What started the riot?
Ha.
The riot put Austin on the punk map. It was covered in Rolling Stone and the NME at least.
The band on stage was The Huns, and they were doing their free-form extravaganza, "Eat Death Scum" which featured their lead singer mostly screeching the title over and over. There had been a noise complaint from someone in the neighborhood, so the cops came to check it out. The stage was right by the door, so when the cop came in he was almost on stage. He took a couple of steps in, and Phil Tolstead, the singer, moved over toward him and started singing to him and involving him in the song. The cop didn't like that, so he moved toward the singer and I think Phil might've kissed him on the cheek. Anyway, they tangled, the officer tried to cuff him, the bass player took a swing at the cop, the cop dropped his walkie talkie, picked it up, and gave the code for Officer in Distress. There were a whole lot of cops in there within about a minute, hauling people off, et cetera. And a legend was born.
