It's hard to remember a time when Pleasant Grove weren't stalwarts of the Dallas music community.
But, this week in 1998, former Observer writer Christina Rees penned a piece about the band's start, which took place only a few months before the story was written. So, for this edition of This Week In Dallas Music History, we look back at one of band's first shows, which took place on the final night of The Orbit Room, the Deep Ellum punk joint that played host to the best bands in Dallas. The crowd of old-school Deep Ellum folks hushed as singers Marcos Striplin and Brett Egner sung their heart-aching harmonies.
The article was written before bassist Tony Hormillosa, drummer Jeff Ryan and multi-instrumentalist Joe Butcher joined the band. They didn't even have a bass player back then, just Striplin and Egner on guitar and David Mabry on drums. The band's sound was raw -- minimalist alt-rock and country played very slow -- but they knew exactly what they were going for. And they kept going with it for the decade that followed.
Hit the jump to read the entire article.
Check out the computerized version of the article in the Observer online archives.
