Live at Mokah

UPDATE:

Ellum: Onstage is now called Live@Mokah, which includes the Mokah Coffee Bar, the Lounge and Mokah Art, located inside the Life in Deep Ellum cultural center. The coffee bar has free wi-fi.

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By MIKE DANIEL / Staff Writer

Deep Ellum, the iconic music neighborhood just east of downtown, has been in deep trouble the last couple of years. Key venues for live music such as Trees, Deep Ellum Live, Club Dada (for a time) and, most recently, Club Clearview have been shuttered for a variety of reasons, and the neighborhood suffers from an acute image problem born from numerous trends and issues.

Two new live venues, Ellum: Onstage and Fat Daddy's Live!, could reverse Deep Ellum's decline in the same way House of Blues Dallas and the Palladium Ballroom stand to revitalize music pickings just north and south of downtown. The scale of each is smaller and the focus narrower, but the new spaces should bring fresh audiences and generate at least a pleasant buzz in a neighborhood that sorely needs pleasantry.

Ellum: Onstage opened last Saturday in a drab-green 26,000-square-foot warehouse space at 2803 Taylor St., just south of Canton Street (about a block south of the now-closed Deep Ellum Live building). The music venue is part of Life in Deep Ellum, a $3 million community project funded by Deep Ellum Church that also includes a coffee shop, adult learning center, child-care facility, art gallery and other programs.

It's well-funded as an arm of the nonprofit, nondenominational church.

The rectangular, low-ceilinged hall can hold 1,100 people and boasts an all-new, 25,000-watt sound system and industrial-grade air conditioning. Bookings are solid through mid-March and feature young emo rock bands and local indie standouts such as Salim Nourallah and Nate Bolling.

Yes, Christian acts such as John Reuben are part of the schedule, and some people are automatically skeptical of the quality and nature of music acts that would be booked at a place with a spiritual foundation. But Ellum: Onstage's approach isn't faith-centered; it's community-centered.

"It's a new idea, and this is a community that needs new ideas," says artistic director Rocky Presley. "This is a diverse community, and I want to partner with everything that makes sense for our community."

Besides, Ellum: Onstage's first major concert event should offer a rebuttal to any naysayers. The Ellum: Music Festival will bring in dozens of national bands on their way to Austin for South by Southwest in March. Big names already on board include the Polyphonic Spree on March 10, Mates of State on March 12 and Snowden on March 13.

On Elm Street, the legenda...