Fry Street, fair for everyone?

We’re pretty sure that Shannon Sutlief, Dallas Observer calendar editor and frequent contributor to the music section, didn’t mean any harm when she wrote about Denton’s annual Fry Street Fair in her year-end round-up of the shows and bands that made 1999 great, or at least some reasonable facsimile (“Hometown heroes,” December 30). We suspect she meant nothing by it when she wrote, “Denton’s Delta Lodge seems to be following the South by Southwest rule of booking: Scrap the underdog spirit and boost attendance by booking the big draws.” Shannon, we believe, was just pointing out how good the rival Mulberry Street showcase was by comparison. And she was right.

Still, her words touched at least a few nerves. Apparently, Fry Street Fair music chairman Jeremy Shelby is fed up, claiming in an e-mail that he has “ignored the constant bickering and negativity about the Delta Lodge and Fry Street Fair by this rag’s incompetent and uninformed staff of music writers for long enough.” At first, we assumed Shelby meant the team over at The Dallas Morning News, but indeed he was referring to this particular incompetent and uninformed staff of music writers. It’s probably a stretch to say that one sentence qualifies as “constant bickering and negativity,” but since Shelby has already been so nice to us, we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Besides, one sentence was enough to make Shelby and the Delta Lodge rethink its entire booking policy regarding Fry Street Fair. This year, it seems, they are allowing the fans to pick the lineup, asking that people send them a list of their 25 favorite local bands. We’re probably too uninformed to even guess what letting the fans pick who should play accomplishes, and we’re way too incompetent to gather our ideas into cohesive thoughts. But in our feeble little minds, it would seem Fry Street Fair’s plans for becoming a democracy will fare about as well as our decision to make the annual Observer music awards ballot a strictly write-in affair. If the two experiences are comparable, expect to see Vince Vance and the Valiants headlining on the main stage in a couple of months.

If you want to avoid such a catastrophe, feel free to mail in your list of 25 favorite local bands to: Jeremy Shelby, Fry Street Fair music chairman, 1302 Panhandle, Denton, TX 76201. Or, you can save a stamp and e-mail them to jargo666@mailexcite.com. We’d cast our vote, but really, we don’t know enough about local music to come up with a list of 25 bands. Plus, Shelby’s blow to our self-esteem has made it virtually impossible to see our keyboard through swollen eyes clouded by tears. Or something like that.