Part of that may be due to the fact that the City of Dallas hasn’t done much to support this segment of the arts.

Yet, even without the City’s support the music scene continues to grow and thrive thanks to the tremendous talent and grassroots efforts across the city. This is a testament to our determination and resilience.

In recent months, it seems that the City of Dallas is finally starting to open its eyes and making moves towards supporting music, art and culture. Perhaps the best example of this is the recent interest in revamping their cultural plan which is embarrassingly over a decade old. The Office of Cultural Affairs (OCA) along with its consultants have had dozens of community conversations all across the city that have targeted different segments of the arts.

A broken promise

Back in February, Darryl Ratcliff of Creating our Future (COF), an artists advocacy group that has been working closely with the OCA, reached out to me to organize a music-focused meeting due to the lack of input from our music community. Without input, music will not be properly represented in the new plan. I accepted the challenge with enthusiasm.

Approximately 75 people attended the meeting despite the cold, rainy weather. During the process, it became clear that a second meeting was necessary. In fact, a representative for the OCA publicly promised a second meeting that has yet to take place.

I sent over a dozen emails in an attempt to secure a second meeting date and after a month of being pushed aside, I nearly lost faith. Does the City even care about music? Are they simply checking off boxes? Design meeting. Check. Art meeting. Check. Music meeting. Check.

Even with all of my skepticism, I still think the cultural plan is important and needed to propel Dallas to the next level. The new plan will enhance artistic vibrancy and help guide the development of cultural programs and policies that support the arts for the next 10-15 years. For that reason, we will continue to seek changes.

The City doesn’t create culture, we do.

One thing is crystal clear to me, the City with all of its good intentions works at a snail’s pace and if we wait for them to support us it could be years before we start to see fruit.

While I was licking my wounds over their failed promise, COF stepped up to facilitate a small, more informal music meeting, to gather feedback to drive OCA to action. It was held on Monday, March 26th in the Regal Room.

Admittedly, my ego and the fact that my mom had surgery earlier that day nearly kept me from attending the meeting. And to be completely honest, I had been questioning the authenticity of Dallas’ cultural plan based on my experience.

Thankfully, my love of Dallas music and respect for COF organizers outweighed my temporary sourness. I came with my little notebook, not as an organizer but as an observer and participant.

What transpired during this 2-hour session was pretty darn cool. There were about 25 people in attendance, a lot of familiar faces and some new faces I had never met.

There really wasn’t much of an agenda. A brief introduction about COF. A little bit of information about the cultural plan. People were simply invited to discuss the Dallas music scene. There were some that were more vocal than others and some that dominated much of the conversations.

The most vocal in the group included Van Stirling of Culture Unlimited, Harley Barnes music advocate and founder of Decent Market, and musicians Chad Goodson and Alexis Sanchez. I had a few things to contribute but I was there mostly to listen and take notes.

One of the things that hit home during the meeting and why I felt compelled to write this, was when someone, I can’t remember who, stressed the importance of being able to articulate what had happened in the meeting to the City and a broader audience. This is my attempt at doing that.

The highlight reel

I did my best to keep up with the conversation. Here are some of the things we discussed:

• The Fire Marshal and the general decline of DIY events and the negative impact it has had on culture in Dallas. It needs to be easier to navigate and conduct creative events without the threat of being shut down. There’s too much gray area in the permitting process and no easy-to-follow checklist. Could temporary permitting be a solution? How does one go about that?

• The Good Ones Leave.While the City is figuring things out, the rest of the nation is plucking talent from our own backyard. Someone commented that if you look at any mainstream artists’ band, more often than not, there will be a musician from Dallas. Alexis Sanchez who plays alongside Charley Crockett and fronts his own band The Van Sanchez asked, “ What incentives are there for musicians to stay in Dallas?” and expressed his own temptation to move to Austin due to its thriving scene and the plethora of programs and benefits available for musicians, including healthcare.

• Radio. Surprisingly, radio was a hot topic in this meeting with several people echoing the same tune. There needs to be more local talent on mainstream radio. Wouldn’t you like to hear more radio stations playing local music, not just KXT who tends to be very genre specific. This would help musicians reach a broader audience. With so many radio stations owned by big conglomerates, like iHeartRadio, how would a musician even go about this? Did you know the City of Dallas owns a radio station? Perhaps this could be a foot in the door for local musicians. Either way, it’s clear there needs to be a larger discussion about this.

• Deep Ellum needs a music-centric community space. One that pays homage to its music-rich past and present. Someone mentioned that the City of Irving is home to the Texas Musicians Museum. And I don’t know about you but when I think of music I don’t think of Irving. Imagine if something like that existed in Deep Ellum. The space could host community meetings and provide resources specifically for musicians and artists.

• Dallas needs to cultivate a culture of mentorship. Harley Barnes was very vocal about this and gave a nod to Dallas’ startup community as a good example to follow. He suggested inviting people at the top in the music industry to conduct workshops to share their knowledge with people eager to learn.

• Collaboration is key. Chad Goodson, a singer-songwriter, spoke about the importance of collaborating with local influencers, such as Sofar Sounds, Artist Uprising and Culture Hype. He said, “Dallas is not a city you can do music on your own, without collaborators.”

• We need to work together. No one trusts each other. The silos need to come down. There needs to be more opportunities for people within the music community to meet and collaborate. Barnes highlights this fact by saying, “There’s a reason why we feel like we have so much to say because we don’t have many opportunities to meet.”

• Where are our champions? There needs to be organizations that exist whose sole purpose is to move the music scene forward. The City needs to support those organizations.

• Dallas needs a festival it can hang its hat on. Lots of ideas swirled about this one. Most everyone agreed it should not be organized by the City because the City doesn’t know festivals, but it should be funded (partly) and supported by the City. Some wanted it to be a small to mid-tier festival akin to Lights All Night or something bigger like SXSW. Whatever it looks like, it should be a platform to cross-pollinate different segments of the arts, such as visual art, music, film, etc. And there would need to be a loose expectation about how much money the festival would need to make in its first years. Someone pointed out that SXSW and ACL didn’t make money right out of the gate.

When the meeting dissipated some folks left straight away while others, including myself, lingered around for a cocktail and to digest everything that was discussed in the meeting. I soon found myself in deep, enthusiastic conversations with fellow music advocates and entrepreneurs, Tim Daniels Co-Owner of Off the Record, IBK & Homegrown Fest, Ashley Brightwell of Music is Our Weapon and Harley Barnes.

I found these one-on-one conversations to be even more inspiring and left me proud and hopeful for the future of Dallas music. Thank you to Creating Our Future for getting me involved and for pushing forward when I was ready to throw in the towel. While we wait for the City of Dallas and the OCA to make their next move the collective “we” will continue to move music culture forward. 

*Since the initial music meeting I’ve spoken to a representative from the OCA, albeit informally, who has assured me there will be other opportunities aimed at collecting feedback from specific groups, including music, which is Dallas’ largest and least engaged community.

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The post Does Dallas Care About Music? appeared first on Deep Dallas Music.

1. Sam Lao: @samwiththehair

Dallas based hip-hop princess Sam Lao is not only a talented lyricist she is also a model and artist. She uses Instagram to showcase ALL of her talents. And you thought Kim K broke the internet.

A photo posted by samwiththehair (@samwiththehair) on Nov 11, 2014 at 8:59pm PST

2. Leon Bridges: @leonbridgesmusic

Watching Fort Worth singer-songwriter Leon Bridges perform is like stepping back in time (when music had soul). Much like his music, Leon’s Instagram account pays homage to decades past with stunning photography.

Presale tickets for my summer tour are available now with code GOODTHING. All dates available at leonbridges.com/tour. *NYC – Chase cardholder presale tickets available now. #chasepartner

A post shared by Leon Bridges (@leonbridgesofficial) on Mar 23, 2018 at 11:08am PDT

3. Madison King: @madisaurusrexx

Music, food & selfies. That about sums up what you’ll find on country singer Madison King’s feed. I mean, who doesn’t love a beautiful girl who can sing AND cook. Plus, we just can’t get enough of her cloudy-eyed Boston Terrier named #ChiliParty. (Yes, she even has her own hashtag!)

A photo posted by Madison King (@madisaurusrexx) on Oct 10, 2014 at 2:46pm PDT

4. Goodnight Ned: @goodnight_ned

Goodnight Ned entertains on and off stage. Their Instagram account is like a delicious box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get and you wouldn’t have it any other way. 25% show flyers, 25% band photos & 50% random shit.

A photo posted by Goodnight Ned (@goodnight_ned) on Nov 11, 2014 at 11:10am PST

5. Sealion: @sealionband

Sealion’s Instagram account has everything you’d expect from a bunch of Dallas punks promoting a new album – crazy tour antics, dimly-lit images taken from the crowd at some wild shows and then there’s this little gem right here.

A photo posted by Sealion (@sealionband) on Nov 11, 2014 at 1:13pm PDT

6. Sarah Jaffe: @sarahjaffemusic

Something you’ll come to know about Sarah Jaffe, she’s incredibly funny and she loves social media.  Her Instagram feed is a steady stream of funny backstage shenanigans and snapshots from her time on the road.     

A video posted by Sarah Jaffe (@sarahjaffemusic) on Sep 9, 2014 at 8:55pm PDT

7. Luke Wade: @lukewademusic

Thanks to Fort Worth’s Luke Wade we’re addicted to The Voice. He made it to the Top 10! Watch him week after week on NBC as he moves up the ranks and follow his Instagram feed for candid behind-the-scenes photos and videos.

A photo posted by Luke Wade (@lukewademusic) on Nov 11, 2014 at 10:21am PST

What local DFW bands do you follow on Instagram? Comment below.

The post 7 DFW Musicians You Should Be Following on Instagram appeared first on Deep Dallas Music.

We had the opportunity to chat with one of Dallas’ hottest bands, The Roomsounds, at Ferralog Studio in Deep Ellum about their work, influences & what inspires them.

Band members consist of Ryan Michael (lead vocals, guitar), Dan Malone (drums), Sam Janik (guitar, vocals) and Red Coker (bass, vocals).

These guys have that cool seventies vibe that make people want to shout “I am a golden god!” You know, like Billy Crudup before he lept into a swimming pool in Almost Famous. That is to say, they’ve got great hair, and they play great rock n’ roll.

I’m the girl in the front row gettin’ down at every show. Does that make me a fan girl? Yeah, probably. But I don’t care. I like good music and The Roomsounds bring it.

They are great people, great friends to Deep Dallas, and they go ALL IN when it come to their music.

To sum it up The Roomsounds, Ryan Michael says it best…

“A young guy’s take on classic rock.” - Ryan Michael

Behind-the-Scenes with The Roomsounds

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Special thanks to…

High five to our editor Dorothy Sherman of DDS Media, the entire video crew, the whole staff at Ferralog Studios, our kick ass interviewer Jennifer Pompa, our brilliant photographer Eric Boff of Rhombi Survivor and of course The Roomsounds for making this production a reality. You guys rock.

Deep Dallas Studio Sessions spotlight the best, new & up-and-coming bands from Dallas, Denton & Fort Worth. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to for more Deep Dallas Studio Sessions.

The post The Roomsounds | Deep Dallas Studio Sessions appeared first on Deep Dallas Music.

After receiving a Dallas Observer Music Award for Best Electronic Act in 2013, Cutter has proven themselves to be one of the fastest growing bands in Dallas. Their show fliers have proven to be too hot for Facebook and their live act is a phantasmagorical experience to say the least.

We caught up the duo, Jared Coffey and Alex Velte, at their rehearsal space in Lakewood to find out what makes them tick, which resulted in a discussion about horror movies and the influence the Miami Zombie has had on them.

WATCH this clip of Cutter perform their version of Mr. Kitty’s “Destroy Me” as we invade their practice space.

© 2013 Deep Dallas Music | Video by 13thVillage

How did you guys meet, and what made you decide to start making music together?

Jared Coffey: We’ve known each other since high school. We met through mutual friends, but we didn’t hang out much.

Alex Velte: I actually hung out with his older brother.

Coffey: My older brother was more social, I was kind of reserved and shy back then. I hung out by myself most of the time. The music thing just kind of happened naturally. We were both into music for years even before high school. I’ve been in bands since I was twelve. Through haning out, we discovered we liked music and it happened.

What kind of music were you making in the bands before Cutter?

Coffey: I was in a rock band at first, always playing drums. For a while we had a band where all we did was record one practice session, but we had several songs. Remember Pretty Good?

Velte: Yeah, we had a band called Pretty Good. People loved that CD.

Coffey: We made hip hop songs for awhile after that. All our friends were in the hip hop group, and eventually we decided that since me and Alex were doing the majority of the work, we should just make it a duo and just do our own thing, and that’s pretty much the birth of Cutter.

When you guys formed Cutter, what are some of the influences you brought in for your sound?

Velte: Suicide (the band) is one of our biggest influences.

Coffey: We kind of latch onto some bands and kind of change our sound every now and then, and when we heard Suicide’s first album that was a big one. I’m real partial to this punk band from the seventies called The Screamers that were one of the first punk rock electronic bands. They didn’t use any guitars on stage and I always thought that was real cool.

Velte: It was all keyboards, which was rare in the late seventies.

Coffey: You can play rock style music with electronic instruments, which was a pretty cool idea to me.

At your live shows, you project clips from horror movies like Hellraiser and Demons, do horror movies figure into the subject matter of your songs and the sound of your music?

Velte: Definitely, it’s been an influence on our songs. Most of the songs we write together are about any horrible story we can find.

Coffey: Our songs are always about something. I find it impossible to write a song without some kind of idea to write about, and those ideas usually come from whatever story we’re into at the time. The horror movie stuff is just something we’ve been into since we were kids, so of course it’s going to give us some ideas.

You guys got hooked in with Dallas Distortion Music, how did that come about?

Coffey: We were at Good Records and we met up with Derek [Kutzer] from Blackstone Rangers, and he introduced us to Evan [Henry] and Matt [Vickers] from Dallas Distortion. Derek said, “these guys are Cutter.” They said, “oh YOU’RE Cutter!” Somebody knows who we are! They threw the idea out there and of course we were all for it.

What do you guys do when you aren’t making music?

Velte: I don’t have any hobbies. I wake up and go right to work.

Coffey: We both have jobs. When we get off work, we usually have some music business to take care of, even if it’s something light like going over a song.

Velte: Or making racy fliers.

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Ones that get Jessica [Martinez] banned from Facebook!

Velte: I was very happy about that.

Coffey: Doesn’t surprise me at all. One of our fliers got taken off Facebook…

Velte: Matt from Dallas Distortion got banned for four days, he made it his profile picture.

Coffey: Which is a no-no with racy images.

Apparently you can’t share them on Facebook either!

Velte: Which is weird, because no one’s taken ours down. Maybe if I check in an hour it’ll be gone.

Coffey: The whole racy fliers thing isn’t something we do intentionally; in fact, most of them aren’t like that at all. Whenever we make a flier, whatever image happens to be something we like…

Velte: We did have a really cool image of the Florida incident with the homeless man getting his face eaten off for one of our fliers…

© 2013 Deep Dallas Music | Video by 13thVillage

Coffey: The Miami Zombie!

Velte: The one where they were on top of each other on the ground together.

Coffey: Right after that happened we used that image for a show at Bryan Street [Tavern].

Velte: Stories like that is where we get our song topics from.

Ripped from the headlines, like a good exploitation movie.

Coffey: “First on,” that’s about a real story that happened.

Velte: I think it was out in Grand Prairie, a father of a family in an apartment complex dressed up as Santa, and he basically murdered his family and killed himself.

Coffey: On Christmas morning!

Velte: This was last year. And we wrote the song “First on Their Family,” if you look at the lyrical content it’s completely about his whole approach, how he came in and what he might have been thinking, and to me I think those are some of our best lyrics that we’ve done. Yeah, we’re definitely drawn to more of the darker stuff, and we’ve made up stories ourselves and written a scenario from the mindset of whoever is in that horrible situation. It brings a little more passion to the music that way.

Coffey: Yeah, we don’t have a lot of love songs.

You guys said you’ve pounded the pavement when it comes to live shows, what are your impressions of performing live?

Coffey: Performing live, it’s a fun thing you get to do. Taking what you do at home and getting to share it with people in a venue, and getting feedback on the work that you’ve done. And it’s instant thirty minutes of “here’s who we are,” and then it’s done. There’s just kind of a satisfaction in that.

Velte: For me, it’s great to bring high quality noises to a live show, because other bands that that we see, we don’t get to see these really interesting sounds being played live. There’s usually just a backtrack or something. We actually will play these sounds live, you never know where they’re gonna go, we work the synthesizers. When you turn a knob, you never know what sound is gonna pour out of it, and I think it’s better that way instead of relying on software. We rely on more analog equipment.

Coffey: That makes it fun, because you never know if something’s gonna go wrong. There’s that element of danger I guess. People always ask, “do you get nervous when you play?” And I say, “no, not really.” I usually get nervous right before we go on stage, but everything leading up to that, and when I’m actually on stage, I don’t think we get nervous at all.

Velte: Well, I still get nervous. I shake real bad for the first five songs! If you see us live, I’m usually shaking pretty bad, but a few songs in I get more comfortable.

What are some of your impressions of the Dallas music scene over the past year?

Coffey: There’s a lot of it we haven’t even explored yet. Like the metroplex itself, everything’s so spread out. I think it would be cooler if there was a more confined area like the way Deep Ellum used to be, where there’s tons of venues and everything’s going on right there. But now, the venues are so spread out all over the place, it’s kind of hard to keep track of everything. But usually all the shows we’ve been to are really cool and everybody’s really nice.

Velte: A lot of the more established bands have taken us under their wing, that’s why we’ve gotten so many shows is these other acts have liked us so, they’ve wanted us to play with them again. So we’ve gotten a lot of really good shows just from the Dallas scene liking us and inviting us in, which is great. I don’t think we’d be where we are without the other Dallas bands, without Blackstone Rangers, without Dallas Distortion Music. They’ve helped us out a shitload.

Coffey: There’s also a lot of stuff in the live scene that people don’t even know about. There are a lot of venues that just kind of pop up over night, and they might be in the middle of nowhere. I was at a show in Denton, it was a punk show, and the venue was just somebody’s house. Apparently they do shows there all the time.

Velte: Those are the kind of places I would like Cutter to play more so, I think our sound would fit in with more DIY shows, more of a punk rock scene, more of a dark scene. A lot of the gigs we’ve been getting have been more pop rock, and I think we fit in more so with a basement type sound. Unfortunately there are no basements here in Dallas.

How would you describe your sound to someone who doesn’t know a great deal about music?

Coffey: We both have jobs and when people who work outside our music lives ask us about our band, we know they probably don’t know anything about music, so I usually just describe it as electronic rock, that’s the most basic way.

Velte: I usually try to throw in a few more words and say it’s noise-synth-driven with maybe a punk attitude towards it. We’ll throw some names of bands around, but nobody really knows Burzum or The Screamers or anything like that, so it’s kind of hard to have someone understand where we’re coming from when we describe our band.

What can we expect from you in 2013?

Coffey: An album.

Coffey: Pretty soon we’re gonna release another EP. We just put out the three song EP split with Vulgar Fashion, and we’re gonna do our own EP pretty soon, that’s actually almost finished. After that, maybe a few months later, we’ll try to release a full album.

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© 2013 Deep Dallas Music | Photos by 13thVillage

The post Cutter Kinda Creeps Us Out, But in a Good Way appeared first on Deep Dallas Music.

Fort Worth band The Will Callers are still finding heir way after having lost two of the original band members in a fatal car crash in 2010. Lead singer Jake Murphy and drummer Daniel Slaton are long-time friends and are the glue that’s held the band together through rough times.

In our first-ever Deep Dallas Studio Session, we had the chance to sit down with these alt-country rockers at Ferralog Studio in Deep Ellum to chat about their work and what’s next for the band.

Unfortunately, their drummer Daniel Slaton was out of town when we shot this video, which is why they chose to play an acoustic set. But even performing unplugged, you can’t deny the immense talent of this band.

They recently released their debut album, What Else is Left?, produced by Ray Wylie Hubbard thanks to a successful kickstarter campaign.

The album features Jake and Daniel and features some amazing musicians including George Reiff, Brad Rice and Scrappy Jud Newcomb to name a few.

Here’s hoping The Will Callers keep making great music, play more Dallas gigs and find sticky band mates that share their vision.

Here’s the first single “House of Falling Cards” off the album.

Behind-the-scenes with The Will Callers

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We’d Like to Thank The Academy 

Ha! Not really just always wanted to say that. Special thanks to our editor and photographer Dorothy Sherman of DDS Media, the entire video crew, the whole staff at Ferralog Studios, our interviewer Nicole Crane, and of course The Will Callers for making our first-ever Deep Dallas Studio Session a smashing success!

Deep Dallas Studio Sessions spotlight the best, new & up-and-coming bands from Dallas, Denton & Fort Worth. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to for more Deep Dallas Studio Sessions.

The post The Will Callers | Deep Dallas Studio Sessions appeared first on Deep Dallas Music.