By Taylor Adams Cogan

Staring up at the stage, your eyes long-adjusted to the dim room pierced by vibrant lighting to set the tone, your body moves to the sound without thought or concern. You make sure not to let your drink spill out from the plastic cup in your hand while the other arm waves freely above your head.

It’s the power of good, live music that can make you settle in while losing yourself, and it most easily happens in a venue like Deep Ellum Art Co.

For John and Kari LaRue, creating space for that feeling is what they were going for – beyond the festivals they enjoyed for a weekend. They wanted the chance for people to feel this energy any day of the week in their home city.

It wasn’t an expected business for the couple to run; both were teaching, and John was coaching lacrosse before they had the idea.

John, a Dallas native, was involved with a restaurant with Kari that led them to 3200 Commerce St. – a shell of a space then, showing little hope of becoming a place for people to eat. But, the couple did have a vision of what to do with this lower-height space with obvious stage placement paired with a sizable outdoor space.

“I said, ‘If it were my space, here’s what I would do,’” John says. “They said they’d never done that before, and they’d do some research. Seven days later, they said, ‘Hey, we want to do that.’”

Deep Ellum Art Co. opened in 2017, offering an intimate venue for people to hear live music and enjoy a drink at a more affordable price. The LaRues had always talked about having a venue, a space to host bands they liked, and one that was centered around the arts.

“We’re big festival music goers with vendors and artisans. The bummer of it all, those things end at the end of the weekend. People go home, then you don’t do it again until the next year,” John says. “We wanted something that had that vibe that didn’t close and go away for a whole year, more like the next weekend or the next day.”

The 1949 building rocked with live bands steadily for three years, until the COVID-19 pandemic halted any fun involving being with others. They had to cross hurdles with the city of Dallas, emerge from lockdown, then endure a construction project on Murray Street, strutting up next to the side of the building just before the massive Commerce Street redesign would take over.

But the concerts go on at Art Co., where curated art also lines the walls. On any day, you can explore the exhibit that’s up, organized carefully by Kari.

“She makes 95% of the decisions about the art. Kari does a lot of our social media stuff, marketing emails, she organizes the gallery shows, she hangs the shows, she does all the Shopify listing and maintaining,” John says. “We complement each other very well in that regard. She’s extremely organized when it comes to all things spreadsheets.”

You’ll find varying music artists on the venue’s calendar, ones that may make you a new fan for about $15 to $30 a ticket.

“We’re at the widest part of the funnel: We get to say yes to a lot of things many larger venues couldn’t say yes to. Like Bomb Factory or the Majestic or American Airlines Center, there’s only a certain number of artists that can fit in those spaces,” John says. “We take a lot of artists on their way up and on their way back down.”

That’s not an uncommon saying among the smaller venues in the neighborhood, and it’s why walking down our streets to step into a venue where you hear music is usually worth your spontaneous timing.

John says they usually make the venue work for groups, and if not, they can direct them to another place in the neighborhood for them.

“There are very few acts that are too small for Art Co. To be able to support our local scene like that… Live music is a huge part of my life, always has been,” he says. “Music is a big part of everyone’s life. It’s one of those art forms that transcends time and space and has the ability to connect you to a past or drive you toward a future, which maybe not a lot of art forms have that same consumption.

“There’s no shortage of talent in our town.”

It’s true – and it’s the venues like Art. Co that make sure we’re able to hear that talent.

But fans aren’t the only ones to know the magic of the place: Snarky Puppy recorded their Grammy Award-winning album in the space. It’s one of John’s favorite memories.

“It was really cool to be a part of that process, to see 19 musicians in the round and have all the stuff that went with it, all the production that went into setting it up, and even the load out, it was a whole thing,” John says. “It was the most work I think we’ve done in such a short amount of time, but some of the most gratifying work.”

But the LaRues have had many great moments inside the Art Co. walls.

“There have been all kinds of silly stuff. A lot of joy, and that’s really the job, is working for other people’s good times. We want to sustain ourselves and make a living out of doing this, which is a hell of a lot harder than what anyone understands. We work on these calendars and social media, and events so that other people can make ends as well: income for local artists on our wall and touring artists, and local artists, so it’s worthwhile.

“We’re still very much in the service industry, and we’re teaching in a different classroom, but it has much the same deal, mission, and gratification.”