23 April 6–12, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Rolling in the Deep Musician and artist IZK Davies released a video about Deep Ellum’s gentrification, crime and other controversies. BY DANNY GALLAGHER M usician and artist Isaac “IZK” Davies has been going to Deep Ellum since he was a teenager. He’s seen the neighborhood change and evolve for more than two decades. Then, someone opened a Patagonia down there. It wasn’t the final straw for him, but it feels like a clear sign of a massive swing for the historic music community’s priorities and landscape that’s existed in some form for 150 years. “I’m not one way or the other about it,” Davies says from his art studio in Mexico City. “As an artist, when new businesses come to the neighborhood, it means I get work and meet someone new. I’ve always been open about including new establishments to the neighborhood and welcoming them. I don’t have personal opinions of the businesses there, but when you zoom out, you get a per- spective on what an artistic neighborhood looks like and how it affects the artists there.” Davies says he’s been thinking about Deep Ellum a lot, not just because of the never-ending changes it undergoes with each new generation. So, last year he wrote and recorded “If I Die in Deep Ellum” and released a video on YouTube and social me- dia that’s getting a lot of shares and eyeballs. The song explores Deep Ellum’s recent rise in violent crime, gentrification and the proliferation of noise complaints and polic- ing that’s started affecting some of its most popular music venues. “It’s like living in the French Quarter and calling in a noise complaint,” Davies says. “Why move to an entertainment district and complain about the noise?” The video is interspersed with images of some of the neighborhood’s darker mo- ments of violence, including footage of for- mer bartender Austin Shuffield assaulting L’Daijohnique Lee in 2019 and the after- math of shootings outside of Deep Ellum’s remaining music venues. “They said it’s all good / in the neighbor- hood / but I just saw a power washer clean- ing up the blood / I came to rock mics / not fear for my life.” It even includes some of the dumber mo- ments, such as when talking head Steven Crowder threatened to call police on a street artist painting murals on disposable boards. The boards covered the windows of Deep Ellum businesses after the 2020 protests against police. “When I watch that [Steven Crowder video], man, it’s just like it was a perfect ex- ample of someone coming to the neighbor- hood and just not knowing who or what our neighborhood is,” Davies says. “When I was piecing together visuals for the video, I was just trying to remember all the things that stood out to me about the neighborhood and the media portrayal that’s out there.” Issues of crime and gentrification might seem disparate, but Davies says it’s all inter- connected when a neighborhood’s main iden- tity is provided by the artists who flavor it. “It’s a domino effect,” Davies says. “When you lose one thing you’re used to having that’s providing a positive attribute to the neighborhood, it affects another thing. It goes all the way down until people stop coming to the neighborhood and peo- ple come to the neighborhood who don’t understand it.” The true final straw for Deep Ellum’s survival as a hub for music and art will come when those artists don’t have the space or money to perform or share their works. “Here’s the part / where you recognize the arts / are the centralized spark / to the part of the city that’s uniquely set aside to provide for the gritty and grimy / not the pretty and the shiny.” The video for “If I Die in Deep Ellum” was shared more than 140 times in just 48 hours and racked up 5,300 views. It’s clearly hit a nerve. The song and video are also available for free, an ethos that Davies has carried with him for his entire musical career. “The goal has always been to put music out for free and let people enjoy it,” he says. “It’s good that the momentum is there and that people are enjoying the writing and vi- suals attached to it.” ▼ REVIEW AN HONEST SHOW- WOMAN SABRINA CARPENTER PEPPERS HER DALLAS SHOW WITH HUMOR. BY CARLY MAY GRAVLEY A bout 15 minutes into her set at The Factory in Deep Ellum last Friday, pop singer-songwriter Sabrina Car- penter asked her fans to leave behind any personal issues they were facing and be fully swept up in the music and joy of being to- gether. “Be as present as you can,” she urged. Carpenter’s talk of living in the moment is in many ways at odds with the overall tone of last year’s album, emails i can’t send, and her tour of the same name. Both depict an artist who’s trying to escape her past. The show could best be described as am- bitious, with Carpenter shamelessly sharing her blueprint for world domination before she even hit the stage. The pre-show playlist would’ve come across as bizarre and ran- dom to the uninitiated, with Depeche Mode, Fleetwood Mac and Dolly Parton all prompting spontaneous singalongs from the mostly teenage crowd. We overheard a security guard wonder- ing out loud why these kids were going crazy for these older artists. The answer, of course, is that they all had viral songs on TikTok. It was a fitting playlist considering Carpenter’s single “Nonsense” has also found success on the app. Clips from the show would later go on to be uploaded in al- most real time, with fans wanting to be the first to post that next viral Sabrina Carpen- ter moment. Carpenter is clearly gunning for top-tier pop stardom, having paid her dues for almost a decade as a child actor on the Disney Chan- nel and four albums before emails i can’t send. However, her career came to a screeching halt in 2020 when Olivia Rodrigo referenced a “blonde girl who made me doubt” on her breakup ballad “driver’s license.” Carpenter was quickly implicated as the supposed other woman, and she was reduced for a time to a supporting character (the villain’s hench- man, if you will) in Rodrigo’s story. She has released two singles addressing this (2020’s “Skin” and 2022’s “Because I Liked a Boy”), bringing renewed attention to the drama long after the fact. Lingering sin- gles aside, the singer is using this album cy- cle to reintroduce herself to fans new and old and show off her down-to-earth, relat- able, non-boyfriend-stealing side. This tour has achieved viral success thanks to Carpenter’s vocals and perfor- mance style alongside her raunchy sense of humor. She performs her single “Nonsense” as part of the encore and adds a funny, off- the-cuff outro personalized for every stop of her tour. Her Dallas verse was, “Everything is bigger here in Dallas / Cowboys call me if you wanna practice / Make some noise if you would ever tap this.” The show was littered with asides like this, ranging from heartfelt (“Nothing makes me happier than being in a room full of cool people”) to silly (“Dallas sounds like dat ass”) to an outright chaotic moment when she began mining the audience for gossip about their personal lives. She spoke to one young man who claimed the girl he liked was at that very concert with someone else, prompting boos from the crowd. The girl then came forward and rejected him. Car- penter used this bizarre tangent to segue into a cover of “Hopelessly Devoted to You.” Bits like these often overshadowed the music itself. The most memorable moments from the show weren’t contagious pop hooks or intimate acoustic confessionals, but her telling a fan at the barricade she won’t take a BeReal for them because she doesn’t want to or taking an applause poll to see what the best Girl Scout cookie is. It was less of a concert and more like The Sabrina Carpenter Variety Hour. Two songs played on Friday seemed to truly resonate with the entire crowd. One was not a Sabrina Carpenter song, but “All Too Well” by Taylor Swift, which was the last song on the pre-show playlist. The en- tire audience erupted in deafening cheers when the opening chords faded in, and they screamed in unison for all 10 minutes of it. The recording brought about a kind of ca- tharsis and unity that Carpenter, even with her blond bangs and guitar, failed to match. The other was “Nonsense,” the first of two encore songs. People who were at the merch stand, the bathroom or sitting on the floor on their phones took notice as soon as the song started. At the risk of sounding cyn- ical, it wasn’t just because they like the song. Fans were scrambling to get into a good po- sition with their phones ready to record that outro, crossing their fingers that their Tik- Tok upload finishes first and they get the vi- ral clout. The second encore song was “Because I Liked a Boy,” Carpenter’s response to the backlash she received after “driver’s license” came out. In it she tells her side of the story and speaks out against people who think she’s a homewrecker. Most attendees were heading for the exit at this point, having got- ten what they came for. | B-SIDES | ▼ Music Carly May Gravley Sabrina Carpenter engages her fans. Mike Brooks Police stand outside Three Links on Elm Street in this file photo.
