7/19/08 ‘sic transit gloria’
Going to see that show at the Prophet Bar was an incredibly bittersweet moment for me. Having seen some amazingly great bands play at the Gypsy Tea Room (Postal Service, Minus the Bear, Beulah, I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness) not to mention scores of others in the Ballroom, seeing what has become of the Gypsy Tea Room pains my heart. All the past show flyers and artwork are gone, replaced by some lame generic paintings and random biblical quotations, apparently related to their namesake. I’m not sure if they changed out the sound system, but it definitely sounded different. The Gypsy Tea Room was probably my favorite venue of all times because I always knew no matter who was playing, the sound would be turned to 11 and broken off, but it would still sound amazing. Now it was kinda loud, kinda blah, pretty disappointing all told.
Deep Ellum as a whole appears to be a pale shadow of it’s former self. There weren’t even the random bums walking around, it was practically a ghost town. I know I saw some shit in the past about how the city was basically wanting to gentrify Deep Ellum and it looks like that is way it is going.
It’s like Martin Blank says in Grosse Pointe Blank, you can never go home again. One last nail in the coffin of me ever moving back to fucking Dallas.