Outer Heaven Disco Club

The past month its hit me pretty hard that were coming to the end of the bar and I have been trying my hardest to not be cripplingly depressed about it but when you’ve dedicated the last 5 years of your life to one thing and its ending outside of your control, its kinda impossible not to be.
HOWEVER (in a vain attempt to stay somewhat positive), i think with our last 10 weeks or so, I wanna use the new year as a tone reset to wash away any vestiges of personal sadness and try to dedicate the time we have to proving the mission statement this bar was built for.
That you don’t need to sell your soul to the algorithm to make something successful, you just need believe in what you are doing in a way thats true to who you are. And I mean this in the corniest, self help book way possible. No matter what you want to accomplish in life, do not lose sight of why YOU want to do it.
I don’t want people to look at this bar as an example of a heartless corporation pushing out a small business and say “see? cant win against the machine, why even try?”, I want this place to be remembered for the fact that a stubborn adherence to celebrating music together brought so many people to a street so many people never went to before. And we didn’t need marketers or a lot of money to do it, JUST music. I take hella pride in that fact and I want it to stand not as a cautionary tale but as a beacon of hope to someone reading this right now, that if you truly believe in what it is you want to do, it IS possible and dont let the cynicism of this world make you think otherwise.
Anyway, we are gonna be sold out of new years eve tickets soon, so if you wanna come please get em soon so I don’t have answer a grip of sad dms like last year. Also we will be closed for xmas eve and day so if you wanna karaoke, tonight and Thursday are your only chance this week. I love and appreciate you all and I hope everyone has a good time celebrating the holiday when God cucked some poor carpenter and his “virgin” wife.

We now have have 3 months left before we are kicked out of our building so Ive been pretty sad about it tbh which made it hard to design “fun” flyers for our last new years party (i had to scrap a bunch that were probably way too dark and surely would have got us flagged by some as***le) so these are probably the most family friendly ones.
Anyway this year seeing as we are going to die, if you come to this NYE, you will get a personally handmade ticket that will give you a piece of the bar in March. Literally. Im going to give away almost every thing in the bar to yall. Every piece of art (i am literally gonna chainsaw the king of the hill wall off and give it away) and most of the bar supplies and signage. Pretty much everything thats not concreted down can be yours but only if you come to this specific party. I think its more poetic to let the people who made this place what it is have it and you can take a physical piece of the bar with you rather than just have your memories (but keep those too).
As always we will have free food, some special free drinks and swag yada yada yada, if youve been here before on NYE you know the deal. Also I will curate a dj set that will be every one of my favorite songs ive ever played here for the past 4 years so I promise it will be impossible to not dance and sing along and serve as like a retrospective on the club. Also I have a surprise for the true believers at the end of the night. If you have a keychain please dm me first and i can give you a discount code for tickets too if you cant afford the full price. Ticket link is in the bio.
I love every one of you very much. See ya soon.

People have been asking constantly lately what they can do to help save the bar, and its very sweet and I appreciate the sentiment for sure, but I think maybe I need to stress again, we are not “going out of business”, we are being pushed out and there is a big difference between those two things.

Just the land alone we sit on is worth millions in modern austin so the idea of making a go fund me would be disingenuous af f**k and basically tantamount to robbing people cause theres no universe that exists that we can fight anything with money cause the people with the actual money have so much more that its like comparing a swimming pool to an ocean.

The truth is the best way you can help us now is to just do what yall have always done which is come party and celebrate our last months together. And like I say at the end of every night, just tell other people we are here. Dont well on things you cant change. But an experience that creates a positive memory is something you get to keep forever and its one of the few constants in life no one can just buy, no matter how deep their ocean of money is.

Austin (and probably most of America) has gotten so prohibitively expensive that less and less people can take risks and make things outside of just the desire to make money. Its why most new movies are all based on some safe template. A remake or a sequel that is already forgotten the second after you see it. And this mentality is robbing yall of the reason we watch things or listen to music. Which is feel something.

I still wanna make yall feel something with the time we have left. I promise I will try my hardest to do so every week til the day we are forced to lock the doors. But also know Outer Heaven wont be over once this building is gone. I have a plan and Im not gonna reveal it yet (mostly cause im still working it out) but I promise you, youre gonna wanna have a OH keychain still (and if you dont have one, you better get one soon cause I dont think we have many left)

I love yall.

P.S. did a limited 2nd run of the “is this a gay bar” shirts for all yall who asked for em.

I was originally gonna post today how thankful I was that yall came out to our halloween parties so hard but that seems kinda inopportune today seeing as republicans now control every branch of government and how scary that is for a lot of yall probably reading this.

So I think instead I want say don’t use this day to be sullen or angry at sheep that think Donald Trump is their savior. Use it as a wake up call. Kamala, democrats and bitch ass lip service liberals are not on your side (and they never have been). I know Ive said this countless times before but our political system isn’t made to help us, it’s meant to keep us obedient. Its meant to wedge us apart with issues that divide us into teams so we are too busy arguing about the things we dont agree on that we ignore the people at the top with the money that ALWAYS control the root cause of every single one of the issues we argue.

Weve been raised us to believe that our ideals exist in a vacuum. That if we can just take incremental steps we will eventually make our way up the mountain (even though every generation has shown that all we do is take turns pushing each other down it). And im saying this to yall republicans too. Ban abortion, who takes care of the kids that get born? The welfare system that sucks? Fill the prisions with people who grew up with parents that didnt want them and became criminals because they were devoid of love? Everything affects everything else. This system is broken and serves only the people that control it but hurts EVERYONE else that has to live in it and if you learn nothing else today, let it be that we arent changing s**t thru traditional means.

Dont aim your sights across the street at your neighbor, aim them up. Up at the s**t politicians that dont give a f**k if children die. Up at the billionaires that control what people have access to. Rip them from their mansions and burn them to the f**king ground. Dont be dejected, be f**king angry. This is your future, not our parents and we dont need to follow them off the same cliff like every generation before. Follow where the money trail leads and you will find your actual enemy. I love you all.

Very excited to announce we are having 3 halloween nights this year, mostly because its our last chance to do it and cause its the only holiday that f**king matters. If you’ve been to any of our previous halloween parties, then you should already know whats gonna happen, but for yall new kids, it is classic goth, industrial and darkwave, followed by EBM and hard techno and we end the night in proper rave mode with the hardest and fastest goddamn psytrance music you’ve ever heard. I promise you this is not some bulls**t tiktok ass goth party, I spend ALL YEAR curating music just for these parties and as a former goth kid that was more ogrish.com than hot topic, it is literally my favorite night(s) to dj. As always, costumes are mandatory to get in (cause if you dont f**k with halloween I dont f**k with you) and I will have a crazy amount of free drink tickets to give people with the raddest costumes. This is our last ever halloween Im so tryin to straight up embarrass anyone else trying to throw a halloween party with a bunch of fake spider webs and playing monster mash (tho i will also probably play monster mash it will just be 150bpm and feel like you’re in a berlin s*x dungeon). I love you all. See you in hell.

TLDR Our landlords are tearing our building down to build condos so we now have only 6 months left to be open. SWIPE LEFT on the first picture cause I couldnt fit everything in the instagram caption.

The probably most surprising thing Ive learned from doing this bar, as someone with literally no business background, is just how incompetently so many traditional businesses are run. And ESPECIALLY in the bar industry.

Seeing first hand how counter productive businesses can be, because some du***ss with an MBA says “this is just how it’s done”. I think not knowing the “proper” way to do things, has been such a blessing cause the way I operate this bar is literally antithetical to most people in the “industry”.

Its legal to pay service workers $2.13 an hour in Texas. I have always found this to be both gross and illogical, cause if your business cant afford to pay your workers even a standard minimum wage (which is already pretty f**king cheap tbh), what right do you have to even do business in the first place? I specifically didnt want to run a business like that and I pay all my bar staff actual wages (on top of tips, which they f**king EARN cause this is a hard job), not because I have to but because it was right.

We operate like a family (i dont mean in a fake, olive garden-y way) and we all look out for each other and from doing that, I KNOW thats the only way to run a business. I pick up trash at the end of the night with everyone else cause I want my family to know, no one is above or below here.

And I think because of that, for almost the entire time this bar has been open, we’ve kept almost the entirely same staff. In an industry where employee turnover is crazy, I think thats been my proudest accomplishment, cause we genuinely love each other and each person that works here genuinely CARES about this bar. I dont know any other business where almost every person has their own key or code to the safe and the owner has ZERO fear of someone f**kin them over.

If you treat people as equals, with the respect they deserve, you get so much more in the end, than if you just use people as a mean to your own ends, the latter being the normal way of doing business.

I love every person that works here, so please always tip them fat and be nice to them cause they have all authority to kick out anyone they want and I will always have their back.

Ive lived in Austin for 3 decades now and in that time Ive seen all the usual stuff people complain about (cost of everything going up, music scenes collapsing etc) but I think the worst thing is just how people treat each other now.

I realize its partly because all the transplants from bigger cities, brought with them, their do**he big city attitudes, which makes sense to have in LA, cause LA an awful place filled with awful people. (Sorry if youre from LA but also, f**k LA)

But I just get this general vibe when going places, how much colder everyone acts to ppl, as opposed to 20 years ago when you could still conceivably consider this a laidback place to live. We’re a “real” city now and I guess thats good if you make 6 figures or whatever, but its a bummer for the rest of us who miss that chiller small city vibe.

Its already hard to make friends as an adult, but matters arent exactly helped when the city is full of people who will talk down to anyone they perceive as below them. Its the hierarchical, almost caste system structure, that make places like NY or LA such soul sucking places to live, that has bleed all over Austin.

I’ll have people be rude af to me in the DJ booth, until they realize I own the place and not just “the dj” and then proceed to do the most LA s**t possible and do a quick 180 in niceness and NOTHING makes me more disgusted. It bums me out so much more than just someone thats just mean cause I hate a fake ass person, even more than just an as***le.

Its the LA-fication of Austin, with all these new bars and restaurants that are the same expensive ass concepts made by ppl, for ppl, who dont give s**t whats genuine. Its all so gross and exploitative and I just wish more people would reject it. And Im not saying only go to gross dive bars like mine, just be mindful of whats f**king fake and whats not.

Anyway, no idea what my goal was with this rant, just be good to ppl i guess, Im tired of losing (more) faith in society, who f**kin knows

P.S. we have a FREE Abba cover band show this friday at 9pm so plz come. ITS FREE.

P.P.S. i luv u

Ive lived in Austin for 3 decades now and in that time Ive seen all the usual stuff people complain about (cost of everything going up, music scenes collapsing etc) but I think the worst thing is just how people treat each other now.

I realize its partly because some of the transplants from bigger cities, brought with them, their do**he big city attitudes, which makes sense to have in LA, cause LA an awful place filled with fake ass people. (Sorry if youre from LA but also, f**k LA)

But I just get this general vibe when going places, how much colder everyone acts to ppl, as opposed to 20 years ago when you could still conceivably consider this a laidback place to live. We’re a “real” city now and I guess thats good if you make 6 figures or whatever, but its a bummer for the rest of us who miss that chiller “small city” vibe.

Its already hard to make friends as an adult, but matters arent exactly helped when the city is full of people who will talk down to anyone they perceive as below them. Its the hierarchical, almost caste system structure, that make places like NY or LA such soul sucking places to live, that has bleed all over Austin.

I’ll have people be rude af to me in the DJ booth, until they realize I own the place and not just “the dj” and then proceed do a quick 180 in niceness and NOTHING makes me more disgusted. It bums me out so much more than just someone thats mean cause I hate a fake ass person, even more than just an as***le.

Its the LA-fication of Austin, with all these new bars and restaurants that are the same expensive ass concepts made by ppl, for ppl, who dont give s**t whats genuine. Its all so gross and exploitative and I just wish more people would reject it. And Im not saying only go to gross dive bars like mine, just be mindful of whats f**king fake and whats not.

Anyway, no idea what my goal was with this rant, just be good to ppl i guess, who f**kin knows.

P.S. we have a FREE Abba cover band show this friday at 9pm so plz come. Its FREE.

P.P.S. i luv u

Had someone complain about all the quotes in the bathroom again, so I decided to put even more up in their honor, cause I am extremely petty.
Also I have some test dj spots on fridays from 9-11pm to try and find some more ppl that fit the vibe to come play (my only stipulations are you must have actually been here before so you understand what the music vibe is supposed to be and you need to lean more disco centric). Just dm me a short sample mix (also i dont give a f**k about transitions or effects, ONLY your song taste so dont waste time tryin to impress with technical ability cause nobody gives a s**t how good your transitions are, if the songs suck).
Also was thinking about possibly opening for a karaoke day shift on sundays from 4pm-12 as an experiment but wanted to gauge first if anyone would actually be into that so if you would let me know below and we can try out a test day soon.
Its too f**kin hot outside rn to write anymore so gonna keep this (relatively) short for once, but please come see us this week, give water to homeless ppl and be nice to service workers and shame your bitchass friends that arent. I ❤️ you.

The emotional toll of running a small business is def not talked about enough in media (I know some of yall out there run some too so you will probs agree with this) but the reason most giant business people are so insatiably greedy isnt cause they are inherently evil (tho for sure some of them are), its cause they’ve divorced their emotions from their business. Once you can look at everything in just numbers and not people (which is actually what all business is cause numbers cant exist without them), its affords you a way to separate morals and, I guess basic humanity, from your job. Its why a CEO can get paid 800 times what their workers do and still sleep easy at night.
I unfortunately have the opposite problem, cause every aspect affects me, all the time. Not cause Im some moralist saint or whatever, cause Im a selfish do**he sometimes like anyone else, but because when something negative happens I feel responsible, cause ownership doesnt feel monetary, its personal. When someone has a bad time, I fixate on what I did wrong or what could have been done better.
When people come to the club for the first time at 930 and look around and say “theres no one here this club sucks” and walk out, thats being their only interaction with the bar, I FEEL that everytime. And I know I shouldnt cause theres no way to have a packed out club within 30 min of opening without advertising (or being featured on a s**tty unwatchable Netflix show about Austin).
But when we have bad nights, I am depressed for days after, cause I feel like I let people down (especially my staff) and I legit dont know how to let go of that feeling. It’s so hard to figure out how to detach running a business with your feelings as a person. And maybe you’re not suppose to cause then your business becomes a hallow shell and you are just another corporate entity in an increasingly fake ass american landscape.
But to end on a positive note (lol), for all the emotional turmoil my p***y ass goes thru, I still realize how lucky I am to be able to do this and meet and affect so many people and usually for everyday I wanna jump out in traffic theres another where it feels worth it. Anyway, I love yall.

If you ever went to high school, you (hopefully) already know that human beings are inherently tribalistic. Most people align with a particular side, whether thats socially (“you cant sit at our lunch table”etc) or ideologically (truck nuts on a lifted F-150 usually makes it pretty easy to see where a person lands there).

But after months of media gaslighting whether or not the president is in the early stages of alzheimers (he is btw) or if kids even have the right to protest a war (they do btw), its kinda terrifying to see just how susceptible people are to indoctrination, in an age where literally more information is available than at any time in human history.

I think it comes down to people’s willingness to navigate the constant torrent of information, and actively differentiate propaganda from genuine facts, which takes a lot of effort that most people dont have in em cause life is so hard in so many other regards rn. So people just pick a general side and call it a day.

But if theres anything I want to impart to yall (instead of just advertising the bar, cause who f**king cares, yall will come here or you wont), its that people understanding that independent thinkers are the ONLY ones that ever change things in the world.

Governments and rulers WANT us to be on teams because they can pit those teams against each other for their own benefit. Being a democrat and republican is a boomer ass idea from a begone era that doesnt exist anymore so arguing about its merits obfuscates the actual problem which is always money. They want us to argue over what medications we need to fix societal diseases rather than to diagnose what is causing them in the first place.

Be who you actually are and dont ascribe to who other people think you should be or what popular opinion dictates. Freedom only comes thru having this courage and the only universal thing I believe in is that people deserve to have the freedom to live their lives how they want, regardless of how someone else thinks they should. I love yall, stay safe and lets burn everything down and rebuild from the ashes.

Sometimes its hard for me to stay positive and realize just how lucky I am to have the privilege of not having a boss because of the emotional toll doing this club inflicts on me every week.
And I say emotional toll cause the stress of the business side of it, is definitely always secondary, because I have an amazing staff that helps takes a lot of that pressure off me and we run this joint legit as a makeshift family.
But when you put part of yourself into everything you do, then that part of yourself is always exposed. Ive pretty much always tried to run this IG page as less of an advertisement for a bar and more of a diary of what its like to actually run one, partly cause I think people can relate to the things Im feeling and partly cause I want people to know that I ACTUALLY care about what Im doing with it.
Money cant buy a feeling (regardless of what Kirk Van Houten thinks, a reference like 4 of you will get im sure). You have to earn things like love or even hate. And any night I go home and get depressed that I didnt do good enough to my own standards, I try to keep the perspective that I got to make at least someone happy and that I should feel lucky to even be in the position to be able to facilitate that.
And probably the thing Im most grateful for are the regulars that come here again and again, cause yall are the lifeblood of this bar and the only reason we get to do this and get the privilege to exist. I realize we are a destination bar and very few people are ever coming here on accident or just walk in off the street (cause aint nobody just walking down 12th st) and that genuinely means a lot to me.
Im the harshest critic to myself most of the time, but yalls positivity rarely fails to lift me out of my most negative tendencies and I appreciate it and even tho the future of Austin (and probs also the world) is pretty grim, its been very satisfying to be able to connect so many people together and create something positive. I love you all. P.S. if u come before 1030 Ill be your human jukebox and play (almost) whatever you want cause I just want ppl to come here before 11 for once.

One thing that scares me about the future, is just how content people are to be told what they think. They watch one tik tok or read one article and thats their stance. No further critical reasoning or self reflection. Every matter instantly settled as truth.
I think its scary because it puts people in this bubble that every issue has a binary right and wrong “side”. And anyone not in that bubble, is your enemy.
It creates zealots in kinda the same way cults do.

And its this sorta culture of dread now, where rational ppl are afraid to say what they genuinely feel in public, because they fear any negative reaction. So its just the indoctrinated psychos from each side always yelling at each other and people assume the loudest voices, are shouting the only viable opinions.

Dont ever form an opinion based on what someone says you SHOULD believe. Listen to EVERYTHING and wade through the propaganda to form your own opinions.

Im personally pro abortion but Im also pro gun. I am against the war in gaza but also think vitriolic tiktok activism gives cover to war hawks in america instead of exposing why they are allowed to wage it in the first place. But most importantly I am open to having my opinion changed. I am always open to have conversations with people I dont agree with cause I want as much information as possible. And so should yall.

People who are full of hatred on all sides of the political spectrum will always try to attack others, but dont ever be scared of being attacked. Be scared of not fighting back. Dont let bullys dictate your future. Being an actual individual, with empathy and rationality is the only thing that matters anymore in this f**ked world we live in. And if youre like “but what does this have to do with dancing”, it doesnt. But I all I wanna do now is help yall kids understand that you matter and dont have to be ok with just “how things are”. Love you.

Ok I really wanted to keep it positive this week but our ice machine broke and we had to spend 5k to get a new one and waste an entire day helping install it so it kinda destroyed my optimism (on a bright note tho our ice is now double filtered so if youre some alex jones psycho person who thinks fluoride in the water is turning frogs gay or whatever, we probably have the cleanest ice in town now).
Anyway, im taking this friday off to stave off being burned the hell out djing and also to make some new stuff for yall, so our homie Shadowdaddi will be on the decks instead and Ill be back saturday, hopefully with some crazy s**t (ive been working on this one song for like 10 hrs so if you dont like it, it will crush my soul).
Also I really want to do an easter goth techno party on sunday but I dont think ppl realize how hard it is to get ppl to come here for special events cause we are out here on a street no one comes to, and have no way to advertise, so if yall can mobilize all your friends that are allergic to vitamin D like me and wanna dance to a bunch of classic goth and darkwave bangers and later in the night the hardest f**king techno youve ever heard, please tag them in the comments cause sunday is my only day off and I only wanna do it if yall will actually come party. Keep an eye on the stories and ill have more details. I am not a mall goth bitch and this style music is the only one where Im comfortable that there is no one else in Austin that can touch me taste wise and if youve ever been to our halloween parties, you will understand this. I love you.

Its my birthday today and I woke up this morning a bit depressed (which for all you kids under 30, is pretty much every birthday, so you have that to look forward to). But it wasnt cause I was feeling old (cause thats an everyday kinda thing), it was about how dejecting the future feels in Austin.
Everything Ive ever tried to do regarding this bar, has been intentional. Ive always tried to do things that I think are the right thing to do, morally and business wise. Keep things affordable (to the detriment of making the most money possible), try to always keep the music consistent to a level I personally believe in (to the detriment of appealing to most people, who just wanna always hear songs they know, for 30 seconds at a time) and give my staff the power run things how they want (which Im pretty pretty proud that almost every bad review we have is always some as***le that got kicked out for not tipping).
But it feels like a Sisyphean task every week now, trying to fight against the tide of entitled douchbags that keep moving here, slowly erasing everything that made me want to spend a majority of my adult life living here. I genuinely put part of myself into what I do here, so when people come up and say or do mean s**t, it affects me viscerally because this isnt just a job for me, its pretty much my entire life and when people talk down to me like Im just their human jukebox, meant to play whatever bulls**t is trending on tiktok that week, I genuinely makes me question if this is worth it sometimes.
I think we have a generation of people now that think expressing how you feel without a filter for how ppl will react is “cringe” and that genuinely makes me sad. Cause no one has the courage to be who they are anymore and when everyone is wearing a mask of false happiness, no one can tell whats real or fake anymore and everything becomes this boring s**t made to appeal to everyone, that actually appeals to no one, which is what a majority of Austin is now. And I dont want to end this rant on negativity (but plz realize I am a pisces bitch), cause I do appreciate yall that understand what Im tryin to do, I just want things to be better for people. I love you.

When I first moved to Austin 20 years ago, sxsw used to be a super fun, chaotic time of year, you actually looked forward to, instead of what it is now, which is a general dread that the city will be overrun by lanyard wearing do**hebags who are likely to drunkenly crash a scooter into you at 3 in the afternoon.
It used to be fun mostly cause everything was free and as a kid with no money, being able to see shows and also exploit corporate marketing sponsorships by getting a bunch of free stuff everywhere to sell on ebay later really helped me survive the early years here.
But yeah, its no longer like that and its not even about music anymore cause most of sxsw will literally be sponsored parties for some bulls**t company with legit already famous bands playing them, to a crowd of chads and brads that could give a s**t, cause the band thats playing isnt Imagine Dragons or the Chainsmokers. Its a bummer but also who f**kin cares? Let Austin suck that corporate dick til its dry, we’re still gonna be out here tryin to bring back that old sxsw chaos energy.
I am not a graphic designer by any means but I spent a ridiculous amount of time making the templates for these true to their original forms (i think the gamecube ones go so hard tbh so im probs gonna use them again for something else lol) but i figure most of yall arent nerds that named a bar after a video game reference so u certainly arent gonna get a sega dreamcast parody, and thats ok, i still love ya, just come to our shows. Also we got more shows than this coming, this is just is just what we we finalized rn but I promise, it’s gonna get even weirder (hope yall are ready for some bluegrass). Also lets burn Austin to the ground, everything sucks here now except for yall. I love you. Chaos reigns.