Trees, Fallen

All of the icons of my Dallas youth are gone. Now it seems like those that were part of my young adult life are vanishing too.

When I returned to the Dallas area after college, the punk clubs I used to frequent were long shuttered. And the downtown area where they were once located had transformed from an "Escape From New York" wasteland into an acceptable nightclub district where you could get a drink, see a band and not have to standoff with a pack of skinheads on the way back to your car.

A big sign post that the district, known as Deep Ellum (lingo that dates back to the 1920's when the area was named that by black blues musicians), had truely turned around was the opening of Trees in 1990. Trees --- named that after the big support beams in the middle of the building which resembled real trees --- was an old store front shop built around 1910 that was perfect for a medium sized concert venue. It had a stage that backed up to a large closing metal door that faced the street. And back in the day, the door was left open and the band of the night would blast its music down Elm Street, setting the mood for the evening. There were small balconies that surrounded the stage that provided a great sight line to the stage and an easy way to escape the crowd below, which sometimes reached up to 900 people. The bar was set way way back from the stage and you didn't have to hear knucklehead screaming for a Miller Lite competing with the band on stage. Best of all, the air conditioning at Trees worked --- well most of the time --- a huge improvement from the mid 1980's punk clubs like The Twilite Room, where you were lucky if the electricty worked at all.

Over the years, most of the bands I was passionate about played at Trees. The first show I remember seeing there was The Connells, around 1991, but I could have seen someone there before that. I missed the Nirvana show there, just when "Smells Like Teen Spirit" got big. And that's just as well because Kurt Cobain was all messed up on cough syrup and hit somebody over the head with his guitar.

However, most of the shows I saw at Trees were highly civilized affairs. They were usually events I'd marked on my calendar months ahead of time in ink pin. Most of the Britpop bands I'd grew so infatuated with played Trees. Super Furry Animals, Blur, Idlewild, The Charlatans and some unknown band called Oasis have all played Trees. I've seen them all there (except Oasis --- they're a bunch of bastards.) The bands always behaved themselves, so did the crowds, and usually everybody always had a good time. And it was at Trees where I first learned I was getting a little old for rock & roll. I took Will to see Gomez play a scorching set at Trees the year before he left to live in Colorado. Will lived about three blocks behind the club in a swank new urban batchelor apartment and had never heard Gomez before. About 8 songs into the set, Will turned to me and said: "You know, this band is great. But it's 11:45 p.m. and I've got to go to work tomorrow morning." I did too, so we both left Trees like a couple of responsible working joes, instead of a couple of music rebels.

Trees is closing for good on January 2. Like John's Cafe, which I've written about before, it's a sad occurance. The owners of Trees are in bankruptcy and are facing a lawsuit at another one of their clubs in which a patron was attacked by a skinhead associate (everyone thought the white power crowd had moved on long ago) after an Old 97's show.

But really, nightclubs, music venues and restaurants aren't the most stable of business. So 15 years is a good run for Trees. I'll remember the place fondly, if for no other reason than I got to see a lot of great music played there without having a guitar smashed over my head.