Redneck rock would slowly fade into the setting sun (with Delbert McClinton telling us, “It sucks—and not very well”). Disco, though stillborn in Austin, would throb across the land as the country humped and bumped toward the Reagan ’80s. A new line of promising musicians would pass through the Dillo, the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, the Police, Dire Straits, Talking Heads. Austin bluesers would hit the scene like a Texas flood, Eric Johnson would go nova, and the next and the next Austin star would struggle to tune his or her guitar in the garage out back.

In the “real” world, fraternities and sororities would stage a comeback on the UT campus, leading Jackson Hooper, vice president of the Interfraternity Council, to sniff: “There seem to be less people walking around who don’t bathe. The campus in general seems to be closer to where the Greeks have been all along.”

Once again we’d begin to see what’s important in life.

Obviously, freedom means different things to different people. The Dillo brand allowed for free expression, in many more ways than one. Back before perestroika, when the Cold War still raged, the head of the Soviet news agency and his staff came to Austin. After lunch with the Capitol press corps, they spent the afternoon at progressive publication Texas Observer with Kaye Northcott, who then asked if there was anything else they’d like to do. The Russians said, to the utter dismay of the State Department lady accompanying them, that they’d like to check out this Armadillo place they’d heard about.

That night at the Dillo, the autumn equinox, Balcones Fault laid in a beat heavy on big-band swing—Fats Waller tunes and the like. Eight or fourteen pitchers of beer and numerous pocket flasks later, the Russians were jitterbugging with the hippies in front of the stage.

As longtime Dillo emcee Micael Priest remembers it, “The one guy who could speak and read English pretty well was buzzing around the walls, filling up notebooks, copying people’s T-shirts, the signs on the wall and paintings, stuff like that."

The Russkies partied the night away, losing themselves in the good times. But before leaving, finally shepherded out long after the last dog dangled, one remarked, “This must be the freest place on earth.”

The close of the Armadillo was the end of an era, but not the end of understanding. As might be expected, Austin grew into a little city muy importante, but at no small cost: Life’s not cheap anymore, and the livin’ ain’t so easy. Thank god, artists are a scruffy lot, able to survive on the scraps of others. Here’s to the carefree, the fancy-free: Long may they endure. For the story of the starving artist today is the story of the Armadillo World Headquarters back when—when the cosmic cowboys first rode.