By Taylor Adams Cogan
Like plenty of others, Jerry Rutherford doesn’t make it out to Deep Ellum as much as he once did. A small stroke a few years ago made it harder to get around, and going out every night just doesn’t make the most sense anymore. “Financially, it’s not feasible for me to go out every night in Deep Ellum,” he admits. But he keeps himself present in the neighborhood, just as he has for decades – maintaining his ear to the ground, and staying informed. He’s also keeping others aware of what’s happening through his show on Deep Ellum Radio, pointing listeners to the bands worth hearing and the venues worth experiencing.
Jerry has let music consume his focus his whole life. Before Dallas, he worked on tour publicity for a record label in California. By the mid-1990s, when he moved to Dallas, he already knew some of the map: from Trees to the former Galaxy Club. So, naturally, his first stop after moving was Deep Ellum.
Within a year, the neighborhood started to feel like home. His nights were spent helping bands make fliers, reviewing shows for publications like Riff, Metal Maniacs, Kerrang!, and Terrorizer, or roaming from club to club. Whether it’s Curtain Club, Trees, Reno’s, The Orbit Room, The Boiler Room, Double Wide, or any others, he’s experienced them all, night after night and year after year.
“I love when a city has a neighborhood like this,” Jerry says. “At one point, Deep Ellum had a lot more live music venues, but even now, you can go down the block from one venue to another; you didn’t have to go all across town. Dallas has always had Deep Ellum, as long as we can all remember. That’s always cool.”
He rattles off names of bands that once crammed into Deep Ellum’s broom-closet clubs and now play arenas, like Mastodon, Night Demon, and Dirty Honey. He remembers Pantera tearing up small stages before returning years later to play stadiums with Metallica. For Jerry, that’s the magic: watching a guitarist shred two feet in front of you at a place like Double Wide, knowing the next time you see them might be behind barricades or on a massive stage. “Fans have to start somewhere,” he says. “In basements, in small bars. That’s what makes these places so important.”
Curtain Club’s closing still hits him (and others) hard.
“I spent way too much time there,” he says, noting that other spots have stepped up. For him, places like Reno’s, Three Links, Double Wide, Club Dada, and smaller rooms all keep the scene alive. “Reno’s is a big, important part of my life,” he says. “They really help the local scene with live music, and the people who work there are great.” Metal has been his main focus, but he knows music for people is about the whole ecosystem: the local bookers like Joseph Cabrera and Jason Hans, the bartenders, the fans buying $15 tickets and hanging out at the bar with the bands after the show.
“Music just consumes me,” Jerry says. “I am consumed by it.”
