In the early 1980’s bands like Black Flag began forging a new, evocative and atonal brand of anti-conformist underground music, staying completely off the mainstream’s new wave grid with their strictly, and necessarily DIY ethos. Starting their own labels as an only means of documenting their creative output, and organizing their own gigs because few conventional venues tolerated bands participating in the fledgling hardcore movement or the scene that inadvertently brought with it were but a few of the hardships the 80’s indie bands faced.
In Dallas those bands would play the industrial warehouse district of Deep Ellum, away from the watchful eyes of mainstream crowds or authorities. Bands like Black Flag, Husker Du, The Dead Kennedy’s, as well as the Butthole Surfers, Reverend Horton Heats, and New Bohemians of the world gravitated to the cheap warehouse space in the then unassuming neighborhood.
Deep Ellum was sketchy, in disrepair, not well-lit. Deep Ellum was cool because if people who hung out there felt like they were a part of something, nobody who wasn’t truly into the music or its irrepressible, emergent community would dare venture down its dim streets. Nor would they risk elbowing past a group of skinheads just to ‘be seen’ at a particular club.
Due to pressure from local businesses in the late 1980’s the city of Dallas began putting money into repairing the streets, adding lighting and better parking, and generally making Deep Ellum safer and more presentable.
As DC9 posted yesterday, this is also about the time that Island Records put out the Sounds of Deep Ellum compilation.
By 1991 Nirvana had signed to Geffen and released their major label debut
Nevermind, bringing indie music to the mainstream, and effectively ending the underground movement by shining on it the national spotlight. That same year Deep Ellum was home to 57 bars and clubs, not to mention numerous tattoo parlors, restaurants, and shops. On paper the neighborhood was thriving –one could walk down the street on any given night and hear 10 genres of music blaring out from various clubs –but the attention that success brings also brings out the wannabes and hangers-on who are more interested in being seen in the neighborhood than actually seeing any bands.
Too much popularity/recognition, which consequently lead to too much attention were the demise of Deep Ellum. Rock music should be scary –this is why nobody likes the same music as their parents—but all of a sudden nobody was all that afraid to venture into the neighborhood. Over the next ten years Deep Ellum declined into such a state of disarray there was very nearly an effort by the city of Dallas to bulldoze the area and convert it a live/eat/sleep shopping center replete with fancy condos. Perhaps the only thing that saved Deep Ellum from complete oblivion was the failing economy which pointed the city’s attention elsewhere.
Several times in the 2000’s Deep Ellum was declared dead, which is perhaps the best possible thing for the neighborhood. Now in its state of disrepair, it is no longer cool for dudebros, the $30,000 millionaires, or the cocaine and boob-job crowd to wander down there (they have since discovered places like Lower Greenville or the area near City Tavern). Very quietly several clubs have reopened in the last couple of years. Thanks to some headsup local bookers like Parade of Flesh, some of the best underground bands from all over the country have been playing Deep Ellum to decent crowds and not much media fanfare.
Very gradually Deep Ellum is making its little comeback, or sorts, and it is in danger of being quashed before getting a chance at full resurgence. Nearly a week ago t
he New York Times printed an article about Deep Ellum “Getting Its Groove Back,” which several local media trumpeted. But this is the opposite approach true appreciators of the local music scene should take. The media should do its keep this thing under wraps. People who have to read about a scene to know it’s cool are not the people that are good for the scene in the end. Like Billy Joel said, “You can’t get the sound from a story in a magazine”.
The thing one who truly is in favor of a Deep Ellum revival should be lusting after is danger; intimidating-looking punks, bizarrely-dressed hipsters, and iced-out urbanites should be more than enough to keep the harmless House of Blues-types from tainting Deep Ellum’s cool. Perhaps the biggest key to returning Deep Ellum to its once heralded popularity is not to talk about it –especially not in the media. If this thing really is to be, it should be completely organic, and ideally, as underground as possible.
And that’s the last thing we’ll say about it.
=w=
Posts
There has been a lot of hype lately surrounding WAVVES' upcoming summer release King of the Beach, due out in August via Fat Possum/Bella Union. I only bring it up because Bella goes as far as to call it "The punk record that will define 2010." While the tracks I've heard are pretty decent, I wouldn't call them genre-defining by any stretch, nor would I go as far as to label them punk. On the other hand, the term 'punk' can seemingly be applied to anything these days, especially when it is something so drenched it reverb that it nearly drowns in its own reechoed maelstrom. In other words, I think I would have enjoyed these tracks exponentially more if the bang-to-hype ratio weren't so out of whack.
