26 April 20–26, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents my goals were, I wanted to be written about in the Observer. I wanted to be on tour be- cause to me, you were a real band if you were on tour. And we poured all of our re- sources into making that happen. I mean, we never made any money. Every dollar went back into paying for the van, or we would go on tour and break even.” Ponder got to tour the country playing guitar in a band he loved and was “able to le- verage a 10-year unpaid internship into a job” and is proud that his company has raised the bar for musicians. Artists playing for 13th Floor get paid in more than tips and bar tabs, with a guaranteed minimum, though North Texas, for Ponder, has always paid its musicians far better than Austin, Nashville or Chicago, despite their reputa- tion as music meccas. “We would go to L.A. as a band, and you’re lucky to make $8 at the hotel café. It’s just kind of like ‘You’re lucky to be here’ was kind of the vibe,” he says. He thinks Dallas artists have about as good a chance as any in breaking out in some ways. “What’s the trajectory or the likelihood of anyone breaking out of any market any- where in the country is probably statisti- cally very low,” he says. “I would say that obviously there are success stories that have come out of Dallas, even recently. I mean, I consider Paul Cauthen, Charley Crockett, even Texas Gentlemen, obviously Leon Bridges, all of those bands to be successes.” While artists are not as dependent today on touring to build a following, Jah Born says they should not substitute live perfor- mances with social media. “It’s imperative to give the fan the oppor- tunity to see you live,” he says. “It completes the whole entire experience for them. There’s so much value in being an artist and having the opportunity to display what you put on social media to your fans in real life. That’s why people pay. That’s why there’s always a premium for that experience.” Liles doesn’t think artists need to vie for the sort of screen time enjoyed by TikTok star Addison Rae. “Be an innovator, not an influencer,” Li- les says. “I mean, musicians aren’t really in- fluencers. What they are is innovators. They’re artists. So the influencers are the people that hear it and say, ‘Oh man, you gotta hear this,’ you know what I’m saying? Those are the influencers. The artists themselves, you know, they don’t spend a whole lot of time trying to influence peo- ple. And what I’m trying to encourage art- ists to do is find a sound that you can own, that people will hear it and immediately know who it is.” Rising Stars D anni J and Kris W probably wouldn’t put it this way, but the local music in- dustry is kind of their bitch. The singers play a variety of acoustic cov- ers as duo Danni & Kris; they have a Fleet- wood Mac tribute band called Little Lies plus an original project called Prizm, a synth-pop band with which they produce songs for a li- censing company for commercial use. They say their original songs have been used by brands such as Doc Martens, Sephora, Igloo coolers and Disneyland and even by Paris Hilton. They also perform as “Brixtina,” a Britney/X-Tina crossover tribute act, and they even throw in a bit of NSYNC for the TRL generation, complete with costume changes and backup dancers. The act had its first show at The Rustic in September 2021 and sold 800 tickets. “The name attached to it with Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera has that nos- talgic feeling. People want to come out and see it,” Kris says. “I think there’s a hunger for tribute bands way more that we’ve seen pop up just in the last couple of years. We are in multiple tribute bands now just be- cause it feels like that’s what people are wanting to see more.” Danni adds, “Those artists have years and years and years of cultivating a following, and so when you tack that name onto your per- formance and you are hosting a show, people are like, ‘Oh, my God, we wanna come,’ espe- cially if it’s a theme … people love to dress up.” The musicians are able to make their liv- ing performing other artists’ music while also profiting off their original recordings, and all of their bands have their own followers. “Prizm is a very different type of project, and the demographic, everything is very dif- ferent,” says Kris. “It’s synth-wave ‘80s- sounding music, which has a really big cult following.” The licensing company they work with is subscription-based, so Prizm’s music is placed on countless ads and videos hun- dreds of times a month. The deal is lucrative, but they like performing live, even through the ups and downs of the pandemic. Many industry people hoped for a shift after the pandemic lockdowns, but the sad silence surrounding empty stages didn’t necessarily set audiences running to sup- port local talent when venues reopened. Balis says the bar business hasn’t re- turned to its pre-COVID days, and his bars and neighboring businesses have seen a decline in sales and attendance. “I think there was somewhat of an ex- pectation that once restrictions were lifted and people felt safer about going out, that the streets were just going to be flooded with people wanting to be active and do stuff and see live music,” Balis says. “I think a lot of people, because it did take so long, their habits changed and they just stuck to their new way, their new normal, their new way of life, which was staying at home. I underestimated that. I thought that people were gonna be bursting at the seams to get out.” On the Money O n Sunday near the end of March, singer Sarah Johnson’s annual showcase of female talent, Girls of DFW, stacked the stage at Louie Louie’s Du- eling Piano Bar in Deep Ellum. At the end of the set, after duo Penny and Dime’s acoustic harmonies, Jones Monroe stole the room’s attention simply by taking the stage. The singer grew up with her grandmother in Terrell, dreaming of breaking out like hometown star Jamie Foxx. She took piano and voice lessons thanks to her grandmother, who bartered her services as a caregiver. Jones did her elders proud. “I placed first in UIL [University Interscholastic League] every year,” she says. Jones graduated from high school at 16, studied vocal performance at Cedar Valley College and became an opera singer, briefly singing in New York venues. She won a full- ride scholarship to UNT but declined it to take care of her ailing grandmother. One day, she was singing in a public rest- room “just randomly,” she says, when a woman told her she should apply for a job coaching artists. Jones began teaching young artists how to sing and eventually started her own artist development company, Pogue En- tertainment. The killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020 inspired Jones to return to singing. “I literally wrote a full album, straight through,” she says. “I decided during that time, I had a message and that I really needed to form and do my own artistry or I wouldn’t actually be happy.” She ditched her name, Brielle Pogue, along with 40 pounds and picked up her grandmother’s last name as her first before re-emerging as the newly blond Jones Monroe. First she released the hip-hop/R&B sin- gle “Black,” but she’s sitting on 30 songs she’s soon to release. Monroe is trying every avenue to reach fans — seeking a label hookup through con- nections, planning an expensive video shoot in Los Angeles and a sponsorship deal with Bacardi. On stage at Girls of DFW, her blond curls and shimmering sheer dress suggested more Monroe than Jones. She sat for her perfor- mance, her old-soul vocals standing tall, but jumped from her seat for a hip-hop reimag- ining of Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say.” With her movements and presence, she treated the audience like a multitude in a stadium. About two dozen people were there. And that’s a measure of how many peo- ple missed it. At any time in DFW, close to 6.3 million people skip the chance to watch artists like Jones Monroe, who are bursting with all the momentum to break out, hopefully from the comfort of their hometown. @NicoleFreitagphoto Jones Monroe wrote an album inspired by the killing of George Floyd. Almost Dallas-Famous from p25
