Live in the City Where the Sun Beats Down: Dallas does have a music scene.

When I first came to Dallas, I hated it and thought it was a city of assholes who said mean things under a veil of politeness. Now, I get pissed off when people complain about Dallas. (Turns out I was just in the wrong line of work.)

My current annoyance is hearing people complain that there's no music scene here. It makes me think of the gruff longtime waitresses who were my coworkers in my formative years and their expression "They'd rather bitch than eat when they're hungry." You can see a good show in Dallas. Or you can talk about how cool Austin is while not going out to support the music scene you have right here.

So here's a taste of the music scene you can participate in right here... (maybe I'll continue this theme in future blogs? Who knows, I'm very unreliable.)


First up - Hello Lover.

Hello Lover gets to top the list because I have recent video of them, and I've seen them play more times than I can count and its always a good show. Also, they have a charismatic seven-foot-tall lead singer who dances. The best way to find Hello Lover is to see them live - their internet presence (and the sound in my video) doesn't do them justice. But I like their taste in posters.

St Patty's band flyer - art by J Schaefer, reference photo T Stead

 If you disregard my advice to just see them live, or if you need to figure out how to do that, theres Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hello-Lover/108340453574 and Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/hellolovermusic

This brings me to my next introduction- a venue: Club Dada, also seen in the above video.

Dada is off again, on again, off again, now its on again. It's part of the tradition of Deep Ellum legends that are closing down, but this one won't stay dead. Its a good place to see a show - either a local band, or see a bigger act in a smaller venue.

 Favorite bands I've seen there: Hello Lover, Lucero, The Riverboat Gamblers, Record Hop.

One major, MAJOR complaint about Dada though: The bathroom situation. There are a total of two toilets available, and shows here do fill the house.

Website at http://dadadallas.com/

The Days of Tequila and Lillies

On Friday night after my show, Thom and our friend Joey (bartender at Vickery) and I made a desperate attempt to catch Hello Lover playing at Club Dada. One of my other friends/Vickery bartenders is in the band..

We ran across the park to the car and flew down 75 to Deep Ellum.. and then, anti-climatically, we parked and walked around looking for the club. We wandered past some sleeping street festival, past salsa clubs and dingy pizza place, past bums, through a landscape that should have probably belonged only to movies. We asked a whole cast of characters where it was, Joey even asked the same cop twice, but to no avail. Fortunately the cop was amused.

We fianally came through a crowd of mohawks and bondage pants and could see it on the other side. But we were five minutes too late, we'd missed the set. Sean was packing up when we got there. We did a couple of shots with him and my boss, who was also there.. i had a coke and Captain as well.. and somewhere between that and our fruitless search for the hottest chick in the bar, I lost track of at least some aspects of sobriety.

Record Hop went on, and the sound assaulted the tiny room with deafening fury. We stood up at the front and side of the stage, not really interacting with each other because the sound made communication rediculous. Everyone was alone with the music. I took a couple of snapshots with my camera.. my foot next to Thom's on the concrete floor, the singer blurring across the screen, a random crowd shot. Lost in the deafness of music, I made a note in my phone- "I hope I remember these snapshots- the last suck of a straw, the half hour of deafness.. the.. oblivion."

I can't remember the last time I could feel the poetry of my own life so intensely.. see the beauty in little pieces of things I see and do and the intricacies of the situations. To be sucking in air like it is something that you can't just get out of thin air. Maybe not since the days of running through a hardee's parking lot in the rain with a girl named Merry. Which is a story I must write soon..

Thom asked if everyone who works at Vickery is a starving artist. Maybe not precisely, but close. Working in a bar is really not a bad gig at all. It has its advantages.. and it offers eternal youth.