20 December 22–28, 2022 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Month XX–Month XX, 2014 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER | Contents | Unfair Park | sChUtze | featUre | night+Day | CUltUre | Movies | Dish | MUsiC | ClassifieD | Tears in Heaven Late musician Jess Barr was the ‘real deal.’ Even Stephen King was a fan. by Christian MCPhate S lobberbone’s guitarist, Jess Barr, had this cocky thing he used to do onstage whenever he finished a kickass guitar solo. A former University of Texas college student who had hooked up with the iconic Denton alt-country rock band in the late ’90s, Barr would look at the crowd, make a number 1 sign and, with it, a face that said, “Yeah, I nailed it. Absolutely.” Offstage, Barr was a mild-mannered Clark Kent type, kind of an unassuming dude. But when he hit the stage, he tore it up like a rock star Superman unleashed on red kryptonite. Often slinging a Les Paul guitar but sometimes a banjo, he’d smoke one ciga- rette after another, as if possessed by the soul of Keith Richards. He picked up the tagline, “Jessie Barr on the shiny gold guitar.” “Some people would say he was pointing to the heavens,” said his best friend and business partner Danny Balis on Friday’s af- ternoon edition of The Downbeat with Mike “The Old Grey Wolf” Rhyner on 97.1 The Freak. “No, he wasn’t doing that. He was like, ‘Yeah, I just shredded your face.’ It was beautiful and people would expect it. People would go to Slobberbone shows and during his solos, they would have the number 1 sign held up. It was beautiful.” Even more beautiful was that, in 2014, Barr gave up his musical dream of life on- stage, Balis said, to be with his wife and raise his young son. He had begun focusing on an- other dream: running his Deep Ellum live music bar, the Twilite Lounge, which he co- founded with Balis in 2013. Barr, who was 46, died Dec. 6. It was a heart attack, Balis said. “As you can imagine, his people are pretty broken up about this and the less I have to speak about it right now the better,” Balis said in a Friday morning email to the Ob- server. A few hours later, he’d dedicate a seg- ment to Barr with his co-hosts on The Downbeat, discussing how they met and the impact that Barr had on him as a young fan scouring the North Texas scene for good music in the ’90s. When word about Barr’s death began to spread, fans began sharing their “Jessie Barr on the shiny gold guitar” stories on Slobber- bone’s Facebook page. “They got a good one! Heaven will be rockin’ tonight. Scoot over and make room for the golden guitar,” Jammy Sochat wrote. Another fan, Blair Kooistra, wrote, “I only saw Slobberbone a few times back in those late ’90s/early 2000s hey dayze [sic], but apart from the excruciatingly great music, what I remember most is Jess on the left side of the stage, playing the guitar or banjo, point- ing a finger skyward, and going through ciga- rette after cigarette, tossing them over his shoulder and lighting another.” Balis discovered Slobberbone when the Dallas Observer’s then-music editor Robert Wilonsky wrote a story about the Denton band’s demo album, called Crow Pot Pie. Singer-songwriter Brent Best, also a guitar- ist, had formed the band with bass guitarist Brian Lane and drummer Tony Harper in the early ’90s. Barr, though, wasn’t part of the band yet. Instead, Balis recalled that Slobberbone had another guitarist who was proficient but didn’t seem to fit in with the other guys, espe- cially with his Paul Reed Smith, a high-tone guitar often played by high-end jazz players. “It just didn’t fit in with their Fender, Gibson kind of ‘back to your roots, bare bones kind’ of instruments,” Balis told Rhyner. Somehow Balis got a copy of the album and started to pass it around to his music-minded buddies, all of whom loved it. He began travel- ing to Denton to watch the band and catching their shows in Dallas at the old Barley House . Not long after he began catching their shows, the Paul Reed Smith player left the band and a 19-year-old kid, Jess Barr — who had a full ride scholarship to the University of Texas for a pre-med track — had joined the band. Barr had given up his college dream to pursue his rock ‘n’ roll one, and he joined Slobberbone shortly after they released their second album, 1997’s Barrel Chested. “The first time I saw them with Jess, I was like, ‘OK, here it is. The pieces are to- gether. This puzzle is complete because he was good looking, he played a Les Paul, and he had a cigarette dangling from his lips like Keith Richards,’” Balis told Rhyner. “He looked the part and when he played a guitar solo, it was blistering but super tasteful, not like a shredder type, just a really melodic tasteful rock ‘n’ roll guitar player.” Slobberbone began playing the Barley House frequently, and Balis became friends with the band and good friends with Barr. Dallas drummer Jeff Ryan, a member of Pleasant Grove, remembers playing many shows with Slobberbone and traveling with the band during the early 2000s when, he says, the Denton band were “diehard road dogs” and touring constantly. They traveled to Wisconsin and Chi- cago and played at the legendary 400 Bar in Minneapolis. “What was cool about Jess was he would have a beer with you and a cigarette, do a shot and then he’s onstage and he’s all business,” Ryan said. “He was ab- solutely a phenomenal guitarist and just in- credible. He was kind of like a rock star but not a cheesy deal. It was the real deal. He was the real deal.” When Barr moved to Dallas about mid- way through his run with Slobberbone, he and Balis became inseparable, hanging out four or five nights a week. Balis described Barr as one of the funniest dudes a person would ever meet, with a “cutting wit,” “a dry sardonic sense of humor” and an infectious “best laugh in the world.” Balis was there for Barr’s wedding to Ashley Barr in New Orleans and fell in love with the city. Barr was at the height of his musical career with Slobberbone, releasing 1998’s Your Excuse Live EP, a couple of al- bums – 2000’s Everything You Thought Was Right Was Wrong Today and 2002’s Slip- page. He played on several compilations, including “Scuffed” on Band-Kits: A Com- pilation of Denton, Texas Music, 1999’s “Piece of Crap” by Neil Young on This Note’s for You Too! A Tribute to Neil Young and 2005’s “Some New Town” by Bruce Springsteen on Thunder Road Tracks In- spired by the Boss. Horror legend Stephen King mentioned Slobberbone’s “Gimme Back My Dog” in his novel Black House and called it one of three greatest rock ‘n’ roll songs ever in a February 2007 column for Entertainment Weekly. About 12 years ago, Balis was looking to find a partner for a dive bar he was planning to open. He’d been in talks with one possible partner that didn’t get very far, and was la- menting about it to Barr, who was tending bar at Barley House, which had moved from Hen- derson to its current site on SMU Boulevard. “Dude, why don’t we do it?” Barr asked him. “I have been wanting to open a ▼ Music “He was kind of like a rock star but not a cHeesy deal. it was tHe real deal.” - Jeff ryan Jess barr was dallas’ keith richards, say his friends and colleagues. Allan Hayslip >> p21
