Fort Worth Weekly // May 29 - June 4, 2024

June 16 --September 15

Kimbell Art Museum

Willem and Jan Dermoyen, after Bernard van Orley, The Invasion of the French Camp and the Flight of the Women and Civilians (detail), c. 1528–31, wool, silk, gold, and silver thread. Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Naples

The exhibition is organized by the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte and Kimbell Art Museum.

Mmmsophisticated Mamaaaa

Island

By Madison Simmons

Tone Sommer Love

Local musicians remember the veteran bluesman.

By Anthony Mariani

What a Racquet

Monster Mosh

Live music is

Then you haven’t been to a

By Steve Steward

Anthony Mariani, Editor

Lee Newquist, Publisher

Bob Niehoff, General Manager

Ryan Burger, Art Director

Jim Erickson, Circulation Director

Emmy Smith, Proofreader

Michael Newquist, Regional Sales Director

Jennifer Bovee, Marketing Director

Stacey Hammons, Senior Account Executive

Julie Strehl, Account Executive

Tony Diaz, Account Executive

Wyatt Newquist, Digital Coordinator

Clintastic, Brand Ambassador

CONTRIBUTORS

Christina Berger, E.R. Bills, Jason Brimmer, Buck

D. Elliott, Juan R. Govea, Patrick Higgins, Laurie James, Kristian Lin, Cody Neathery, Wyatt Newquist, Steve Steward, Teri Webster, Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue, Elaine Wilder, Cole Williams

EDITORIAL BOARD

Laurie James, Anthony Mariani, Emmy Smith, Steve Steward

Remember the Arellanos

They were slaughtered, then the trail — and story — went cold.

BY E.R. BILLS

The Fort Worth police reports are long gone, and the two suspects are no longer identified.

A routine traffic stop for a defective muffler on May 13, 1968, brought two men to the attention of Fort Worth patrolman Ken Adcock. The 40-year-old driver, a Fort Worth resident, was operating the vehicle with a suspended license. His passenger, 24, also a Fort Worth resident, was carrying a .22-caliber firearm. The driver fit the physical description provided by an almost month-old APB still circulating about a multiple homicide in South Texas. The APB was based on a description proffered by a 20-year-old service station attendant named Dave Lordon in Sonora, Texas.

The driver who aroused Adcock’s suspicions was around 6 feet tall and had recently, though inexpertly, dyed his hair black. The driver’s passenger wore footwear matching Lordon’s boot description. At the time of the traffic stop, the suspects were also in possession of several hundred Mexican pesos, a Mexican billfold and ID belonging to neither of the two men, an unused bus ticket from Waco to Laredo, and a baggage stub indicating where luggage had been checked in Waco and picked up in Laredo. The two men were taken into custody and placed in the Tarrant County jail.

It wasn’t an exact match, but Adcock’s intuition told him it approached a composite of the various parts. The two men were definitely suspicious, and after what happened to a young Tejano family, there was no reason to ignore the possibility.

In mid-April 1968, a 29-year-old Mexican American named Juan Manuel Arellano was informed that his sister, Victoria Chavarria, was about to give birth in San Angelo, Texas, and that he should head up as soon as possible if he wanted to greet her newborn. Juan was living with his wife and kids in Villa del Fuente, a village outside Piedras Negras, Mexico, at the time. It was an almost 200mile trip, but family was important. Juan decided to make the drive.

Juan and wife Monica Lopez Arellano, 24, had three kids of their own, and they loaded up their blue, four-door, 11-year-old Buick Special on Tue., April 16, 1968, and headed north. With them were their son, 5-year-old Juan Manuel Jr.; their daughter, Leticia, 2; Manuel Eduardo, 15 months; and Juan’s 21-year-old sister, Rosa Elia Santos Arellano.

Texas wasn’t a place the Arellanos were unfamiliar with or overly wary of. In fact, at that time, Monica’s brother, Raymond Garza, was campaigning to become the sheriff of Zavala County in South Texas, and the Arellanos’ car (registered in Texas) featured bumper stickers promoting Garza’s campaign.

But about 40 miles north of Mexico, along a rugged, desolate stretch of U.S. Route 277 between Loma Alta and Sonora, the Buick had a flat. Juan pulled over and fixed it, but the Buick had another flat a few miles farther along. Some folks stopped on the side of the road to check on the Arellanos, and others drove past. Juan, a native Texan, spoke fluent English and conversed with passersby or gave them friendly waves. Eventually, a seemingly congenial Texas Samaritan in a pickup truck stopped and agreed to give Juan, his family, and the flat tire a ride up to Sonora to get the tire fixed and return them back to the Buick. Who rode in the front of the pickup (besides the Samaritan) and who rode in the back is unknown, but they arrived in Sonora around 8:45 p.m. While Juan and Juan Jr. walked to a nearby cafe and ordered hamburgers and other foodstuff for the return trip, Dave Lordon fixed their tire. Juan paid for the repair from a wad of cash he retrieved from and then re-tucked into his pants pocket, and the Arellanos and the Samaritan began the return trip to the Buick.

The bodies of Juan Manuel Arellano and the other five members of his family were found strewn along a two-mile stretch of US-277 the next morning.

The scene of the carnage was about 100 miles south of San Angelo, 32 miles south of Sonora and eight miles north of Loma Alta, near the entrance of the W.L. “Bud” Whitehead Ranch. Juan’s body was found beyond a fence in a Whitehead Ranch pasture. He had been beaten and then shot to death with a .22-caliber pistol. His pockets were turned inside out.

Wearing a red sunsuit and white baby shoes, 15-month-old Eduardo was found lying face-down in a bar ditch. His sister Leticia and brother Juan Jr. were found nearby. Leticia had been shot between the

eyes with a .22-caliber pistol, the bullet passing through the back of her head. She was taken to the Lillian M. Hudspeth Memorial Hospital in Sonora. Juan Jr. had been shot once in the back of the head and stabbed at least four times in the abdominal area. He was taken to a Del Rio hospital and then transferred to the Santa Rosa Hospital in San Antonio. A .22 bullet had entered his skull above and behind the right ear and exited through his mouth.

Monica and Rosa were found dead of .22-caliber gunshot wounds two miles farther south on US-277. Monica’s badly bruised body lay in morbid repose against a fence line. Rosa was lying nude on top of her clothing. She had been raped and shot.

Al Halfmann, a San Angelo carpet shop operator, told law enforcement that he had seen members of the slain family near their Buick late Tuesday afternoon in the company of two other women. One of the women was standing with the family and the other was sitting behind the wheel of a 1957 bronze Oldsmobile parked behind the Arellanos’ Buick.

An Oil Field Bus Lines driver on a run from Sonora to Del Rio reported that he saw a white pickup with its headlights on parked next to the Arellanos’ Buick at approximately 7 p.m. Tuesday night. When the bus driver made his return run later that evening, the white pickup was gone and the Arellanos’ Buick appeared abandoned.

The San Angelo Standard-Times said an unidentified border patrolman also reported that “he saw four white boys parked on the side of the road Tuesday near the slaying scene.” Then, a service station attendant in Comstock (28 miles west of Del Rio) informed authorities that he had seen a late-model, cream-colored Plymouth Wednesday morning with blood smears on the trunk and blood dripping from the vehicle.

Except for a green card belonging to Monica Arellano’s sister, Maria Cantu, law enforcement personnel found few other personal belongs in the Arellano family’s Buick. This led officers to believe Cantu was possibly a seventh victim, and they spent additional time searching for her body along the dusty route.

Initially transported to Del Rio, the bodies of the deceased were transferred to the Johnson Funeral Home in San Angelo the night of Wed., April 17, for autopsies. Lordon was questioned for a few hours earlier that day, and he described the socalled Samaritan as a freckle-faced white male with sandy hair, a ruddy complexion, and a rash or pockmarks on his neck, wearing decorative cowboy boots (with a design on the toe) and carrying a skinning knife. Lordon identified some of the bodies when they were en route from Del Rio to San Angelo, and he also indicated that the Anglo had borrowed the service station’s jack and lug wrench but hadn’t returned them.

On Thu., April 18, a local named J.T. Quigg came forward and spoke with the StandardTimes. A “husky road equipment operator” for a county highway crew, Quigg and two other members of his crew saw the Arellano family on the side of the road at about 6:15 p.m. Tuesday and stopped and offered to help but didn’t have the right equipment. He and the others went on, and when he passed back by heading home about 7 p.m., he saw the family but didn’t stop. Juan “waved at me like he was saying ‘hello,’ just a goodwill gesture.”

On the way into work Wednesday morning, Quigg passed the car at the same place and noted that it was empty. He stopped by the Whitehead Ranch, apparently to inquire about it, and the owner, Bud Whitehead, told him that a ranch hand named Jose Delgado had spotted someone in the pasture and that they thought he was ill. Delgado, Whitehead said, “just rode by the man and knew something was wrong.”

Whitehead, Quigg, and Jack Brown drove out to the spot where Delgado had seen the man, who was lying face-down about 40 yards from the highway. He wasn’t breathing.

It was Juan Arellano.

Whitehead, Quigg, and Brown turned to go telephone law enforcement but spotted another small body about 35 yards away from the highway. They drove over to it, and the sight overwhelmed Quigg. It was a plump toddler clad in red, lying face-down in a patch of weeds. He had huge, gaping stab wounds in his back. The second body was little Eduardo.

“We got out of the pickup and walked over to it and saw a small child stabbed three times in the back,” Quigg said, later adding, “I’m a big man, and I’ve seen quite a few things, but after seeing the little boy, I had to go off and cry.

“About 8 feet toward the highway, we found two more small bodies,” Quigg continued. “In looking, we discovered that at least one child was still breathing.”

It was Leticia.

continued on page 5

Art by E.R. Bills

5-year-old Juan Arellano Jr. was the only survivor of an act of cold-blooded butchery.

San Angelo Standard-Times (April 17, 1969)

Five minutes after they realized Leticia was breathing, Juan Jr., whom they had presumed was dead, “began to come to life.”

Whitehead said, “He kept trying to get up. The boy kept saying ‘agua, agua, quero agua.’ ”

Whitehead and Quigg gave him some water, and the rancher stopped him from trying to get up due to his wounds. Whitehead, who spoke Spanish, asked Juan Jr. his name, but the boy never answered.

“He kept sticking his finger in his mouth,” said Whitehead, who hadn’t realized Juan Jr. had been shot.

“We gave him two swallows of water, and then I walked to the top of the hill and called the law in Sonora,” Quigg said, adding that it was the “most bloodthirsty thing” he had ever seen.

Whitehead sat with Juan Jr. for 40 minutes waiting on an ambulance. “I have never seen children cut up like that,” he said.

A Catholic priest was summoned for Leticia Arrellano early Wed., April 17. She was still unconscious, and the right side of her body was paralyzed.

Mexican relatives of the Arellanos, including Maria Cantu, were brought to Del Rio from Piedras Negras to formally identify the deceased victims that afternoon, and authorities questioned them about Juan Sr., inquiring as to whether they knew if he had

any enemies. A translator was present, and though the Arellanos’ relatives were on the verge of hysterics, they said Juan had no enemies and was a hard-working, honest man.

2-year-old Leticia Arellano never regained consciousness and died the following evening at 6:30 p.m.

When Juan Arellano Jr. first arrived at the Del Rio hospital, he begged health-care attendants not to stab him anymore (in Spanish). When he was transferred to the Santa Rosa Hospital in San Antonio, he was kept under 24-hour guard.

Texas Ranger A.Y. Allee Jr., out of Ozona, was put in charge of the investigation, and he wanted to speak to Juan Jr. as soon as possible. Attending physicians said it might be a while. They discovered a second gunshot wound to his head, and his cranial trauma and the resultant surgeries had impaired his hearing.

By Fri., April 19, 1968, law enforcement were at a self-described “standstill” in the investigation. Fingerprints of the Arellanos’ Buick and a bullet recovered from one of the victims were sent to the Department of Public Safety in Austin. Some investigators believed the bloodshed was the work of one man. Others believed there were other perpetrators involved. When Juan Manuel Arellano’s brother-in-law Raymond Garza was informed of the murders by incumbent Zavalla County Sheriff C.L. Sweeten, Garza’s opponent in the current campaign,

17, 1969)

To catch the “big cowboy” who slaughtered five members of the Arellano family, a forensic artist provided this sketch.

he said he doubted that robbery was motive for the homicidal rampage.

The results of a San Angelo autopsy revealed that Monica and Rosa Arellano had been shot multiple times; Juan Sr. had

been shot in the head; and 15-month-old Eduardo had been stabbed four times in the back. An Army photo identified by one witness was circulated, but no connection was ever established.

On Tue., April 23, Lordon, quite curiously, was arrested and placed in the Sutton County jail in Sonora for forgery and trying to pass a bad check.

One week later, Juan Arellano Jr. was able to speak with Bexar County Sheriff deputies and Texas Ranger Tol Dawson with the aid of a special hearing device. Chief Texas Ranger investigator A.Y. Allee said Juan Jr. seconded Lordon’s testimony, confirming that a “big cowboy” in a pickup had stopped to help his family after their second flat tire, adding that after the tire was fixed, the white “Samaritan” drove a while and started shooting out the window at deer and rabbits along the road. When Juan Sr. attempted to intervene, he and the “big cowboy” fought. Juan Jr. said his father wrestled the gun away from the white “Samaritan” but then had it wrested back away from him — at which point the “big cowboy” began the slaughter

Around the same time Juan Jr. was being interviewed, Lordon took and passed a polygraph test regarding his testimony but remained in custody under a $1,000 bond related to his forgery and bad check charges.

On Mon., May 6, 1968, Juan Manuel Jr. was released from the Santa Rosa Hospital continued on page 6

in San Antonio and reportedly identified his family’s attacker. His uncle, Raymond Garza, said the boy pointed to a police-supplied photograph and communicated in Spanish, “I know that man.”

When confronted by the press, Juan Jr. made no mention of the murders. He could hardly hear. He simply strummed a small guitar and sang some songs he learned in Piedras Negras.

Juan Jr. was taken to live with relatives in Mexico, and law enforcement agencies disseminated the photo the boy identified and a description of the suspect. That’s what led Fort Worth patrolman Adcock to be suspicious of the two men he pulled over in mid-May.

On Tue., May 15, the suspects Adcock took into custody were placed in a lineup in Fort Worth for Lordon and Ranger Allee. Lordon didn’t recognize them.

In September 1968, after investigating officers had interviewed innumerable persons and pursued every possible lead in the Arellano case, Allee issued a request for help and cooperation from the general public.

By December 1968, the Monitor of McAllen, Texas, and the Brownsville Herald were calling the Arellano homicides the worst crime of 1968, but the overall investigation had ground to a halt. Though the

a short strip of US-277 that skirted the northwestern edge of Edwards County. And Edwards County Sheriff Tom Henderson was at a loss.

“I sometimes give up hope,” he said, “but unless the man is caught, he is going to strike again. I am sure.”

Henderson believed the “big cowboy” was a psychopath and “a man who kills for the sheer love of it.”

Sheriff Henderson also suggested the testimony law enforcement were able to gather from Juan Jr. was a mixed bag and probably somewhat unreliable due to the young boy’s cranial trauma and possible brain damage.

“The kid never told a very good story,” Henderson said. “He goes from one thing to another. He can’t hear much. He is so little. He sort of wanders. You have to remember he was shot in the head twice and had head operations.”

As I was researching the Arellano murders, I was troubled by some of the basic logistics.

If Juan Jr.’s early remembrance was correct, one “big cowboy” subdued and murdered three adults and three small children single-handedly and no one appeared to attempt to escape. Something about it didn’t add up.

I went back through the reports. The “big cowboy” supposedly drove a pickup truck, and it was very unlikely that the truck

others in the back in the bed of the truck. People did that in those days and well into the 1980s.

I wondered who rode in the front.

Juan Arellano Sr.? Just him and the cowboy or him and the cowboy and maybe Juan Jr. between them? He may not have been comfortable with his wife and sister and the youngest children riding up front with a strange man. And didn’t Juan Jr. have to have been sitting in the cab to know what the cowboy was shooting at out the window?

Or was it Monica Arellano and Rosa in the cab of the truck with the cowboy, each

At some point along a lonely, dark stretch of the US-277, the truck stopped, Juan stepped away from it with the cowboy, the cowboy shot Juan, and then returned. How far away had they gone? A second autopsy pronounced the times of death between 10 p.m. and midnight. It would have been dark, and Monica and Rosa wouldn’t have been able to see much in the front or back of the pickup truck.

If the “big cowboy” was shooting at deer and rabbits out the driver’s-side window, he was probably doing it with a pistol, which he would have had to reload. That was probably the excuse he used to stop. To reload. Or maybe the “big cowboy” shot something and asked Juan Sr. to help him go find it. Surely, Senior was ready to get back to the Buick. Juan Sr. and the cowboy may have scuffled after the cowboy reloaded, near the truck or a short distance away. The cowboy assaulted Juan Sr. and shot him in the head. Some of the reports indicate a blood trail. Senior may have tried to crawl for help.

The “big cowboy” returned to the truck in the dark. The order is unclear, but he shot Leticia with the pistol only inches away from her face, so the bullet passed through the back of her head and perhaps struck whomever was holding her. The cowboy shot Monica and Rosa, one of whom may already have been hit by the bullet passing through Leticia’s head. The 15-month-old was obviously not a flight risk. The cowboy may have saved him for last, when he ran

The only Arellano who may have turned to flee was 5-year-old Juan Jr., who was shot from a downward angle behind his right ear, the bullet, again, exiting his mouth. He may not have been unconscious and was probably moving. The cowboy subsequently stabbed him five times. The cowboy also stabbed young Eduardo in the back four times. He may have flung Eduardo, Leticia, and Juan Jr. away from the truck.

Then, the “big cowboy” drove two miles farther south with Monica and Rosa in the front or back of the truck. They were probably in the bed. He pulled over, lifted Monica out of the back of the truck and slung her or propped her against the fence. He moved more slowly with Rosa, undressing her before or after he took her out of the bed of the truck. Probably before.

The ground out there on the side of the road was rocky or sandy. He placed Rosa’s clothing on the ground and then he laid her lifeless, naked body on top of them. Then, he committed an act of necrophilia. It wasn’t reported in the press originally, but Allee mentioned it in a San Angelo Standard-Times piece on the murder 10 years later.

Early on, robbery was suggested as the motive for the murders — but this new detail indicated an additional or entirely different motive. The troubling logistics made more sense. They explained why there was no mention of evidence of Rosa struggling or having her clothes ripped or torn as she attempted to escape. Or her assailant’s flesh under her fingernails.

We don’t exactly know what transpired or the sequence of events. The “big cowboy” himself may even be dead now, and Juan Jr., located by brash Ranger Sgt. Brooks Long in 2006, had no recollection besides what was in the papers. I reached out to a member of the family, but they had no comment.

As the crime is still unsolved, records of the criminal investigation are not available. Whatever the facts were regarding what befell the Arellanos in South Texas in April 1968, it was characterized as a “sadistic bloodbath” by local officials, and it was at least as cold-blooded as what happened in Kansas to the Clutter family as immortalized in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood — and arguably much worse. But it never garnered serious national headlines, certainly didn’t attract the interest of writers of Capote’s abilities, and didn’t even rank statewide with a freakish decapitation of a cleaning lady by a Texas Tech grad student in Lubbock the same year.

The .22-caliber murder weapon never turned up. By the early 1980s, thousands of pages of witness testimony and evidentiary-findings documents had been collected, but the investigation had gone cold.

Ice cold.

Which reminds me of how some writers phrase their character’s emotional and physical response when they encounter unfathomable evil or reprehensible monstrosity. They say their character’s blood froze.

In the decades that followed, Ranger Allee came to believe that Lordon’s sudden check forgeries so soon after the crime were suspicious and that he may have been involved in the murders. Maybe Lordon knew more. Maybe Lordon knew the “big cowboy” and knew better than to cross him. Maybe Lordon was passing bad checks because he feared for his own life and was trying to gather money and leave town.

In 2006, Ranger Long told the San Angelo Standard-Times that an anonymous tip from 1999 now had the investigation on third base, remarking that three decades before investigators hadn’t even been in the ballpark, but, metaphorically speaking, the new evidence apparently left the runner stranded on third in the final inning of Long’s investigation. The tip apparently led nowhere.

In 2018, 50 years after the Arellanos were murdered, a retired Sonoran man named Pedro “Pete” Savala Gomez placed a memorial for the Arellano family on the side of the road 34 miles south of Sonora. Gomez’s youngest sister’s husband, who spoke fluent Spanish and English, was who was asked to serve as interpreter for Juan Jr. and Allee at the Santa Rosa Hospital in San Antonio in 1968. Gomez passed away on June 4, 2023.

In January 1968, the body of 22-year-old Michael Robineau, the Anglo heir to a Colorado oil fortune, was found in Tom Green County near Wall, Texas, 68 miles north of Sonora. Over 6 feet tall, blonde, handsome, and affable, Robineau was described in the Standard-Times as epitomizing “in a way, the ultimate in American dreams.” Miguel Gallegas Ybarra — a 21-year-old Mexican American from Odessa, whom the StandardTimes called “everything Robineau was not” — confessed to the murder. The story appeared in newspapers from California to Florida, in the Boston Globe and even The New York Times

Four months later, news of the “sadistic” slaughter of the Arellanos barely made it out of the state and is still unknown to most Texans.

Some believe the ghosts of the Arellano family wander the areas along the US277 where the family perished. Others say Hispanics are hesitant to travel the thoroughfare altogether. When I asked a Mexican-American friend who grew up in the San Angelo area at the time about the case, he remembered it and recalled a special travel advisory of sorts shared among the Tejano community at the time.

“We were told never to stop for gas in Sonora,” he said. “Fill up before you go.”

I think what haunts the region now is the mystery behind the depraved butchery in 1968 and our blatant disremembrance of the Arellanos’ fate.

What if their last name had been “Robineau” or “Clutter”? l

Fort Worth native E.R. Bills is the author of Tell-Tale Texas: Investigations in Infamous History and The 1910 Slocum Massacre: An Act of Genocide in East Texas

BUCK U

Major: Undeclared

TCU sports are enjoying a slew of national successes this season, but Fort Worth U’s athletics at large are facing a major problem.

BY BUCK D. ELLIOTT

You might not follow non-revenue sports the way diehard Frog fanatics do, but TCU men’s tennis made recent history by besting second-seed and conference champion Texas to earn the program’s first outdoor national championship. Coach and Frog letterman David Roditi has built a tennis juggernaut downhill from the Greek Village, but the timing of this particular accomplishment is surprising even accounting for the program’s prominence. Roditi’s racket Frogs have reached the NCAA semifinals only twice before this year during his 14-year tenure, and it seemed a hump his crew just wasn’t capable of ascending even with overpowering squads and top rankings. There have been other successes. The men’s team has won the indoor tennis national championship twice in the last three years and were one match away from a three-peat but stumbled 3-4 to top-ranked Ohio State in the championship match back in February.

The disappointment of the penultimate indoor team led to an outdoor season that was

tranquilizing domination. It is rare that the Frogs drop a dual match in the spring to anyone who isn’t Texas or Baylor (typically Top 10 caliber programs, though the Bears have dropped off in the last few years). TCU started their season with a bang by beating Texas and made their run typical of a Top 5 program, but errant back-to-back March losses to Texas (05) and Oklahoma (3-4) left the overachieving squad with zero hardware to finish a season where their personal standards were so high, two losses felt like the squad could be cooked. The championship bridesmaids also suffered in the conference tournament, meeting Texas again in the championship match and limping away with nothing after another zero in the match-points column. Since the COVIDcancellation year, men’s tennis has won two regular-season conference championships, two national indoor championships, and one Big 12 tournament championship over the course of four seasons, but this year: zilch. In retrospect, the near misses only fueled the fire of this plucky lineup as they burned up frustration through their first four NCAA-tournament opponents by preventing any points, even against fifthseed Kentucky. The historically dangerous semifinal match was a relief with a side of redemption against the Buckeyes, who were top-seeded but managed only two points thanks to a tie-break win at third-line

doubles and a victory at fourth-line singles.

Waiting on the fourth-seed Frogs were their familiar foes, the Longhorns, who had blanked the Frogs in their last two meetings. TCU started quickly by winning two doubles matches to notch the doubles point before teeth-grinding singles play. The match was unnervingly close, both the Frogs and Horns each managing a singles point in straight sets, while all the other singles duels split sets and required a deciding third frame. In the end, fifth-line singles was the lone contest, and the hero of the day was sophomore Sebastian Gorzny (ironically an Austinite), who hastily jumped to a third-set lead and finished his opponent 6-3 to deliver this squad’s first — and most prized — hardware of the season.

On the heels of this first outdoor title for TCU tennis, you might be asking, “So, what’s the problem?” Timely enough, I’m clickety clacking this recap just hours after TCU men’s baseball was left out of their tournament entirely and, what seems like eons ago in the fall, TCU football failed to reach the six-win mark required for an invitation to even the Taco Bell IBS Bowl. The issue is that Frog athletics are currently majoring in the minors. It’s swell to house two national championship squads (men’s tennis and women’s rifle), but the recognition that boosters, planners, and alumni seek is not

coming from fantastic success in those arenas most would rather watch above-average success in the revenue-producing sports. I texted a co-worker and former undergrad dormmate minutes after the Frogs clinched their tennis natty, and he responded, “Good to know. Do we brag about that?” This year’s downturn in what had been TCU’s most successful big-ticket teams isn’t necessarily a permanent affliction — football did play for a national championship just last season — but is worrisome as the conference itself will downgrade with the departure of Oklahoma and Texas, squads that are irreplaceable from a national-recognition perspective.

Luckily for Athletic Director Jeremiah Donati, Jamie Dixon’s basketballers are consistently dancing, though advancement after tournament selection has proved difficult. The most dominant TCU programs right now along with men’s tennis and women’s rifle are women’s soccer, equestrian, and beach volleyball. Winning at the D-1 level is profoundly challenging in any sport, and the aforementioned programs should be given their due and treated with requisite admiration and respect. But if TCU’s stock is going to eclipse the unrealistic expectations following the Gary Patterson ascension of a private middle-tier university, the athletics department needs to declare a major and start shooting for the dean’s list. l

Sebastian Gorzny celebrates with his teammates after clinching TCU tennis’ first outdoor national championship, against Texas. Courtesy TCU Athletics Department

SCREEN

Chromeward Bound

Anya Taylor-Joy learns to drive angry in the prequel of the year.

BY KRISTIAN LIN

I never saw much point in prequels, even though there’s theoretically no reason they can’t work. True, we know that their endpoint has to join up with the beginning of a previous story that we’re familiar with. A prequel can still deepen characters and (especially in the case of fantasy stories) fill in vivid details of the world where the story takes place. They can be valuable.

It’s just that so many of them aren’t. I look over the list of movie prequels and see one underwhelming disappointment after another. Why would this be the case? Do filmmakers just give up knowing that they can’t chart out an unexpected direction?

I don’t think George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is as good as his insane 2015 masterwork Mad Max: Fury Road, but it does provide some of the same things while making a compelling case for its leading lady.

The story begins with 12-year-old Furiosa (Alyla Browne) venturing too far out of the Green Place and being abducted by bikers who take her to their leader

Dementus (Chris Hemsworth). He eventually trades her to Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme, assuming the role from the late Hugh Keays-Byrne) as part of a deal to take over the gasoline depot. Not one to take this lying down, Furiosa fakes her disappearance, cuts off her hair, and disguises herself as a mute boy in Joe’s employ. Years later, grownup Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy) saves Joe’s war rig and driver (Tom Burke) from an ambush by bandits, and the driver is grateful enough not to reveal her gender and to teach her how to do his job in the distinctly possible event of his death.

What made Fury Road so effective was the contrast between its wild originality and its brutally simple story. Furiosa tones down the originality in favor of a more complicated story, and neither works as well. None of the visuals here are as awe-inspiring as the giant sandstorm in Fury Road, nor is anything as

dementedly inspired as the Doof Warrior and his traveling bandstand.

We’re treated to the rarity of Hemsworth playing a villain and using his own Australian accent. He makes an interesting heavy, a guy who executes Furiosa’s mother (Charlee Fraser) in front of her but gives the girl a teddy bear to hold while it happens. He’s also funny — when Furiosa starts shooting his henchmen, he describes her as “someone excessively resentful.”

Most interesting of all is when she finally corners him, and instead of trying to beg or bluster his way out of it, he does something more interesting: He taunts her, saying that nothing she does to him will make up for what he’s done to her, something he knows from personal experience. Of course, he’s right.

The action sequences remind us of the kinetic muscle that Miller has brought

to the series, especially in the rig ambush and Furiosa’s stand with the driver against Dementus at the bullet factory. If Taylor-Joy doesn’t quite bring the same toughness that Charlize Theron did to the role, that only makes sense because Furiosa is younger and not as battle-hardened as she’ll become, and Taylor-Joy’s intense stare is recognizable even when protective gear is covering the rest of her face. (Between her, Theron, and Browne, who starred in this past April’s horror film Sting, there’s a great deal of integrity going on with this character. You feel like this is the same person at different ages.) Maybe the best part of Furiosa is

If Anya Taylor-Joy doesn’t quite bring the same toughness that Charlize Theron did to the role, that only makes sense because Furiosa is younger and not as battle-hardened as she’ll become.

Photo by Jasin Boland

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth. Directed by George Miller. Written by George Miller and Nick Lathouris. Rated R.

DOWNTOWN ARLINGTON MONTH

Start Your Engines for Classic Fun This June in Arlington!

BY ELAINE WILDER

From arts and culture to sporting events and everything in between, there’s something special to do almost every day in Downtown Arlington, including these events. No wonder Mayor Ross has proclaimed June to be Downtown Arlington Month!

Arlington Night & Day

SAT, JUNE 1

Presented by Chevrolet, the Downtown Arlington Classic Car Show is 9am-3pm Sat June 1, at Vandergriff Town Center (200 N Mesquite St) and on surrounding streets. This free event will feature over 150 classic

and antique automobiles manufactured before 1979, live music, activities for the whole family, and food vendors from your favorite Downtown restaurants! To register your classic car, visit DowntownArlington.org/CarShow

SAT, JUNE 8

Presented by the HELP Center for LGBT Health & Wellness, Arlington Pride 2024 is at the Levitt Pavilion (100 W Abram St, 817-5434308) 5pm-11pm Sat June 8. Hosted by Emcee Liquor Mini, this year’s featured performers include Betty Who with Alyssa Edwards, Dixon Dallas, Jujubee, and Kameron Ross, plus music by DJ Al Farb. Also, enjoy a street fair full of vendors. The suggested donation to attend is $10 per person but register for free at https://bit. ly/4cIZhwW. Learn more at ArlingtonPride.org.

SAT, JUNE 15

The 3rd annual Juneteenth Celebration at The Levitt is Sat, Jun 15, at Levitt Pavilion Arlington (100 W Abram St, 817-543-4308), hosted by MC Howard the Second and Winfred Dalcaour. The gate opens at 4pm, and music starts at 5pm with opening act Dallas-based neo-soul/jazz-funk band Celestial Clockwork. Activities, food trucks, and vendors will also be around the lawn. Self-described as “just a bunch of chaotic nerds sharing their love of video games and nerd culture through the power of music,” Reggie T. & The Boneheads brings their brand of hip-hop, funk, jazz, R&B, and rock fusion, plus “a side of the good ol church,” at 7pm. Then, The Sensational Barnes Brothers headline at 10pm. Does their name ring a bell? RTTB has recorded with Dan Auerbach, the lead singer of The Black Keys. Known for a musical blend of old and new, they are “a real gem in the gospel/soul scene.”

WEEKENDS in JUNE

As part of a “music-friendly community,” Levitt Pavilion Arlington (100 W Abram St, 817-543-4308) hosts free concerts from most Fridays to Sundays at 7:30pm. As with all shows at The Levitt, open seating is available on the lawn. Bring blankets and lawn chairs. You can also bring your own food and coolers with beverages, including alcohol, but please do not bring glass containers. For more info, visit LevittPavilionArlington.org. Featured artists for June include Texas Hill with Aaron Stephens 5/31, Jaime DeAnda with Vanita Leo 6/1, and Artemis Funk with AdamMarie & Joseph FisherSchramm 6/2; Hayes Carll with Abbey Brown & The Sound 6/7; Seratones with Patrick Pombuena Community Orchestra 6/14, The War & Treaty with Jordan Nix 6/21, Lone Star Skynyrd with Jomo & The Possum Posse 6/22, and Aaron Copeland with Bailey Rae 6/23; and Sunny Saucda with Grupo Pression 6/28, Donavan Keith with Kiara & Crash 6/29, and Gary P. Nunn with Cash Byers & Big Valley 6/30.

For more upcoming events in Downtown Arlington, go to DowntownArlington.org/ Events/Calendar or follow them at Facebook. com/DowntownArlingtonTexas.

After the car show on Sat, Jun 1, hear Tejano artist Jaime DeAnda.

Ate Day8 of Arlington

During the Downtown Arlington Classic Car Show on Sat, Jun 1, food and beverage vendors will be onsite at Vandergiff Town Center. But you are also within walking distance of some excellent eateries. Here are eight to consider.

#1 BABE’S CHICKEN

Babe’s serves the same delicious fried chicken and sides found at all Babe’s locations. However, several elements of the Arlington building at 234 N Center St (817-801-0300) are historically unique. Upon arrival, take note of the rock walls in the patio waiting area, which are actually hundreds of years old petrified wood. The water tower you walk under when entering the dining room is supported by legs made from the lighting towers that stood at the old Texas Stadium. In the center of the dining room, the 9-foot neon cafe sign featuring a cowboy on a horse, twirling a lariat above his head once stood above the Corral Cafe in Dumas, TX, in the ‘40s and ‘50s. Ask your server for a Babe’s Facts sheet for more interesting tidbits.

#2 CANE ROSSO ARLINGTON

The Weekend Brunch Specials at Cane Rosso (200 N East St, 817-533-3120) 11am-3pm Sat-Sun include three brunch pizzas. Try the Schoolyard Breakfast with mozzarella, sausage gravy, scrambled eggs, crispy potatoes, and bacon bits ($16); the Breakfast Taco with mozzarella, chorizo, blistered tomatoes, fresh jalapeños, crispy potatoes, cracked eggs, and jalapeño crema ($17); or the Feel Like Bacon Love with smoked mozzarella, bacon marmalade, blistered tomatoes, ham, and mushrooms ($17). You can also enjoy $6 Bloody Marys, $3 frosés, and $2 mimosas.

#3 CARTEL TACO BAR

As it’s open for breakfast 7am-10:30am Saturdays, Cartel Taco Bar (596 E Division St, 817-200-6341) would be a great place to start your car show day. The signature breakfast taco ($4.50) includes scrambled eggs with avocado, cilantro, grilled poblano & jalapeno, Mexicanstyle potatoes, pepper jack cheese. For .75 cents more, add bacon, sausage, steak, or extra egg.

#4 GREASE MONKEY BURGERS

Curated burger options are on the menu at Grease Monkey Burger & Social Club (200 Mesquite St, 817-366-4776), but why not get exactly what you’re craving with a Build Your Own Burger creation instead? Base options include beef patties, chicken, hot dogs, a turkey burger, or a veggie burger. The buns on all burgers and sandwiches (potato buns, I believe) are toasted with Grease Monkey’s unique blend of butter with cilantro, honey, Jalapeno spread, and lime. It’s good, y’all!

#5 HURTADO BBQ

With two other locations in Fort Worth and Mansfield, Hurtado BBQ (205 E Front St,

682-401-7888) offers catering, traditional barbecue plates, and some handhelds and apps for a quick bite. For $5, try a Texas Twinkie, a bacon-wrapped jumbo jalapeno stuffed with brisket, cream cheese, and pimento cheese.

#6 MELLOW MUSHROOM

Mellow Mushroom Pizza Bakery (200 N Center St, 817-274-7173) is celebrating its 50th Anniversary: A Mellow Milestone. “What a long, strange trip it’s been. We’ve been mellowing out since the ‘70s, serving up out-of-thisworld stone-baked pizza with the best crust and ingredients — all to bring you a Higher Order of Pizza.” For more info (including a video about this higher-order business), visit MellowMushroom.com/50thAnniversary.

#7 THE TIPSY OAK

There is a killer snacks/shareables menu at The Tipsy Oak (301 E Front St, 817-962-0304). In fact, they won the Critic’s Choice for Best Quesadilla in the Weekly’s Best Of 2023 issue. “The pork belly quesadillas with cheddar jack cheese, caramelized onions, and barbecue sauce. The other meat choices are smoked brisket and grilled chicken, but the pork belly is stellar. The quesadillas are only $13, yet they are filling enough to be an entree.”

#8 SHIPLEY DO-NUTS

Driving through Shipley Do-Nuts (501 E Abram St, 817-274-7746) on your way to the car show for a sugar fix would also be a great option. With 18 locations around North Texas, this is the most corporate of the options listed here. However, it’s been a Texas brand in business since 1936, and you can count on it for a quality product. Try the new Cookies N’ Dream Do-Nuts topped with OREO cookie pieces. This limited-time flavor may be the perfect Americana food for a car show day!

This week’s calendar columns have been brought to you by Downtown Arlington Inc. Learn more about their organization at DowntownArlington.org/About. For a comprehensive list of area dining options, go to DowntownArlington.org/Visit/Eat-and-Drink.

The Juneteenth holiday festivities start early on Sat, Jun 15.

Arlington Pride 2024 is on Sat Jun 8 at Levitt.

Have a Little Faith in Junior’s Summer Camps

BY ELAINE WILDER

Along with the arts, food, horses, STEM stuff, and — woo! — rock ’n’ rolllll in our Summertime story about kids’ camps, there are quite a few faith-based options, too.

While not necessarily religious in day-to-day practice, TCU (2800 S University Dr, Fort Worth, 817-257-7000) does have “Christian” in the name, so we can talk about some of their summer kids’ camps here. The Music/ Leadership Experience & Color Guard Band Camp for high school students is Sun-Thu, Jun 9-Jun 13. The cost is $375 for those not staying overnight or $650 with meals and lodging included. At the Middle School Music Experience, kids entering sixth-eighth grade with at least one year of instrumental training in a scholastic setting can attend this two-day camp for $200 ThuFri, Jun 13-14. For more, visit TCU.edu and search “summer camps.”

Popular themes I’ve seen in the last few years include In the Wild, Monumental, Treasured, and Roar (all nature); Boomerang Express (nature but Australian); and Stellar and To Mars and Beyond (outer space). Even the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth — which is composed of 92 parishes in 28 counties here in North Texas — has a VBS directory at FWDIOC.org/vacation-bible-school.

Also, it’s worth noting that the teachings at VBS tend to be pretty easy-breezy and nonintrusive, highlighting the basic tenets of Christianity, like God’s love, “do unto others,” and the like. The kids don’t handle snakes until the last day. (Kidding.)

Aaron Family Jewish Community Center (7900 Northaven Rd, Dallas, 214-239-7130)

Many (actual) faith-based groups are getting in on the summertime kids’-camp fun. One is Camp Shalom. Run by the Lil Goldman Early Learning Center at the Jewish Education Agency (4050 S Hulen St, Fort Worth, 817-737-9898), the weekly sessions are Jun 3-Aug 2 for ages 3 to kindergarten, each with a different theme. The second week of June is all about Community Helpers and includes a close-up look at squad cars and fire trucks when the Fort Worth police and fire departments pay a visit. During the last week of July, the Fort Worth Nature Center will bring ambassador animals from its Radical Reptiles program to Texas Wildlife Week. For more, visit LilGoldmanSchool. org/Camp-Shalom.

also offers a variety of camp options via JDallasCamps.org, including Camp Simcha for ages 2-4 and Camp Chai for kids entering K-sixth, plus camps for older kids, including gymnastics, tennis, theater production, and travel. Weekly camp rates start at $699 and go up from there. Plus, we are now in Aaron Family’s “late-registration” period, which costs more. It’s worth looking into for 2025, if not now.

If you’re comfortable letting Jesus take the wheel, then Vacation Bible School (VBS) is a great way to test-drive a church. The curriculum is typically preset, as most churches use standard themed packages purchased online or at the local Christian bookstore. (Think: Party City but for religious stuff.)

For example, Grace Covenant Church (3402 W I-20, Arlington, GraceCovenantChurch.org) is going with a VBS theme of Scuba: Diving into Friendship with God 9am-noon Mon-Fri, Jun 10-14. Admission is free, but you’ll need to pre-register your kids online. Like most VBS programs, this one is aimed at youngsters 3-and-a-half years old and up until they enter sixth grade in the 2024-25 school year. If this one is full, simply google “vacation Bible school near me,” and you’ll find plenty of other choices.

The VBS theme for Grace Lutheran Church (210 W Park Row Dr, Arlington 817-274-1626) is Outback Rock (nature but Australian) as part of a two-day weekend 6:15pm-8:30pm Fri, Jul 12, and 9am-1pm Sat, Jul 13. This free event is open to firstsixth graders and will feature games, inflatables, music, and snacks. Register at Grace. LC/Events-Activities.

continued on page 23

TCU has many kids’ camps this summer, including band camps for middle and high school students.

FRIDAY, MAY 31, 6-9:00 PM BAD HOMBRE WITH ANNEMARIE TEJANO & COUNTRY

JUNE

SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 12-3:30 PM CYNDIE SLEDGE | JAZZ, BLUES, COUNTRY & ROCK

2 FOR $4 SAVE UP TO 75¢/EA. Cultivated for optimal flavor and even ripeness. Fill halves with crab and drizzle with vinaigrette, mash for guacamole, and add to tacos.

EATS & drinks

Tropic Lady

This new Race Street retreat offers a sunny, tasty getaway from the grind.

Tropic Lady, 2719 Race St, FW. 817-349-8034. 11am-10pm Sun, 11am-10pm Tue-Thu, 11am-midnight Fri-Sat.

STORY AND PHOTOS BY MADISON SIMMONS

With summer in full swing, it’s time to turn our minds to vacation. Luckily, an exotic getaway sits right in our backyard.

On Race Street in the space formerly occupied by Fuzzy’s Taco Shop, Tropic Lady harks to sunny beaches with bright food and tasty cocktails.

The place is the brainchild of the good folks behind a Near Southside institution.

Owner of the Bearded Lady, Shannon Osbakken opened the chill Race Street spot with longtime friend Sarah Allen in April. A third friend and co-owner, Amanda Yunger, is the general manager.

Tropic Lady unfolded as a happy accident. The friends had been looking for a second location for Bearded Lady for almost a year when they went to tour the former Fuzzy’s.

“When we walked into this space, we just had …, ” Osbakken started.

“… a feeling,” Allen interjected from close by.

“And the vision,” Osbakken finished.

That vision? A place where they would all like to hang, a getaway in the middle of Fort Worth.

“It’s a big collaboration of very similar-minded people,” Allen said.

Race Street, Osbakken said, “reminds me of what [West] Magnolia [Avenue] was when [Bearded Lady] first opened.”

They held the grand opening on 4/20, one of several nods to the trio’s collective affinity for the greener things in life. The salad and wrap menu options are titled “Doobies or Bowls,” and THC seltzers are among the drink offerings.

My date and I rolled up on a weekday afternoon, seeking a snack and a respite from the mundane afternoon. If Bearded Lady is the tough, beer-drinking, burger-eating, been-around-the-block type, then Tropic Lady steps up as the whimsical, world-traveling, sometimes-vegan younger sister. Design influences include locales Osbakken has traveled to and loved, like L.A., Thailand, and Austin.

“I really feel like getting out of what’s local is inspiring,” Osbakken said.

The vibe is eclectic in the best possible continued on page 19

(From left to right) Amanda Yunger, Shannon Osbakken, and Sarah Allen opened Tropic Lady on Race Street in April.

Tropic Lady utilizes a counter service system.

ways. Checkerboard floors and a round bartop call to a ’50s-era Elvis sensibility. The light-pink walls and gold-shellacked air ducts scream high glam. An abundance of potted plants and Hawaiian prints lend a tropical air. The walls are (tastefully) filled with quirky art that kept me scanning the room, drinking it all in. Allen said she has spent hours obsessively scrolling Facebook marketplace and visiting thrift shops to find pieces for the restaurant. She also has donated treasures from her personal collection, including a set of Hawaiian glasses her grandmother bought in the 1960s.

A neon sign instructs customers to “order at the bar,” so my guest and I grabbed a menu and settled into a camel-colored booth. The vibrant style extends to the fare on offer. The menu feels like bar food went on vacation and then a health kick, with equal thought given to fried food and salads alike.

We started with the mango guacamole and bacon-wrapped grilled pineapple. The guac was sweet and savory, a thematic flavor combination throughout the menu, and brown sugar-candied bacon delightfully encased chunks of chile-seared fruit. The classic pork-and-pineapple combo brought to mind a luau.

I chose one of each taco: jerk chicken, plantain, and blackened shrimp. The tacos come filled with refried black beans, cilantro and pickled onions, a housemade slaw, and a sprinkling of pepitas. These flavors worked

best with the shrimp option. The plantains, roasted until black on the outside, were a feat — rich and savory. They tasted nothing of meat while offering all the flavor. The chicken was the only miss. While it brought the promised spice of jerk seasoning, the shreds had completely dried out, perhaps a kitchen error specific to this visit.

My dining companion cannot see a hot dog on a menu without ordering it, so his decision was made for him. Again, pork and pineapple were called to the stand, as the grilled fruit topped the jalapeno-cheddar sausage, along with caramelized onions, fresh jalapenos, and horseradish mustard. The spicy, sweet, salty combination, with punches of acidity from the pineapple, created a sort of euphoric haze.

The drink menu is, understandably, heavy on tequila, with half of the offerings

highlighting the agave spirit. The Tropic Like It’s Hot, with tequila, coconut milk, coconut puree, lime, and muddled jalapenos, was sweet and creamy enough to act as an indulgence but bright enough for me to believe I was sipping not on a cocktail but some sort of tonic. My only complaint? The drink poses a personal danger to me. I immediately wanted (but did not order) three more. The Dango Mango, a tequila-spiked mango puree with a chamoy swirl, tasted more like a slushie than a cocktail. Also pretty dangerous to me. And my date and I shared a Pink Lady — a floral margarita was something I didn’t know I needed. There’s also a list of drafts and bottles, and those who don’t imbibe will enjoy the extensive mocktail list and NA beverages on offer.

The food and drinks were very good and hit flavor notes not offered at many other Fort Worth locales. More than that, I loved the space. The team has created such a beautiful, fun environment, I see many more Tropic Lady staycations in my future. Allen said, “It’s such a good feeling walking in here and thinking, ‘Man, we created this out of nothing.’ ” l

A hibiscus margarita, the Pink Lady adds a refreshing floral note to the classic drink.

Tropic Lady’s plantain, shrimp, and chicken tacos hit all the right notes. Plantains are one of several vegan-friendly offerings at the new restaurant.

A flair for color and design extends to the drink menu at Tropic Lady. The Dango Mango (left) and Tropic Like It’s Hot both feature tequila.

HearSay

R.I.P., Tone Sommer

Along with the rest of the local music community, we here at the Weekly mourn the loss of Tone Sommer . The long-time musician best known for his dynamic, innovative, soulful blues guitar died of an apparent suicide last week.

“What a great guy and an amazing guitar player Tone Sommer was,” posted Blake Parish (Royal Sons). “I’m just in shock. … You are sorely missed, my friend.”

Tommy Katona said he and Sommer were getting sober at the same time. “I am deeply saddened to hear of the passing of my dear friend, brother Tone Sommer. We have shared the stage many times. He

was a sweet, genuine man, a wonderful guitarist and singer. We played together and talked only a few months ago about both of our sobriety. I was happy to see him sober. We agreed on how much better life is now. I’m just lost for words. I will terribly miss him.”

Over the years, Michael “Big Mike” Richardson often publicly professed his love for Sommer’s fretwork. “Man, what a brilliant guitar player and a cool dude … one of the best in town to ever do it.”

Patrick Smith said he had “a lot of good times” playing with Sommer over the last few years. “He was a wonderful, supportive, and sweet friend and an incredible musician. I’m sad to hear he’s gone. R.I.P., Tone.” — Anthony Mariani

Tone Sommer will be remembered as an innovative bluesman and rocker and an even better person.

MUSIC

Knocked Loose Promoters NoiseROT are here to cross streams.

STORY AND PHOTOS BY STEVE STEWARD

For new bands, cobbling beats, chords, and lyrics into passable songs that merit playing in front of people is actually the easiest part, because after that, you have to figure out how to get shows, a process usually full of dead ends, exploitative business schemes, and frustratingly opaque agreements. But, eventually, in the way that practice makes a tricky guitar solo or a busy ride-cymbal pattern possible, booking shows becomes easier, and if you do it often enough, bands start coming to you for help. And when that happens, if you’re committed to a consistent, disciplined, professional business model, you might be able to build a brand that regularly matches bands with audiences ready to get rowdy in a circle pit.

That’s more or less the story with NoiseROT. Started in the wake of the 2020 lockdown, the local promotion company is the brainchild of three metal fans who met as teens in the late 2000s at North Texas shows, starting with the ones NoiseROT co-founder Daniel “DJ” Alvarez put on in his family’s backyard.

“I started playing in bands in eighth grade, like 2008,” he said, adding that he met a second fellow co-founder, Osiel “OC” Martinez, in high school and joined his metalcore band, but “between middle school and graduating, I would do house shows, because my mom always said, ‘I’d rather you be somewhere I can see you.’ … The deal was, my mom said I had to clean the backyard so it looks nice and neat. She said, ‘Women can use the restroom. Guys gotta go piss in the alley.’ ” Alvarez’s first shows were “one-offs,” but after a while, touring bands started hitting him up looking for places to play. He deflected as much as he could until he couldn’t. Booking shows “wasn’t really serious for me until after COVID. There weren’t shows going on, and [Martinez and I] had been living together for a hot minute, and we kind of decided to figure out how to do it ourselves.”

The absence of live music due to lockdown mandates was a void that Alvarez and Martinez were eager to fill. Alvarez said, “There was too much opportunity to not try, you know?”

After graduating high school, Alvarez worked with a larger, mostly hip-hop-oriented booking agency, Aeronotiqz, where friend Bernice Amber would help him work

all these kids have been really into. The overhead isn’t crazy, so it allows us to make better deals with the artists, which allows us to not charge crazy ticket amounts.”

And it’s also a spot where fans can get kind of wild.

“I think moshing culture [at the Haltom] is heavily encouraged,” Amber said. “We’ve [booked] at venues in the past where they don’t want that … but here in the Side Stage room, it’s crazy. … When you see that go nuts, it’s like a different experience. … In that room, you’ll see the craziest shit happen.”

the door and do other day-of-show errands. She and Martinez knew each other from the North Texas punk and metal scenes.

“We all became friends and would hang out all the time,” Alvarez said, “and after COVID lockdowns were over, I got with [Amber and Martinez] and was like, ‘Y’all want to figure out how to book shows?’ ”

Alvarez’s time with Aeronotiqz taught him a lot about the music industry and event promotion, he said, but the hip-hop market’s pay-to-play business model didn’t sit well with his own approach to booking.

“The pay-to-play presale stuff happens in the metal market, too,” he said. “I don’t like it. Now, of course, there’s overhead we have to cover, but after that, we find a way to make sure every band is taken care of.”

NoiseROT’s division of labor sees Alvarez handling most of the business end of shows (“I shake hands, sign contracts, make deals, do a lot of the networking with the bands”), while Amber handles most of the social media and day-of-show tasks at NoiseROT events. Martinez is “kind of our idea guy,” Alvarez said, with Amber and Martinez seated nearby.

“What I wanted to do with NoiseROT was the entertainment aspect of it,” Martinez said. He launched the podcast Chill Sounds & Beats to help promote one particular house show but has kept at it.

“That’s where I got hooked on what I could bring to NoiseROT,” Martinez recalled. “ ‘What can we do to help bands share and promote their shows?’ ”

NoiseROT also tries to make playing a show as fun and easy as possible for the artists.

“We’re pretty transparent,” Alvarez said. “I’ll send a PDF that has links to every bit of information. … From the moment I book the show, I pretty much know how everything is going to run, so there’s no reason to second-guess it later. I’ll take pictures of the venues, so bands know where to park. We want to have everything easily available and up-front.”

“Even down to the Wi-Fi password,” Amber added.

While NoiseROT has booked shows all over North Texas, Alvarez and company prefer Tarrant County venues, in particular the Haltom Theater.

Found near the intersection of Belknap and U.S. 377, the Haltom isn’t your typical neighborhood pub-type of venue.

“It’s definitely a destination,” Alvarez said, “but a lot of hardcore and metal stuff has worked well here. … There’s just been a resurgence in metallic hardcore that

Housed in what used to be a diner attached to the theater (the main space easily holds several hundred), the Haltom’s Side Stage room is small enough to seem intimate. I interviewed NoiseROT there ahead of a Memorial Day show, and when I came back later to take pics, I was impressed that the opening bands played to a pretty solid, enthusiastic crowd of about 40 people. Even though I saw someone do a fairly high-flying roundhouse kick during Dallas’ Lost in October’s set, everyone in the audience respected one another’s space. Amber thinks the physicality of NoiseROT’s shows is part of why fans keep coming back.

“I’ve been going to shows since I was 14,” she said. “It was something we’d look forward to all week. … I’d stand in the very front and see the Wonder Years in the days before people started crying about crowd surfing, and I’d get landed on, but I’d still have a fucking blast and wouldn’t leave even though this guy just fell on me.”

For her, sharing the thrill of a metal show with younger generations is her favorite part of NoiseROT. “I really like being able to open that door for younger kids, because for me, it was always something I looked forward to, and it’s about opening that door for the next generation, so they can look forward to shows, and venues, and meeting people, and having those conversations about [their experiences with] music.”

NoiseROT also helps artists promote their sounds. Partnering with Crooked2th Studios on the North Side has allowed Alvarez, Amber, and Martinez to help upand-comers create a digital footprint, which is vital to landing gigs.

“I try to find artists that maybe don’t have a lot of content online who I saw play live and thought they were super-good,” Martinez said, “and they’ll go into [Crooked2th] and record four or five songs and do an interview, and then we upload it onto the NoiseROT YouTube channel and upload those songs onto a Spotify playlist, so those bands have something tangible to show people.”

Called the Rotted Roots Sessions, these videos highlight local artists like Dusty Calcote, Jacob Furr, and Cold Case. The channel also hosts episodes from Martinez’ Chill Sounds & Beats, in which he interviews newer artists like Erin Malone and Saint Eastwood as well as local businesses like gourmet hot sauce purveyor Freaky Ferments.

Alvarez always takes a view from 30,000 feet. “What I’ve always told myself is, ‘How do I get people who go to Billy Bob’s to see a show at Tomcats?’ ‘How do I get people from Rubber Gloves to come see a show at the Rail Club?’ How do I connect these worlds? Because there’s a big community with lots of little pockets within it. How do we tie it all together? That’s what the big dream is.” l

(From left to right) Daniel “DJ” Alvarez, Bernice Amber, and Osiel “OC” Martinez are the musician-first promotion agency NoiseROT.

CrossTown Sounds

BY JENNIFER BOVEE

The month of June has five weekends. That’s a lot of live music! It’s a good thing we already covered some stellar shows in last week’s special Summertime 2024 issue. Find our local summer music preview coverage at FWWeekly.com. Here, we’ll drill down into some June concerts specifically.

A Few (More) June Shows

For starters, my husband’s all-time favorite metal band, Saxon, has chosen Grapevine for its North Texas stop while on tour. Hell, Fire & Chaos: The Best of British Rock & Metal featuring Saxon with Uriah Heep rolls into the Glass Cactus (1501 Gaylord Trl, Grapevine, @GlassCactusTexan) 7pm Fri. Tickets start at $50 at Tickets. GaylordTexan.com.

Like Riot Girls Fest below, we wrote about this next show last week, but it’s worth mentioning again. Singer-songwriter Keegan McInroe celebrates the release of his seventh studio album, Dusty Passports and Empty Beds, with a show at the beautiful Rose Chapel at Southside Preservation Hall (1519 Lipscomb St, Fort Worth, 817926-2800). The rootsy troubadour intends to perform all nine songs in order 8pm Fri. Tickets are $15.

Tulips FTW (112 St. Louis Av, Fort Worth, 817-367-9798) is excited to let you know that they have Vision Video, a goth-pop group from Athens, Georgia, this Saturday. Tickets for Vision Video with Aurelio Voltaire and openers Missing and DJ Cam B are $25 at TulipsFTW.com. Doors open at 7pm, and the music starts at 8pm.

The Tejas Brothers are spending a lot of time out of town this summer (see: “CrossCountry Sounds” on FWWeekly.com). Catch them before they hit the road at the inaugural Flying Pig Festival in Downtown Mineral Wells (100 SE 13th Av, Mineral Wells, @MainStreetMineralWells76067) 6pm Fri, Jun 14. It’s been said that the historic Baker Hotel would make its comeback “when pigs fly,” and, well, the restoration is almost complete, so the city is launching a festival in its honor. For details on all the festivities and an update on who’s playing the second night (6pm Sat, Jun 15), keep an eye on FlyingPigFestival.com.

Riot grrrls and allies, Denton will be the place to be on Sat, Jun 22, when Andy’s Bar (122 N Locust St, Denton, 940-3013535) puts on Riot Girls Fest MZ Bossy, Ex-Regrets, Rosae, Side Chicks, and DJ Lady Ja-Roq will perform. Tickets are $10, and proceeds benefit the nonprofits Finn’s Place and DoGoodDenton.

With Independence Day falling on a Thursday, tons of events will happen the weekend before and after, plus all week long. We’re basically going to party from the last week of June thru the first week

Hailing from Athens, Georgia, goth-poppers

Video Vision will perform at Tulips FTW Saturday.

of July. For example, country tribute outfit Hazard County is playing at the Aledo Neighborhood 4th of July Party Sat, Jun 29. As of press time, a few details still need to be clarified. Follow the band at @HazardCountyMusic for updates. Also, be sure to pick us up on Wed, Jun 16, and Wed, Jul 3, for our special Fourth of July coverage.

The Local List

A couple local artists have a slew of giggings coming up, and you have no excuse not to catch them!

Simone Nicole is playing, well, everywhere this month. Every. Where. She will perform at Gemelle at Hotel Otto (4400 White Settlement Rd, Fort Worth, 817-7329535) 6:30pm-9:30pm Sat; AC Hotel (600 Mary Av, Waco, 254-910-8900) 5pm-8pm Thu, Jun 6; Westin Hotel (1200 E State Hwy 114, Southlake, 817-873-1900) Sat, Jun 8; El Wine Chateau (155 S Main St, Keller, 817-431-5226) 7:30pm-9:30pm Sat, Jun 15; Tolbert’s Restaurant & Chili Parlour (423 S Main St, Grapevine, 817-421-4888) 7pm9pm Sun, Jun 16; Heim BBQ (5333 White Settlement Rd, Fort Worth, 817-882-6970) 6pm-9pm Fri, Jun 21; and then again at Gemelle 6:30pm-9:30pm Sat, Jun 29. For more show info, including ticket prices and weekday dates, visit SimoneNicole.com.

The Matthew Show also has shows all over town this month. The namesake’s solo gigs are at Bendt Distilling (225 S Charles St, Lewisville, 214-814-0545) 6pm Sat; Punch Bowl Social (2600 Main St, Dallas, 469-6076880) 8pm Fri, Jun 7; and Heim BBQ (139 W Ellison St, Ste 101, Burleson, 817-6164346) 1pm Sat, Jun 8. There’s a trio show at Bankhead Brewing (611 University Dr, Fort Worth, 817-439-9223) 7pm Sat, Jun 22, and a quartet gig at Truckyard Alliance (3101 Prairie Vista Dr, Fort Worth, 877-221-3936) 8pm Sat, Jun 29. For details like pricing and ticket links, visit TheMatthewShow.com.

Would you like your band to be included in future Crosstown Sounds columns? I’m not a mind reader! And I’m also not glued to the socials. Please send me an intro email to Jennifer@FWWeekly.com. I’d be glad to add you to my monthly cattle call. Do it!

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Big Ticket

Do you remember the nondenominational church that used to meet at the Ridglea Theater on Sundays? Many a Music Awards ceremony day, we found ourselves hanging out in the parking lot, waiting for our turn to load in. Well, that would have been Paradox Church. They now have a space of their own at 900 W Belknap St, Fort Worth (TheParadoxChurch.com) and for a kids’ camp this summer are bringing Central Texas to you.

Many church youth groups go to Pine Cove for overnight summer camps, but the company also brings programs directly to church campuses. That’s what Paradox is doing Mon-Fri, Jul 1-5, for its upcoming Camp in the City/Pine Cove City for first-sixth graders. The cost is $359 per camper. For more, visit PineCove.com/city/ paradox-church/.

And you gotta believe the Methodists have a method to their madness. (Sorry.) Like most churches under the United Methodist Church umbrella, they tend to put a plan in place and stick with it. Although local congregations can pick their own themes, the children’s ministry at First United Methodist Church of Hurst (521 W Pipeline Rd, Hurst, 817-282-7384) created a VBS curriculum called Imagining God’s World with a hot-air balloon motif, and all the congregations in the Center, North, and

Northwest Texas conferences have been invited to use it this summer as part of a … pilot … program. In a move that helps working adults trying to get the kids back and forth, the First UMC event is 6pm-8pm Mon-Thu, June 3-6, and begins with a “snack supper” at 5:30pm. There is no cost to attend. Register at FUMCHurst.org/VBS.

And if Buddhism, meditation, and yoga are more your family’s speed and you’re still with me, you might be interested to know that we have a Sri Lankan Theravada Buddhist temple right here in Tarrant County that hosts family-friendly classes and events. The Texas Buddhist Meditation Center at the DFW Buddhist Vihara (11209 Brownfield Dr, Fort Worth, 682-316-3001) welcomes children accompanied by their parents at Dhamma School 10am-1pm Sundays for the younger generation to learn to be compassionate, cultivate good values, practice meditation techniques, and spread loving kindness. For event updates, follow them at Facebook.com/DFWBuddhist.

For more upcoming events like the ones above, besides making Google your friend, you can also check for Faith-Based Happenings in our Bulletin Board in Classifieds starting with the Wed, May 29, issue. As for sports camps, I’ll, uh, tackle those in a few weeks.

continued from page 15

Pine Cove City at Paradox Church looks way more fun than the church camps I went to as a kid. No fair!

Courtesy Pine Cove

Grace Lutheran Church is going with the scuba theme for Vacation Bible School this year.

Courtesy ConcordiaSupply.com

Hurst United Methodist Church created a VBS curriculum being used at other UMC campuses around Texas.

CTCUMC.org

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WE HAVE A LOT GOING ON:

Summertime Edition is Now Online! Dads & Grads Section is 6/5/24. Pride Month Edition is 6/12/24. Fourth of July Section is 6/26/24. Send your ideas, event links, and specials to Marketing@FWWeekly.com today! What’s going on in your world?