Wizard Academy overlooks downtown Austin, Texas,
from the top of a 900-foot plateau 20 miles away.
Even though it’s the state capitol, Austin isn’t really part of Texas. We call ourselves The Live Music Capitol of the World
but very little of our music is country.
Austin is a hippie-town, the home of
Janis Joplin, Stevie Ray Vaughn and
ZZ Top. You’ve got to drive about
40 miles outside the city to find
the Texas you see in movies.
Others see Willie Nelson as a country singer but Austin knows him as a hippie in a cowboy hat. Think about it. How many cowboys wear long pony tails and are famous for smoking pot?
The unofficial slogan of our city is
“Keep Austin Weird.”
The University of Texas is located downtown, 2 blocks north of the capitol building. So the heart of our city remains the heart of our city.
Politically, Austin is an island of liberals in an ocean of conservatives. Intellectual, agnostic, informal, open to anything. So keeping Austin weird is pretty easy.
Austin is as mellow as Vancouver and almost as funky and bluesy as New Orleans.
You’ll find a statue of Stevie Ray Vaughn downtown in the park that runs along the river. Here’s Austin’s native son, playing on our now famous TV show, Austin City Limits. Welcome to Austin.