Franklin Delano Hendrix: Has an obvious ring to it, doesn't it? Eric "Emo" Hartman had it too, back in May 1992 at the corner of Sixth Street and Red River. By the new millennium, Hendrix, the current owner of Austin's vaunted Emo's, wasn't about to rebrand the newly acquired home of "alternative lounging" to a more presidential "Delano's" ("FDR's?" "FDH's?"), so he expanded, eventually bringing the Emo's empire to 22,000 square feet at the red-and-blue heart of Austin's wellspring. Such fertile native soil could scarcely be ceded to a better music baron. Hendrix's relaxed Southern bonhomie originates from Charleston, S.C., but as one of the Lone Star State's adopted sons – an Air Force brat – he landed in the Texas state capital in ample time to attend high school in Del Valle and have his once-long hair blown back by acts such as the Clash and Lynyrd Skynyrd at the Armadillo World Headquarters. Used cars and 1980s River City real estate yielded enough for Hendrix to almost leverage another Austin outlaw hothouse, Soap Creek Saloon. His mother and only brother stuck around too, his sibling a filmmaker with long-term documentary ops at the universally renowned live music venue. "had money before I went into the bar business," laughs the sentry of Sixth and Red River on any night of a mondo Emo's show. "I found out what they mean by 'labor of love.'" That same labor is why Planet Rock loves Emo's. Now you know where to find the Live Music Capital's true seat of government.
