The adventures and various works of a photographer, road tripper, former patron of the local arts, aspiring app developer, and late night coffee drinker and conversationalist.
As a casual collector of vintage photos and local ephemera, I am frequently on the lookout for unique and historical items. A few months ago, I came across a listing for an old Ektachrome slide dating to the 1950s, one which depicted a seven story parking garage somewhere in Dallas. Other than the city and the decade, no further information was available. Where exactly was this garage, and is it still standing today? It was an intriguing mystery, and one worth solving for someone with an affinity for local history. If the photo was indeed taken in Dallas, the slide would make a great candidate for my vintage photo collection, and I thus set about attempting to identify the building and its (perhaps former) location.
During the latter 1980s, while the punk scene was maturing on the east side of the DFW Metroplex, a similarly loud, aggressive music scene was developing in parallel to it over on the west side. Dallas had its iconic, punk focused venues such as the Honest Place, the Hot Klub, Studio D, and the succession of venues to call 2111 Commerce Street home. Likewise, Fort Worth and environs had their own metal focused clubs such as Rascals, the Tombstone Factory, and Joe's Garage. These two scenes didn't exist in a vacuum, of course, and there was plenty of crossover between them (the Silver Dollar Rock Shop was located in Dallas, for example, and Fort Worth-based Rigor Mortis was famously managed and guided to a record deal by Jeff Liles, who once booked shows for the Theatre Gallery in Deep Ellum). But, musically and spiritually speaking, the early DFW metal scene was based mostly on the west side of town. The aforementioned Rascals, Tombstone Factory, and Joe's Garage will be subjects of future installments in this series, but sprinkled among these iconic venues were a number of smaller, less remembered haunts that also called the areas west of Dallas home. What were some of these, and what (if anything) remains of them today? In this installment of "Ghosts of DFW Music History," we'll take a look at four of them.
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"
This adorable photo depicts two children standing on Main Street in Dallas, likely sometime in the 1930s. They appear to be standing behind an advertisement for the Special Electric Telegraph Company, attempting to convince passersby to use the telegraph to send a message to a loved one for Valentine's Day. The text on the display, just barely legible in the photo, reads "Tell it the modern way - by telegraph" with the words "Valentine's Day" printed at the very bottom. Pictured behind the children is the Standard Paint & Paper Co., located at 2022 Main Street (now a parking lot), and across the street in the distance is the office complex at 2121 Main, construction of which was completed in 1930 and which is still standing today. I believe the photo is from the 1930s based not only on the office building, but on an advertisement that appeared in the 1930 Dallas City Directory. I purchased this original photo from a vintage collector back in January.
Looking east down Main Street, circa 1930
Today a parking lot sits at the former location of the Standard Paint & Paper Co., between the Masonic office building and the Municipal Court building. Buildup and traffic along the street makes it challenging to get the same shooting angle as in the original photo. Dallas has definitely changed in the past 90+ years.
Looking east down Main Street, March 2024
Despite my best efforts, I haven't been able to dig up any information on the Special Electric Telegraph Company. If you can point to any resources detailing when they were in business or where they were located, feel free to post a comment below.
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.
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.