23 April 20–26, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Almost Dallas- Famous The DFW music scene is built to last, but are local fans coming? BY EVA RAGGIO T he weather is minutes from cool- ing down, but the outdoor stage at Legacy Hall is hotter than a haba- nero’s ass. The Battle of Ever- more, a Led Zeppelin tribute band, might as well be the real thing. Fans of the original British rockers stand near the stage, singing along, their ears perked for shrieks they know are coming. Dressed in wide bell-bottoms and puffy sleeves, fiery singer Trees Marie channels her inner Robert Plant as band members flip their long hair in time with the beat. They look like they share space in a Laurel Can- yon condo in the early 1970s, as if Henry Diltz’s camera should be vigilantly clicking from a corner. But the venue is far from Los Angeles. It’s in the heart of Legacy West, an upscale shopping center in Plano, directly across from Gucci and diagonal from Tiffany’s. The entertainment destination has two stories and a cafeteria with endless op- tions. This Friday night in March, there’s a non-diverse crowd of at least a thousand patrons. It’s a family-friendly beer garden on fake grass, with dads in baseball caps, children using cupcake mush for face paint and one man in a Led Zeppelin T- shirt, karate headband and tube socks who’s dancing like nobody’s watching, even though everyone is. As a smoke machine turns the stage into a cloud, the band closes with the rock epics “Kashmir” and “Whole Lotta Love.” According to the venue’s schedule, the month is heavy with tribute acts: Pink, Aero- smith, and George Strait imitators. Thurs- days and Saturdays are DJ nights. Some of the best musicians in town play in cover or tribute bands, in Top 40 bands or in groups playing Latin, jazz and blues stan- dards. With his rendition of Luis Miguel, Cristian Cuevas can fill hundreds of seats; Matthew Crain of the bands Dead Mocking- birds and Frances Heidy plays in Pearl Gem; Poppy Xander from The Helium Queens and Polyphonic Spree is also in PriMadonna; and The Grays (siblings Kwinton, Kierra and KJ) sell out their Disney-themed nights. North Texas has an embarrassment of musical riches. Name any genre, from polka to punk, electronic to country, and DFW has a notable export. Now, name your favorite local, non-cover band, one that no one outside of Texas has heard of. For most, that’s a head-scratcher. “We need a fan revival, not a band revival,” Xander says. With a full buffet of original DFW talent, more fans should try eating at home sometime, she says, rather than subsist- ing on a diet of music made by national acts. The table is set for local fans with an appetite for original music, but they have to show up. Dallas and Fort Worth have long tradi- tions as music cities that foster talent. In Denton, the University of North Texas offers a distinguished jazz music program. One of the most prestigious performing arts high schools in the country is Dallas’ Booker T. Washington, which boasts Norah Jones, Roy Hargrove, Erykah Badu and many others among its alums. North Texas also has several bustling en- tertainment districts, from Deep Ellum to Arlington, with hundreds of venues of all sizes; a range of accessible music studios; open mics run by Grammy winners; radio stations devoted to local music; and publica- tions covering the local scene. The infra- structure is solid, the artists are being incubated, the stage is set and the mic has been checked again and again. Are North Texas’ 6.3 million potential fans listening? The answer depends on whom you ask and which aspect of the music scene they’re describing. Moses Habtezghi is a booking agent with a company called The Grey Hat. Since 2007, Habtezghi has worked with the band Collab, first doing spoken word and “freestyling, ba- sically rapping,” he says, as the musicians played. On an evening in March, he was in Deep Ellum watching the group, which can be found at Three Links every Tuesday. A dozen people were there, nearly half of them up front paying deep attention to the bass- heavy R&B groove, clinking cymbals, a screaming rock singer and the spoken word that rattles like a jazz drum. Habtezghi says Collab has had more than 45 official members, with “Day 1” members Jonathan Thomas, Evan Johnson and Isaac Davies still in the band. “[Collab] were some of the first people who encouraged me to get into the busi- ness side,” Habtezghi says of booking. “It gradually grew to where the venues trusted me to bring talent and the talent trusted me to book them in places where they would do well.” Last year, Habtezghi started booking art- ists to play at Dave & Busters. Noting a niche for hip-hop tribute acts, he put together homages to Outkast and Kanye West. A few months later, it was Beyoncé night. The restaurant/arcade asked him to fill up every Saturday. So Habtezghi called The Grays, who landed on an irresistible con- cept for September, “Channel Surfing: De- cades of your favorite TV theme songs.” The rhythmically gifted group of siblings, who play with their own acts as the Kwin- ton Gray Project and King Kie, took audi- ences back with intro songs such as the one from ’90s kid show Gullah Gullah Island and a jamming version of “Where Every- body Knows Your Name” from Cheers. Fans could get chicken wings and play pinball afterward. Habtezghi says original artists have to moonlight as cover acts. “People love some- thing they’re familiar with; it’s hard to sell them something that’s brand new,” he says. Social media promotion doesn’t quite re- place the power of impassioned, personal word of mouth. A study from 2021 Mike Brooks Above: Danni and Kris have four bands, including “Brixtina,” a Britney and Christina crossover tribute act. ▼ Music >> p24 Mike Brooks Moses Habtezghi says original artists have to moonlight as cover acts to get started.
