A Legendary Lubbock Club Is Up for Sale

What if I told you that you could own the Lubbock club where U2, The Clash, Talking Heads, The Ramones and others legendary acts played?

The club also hosted Head East, Pat Benetar, Joan Jett, John Kay & Steppenwolf and The Cramps. I saw an epic show with a real punk band called 999 there. Most of the elder statesmen from the Lubbock music scene played the club during their teen years. I literally saw so many bands there during the late '70s and early 80's that I can not remember them all.  All I can remember is that rock and punk went to The Rox while Fat Dawgs hosted mostly blues (and later some epic comedy).

Let's dive back into that U2 gig a little bit. A little research shows that it was March 30th, 1981. According to this site, the club owner pulled a gun on U2's manager when he asked for cash instead of a check.

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The address to the club is now 2211 Marsha Sharp Freeway (which used to be 4th Street if I'm correct) and was recently known as Club Luxor or Ohm (plus Texas Auto Sales). A friend saw the venue on a retail property site for a nice $1.3 million, which means it will probably go to a developer and will no longer be a club.

Talk about a great surprise, too. I reached out to my friend Curtis Peoples, who's an archivist with the Southwest Collection, and he was able to send me a picture I didn't know existed. What you are seeing below is Joe Ely on stage with The Clash at The Rox. (There are many stories of aftershow hijinks, but we'll save those for another time.)