This story appears in VICE magazine and Noisey’s 2017 Music Issue. Click HERE to subscribe to VICE magazine.
There are a lot of scents wafting through the White Horse in Austin on a Saturday night: whiffs of hot popcorn from a machine by the entrance, the stale odor of puddles of spilled Lone Star, the aroma of the Bomb Tacos cart outside, and, on the August evening of my visit, the lingering trace of sweat emanating from a buzzing crowd. Onstage, local duo Mayeux and Broussard were getting the crowd to two-step the night away. Tate Mayeux is a long-haired crooner, and Brian Broussard lends a shreddy vibe to his twang; both rockers are still grounded in their country roots. The crowd was steady, with some room left on the floor, when Mayeux yelled out, “Who likes Beyoncé?” They didn’t segue into one of her songs, but the call was enough to swell the dancing mob of bodies with grace and swiftness.
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The “honky-tonk” bands that play the White Horse are mostly electric country in the outlaw tradition of Texas’s favorite son, Willie Nelson, and the likes of Merle Haggard. The term can refer to both the genre and the venues in which it’s played, and those who play it will often cater their performance to two-step dancers, who are a sight to behold: coordinated and nimble, but with classic Austin looseness. People come out for this scene—even on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, the nadir of any nightlife (especially Austin’s).
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