austin institution that grew up alongside Kunz and crew, I answered on maybe the last ring while I edited the Chronicle‘s South by Southwest Music wrap-up. For 10 minutes, the frontman for the second-biggest English quartet of all time sing-songed an unprompted monologue of the mundane, signing off finally with words repeated here in one fashion or another by a singular chorus of native musicians, statesmen, and poets as embodied by one Robert Anthony Plant: “I’m off to Waterloo Records, ta-ta.”– Raoul Hernandez
Photo by Zeke Barbaro
U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett
“Waterloo Records has served as a cornerstone – as a venue, a hub, and so much more – of the Austin music …….