How big of deal was this? My brother-in-law and cousins said it was huge. Something you had to see to believe.
The old Westheimer Street Fest was an eye opener for teenage me. I saw weird cool stuff I didn't know existed, and a bunch of stuff I wished didn't
I graduated from Lamar in '86. Westheimer on Friday and Saturday nights was definitely a scene. But for me and my friends it was definitely a last resort. There were usually much better parties going on or meeting up at Eastside park or drinking at Kay's Lounge.
I was 18 in '92. We did most of our earlier silliness on the westside-galleria area. I don't think I knew what Montrose really was - other than going to a show and going back, or not remembering - until a couple of years before that, but then, not really so much.
Yeah, but the 80's? That's many years after I arrived on the scene. The Westheimer/Montrose/St. Thomas/museum district/Rice University area has always appealed to me and I lived in different places there for several years after growing up in Southeast Houston. I guess you could say that that was my "territory." Never lived in an apartment complex, though. In fact, I've managed to avoid that my entire life. I'd rent a house, sometimes sharing the rent with a friend, stay in a garage apartment (lots of them in the area back then), or in an old house converted into a duplex or 4plex during WWII. By the time the '80's rolled around, we had moved to Austin, so while I certainly spent some time there back in the '80's, it was sporadic during that decade. Nothing like living there, of course. In the early 1970's at Halloween there was a huge party off of Westheimer, in the neighborhood between Montrose and 59, not far from Montrose. A couple of friends were renting old wood frame houses catecorner from each other on a tree covered street and they strung lights diagonally across the street from one house to the other. Huge costume parties with dozens and dozens of people, everyone drinking and smoking, and whatever else you felt like doing. Great music. I was always surprised that the cops didn't hassle us, but they left us alone. Lots of cool people who lived on the block would join in. It was a gas. That lasted around 3 years, then the friends moved and we had the big parties elsewhere. I have to admit that the best thing that happened to us in the '80's was moving to Austin at the start of the decade. We've been here ever since, aside from doing a lot of traveling.
This thread inspired me to cruise down westheimer earlier. I saw bunch of strip malls. Did I do it right?
When I was 16 and stoned I saw my first leather muscle daddy with a giant boa (snake not feather) wrapped around his shoulders, walking down the street. Then I got more stoned and watched the show. Music was great, in every parkinglot you wanted to stop in.
Had that top sticker on the back of my first truck. Next to a DeadHead, next to a Beasies something. I wasn't asking to get pulled over or anything.