A Personal Account

Margaret Moser Goes Punk
a Randy's Rodeo exclusive by Randall Anthony

In the mid-70's, Margaret Moser was a dyed-in-the-wool blues-freak and nascent hippie stringing stories for the Austin Sun, a precursor of the Austin Chronicle (which she helped found and for which she still writes). Her appreciation for music was typically Texan - eclectic and synergistic in the tradition of Doug Sahm. Country music, Tex-Mex, and psychedelic rock commingled with the vibrant blues scene of which Moser and her groupie troupe, the Austin Blondes, were denizens.

Being consummate rock 'n' roll chicks, though, Moser and the Blondes were more than aware of the Sex Pistols and punk rock. The Texas punk scene was just emerging, though, so when Moser and her then-husband, photographer Ken Hoge, made the trek down to San Antonio to catch the Sex Pistols, it was more curiosity than punk fervor that motivated them.

What Moser witnessed, however, made her a true believer. Recalls Moser in the Austin Chronicle, "Randy's Rodeo was a real cowboy joint with real cowboys hanging around. I was pretty close to Sid when he started swinging his bass, but the thing is, I remember less of the music than the atmosphere, which was almost electrically charged." Towards the end of the show, Moser remembers that the locals and regulars starting to wander in and looking "pretty shocked" at the carnage - musical and otherwise.

With her love of blues and outlaw country, Moser wasn't overly impressed with the Pistol's rudimentary punk music, per se. Instead, she was overwhelmed by the attitude, the approach, the gestalt of the band. "Emotionally," she said, "I was thrilled." Her mind opened up to new possibilities in art and music, and soon after, she began to listen to a much broader range of music. Moser left Randy's Rodeo that night knowing she had witnessed something very important, but it took her years to process exactly what had happened and how it had changed her.

According to Moser, the Sex Pistol's gig in San Antonio had a big impact back in Austin. The show was a defining, galvanizing moment for Austin's counterculture (though ironically, Moser believes that the gig was scheduled in San Antonio in part to insult Austin's in-crowd, with their hipper-than-thou attitude). Musically, of course, it helped inspire Austin's punk scene - one of the earliest and best outside of New York City. But beyond the obvious, the common experience of Austin's attendees fostered many new connections. It was an energizing, polarizing event. Virtually everyone who worked at the Austin Chronicle in its early days witnessed the show, and the Chronicle's staff influenced much of what the city became artistically and politically in the 80's and 90's.

When she awoke in Austin on January 8, 1978, Margaret Moser was already living outside the mundane, complacent world so many of us inhabit. Still, she was hardly one of the punk faithful. That afternoon as she drove the 90-minute stretch of Interstate 35 that leads to San Antonio, she was simply expecting to witness the latest music biz hype. But like many so people who witnessed the Sex Pistols at Randy's Rodeo, she returned to Austin transfixed and transformed, eager to make her mark on an unsuspecting world.