March Eleven by Scotty Scott Media

Issue No. 2-MAR ’14

the liner notes of st. louis

The Blind Eyes One Of STL’s Most Beloved Bands Goes Out With A Bang

Freakin Weekend INSIDE: Water LIars • Phantogram • Ex Hex • Neutral Milk Hotel

Nashville’s Dead Throws One Of The Parties Of The Year

Invaluable, invisible Bob McMahon On Playing Rock Clubs And Orchestra Pits into the breach y’all

Eleven Magazine Volume 10, issue 2

complimentary

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DEPT. OF

PERIODICAL LITERATURE ST. LOUIS, MO

volume 10, issue no. 2

FronT oF The Book 5 Editor’s Note 6 Where Is My Mind? ColuMns 7 Introducing by saM ClaPP shitstorm

March 2014

FeaTures (ConT’d) An Exit Interview with 22 The Blind Eyes by Paige BruBeCk . eleven’s MusiCalendar Recommended Shows 24 The Pains of Being Pure at heart

8 Local Language by CurT BreWer so Many Dynamos

10 Paper Time Machine by Paige BruBeCk Wild Things

Bring on The nighT Show Previews and Reviews226 Peat hentry Benefit, Dr. Dog, Ex hex, Real Estate, Earth, WhY?, neutral Milk hotel, The Pixies

Blue Beat 27 by JereMy segel-Moss .

FeaTures 12 Down in the Pit by BoB McMahon 14 It’s the Freakin’ Weekend Baby: nashville’s dead throws down by BeCCa Moore 16 Not Forever, For Right Now: uncle tupelo, the bottle rockets, and the birth of a new genre right here in River City by roBin Wheeler 21 Hard to Let It Go: the blind eyes call it quits . & throw a party to celebrate . by evan sulT .

st. louis Women

hoT roCks Album Reviews2 30 Water liars, hooten hallers, natural Child, FarFetched, amen lucy amen, The Coathangers, Phantogram, Johnny Foreigner, september girls

The Rebellious Jukebox 33 by MaTT harnish . The hobosexuals, Cesspool Baker

The Way BaCk Page Rare Uncle Tupelo Artifacts 35

coVer Photos of uncle tuPelo at cicero’s in 1990 by terry witt. from the collection of eileen heidorn. thanks also to mike heidorn.

Over 1000 Square Feet Neve VR 36 Recording Console • Flying Fader Automation • Musgrave Modifications • Custom Augsberger Speaker System • Generous Amount of Outboard Gear • State of the Art Isolation Booth • Shigeru Kawai 7 ft Grand Piano • •

To learn more, visit our website at www.eibynelly.com or call 888-841-3602 and book the studio today! Vatterott ex’treme Institute by Nelly - St Louis 800 N 3rd Street l St. Louis, MO 63102

illustration by sam washburn

Do You Know About:

Eleven Magazine Volume 10 | Issue 2 | March 2014 Publisher Hugh Scott Editor-In-Chief Evan Sult Special assignments editor Paige Brubeck WeB Editor Hugh Scott photo editor Jason Stoff Art Director Evan Sult CONTRIBUTING Writers Dave Anderson, Caitlin Bladt, Curt Brewer, Paige Brubeck, Ryan Boyle, Juliet Charles, Sam Clapp, Raymond Code, Thomas Crone, Jenn DeRose, Suzie Gilb, Matt Harnish, Jordan Heimburger, Gabe Karabell, Nelda Kerr, Cassie Kohler, Kevin Korinek, John Krane, Josh Levi, Rob Levy, Bob McMahon, Jack Probst, Jason Robinson, Jeremy Segel-Moss, Robert Severson, Michele Ulsohn, Chris Ward, Robin Wheeler, Rev. Daniel W. Wright PHOTOGRAPHERS Nate Burrell, Jarred Gastreich, Abby Gillardi, Patrice Jackson, Lee Klawans, Louis Kwok, Adam Robinson, Jason Stoff, Bill Streeter, Bryan Sutter, Ismael Valenzuela, Angela Vincent, Corey Woodruff

Illustrators Paige Brubeck, Sean Dove, Tyler Gross, Lyndsey Lesh, Curtis Tinsley, Sam Washburn proofreader Tracy Brubeck Promotions & Distribution Suzie Gilb Ann Scott Consultation Clifford Holekamp Derek Filcoff Cady Seabaugh Hugh Scott III Founded in 2006 by a group including Jonathan Fritz, Josh Petersel and Matthew Ström ELEVEN MAGAZINE 3407 S. Jefferson St. Louis, MO 63118 for ADVERTISING INQUIRIES Hugh Scott advertising@elevenmusicmag.com calendar listings listings@elevenmusicmag.com LETTERS TO THE EDITOR deareleven@elevenmusicmag.com We welcome your comments. Please let us know if you do not want your letter published.

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Editor’s Note by Evan Sult

History Lesson I grew up in the Northwest, so my knowledge of the Midwest was pretty vague. Mostly from The Star-Spangled Banner, honestly: we had purple mountains’ majesty, and Missouri was probably somewhere out there in the amber waves of grain. Or corn. With tractors. College is where I actually started learning—not so much from classes, but from the college radio station. In high school I hadn’t known a damn thing about music beyond MTV, but now I was learning about Nirvana and Mudhoney in the Northwest; Pavement in California; Giant Sand and Meat Puppets in Arizona; Hüsker Dü in Minneapolis, Dirtbombs in Detroit, Sonic Youth in New York, Sebadoh in Boston... And even there, 2,000 miles from St. Louis, MO, or Belleville, IL, the story of the Midwest was Uncle Tupelo. I first heard Son Volt, actually, and was entranced by Jay Farrar’s timeless voice; from there a roommate schooled me on Uncle Tupelo, and gave me his own copy of Still Feel Gone. It was “Gun” that got me—the break and burn in Tweedy’s voice, the burning resentment in the lyrics, the country sorrow above the punk drum bash. I don’t have to tell St. Louisans what Uncle Tupelo sounds like. But I’m happy to say I also learned a lot from Robin Wheeler’s article in this issue of Eleven: who played with whom, which bands started where, who’s still making music today. The “alt country” thing that has grown into a whole genre of its own, with practitioners around the world: that started here, in the red-brick dive bars and basement venues and crummy practice spaces that didn’t earn a mention in The Star-Spangled Banner. I’m sure Robin has a lot of people to thank, but I’d like to give a special thanks to Uncle Tupelo drummer Mike Heidorn, who was kind enough to supply some of the posters and artifacts that grace this issue. Read on and enjoy: this is musical history, past, present, and future.

March 5 Help PALACE get to SXSW Show with Electric Garden March 6 Giving Tree Band with The Blu Skies March 7 Emily Wallace CD Release Show with Cold Hearted Strangers and Isatis March 8 Jamo Presents... The Mantras & Acoustic s Anonymous March 14 ORH Presents Pearl & The Beard March 20 *repeat repeat with EL EL and Search Parties March 21 Mass Appeal with DJ Mahf March 22 Pirate Signal with Roundheels, Macabre Messenger and Davis Bader March 26 Cody Jasper March 28 D irtfoot with Clusterpluck March 29 - The Freakers Ball - A Tribute to Shel Silverstein featuring The Jason Vargas Music Project and Guests Every Monday Open Mic

Every Tuesday In March #TuesdayNightHouseParty Al Holiday and The Eastise Rhythm Band

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WHERE IS MY MIND? This Month in the History of Now

Rebel Girl

On February 27, a film about one of the raddest, baddest, and maddest musicians in all of music screened at the Moore Auditorium. The Punk Singer is a documentary about the life and crazy times of the original riot grrrls, with a particular emphasis on Kathleen Hanna, whose band Bikini Kill changed the face of punk rock and then the world. It’s a story that rarely got told right, and could easily get lost in the deification of Kurt Cobain and the larger “grunge” version of ‘90s underground cultural crashing the mainstream. But this is some exciting and inspiring music by some seriously inspiring ladies. Though it’s still touring, apparently The Punk Singer is available on iTunes—so check it out already!

I turn my camera on

It’s hard being the new kid on the block. But since opening in October of last year, the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum (known as the IPHF) in Grand Center has shown it can adapt to change in a big way. The IPHF may have just opened here, but it’s not a new organization. The idea of a photography hall of fame began in 1965—but it lacked a physical location. That didn’t stop the Professional Photographers of America from inducting significant artists and collecting notable photographic art and artifacts. In 1975, a museum in Santa Barbara agreed to host the Hall of Fame; in 1983, the IPHF moved to Oklahoma City. Last year’s move to 3415 Olive St. in St. Louis brings a world-class collection of rare cameras, prints, and artifacts to our city. St. Louis was selected as the new IPHF site because of the breadth of its universities, museums and private collections. It also has the oldest camera club in the country. Plus there is an energetic DIY photography scene here that operates similarly to its musical ones, with several bold and daring artists pushing the boundaries of the medium. The IPHF is reaching out to the St. Louis creative community through both shows and new programming, including a monthly First Friday event with local bands, DJs,

and artists. The current exhibition, which opened last month and runs through April 17, is called Decisive Moments: 20th Century Street Photography, Prints from St. Louis Collections. It features works from four local private collections and, traces the development of the genre through iconic works of the twentieth century from artists like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Berenice Abbot, Walker Evans, and Helen Levitt. “Street photography” is a reaction-based art form whereby the camera points out the uniqueness of the human condition, capturing a decisive image in time. City streets, daily life and changing society are brought into focus through the camera of these masters. [It’s hard to think of a better example of the form than STL’s own Bob Reuter, whose photographs of life in the streets, homes, and bars of St. Louis both document and mythologize the city. - ed.] In addition to photo exhibitions, the IPHF is planning numerous speaking events, a photographic print sale, and workshops. Executive Director John Nagel noted that the IPHF’s collection consists of over 30,000 prints and 6,000 cameras which have been accumulated through the donations of numerous individuals and organizations since its inception. Rob Levy For more information, check out the IPHF Facebook and Twitter or visit www.iphf.org.

After seven years of crafting razor-sharp indie pop, much-loved St. Louis band The Blind Eyes is calling it quits. If you wanted, you could say they saw it coming: on the title track of their last full-length, singer Seth Porter declared that he “always hoped to go out with a bang.” But a closer look at The Blind Eyes’ discography reveals plenty more instances of foreshadowing. For someone writing about the band’s dissolution, it’s an embarrassment of riches. So we thought we’d make a list to try and narrow it down.

Top Ten Blind Eyes Song Titles that Could Also Be the Name of an Article About The Blind Eyes Breaking Up 10.

Go Right Now

Another Last Night

Walk Out the Door

All She Wrote

Into the Breach

Look Back and Laugh

Hot Silence

Best Times

Here Comes the Dark

With a Bang

For our own—sincere—appreciation of The Blind Eyes, and an exit interview with the band members themselves, see page 21.

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INTRODUCING

New bands in their early days by Sam Clapp

ShitStorm

Southside impresario Matt Stuttler is a busy dude. He books shows for a living, he runs the cassette label Eat Tapes, and he just released the first issue of a combo zine/ tape comp, Meat Bundle, with some friends. The zine is the paper-and-toner equivalent of Voyager 1: it’s being launched into the great unknown of the U.S. to spread the good news about our city’s excellent music. One of the featured acts is Stuttler’s solo project, Shitstorm, a fuzzed-out annihilator of a one-man band. Shitstorm is Stuttler’s follow up to his previous musical project, the garage outfit Burrowss, which played its final show in January. Shitstorm channels the same snotty influences as Burrowss, but the new act is starker and more mechanical, just a blown-out guitar and a yell over a cassette of beats ripped from an old electric organ. Shitstorm is raw, but the songs’ spare arrangements reveal a lot of sharp songwriting underneath the noise. There’s a lot on the horizon for the project, including an extended tour and a May cassette release from Already Dead Tapes. Stuttler was kind enough sit down at his house and give me the lowdown. Skittles, a Chihuahua-Pomeranian mix, chilled on my lap throughout.

Photos by Jason Stoff

Eleven: The time I saw you play as Shitstorm, it struck me that volume is a pretty big aspect of what you’re doing. Is that something that you’re going for? Sensory overload? Matt Stuttler: That was probably the most extreme volume I’ve done, but my earlier shows were like that too. Recently I’ve dialed down the feedback a lot. It really depends on where the space is, because you get different feedback depending on where you are. I played at Café Ventana and the feedback was crazy because the wiring is not set up for a music venue, so I was plugged into a wall outlet. It kind of just depends. If I’m getting a lot of feedback, I’ll roll with it, and I’ll revel in it, but if I’m not, I’m not gonna force it. 11: So when you’re writing songs, is your approach different when it’s only you, versus working with others? You can’t rely

on bandmates to come up with stuff. MS: It’s a lot quicker, which is great. I think most of the Shitstorm songs are pretty simple, and simple for the sake of simplicity. There’s three parts at most, and it’s usually just the three parts repeated twice or something. So I’m not trying to do anything overly groundbreaking or overly complex or anything. I just want to play dirty songs that are kinda punkish, or whatever. 11: Do you think of what you’re doing as part of a one-man band tradition in rock ‘n‘ roll? Or is it more just for convenience? MS: Yeah, convenience. Convenience and simplicity. It’s the most simple kind of music played the most simple way possible. 11: So, you recently recorded a tape? MS: Yeah, I recorded with [Tom O’Connor] from Boreal Hills, at his house, and it ended up sounding pretty cool. He put some kind

of gate on the drums, so they sound more 8-bit-ish than they do live. 11: You still use the organ’s preset drums? MS: Yeah definitely, and we used that for the recording too. But he put some effects on the drums to mix it up a little bit. 11: That’s an interesting move, because as a one-man band you definitely have the option to go all out and just pretend to be a full band on your record. MS: It even crossed my mind to record all the songs clean. The recorded version would be just totally clean, and then the live version would be the opposite. 11: Do you think that you’re trying to fill a void here in town? Could you be doing this thing anywhere, or is it important that you’re in St. Louis? MS: Yeah definitely, it is. I think it was part of why I started Shitstorm. When I moved here with Emily [Burrowss bandmate,Ω wife] and we were playing in Burrowss, that’s all we were familiar with, the Americana scene, the folkier side. So at the time we were like “this is safe enough, we’ll do this kind of thing.” It was just what we were writing at the time. But the longer I’ve been here, the more I’ve seen the faster, snottier, punkier bands and the garage bands and stuff. And it was like “Oh! You can do this here. You can play something loud and fast.” It’s got a place. Check ‘em out yourself: shitstormstl.bandcamp.com

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LOCAL LANGUAGE

Sheet music of St. Louis by Curt Brewer

south City graceland dancing in the palatial musical world of so Many dynaMos fACt: In the eArly 2000s, So Many Dynamos were at one time the #1 mostviewed page on the early social media platform STL Punk, and have remained an unquestionable force in the St. Louis music scene since their 2003 inception. Useless fact: I have seen So Many Dynamos more than any other St. Louis band. Ever. Even more than The Urge. Opinion: The music being produced by So Many Dynamos’ current lineup is as adventurous as any time in their existence, emanating a cohesive, contemporary spin on rock and dance music with the undeniable musical abilities and artful ambitions that have defined their career. A major move in their approach to composition can be found in “Analysis Paralysis,” the premier track from their recently released self-titled three-song EP. (As a longtime fan, it was very tempting to highlight classic SMD singalongs such as “Search Party,” “Bed of Nails,” or even “Airtight,” but the new songs are every bit as ambitious). Their new approach moves away from the Tera Melos camp of sharp, treblelaced guitar riffs they so expertly wrote in

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past incarnations, and towards a new definition of groove using memorable, musically sound components. “Analysis Paralysis” introduces both uninitiated and familiar fans to SMD’s dance-dance evolution. Like many of their new compositions, this song is observant of modern techniques and mindful of the popular music canon. This particular song is one of the most guitar-riff-oriented pieces in their new repertoire, announced by a clear, staccato guitar approach. The stylistic mode is one first heard by most of the world via Paul Simon’s incredibly popular 1986 release, Graceland. On that album, Simon worked closely with African musicians to meld specifically South African approaches to the electric guitar with the pop tunefulness of a master songsmith working in an American tradition. “Gumboots,” from Graceland, is an artful blend of an instrumental composition written by The Boyoyo Boys (their song was also called “Gumboots”) with a new vocal melody written by Simon. Boyoyo Boys guitarist Daniel Xilakazi performed the guitar parts on this track, and laced the

style throughout Graceland with playful ease. While searching for the genesis of this compositional technique, I kept stumbling upon even earlier groups performing this kind of clean, machine-gunning guitar riffs, so I would not pose that Simon, or even the Boyoyo Boys, were the first to invent this percussive guitar technique. But the influence of Graceland is undeniably apparent in recent recordings from many American indie-rock bands. Listening to Maps & Atlases’ intro guitar riffs on “Carrying the Wet Wood” (from 2010’s Perch Patchwork), the repetitive blasts that spring from the guitars are comparable to our featured riff, with a slightly different stylistic feel. Vampire Weekend’s “Bryn,” from their self-titled release, provides a parallel example of the Graceland-inspired well-researched level at which So Many Dynamos are composing. Another clue to the riff’s source is a song that preceded Graceland, Joe Jackson’s 1982 single “Stepping Out”—a tune So Many Dynamos has covered in their live shows. One possible lesson gained from

LOCAL LANGUAGE

Sheet music of St. Louis by Curt Brewer

melody from the keyboard, “Stepping Out” is the and builds toward a use of multiple instruthundering reprise of the ments to play the same original motif. riffs at the same time Whether So Many in an effort to produce Dynamos’ recent worlda large, unified melodic minded dance music draws component. The main riff from the recent explosion in “Analysis Paralysis” of Graceland-influenced is doubled and imitated recordings or reaches by a keyboard part, and straight to the roots of later harmonized by the these South African music same instrument. The techniques, they have guitar sound is coated clearly been hard at work with a hint of electronic researching new influeffects and overdrive, and ences, including Gary sings clearly on top of Wilson, Body Parts, Quando interjecting blasts from Quango, and many more. In the Drum-Kat percussion “Analysis Paralysis,” singer pad and drummer Clayton Aaron Stovall proposes So Many Dynamos performing at the City Museum for KDHX 88.1FM’s Midwest Mayhem celebration. Kunstel’s furious disco that “there is no science rock thump. to getting down”—but in dancing terms, if The riff written out here makes numereach phrase. Though this is a fairly complex there is a science to moving the feet of those ous appearances throughout “Analysis dissection of the guitar riff, a simplified attempting to “do the standing still,” So Many Paralysis.” We find the excerpt at 0:15, 1:19, explanation is that it sounds like bullets Dynamos are the Darwins of dance music, on 2:55 minute marks, all with new, diverse rocketing from semi-automatics on a festive the brink of a historical discovery. layers intersecting the emphasized phrase. night in South City St. Louis. The riff’s structure begins with a vaulted, The second instance of the riff provides To hear the song in full, go to somanydynasequenced and seemingly similar grouping a re-harmonized backdrop, with piercing, mos.bandcamp.com/track/analysis-paralof two phrases, followed by static pitches articulate guitar stabs reminiscent of punkysis. So Many Dynamos’ next St. Louis show mutated by an additive process and resolvflavored Talking Heads rhythms. The third will be in late March and the new full-length ing with embellished notes at the end of riff entrance showcases a harmony of the album will be released in 2014.

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PAPER TIME MACHINE Curated by Paige Brubeck

Wild Things For some reason big cats have come to mean rock ‘n’ roll in the print world. Maybe it’s that they seem mysterious and erratic and intense, like a lot of music featuring electric guitar. Even in the fashion world if someone refers to a “rocker” or “punk” look, you’re likely to see leopard print, even if it’s in the details. The thing is though, big cats are exciting, and mysterious, and wild, and a little scary—all the things that rock ‘n’ roll can make a body feel. Either way, we perceive big cats as bad asses. They’re awesome to look at, and it’s thrilling to remember we share the earth with them. This month all the designs are centered around big cats, featuring two-color champs Furturtle, the classic rock aesthetic of Printmafia, a design of my own, and one of my very favorite posters of all time, by Chicago’s Delicious.

1. MOTO, Das Kapital, The Reptoids December 14, 2006 The Hideout Chicago, IL Designer: Delicious

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2. The Alabama Shakes May 26, 2012 Sasquatch Music Festival Seattle, WA Designer: Furturtle Designworks

3. Grace Potter & The Nocturnals November 3, 2012 Fox Theater Oakland CA Designer: Print Mafia

4. Sleepy Kitty, A Weather, Foundry Field Recordings April 28, 2010 Off Broadway St. Louis, MO Designer: Sleepy Kitty

5. The Dead Weather August 17, 2009 Ogden Theater Denver, CO Designer: Print Mafia

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Down in the Pit by Bob McMahon The lights shine down on the stage with an intensity only matched by the filledto-capacity audience, who hang onto every lyric with a rapt silence broken only by thunderous applause and laughter. It’s every musician’s rock star fantasy, or it would be were you not sitting in a cramped area behind a wall where no one can see you. And while you’re sure the audience approves of your playing, you know deep down the cheering isn’t totally for you. Yes, performing in the pit for a musical is quite different from playing your band’s standard show at say, The Heavy Anchor or The Firebird. The variations are numerous and mostly refreshing, but every once in a while it’s hard not to want to be the star of the show. That, in effect, is the key differBob McMahon is a St. Louis musician and writer. In addition to his role in Stray Dog Theatre, he sings, plays guitar, and drums in the band Other People.

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ence between a club gig and a theater gig: theater gigs are not your show. You, the actors, the choreographers, the sound and lighting operators, tech crew, and whoever else is involved in the production are all ultimately at the mercy of the director (and to a lesser extent the stage manager). That said, I’ve been granted a lot of freedom when I’ve played music in Stray Dog Theatre, though I must note that my limited experience of five musicals constitutes a somewhat narrow understanding of theater dynamics. I highly doubt that I’d play as softly in The Muny’s amphitheater as I would in Tower Grove Abbey, Stray Dog’s converted church theater. But even if I haven’t experienced the quirks of all of St. Louis’ performance spaces and directors, I’ve played enough musicals to know how radically different they are from the typical rock shows I’m accustomed to. The contrasts start before the first rehearsal. No rock band I’ve ever played in gave me sheet music to learn before first rehearsal, but if they did, I suspect I’d play closer to their written notation than I do

with Stray Dog’s. This is for a lot of reasons, not the least of which are the cuts our music director makes in the score. Yes, all of the musicians individually practice and learn the music a certain way until it’s changed right before we play together for the first time. That’s mildly frustrating, but the band often doesn’t come into the first rehearsal on the same page (metaphorically, anyway). This is because older musicals usually have a plethora of cast recordings that feature different musical arrangements from production to production. Sometimes songs get revised after the first cast recording is published. As a drummer (all but one of my theater gigs had me playing drums), I can’t rely only on sheet music when preparing for Stray Dog. I need to know cues, vamps, styles and tempos. You’d think these things would be in the sheet music, the way they usually are for songs, symphonies and such. But theater sheet music tends to be a mess, especially for drums. Gypsy’s ancient sheet music basically read “boom, chick, boom, chick, repeat” for 90% of the songs despite there being

Illustration by Paige Brubeck

Life in the orchestra may not be as glamorous as onstage, but it has its perks

different subtle brush and hi-hat patterns for each piece. The score for 2003’s Evil Dead musical doesn’t fare much better: on one song that has a very specific rhythmic fill, the measure is left blank with the words “big time” in place of any notation. Sometimes the drum sheet music and the drum parts in the music director’s score don’t even match. Stray Dog’s rigorous practice schedule eventually hammers out these issues as the band figures out what needs to be played, whether that’s what’s written or not. The upcoming schedule for Cabaret lists a “band day” a week before sitzprobe, the music-only day that typically is the first rehearsal to involve the band. Other than this intriguing development, this schedule features its expected nonstop pace that has the band practicing or performing in 12 out of 15 days leading up to and including the first three productions. During this time, the band makes adjustments to our vamps (music that repeats until an action onstage cuts it off), cues, our volume and our chairs as the ever-expanding set progresses toward both completion and whatever tiny amount of

legroom we have. Alternately, we play on a raised platform behind the set instead of directly behind it on the ground. This platform is not much better, space wise; I’ve had to pare down my drum set to make room for everyone up there. I’ve also placed cymbals and my arms in positions I’m not used to in order to compensate for cramped capacities. At least these contortions help make

drummer. But for all these odd idiosyncrasies and mild annoyances, playing at Stray Dog is a wonderful experience. I regularly work with incredibly talented musicians, actors, directors and crew who all make me a better performer. I take on the thrilling challenge of learning different styles of music I’m not used to playing. I get to experience the communal joy of putting something huge together and seeing weeks of hard work pay off. I gain an insider’s access to the acting/directing process, something I’ve always found fascinating. I play to constantly packed houses full of attentive theater die-hards. And I get respect and gratitude from everyone involved. The directors and producers go out of their way to make us musicians feel welcome and appreciated, and if any actors have fallen into their diva stereotypes, they’ve done so out of my sight. Instead I’ve seen actors give the band preshow “break a leg” gifts and cards, invites to their cast parties and genial dispositions that make them easy and fun to talk to. The gig is often egoless, but it’s never thankless, and that’s why I’m always happy to be a part of a Stray Dog show.

The small performance space helps all the instruments echo that much louder, so it’s essential to dial it down. After all, most people don’t go to the theater to hear the drummer. it harder for me to bash away. Volume is a constant problem in the converted church that is Tower Grove Abbey. Not only is the performance space small, but the ceiling’s shape also helps all the instruments echo that much louder. Those acoustics make it hard to understand the actors’ pronunciation before anyone starts playing, so it’s essential to dial it down. After all, most people don’t go to the theater to hear the

Unconventional workspace for the unconventionally employed

nebulastl.com

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It’s the Freakin’ Weekend Baby, Gonna Have Me Some Fun Music City’s Garage Mini-Fest by Becca Moore One year ago: Hazed and dazed, you walk up the steps of vintage shop Local Honey on Belmont Blvd. In rough, glittery cut-out letters you see the words “Nashville’s Dead.” The bands are out back, in a parking lot surrounded by graffiti murals; the crowd is in the lot and lounging atop the cinderblock walls. Gnarwhal’s onstage, the crowd is rocking, and you look up just in time to see some longhaired freak launch himself off one of the (tall!) walls and into the crowd below. Navigating to the side, you knock shoulders with a stream of millennials in familiar uniforms: girls in denim jacket, torn boots, and long hair, soon to be chopped off to meet 2014’s new standards. You bump into several blasts from your past, all recent boomerangs from both coasts alike—“It’s too expensive out there,” they all say, “too expensive to experiment creatively”— artists turned freelancers with dreams of setting up screenprinting shops in their parents’ basements. Later that night Jessica McFarland, lead singer of Heavy Cream and freak queen for the night, walks onstage. Into the mic, she growls something like, “You all remember Woodstock, y’all. Free yourselves and give these boys some love.” Capped with

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Freakin’ Weekend Thursday, March 6 - Saturday, March 8 Nashville, TN

the Freakin’ Weekend velvet crown, she unhooks her bra, swings it at one of the four guitarists in local band Diarrhea Planet, and encourages all to do the same. As more bras soar, the drums kick in. People start shoving to the stage, diving, crawling all over one another, trying to stay afloat as long as possible. All night long everyone is christened with beer, while Jack White and Patrick Carney weave through the back of the crowd.

And now, February 2014: It’s almost that time of year again. And by that time of year, I mean time for Nashville, TN’s much anticipated mini-punk garage fest, Freakin Weekend V. What exactly is Freakin’ Weekend? It’s a three-day garage festival that takes place mostly on the west side of the Cumberland River. The festival is spread out over a bunch of Nashville’s trademark rock venues, and this year’s highlighted bands include the usual local suspects, all of whom have been out touring and creating a ruckus nationwide since the last Freakin’ Weekend: Diarrhea Planet, Natural Child, PUJOL, Turbo Fruits, D. Watusi, Cy Barkley and the Way Outsiders. Ex-Cult, “the grand patriarchs of the Great New Memphis,” will also be gracing us with their presence. It will be filled with lots of great bands, local and national, side by side. You’ll get to check out legendary venues like the End and Exit/In, as well as newer spaces like the Stone Fox and Zombie Shop. Nashville kids once complained that they didn’t have a scene to call their own. Most of our parents were and are in the music business, and many moved to Nashville for its commercial country business. By the early ‘80s the SoCal singersongwriter scene was over and the no-wave blasts of NYC had finally reached a calm.

Last year’s Freakin’ Weekend was three days of pure blast-off. It started Thursday night at The End with Slammers, Ranch Ghost, PUJOL, Natural Child, and Quintron & Miss Pussycat, then kept going day and night til Saturday capper at Exit/In: The Orwells (lead singer Mario Cuomo pictured left), OGG, Cy Barkley & The Way Outsiders, Diarrhea Photos by Becca Moore Planet, and a sweat-soaked, crowd-cloaked, smoked-out JEFF The Brotherhood (above).

My own dad moved from a post-Ramones exploded Boston to pursue songwriting on Music Row. In my teens in Nashville, it was like a lot of cities: basements vibrated, and a great act would occasionally surface here or there. A sibling’s band would frequent greasy Guido’s while we all stuffed ourselves into pizza comas. A couple bands would take off, get a good following, get picked up by a label, but it felt scattered, a stuttered constellation—fragmented, nothing felt cohesive. It was messy and hard to promote the new material by local bands away on tour. The infrastructure and support for new bands and new sounds seemed nonexistent. You had to push and shove against a wall of negativity. It was hard for young bands to take off, or even get the courage to hit their first chords. It was an unfortunate mixture of jealous criticism, young kid egos, and a highly music-educated town. There were a few spaces, like Little Hamilton and some houses, that to me were a saving light. However, Nashville was often pinned as a fly-over city, despite the kids and adults alike digging and wiggling through the narrow aisles of Grimey’s record store during its Bungalow days. The local scene was difficult to navigate, even for those born and raised and desperate to

do just that. In 2008 I left Nashville, Gateway City bound, racing headfirst into the DIY techsoldered dreams of the escalating Rust Belt re-invention. The very next year, 2009, the blog Nashville’s Dead launched, established a crucial little record label, got the Freakin’ Weekend party started, and flipped Music City on its head. This is the fifth anniversary of Nashville’s Dead, and in that time the site has truly built the platform and scene it strived to make. The punk-garage scene that Nashville’s Dead highlights already existed for some time, but the blog gave it a sense of organization. It informs insiders and outsiders alike about which shows to see where. It allows for the numerous house shows to suddenly feel inclusive. It creates a place to promote material for touring bands, as well as the ability to team up with other local labels like the youthful Infinity Cat and, more recently, Third Man Records. Rumor has it that Freakin’ Weekend itself began as friends playing for friends in a house, each year increasing in popularity, ‘til it evolved into a nearly sold-out festival last year. But what causes an insular local scene to become a national sensation? Really just a couple of motivated dudes: Ben Todd and David Steine. Todd (now deceased, to our serious misfortune) was an incredibly

sharp guy, who picked up a good bit while interning at Vice NYC. Upon returning to Nashville, he had a new, strengthened understanding for the power of documentation and blogging. He teamed up with his friend David Steine, and they started writing the future through their blog and record label, Nashville’s Dead. Nashville just needed a good platform to allow locals to support one another, as well as the occasional outsider to show: their consistently active blog, with a weekly run-down list, was the perfect solution for an already active community. What should we expect from this year’s Freakin’ Weekend? Every bit of goodness from years past, times ten. With the spotlight Nashville’s gotten recently, there are crescendoing numbers of creatives moving back for the first and second time from all the big cities. It’s truly exploded. Nashville’s garage scene is in good company, alongside Ty Segall from the Bay Area and various bands from Memphis’ Goner Records. And the art scene now has legs, catching up with the music culture. Ben Todd dreamed of seeing The End sell out on a Monday night. With lines pouring out all the way out to Elliston Place, last year was proof it might just happen. this year it’s almost guaranteed it will. Born to fun, y’all! Freak out.

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bellevIlle, IllInoIs, pAys little mind to Uncle Tupelo’s legacy. A rare exception is Fletcher’s Kitchen and Tap on the west end of town, on America’s longest Main Street, where a cluster of framed album covers and an autographed promo poster hang in a corner booth. That’s the only sign that a musical revolution started in the town of 40,000 under the shadow of St. Louis’ skyline. Founding Uncle Tupelo member Mike Heidorn still lives in Belleville. He plays drums when the opportunity arises and his elbow cooperates. Wiry and genial, he vibrates with energy he attributes to still being as hyperactive as when he was a kid. “I brought some notes,” he says. He upends a manilla envelope, dumping papers and tapes on the table between us as we wait for our lunch at Fletcher’s. Before our meeting, he sorted through his artifacts and found a cassette tape of a Primitives rehearsal from 1985. Heidorn and his bandmates Jay Farrar, Wade Farrar, and Jeff Tweedy, were students at Belleville West High School when it was recorded. He listened to the tape, noting the songs his first band covered along with the names of the original artists and years recorded. It’s an esoteric collection of 1960s garage rock— Chocolate Watch Band, The Turtles, The Flaming Groovies, The Pretty Things—songs from the years the guys were born, that were on the record players of the Heidorn, Farrar and Tweedy childhood homes. “The thing is, these songs: Every Band USA did these songs,” he says. “We were no different.” But Uncle Tupelo was different. Maybe not when they were The Primitives in 1985—

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but by the time they released their first album,1990’s No Depression, they were pure punk energy driven by Heidorn’s hyperactivity, Tweedy’s simple bass bottom line, and Farrar’s resonant guitar, thrown into raging stop-start tempos. They sang in the local patois, gruff with hard R’s to fit their compositions about hard work and hard drinking. They left the frivolity of double shots of my baby’s love, and replaced it with the frustration, anger and fear born from the demise of employers in their hometown, wondering if the American dream of hard work equalling a good life is a big lie. Or as Tweedy sang in “Train,” off that album: “I’m 21, and I’m scared as hell.” “Looks like we’re all looking for a life worth livin’,” Farrar followed. “That’s why we drink ourselves to sleep.” So sang the first punk voices with a St. Louis accent to gain national and international attention. “When we were touring with No Depression, the interviewers would say, ‘Well, Belleville must be a real...’ They were summing up the town, and they’re in New York City,” says Heidorn. “I hated to say it at the time, but these things happen everywhere. That guy right there is going through some hard times, wondering where it comes from and where it’s

going. It was universal, but it was mythologized as Belleville, Illinois.” Marc Chechik sees it a little differently. After his band Melody Den performed at the latest Uncle Tupelo tribute show on February 1, he summed up Uncle Tupelo’s uniqueness. “Mike [Heidorn] still, to this day, is astounded that his little band had such a profound influence on people,” he says. “Other bands were doing their similar thing, like Alejandro [Escovedo], Steve Earle and The Dukes. But just from the standpoint of realizing that the Midwest is what it’s about, you cannot write about what happens here unless you’re from here.” By the time Uncle Tupelo hit the scene, Chechik had been playing around St. Louis for almost a decade. He moved to St. Louis in the early 1980s, playing with blues legends like Henry Townsend and Tommy Bankhead, while being a part of the 1980s music shift that saw Cicero’s Basement Bar (located across the street from the current Cicero’s, in the space now occupied by the Duck Room at Blueberry Hill) become the epicenter for local rock. “It was tough to get into [playing shows] unless you were playing straight-ahead rock and roll. Nothing, if you were doing something as innovative as fusing a bunch of things from punk to country to everything else,” says Chechik. The fusion sometimes happened on stage at Cicero’s. Chicken Truck, from Festus, MO, filled the basement with outlaw country, and soon changed their name to The Bottle Rockets. Bottle Rockets lead singer Brian Henneman had worked as

guitar tech for Uncle Tupelo as they toured the country, and played guitar on their last two albums. He also played in Coffee Creek, a rarely seen cover-band version of Uncle Tupelo that allowed the musicians to play the songs they loved in the old haunts they had since outgrown. That cover band is the missing link: the perfect fusion of the Belleville punks and the angry, intelligent country boys. A bootleg of a set they played at Cicero’s on June 11, 1992, features Henneman spitting out lead vocals on Waylon Jennings’ “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?” backed by Uncle Tupelo’s speed and noise. Four songs later, they shift to acoustic twang and soft vocal harmonies for The Soft Boys’ 1980 pop-punk angst anthem, “I Wanna Destroy You.” Farrar sings lead on Merle Haggard’s “Sing Me Back Home,” barely changing tone when he moves into Neil Young’s “Powderfinger,” then turns The Louvin Brothers’ “Atomic Power” into a honky guitar stomp. Uncle Tupelo and Chicken Truck also share space on the 1990 compilation Out of the Gate, curated by Rick Wood. A still-wrapped copy of the cassette lays on the table at Fletcher’s, where it fell from Heidorn’s envelope. “This was instrumental,” he says, pulling the tape from the pile. “We were just starting to play St. Louis bars and running into these people. Chicken Truck, Bob Reuter— these were people we would hang out with when we played St. Louis. Electric Sheep, Three Foot Thick, we played at Off Broadway on St. Patrick’s Day in 1991 with them. These were really instrumental things. The framework was all these bands. When I look at all these local band CDs that I have in my home, check the year on them and it seems like a lot of the tapes were recorded at the same time—’89, ’90, ’91—when Uncle Tupelo started playing out.” Rick Wood moved to St. Louis in the

mid-’80s. He befriended the guys at Euclid Records, who introduced him to the local scene at Cicero’s and Mississippi Nights, where new things were happening. “In the late ‘80s, we all collectively noticed a fresh new bunch of local musicians who, to one degree or another, showed a country/roots influence in their music,” said Wood in a recent interview. “At the time Tony Margherita, who was working at Euclid Records, had just begun to manage Uncle Tupelo, and I was helping Bob Reuter’s band Kamikaze Cowboy put out a few demo cassettes and get gigs around town. From there it became a fun little project lining up more artists from the local music scene to put together a 15-song compilation. The first Out of the Gate compilation cassette came out the same week as Uncle Tupelo’s No Depression in 1990.” Uncle Tupelo’s life was brief and intense: four albums in three years. Heidorn left after they recorded their second album, March 16-20, 1992, with R.E.M.’s Peter Buck as producer. Heidorn found that balancing the band, a full-time job at a Belleville newspaper, and a new marriage with two children was too much. A few years later, though, he rejoined Farrar in the newly formed Son Volt, and remains friends with his former bandmates. Uncle Tupelo went a new direction for their final album, 1993’s Anodyne, hiring Ken Coomer from Nashville on drums, John Stirratt from New Orleans on bass, and multi-instrumentalist Max Johnston to round out the lineup. They ended their run with two sold-out shows at Mississippi Nights on April 30 and May 1, 1994. That final show closed with Heidorn back onstage with the band, as Brian Henneman sang lead on a cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Gimme Three Steps.” “That’s gotta be it. Thanks,” Tweedy chuckled as they left the stage. He started

the first Wilco rehearsals mere weeks later. Chechik attended those final shows with Mark Ray, his bandmate in rock act The Relatives. “We thought about it and said, ‘We have to keep writing and doing this, because it’s a lot of fun. And they’re gone. We like them, so let’s keep going after it,’” he says. They reformed their band as Waterloo: Chechik, Ray, John Baldus and Dave Melson. In 1996, Chechik and Ray started looking at ways to make music a more financially stable venture. “We had a practice space, and we realized we needed to make some money. We had jobs, but thought, ‘Let’s see if we can make some commercial music,’” said Chechik. They formed Undertow Collective to pool their resources and skills. Since most of the members of Waterloo had day jobs in advertising, they had access to designers and videographers in addition to recording resources. “Waterloo became a really viable thing and we started working our asses off,” he said. “But also out of this came a band called Nadine. Adam Reichmann and Steve Rauner [of Nadine] came in as partners [in Undertow]. We practiced together at this little shithole on the third floor. It became real. People started to come in. We had Pops Farrar [Jay’s dad] come in and record his Merchant Marines songs. Jay came in and did a demo. I got a phone call from Bob Dylan’s people one afternoon because he was looking for a place to rehearse and run some tracks. All these really cool things started happening. We started making music for Jack Daniel’s. We started making music for all these different commercial entities.” Undertow Collective was definitely picking up steam. “It was about making enough money so that we could be able to make records,” said Chechik. “There was no altruistic element. It was simply a method of robbing Peter to pay Paul.” Despite Chechik’s claim, Undertow was

uncle Tupelo circa 1990: Jay Farrar, Jeff Tweedy, and Mark heidorn.

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busy giving musicians a way forward with their music. And, as many of the original St. Louis participants relocated, they took Undertow with them, starting Undertow branches in Champaign, IL, Seattle, WA, and Portland, OR. The Undertow Collective continues today, functioning as a record label, an artist management firm, and a conduit for helping artists get their work distributed. Their current roster includes Tim Kasher of Cursive, Will Johnson and his bands Centro-Matic and South San Gabriel, The Bottle Rockets, Califone, and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, along with St. Louis bands Cave States and Magnolia Summer. Chechik’s no longer a part of Undertow, but he’s still very much active in the St. Louis music scene. Besides fronting Melody Den, he plays guitar in The High Dives alongside JJ and Kip Loui, whose roots run almost as deep as Chechik’s in St. Louis’ modern music history. In 1996, Rick Wood partnered with Jeff Swift and Loui to make Out of the Gate (Again), a follow up to the original 1990 compilation on which Loui’s band at the time, The Heebie Jeebies, had appeared. Later

about throwing a big party/ concert so our respective groups could meet and mingle in person, I volunteered in St. Louis and put on the first Twangfest.” That was 1997, and the team that put the festival together was likewise filled with musicians and aficionados of the emerging form. “Roy Kasten was involved from the start,” said Loui. “John Wendland joined the second year along with Marie Arsenault. Mind you, we had no idea we were founding a music festival at the time. It was more like a big drunken party at Off Broadway with music.” Kasten, who came to St. Louis as a Washington University grad student in the English department, was also active on Postcard-2. “If I knew then what I know now,” he said, “I would have spent less time in the library and more time at Cicero’s.” Even so, his activity in the scene has long been crucial—especially as a documentarian to the very informal and under-documented scene as it evolved. In 1996, No Depression, a magazine that sprang up to cover the growing alt country movement beyond St. Louis, invited Kasten to write a review of Out of the Gate (Again), kickstarting a writing career that continues to this day. He’s currently a freelance contributor to many music publications (including the music section of the Riverfront Times), the web editor for KDHX.org, and the host of the Americana-focused KDHX show Feel Like Going Home. He still serves on The Twang Gang, the board of directors for Twangfest and its nonprofit group that works to preserve American music and the culture that sprang from it, along with Rick Wood; Loui served as the board’s president for ten years. “Twangfest was a way for friends and fans of the music to meet, St. Louis was centrally located, and we had a great time,” Kasten said of the original event. In the years since, “Twangfest has become so much more than that,” he said. “We’re lucky to have that festival in this city and I’m proud to still be a part of it.” Now in its 18th year in St. Louis (and 15th year at SXSW in Austin, TX), Twangfest has long been a nationally recognized locus for Americana music and musicians. Loui and Kasten also crossed paths as volunteer DJs at KDHX 88.1 FM, St. Louis’ independent community radio station. The station started in 1988, and Loui founded and hosted The Back Country from 20002002. (The Back Country still airs weekly, now hosted by Jeff Corbin.) Kasten’s career is irrevocably tied to KDHX: he started hosting the show Blue Highways in 2004 before moving to Wednesday morning drive time with Feel Like Going Home. Crucially,

Loui fronted The Stonecutters, Belle Starr, and the Rockhouse Ramblers with Dade Farrar, Gary Hunt, Danny Kathriner, and then-brother-in-law John Horton, all storied musicians in their own right. For the past ten years Loui has also played in Diesel Island, Brian Henneman’s country cover band. That year Loui organized the Grain Belt Rock Revue, a two-day festival at Off Broadway featuring bands from the second compilation that included plenty of familiar names: Sourpatch (Adam Reichmann), New Patrons Of Husbandry (John Horton), One Fell Swoop (Dade Farrar), Stillwater (Chris Grabau), the Stonecutters and Kamikaze Cowboy (Bob Reuter). Before the show, Loui told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that they were hoping to build on the growing national interest in St. Louis’ “alt country” scene. “Alt country” (and its various spellings) was a fairly new appellation for the sound that essentially sprang from the old Cicero’s Basement Bar, caught the imagination of the world, and was in the process of becoming a free-standing genre of its own, catching the attention of MTV, Rolling Stone and the New York Times. At the same time the alt country phenomenon was busting out of St. Louis, burgeoning online communities were giving musicians and fans a new level of connection and accessibility. “I was a member of an infamous listserv called Postcard-2, which was an online discussion group dedicated to alt country, classic country, Americana and all points in between,” said Loui in a recent interview. “There were folks from all over the U.S. on that thing: musicians, writers, industry people. When a group of us talked

Poster from the collection of eileen heidorn

“alt country” essentially sprang from the old Cicero’s Basement Bar, caught the imagination of the world and, in the process of becoming a free-standing genre of its own, caught the attention of MTv, Rolling Stone and the new York Times.

Photo by brad miller.

left: a poster for uncle Tupelo and Judge nothing at the lincoln, 1990. above: The Bottle Rockets in 1995, left to right: Tom Parr, Tom v. Ray, Brian henneman, and Mark ortmann.

KDHX also hosts Twangfest. “There’s much to be said about the music scene in St. Louis, but you can’t really say it without talking about KDHX,” said Kasten. “Every local band of any worth has always been on the airwaves because of that station, and not many scenes have such an outlet. KDHX didn’t create the ’90s alt-country scene in this town, but it would have been a very different scene without it.” KDHX has sponsored two Uncle Tupelo tribute shows in three years, bringing local bands to Off Broadway to celebrate the music of the local boys done good. At the most recent tribute, on February 1, Heidorn stopped by to say hi to old friends, see a few sets, and drop off a six-pack of Stag before he headed over to the Roky Erickson show at the Firebird. The night was a St. Louis music reunion that included all grades. Uncle Tupelo peers like Chechik played alongside younger groups like The Cree Rider Acoustic Band and The Vondrukes. As Melody Den took the stage, Chechik joked that they paid guest pedal steel guitarist Brad Sarno in Chinese food to get him to play with them and Grace Basement. Sarno just smiled, quiet, hard at work with nary a hint at the role he’s played in helping St. Louis become the hub of this genre. Sarno has played pedal steel in a wide range of projects, including Son Volt, but he is key in other ways as well. He runs Blue Jade Audio Mastering here in St. Louis, and his client list includes both local bands and an

international list of luminaries that includes Dark Star Orchestra, the New Multitudes Woody Guthrie tribute album by Jay Farrar, Yim Yames, Will Johnson and Anders Parker, and Broadway cast recordings. But listen to most of the bands who arose to international prominence from what John Horton calls “the Americana Ghetto,” and you’ll hear Sarno’s real genius: he designs and hand-builds guitar pedals and steel guitar pre-amps [see the October ’12 issue of Eleven for Load In’s detailed discussion of Sarno Music Solutions – ed.]. Every guitarist in Wilco uses Sarno’s Earth Drive pedal. Nels Cline gives them as gifts to his guitarist friends. Magnolia Summer explicitly listed the pedal as an influence on their most recent album. Carl Broemel of My Morning Jacket, Andy Summers of The Police, Richard Thompson, Jay Farrar, and Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo all use the Earth Drive. The pedal of choice for some of rock’s best contemporary guitarists happened because Sarno’s wife Auset wasn’t getting the sound she wanted from her guitar. “Auset was needing an overdrive pedal that would allow her to get the sound of her cranked-up old Fender Deluxe Reverb amp, but at a low volume,” said Sarno. “We lined up about a dozen of our favorite pedals and just took notes, the plusses and minuses of each. Not one of those pedals quite nailed what she was after. Then with that laundry list I went to the shop and came back up a few hours later with the first prototype of

the Earth Drive. About two tweaks later the design was done.” Sarno Music Solutions has been slammed with orders for the pedal since they introduced it three years ago. It gives a fuzzy, vintage tone to guitars without sounding forced or mechanized—a sound that harkens back to the warmth of classic country hiss and hum without being distorted. On December 7, John Horton took his own Earth Drive to Off Broadway for a sold-out Bottle Rockets show. The band was celebrating the recent Bloodshot Records reissues of their first two albums, ’93’s Bottle Rockets and ’94’s The Brooklyn Side. The new editions of those records resulted in an onslaught of music writing from around the world about the almost-forgotten albums that set the path for so much modern music. Heidorn was in the packed audience. Chechik was there, too. The same people who’ve been in the front row of every St. Louis Bottle Rockets show for over a decade were there, of course. The band played hard, fired up and just as frenetic as ever. Henneman has exchanged his Coffee Creek scream and yodel for a thoughtful, sardonic edge that’s every bit as effective in calling bullshit. “Welfare Music,” with its image of Rush Limbaugh bitching about poor people, remains as relevant now as it was twenty years ago. Now, Henneman’s voice is accompanied by 300 more singing along: “Baby fall down, baby get up, baby needs a drink from a loving cup.”

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outta here and he’s buying us a van.” “Funky on the Side” built slowly, adding three-part harmonies from Jim’s sister Shannon and percussionist Cole Adams into a searing tale of a band trying to hold it together with no money and a rickety van on the road. “We don’t know where it’s going, but it’s sure a bumpy ride,” sang Lucas over David Newmann’s boxcar beats. Bassist Josh Allen laid it down like he was weaned on Flea. The song described the band in possibly the most apt description of any band born in this city: “backwood, down-home, funky on the side.” Despite claiming that they don’t know where they’re going, the band has ideas and plans. They recorded their three-song demo, Foreword, last year at R&R Music Labs in Dogtown. While they plan their next album and pick up occasional gigs at the Heavy Anchor and Crack Fox, singer-songwriter Adams is learning the business through New Noize Agency, a record label he founded in 2012. “I can’t believe you’re not dancing!” a woman yelled at me as I watched uncle Tupelo in Jet Lag magazine, 1990.

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the band play. “C’mon!” she said, and grabbed my hand to drag me halfway across the Duck Room before I could break away, laughing. A little drunk in the basement once again, with the music of this time and place vibrating through the concrete floor, it’s not so different than twenty years ago. History’s not repeating itself, but it breathes through young bands in this town, with members who were babies when Jeff, Jay, Mike and Brian were on the same stage. Whether they list Uncle Tupelo as an influence or not doesn’t matter: they’re still mined from the same vein that runs under this city. Roy Kasten’s the one to nail it: “The emergence of Uncle Tupelo—and, it should really be said in the same breath, The Bottle Rockets—in this place at that specific time is both a mystery and not a mystery. All the necessary ingredients were present: alienation, musical legacy—hello, Chuck Berry!— the waning of alternative rock, the eternal landscape and the not-so-eternal brick buildings, the lack of pretension, the isolation and the confluence of rivers and roads, the collision of rural soul and urban grit, small town and big town, development and decay. That was St. Louis and the Midwest in the ‘90s. There was much to be pissed off about; much to love too. Some brilliant songwriters and hard-working musicians both shaped and were shaped by that crucible.”

from the collection of eileen heidorn

The night before, in the dark of the Duck Room, it wasn’t nearly as crowded. The basement ceiling here isn’t as low as it was when this was known as Cicero’s, and the musicians don’t risk electrocution because of water pooled on the stage like they did two decades ago. But there was still a young band onstage playing funked-out bass coupled with mandolin and fiddle. Jim Lucas, Typhoon Jackson’s lead singer and guitarist, had a whiskey-and-cigarettes South County rasp, as he observed that “it’s hard just to get by this time of year / We’ve got a manager from downtown that wonders why we’re here / He’s got a little bit of money, he’s got a whole lot of plans / He’s gonna get us on

it’s hard to let it go don’t act too surprised—The Blind eyes told us they were going out with a bang by evan sult MAybe It’s Just thAt the temperature is finally lifting, but even pretty big bummer news—like the announcement that The Blind Eyes are calling it quits—doesn’t seem to sting today. It could also be that I’m listening to The Blind Eyes’ debut album Modernity, where singer Seth Porter slyly observes that “the end of the world may be coming soon, but it’s hard to tell on a sunny afternoon.” But then again, it may just be that the band seems fine with their decision. The Blind Eyes are as much a congenitally pleasant group of people as a tight musical unit, and their presence in the crowd or onstage at any venue in town reliably makes the night a better one. The real tragedy would be if this band of brothers split over bad blood, souring the bonhomie and ba-ba-bahs that saturate their recorded output.

Each of them—singer/guitarist Seth Porter, drummer Matt Picker, bassist/singer Kevin Schneider, and guitarist/new guy Andy White—is a lifer music fan and a fixture in the STL music world. The Blind Eyes formed in 2007 in the wake of the Gentleman Callers, and immediately got to work crafting breezy pop gems stiffened with a shot of English punk verve. Lead-off track “January,” from their 2009’s Modernity, is like a legend to The Blind Eyes’ map: it kicks in with Picker’s bouncy drums, then Porter brushes in some bright chords ‘til Schneider’s melodic bass phrases get the camera rolling. Porter’s voice is jaunty and confident, the song fundamentally optimistic, and the lyrics clearly originate in St. Louis, where a sunny January would indeed be a welcome one. Everything that makes The Blind Eyes one of STL’s most memorable bands is present from their first song. Since then, the band went on to release 2011’s much-loved With a Bang LP and last year’s World Record EP, all peppered with anthe-

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scrollwork detail to Porter’s guitar mic passages that could be counted on to get chords without distracting from the the STL crowd’s voice lifted as one. Partly that’s directness of the melodies. It matured because the songs had such infectious drive, but Jon Hardy & The Public the textures of the sound at the same it’s also partly because the band showed you, Saturday, March 15 time that the lyrics were gaining new from stage, how good it feels to sing out and insight. The chorus of World Record’s get into it. There’s a panache to Seth Porter’s Off Broadway “Now, Again” could have appeared on casually precise boarding-school diction and Modernity, but the words wouldn’t vocabulary—and it’s there in his hollow-body have, and White’s solo subtly brightguitar tone and post-Sinatra hint of vibrato. ens the song’s melancholic tinge. Lyrically, his images are clear and evocative, his metaphors snappy I have a lot of favorite Blind Eyes songs, honestly—”With a Bang,” and apt. There are probably passages about strictly romantic love, “Hold Down the Fort,” and “Brasil, 1957” should all go down in the but most of the love is expansive enough to include the whole city; Big Book of STL Classics—but I think the passage that commemothe “you” of the songs seems as often to be St. Louis itself as any one rates the band best is the final tryptich of Modernity, where Schneiparticular citizen. der and Porter joyfully show off their influence on one another: on His lyrics are held aloft by a rock band with a deep understand“Hot Silence,” Seth pulls out his best Kevin melody, and then on the ing of the smart punk that preceded them. Where Porter’s melodies next song, “Forever and a Day,” Kevin returns the favor, throwing his skew toward Elvis Costello and The Undertones, when Schneider shoutier voice into a melody shape much more typical of Seth. The takes over lead vocals, the influence of Buzzcocks, Gang Of Four, album ends with the two of them pushing each other forward with and the shoutier side of punk comes out clearly. Schneider’s the an exchange of the slogan, “Go right now!” For all of the places where easiest Blind Eye to underestimate, because his songs are rarer in one can hear the members’ separate influences, in this moment it’s the mix, but songs like “Another Last Night” reveal how much his just as clear that they were busy learning from each other. instinct for punk hooks underlie all of the band’s songs. So get your ass down to Off Broadway for one last big sing After the release of With a Bang, they brought in guitar hero along—it’s up to you to hold the fort down now. Andy White on second guitar. His quick hands added a layer of

The Blind Eyes,

“ Not many bands can say they’ve played a set in a disused airplane fuselage perched precariously several stories above a major American city” Eleven’s Paige Brubeck asked the members of the band about some of the key moments in their life as The Blind Eyes before they resign themselves to history. What was your first show you played as The Blind Eyes? Matt: Our first show was the Arch Rival Rollergirls Christmas party at the Way Out Club on December 22, 2007 with the Livers and Shame Club. What was your first show with this lineup? Andy: I joined late in the game —but their first show was with my old band Shame Club in 2007 at the Way Out Club, and I told them if they ever added a second guitarist they should give me a shot. Even though most of the bands I have been in have leaned more on the heavy side, The Blind Eyes were immediately a band I loved and wanted to be a part of. Seth: We did a show at the Firebird that was billed as “The Blind Eyes Debut as a FourPiece,” but we had actually already played one show with Andy at the Stagger Inn in Edwardsville with Kentucky Knife Fight. Do you have a favorite show you’ve played as a band (or some of your favorites) that come to mind? Seth: There have been a lot of good ones. The New Year’s shows will always be near and dear to my heart. A nice little tradition we had there.

22 | ELEVEN | elevenmusicmag.com

Kevin: Our first CD release show at the Firebird. That was when I realized people actually gave a crap about what we were doing. The NYE shows were always great. I had a lot of fun at the show we played at Foam last year. Matt: An Under Cover Weekend [in 2010] when we did Fleetwood Mac was a standout for sure, but as far as regular shows, there was probably a good two years where it seemed like every show we played was just killer. Lots of great all-local bills, lots of good national act opening sets. Andy: All in, my fave two are as follows: the three-year anniversary of Modernity (their first album, [which] I did not play on, and it’s the release that initially made me a fan of this group), and the Kinks show also at Off Broadway where playing “Two Sisters” and “Brainwashed” was probably one of my favorite things I’ve ever gotten to play live, period. Just really think some of those Kinks songs could not be handled more properly than by this outfit of mega fans and ‘60s record dorks (us). What’s your biggest or favorite accomplishment as a band? Kevin: All the airplay on KDHX. Matt: Early on, being on the cover of the RFT was a real “I can’t believe that actually happened” sort of moment. But really, just playing so many good shows, that was the best thing. Playing to crowds that were into

it, seeing your work pay off. There’s nothing like looking into a crowd and seeing people singing along to your songs. Seth: Every once in a great while, I’ll read a review or have a conversation where it is clear that a person has spent time with our music and connected with it in some meaningful way. It’s really humbling and feels like a real, lasting accomplishment. Andy: Hmmm, personally, just glad I got to be on one release and have some writing that fit into the mold. This is by far the most challenging material I have ever played guitar wise. My greatest acomplishment has been playing in this band and conforming to its specialties without shitting all over it. Who are some artists that you discovered through playing with this band that you’re happy you found out about? Kevin: The ACBs come to mind. Seth: The ACB’s from Kansas City are legitimately one of my favorite bands, and I’m reasonably sure I wouldn’t have found them without a Myspace conversation trying to set up a show together. What’s the most fun or exciting place that this band has taken you? Seth: I mean, it’s pretty hard to beat Mars Cheese Castle in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Kevin: Not many bands can say they’ve played a set in a disused airplane fuselage

perched precariously several stories above a major American city, as we did for a Lo-Fi St. Louis shoot.

of money or gain much national/international attention. Although I don’t think it would have deterred me from playing.

Matt: Literally the whole place to ourselves to film this live acoustic video. I just remember thinking how insane it is that this place is open right now so my band can film a video. It ended up sounding great, too.

Andy: Before I joined I thought they were these well-outfitted record snobs that were all probably pretty elite . What I have learned is that they are about as highbrow as South Park. They are just a lot goofier than you’d guess. All really really genuine nice people. Kevin and crew could easily pen a book titled Things You Wanted to Forget About TV and Popular Culture That We Will Now Remind You of and Clarify.

Andy: I love playing live at 88.1 KDHX and have never had the chance to do that in another outfit. It seems like there’s a lot different about being a band in 2007 and 2014. How do you feel like the scene—St. Louis or nationally—has changed from when you started seven years ago? Andy: I feel like the local scene has changed. I know there were a lot of up and comers who are now high-draw bands locally that have emerged in the last seven years, and really there are none I feel are placed unfairly with the successes they have. I think there’s a lot more variety and creativity here than we get credit for.

You all have played in other bands. What’s a thing about The Blind Eyes that you feel works particularly well? Kevin: Well, the main thing is that Seth writes good songs. Most of our songs are formed by Seth writing a pretty melody and

sounding enough like a Blind Eyes song. I think that is what gave this band life from minute one, and a big reason why people have always had a tough time categorizing us over the years. Also, more than anything, we’re always friends first and bandmates second. That goes a long way. Seth: We’re completely ourselves onstage. There’s probably something to be said for showmanship, but with us, for better or for worse, what you see is what you get. Are there any new or current projects that any of you are involved in that we can look forward to hearing? Kevin: Thee Fine Lines have about two albums worth of new songs recorded. We hope to have a new LP this summer and a maybe couple 7”s and/or a split EP coming out later in the year. Seth: Andy plays in Tilts. I occasionally play viola with Beth Bombara, but don’t have another full-time project yet. Andy: [Tilt’s] second album is coming out on Robotic Empire Records in spring. I am also playing in a new band, Hell Night which is a punk, thrash-wave band with Eric Eyster from Shame Club, and Tre Serpenti and Tim Pinkerton from Popular Mechanics and Black For A Second. We have played one show and are recording demos and such currently.

Matt: I’d say any new band starting up now will experience the same hurdles we did in 2007. Locally, you still have to start off in the trenches playing to sparse crowds and work your way up. Nationally, you still have to release good albums and tour heavily on them if you expect to get anywhere. If you want to really make it, you still have to put in the same legwork and get in front of live audiences. That’s still the only real way to stand out.

Matt: I want some time to be a civilian. It’s been almost 20 years of playing in bands with few breaks. Not that I’m hanging it up permanently, but for now, no.

Photo courtesy The Blind Eyes

Seth: I had such a limited knowlIs there anyone who has been edge of any scene when the band particularly helpful to this Kevin Schneider, Andy White, Matt Picker, and Seth Porter of The Blind Eyes started, that it’s hard to say. I band along the way? think the quality of the output, Matt: Definitely. That person is a jazzy chord structure and these three guys as a whole, has gotten better over the years. Brian Scheffer from Firebrand Recording. who have played in punk, garage rock, and I like to make a “Best of St. Louis” mix at the As far as I’m concerned he’s a member of stoner rock bands tastefully rock it out. I end of the year. I feel like I used to struggle the band. He’s been at the controls of every think the way all our influences, not just to fill it up, and now I leave off really great release we’ve ever put out; he even toured the aforementioned, work into the songs is stuff. Maybe I just know where to look now. with us on bass once when Kevin had other interesting. I think keeping the energetic What do you know now that you wish you’d obligations. I credit much of our success power-pop aesthetic at the base of what we known when you started The Blind Eyes? to Brian. I can’t even go into the ways that do kept the music accessible and having that guy has hooked us up and the hours he Seth: If there is even a remote chance that lots of other influences and mixing them has put into this band. The amount we’re the Cardinals will be in the playoffs, don’t all together in a non-over-indulgent way indebted to that guy can’t even be put into book a local show in October. made the music fresh and interesting, even words. We really couldn’t have done it though loud guitars behind a pop melody is Is there anything you’re glad you didn’t without him. hardly a new idea. know then? Seth: I think maybe I would have initially been scared to write songs and play guitar if I had thought that we’d make records that people might actually hear. Or at least, I would have thought too much about it. Kevin: I’m glad I didn’t know for a fact we would never make any significant amount

Matt: From the outset, we never set limitations on ourselves musically. One thing I made very clear when we got this band together was that I did not want to ever again be tied down by genre. Every idea is considered. If a song doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, but nothing gets shot down for not

Kevin: Photographer Doug Garfield. Steve Pohlman of Off Broadway. Bobbee Sweet, Rob Levy, Jeff Hess and others at KDHX. Everyone at the RFT. I think getting on the cover early on really helped put us on the map.

(Continued on page 29)

elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 23

AquitAine, Final Veil, Tory Starbuck

the Dive POets, The Poorhouse Says, ARR!!! at gramophone

PeelAnDer-z at the Demo reAl estAte, Pure X at firebird

*rePeAt rePeAt, EL EL, Search Parties at the gramophone lOrDe at the Peabody

sXscity feAt. Jungle fire, Mikey Wehling and the Reverbs, Jason Hutto, Ransom Note at Off Broadway DJ whO (album release) at Blank space

rOunDheels, Alcatraz Shakedown, Stories at lemmons

Friday, March 28

Friday, March 14

twO cOw gArAge at fubar

with EtErnal SummErS • tuESday, march 18 at old rock houSE The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart is a band built on contradictions, sucker punches and outright lies. First, there’s the precious after-school-special name which evokes a folky singalong about feelings and not a Cure-influenced wall of guitars with serious pop chops and seriously, no joke, uplifting songs. Second is the entrancing vocal style of Kip Berman, whose sweet-sounding, slightly lispy lilt may well cause you to miss the darkness and melancholy in her lyrics, pulling that old Morrissey trick of burying darkness in the light. And like the best Mozzer tunes, there’s always an undercurrent of hope. The title track to 2011’s Belong exemplifies the singular moment of, in the midst of realizing you’re different from everyone else, realizing you’re also not alone in being different. It’s complicated. You could call them a throwback or a forward-looking retro group or what-haveyou, but you’d be missing the forest for the synth-covered trees. Jason Robinson

thursday, March 20

left lAne cruiser at Off Broadway

Dr. DOg, Saint Rich at the Pageant

KentucKy Knife fight, John Henry, Jump Starts at Off Broadway

Some jerknut stole KKF’s beloved van and sold it to a scrapyard! So tonight’s the night we help ‘em raise funds for another one—cos otherwise the jerknuts win.

Wednesday, March 12

saturday, March 1

RECOMMENDED SHOWS

march 2014

THE pAINS Of bEINg pURE AT HEART

MUSICALENDAR

illustrAtiOn By tyler grOss, grOssillustrAtiOn.cOM

wet nurse, Bruiser Queen, The Little Big Bangs at heavy Anchor yOung the giAnt, Vance Joy at Pageant the vAn Allen Belt, Pat Sajak Assassins, Eric Hall at Plush

saturday, March 22

the vAnillA BeAns, Kowabunga Kid, Wild Hex, Dem Scientist at café ventana iDes Of MArch tOgA PArty feat. Psychedelic Psychonauts, Ellen The Felon at crack fox renée fleMing at The Sheldon Gala 2014 at the sheldon

unweD sAilOr, Hawk And Dove, Grand House, Grafted at Off Broadway

King BuzzO of Melvins at fubar

We Will Rock You at the fox lunAr levitAtiOn, Bend Sinister, All Nite Diner, The Hot Cross Buns at fubar

fOlK schOOl stuDent shOwcAse at Off Broadway

Kisser, Guerrilla Toss at café ventana

the AtAris at Old rock house

lOw at Off Broadway

thursday, March 27

rhett Miller at Off Broadway

Wednesday, March 26

st. lOuis JAzz OrchestrA at the sheldon

zz wArD, Grizfolk, The O’My’s at Plush

Scan this qr code, or go to elevenMusicMag.com for a listing of club addresses. Check out our expanded calendar of events at calendar.elevenmusicmag.com, powered by

Mentioned this issue comedy show

LEgEND

MUSICALENDAR

eArth at firebird

tuesday, March 25

Monday, March 31 MiniAture tigers, Total Slacker, Flashlights at firebird

newPOrt JAzz festivAl: nOw 60 feat. Anat Cohen, Karrin Allyson, Randy Brecker, Mark Whitfield, Peter Martin, Clarence Penn, Larry Grenadier at the sheldon

JOhnette nAPOlitAnO (Concrete Blonde) at the Duck room

sunday, March 30

the freAKers BAll triBute tO shel silverstein with Jason Vargas Music Project, Cree Rider Family Band, Typewriter Tim, The Hobosexuals at gramophone

MOOt DAvis, Dock Ellis Band at lemmons

Drive-By trucKers, Blitzen Trapper at the Pageant

Monday, March 24

yOnDer MOuntAin string BAnD at the Pageant

KArMAgeDDOn feAt. MiDDle clAss fAshiOn, Ransom Note, Jedi Nighties at Off Broadway

Me liKe Bees at heavy Anchor

Kevin white, Acorns To Oaks at firebird

Have you seen Dubb Nubb lately? It’s easy to forget how special and rare they are— haunting, otherwordly lyrics delivered by a trio of naturally charming sisters. This is the stuff legends are made of, and the fact that they’re Mound City babies only makes it that much sweeter.

gOOgOlPleXiA, Dubb Nubb, Missouri’s Hat, Mt. Thelonious, The Thin Dimes at the livery

the PAins Of Being Pure At heArt at Off Broadway

tuesday, March 11

ezrA furMAn, Jon Valley at the Demo

Monday, March 10

wAter liArs, Bo Bulawsky at Off Broadway

saturday, March 8

tuesday, March 18

infAMOus stringDusters at Old rock house

3 Of 5, Lesbian Poetry, Paper Ceilings, Billy Mack Collector at café ventana

eMily wAllAce (CD release), Cold Hearted Strangers, Isatis at gramophone

eX heX, Priests, Bruiser Queen at firebird

Monday, March 17

sXscity feAt. BAgheerA, Jedi Nighties, Cree Rider Family Duo, Karate Bikini, Tommy Halloran’s Guerrilla Swing at Off Broadway

saturday, March 15

This is the kind of performer for whom an acoustically ideal building like the Sheldon was constructed. Fleming has one of the greatest soprano voices in the world today—plus she just sang the Star-Spangled Banner at the Superbowl.

the MOwgli’s, MisterWives at firebird

Diesel islAnD at Off Broadway

The city of St. Louis should really consider KDHX tribute nights for holiday status— they generate enough community goodwill to float the city through tougher times. Expect lots of 12-strings (and thus lots of tuning breaks), drop-dead harmonies, and hopefully a sitar or two. This lineup is full of lifer musicians and lifer Byrds fans, so it’s safe to expect a blowout night.

eight Miles high: A triBute tO the ByrDs (early and late shows) The Aching Hearts, The Blu Skies, Brothers Lazaroff, Diesel Island, The Wingnuts, The Love Experts, Magnolia Summer, Rogers & Nienhaus, Rough Shop, The Trio Project, The Trophy Mules at Off Broadway

Mutts, Cadaver Dogs, The Hot Liquors at the Demo MetAl ceilings, Bike Path, Space Wolf Infinity at foam

Friday, March 29

Friday, March 21

the BlinD eyes (final show!), Jon Hardy & The Public, plus DJ sets w/ KDHX’s Jeff Hess & bobEE Sweet at Off Broadway

saturday, March 15

PeArl AnD the BeArD at gramophone

the neighBOurhOOD, Kitten, Born Casual at the Pageant

white DeniM, The Districts at firebird

PeAt henry Benefit shOw feat. fAultfinDer, Shaved Women, Lumpy & The Dumpers, The Conformists, The Funs, Catholic Guilt, Life Like at heavy Anchor

Friday, March 7

rOyAl teeth, Chappo, Parade Of Lights at the Demo

the giving tree BAnD at gramophone

lOnely wilD, Apache Relay at Old rock house

thursday, March 6

lyDiA lOveless, The Defeated County at Off Broadway

BOreAl hills, Nice Guys, Miami Doritos, Dad Jr., SKULL at Plush

the terrOr PigeOn DAnce revOlt, Michael Parallax at the livery

helP PAlAce get tO sXsw shOw! with Palace, Electric Garden at gramophone

Wednesday, March 5

DeAD MeADOw, Valley, Fumer at firebird

shArOn JOnes & the DAP Kings, Valerie June at the Pageant

sunday, March 2

Project Mardi Gras Party at crack fox

Live Music

BRING ON THE NIGHT = STL musician

The Brainstems are back! After a hiatus brought on by the (temporary, it turns out) departure of guitarist Sean Cotton, Photo: Bryan Sutter the boys returned to treat the Firebird into one big, loud garage on Saturday, February 1.

>>PREVIEW

Peat Henry Benefit with

Photo Courtesy Joyful Noise

Faultfinder, Shaved Women, Lumpy and the Dumpers, The Conformists, The Funs, Catholic Guilt, Life Like Friday, March 7

WHY?

26 | ELEVEN | elevenmusicmag.com

Heavy Anchor In the big farm town of St. Louis, our loveabundant community is proudly known for its ability to rally around friends in their time of need. This month the spotlight falls upon the Andrew WK of St. Louis: Peat Henry. Whether you saw him cutting his teeth in bands like The Pubes and Nerve Parade or doing the helicopter fully nude at a South City party, Peat’s fun-soaked sweat permeates the hearts of those near and far. In recent years, Henry has set music aside to focus on a burgeoning and successful career in off-road bicycle racing. On January 17, tragedy struck as he hit a pitch of black ice during a warm-up ride in Castlewood Park. When asked what went through his head as he wiped out, Peat recalls: “Nothing. There was no thinking. It’s like when your significant other accidentally punches you in the face while you’re asleep because they’re having a crazy dream about fighting a gang of giant garden gnomes.” With the help of friends, Henry was hauled a mile by piggyback and later transported to a hospital. In just under a week after Henry’s last race of the season, he found out he had sustained a fractured femur that ultimatley became a broken left hip. After a weekend of surgery and mounting medical bills, the road to recovery has left Henry absent from his job as a bike mechanic at Trek Bicycle Store. “Financially,

I’m wrecked,” he says. “It’s been about three and a half weeks now, and I just started being able to hobble myself around the house with no crutches.” In order to get Peat back on his feet (pun intended), his longtime friends Jenn DeRose and Don Beasley have teamed up on a full-blown benefit to offset Henry’s medical bills. “Peat is one of the most positive, loving, fun people I have ever met,” says DeRose. “A benefit show is the only way a broke-ass like myself knows how to raise money. I got lucky in that Don was booking a pretty bitchin’ show around the same time I was planning, so we joined forces like Voltron ‘n shit.” It’s blazing punk and hardcore from around the region, including Kansas City’s Faultfinder, The Funs from Chicago, and our own Shaved Women, Lumpy And The Dumpers, The Conformists, Catholic Guilt, and Life Like. And it’s not just bands: there’ll be prizes raffled by Henry-friendly businesses like Big Shark, Handlebar, Vintage Vinyl, Blueberry Hill, and Big Muddy Records. If hardcore’s not your thing, Trek Bicycle Store and Spoked STL will be throwing an off-road bike ride in order to raise donations for Henry. When asked about the love and support from the community, Henry glows. “To put it bluntly,” he says, “I am forever indebted to a lot of people and owe so many thank you’s it would make a head pop off. I just hope they all know how appreciative I am.” Josh Levi >>PREVIEW

Dr. Dog, Saint Rich

Wednesday, March 12

The Pageant While Dr. Dog has performed in St. Louis

Live Music numerous times over the last few years, the band’s most memorable local show would have to be their appearance at the 2012 Loufest. Slotted, unfortunately, after a huge deluge that left the fields of Forest Park swampy and the fans soaked, the band was more than game. Racing to dry off gear and bust out the best performance they could manage in their now-truncated slot, they blasted through as many songs as they could, telling waiting fans that they’d play until the first notes of the next band, headliners The Flaming Lips, could be heard across the field. Cords laid in huge puddles on the stage, towels draped ineffectually over speakers, sunglasses firmly in place despite the fast approaching night, Dr. Dog put on one of the best shows of the weekend. Really, that’s the best description of Dr. Dog anyone could give: soggy, rough around the edges, passionate and here for a good time. Dr. Dog’s brand of ‘60s throwback bluesy pop has the effect of sounding like everyone and no one at the same time. Yeah, you can hear The Beach Boys and early Beatles in their beautiful harmonies and shimmering guitars. But when you get down to it, Dr. Dog sounds like their own beast: shouting, melodically ragged leads, funky bass lines and an affinity for layering vocals to better utilize their six-person size. The band’s new album, B-Room, takes its name from the studio they constructed in a converted silversmith mill just outside their hometown of Philadelphia, PA. This record is the most vital in Dr. Dog’s impressive eightalbum history. They shake up their traditional formulas, eschewing their previous reliance on layered studio tracks in favor of recording their harmonies live. The result is

an album that captures the power and verve of the band’s concert performances better than any of their previous efforts. And while the best way to listen to Dr. Dog may be in a field with several hundred equally soaked festival-goers, a carefully crafted, electrically present live take is a pretty decent alternative. Caitlin Bladt >>PREVIEW

Ex Hex, Priests, Bruiser Queen

Monday, March 17

The Firebird Washington, DC, is a place both empowered and hampered by its DIY and hardcore punk history. Conjuring up images of ‘80s hardcore and Dischord Records to the politically charged rock destruction of Fugazi in the ‘90s, music lovers may not realize that a burgeoning DIY scene still thrives decades later. With her band Helium and a variety of productive musical outfits, DC native Mary Timony was one of the key figures in the ‘90s musical landscape; Helium’s albums for Matador are some of the most evocative records of that decade. After shifting through a variety of projects, Timony came roaring back into the spotlight as a member of the short-lived power-fun quartet Wild Flag, and now with Ex-Hex. Where Wild Flag’s all-star cast was blowing steam and having a blast for all of us (“come on and join our electric band!”), Ex Hex sounds like a keeper. It’s jean-jacket party music, but Timony brings her decades of songwriting experience to a garage-rock format more accustomed to lyrics about beer and bumming around. For a band that played its first show in October of last year, Ex Hex has already proven that both

BLUE BEAT by Jeremy Segel-Moss

St. Louis Women Lately, as I’ve gone out to listen to music, it has dawned on me how good the women of the St. Louis music world are. Not just in the blues: all genres of music in this city seem to have an outstanding group of women making excellent music nightly. In the blues and soul traditions, this isn’t anything new. Also not new is the fact that women in all genres of the music industry tend to be dismissed, objectified, overlooked, or paired with a group of men who play behind them. Historically, St. Louis has provided some of the best women in the blues. Oliver Sain was one of the few musicians/producers to support and record women in St. Louis. Such artists as Fontella Bass and Shirley Brown received international attention for their music. Many others, like Mae Wheeler, Barbara Carr and Victoria Spivey, are important to those who have been fortunate enough to hear them but a blip on the radar of music history. Like so many blues artists in St. Louis, you can’t find much about St. Louis women online. There are some Youtube clips, some articles written here or there, but for the most part these musicians tend to be performing artists. In some senses, this is a real problem in St. Louis—not just for women or the blues, but for all artists. The lack of online visibility could easily give the impression

live and on record, they are a force to be reckoned with. Technically, their debut 7” on Merge will debut the day after their St. Louis show, but hopefully your attendance at the Firebird will be rewarded by a chance to scoop it a few hours ahead of the horde. Joining Ex Hex on this tour is fellow DC band Priests. Led by singer Katie Alice Greer (one of Ian Svenonius’ cool-blooded crew in Chain and the Gang) Priests boobytraps their party songs with derisive social taunts. Greer’s got a nasty snarl, endless charisma, and a knack for double entendres that aren’t so much sexual as sociopolitical. The band throws the party with B-52s basslines and Danzig guitarlines and Le Tigre’s fierce joy. If you were lucky enough to catch them at the Schlafly Tap Room last summer, then surely this show is a no-brainer. STL’s welcoming committee to the DC delegation is our own Bruiser Queen. Having just released the six-song For All the Hunnies cassette and wrapped recording on a new album, the duo is in top form. Expect their melodic garage-core holler and shred to do our city proud. Evan Sult >>PREVIEW

ZZ Ward, Grizfolk, The O’My’s Tuesday, March 18 Plush At the dusty intersection of blue-eyed soul, blues, rock and pop stands the slight figure of ZZ Ward, a would-be contender for poprock’s crown. Ward—whose real first name is Zsuzsanna, btw—has quickly earned respect from the pop charts, guest slots on late night talk shows, and breathless praise from the glossy magazines, including a Must-See nod from Fuse TV for her appearance at SXSW.

that there aren’t many women performing in St. Louis. Not true! In an effort to change that, here are a few names you might want to look for when headed out to see amazing music in STL: Kim Massie can be seen every Tuesday and Thursday at The Beale On Broadway. Massie’s strong voice and stage presence has made her one of the more highly visible singers in town. She is a true performer who engages the audience and sings a wide variety of music. Marsha Evans and the Coalition come out of the soul tradition in St. Louis. Evans worked with Oliver Sain at Archway Studios, and puts on one of the most exciting shows in town. Her high-energy blues/soul/R&B show can be caught consistently at 1860s Saloon in Soulard and at most of the region’s blues festivals. Renee Smith has been nicknamed the “Queen of St. Louis Soul.” Smith’s powerful voice and dynamic stage presence have offered concert goers one of the best shows in town for years. Again, you can’t find her schedule online, but you can look for her at venues like BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups. Margaret Biachetta can be seen every Sunday afternoon at The Shanti in Soulard. I wouldn’t call Biachetta a blues or soul artist solely: she’s clearly rooted in jazz and blues but likes to stretch out and swing. Beyond her tremendous voice and vocal technique, she is known for her guitar and flute work. (And side note: you may have seen her son, Kaleb Kirby, playing with Tommy Halloran’s Guerrilla Swing!)

elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 27

Photo by John Gitchoff

Live Music

The Hold Steady celebrate their new album in the comfortably intimate confines of Off Broadway on January 30.

Not bad for a young lady of 27. And Ward has the chops to back it up, bridging the gap between those influences while forging something altogether her own, a fiery mix of Adele’s raspy croon and Black Keys’ stadium-sized blues rock that begs attention on even the most clichéd of songs. The spacious environs of Plush are the perfect place for the radio-friendly and the rowdy alike, so Ward will likely feel right at home among the dancers and the drinkers. Jason Robinson

>>PREVIEW

Real Estate, Pure X Friday, March 28

The Firebird The most effective way to escape this polar vortex bullshit would be just to shake the Midwest dust off our heels and make for warmer climes. Sadly, that’s just not an option for those of us snagged on trivial details like jobs and family and friends. But even denied the escape hatch, Real Estate’s visit to the Firebird this month should offer a warm respite from the never-ending winter. In their stellar, laid back, beachy style, Real Estate is a breath of warm, salty sea air from the shores of New Jersey. Their nostalgic, lo-fi pop seems to beg to be used during a montage of those Instagram pictures you took last summer at the beach, or as the portal to an especially great daydream. The band’s 2011 album, Days, was a beautiful, hazy summer soundtrack, and the teases of Atlas, their new LP set to drop early this month, indicate the band has lost none of that magic. The first single from that new album,

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“Talking Backwards,” starts with a lament about trying to make yourself understood on the phone with someone too many miles away... presumably while sitting on a boardwalk by the ocean. Caitlin Bladt >>PREVIEW

Earth

Monday, March 31 The Firebird Metalhead alert: You ready to feel the Earth move under your feet? Legendary doomdrone pioneer Earth makes its long-awaited return to St. Louis this month to shake The Firebird down to its foundation. Founded in 1989 in Seattle by Dylan Carlson, the band took its name from the one Black Sabbath decided against. Earth’s tectonic metal heaviness was a big influence on Kurt Cobain, and the two were close friends. Originally focusing on sheer lowtuned distorted guitar with sparse melodic changes (even drums were deemed too distracting to include), Earth 2 has become one of metal’s purest source materials, eventually influencing later groups like Pelican and Queens Of The Stone Age. Earth released three albums on Sub Pop in the ‘90s, before taking a near ten-year hiatus. A decade ago they returned from obscurity (and Carlson’s debilitating herion addiction) to release music on Southern Lord Records, where heavy hitters such as Sunn O))) and Boris were extrapolating on the possibilities that Earth first introduced to metal. Their return to the studio also brought a new sound, one more vast and pervasive. Trading in the muscled gloom for something

more toned and nuanced, they sacrificed fuzz and guts for a more understated form of metal, more akin to Ennio Morricone on morphine. With no vocals and minimalist chord changes, the morose tones are highlighted by a single cello moaning in the distance and Carlson’s guitar riffs burning like a slow-motion surfer. No one knows what these sluggernauts will bring with them when they play the Firebird; will it be some of their smokier, dark and Western-themed musings, or classics from their heavy drudge days? There are only a handful of shows before their Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light 2 tour concludes. And by then it might be too late. Kevin Korinek

>>PREVIEW

WHY?, Bo And The Locomotive Friday, April 4 The Demo Indie, hip hop, pop, folk, post-rock: have fun trying to figure out exactly what kind of music WHY? has been busy making since their 2004 debut. WHY? drives hip hop beats headfirst into dark organs, strings, choirs, light guitars, heavenly harps and chimes. The band’s broad repertoire of sounds varies massively, creating sounds that are complicated but always clear. WHY?’s true mastery shines through in leader Yoni Wolf’s unmatched lyrical stylings. He’s a total shapeshifter—the very second you find the pattern in one of his completely original flows of rhythm and cadence, Wolf is guaranteed to switch it up. The result is a weirdly satisfying feeling of

Live Music disoriented anticipation. Wolf’s lyrically dark verses tend toward the self-deprecating, his overtly honest confessions delve deeply into the secret fears and weaknesses—both his own, and those he sees in the people around him. Not every song is a snippet from Wolf’s diary— songs likes “Murmurer,” from 2013’s Golden Tickets, capture fascinating character arcs—but then it’s rarely clear if he speaks of himself or another. The result is not depressing; his secrets leave listeners smirking with familiarity. But this is not music for the faint of heart—it taps into the unspoken collective conscious of a generation living in an ever-changing digital world. The fears Wolf divulges are shared ones, the stuff of this generation’s psychological insecurities. Vivid verses spill out in every direction, unexpectedly connecting his Midwestern roots to his personal anxieties to his recent slight fame to politics and on and on. Still, though they are shot through with worry, this is nonetheless the work of a hopeless romantic. In fact, it might be the romantic within Wolf who is at the root of his anxieties (but hey, I’m no therapist). Cassie Kohler

<<REVIEW

Neutral Milk Hotel, Elf Power

Wednesday, February 5

The Pageant It was the most highly anticipated show of the new year. When the show was announced last summer, the tickets sold out in minutes. In the fifteen years since Neutral Milk Hotel disbanded, theaudience for their slender output (two full lengths and two EPs) has exploded—loved by the underground scene in their day, Neutral Milk Hotel has somehow become a touchstone band for a generation, In an almost fairytale way, the heartbreakingly sincere voice and otherwordly lyrics of bandleader Jeff Mangum’s magnum opus, In an Aeroplane Over the Sea, are held dear by millions of listeners, the vast majority of whom hadn’t heard of the band til well after they had broken up. And Mangum’s turn-of-thecentury disappearing act has only exponentially increased their fame. St. Louis music fans were not going to miss their cautious re-emergence. The turnout was big right away: the crowd was there early, with anticipation already high and just getting higher. In the crowd, a who’s who of St. Louis’ music scene could be found sipping on PBR, ready for the show. The music kicked off with Neutral Milk Hotel compatriots (and sometime bandmates) Elf Power, who played a dazzling set of modern psychedelic indie rock. It should have be the perfect warmup for the main course, but the crowd seemed disinterested. Especially because Elf Power was a

part of the original, much-storied Elephant 6 collective with Neutral Milk Hotel, it was surprising to see the band suffer the fate of so many openers past: a crowd so excited for the headliner that they couldn’t absorb the music of the band onstage. In fairness, though, most of the crowd had been waiting years for a glimpse of the headliner. That in itself is pretty distracting. But then something else surprising happened: when Neutral Milk Hotel hit the stage, the audience reaction was almost exactly the same. The crowd stayed seated for the entire show—encore included—and made barely a peep between songs. The band was excellent. Mangum was in full voice (a notable difference from last year’s solo show at The Sheldon, where he was suffering from a nasty cold) as the rest of the band deftly switched up instruments to meticulously recreate the instrumentation of On Avery Island and In an Aeroplane Over The Sea. Band members bounced from guitars to keyboards to horns and even to saws—multiple saws!—joined periodically by members of Elf Power to round out the sound. There was no new material; all of the songs were pulled from those two classic, much-loved albums or the EPs. Yet still, the crowd barely moved. Eventually, it was clear: the crowd was engrossed. Too engrossed even to respond like a normal audience—or perhaps wary of making too loud a sound and spooking Mangum from the stage. Every song brought a new wave of recognition and joy; for 99% of the audience (at least!), this was the first time they had ever seen these songs in the wild, live and onstage. After all those hours spent listening quietly, alone, to these gorgeous, haunting, magical, even spiritually resonant songs, there was a rare sense of true reverence in the air of The Pageant. The unusual silence at seeing the band appear, finally, in the flesh, wasn’t boredom; it was nothing less than awe. Hugh Scott

<<REVIEW

The Pixies

Thursday, February 6 Peabody Opera House The last time The Pixies played a show in St. Louis—in December of ‘91, at the American Theater, to be exact—George Bush the Elder was president, and Nirvana’s Nevermind was just hitting the charts. Twenty-two years on, the band that Kurt Cobain cited as one of his biggest influences, the band that arguably set the stage for the swing of pop music away from empty glam posturing and toward the loud-quiet-loud world of underground music, was back in St. Louis—though with one notable difference. For the first time, Black Francis, David Lovering, and Joey Santiago were hitting the road without founding members, bassist Kim Deal. Say what?!

To say there was consternation among Pixies fans would be an understatement. But this reporter must observe that, once the music started and the classics were flowing from the sound system, Deal’s replacement, Paz Lenchantin, was fantastic, and quickly quieted the cynics in the audience. Lenchantin is a veteran of bands like ZWAN and A Perfect Circle, and she ably handled her end. Meanwhile, Black Francis was also in fine form, landing his trademark screams and howls on all those classics. The setlist was constructed as a journey through The Pixies’ recorded output: they opened with the first song from their first album, “Bone Machine,” and ended the encore with a song from the their last, “Planet of Sound.” In between the revived and fully inhabited legendary tune after legendary tune—“Wave Of Mutilation,” “Where Is My Mind?,” “Here Comes Your Man,” and on and on—hitting all the high notes of their influential career. And, of course, they also managed to squeeze in a couple of numbers from the two EPs they’ve released in the last six months, their first new material since that last time they rolled through town. Hugh Scott

THE BLIND EYES Cont’d from page 23 Seth: The local media has been kind to us as well, especially KDHX, RFT, Eleven, Bill Streeter’s Lo-Fi projects, Speakers In Code, and I Went To A Show. Too many bands and musicians to name. Ok, here’s a hard one. What’s your favorite recording you’ve made? What makes that song, or recording special to you? Kevin: I like “Now, Again” off the World Record EP. It makes good use of two guitars, I do some cool bass stuff, interesting structure, it’s catchy, it’s got “zing.” Matt: While I’m extremely proud of everything we’ve put out, my favorite is With a Bang. I feel like that is just our tightest collection of songs, totally encompassing that time for the band. We had such a blast recording it, so many good times in the studio bullshitting into the late night hours. And for it to be so well received when it came out, I just couldn’t believe it. Andy: I love having been a part of the writing on “Now, Again,” and I think that’s a really special song to me, honestly. My all-time favorite The Blind Eyes songs are “Pages” and “Find the Time.” 100% solid. Seth: I will say that I have very fond memories of recording our Christmas song, “Christmas AM Gold” [on Pancake Productions’ A Very Bert Dax Christmas Vol. 7 compilation]. Going through the entire recording process in a single day was a blast and I love how it turned out, even if we only ever played it live once.

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Album Reviews

HOT ROCKS

= STL band (current and/or honorary)

Guest List Each month we ask a specialist to pick some new release musts. This month’s Guest List is assembled by Jack Probst of Euclid Records Bleeding Rainbow Interrupt Kanine | Mar 4 Eternal Summers The Drop Beneath Kanine | Mar 4

Dream-pop with a punk edge.

Real Estate Atlas Domino | Mar 4 Trust Joyland Arts & Crafts | Mar 4

The Pet Shop Boys and Depeche Mode had a creepy son, named him Trust, and keep him locked up in the attic because he makes even them nervous.

Ume Monuments Dangerbird | Mar 4

New LP from one of the surprise hits of LouFest 2011.

Metronomy Love Letters Because | Mar 10

Check out the title track’s video, directed by the ever-amazing Michel Gondry.

Dean Wareham Dean Wareham Double Feature | Mar 10

Galaxy 500 / Luna frontman’s first official solo full-length.

Foster the People Supermodel Columbia | Mar 10

The follow up to the Easiest Record To Sell In A Record Store Just By Playing It.

The War on Drugs Lost in the Dream Secretly Canadian | Mar 18

Adam Granduciel, from Kurt Vile’s Violators, welds spacious post-rock guitars to heavily reverbed vocals.

Shit Robot We Got a Love DFA | Mar18

Dublin DJ/producer who fits perfectly in the DFA lineup with The Juan Mclean & Holy Ghost! Features a track with vox by comedian/vocal-loop artist Reggie Watts.

Future Islands Singles Thrill Jockey | Mar 25

New stuff Baltimore’s electro-pop trio, lead by the energetic and incomparable Samuel T. Herring.

Liars Mess Mute | Mar 25 Owls Two Polyvinyl | Mar 25

First record in 13 years from the Cap’n Jazz/ Joan of Arc/etc. side project.

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Water Liars Water Liars

Big Legal Mess/Fat Possum Records

Since the 2013 release of their sophomore record Wyoming and re-release of debut Phantom Limb, independent music fans and critics alike have sung the praises of Water Liars’ explosive, kaleidoscopic blend of American music. For their self-titled third album, the dual-songwriter team of Andrew Bryant and Justin Kinkel-Schuster (formerly of the revered STL band Theodore) have added bassist GR Robinson, and together they deliver a diverse helping of fuzz-guitar driven rock populism and reflective, well-crafted songs. The music on Water Liars is utterly arresting, toggling between Travis-picked acoustic ballads and electrified howls (often within the same track) strewn across a bed of self-assured musical nirvana. There are powerful moments of pure testosterone rock ‘n’ roll, hushed acoustic strumming, and reverb-drenched electric arrangements entwined with the melodic sense and lyrical longing of America’s outlaw country balladeers. Opener “Cannibal” pulses with a clever combination of static and inventive drum parts, nodding more to bands like Songs: Ohia than Uncle Tupelo, matched with a thick guitar sound that feels like Neil Young discovering Marshall amplifiers. Both

The Hooten Hallers Chillicothe Fireball

Big Muddy Records

The Hooten Haller’s 2012 full-length, Greetings from Welp City, was a phenomenal and well-crafted album of solid tunes, but the CoMo-based band has been working hard (and touring hard) over the years to become the band to see when they’re in town. That album couldn’t quite keep up with the live show—which is why it’s great to hear them

the chorus melodies of “Cannibal” and the verse of “Ray Charles Dream” are earworms you’ll find yourself helplessly singing in the awkward pauses of everyday conversations. The opening notes of second track “War Paint” blast the most classic-sounding musical moment on the album. The sudden shift in this song to a subdued drum and guitar backdrop is a staple of the Water Liars blueprint, providing ample space for the Bryant and Kinkel-Schuster’s distinctively complementary harmonies. The track ends abruptly, like a crafty non-joke that serves its purpose of disarming the listener and cleansing the palette. The instrumental sections that wind between the crooning and crowing bring to mind the experience of listening to The Whigs: the guitar chords aren’t revolutionary, but are so apt that the music feels simultaneously original and archetypal. Water Liars’ “Tolling Bell” is a perfect example of the massive groundswell this three-piece can produce at the press of a distortion pedal. As on the group’s two previous albums, Kinkel-Schuster’s voice once again shimmers in a singular way, particularly on the solo performance “Let It Breathe.” The vibrato in his voice is vulnerable, yet strong with a conviction that he has found what he’d been looking for. His admiration for the writing of Townes Van Zandt and Jason Molina is clear, but his undeniably unique voice shines strongly enough to inspire emulation itself. This music will move you without resorting to gimmicky dance grooves or contrived production. Commanding and surprising in equal measure, Water Liars is absolutely a record to check out immediately, and a surefire standout in 2014. With talent this assured, one could argue that the best work of this prolific group will always be their newest one. In fact, Water Liars may well continue to release your new favorite album every year of their existence. Curt Brewer Water Liars play Off Broadway on Saturday, March 8. finally bottle up the magic in their third studio recording, Chillicothe Fireball. There are some marked changes from their previous work, but the biggest one is in personnel: after a long run as a duo, they’ve recently expanded to include Paul Weber on harmonica and tuba as a permanent citizen of Welp City. The energy pouring out of the speakers is enough to remind you of a hot night of dancing stage-side at Off Broadway. Singer/ guitarist John Randall is a balladeer on speed, highballing his anguish on tracks like “O, Jolene” and “Hard to Trust Your Baby.” But don’t be fooled: Randall isn’t all heart-

break and sadness. He’s also ready to dive into the nasty business of life, taking up his fear of and disdain for the po-lice (“Here Comes Authority”), cowboy killers (“Grinding Up the Bones”), and of course, some awful-sounding ex who snorts pills (“Used to the Truth”), who comes across more as pitiful than actually missed in any way. As always, it’s the rhythmic and vocal chemistry between Randall and drummer Andy Rehm that binds The Hooten Hallers together. On Chillicothe Fireball, that energy is unexpectedly compounded by the addition of more voices—not just new guy Weber, but also guest musicians on piano and sax, who help bring the sound of a crowded bar to the album’s grooves. Weber’s harmonica shows up quite a bit throughout the album, so his turns on tuba are a keen change of pace, bringing a welcome low end and rounding out the songs in a new way. Suzie Gilb

Rat Heart at Schlafly Tap Room on Sunday, February 9.

Photo by Jason Stoff

Natural Child Dancin’ with Wolves Burger Records

Nashville, TN’s hillbilly acid freaks Natural Child are back at it again. Dancin’ with Wolves, their third full-length for Burger, is ten tracks of down-and-out, rockin’ roadhouse country. In the past, Natural Child dug into classic rock, psychedelic leads, and indie-garage frenzy, but this record finds them aiming square in between Grievous Angel and Let It Bleed (Stones, not Black Lips, dude). Except for the porn-groove opener “Out in the Country,” Dancin’ with Wolves is country rock to the core. The bones of the songs are bathed in sticky-sweet steel guitar and plenty of goofy “white trash” clichés. Natural Child has always rocked out with its tongue in its cheek, so it’s possible that Dancin’ with Wolves, with its lyrical twists on country stock characters like “Country Hippy Blues” and “Rounder”— ”honey, ‘cause I get around”—is a jab at the band’s hometown industry... or maybe a concept soundtrack for a remake of Bailando Con Lobos. The record gets by on catchy jams like the three-chord “Don’t the Time Pass Quickly,” complete with dueling bar-band solos, that prove Natural Child does not lack musical chops. Maybe it’s because the licks are so slick, or because the vocals on the twangy single “Saturday Night Blues” are sung in a different accent from “Firewater Liquor,” but Dancin’ with Wolves sounds extremely intentional. Depending on your taste, this may not be a bad thing! It certainly won’t disappoint for a few spins at your next

social (especially if it’s got a “country-western” theme). As the latest out of Nashville, the record could be an ironic spitball aimed at the country music industry—or pop country disguised as underground rock. Gabe Karabell

intriguing sounds and genre-blending that does our town proud. Jason Robinson

Amen Lucy, Amen

Ashore for the End

FarFetched

(Various Artists) Prologue III FarFetched

If you ask St. Louisians what the city’s music scene is about, the shortest, easiest answer would just be to hand them this record. A sonic stew—an étouffée, if you wanna get all francophile about it—of jazz, hip hop experimentalism, pop, goth, shoegaze, and more. Prologue III plays like a mixtape from an alternate galaxy where music genres are simply nonexistent. In this place, you can hear CaveofswordS’ ethereal Jane Siberry-in-residence Sunyatta McDermott peaceably sharing sonic space with live-instrument hip-hop quartet Mathias and the Pirates and dissonant pop solo project Black James. Though each artist’s music is almost entirely unlike the next, Prologue III’s standout tracks come when groups collaborate. The best example of this dynamic is in the bizarrely hypnotic “The Exchange,” where CaveofswordS provides the spinetingling horror movie backdrop for the snap-tight rapping of Hearskra-z. The song gradually builds into a full-force crescendo of synths and vocals, eschewing the hip-hop cadence for a sonorous deep duet. The rest of the album is as keen on defying expectations and, taken as a whole, it’s a buffet of

Brave New Records

Amen Lucy, Amen’s debut album, Ashore for the End, starts off in a sweeping fashion, filling your head with visions of the Irish countryside before dropping you off back in reality and taking off like a speeding train. Released on St. Louis label Brave New Records, this album shows off a folkpunk band doing everything that makes folk punk great. With shades of the Pogues, Andrew Jackson Jihad, and good old 21st century paranoia, head songwriters Zachary Schwartz and Steve Lightle channel their inner Tom and Huck to deliver a near solid album. Amen Lucy, Amen sounds like a band from Greenwich Village circa 1964 taking up the problems of 2014. The album itself, while not perfect, has a strong core of five songs that become the spine of the album connecting it from beginning to end. These songs—“Ego,” “Progress,” “Look Out!,” “The Water,” and “I Will Swim”—paint a beautiful sonic landscape that perfectly counteracts the dark lyrical subject matter. For an album that includes a consideration of the world coming to an end tomorrow, Ashore for the End retains a certain definite beauty within its rustic instrumentation. There is stand-up bass by Charles Clements, violin by Jenn Rudisill, and gorgeous two- and three-part harmonies from Schwartz, Lightle, and percus-

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Album Reviews remains absent from The Coathangers’ official press. Who knows what happened to the fourth Coathanger? I’d ask in person, but unfortunately the band doesn’t appear to be stopping in St. Louis this time around! Gabe Karabell

Phantogram Voices Republic

September Girls

sionist Tawaine Noah. Lead single “Look Out!” feels like the most fun track on the album; if your toe isn’t tapping along by the end of the first chorus, it’s time to get your pulse checked. It’s not something that will move mountains, but then again, it wasn’t meant to. Unfortunately, the album begins to lose a bit of steam as it proceeds. The dynamic strength of the songs begins to unravel slightly, but the band holds tight enough for a great finisher with closing track “I Will Swim.” (And I would recommend getting the album on CD rather than downloading it because there’s a lovely little surprise after everything is supposed to be all said and done. It’s the little things like this that make buying a physical copy of an album worth it in this day and age.) As a debut album, Ashore for the End accomplishes its mission, establishing the band firmly as contenders to keep an eye on. Only time and future releases, of course, will tell how much they live up to that potential. Rev. Daniel W. Wright

The Coathangers Suck My Shirt

Suicide Squeeze Records

The Coathangers are back this month with a new LP on Suicide Squeeze. Their sizable back catalog (three full-lengths and a bunch of singles) is full of trash-and-burn garage rock jams, no-wave cacophony, riot grrrl tip-offs, and even a few acoustic snoozers. Fortunately, the single from the upcoming record, Suck My Shirt, is a total ripper. “Follow Me,” released as a preview for the record, clocks in at just under four minutes, but feels a whole lot shorter. Angular, stun-gun riffs and a solid beat bring to mind the reckless energy of The

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Saints and Devoto-era Buzzcocks, and the guitar solo is Chuck Berry distilled to his simplest leads. Simplicity is an asset for this kind of rock ‘n’ roll, and “Follow Me” shows The Coathangers aren’t afraid to forget frivolities and crank their amps to drive that point home. While veering dangerously close to melodic cadences, the gravelly, punchy vocals are just commanding enough to tie the whole thing together. While the band is just about to embark on a major US tour supporting the Black Lips, there was a time when they could be found playing basements in South St. Louis. Sometime between then and now they lost a member and became a trio, a detail that

Phantogram’s songs are as sample-heavy and bombastic as the hip hop that influences them. This electro-pop duo hails from Greenwich, NY, and they’re coming off quite the hot streak. 2009 saw the release of their debut record on Barsuk, Eyelid Movies, followed by the Nightlife EP in 2011, all while extensively touring and collaborating with the likes of Sade, Outkast’s Big Boi, and The Flaming Lips. Now, 2014 is gearing up to be an exciting year for one of the most unforgettable bands of the last 10 years. Phantogram finds its footing right from the beginning on Voices, opening with a literal bang, a classic-sounding old-school beat, on “Nothing but Trouble.” The sultry voice of Sarah Barthal delivers breathy verses between crinkly, swirling psych guitars that wind into a jittery freak out solo before slamming to an abrupt halt. “Black Out Days” busts in with a vocal “wayey-ey-ah” custom built to make a crowd sway their upstretched arms back and forth, lighters held high. For the last twenty

Album Reviews seconds as Barthal sings solo, sounding not unlike Feist, along to slow piano chords. But “Fall in Love” is the most infectious song of the bunch, whose chorus and repeated samples will enter your ears and plant itself in your brain for the next year (can’t say you haven’t been warned). Meanwhile, “The Day You Die” delves headlong into a consideration of death itself—and death is a theme that appears frequently in Phantogram songs. It’s an epic track, gauzy with reverb but shot through with clean guitars. Other highlights include the twinkling, dreamy “Bill Murray,” and “Howling at the Moon,” a club banger that’ll pump you up all night as Barthal proclaims that she “could fire 45s all day into the sun!” While his guitar and other electronic contributions are all over Voices, Josh Carter’s voice only takes the lead on a few songs—and when it does, it’s always masked in filters that make it sound sad, sweet, and at times otherworldly on tracks like “Never Going Home” and “I Don’t Blame You.” It would be interesting to hear how his voice could complement Barthal’s sweet vocals on other tracks. Voices is certainly top heavy, but even its weakest songs are miles above what you’ll find on many sophomore releases by similar duos. While it doesn’t feel quite as incredible as Eyelid Movies, it is certainly an album full of hooks and hits that will garner more attention for the band this year and for many to come. Jack Probst Phantogram plays the Pageant on April 8.

Johnny Foreigner

You Can Do Better Alcopop

The latest record by these Birmingham natives is a bitter blast of barbed wordplay and furious musicianship, a pointed statement of purpose that sounds like a last gasp. That’s not to say Johnny Foreigner are on the verge of death or irrelevance—but this kind of vital and earnest music doesn’t usually come around on a band’s fifth studio album. If Superchunk are the elder statesmen of indie rock, consider Johnny Foreigner the young upstarts. Playing in a tightwound dual guitar style, guitarist and visual artist Lewes Herriot attacks while drummer Junior Elvis Washington Laidley hits with the precision of Gang Of Four’s Hug Burnham. Guitarist/lead vocalist Alexei Berrow and bassist Kelly Southern toss off overlapping, almost conversational sets of dueling male-female vocals with a speed

The Rebellious Jukebox

Life at 45 RPM by Matt Harnish

I don’t think The Hobosexuals have written a song called “Town Full of Dirtbags” yet, but give ‘em time. Ryne Watts & company have beer buckets full of love for this city’s lovable losers, for the folks who work too hard & stay up too late & get up too early & make music because there’s so much music inside of them they’re gonna explode otherwise. And drink too much, because hey, what else are you gonna do? Their Big Muddy 45 from last year is a laidback mid-fi affair, sounding for all the world like it was written, learned, & recorded in an afternoon by people who know how to do that kind of thing. By their titles, “She’s a Whiskey Maker (But I Love Her Still)” & “She’s Got a New Life (I’ve Got a High Life)” sound like the sorts of novelty country songs you’d find on a truckstop jukebox in 1974, but musically they’re more backporch folksy, casual but assured. If the Hobosexuals aren’t quite John Prine or Shel Silverstein yet, they’re at least on the right track. Of course the Hobosexuals are but the latest in a long line of dirtbags. Take country rockers Cesspool Baker, for example. I couldn’t find a release date for the 45 I’ve got, but I‘d guess mid-late ‘70s. The A-side is “Mean & Evil,” an ode to a woman who is, um, mean. And also evil. The track is marred by a too-busy bassline & a hotel-band style backing vocalist, but side two’s “Would You Like To Get High And Ball” has got it all figured out. I can only assume that that one was their set closer, sending their dirtbag fans home happy, even though they had to get up too early the next day & work too hard. And drink too much, because hey, what else are you gonna do?

that is dizzying. The best example of this is “Le Sigh,” track two of side one on this over-too-soon record, where Berrow and Southern bounce the phrase “a copy of a copy” back and forth like a beach ball. Add to that heady mix a blast of witty, cutting lyrics that deftly handle the old gold of life and love and loss and just being young and you’ve got a light-footed record that moves on its own power, begging repeat listens and breathless late-night recommendations. Jason Robinson

September Girls

Cursing the Sea Fortuna POP! Records

September Girls is an all-girl five piece hailing from Dublin who confidently wear their influences—Lush, Shop Assistants, Ramones, Jesus And Mary Chain, Ramones, and a heavy dose of The Bangles—like a snug and well-worn leather jacket. Formed in 2011, these ladies are very much DIY enthusiasts, self-releasing six singles in two years as EPs, 7” and cassettes. All that effort paid off enough that their debut full length, Cursing the Sea, arrives courtesy of Fortuna POP!, home to recent upstarts Joanna Gruesome and Withered Hand, as well as indie stalwarts like

Tullycraft. Whether they take their name from the Big Star song or The Bangles cover of it is superfluous—what matters is that September Girls know how to get fuzzy and loud. Sonically, there’s nothing demure or timid about these ladies. They simply love to pick up their instruments and make some bloody noise. The title song emerges from smoky darkness to deliver some serious jangle pop, which breezes into the clutter of “Another Long Song.” From there on out, it’s clear the lasses have an uncanny knack for creating smudgy guitar pop filled with clever harmonies. The record’s middle passage stays tight as September Girls quickly knock out gems “Heartbeats,” “Green Eyed” and “Ships and Heartbeat,” three gems filled with ‘60s pop harmonies and awash in swirling guitars and plenty of reverb. “Daylight” and “Someone New” are noisy and grimy, like The Runaways squaring off for a razor fight with The Raveonettes. Initial comparisons to Veronica Falls, Vivian Girls and maybe Dum Dum Girls fall away as the album progresses—September Girls possess a yin and yang of fragility and raw energy that gets more rough and ready than their contemporaries. As a record, Cursing the Sea is a bustling intersection of shoegaze, pop, garage and punk influences. It’s a potent debut from a band ready to make its mark. Rob Levy

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