Crowdus Street Music Festival to debut in Deep Ellum on Saturday October 6

by Teresa Gubbins

Terry Shuck

Curtain Club exterior, night.

DALLAS — You can't tell by looking at it, but the Crowdus Street Music Festival -- a day-long multi-band event on Saturday, October 6, headlined by Fair to Midland -- underscores the difference between Deep Ellum as it used to be versus Deep Ellum now.

The Crowdus fest picks up the pieces of what was once the North Texas Music Festival, an annual event founded in the '90s and modeled on Austin's South By Southwest. Underwritten by Crystal Clear honcho Sam Paulos, the North Texas Music Festival was originally a four-day event that included not just showcases but also seminars and an awards ceremony; it represented a sense of optimism about the viability of the local music scene that doesn't exist today.

That said, there is Texas-OU this weekend and promoter Doug Simmons isn't going to let that opportunity go to waste. Thus, the Crowdus Street Music Festival, taking place on three stages at the Curtain Club, its sibling Liquid Lounge, and the parking lot in between. Approximately 20 bands will perform, including Neverset, Miser, The Feds, System Overload, Bless the Broken, Deaf Pedestrians, At the Park, and more. Gates will open at 3 p.m., and it's $15 to get in.

"I'm going to make it a yearly event," Simmons says. "A bunch of bands have broken up in the past year, but I've seen a mild uprising, a few steps in right direction, and some of the crowds coming back."