Plugged In

"I got into Pavement at a really early age and punk rock, like Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, all that stuff," J.R. says. "I just happened to pick up on Pavement, which led me to Yo La Tengo, which, you know, led me to a lot of early '90s stuff that I liked. That always seemed like a really exciting time. Early '90s, when all those indie labels started becoming cool and butt rock got shot out by Nirvana--that was the big cultural change. Not just music, but everything."

A few years later, when the market was inundated by what he calls "Brit-pop and a bunch of fucking Prodigy videos," J.R. turned off the TV and radio and spent college listening to '60s country and folk such as Bob Dylan, Allman Brothers and the Grateful Dead. J.R. admits that the two bands that made him care about modern rock again were the White Stripes and the Strokes--a surprising admission from a guy with an anti-hipster streak.

"Hearing White Blood Cells for the first time, you know that first song..." He sings a line from "Dead Leaves on the Dirty Ground" in a terrible falsetto, eyes clenched. "I was hooked in 15 seconds. That never happens to me with music, ever...The Strokes weren't like that, but I'd heard enough buzz about them to say, 'OK, I'm gonna listen to this five times and give it a real shot.' Eventually, I started to really, really like them."

Years later, J.R. says, because he was "bored," he opened a free BlogSpot account as a personal experiment; to learn about Dallas music, he'd write about it and maybe get a dialogue going. It wasn't until a week or so into the site that he realized he was a loner--Texas Gigs existed as what he called a "blank slate" for local music, and MP3 blogs were all over the place, but he couldn't find a single place on the Web that attacked and dissected Dallas music...or, at least, none the way his has turned out.

The site has taken large strides toward legitimacy in a short span thanks to high-profile interviews with bands like Liars and the New Year; the crowd of known locals that patrol the site's fire-filled comment boards help as well. "A lot of the people on there are like, 'Man, fuck indie pop, fuck Sam, fuck the Observer, fuck whatever else,' but they all take it seriously," J.R. says. "They obviously take you and all those people seriously enough to get really pissed off at you."

You'll find Cindy Chaffin and Chris Cantalini there as well--Dallas' big three bloggers post plenty on each other's sites, and they thrive, more than anything, because of that community spirit. It's the perfect trifecta--Texas Gigs' massive size and optimistic attitude, WSJ.R.'s witty vitriol and GvB's authoritative single-picking power reach different kinds of local music fans, from novices to cynics to die-hards. They stir the local music conversation--and draw national attention--in ways that standard forms of media haven't done for Dallas since the scene's major-label spike of the early '90s.

It's tempting to label these local music sites as leaders of an anti-corporate movement, which each blogger acknowledges to at least some extent. "A lot of times, I question the longevity and relevance of corporate-controlled media," J.R. says, "when it comes to covering a subculture that has a very deeply imbedded anti-corporate streak to it." And surprisingly, the mom of the bunch has the best perspective: "My kids don't listen to the radio," Chaffin says. "They go out and find the music they want to find, and they do it on the Internet...they wouldn't be caught dead at [Edgefest]."

Garrison Reid, the blogger behind Indie Interviews (indieinterviews.com), a Dallas site that posts audio interviews with local and national bands, openly admits to anti-corporate motives: "I'm trying to give Dallas an awareness of national bands that are not on the Edge," Reid says. "The Morning News doesn't pay attention to it, and if it's the Observer, it's just text."

But even though the big three have complaints about traditional media, they don't admit to revolutionary motives. "I wasn't on some grand mission to save Dallas music," J.R. says. "I would just like for Dallas, because I live in Dallas, to be fun. I would like to go out to cool shows, dance parties, whatever, or even to house parties, and meet interesting people, hear good music, feel some kind of sense that something interesting is going on in my youth."

Surprisingly, this sort of motive is the one thing J.R. and Chaffin have in common. "I've made little to nothing over all these years...the tradeoff to me is the music," she says. "The music, it's a gift. And the people have been wonderful that I've met. I have a lot of really good friends now that have come out of this."

And Cantalini handles his recent spotlight awkwardly: "It's weird when someone comes up to you at a show and says, 'I'm a big fan of yours.' Dude, I'm probably exactly like you. We listen to the same shit; we go to the same shows. I just happened to start a blog at a time when people were really getting into that...I'm not a fucking journalist."