Out of the Closet

Van Blarcum went to Baylor Hospital to get his head sewn back together. Mullet Monte had to extract the cost of a new monitor console (about $5,000) out of the band's pay that night, so he wasn't very happy as he left the building. I found out later that this type of thing had happened a number of times on the tour.

I've run into Grohl a bunch of times since then, and it's always, "Dude, even if I retired tomorrow, I'll always have that show at Trees to tell my kids about." So will everyone else who made it inside 2709 Elm that night.

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During the '90s, Trees was the heart of the neighborhood. The club was never tied to one particular style of music, so the audience was filled with fresh faces every night. Shein had always instructed our staff of security people (before the Nirvana show, anyway) to treat every customer gently and humanely. Jessica Clarke did an incredible job of creating a public profile for the club in the local media and later became the manager for both House of Pain and Cypress Hill.

Other club employees went on to start their own record labels, music-driven Web sites, jobs at recording studios and even bands of their own. Trees was the place where we got on-the-job training that inspired us to make a music career for ourselves.

Davis eventually sold Trees to Entertainment Collaborative owners Brandt and Brady Wood. This turned out to be a horrible mistake on their part. Besides putting them into competition with themselves--Gypsy Tea Room is also a 900-capacity venue a mere block away--it left the Wood brothers exposed and adherent to the success or failure of their other businesses. When Jesse Chaddock attacked and permanently disabled David Cunniff at an Old 97's show at the Gypsy, Cunniff's civil lawsuit against the owners of the club forced their hands--and indirectly put Trees in its last death throes.

One less venue for local bands to play, and 15 years of memories tarnished and banished to history, because of a drunken skinhead with a chip on his shoulder? What had started with money that Cullen Davis had stashed in his son's bank account may now end because of a bankruptcy proceeding tied to a random act of unsolicited violence.

If Trees closes, it will be sad to drive down Elm Street and see 2709 empty once again, but we can feel good about the experiences we had there. We should thank Jessica Clarke for having the foresight to want to change Brian Davis' mind about opening a seafood joint there instead. We can give props to the people who worked, played, drank, bled, danced and fought there--they gave the neighborhood its character. We can thank them for rejuvenating the local music scene and for living up to the long-standing heritage and subversive reputation of the Dallas creative community.

Deep Ellum as a creative destination is history, but the influence of Trees will live forever.