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Good bless Mr. Rid for reminding us this morning that back in '84, Steve Dirkx (Telefone, Teenage Queer) directed this video that should have served as Dallas's promotional reel. This morning, Steve provides the back story: Two women -- Mimi Guten and Toni Mazzola -- wrote and recorded a song called "Dallas" circa the Republican National Convention. Far as Steve recalls this early in the a.m., the twosome, who wrote mostly for kids and bar mitzvah boys, were hoping it would become the city's official anthem (from the looks of it, the song was originally titled "Springtime in Dallas"). Mark Franklin performed the original version (sample lyric: "Creative, sophisticated, it's Dallas magic"), which Steve is sending along for a separate item.
But the flip side of the cassingle featured an instrumental version, and one night, Tom "Swingin' Cornflake Killer" Battles and Mark "MC 900 Ft. Jesus" Griffin decided to recut their own version, with Battles singing and Griffin recording. Dirkx was over at their house and heard their version ("I was rolling on the floor laughing"), and spent a Saturday shooting the video -- his first. "It just struck me as very funny," Dirkx says, "and I wanted to make a funny video out of it." Mission accomplished. And "it's a total coincidence" he just posted this to YouTube a few days ago, but our good fortune.
Keep the Dallas Observer Free... Since we started the Dallas Observer, it has been defined as the free, independent voice of Dallas, and we would like to keep it that way. Offering our readers free access to incisive coverage of local news, food and culture. Producing stories on everything from political scandals to the hottest new bands, with gutsy reporting, stylish writing, and staffers who've won everything from the Society of Professional Journalists' Sigma Delta Chi feature-writing award to the Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism. But with local journalism's existence under siege and advertising revenue setbacks having a larger impact, it is important now more than ever for us to rally support behind funding our local journalism. You can help by participating in our "I Support" membership program, allowing us to keep covering Dallas with no paywalls.
