Sagebrush: One of the Last Remaining Pieces of Real Deal Austin

“There is an altruistic place we are coming from before the money, and that is to watch people grow in the club. That’s what this place is.”

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Dennis O’Donnell has performed just about every role possible in the Austin music scene over the last 20 years. As a performing musician, side player, talent buyer, venue owner, promoter, and bartender, few have played a more pivotal role in helping to keep the country side of Austin’s music scene alive, thriving, and innovating, even though O’Donnell’s origins happen to be in punk music.

What started as a weeknight feature at Austin’s legendary Hole in the Wall bar near the University of Texas campus eventually turned into the scene at the now nationally-known and perenially-packed honky tonk The White Horse in East Austin, as well as Sagebrush on South Congress that draws in national names on a regular basis.

Sagebrush was also picked earlier this year to host the video shoot for Zach Bryan’s song “Nine Ball” starring Matthew McConaughey.

Through the stages and opportunities Dennis O’Donnell has provided, bands and artists like Silverada (fmr. Mike and the Moonpies), Shakey Graves, Rattlesnake Milk, Luke Bell, Melissa Carper, and Brennen Leigh have used Austin as a stepping stone to showcase their music and explore their muse without the restrictions other clubs in other cities put on many artists, actively or inadvertently.

“Coming from punk rock, you really hit the crowd. They freak out. They throw each other around. There’s a physical energy that transfers from the crowd to the band,” O’Donnell explains. “But country is more of a beautiful cosmic gravy. It’s two strangers embracing each other in front of the band respectfully.”

It’s that cosmic gravy that Dennis O’Donnell fell in love with, and that allowed Austin to fall in love with country music all over again. In 2006 when O’Donnell started working at Hole in the Wall, The Broken Spoke was still going strong with Dale Watson and Alvin Crow, and The Continental Club had some of the best residencies in town with songwriter James McMurtry and guitar legend Redd Volkaert.

But the new generation of country performers found breaking into these venues difficult to impossible. The calendar slots didn’t exist, and they were just a little too “different.” But they were still country, and two-step dancing still played a large role in the scene.

“The way that we party in Texas is dance, and it’s unlike anything else on this planet,” O’Donnell explains. “When you ask someone, ‘Would you like to dance with me?’ And he or she says ‘yes,’ and you hold them, you move in a circle, you spin them around. And that spin goes into a larger spin on the dance floor. That is the same action as The Milky Way. It’s the same action as the planets around our sun. You’re doing something that you don’t totally understand. You’re being moved by the hand of the universe.”

As two-step dancers from Central Texas will tell you, the dancing there is unique. There are now plenty of places to two-step in Nashville or other parts of Texas, or even on the West Coast and other locations throughout the United States. But the whole dance floor does not circle to the right like in Central Texas. This creates a unique harmony you can’t find anywhere else.

“And it’s love. It’s what created the whole thing,” say O’Donnell. “That beauty and romance of the dance is what has kept Austin on its own successful island verses the rest of the country. So I feel in country music’s history, there is a break. In Texas, the dance is really important. We’re still hot blooded down here. We’re lovers. And then there was Garth Brooks.”

Often when national publications outside of the country realm report on country music, they do so regarding country music as a monolith. One common misconception that is forwarded in that characterization is how country music is completely centered in Nashville, and primarily lives on country radio. The country music scene in Austin exists as a strong counterargument to that depiction.

“Garth Brooks set a standard that they’ve all been chasing ever since,” O’Donnell says. “It has been the soulless pursuit of re-creating that moment. When you’re writing a song, you’re either thinking about an arena, or you’re thinking about this dance floor. And that’s going to create a different style of country music. So when I watch people grow here, I’m watching them grow inside of an ecosystem that does not have national legs. That stopped with George Strait. But that ability to get people out of the chair and dancing, as a band, that’s an addiction. This hot, sweaty thing, was something that people craved.”

Performer, songwriter, and now the booking agent for Sagebrush, Chasen Wayne, is one of those people. Originally from the tiny town of Tolar, TX and a legendary team roping family, he moved to Austin in his late teens. He was a body builder at the time, and this made it easy for Chasen to get gigs as a door/security guy while he started to hustle for music gigs at places like The White Horse. That’s how Chasen ended up in the orbit of Sagebrush.

“If you want to get famous, you can throw your hat into the ring in Nashville, and maybe someone will pull up next to you in a limo and say, ‘Get in kid, sign the papers,’ and you can just skip the whole line,” Chasen Wayne explains. “But Austin makes bands like Rattlesnake Milk, Croy and the Boys, and bands that are really original because they were given the freedom to be and supported financially to become original. If you want to create an original sound and get paid well, Austin is the place to be. But you might not ever be famous except in Austin.”

It’s a dilemma some of the oldtimers in Austin refer to as the “velvet handcuffs.” You can making a living in Austin as a musician, and perhaps find places to perform five nights a week. But this also makes it difficult or sometimes impossible to play outside of Austin except for maybe a few weeks a year, because you might lose your local residencies. But for some musicians, it’s still worth it from the freedom the Austin music scene affords compared to Nashville and other places.

“It’s about the distance between the truth, and personal experience, and singing about something that’s not in your own throat,” says Dennis O’Donnell. “If it doesn’t raise hairs on you first, it won’t on others as well. It’s truth verses persuasion. Someone talking about red solo cups and trucks, I would say that falls in the bucket of persuasion. Truth would be something that Blaze Foley was pretty close to. Your closeness to the truth through the muse is your goal. Those people suffer to get that close. The muse brings them to the truth, not persuasion.”

Dennis O’Donnell grew up in the Houston area, and got started in music in punk rock bands. His first band was named Pony Boy and played regularly at the city’s legendary live club Fitzgerald’s (now closed). When O’Donnell was 18, he did what most every art or music-oriented Houston kid does—he moved to Austin. He left high school a year early because he kept getting in fights, but had enough credits to qualify for Austin’s community college where he got a 4.0 and was eventually accepted into the University of Texas to study fine art.

“I just took too much LSD and partied while I was also working as a bartender full-time. After four years of college, I was about 12 hours away from graduating, which I’ll never get.”

While in Austin, O’Donnell also started a band called The Bread, which was a mix of country and punk, and started working at Kerby Lane Cafes. He worked for Jason’s Deli as well. In his mid 20s, Dennis was in charge of multiple restaurants and was training managers. At the time, The Bread was regularly playing at Hole in the Wall, and Dennis started booking music there every other Tuesday.

When the Kerby Lane and the restaurant business finally ran its course, Dennis got a job at Hole in the Wall, first as a bar back. The first night he found himself cleaning up puke in the bathroom, but he still felt like he’d found his calling since the opportunity put him closer to music. It didn’t take long for Hole in the Wall to make Dennis the day manager, and also allowed Dennis to book happy hour on the club’s front stage, which at that time hadn’t been booking bands during the day for many years.

“At that time, there was an organic swell of talent and a scene of this incestuous group of musicians, sharing ideas, challenging each other on songs, taking notes from each other’s greatness—The Carper Family, Mike and the Moonpies (now Silverada), Leo Rondeau, Brennen Leigh, Country Willie Edwards, Jonathan Terrell, Roger Wallace. This scene was really tight,” O’Donnell says.

Many of these bands wanted to play at places like The Broken Spoke or The Continental Club, but there was no ability for new bands to break in. Hole in the Wall gave them an opportunity. “And there was an organic set of fans behind these young musicians writing their own stuff.”

The Hole in the Wall was originally opened in 1974. In the late ’70s and ’80s, a folk scene emerged during an era when Blaze Foley and Townes Van Zandt would play there on a regular basis, though not as the legends they’re known as today. They often played to half empty rooms, and to audiences who were there mostly to drink. Later in the ’80s, a New Wave scene emerged from the space, and punk was a big player in the ’90s and early ’00’s.

“People don’t credit Hole in the Wall enough, because it has the ability to lift people up and out. People have found their success because of the ability to grow a 100 person crowd. That’s the stepping stone. Once you get to 100, then it’s easier, and you’re looking at different clubs,” explains O’Donnell.

Shows at Hole in the Wall would often spill over to Dennis’s house, which eventually led to the formation of the group East Cameron Folkcore that Dennis was an early member of. Beth Chrisman, Sons of Fathers that gave rise to Paul Cauthen, The Boomswagglers, and many others made their names at Hole in the Wall during the era.

Dennis O’Donnell got inspired to open The White Horse after hanging out with his Kerby Lane Cafe kitchen manager Carlos Moreno from Mexico. In Austin, there are Mexican bars where immigrants and laborers go, and Hispanic bars where multi-generational Hispanic Texans go. Generally speaking, the people who frequented these bars didn’t intermix. To do profit and loss meetings, Carlos would take Dennis O’Donnell to this “Norteño” (or Mexican) bar called La Trampa. O’Donnell fell in love with the place, and wanted to start his own bar there in the same spirit as Hole in the Wall, but in the burgeoning east side of Austin.

O’Donnell had some difficulty finding the financing at first. At one point, he had a financier down in Guanajuato, Mexico, but it would require O’Donnell strapping $150,000 to his body, and smuggling it across Eagle Pass, TX to avoid taxes. Not too thrilled about that idea, O’Donnell decided to go with a married couple who promise to put up the money. But moments before signing the papers, they got a divorce.

Meanwhile, Dennis was introduced to a then 17-year-old songwriter named Carson McHone who came to the Hole in the Wall one evening and lied that one of the bands was allowing her to play in their stead. O’Donnell knew better, but put her on stage anyway, as long as she promised not to drink.

“Very talented. Tragic songs,” Dennis recalls. He booked McHone again under the agreement that she wouldn’t drink, but she would bring a bunch of people who would. McHone complied, and brought her father Marshall McHone among others to that next show. Marshall McHone and Dennis O’Donnell hit it off immediately.

Marshall McHone drove an old beat up pickup truck, wore pearl snap shirts from the ’70s and torn jeans, and didn’t really exude “money.” So when he offered to help Dennis open what would become The White Horse, O’Donnell didn’t know if he could take McHone seriously. But it happens to be that Marshall McHone is an instrumental figure in the central Texas wholesale beer business.

As O’Donnell tells it (Marshall never talks about it himself), McHone saved the Shiner beer label by adding a Bock brew, and built it up by making it the signature beer of Austin’s legendary live music venues. O’Donnell also says that McHone is responsible for bringing Corona to the United States among other ventures. So yes, McHone had the money. And along with business partner Nathan Hill, they opened The White Horse at 500 Comal Ave. in east Austin, just down from 6th Street in December of 2011.

“It was slow for about a month, and then it just soared beyond what we ever though it would do, and quickly. Everything was paid back within two years. National press really sent us into the stratosphere,” O’Donnell says.

Though similar to Hole in the Wall, the music was a mixture of country and rock early on, eventually it became obviously that two-stepping would be the legacy of The White Horse, and it became the city’s most happening honky tonk. But Dennis O’Donnell sold his share of The White Horse at the end of 2023, and is now focused primarily on Sagebrush at 5500 S Congress Ave, south of Ben White (Hwy 71).

Sagebrush has been a music venue, bar, and business for over 70 years. The building was first built in the 1940s as an army barracks, which later became an internment camp for prisoners of war during WWII. In 1955, Big Gil Stromquist opened up a honky tonk in the building and called it “Gils Club.” Stromquist was a 6′ 10″ boxer and millionaire who was nationally-known for fighting at Madison Square Garden.

At the time, that part of Austin was dangerous. Hays County just to the south was dry. So Gil’s Club was one of the first places you encountered that sold alcohol heading toward Austin. Shootouts and stabbings were common. Gil’s Club remained open for the next 27 years.

The club went through numerous other incarnations over the years, at one point being called “The Casino,” and eventually being raided by the Feds. When Dennis O’Donnell secured a lease on the property and opened it as Sagebrush in the summer of 2020, it was at the height of COVID when most venues were shutting down. But with a massive backyard to accompany the 5,000 sq. ft., 300-capacity venue, they were able to hold shows outside and at limited capacities.

Once again O’Donnell partnered with Marshall McHone to make it all happen, as well as Margaret Bentley. The White Horse was eligible for COVID relief funds, but Sagebrush wasn’t because it was brand new. But what it did allow is musicians to work again, and allowed patrons to hear live music.

Dave Insley, Mayeux & Broussard, Garrett T. Capps, Candler Wilkinson, Ben Ballinger, Danny B. Harvey, Rattlesnake Milk, Annie Marie Lewis and Robert Allan Caldwell, Doug Strahan, Croy and the Boys, Mrs. Glass, Warm Sugar, Golden Roses, David Touchton, Jordan Matthew Young and Blake Van Buren were some of the early artists and bands that were able to survive thanks to the Sagebrush opening.

The opening of Sagebrush came at a critical juncture for many Austin musicians. This is one of the reasons many don’t look at Dennis O’Donnell as a venue owner or booker, but as a father figure.

“I’m going to tell these artists “Good Job!’ I’m going to tell them ‘Don’t ever f–king do that again!’ I’m going to throw you out with my own hands. I’m going to give you a hug when you’re down. I’m gonna give you a shot when you lost your girl,” Dennis explains.

“Some of them look at you as dad. But we are the catfish. We’re at the bottom of this game. You sell beer and liquor for me, and then you sell tickets for yourself. That’s the jump. Do my feelings get hurt sometimes when these guys go on without me? Of course. But that’s my job. And now that I got to talk to your dickhead manager, it’s over. I know my place.”

Dennis has had some heartbreaks over the years. “Luke Bell was a hard one. I loved that kid,” he says about Bell, who passed away in 2022. But Dennis has also seen many success stories that reinforce that he’s doing something right. Along with Rattlesnake Milk, which has become one of the biggest names in Austin and is beginning to make national buzz, Theo Lawrence from France is also seeing big opportunities, including opening for Sturgill Simpson.

“A venue is like a child,” O’Donnell says. “You and your wife may look at it and say, ‘He’s gonna be a soccer player when he grows up.’ And really you never know. And the bar, beyond whatever you decide to put on the wall, whether it’s antlers, beer signs, or a desert sunset, the bar is the people who are inside. You can paint it Mary Kay pink. Success or survival is building community, remembering people’s names, caring for people, and reacting to their needs and wants.”

Very intentionally, Dennis O’Donnell hung no neon in the main room of Sagebrush. Instead, the dominant lighted feature runs along the venue’s Southern wall. It depicts a West Texas sunset, inspired in part by an event Dennis puts on called “Spatula City Limits.” Just like a sunset, the color changes over time and the stars come out. It adds to the dreamy nature of Sagebrush.

Along with Hole in the Wall, The White Horse, and now Sagebrush, Dennis O’Donnell also operated the Hard Luck Lounge for a few years in East Austin. It closed in 2019, but not before putting on some legendary shows, including some of the first by Rattlesnake Milk. But the inside of the bar was tiny, and the outside was insufferable six months out of the year due to weather. For fans of the Austin honky tonk scene though, they still carry good memories of the place, and it did play an important role in its time.

“Honestly, some of my favorite moments in all of this was at the Hard Luck,” O’Donnell says. “Brennen Leigh playing in front of the juke box where you felt bad the beer coolers were on because it was so quiet in the room. But since I wasn’t serving up the hottest new cocktails—we were still old Austin—there wasn’t enough of us to make it work.”

Now that Dennis has sold his stake at The White Horse, Sagebrush is where he’s focusing much of his effort with the help of talent buyer/musician Chasen Wayne. Where Dennis always sees the positivity of it all, Chasen is more protective. He’s seen all the closings of venues in Austin recently, including Giddy Ups, which just like Sagebrush, had been a venue in one form or another for over 70 years, as well as the rock club The Lost Well.

“Obviously there is the California of it all, which is a controversial topic, and beating a dead horse. But what people don’t see past the surface of is that we are advertising as a city that we are the ‘Live Music Capital of the World,’ but the people moving here do not care to maintain that culture, nor do they take the time to learn about that culture. When I moved to Austin in 2012, I was already a nerd about Austin, and invested in what this place was offering,” Chasen Wayne says.

“It’s the classic gentrification,” Chasen continues. “You get the high rises. You get the high end cocktail bar, and now that bar wants to try their hand at booking whats popular, and then their booking the same bands that were homegrown at Sagebrush, The White Horse, and Sam’s Town Point.”

Chasen Wayne calls these places “the big three” of Austin’s independent country music scene. Though The Broken Spoke, The Continental Club, The Saxon Pub, and other places (including Hole in the Wall) still book country acts as well, Sagebrush, The White Horse, and Sam’s Town Point are the three places that still keep the genuine spirit of Austin country innovation alive, and allow up-and-coming acts opportunities on the stage.

“Then there is the saturation,” Chasen explains. “Sam’s Town Point is truly a one of a kind place. And White Horse is still the top gun in town. It’s like Robert’s Western World in Nashville. It’s the first place you go if you’re a true country music fan. It’s always packed. That’s because the location is perfect. I tell Dennis all the time that he did too good a job with that place.”

Even though this country scene in Austin feels alive and vibrant, it’s still a niche. Chasen Wayne says this can sometimes lead to tension between Sagebrush, The White Horse, and Sam’s Town Point, especially when it comes to booking out-of-town acts that come through. The White Horse has the guaranteed crowds, but Sagebrush has a higher capacity, and is more of a venue than a bar.

But all three of these venues have a much bigger adversary—the massive live music company C3 Presents, which is based in Austin, owns half of the city’s music venues, is close with the city government, and is owned 51% by Live Nation.

“People who think that Sagebrush is trying to compete with Sam’s Town Point and The White Horse. That’s not the case. I’m competing with Antone’s, Stubb’s, and if I can, The Moody Theater (where Austin City Limits is taped),” Chasen Wayne explains. “If we’re turning on each other, it’s really just unfocused because we’re really just fighting for the scraps of whatever C3 Presents can’t put on the calendar, or didn’t put a big enough radius clause on.”

Chasen Wayne says that he has a lot of love for Sam’s Town Point and The White Horse, and it’s important that all three venues continue to thrive.

“Because of LiveNation, there’s a shitload of money in the back and they can book just about anybody,” Wayne explains. “And if business is bad, they can still shell out, and just take away the business from everybody for a weekend. It’s especially when they come encroaching on the country artists that we all three book and try to support. That’s an issue. I want Sam’s Town Point, The White Horse, and Sagebrush to live in harmony forever. I want historical markers on all three of them, just like The Broken Spoke.”

Though The White Horse remains highly revered in Austin and beyond, its reputation in some respects precedes it to the point where it has become a destination for tourists with no inclination to actually embed themselves in the culture there, or imbibe beyond a beer or two. If you ask anyone in Austin where you should go to get the real deal Austin music experience, The White Horse is the first on the list. But along with the two-steppers and honky tonkers, there is always a decent gaggle of out-of-town gawkers, which some feel takes away from the original vibe.

But there is a reason that Kacey Musgraves wanted to shoot the video for her “Are You Sure” duet with Willie Nelson at The White Horse. It’s the same reason Zach Bryan shot his video for “Nine Ball” at Sagebrush. It’s because these are the truly authentic locations for Austin country, and they have a cool factor the corporate bars just don’t carry.

“It’s like telling people to shop local. Make the right choices,” Chasen Wayne says. “I don’t expect for Live Nation to be overthrown in Austin. But there is a percentage of the population that if they knew what was happening, could at least help Sagebrush, The White Horse, and Sam’s Town Point, and even the rock venues. Those places are there to provide you culture. There’s characters there that you meet. They’re memorable. They’re Austin.”

Dennis O’Donnell is certainly one of those characters. He sees himself as the tie between Eddie Wilson, who was the Austin legend behind Armadillo World Headquarters, and the people like Chasen Wayne trying to keep the true spirit of Austin music going today. But after cashing out with The White Horse, O’Donnell is also looking towards a slight more quiet future.

“I moved to Lockhart with my wife to start a new chapter of our life,” he explains. O’Donnell is planning to open a cafe and a music venue there as well.

“The community that I had felt here in Austin with country music was so special that it turned The White Horse into this monster. I miss the Hard Luck’s community. I miss The White Horse’s ability to build attendance through the furnace of party. I think Sagebrush’s magic moments showed us that it’s so malleable, like the Hole in the Wall, it’s going to rock out, and do country. It’s a venue first. It’s dreamy.”

“Dreamy” is a good way to describe it with the sunset on one wall and all the history swirling in the rafters. There is plenty of room to dance, but plenty of space to sit or stand in the wings and observe. It’s one of the last true remaining real deal places in Austin, and an important proving ground for country music.

Dennis O’Donnell is hoping to open up his new spot in Lockhart in November or December.

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