Inner Sanctum Records - Supporting Local Music

Supporting Local Music

As local bands began to record and release their own recordings, they could rely on the Inner Sanctum to stock them. To celebrate, the store would usually host a record release party with a keg and refreshments, lending a feeling of closeness to the scene. Some of these local acts included The Huns, Standing Waves, F-Systems, The Skunks (a band that featured "Fast Eddie" Munoz, a one-time Inner Sanctum employee and later a member of The Plimsouls, and following Munoz' departure, Jon Dee Graham), The Next, Terminal Mind, The Big Boys, The Dicks, The Norvells, Joe "King" Carrasco and the Crowns, D-Day, Delta, Radio Free Europe, The Explosives, Kamikaze Refrigerators, Sharon Tate's Baby, The Violators, The Inserts, The Judys (from Houston), and many more. Outside of punk and New Wave, parties were held for Uncle Walt's Band (who performed in-store), Alvin Crow, soul band Extreme Heat, Butch Hancock, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Greezy Wheels, Roky Erickson, Uranium Savages, Joe Ely, Beto y Los Fairlanes and others. Doug Sahm and his friends frequently patronized the store. Major label recordings were subject to release parties, as well (such as an Elvis Costello Look-A-Like Contest upon the release of My Aim is True), or just a party to celebrate the fact that such artists, like The Plasmatics, Graham Parker, Joe Jackson, Robert Gordon & Link Wray, Tom Robinson Band, Magazine, and The Textones (Carla Olsson and Kathy Valentine), were performing in town.

Most of the staff were also musicians, band managers or otherwise involved with the local music scene. In 1976, McDaniel started a Sunday night radio show, Rock Of Ages, on the UT radio station KUT. He played a wide spectrum of music that was readily available in the store. By 1978, Stephen Goodwin started making appearances as "The Old Codger" and other regular guests dropped by, like Paul Ray (of The Cobras and the KUT program Twine Time), disco DJ Casey Jones, writer Joe Nick Patoski, playwright Greg Barrios and Neil Ruttenberg. When McDaniel exited the show in 1979, Ruttenberg (taking on the moniker of "Rev. Neil X") took the reins at the height of the punk–new wave era. When he departed, he relayed the controls to store manager Jack Kanter in 1981. Both Ruttenberg and Kanter's editions of the show occasionally featured live performances in the studio from artists like Alex Chilton. Kanter's show was visited regularly by The Big Boys (featuring the late Randy "Biscuit" Turner). Kanter also served for a while as manager of the band Delta, while another staffer, Will Sharp, managed The Next.