Deep Ellum Still Keeps It Real

Inspired by these humble beginnings, Knuckles went on to almost single-handedly create a new form of music, house, which might be the most popular music in the world. Like the genre from which it came—disco—house didn't just have a danceable beat or an up groove to snort coke to (though those two things are disco/house qualities to be sure). Disco and house weren't just party music; rather, they were, and remain, the soundtrack to burgeoning sexual and social freedom, born in some crappy old cracker factory or some such. And, in the city, similar pockets of similar liberation revolved around a different aesthetic—with punk, it was CBGB in the bum-riddled Bowery, another place no one wanted to go.

Until they did. The SoHo scene reached the apex of balance, and then the pendulum swung toward popularity, hype and finally empty parroting of what it all once meant. And of course, what followed was gentrification. As the Times article notes, you have to be rich—very rich—to afford to live in SoHo now. What was once a sketchy part of town, a haven for the disenfranchised, is now home to "pricey shopping, high-end dining, wildly expensive living spaces and posh hotels."

So the pattern, and it's one that has been repeated any number of places, is basically this: Start with a rotting part of town where no one wants to live or work. Artists and musicians decide to live/work/open clubs there because it's cheap. Brief halcyon period ensues. Part of town is discovered. Part of town gets popular, overpriced. Artists move out/are forced out. Trump moves in. Neighborhood becomes opposite of what it was before.

The fear is that this is happening with Deep Ellum. Modern Ellum also began as a shell of—you guessed it—empty, crumbly warehouses and industrial sites. "Hell," says Campagna, "I used to get my transmission fixed where Clearview is." It was a perfect spot not for gentrification but for revamping, "evolving," as Campagna puts it. Understandably, since Ellum's apex of the '80s and '90s and its subsequent denouement, fears are rising that SoHo-like Trumpism is on the way.

But here's the thing: So far the wolves have remained at bay. Sure, many venues and businesses have closed down, but the glory days could never have lasted forever. And those spaces have still not been replaced by Starbucks and Prada. The dark red bricks of those former warehouses are still covered in Campagna's paint, with his recent Re*Cov*Er project having added new murals of storied Dallas musicians. Kettle Art continues to bust boundaries and attract patrons and push the music scene. Club Dada is off the respirator, with a new, inspired booking process bringing in fantastic acts. The Darkside keeps the shadows alive. And, just down the street, the new generation packs the Double Wide, with its bookings growing ever stronger. There's not a Trump to be found. Not yet, anyway.