Houston often seems like a city that loves to tear down everything that's old and put up anything, as long as it's new, in its place. Well, whatever your qualms might be with that, we can all agree that sometimes it's nice to have a little knowledge of what this city was like however many years ago, a parallel universe of the city we live in today, when the art and music and whatever-else scene was running wild with the blood of youth. This kicks off what will hopefully be a long-running series of stories about what the kids were doing back then, part tall-tale and part oral history, giving our modern exploits something to stack up against and build upon.

Frank Davis is the main man behind the archive of Andrus Studios, a Houston-based recording studio in the '60s and '70s mostly known today for some of the legendary psychedelic records that got put out, including albums by the 13th Floor Elevators and the Red Krayola among others. Davis is also one of the best storytellers around. He worked as a recording engineer for Andrus Studios in its heyday, but that's only one part of decades' worth of wonder. Frank is a talented folk musician in his own right, a self-taught inventor (he wrote one of the first patents for holograms), an artist, a hot-rodder, and almost anything else you can think of -- he's done it all.

Art Attack sat down with Frank on one of last week's rainy days and talked for hours about his incredible family (Frank's grandfather made the Hyde Park Miniature Museum), his boyhood, his friendship with Janis Joplin in college, a job in New Orleans that paid in amethysts instead of cash, and, of course, what our grand old city was like before all the high-rises went up. Here are our favorite stories from the conversation -- three lessons modern youth can abide by.

Urban Animal Husbandry

From growing your own veggies and herbs to raising chickens for eggs, the urban homestead is "in" right now. That's old news to Frank, who was raising a goat at his house on West Gray way back when. "Mammy Goat," Frank says, "was the greatest woman I ever knew."

AA: Tell us about Mammy Goat.

FD: She would attack cars. She would just ram and smash the shit out of them. She would bounce off of them and be so stunned and she would shake her head -- oh man -- and then she would hit it again, go after it until the damn car moved.

AA: The driver would just move along?

FD: Oh god yeah. I mean -- Dang! [laughter]

AA: How did you get her? You were living downtown with a girl and she wanted goat's milk?

FD: That was Flora. Flora's a good girl. Mammy Goat had a funny background. [Townes van Zandt] loved old Mammy Goat and Mammy Goat just hated him. He used to get the shit beat out of him. I don't know what it was but they'd play a lot.

AA: When she was downtown or at your house?

FD: When she was downtown. Townes wouldn't come over to our house because what's her name hated him. Flora -- good gosh, I love her. She was a homemade bitch, but god she was so beautiful. But she was the one who found Mammy Goat.

AA: She wanted the fresh goat's milk?

FD: Yeah. And boy she had it.

AA: Would you go out and milk her in the mornings?

FD: Flora did. But she had big old tits.

AA: The goat?

FD: Yeah. Mammy Goat. Where's that photo? Let me see if you can see them.

AA: Is that a motorcycle jacket you're wearing in the photo?

FD: Yeah. That's a motorcycle jacket.

AA: Were you riding a moped in those days?

FD: No, it wasn't a moped. I've still got it [points across the warehouse to a bike under a tarp]. It wasn't a moped it was a 49cc -- what in the hell is that damn thing -- it doesn't matter.

AA: Where were you living?

FD: You know on Gray Street where all those damned high-rise apartments are? That was where we lived in that gorgeous, gorgeous place. And you know those trees that were around there? Thank god they weren't torn down. I'm going to go back and I bet you some of those old trees are still there. Oh man. Mammy Goat, because I was using that bike, it wasn't any big deal for her to run with me and what was so fine was that we'd go downtown and play at the [Old Quarter Acoustic Cafe -- now relocated to Galveston] and it was a pretty big group of people and Mammy Goat would come up on stage with me -- she had to guard me. And she'd sit behind me and she'd be doing this [rubs his hand against his back] and oh man. She'd do all that kind of stuff. She was a spirit of a kind that you never get to see. She was extraordinarily loving, but loving in a way that was always verging on violence because these huge horns and her aggressive and openly -- what would probably be thought of as mean -- aggressive behavior.

AA: So what would she do? You'd be riding your moped down the street and ...

FD: She'd ordinarily be behind me. But going through an intersection, I would always speed up because if there was a chance for her to slow down and stop, she would, and she'd challenge all the cars going the other way -- because it was a threat. And so, you had to keep up as fast as you could go because she would stay right behind you. So if you slowed down that was her cue to take stock of the situation and to protect and destroy.

AA: Did she have a reputation around town?

FD: She had a reputation. And old Townes, he loved to be the whipping boy. He'd try to get her to chase him around the block. And she volunteered in a second, and she cut the shit out of him all the time. I was surprised he never got his wrist broken, because her favorite thing to do is to make friends, and she goes up to you, and she kind of puts her horn up and down your side and motions to you to pet her. So she'd put her head down and then it comes to about that [puts his fingers out like horns], and then all of a sudden you realize you're like this [puts his wrist between two fingers], and she goes Ka-Wonk! And it hurts like a son of a bitch, and she just loved to do that.

But dammit we had a bond that was just so amazing, I never understood it. In a way it was like having an angel, but really it wasn't an angel. It was like a jealous devil or something, because she always had a plan and you never knew what it was, and she knew and she enjoyed the shit out of it. It was like having a jealous woman in a way except a jealous woman is like -- Mammy Goat had a loaded gun and she didn't use it like a weapon, it was a toy that she dealt out with a very solid powerful respect. And basically that's what it was. She had a power and she knew how to use it and she'd toy with it. And I don't think she hardly ever was mean -- except to Townes! Townes would go as far as he could to be sure that she knew that he was going to go as far as she wanted to go. And he was always extending his -- he didn't care about getting hurt, he loved it.

AA: When you were on stage playing your show and she was sitting behind you, what happened when you'd go back down off the stage?

FD: She'd always stay right next to me. And shit -- you know goats, they just drop those little pebbles and its not like -- uhh-pbbt -- something you stand in. It was just those little pebbles.

AA: All over the club?

FD: All over the place. Didn't stink. And you could tell she enjoyed it.

AA: Taking shits?

FD: Oh yeah.

AA: What happened to Mammy Goat?

FD: I remember burying Mammy Goat.

AA: Underneath those high-rises?

FD: Uh-huh.