Category: Music

bookmark_borderGhosts of DFW music history: Deep Ellum Live

Posted on by PAO Productions
This is part of a continuing series of posts exploring locations of former DFW musical landmarks

1998 Misfits show flyer
If it looks like it should be a barn from the outside, it's probably because it WAS... or it basically was, at one time. It was an urban barn whose inside was given over to western swing and dance and to a honky-tonk inspired atmosphere. Over a total of about seventeen years, 2727 Canton Street in Deep Ellum paraded through a whole series of different owners and target clientele, being known successively as Tommy's Heads Up Saloon, Tommy's Deep Ellum, The Institute, and The Venue, before finally settling in as Deep Ellum Live, the name it is most remembered by today. The list of acts to have taken the stage over its storied history reads like a "who's who" of the 1980s and 1990s local and national music scenes. But in 2004, Deep Ellum Live closed its doors for good and lay mostly dormant for over a decade, finally being resurrected from the dead by an entrepreneurial couple as part of their personal Deep Ellum reclamation project. What is the story behind this iconic fixture of the Dallas music scene? Continue reading "Ghosts of DFW music history: Deep Ellum Live"

bookmark_borderGhosts of DFW music history: Pantego Sound Studio/Metal Magic Records

Posted on by PAO Productions
This is part of a continuing series of posts exploring locations of former DFW musical landmarks

Much has already been written to chronicle Pantera's early years, their formation, history in the Metroplex, and their subsequent rise to fame, and it's not my intention to duplicate that here. Rather, this post is instead going to focus on the story of their in-house record label, Metal Magic, and on the studio where they recorded their early output: how these came to be, the story and history behind them, and the role they played in helping launch the band's career. The story begins with Jerry Bob Abbott, a country music singer/songwriter, musician, producer, sound engineer, and the father of Darrell and Vinnie Paul Abbott. The tale of Metal Magic Records is as much the story of Jerry Abbott's early career in the music production industry as it is of Pantera's early rise to fame.

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bookmark_borderGhosts of DFW music history: Insomnia Coffee Bar

Posted on by PAO Productions
This is part of a continuing series of posts exploring locations of former DFW musical landmarks
Insomnia Coffee Bar in 1997
Image courtesy of Central Motion Pictures
On an sweaty August evening in 1997, I headed down to Deep Ellum to meet up with some friends. After finding a place to park my car, I journeyed down Elm Street and made contact with my group, and although I don't remember whose idea it was, we ended up patronizing a coffee house to pass time before seeing some local music. In the group was my coworker, Heather, and her boyfriend at the time, Chris, her friend DeShanna, another co-worker named Glenn (a forty-something year old scenester who probably had no business being down there with a bunch of teenagers), and Björn, a former foreign exchange student turned annual visitor from Germany. Björn was excited at being able to buy brownies at the coffee shop, declaring to me that he was only able to get them when visiting America. I ordered a turkey sandwich, and after taking a few bites I realized that it contained real turkey and not the turkey slices I was accustomed to getting when ordering sandwiches. After leaving the café, our group finished off the night at Trees with a UFOFU and Bobgoblin show, and I ended up trying to bum $10 for a copy of UFOFU's with everyone coming up empty until Glenn was able to help me out. For the next few years I wouldn't recall much about that coffee shop, but I would always remember that sandwich and the brownies and the night's experiences that followed our visit. Thus was my introduction to Deep Ellum's premiere coffee house and hangout at the ripe old age of eighteen. Continue reading "Ghosts of DFW music history: Insomnia Coffee Bar"

bookmark_borderGhosts of DFW music history: Honest Place

Posted on by PAO Productions
This is part of a continuing series of posts exploring locations of former DFW musical landmarks

flyer for Process Revealed at the Honest Place
1988 show flyer
The Deep Ellum neighborhood has been home to a dizzying number of music performance venues over the past century. In the early days of Ellum's renaissance, many an aspiring entrepreneur opted to roll the dice on a new venue. Some, like Charlie Gilder, were able to successfully circumnavigate the sea of red tape put forth by the City Council and obtain permits and liquor licenses; other, perhaps more bullish, entrepreneurs chose to go a different way, with all ages clubs and "unofficial" liquor on tap. Some of the resultant venues, such as the Prophet Bar and Theatre Gallery, achieved fairly long term success and drew a regular contingent of music fans and clubgoers, but Deep Ellum's history is also full of short-lived, fly by night venues that had their brief moments in the sun before flaming out and disappearing completely. And perhaps the most infamous of these long gone, also-ran hotspots was a hole in the wall off Commerce Street, a one time weighing scale and butcher equipment outlet turned punk club known as the Honest Place.

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bookmark_borderGhosts of DFW music history: Silver Dollar Rock Shop

Posted on by PAO Productions
This is part of a continuing series of posts exploring locations of former DFW musical landmarks

flyer for Deadly Force at the Silver Dollar Rock Shop
1989 show flyer
The Silver Dollar... it sounds like some sort of cowboy watering hole, a place you might expect to see country and western acts and not a series of metal bands. Yet here I was with an old Deadly Force show flyer in my hands promoting moshing and urging support for the DFW metal underground of the 1980s, and the show was taking place at the Silver Dollar Rock Shop. What kind of place was this? Where was it located, and when did it disappear into the ether?

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