In fact, O'Connor was to retire from day-to-day operations January 1, 2001. After graduation in 1963, he decided to tempt fate and stay in-state, attending Monterey Peninsula Junior College. "It was part of the game, because he wouldn't come in until that was the last resort. "I didn't take direction very well.". He left behind his two dogs,. Was it a case of O'Connor keeping his enemies close? Age 81. Bobbie "Cole" O Connor, age 73, of Austin, lost her courageous battle with cancer and left the struggles of this life on Tuesday, May 30, 2006 Bobbie was born March 9, 1933 in Manor, Texas. "The first chance he had back in Austin, he fired me," reveals O'Connor. And yet, even after being yelled at by $25-a-day roadie, Nelson answered with typical calm. And yet, his primary obstacle has been not being able to buy large shows year-round. Few salesmen in any industry deal so long with so many customers that don't know their name. Please join us in Loving, Sharing and Memorializing Christopher Joseph O"Connor on this permanent online memorial. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFdr_xNcv9s. Meanwhile, O'Connor has directly helped shape Charlie Jones' destiny. "But to get a major company to sit down and have the same general plan -- a plan that doesn't compete with the city or the design of the developments around the facility -- is very challenging. Why don't we wait a little while and maybe we'll catch up with you. The arrangement lasted less than two years, with Ramsey bailing first, followed shortly after by Smith. Celebrate the life of Maureen O'Connor, leave a kind word or memory and get funeral service information. On those nights it was a listening room. He passed in his sleep on April 5 in his longtime home . Maureen Margaret O'Connor Obituary. to help find a new home for them. By sixth grade,. "I got to know an immense amount of people really well," he says. Somewhere along the way, O'Connor started a band in Laguna. Is he showing his hand to lull competitors into a false sense of security, or is coming clean part of a public relations campaign designed to repair his reputation before he eases into retirement? "I don't know if you could quite call us enemies," Attal demurs. I felt lost, without a home, he told Chris Riemenschneider of the, By 1994, Fowlers Two-Alarm Chili money was almost gone, so he and his partners closed their liberal hangout where youd see Gov. "Instead of fighting each other for the same piece of pie, we were cutting the pie up.". Sign up for service and obituary updates. While he's used venues like the Mercury and Antone's to stage larger shows in the off-season, he also runs the risk those clubs will eventually cut him out of the deal. What do you want me to be?". Backyard II just couldnt accommodate sellout crowds of 7,500, like the May 11, 2011 Arcade Fire show when hundreds of ticketholders had nowhere to park and missed the show. Nelson repeated. "The screaming, the reputation, a lot of that was a front," asserts Gonzalez. Services will be 2:00 pm, Saturday, February 6, 2016 at Beck Funeral Home, 1700 E. Whitestone, Cedar Park, Texas 78613. Charlie is preceded in death by his parents Felix Durward . "The town had just gone from zero to 65 clubs in 18 months," says Eddie Wilson of the city's early-Seventies live music boom. OConnors best decade was the 90s, when his Direct Events opened the Backyard in 93, the Austin Music Hall in 94 and revived La Zona Rosa in 97. He grew up in Jackson, NJ, and attended Jackson Memorial High School, followed by Belmont Abbey College . They did. When O'Connor passed away from Hodgkin's lymphoma in July 2021 at age 76, the music community went into mourning. They were blessed with two children, Thomas Michael and Anita Loraine. October 14, 1949 - April 16, 2015, Timothy O'Connor passed away on April 16, 2015 in De Pere, Wisconsin. Tim recognized that better than anyone. Almost immediately it became the place to not only see roadshows such as John Prine, Jackson Browne, and Bonnie Raitt, but the cream of Austin's burgeoning singer-songwriter scene: Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Stephen Fromholz, and Delbert McClinton. here. Willie's hippies may have gotten along with the Opera House staff, but promoters running in tandem with O'Connor often found the going difficult, to say the least. Tim was born in Queens, NY and moved to Yulee 18 years ago from Clearwater, FL. Timothy OConnor, II, 51, passed away on Wednesday, September 30, 2020 in Ennis, Texas. We are sad to announce that on March 18, 2021 we had to say goodbye to Timothy F. O'Connor of Big Flats, New York, born in Niagara Falls, New York. It was there in the former Chequered Flag folk club on Lavaca, that OConnor met new Austin resident Willie Nelson. That facsimile of the original Backyard was not what Tim Whats Next? OConnor had in mind for his legacy venue. Others have let bygones be bygones. i'm holding the 25 year chip tim gave me when we both hit 25 years. Things are moving that quickly.". Timothy J. O'Connor, who had a long and distinguished career as one of the leading character actors of his generation, passed away peacefully in his sleep on Thursday, April 5th, in his longtime home in Nevada City, California, at the age of 90. I stuck around Willie like bad penny.". *Please note that the service will not be at a Keever facility, so please have flowers sent directly to the Hilco Event Center in Itasca.*. Thomas Morton O'Connor, 78, passed from this life on Oct. 7, 2010 in Austin, TX. He sees it as a return to the free flow of information that he found in the Castle Creek days. Download it here. Not only did Nelson play Castle Creek, he also offered to take O'Connor on the road. Because if you're detected and manage to pierce the bottom of that larger national company's canopy, they're going to come after you.". Moreover, O'Connor has also long been Austin's king of the private party, hosting as many 200 private events a year at his three venues. Called an Ice House for the Arts, La Zona Rosa was a special place, opened by Marcia Ball and husband Gordon Fowler in late 89. This scene could change as drastically as it did from the Seventies to the Nineties within just a couple of years. I don't know if that's bad, but I know I'll get to the mark. He enjoyed brewing wine, bee keeping, hunting, fishing, gardening, and pigeon racing. O'Connor claims it's a mystery to him why the deal came off the table, but he maintains the negotiation process hinged on design. Log in, Steel Guitar Forum LLCPO Box 237Mount Horeb, WI 53572 USA. Its been renovated once again and is currently renting out for private parties. If you didn't know what you were doing there, he didn't either. The tale of Tim O'Connor starts with a Baby Doe born in Great Bend, Kansas. Chris is survived by his widow, Sandra OConnor, mother Elizabeth (Penny) OConnor, 2 brothers, Tim OConnor, Argyle, Texas and Kevin OConnor and wife Laura, New Mexico, three nephews, Ryan, Matt and Jeffrey OConnor. Tim was in charge of crowd control, earning a reputation as a hard-ass with a soft heart. According to its website,Bobbieis just a little over two years old andYoyois about four months old. I don't think he knew how much he was loved. He was of the Catholic Faith. When OConnor returned in 77, he started the Southern Commotion partnership with Willie to run, as a classier Armadillo. ", When the Armadillo finally ended its storied, decade-long run in late 1980, the Opera House was seen by many locals as the last gasp of "Old Austin. (Austin Pets Alive! We were always running around trying to book as many shows as possible and were most conscious of how much money we could make. ', "I thought I had done well, but what I was really doing was screwing every relationship he'd established in every little town in Texas and Louisiana. But a couple disastrous decisions- rebuilding the Austin Music Hall in 2007 and the Backyard in 2010- cant put a lien on the memories he created in the years between the 1972 opening of Castle Creek and the 2008 closing of the original Backyard. Willie had found his man! This was one of those nights. O'Connor controlled the Opera House, routinely dealing with Houston-based powerhouse Pace Productions and their Austin liaison, Steve Hauser. He was born on June 14, 1983, in Santa Rosa, California. It was the first O'Connor production to require a 747. "I do think it's going to work to the consumer's benefit," reasons Attal, who now shares office space with Jones. "The way to make money is to offer a drive-through viewing. You, Lt. Weinberg? "It's tough to build momentum as an independent anymore," explains O'Connor. Tim pulled off what I consider to be one of the world's greatest public relations miracles. APA! "That wasn't the bottom line with Tim, though. Visitation for friends and family will be held from 6:00 pm 8:00 pm on Friday, June 2, 2006, at Wilke-Clay-Fish Funeral Home. The Backyard at Bee Cave, with its live oaks and star-speckled sky, was OConnors crown jewel. Since O'Connor and Jones both describe their relationship as "father-son," the latter equally close friends with Attal, Jones has been the architect of what could be the new Ivory Tower collective -- a centralized effort from Stubb's, MiddleMan Music, and Direct Events. After owning five record stores, French Smith controlled Austin's outdoor events, staging Pecan Street and a half-dozen or so other annual festivals while also renting the Opera House for the occasional indoor show. (APA!) A special thanks to Dr. Michael Watkins, Dr. Robert Canby and staff at Texas Cardiac-Arrhythmia and Dr. Stuart McKennon for their excellent care in the past 20 yrs. I wanna work your joint.'". Unfortunately, Ramsey says, there were often too many cooks in the kitchen without a head chef. Memorial services will be held on Monday, October 5, 2020 at 1 p.m. in the Hilco Event Center of Itasca. I have very little patience for people that fool around in this business or just want to make a buck.". you are the only one i can imagine to put all this into words of love and reality and yesteryear succinctly and soufully. Even if you control a market and wind up making money, as the Ivory Tower collective did, it's often not the kind of money true empires are built on. Meanwhile, Backyard at Bee Cave is a development moving forward with plans to open a 3,500-capacity Live Oak Amphitheater in 2024. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Nelson and O'Connor were in business, 50-50, for a mere $10,000 up front. Yet for all the yelling, he's known real pain of his own: He's lost a testicle to cancer and a daughter to drugs. When my lawyer got done kicking me in the leg, that's when things really went downhill," recalls O'Connor. "Can you imagine sending a guy like me over as an ambassador of goodwill?" And suffice it to say that in those days, there were plenty of outside influences that dictated someone's personality, to be as polite as I can without casting stones from a glass house.". on its website. Just to correct y'all in the name of accuracy, Mike the master of the blues B3 has an unusual spelling of his last name. Now, as his relationship with SFX, the country's largest concert promoter, nears contractual completion, the impact of O'Connor's retirement on the local promotions pool is unknown. Bobbie was preceded in death by her husband, Curly O Connor in 1974; her son, Arvel Franklin; and her parents, Frank and Louise . With income he'll only say was "not legal," O'Connor took ownership of 13 bungalows and a bar he named the Lift. "I really cut my teeth in neighborhood negotiations back there -- in all the wrong ways.". Timothy F. O'Connor Obituary. Its a job for a streetfighter mentality and that was Tim. "For the first time in my life I knew I had to put my faith somewhere. And while monopolies are generally bad for the consumer, in the concert business, they tend to work to the ticket buyer's advantage: Promoters paying less for shows typically pass it on to the consumer to increase attendance and thus increase alcohol sales and other ancillary revenue. He is survived by his . Timothy is survived by his son, Zachary OConnor and his wife, Natalie; daughter, Taffany Kanmore; grandchildren: Chase Thomas OConnor, Moriah and Mason; his father; Timothy Patrick OConnor, I; his mother, Diane Bowden; brothers: David OConnor, Richard OConnor, Steven Pee Wee OConnor, Gary Robertson, Bill Walden, Donald OConnor and Brian OConnor; sister, Renee Flores and a host of extended family and friends. If he hadn't been driving the getaway car, Tim O'Connor might have punched Willie Nelson. "Instead of coming to work with machetes, we tried a pencil and pad. "Once upon a time, we were all fighters that ruled our own little neighborhoods," says Threadgill's Eddie Wilson, who once competed with O'Connor at the Armadillo. Maureen Margaret O'Connor, age 75, of Austin, Texas passed away on Friday, February 24, 2023. But lastly they'd say, I hope, 'I've had a lot of dealings with the guy, and while he's a tough negotiator and a lot of time you can't figure out what he's up to, he's honest. When Attal faced a weekend's worth of rainouts last season, Jones brokered a deal that allowed both shows to move to La Zona Rosa. Once again, the good times didn't last -- local authorities asked him to leave town. While both sides had worked through 98% of the differences, SFX's plan to expand the Backyard clashed with O'Connor's vision of how he wanted to leave the facility. But he had a special connection with the pit mix Bruiser, the oldest and scrappiest of the bunch. Backed by the national clout of Pace, now part of the larger SFX group, O'Connor believes he's been able to bring more shows to town at competitive prices. "What do I want you to be?" "We've always had a policy that if I knew an act better than somebody else or had a certain kind of relationship, it's probably best I'd make the call," explains O'Connor. His mission was always to bring entertainment for Austin, not bring Austin entertainment just because it worked in Houston or Dallas. He also volunteers that he's probably amassed as many enemies as friends. Help tell the story of your loved ones unique life. AUSTIN, Texas Tim O'Connor, owner of The Backyard, Austin Music Hall and other live music venues in Austin, died on July 30 from Hodgkin's lymphoma. The tale of Tim O'Connor starts with a Baby Doe born in Great Bend, Kansas. Turns out O'Connor had shot a label executive with CBS Records, with whom Nelson had just signed. RESCHEDULED FROM 2/2: Branzino, Shooks, Otis Wilkins. What do you want me to do? Keever Mortuary, Inc.. All Rights Reserved.Funeral Home Website by Batesville | Funeral Planning and Grief Resources. But even after all that, OConnor refused to retire, working on a venue in Driftwood until that deal fell through. Funeral Home Se. He was presented IBM Means Service Awards in both fields, in Recognition for Outstanding Accomplishments in Service. First there was the Two River Canyon Amphitheater in 2003, a gorgeous 800-acre setting near OConnors Spicewood ranch with the potential to thrill festgoers for decades. He loved staying busy. I remember certain nights with Steve Goodman or John Prine where I physically threw people out for talking. Whether you know it or not, if you've seen live music in Austin over the past 20 to 25 years, you've likely given money to Tim O'Connor. O'Connor's contract with one of the country's largest promoters is due to expire in December. Tim O'Connor, Direct Events, The Backyard, The Austin Music Hall, La Zona Rosa, Castle Creek, The Austin Opera House, Pace Concerts, SFX, Willie Nelson, Information is power. He was schooled in electronics and radar at Lowry Field, Denver, Colorado, and then became a Radar Technician at Perrin AFB, Sherman, TX, where he worked on the exact fighter jet that is on display at Camp Mabry, Austin, TX. ", "I liked being in Bee Caves," O'Connor says. What it boiled down to was simple: the collective could pool connections and resources to produce bigger and better shows with more frequency then they could on their own. Obituary. O'Connor is the first to admit the combination of Pace's deep pockets and his own long-term connections represents a serious hurdle for competing Austin venues. The Nelsons reached out to Austin Pets Alive! Tim was born in Lakewood, NJ to Joseph P. O'Connor and Patricia DiGennaro O'Connor on December 4th, 1969. "Have I done it all by myself? To send a flower arrangement or to plant trees in memory of quips O'Connor. It was a messy end to an empire that raised the standard of professionalism in local concert presentations. Tim O'Connor, who died in July, had two dogs, Bobbie Nelson and Yoyo Nelson. He loved all of his family and the times they spent together. Three years later, O'Connor's life changed again, this time by his own choice. Private Messages That and inadequate AC: was that shit even on? Ann Richards in shorts, reading the New York Times most every Sunday morning. Yoyo Nelson is only 4 months old. That's rarely the case.". Tim, an avid music lover and skilled audio "Winters are fairly cold in Colorado, so it became a strong collection approach.". We never called them 'benefits,' but we both knew the deal. "He's always held most of the cards, and I've always been the guy fighting to get a few of them.". If you did your job and something went wrong anyway, Gonzalez says O'Connor would protect you from angry promoters or artists. "When Willie and I needed to deal with banks, we'd be sure to pull up in front with the bus," explains O'Connor. 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