May 14, 2015

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MAY 14–20, 2015 I VOLUME 39 I NUMBER 20

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THE WRONG MAN EVIDENCE POINTED TO ANOTHER CULPRIT. BUT WHEN POLICE INSISTED CORNELL MCKAY WAS TO BLAME, IT COST HIM NEARLY THREE YEARS OF HIS LIFE.

By Danny Wicentowski

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10 THE WRONG MAN Evidence pointed to another culprit. But when police insisted Cornell McKay was to blame, it cost him nearly three years of his life. BY DANNY WICENTOWSKI

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Dorian Johnson Sues Ferguson, Is Arrested Under Strange Circumstances

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orian Johnson had quite a week. On Tuesday, May 5, news broke in the local media that Johnson — the man who was walking with Michael Brown just before his fatal encounter with former Ferguson police ofďŹ cer Darren Wilson — has ďŹ led a lawsuit. The defendants are the City of Ferguson, Wilson and former police chief Thomas Jackson. The suit claims that “without any provocation by Plaintiff Johnson and without any legal justiďŹ cation, OfďŹ cer Wilson withdrew his weapon and ďŹ red it at Plaintiff Johnson and Michael Brown, Jr. as they ed and ran away from him, striking Brown several more times.â€? Barely 24 hours later, Johnson and his brother were arrested by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and charged with resisting or interfering with arrest. The strange part, however, is that police sources leaked details of the arrest that turned out to be untrue, including the idea that Johnson was about to be charged with drug possession. Police investigators did not ďŹ nd any illegal substances on Johnson. “I ďŹ nd the timing very curious,â€? says James Williams, who has been representing Johnson since last summer. “We have not gathered all facts yet, so we don’t know in detail what happened, but the timing makes us concerned that this might be retaliation.â€? When Williams spoke to Riverfront Times before the arrest, he had glowing praise for

Damonte Johnson.

Johnson and the progress he has made in the last nine months. “He is working, and he is also making ďŹ nal arrangements to enroll in and attend a fouryear university, which I’m very excited about,â€? said Williams. “We think that’s a very positive move for him.â€? Williams would not name the institution Johnson is headed to, but he said it is not in Missouri.

Dorian Johnson.

Johnson’s account of what happened on August 9, 2014, came to deďŹ ne the Brown story — he said that Wilson told them to “get the fuck out of the street,â€? then grabbed Brown through the squad-car window and attacked him, before shooting at Brown as he was running away. Johnson said Brown turned around and had his hands in the air when Wilson shot him dead. It’s the story he told local media, the grand jury, the U.S. Department of Justice,

Whistleblowers Fight Back Against Lawsuit

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Steve WingďŹ eld, left, the lead pastor at FCCF, is suing some members and former members of his own ock.

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wo people being sued by First Christian Church of Florissant and its pastor, Steve Wingfield, are firing back, with motions to dismiss the church’s lawsuit and a press release challenging the pastor’s claims. As last week’s Riverfront Times cover story detailed, Dawn Varvil met with Wingfield in 2012 and shared her

concerns about a youth minister at the church named Brandon Milburn. Two years later, Milburn was arrested for molesting two boys he had met through the church — and a church member named Doug Lay prepared a report questioning what Wingfield knew about Milburn and whether he took appropriate action. The report focused in part on what happened at Varvil’s meeting with WingďŹ eld. WingďŹ eld responded by suing both Lay and Varvil, as well as former members Titus and Kari Benton, who had criticized him on Facebook. Lay hired a lawyer almost immediately and ďŹ led a response in

and it’s repeated in this new legal complaint. “The purpose of this lawsuit is to bring Darren Wilson to justice,” said Williams. “Dorian Johnson was very courageous, as was the Brown family, for not letting this go.” At the heart of the lawsuit is the contention that Wilson’s decision to stop Johnson and Brown was racially motivated. The suit cites the U.S. Department of Justice report that showed Ferguson “engaged in a pattern and practice of unlawful conduct that violates the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments.... The Ferguson Police Department has terrorized the AfricanAmerican citizens in its community.” Williams said that he intends to raise the issue of whether Wilson knew about the robbery at a nearby convenience store before he stopped the pair. Furthermore, Johnson didn’t do anything wrong in the cigarillo incident, Williams said, and the tape confirms that. The suit says Johnson also suffered psychological damages from being afraid of Wilson and witnessing Brown’s death. Johnson is claiming “psychological injury, severe emotional distress, medical expenses, lost wages, living expenses, incurred additional expenses,” and more. It asks for a minimum $25,000 compensation. Then, on Wednesday, May 6, Johnson and his younger brother Damonte were arrested on the 5700 block of Acme Avenue, near Jennings. The initial police report said someone called to report “a large group of subjects who were possibly armed with firearms.” The responding officer approached a man named only as “O.M.” who, according to the documents, “had a bulge in his waistband which I believed could possibly be a concealed gun.” Damonte Johnson allegedly grabbed the officer’s arm and told him he couldn’t arrest O.M. When a second officer grabbed Damonte’s arm, Dorian ran over and got involved. However, the original police narrative differs from the account given in the probable cause statement. In the original incident description, Dorian was said to have only “stood in close proximity” and “yelled” at the cop arresting his brother. It said Johnson also discarded “suspected narcotics onto the ground,” but was “taken into custody without further incident.” Then, before the brothers could be charged,

late April. Thanks to a GoFundMe campaign, Varvil has also hired a lawyer. That lawyer, Nicole Gorovsky, sharply criticized Wingfield and his legal action in a prepared release. “This lawsuit is offensive to Missouri’s public policy of preventing child abuse, it is contrary to the United Stated Constitution, and it is morally wrong,” Gorovsky wrote. “It is an abuse of the system to viciously go after someone for doing the right thing, and the case must be dismissed.” In a four-page letter to Wingfield’s attorney, James Wyrsch, dated April 27, Lay’s

“The purpose of this lawsuit is to bring Darren Wilson to justice. Dorian Johnson was very courageous, as was the Brown family, for not letting this go.” anonymous police sources leaked news of the arrests, and suggested to the Post-Dispatch that Dorian was tossing a “cough medication mixed with what police believe to be an illegal narcotic.” However, once both Damonte and Dorian were charged the next day with “resisting or interfering with arrest/detention/stop,” the rumored drug charges evaporated and the account of events changed substantially. According to the probable cause statement, Dorian grabbed the arm of the officer who was detaining his brother. The officer wrote that Dorian then “struggled...and tried to pry himself away from me. I had to physically struggle with Dorian Johnson until I was able to take him to the ground and get handcuffs on him.” The “suspected narcotic” drink tested negative for illegal substances at a lab. “A drug charge was brought to our office. It was refused by our office,” said Lauren Trager, spokeswoman for the circuit attorney. That doesn’t mean the Johnson brothers are in the clear. Not only does Dorian Johnson face a charge of resisting arrest, but Damonte Johnson has also been charged with thirddegree assault against a police officer. Not surprisingly, Dorian’s legal team is going to be scrutinizing the arrest carefully. “It certainly seems like the police officers had other options available to them other than arrest,” said Williams. “We are aggressively looking into this.” — JESSICA LUSSENHOP

attorney Al W. Johnson took on a more detailed criticism of documents posted on the church website. Among other things, Johnson took issue with the church’s assertion that it was trying to resolve the matter, saying he’d thrice tried to arrange meetings, with no success: “The statements that FCCF is ‘currently reaching out’ to meet with my client are simply untruthful.” Wingfield’s problems may not be going away any time soon. The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, better known as SNAP, issued a press release of its own on Wednesday,

immediately after the publication of the Riverfront Times’ story. “Shame on the pastor and his top aides for lashing out at, and trying to intimidate, caring whistleblowers,” SNAP’s director David Clohessy said in the release. “We urge anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes by Milburn or cover ups at First Christian to summon the strength to call police and prosecutors. Though Milburn is behind bars, it’s possible that some who ignored or concealed suspicions of his crimes may face justice too.” — SARAH FENSKE riverfronttimes.com

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THE WRONG MAN

EVIDENCE POINTED TO ANOTHER CULPRIT. BUT WHEN POLICE INSISTED CORNELL MCKAY WAS TO BLAME, IT COST HIM NEARLY THREE YEARS OF HIS LIFE. By Danny Wicentowski

Cornell McKay has just been found guilty by a jury of his peers, so even though he has not yet been sentenced, the guards at the St. Louis City Justice Center are taking every precaution. The wiry 22-year-old is wearing an orange jumpsuit; his hands are cuffed behind his back. “It’s a lot of humiliation, to live in this place,” McKay says. He squirms in his chair, trying to find a more comfortable position in the too-tight handcuffs. “You gotta get strip searched, you gotta be around these rapists and these murderers.” McKay’s trial, a hotly contested four-day affair, centered on an armed mugging in the Central West End, a relatively simple robbery that initially didn’t even make the local news. It quickly became much more than that, though, embroiling a high-profile murder case, another possible culprit and a series of questionable decisions by a St. Louis judge and prosecutors. McKay’s lawyers, who would fight for years to free him from prison, say police identified the wrong man — and then refused to look at a mountain of evidence that would clear their client. They dug their heels in, McKay’s lawyers say, to cover up their own ineptitude. If police had pursued the case aggressively from the beginning, they argue, they could have 10

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arrested the right man, the real robber. And if they’d done that, they could have saved the life of a young woman murdered in the Central West End. Cornell McKay, they believe, was simply collateral damage. “It’s a hell of a reason why these guys were so determined to put the case on Cornell McKay,” McKay’s attorney Bob Ramsey tells Riverfront Times. “Because if they had arrested the right guy, Megan Boken would be alive right now. That is very powerful.” On this day in February 2014, fresh off the loss in court, McKay is feeling forlorn. “It’s a lot of humiliation,” he says again, “losing out in a trial for something you didn’t do.”

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t was around dusk on Friday, August 10, 2012, when Lena Hamblin parked her car outside a row of handsome brick condos on North Boyle Avenue in the Central West End. Hamblin, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, had popped the trunk to retrieve her purse before turning in for the evening when she noticed a clean-cut black man wearing khaki shorts and a light blue shirt. He was young enough that he might be a college student, she thought. He walked briskly past her, and as she turned to close the trunk she spotted movement from the corner of her eye — it was the

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same clean-cut guy, but now he was pointing a small silver gun at her stomach. “Give me your money,” he said. She told him she didn’t have any. “Give me your cell phone, give me your cell phone,” he said. Hamblin got her cell phone from the front seat, and remembered that she had $50 in a small purse. (She would later describe how frightened she was that he would find the money and assume she had lied to him.) She gave him the cash and the phone, and watched as he rifled through the purse’s contents. Finding nothing but makeup and lipstick, the man turned around and sprinted across a nearby parking lot, disappearing from view. Minutes later, around 8:40 p.m., Hamblin’s husband returned from walking the dog to find her crying in the darkened house. She told him she had just been robbed. He called 911, and detectives from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department’s 9th District arrived and took Hamblin’s statement. They told her not to cancel her phone service. For the next few days, that’s about all the police did, as sworn statements from Hamblin and detectives would later make clear. One detective entered numbers pulled from Hamblin’s phone records into a police database, but that was it. After all, as upsetting as the crime was to the

Hamblins, it was nothing new to police. Every day people are robbed in St. Louis’ neighborhoods, even the nice ones. The victims may be shattered, but the police department has different priorities. Eight days later an even more vicious crime just three blocks from the Hamblins’ condo would change everything. On the afternoon of Saturday, August 18, Megan Boken walked to where she had parked her car on the corner of Maryland and Taylor avenues, in the heart of the Central West End. The 23-year-old former Saint Louis University volleyball player had traveled from Chicago to participate in her alma mater’s annual alumni volleyball game later that day. Boken got into her car, but before she could drive off a young black man approached the window and pointed a gun her. A witness would later describe him as around 5’8”, thinly built with close-cropped hair. Words were exchanged, and although the sequence of events are not precisely known, a struggle ensued between Boken and the armed man. He shot her twice, once in the head and once in the chest, and then hopped in a getaway car driven by a male accomplice. The two men sped from the scene in what surveillance video would later reveal to be a white Pontiac Sunfire, leaving the young woman dead in her car’s driver’s seat. continued on page 12

Cornell McKay drew this illustration on August 18, 2012, the day of Megan Boken’s murder. He was arrested three days later amid a police investigation. McKay gave RFT permission to use his artwork throughout this story. He plans on applying to the Kansas City Art Institute.

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Megan Boken, a former SLU volleyball player, was murdered during a daylight robbery gone wrong in the Central West End on August 18, 2012.

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oken’s murder — brutal, senseless and committed in broad daylight — caught the city by surprise. The Central West End is one of St. Louis’ most cosmopolitan neighborhoods, with a mix of stately old mansions, nice apartments and high-end restaurants. It’s been a desperately needed bright spot in a city that has grappled with the inexorable depopulation of its once-bustling urban corridors. At a press conference that Monday, Police Chief Dan Isom announced a $10,000 reward from the neighborhood’s special taxing district. Friends of Boken later doubled the reward. “We have no concrete leads at this time,” Isom said at the press conference. “We’re really here to make a public appeal to ask for more information.” Isom wouldn’t have to wait long. The department threw personnel and resources at the murder, and it ordered officers to comb through similar robberies in the Central West End in the hope of finding the killer. Among those cases was the August 10 cellphone robbery on North Boyle. Two days after Boken’s murder, detective Anthony Boettigheimer joined the North Boyle Avenue robbery investigation, and promptly began using call logs from Hamblin’s stolen phone in conjunction with a police database to get a portrait of the man who stole it. The database cross-referenced the numbers called and received from the stolen phone with all available police records, including those of witnesses and even crime victims. The result was a matrix of intertwined data points, and it was within this web that Boettigheimer searched for a suspect who matched the description of Boken’s killer. Boettigheimer found his suspect through a number Hamblin’s cell phone had dialed after the robbery. The number belonged to a man named Lamont Carter. Carter was linked to

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an address in St. Louis County, 5944 Plymouth Avenue. And that address was linked to an unsolved drive-by shooting in 2010. Records on the shooting led to the name of a victim: a young man named Cornell McKay. He matched Hamblin’s description of the suspect. That same day, Boettigheimer contacted Hamblin, who would later describe how the detective told her “we might have somebody” related to the robbery. Boettigheimer and his partner arrived at Hamblin’s condo that evening and presented her with a photo lineup — six pictures set in an 8-by-12 frame for her to inspect. “I immediately saw who it was,” Hamblin recounted in a sworn statement. “And I pointed out Cornell McKay.”

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n the day Megan Boken was killed, Cornell McKay was just settling into a new life in Washington, Missouri. Like a lot of kids growing up in the hardscrabble St. Louis County suburb of Pine Lawn, McKay found his share of trouble. He dropped out of high school in 2009, and in 2010 was shot in the random drive-by that would land him in the police database. He still has the small round scar on his upper right arm and a mark on his ribs where the bullet grazed his side. At home, life wasn’t stable. McKay bounced between his aunt and grandmother’s house as his mother struggled to raise him and his two brothers. And in 2011, McKay found himself in trouble with the law: Charged with burglary after he helped a friend’s cousin steal computers from Langston Middle School, he pleaded guilty in April 2012 and was sentenced to three years of probation. He was required to get his GED, to work with the Better Family Life program and to make restitution. He took it seriously. That summer, McKay moved into Covenant House, a homeless shelter that also serves teens who are on the edge of losing their future to street crime and vio-

“If they had arrested the right guy, Megan Boken would be alive right now. That is very powerful.” — Bob Ramsey lence. “I wasn’t homeless, I was just tired of staying with my grandma,” he says, laughing. “I stayed up there for a few weeks and I got involved in a GED class.” The burglary charge, he acknowledges, was a wake-up call: “That set me back three steps in life. I was trying to better myself. I was just getting back, getting established on my feet.” It was at Covenant House on July 31 that McKay met an associate pastor named Chris Douglas. Himself a former cop, Douglas had traveled to St. Louis with a contingent of dogooders from First Baptist Church, near the town of Washington, population 14,000. Douglas, who was in the process of adopting two children from Ghana, was immediately taken with the soft-spoken, artistic McKay. “Please pray for ‘C,’” Douglas wrote in an August 2, 2012, Facebook post. “This guy looks just like our oldest boy we are adopting from Ghana! It brought Tayra and I to tears. He has been shot a couple of times but is doing well. He is very talented at art. … I mean VERY talented.” By the week’s end, Douglas offered to let McKay move in with his family. There, an hour outside of St. Louis, the twenty-year-old could focus on studying and working at a local graphics company — and, the pastor hoped, stay out of trouble.

C O U R T E SY C H R I S D O U G L A S

McKay (center) escaped a troubled past in St. Louis to live with with pastor Chris Douglas and his wife Tayra.

C O U R T E SY TAY R A D O U G L A S

That wish only became important in retrospect; at the time, the date had no significance. McKay finished packing up his life in St. Louis that weekend. On Tuesday, August 14, he started his new job at a graphics company in Washington. He worshipped at the Douglases’ church, bonding with the largely white community of believers. He spent the next weekend camping. Then he got a call from his grandmother. “She said this girl had gotten killed in the Central West End,” McKay recalls. “She was like, ‘You all need to stay off the streets, the

“She said this girl had Wtrict detectives interrogated McKay, a homicide detective named Jerone Jackson gotten killed. She was went about solving Boken’s murder. It took him just five days. As police had intuited, the key to cracklike, ‘You all need to ing the case was, in fact, in Hamblin’s stolen phone. Only it didn’t lie with Cornell McKay, stay off the streets, the vaguely connected drive-by shooting victim. The key instead proved a mysterious call the police are trying placed from Hamblin’s stolen phone at 2:21 p.m. on August 18 — one minute after someone to lock up anybody shot Boken. That day, Hamblin heard from a friend who for that case.’ I heard said she had received a voicemail from Hamabout that stuff all the blin’s stolen phone. The message contained the telltale shuffling-scratching sound of an time in St. Louis. But I accidental pocket dial. Hamblin was freaked out — she hadn’t renever thought it would alized the thief could circumvent her phone’s password and gain access to her contacts. She called Sprint, which canceled service to the come back to me.” phone the very next day. — Cornell McKay In the following week, Hamblin contacted hile Boettigheimer and other 9th Dis-

Douglas baptized McKay at the Covenant House on August 4, 2012, just two weeks before McKay’s arrest.

Douglas shuttled McKay between Covenant House and Washington as they made arrangements for the move. McKay spent the night of August 8 in Douglas’ basement and traveled back to St. Louis for his GED class the next day. After his studies, Douglas picked him up for an outing to Six Flags St. Louis. McKay had class the next day, so Douglas dropped him back at Covenant House. “That was August 9,” McKay recalls wistfully — one day before the cell-phone robbery on North Boyle Avenue that would change his life. “I wish that was August 10.”

He didn’t know what to make of the news. He theorized that maybe someone from his old stomping grounds had dropped his name to detectives in a bid to avoid their own police problems. Before becoming a pastor, Douglas had put in ten years with the Washington Police Department. Surely, he thought, if McKay voluntarily turned himself in, they could quickly resolve whatever misunderstanding had led police to label this gentle, artistic soul a murder suspect. And he was certain it had been a misunderstanding, because McKay had been by his side, 50 miles from St. Louis, the weekend Boken was murdered. “Chris asked me, ‘Do you want to go down there tomorrow?’” McKay recalls. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, we have to take care of that. I’m not finna run from the police and defer this, we just need to go clear my name so I can get back on the right path.” McKay and Douglas arrived at the 9th District headquarters around 10 a.m. on the morning of August 21. Immediately, officers detained McKay and shuffled him to an interrogation cell. That night in the City Justice Center, Hamblin again identified McKay — this time in person — as the man who robbed her on August 10. Detectives questioned him hard. “They was trying to get it out of me,” he says. “They thought with all their heart that I was the dude who is good for this robbery. They thought I was the dude who is good for that murder.”

police are trying to lock up anybody for that case.’” “I heard about that stuff all the time in St. Louis,” he says of the murder. “But I never thought it would come back to me.” On Monday, however, Hamblin picked McKay out of a photo lineup. And now, the cops weren’t wasting time. McKay received a panicked call from his mother that very night: The police were looking for him. Officers had shown up at his grandmother’s house with guns drawn. McKay, now a murder suspect, was considered armed and dangerous. riverfronttimes.com

Boettigheimer to tell him about the pocket dial. By then, Jackson and his colleagues in homicide were looking closely at the North Boyle Avenue robbery for leads. When Boettigheimer interviewed the recipient of the pocket dial, he passed along the information to Jackson. On August 22, four days after the murder, Jackson determined that another call placed on the stolen phone was to a seventeen-yearold girl named Kaylin Perry. That afternoon, Jackson called Perry’s mother, who brought her daughter to the City Justice Center. Under interrogation, Perry told Jackson that her boyfriend, eighteen-year-old Keith Esters, had frequently borrowed her continued on page 14

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Keith Esters was sentenced to 50 years for killing Megan Boken.

Wrong Man continued from page 13

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mother’s white Pontiac Sunfire — the same car captured on surveillance tape speeding from the scene. The same day, Jackson administered a polygraph test to McKay, asking about Boken’s murder. He passed. In any case, McKay had a rock-solid alibi — Douglas and ten other people could attest that on the day of Boken’s murder, he was with them in Washington on a camping trip. The big break in the Boken case came the next day. After spending the night in a holding cell, Perry spilled her guts. She revealed that her boyfriend had called her on August 18 to say that he’d killed someone. But that wasn’t all. Perry also told Jackson how Esters had come home two weeks ago with a stolen cell phone and $50, and that he had sold the phone at a BP gas station after cell service was cut on the August 19. Perry told the detective that Esters had paid Lamont Carter $50 for a small silver gun, presumably the one he used in the murder. Though detectives never found the gun, employees at the BP confirmed seeing Esters sell the phone on August 19, just as Perry had relayed. Esters was arrested that day — charged with first-degree murder, first-degree attempted robbery and two counts of armed criminal action. And that night, police arrested the getaway-car driver, Esters’ cousin Johnathan Perkins, who’s charged with second-degree murder, second-degree attempted robbery and two counts of armed criminal action. Yet there was still the curious matter of Cornell McKay. Although Hamblin’s phone had led police to Esters, and Esters’ girlfriend had fingered him for robbing someone the week before of a phone and $50, it didn’t change the fact that McKay had been positively identified by Hamblin in two lineups. He’d already been charged for robbery and armed criminal action. He was being held on a $50,000 bond. Nothing tied McKay to the phone except for his presence in the police database and the victim’s identification — which are notoriously unreliable. At the time of their respective arrests, Esters clocked in at 6’1” and 160 pounds. McKay was 6’2” and 150 pounds. Even their mugshots are similar. Beyond that, Boettigheimer couldn’t explain how the phone had supposedly gotten

McKay, in this mugshot, bears a clear resemblance to Esters. from McKay to Esters. It would have had to travel fast to get there: Subpoenaed Sprint records showed that calls had been placed on the phone to Esters’ girlfriend, Perry, less than an hour after the August 10 robbery. Since McKay didn’t know Perry, his lawyers would eventually argue that it was logical to deduce that Esters was already in possession of the phone at that time. Stranger still, Jackson would later report that Esters attempted to offer information on the August 10 robbery, seemingly in the hope of lessening his sentence for murder and other armed robberies. According to the homicide detective, Esters claimed he was in the immediate area of the August 10 robbery, knew who did it, and that it wasn’t him or McKay. But even after Jackson gave Boettigheimer details of what he’d learned about the phone and Esters, Boettigheimer didn’t change his mind about McKay. In a deposition taken months later, McKay’s lawyer pressed Boettigheimer on why he so easily discounted Esters’ statements linking himself to the August 10 robbery. “If you’re going to say, ‘I know who did it, but I’m not telling you, but this guy didn’t do it,’ somewhere in there one of them three sentences is a lie,” he answered. “So that makes the whole thing a lie, in my opinion.” So confident were the 9th District detectives in McKay’s guilt that they put little effort into corroborating McKay’s alibi for the evening of the robbery. Douglas, who had been calling the detectives regularly to check in on the investigation, was shocked when he learned the following week that no one had checked with the three family friends with whom McKay claimed to have stayed with

“When they gave him all that time, he was like, ‘Forget it, I’m not going take all that time for nobody.’ He said, ‘You didn’t do it anyway.’” — Cornell McKay

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on August 10. On August 31, Douglas picked up all three witnesses and drove them to the 9th District headquarters himself. When they arrived, Boettigheimer and another detective turned them away, the pastor says. While Assistant Circuit Attorney Steve Capizzi later interviewed McKay’s alibi witnesses, he says he distrusted their stories. Instead, the prosecutor relied on statements from the owner of a convenience store where McKay claimed he was buying snacks at the time Hamblin was being robbed. The store owner told detectives she did not remember seeing McKay that evening.

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hree days before McKay’s December 13, 2013, trial, he says, he found himself in a holding cell with none other than Keith Esters. A few weeks prior, a judge had sentenced Esters to 50 years in prison for Boken’s murder. Now he was awaiting further sentencing on separate armed robbery and kidnapping charges. Unbeknownst to McKay, Esters had already invoked his right to silence when McKay’s lawyer attempted to depose him as a witness. Still, McKay pleaded with Esters to do the right thing. “I said, ‘Bro, free me up. You’re finna get 50 years, man. Just let me go,’” McKay remembers telling him. “When they gave him all that time,

he was like, ‘Forget it, I’m not going take all that time for nobody.’ He said, ‘You didn’t do it anyway. If you got to trial you won’t even lose out because you didn’t do it.’” Esters was wrong. During the trial, Judge Robin Vannoy repeatedly stopped McKay’s lawyer, James Hacking, from introducing evidence that Esters had been the true culprit in the August 10 robbery. Though Hacking was permitted to call Esters’ girlfriend, Perry, to the witness stand, she was only allowed to refer to her boyfriend as “Keith” — and wasn’t permitted to give any details on the attempted robbery that led to Boken’s killing. “As far as the Boken issue, the court still doesn’t see any relevance in that. I mean, robberies happen every day,” Vannoy said during the trial. “It does not mean that Mr. McKay was not involved in this crime.” During her testimony, Perry was allowed to describe how “Keith” gave her a stolen cell phone sometime in August, and jurors heard how the phone records showed seventeen calls placed from Hamblin’s stolen phone to Perry before Sprint shut off service on August 19. But jurors never heard about Esters’ admission to homicide detectives that he was at the scene of the August 10 robbery. They never heard about Esters’ history of armed robbery or the Boken murder. They never heard evidence that Esters had bought a small silver gun from Lamont Carter.

Judge Vannoy even refused to allow Hacking to present the subpoenaed Sprint records showing a call had been placed from Hamblin’s stolen phone to Perry at 9:40 p.m. on August 10, at most an hour after the robbery. The phone records, Vannoy said, would be “confusing,” because they included calls that did not appear on records Hamblin had previously obtained from Sprint. The judge ruled that McKay’s defense could present the phone records only with accompanying expert testimony to explain the discrepancy. McKay couldn’t afford to hire such an expert, so the jury was left with only the prosecution’s version, which listed the first call to Perry 25 hours after the robbery on August 11. As with the initial police investigation, prosecutors could only offer vague theories on how the phone traveled from McKay to Esters. Their case rested entirely on Hamblin, who never wavered in her certainty that she’d correctly identified McKay. She was joined by her husband, who testified that he saw a young black man running across North Boyle Avenue just as he was returning from walking the dog. He’d later identified McKay as the assailant in the second, physical lineup. With McKay’s defense hamstrung, the jury’s verdict wasn’t surprising: Cornell McKay was found guilty on both criminal counts. Awaiting his sentencing in the City Justice riverfronttimes.com

“It’s unreal that I have to go and be in a hellish environment for ten or twenty years for something I didn’t do, around monsters like Keith Esters. I believe in myself.” — Cornell McKay Center in February 2014, McKay can’t conceal his bitterness at the outcome. “If Keith Esters was on trial for this case, would it be possible for him to lose? He had the phone, his girlfriend got up there and said, ‘He told me he robbed someone for this phone.’ We know Esters had a silver gun in August. He said, ‘I was in the immediate area of the robbery.’” McKay shakes his head, seemingly in disbelief. “They say when you continued on page 16

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Wrong Man continued from page 15

go to trial, if there’s any reasonable doubt that you’re supposed to have a mistrial,” he says. “There was a lot of doubt. And they just let none of that into the courtroom.”

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fter the trial, things only got worse. Hacking, though well-known for his work in immigration and civil cases, had little experience as a trial attorney in complicated criminal cases like this one. Following the guilty verdict, he missed a deadline to file a motion for a new trial. “I basically made a big mistake,” Hacking tells Riverfront Times. “I was heartbroken.” In order for the case to be salvaged and an appeal filed, Hacking decided to withdraw as McKay’s lawyer. Douglas contacted a young defense attorney named Thomas SanFilippo, who agreed to take McKay’s case. SanFilippo, in turn, contacted Bob Ramsey. A well-known criminal defense lawyer, Ramsey made headlines last year after freeing a Chillicothe man named Mark Woodworth, who had spent seventeen years in prison on a double murder he did not commit. After Ramsey learned about McKay’s case, his blood boiled. When the experienced attorney looked at the police investigation, he saw detectives and prosecutors scrambling to cover their own asses. Had detectives not delayed tracing Hamblin’s phone records to Kaylin Perry, he argues, police could have easily found Esters before he pulled the trigger. Instead, detectives lazily relied on their crime database to pick a convenient fall guy for their mistakes — McKay. Ramsey wasn’t alone in his outrage. Before his departure, Hacking himself had reached out to James Dowd, a highly regarded fire-

brand who had served as a trial and appellate judge for decades. Dowd was incensed at what he saw as a callous injustice committed against an innocent man. He joined Ramsey and SanFilippo on the case. McKay’s new legal team filed an appeal for a new trial. Then they went to war. In the weeks leading up to McKay’s March 2014 sentencing, they filed a flurry of motions, arguing that the 2013 trial had been compromised by prosecutorial misconduct and a complicit judge. “Defendant was denied due process of law and this Court committed reversible error in excluding Defendant’s evidence that another person, Keith Esters, had the motive and opportunity and did, in fact, commit the robbery,” Ramsey wrote in a motion to delay sentencing. Judge Vannoy was unmoved. In a March 13 hearing, she upheld McKay’s conviction and denied his lawyers’ motion to delay sentencing. “I made certain decisions in that trial,” she said in court. “I stand by those decisions.” The week prior, in an interview with St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Jennifer Mann, Keith Esters had hinted at involvement in the August 10 robbery. Echoing McKay’s account of their conversation in the holding cell in December 2013, Esters told the reporter that he wouldn’t risk adding more years to his sentence without some kind of deal. “Tell you the truth, I can’t say nothing that gonna benefit him because in the end it’s gonna make me look bad,” he told Mann. “I’m not willing to help them just to help somebody else if it ain’t going to benefit me.” Still, at the March 13 hearing, Vannoy also denied McKay’s lawyers’ motion to call Esters as a witness. One week later, on March 20, McKay’s case was set for sentencing. Judge Vannoy’s courtroom was filled to capacity with McKay’s fam-

ily and members of Douglas’ church, many of whom had previously packed the courtroom during his December 2013 trial. The hearing began with statements from Hamblin. Her voice cracking with emotion, she described the trauma of the robbery and the mental anguish that had plagued her ever since. “I became a person I didn’t know anymore,” she said. “Seeing the light glint off the semiautomatic pistol he pointed at my stomach is a chilling memory I cannot shake.” McKay, too, got the opportunity to speak. He said he did not blame Hamblin — he laid responsibility at the feet of the detectives and prosecutors. “I believe that everybody knows Keith Esters did this robbery,” McKay declared. “I don’t think it’s a race issue, and I don’t think it’s a hate crime. I just believe that she made an honest mistake.” “It’s unreal,” he told the court, “that I have to go and be in a hellish environment for ten or twenty years for something I didn’t do, around monsters like Keith Esters. I believe in myself, and I stand here today strong-willed. I wake up every morning, in the hell of a cell, and look myself in the mirror...and know that I didn’t rob [her].” After McKay’s statement, Judge Vannoy delivered her ruling: McKay would be sentenced to twelve years in prison. In an interview the next day, Assistant Circuit Attorney Steve Capizzi repeated his office’s standard response to suggestions that Esters was the true culprit. “I believe in justice, and I believe justice was served in this case,” Capizzi said. “We have credible evidence and a jury of twelve people that I picked and the defense picked and the judge approved of. They found him guilty of this crime.” That may have been the end as far as the prosecutors were concerned. But McKay’s legal team was not about to give up. n Wednesday, May 6, James Dowd’s office is crowded with attorneys and stacks of legal motions that teeter atop a low coffee table. Dowd — whom everyone except Ramsey addresses simply as “Judge” — is hunched over a laptop. On the screen is a letter sent to St. Louis circuit attorney Jennifer Joyce. It’s dated April 28. The subject: State v. Cornell McKay. “If you do not see fit to dismiss this case immediately and set this innocent man free,” the letter reads, “then the conclusion that you not only condone, but actually encourage such dirty and illegal tactics will be inescapable.” Dowd looks up from the screen. Seated around him are Robert Ramsey, Thomas SanFilippo and another recent addition to the legal team, Joseph Yeckel. “I thought she would be somewhat responsive,” Dowd says, cracking a wry smile. “Bob and Joe keep laughing at me.” Indeed, the letter was constructed to be a highlight reel of accusations against Joyce and her prosecutors, each paragraph describing another example of alleged misconduct, negligence and outright corruption. The letter’s confidence was rooted in the string of victories McKay’s defense team had notched since McKay’s sentencing a year and two months before. While McKay languished

“They say when you go to trial, if there’s any reasonable doubt that you’re supposed to have a mistrial. There was a lot of doubt. And they just let none of that into the courtroom.” — Cornell McKay in prison, his lawyers took their allegations to appeals court after appeals court, racking up wins all the way. McKay’s fortunes turned the day after his 23rd birthday — December 23, 2014. That day, the state appeals court reversed McKay’s conviction and twelve-year prison sentence. The court ruled that Judge Vannoy had tainted the trial’s result by improperly blocking evidence

DA N N Y W I C E N TO W S K I

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Above: Thomas SanFilippo, one of McKay’s lawyers, snapped this selfie after McKay was released from prison. Below: Former judge James Dowd threw his considerable legal clout behind efforts to free McKay.

pointing to Esters’ involvement in the 2012 robbery. The appeals-court ruling systematically bashed Vannoy’s decision-making during the trial: Her ruling that McKay’s defense couldn’t present its own phone logs without expert testimony was deemed “an abuse of discretion,” because expert testimony is, in fact, not required for those kinds of “historical” records. riverfronttimes.com

The court also took Vannoy to task for preventing the jury from hearing the full story of how Hamblin’s stolen phone connected to Esters and the Boken murder. “Here, the prosecution’s case relied entirely on eyewitness identification and testimony; there was no physical evidence linking defendant to the crime,” the appellate judges noted. “As such, the exclusion continued on page 18

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McKay was given a hero’s welcome after his release from prison on May 7.

Wrong Man continued from page 17

of the alternative perpetrator evidence denied defendant the ability to present evidence he could have used to undermine victim’s credibility.... In cases where a witness’s credibility is pivotal to securing a conviction, courts have found that the improper denial of impeachment evidence is incompatible with the accused’s right to a fair trial.” Following the state appeals court ruling, Attorney General Chris Koster announced he would fight the decision all the way to the Missouri Supreme Court. “I will defend without hesitation the work of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and Circuit Attorney’s Office in the State’s highest court,” Koster said in a press release. Koster didn’t get his wish. The Missouri Supreme Court declined to hear the state’s case, leaving the lower court’s ruling to stand. McKay’s conviction was officially vacated. The decision came on April 28, the same day Dowd and Ramsey sent their inflammatory letter to Joyce. Yet more than a week later, McKay is still in prison. In Dowd’s office that day, the jovial mood shared by the attorneys dissipates as they debate among themselves. Should they file their next motions that day or the next? Could they get McKay out on bail in time to take his ACTs? How long would the circuit attorney drag her feet before a new trial? An hour later, their debates are swept away by Joyce herself. In a press release issued at 4:30 p.m., the circuit attorney announces that Hamblin is refusing to participate in a second trial, effectively ending the prosecution’s case 18

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against McKay. In an interview that afternoon, Joyce is defiant. “We believe Cornell McKay committed this robbery, we have no doubt about that,” she says. “The only reason we’re not going to trial is because the victim does not want to go forward.” Joyce attributes Hamblin’s decision to “bullying” she endured from McKay’s defense team after the trial concluded. Joyce singles out Ramsey, who disclosed the crime victim’s real name during a radio interview last year. Despite the collapse of the case, Joyce says that she’s encouraged by McKay’s positive relationships with the Douglas family and the community in Washington. “It appears Mr. McKay has a lot of supporters around him, and we’re happy to see that,” she says. “We hope he takes this opportunity to live his life lawfully and productively.” No matter. Whether Joyce was willing to admit it or not, the fight was over. By law, McKay was an innocent man. Now the lawyers just had to find a way to bring him home.

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cKay’s final day in prison, last Thursday, May 7, started in the same place as the two previous days — in the hole. That’s what inmates call the six-by-eight cell at Bonne Terre Eastern Reception Diagnostic and Correctional Center that he shared with a stainless steel toilet, sink, two bunk beds and a cellmate serving a life sentence. They were given only boxers to wear, as inmates have been prone to hang themselves with their clothes after just a few days staring at the tan-colored walls. McKay had arrived at Bonne Terre on Tuesday, two days before Circuit Attorney’s Office dropped the charges. For the young inmate, the

McKay’s mother (right) and grandmother (left) were there to greet McKay when he arrived at First Baptist Church in Washington.

“It appears Mr. McKay has a lot of supporters around him, and we’re happy to see that. We hope he takes this opportunity to live his life lawfully and productively.” —Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce prison and got into SanFilippo’s car. As they sped away from Bonne Terre, a jubilant SanFilippo snapped selfie after selfie of himself with his client. The news spread to the First Baptist Church in Washington, and members there frantically organized a homecoming party at the same place where, more than two years before, McKay had been welcomed into a community of friends and fellow believers. Pizzas were ordered. Banners were hung. Hearts were drawn on poster board. “We Love You Cornell,” the signs read. “Welcome Home Cornell.” SanFilippo dropped off McKay at a commuter stop along the highway where Douglas was waiting. The pastor drove McKay back to his own house so the newly freed man could

McKay says he received hundreds of calls from supporters during his nearly three-year incarceration.

P H OTO S B Y DA N N Y W I C E N TO W S K I

move had nothing to do with his legal status: Bonne Terre was only an hour-and-half drive to Washington, making it easier for friends and family to visit him. Prior to the transfer, he’d been incarcerated in the Southeast Correctional Center in the southern tip of the state, two-and-half hours away. McKay was anxious, verging on mad. For two days the guards had denied him access to a phone call. Rules of the prison stipulated that new transfers like him had to sweat through a full three days in the hole before being allowed contact with the outside world. By 6 p.m. Thursday, McKay was contemplating making a scene. He’d already refused food that day, choosing a hunger strike rather than enduring more of the silent treatment. He shouted at the guards, demanding his phone call. He had no idea that, technically, he was already a free man. In fact, in St. Louis, his lawyers were struggling to figure out how to get him out of jail — plans that were complicated by the timing of Joyce’s press release late Wednesday afternoon, with Friday a state holiday marking the birth of Harry S. Truman. Dowd called the governor’s office and got the Missouri Department of Corrections’ legal team to work overtime drafting release papers. Meanwhile, SanFilippo was in his Acura, a silver streak tearing south on I-55, heading toward the prison and hoping Dowd was pulling off a miracle with the state bureaucracy. At 6:30 p.m., just before McKay completely lost his cool, a guard and warden sheepishly approached the bars and told him the news. He was leaving, tonight. It was the first he had heard of Joyce’s decision not to try the case. A half-hour later, McKay walked out of

change clothes and shower. At 8:30 p.m., a cheer rises up from the crowd of 60 people gathered outside the church as a white Econoline van turns into the parking lot. McKay, in a white polo short, hangs his head and torso out the passenger window and pumps his arm again and again. When the door opens, he is swarmed by Douglas’ children, laughing, screaming, pulling at his arms and pressing their small faces into his chest. Hands seek his narrow shoulders, touching, pulling, hugging, as if they are unsure if he is really there, really home, really standing, and not some mirage, some trick of the setting sun. McKay wraps an arm around his grandmother, and his mother presses her face to riverfronttimes.com

his chest, whispering, “Oh my baby, my baby.” Mascara stains his white shirt. Later, after interviews with the local news, a slice of a pizza and thousands of hugs, McKay retreats to an enclosed stairwell connected to the church’s gymnasium. The sound of basketballs and laughter echoes through the walls. So. At long last, he’s free. What does he feel? “This type of love,” he says. “People sharing out here, people caring. It’s really hard for people to do that in prison.” He looks at Douglas standing nearby, tears brimming in his eyes. “I learned a lot in prison, good and bad,” McKay says. “You ultimately learn that you don’t want to go back. For nothing. For nothing in the world do you want to give this up.” Q

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The Chippendales get ready to work it.

T H U R S D AY |05.14 [ART EXHIBIT]

MARCEL DZAMA: MISCHIEF MAKES A MOVE

What do you get when four Canadians and one founding member of Sonic Youth collaborate? Not your average cuppa tea. Instead, you take a long, cool drink of something from the Dadaist bottle via the art film Une Danse des Bouffons. Directed by Canadian-born Marcel Dzama, it stars Kim Gordon, who not only played bass in Sonic Youth forever but is also a respected visual artist in her own right. Music for the black-and-white film was composed by Arcade Fire’s Will Butler, Jeremy Gara and Tim Kingsbury. This silent production was inspired by an ill-fated love affair between Marcel Duchamp and the Brazilian sculptor Maria Martins. She elected to remain

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with her husband; Duchamp was left in the lurch. One party always loses. In the film, Duchamp is held captive and has to recite chess moves in order to escape — which links the flick to the T H IS C O D E larger exhibition of TO DOWNLOAD THE FREE his work, Mischief RIVERFRONT TIMES Makes a Move. The IPHONE/ANDROID APP exhibit opens at 6 FOR MORE EVENTS OR VISIT riverfronttimes.com p.m. Thursday, May 14, at the World Chess Hall of Fame (4652 Maryland Avenue; 314-367-9243 or www. worldchesshof.org). The show remains up through Sunday, October 18, and the gallery is open Tuesday through Sunday. Admission is a suggested $5 donation. — ALEX WEIR

SCAN

[COMICS]

HITLER’S BRAIN IN AN APE’S BODY

F R I D AY |05.15

In the comics a hero is only as super as his or her villain. Over the years, Doctor Doom, Magneto, Kite Man and countless other foes have paraded across the pages of America’s funny books, but right up there with the best of the worst is none other than Adolf Hitler. Even before the U.S. entered World War II, Jack Kirby and Joe Simon debuted Captain America with a cover featuring Cap planting a right hook into Hitler’s mug. After the war ended, Hitler kept creeping back into the comics in increasingly surreal ways. Tonight’s 8 p.m. discussion “Hitler’s Brain in an Ape’s Body: Nazis in Comics” at the Missouri History Museum (Lindell Boulevard and DeBaliviere Avenue; 314-746-4599 or www.mohistory.org) will read between the panels and examine how the Führer has been portrayed in one of America’s most enduring art forms. Admission is free. — MARK FISCHER riverfronttimes.com

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[BEEFCAKES]

CHIPPENDALES

Ladies, let’s be real: If your last encounter with a bulging package was an ill-shipped Amazon delivery, you owe it to yourself to see the Chippendales at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday (May 15 and 16) at River City Casino (777 River City Casino Drive, Lemay; 888-578-7289 or www.rivercity.com). Tasteful enough to avoid total NSFW status, yet saucy enough to take the top spot on any girls-night-out bucket list, this event features a variety of song-anddance numbers that showcase the handsome lads’...skill set. Be prepared to fan yourself as this legendary troupe demonstrates the meaning of “intimate fan participation.” Mercy! Tickets are $22.50 to $67.50. — BROOKE FOSTER

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C O U R T E SY O F T H E R A T P A C K I S B A C K

The Rat Pack croons again.

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S AT U R D AY |05.16

[THEATER]

THE RAT PACK IS BACK

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[SCIENCE!]

As of now, what happens in Vegas no longer stays in Vegas — it’s at the Fox Theatre (527 North Grand Boulevard; 314-534-1111 or www. fabulousfox.com). Frank Sinatra famously sang that he did it “My Way,� and the guys taking center stage for the musical The Rat Back Is Back do it his way too. The legendary big-band bombast and banter that Frank, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Joey Bishop immortalized during their stint in the Copa Room at the historic “Summit at the Sands� has been meticulously re-created to transport audiences back to the defining days of Las Vegas, when the kings of cool lounged about onstage with a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other. Performances are at 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, and 1 p.m. Sunday (May 15 to 17). Tickets are $35 to $80. — MARK FISCHER

GENOME: UNLOCKING LIFE’S CODE

You, your dog and that plant on the windowsill all share a common trait: Each has a complete set of genetic material encoded within. This genome contains information about your ancestors and any potential offspring, meaning on some level, a part of you is nigh eternal. It’s only been a decade since the human genome was decoded, but much has been learned about the human species in that time. Genome: Unlocking Life’s Code, at the Saint Louis Science Center (5050 Oakland Avenue; 314-289-4400 or www.slsc.org), explores the frontiers of genome research. A joint project of the Smithsonian Institute and the National Institute of Science, Unlocking Life’s Code features interactive displays,

WIN FREE STUFF

3-D models and videos that demonstrate what we know and how much we have to learn. The exhibit is open daily through Monday, September 7. Admission is free. — PAUL FRISWOLD [DANCE]

AFRICAN DANCE CELEBRATION

Prepare to have your senses dazzled tonight at the African Dance Celebration. This year’s show is titled Kids Crossing Oceans, and it features Afriky Lolo (as always), joined for the first time by the Ugandan Orphans Choir. Afriky Lolo specializes in the vibrant dances of West Africa, which require colorful traditional costumes and powerful drumming; each dance is a celebration of life’s moments and must be performed with joy and exuberance. The Ugandan Orphans Choir, a group of children ranging from eight to twelve years old, brings the music and dance of East Africa to bear. The show

Afriky Lolo gets you moving.

starts at 8 p.m. at the Edison Theatre on Washington University’s campus (6445 Forsyth Boulevard; 314-935-6543 or www. edison.wustl.edu). Tickets are $25. — PAUL FRISWOLD

S U N D AY |05.17 [ F E S T I VA L ]

ST. LOUIS RENAISSANCE FAIRE

If you want to party like they did in the sixteenth century, come to the quiet hamlet of Petit Lyon in Rotary Park (2577 West Meyer Road, Wentzville; 800-373-0357 or www.stlrenfest.com) for a celebration of all things Renaissance without the famine and pestilence. The St. Louis Renaissance Faire evokes the spirit of the age with colorful costumes, authentic food, merry drinking, armored jousting and nine stages of entertainment featuring comedians,

*R0XVLF6W/ Your Diverse Musical Instrument Store

Film Passes, Concert Tickets, Local events, Music/movies, Restaurant gift cards, and much, much more!!! enter to win at: Riverfronttimes.com/ promotions/freestuff/ 22

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New ‡ Used ‡ Repair Consignment ‡ Rental Guitar, Drum and Band Accessories

We are proud to host Mound Sound an analog and digital recording studio on site. In the heart of the University City Business Loop, across the street from the Blueberry Hill Restaurant

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You meet all kinds at the Ren Faire.

TO D D DAV I S

J O N G I TC H O F F

Cortango Orquesta plays a free show on Monday.

magicians and musicians. More than 100 artisans will be on hand selling their wares and demonstrating woodworking and blacksmithing skills. Children’s programming includes a petting zoo, games and period-themed activities. The festival is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday (May 16 through June 14), and Monday, May 25. Admission is $8.95 to $15.95. — ROB LEVY

M O N D AY |05.18

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[PERFORMING ARTS]

CORTANGO ORQUESTA

Are you on the hunt for a cheap and romantic date night? You’re in luck, because Cortango Orquesta performs a free show at 7:30 p.m. tonight at Public Media Commons (3653 Olive Street; www.slso.org). The group is comprised of members of the Saint Louis Symphony, including Cally Banham,

who is herself a trained social tango dancer. Once you know that, is it any surprise that the group came together in part to play music suitable for social dances? Cortango Orquesta plays the popular hits of the good old days of tango orchestras, as well as original compositions. — PAUL FRISWOLD

T U E S D AY |05.19

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[DOCUMENTARY]

R.E.M. BY MTV

R.E.M. was the quintessential American indie outfit until around 1988, at which point the band signed to Warner Bros., dove into the mainstream and stayed there, quite profitably. Crucial to the band’s mass success was its omnipresence on MTV, as decisively central to its generation as YouTube is to today’s. R.E.M. was one of those bands with a visual sophistication that

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matched its musical one; the guys from Athens were a handin-glove fit for MTV. The documentary R.E.M. by MTV relates its story from bar-band origins to international stadium tours. The T H IS C O D E film draws heavily on TO DOWNLOAD THE FREE rarely seen footage RIVERFRONT TIMES culled from MTV’s IPHONE/ANDROID APP FOR MORE EVENTS OR VISIT vast archives, and also riverfronttimes.com features exclusive band interviews, clips from award shows and talk-show performances and, of course, Georgia jangle. R.E.M. by MTV screens at 7:30 p.m. tonight at Wehrenberg Ronnies 20 Cine (5320 South Lindbergh Boulevard; www. fathomevents.com). Tickets are $15. — ALEX WEIR

SCAN

Planning an event, exhibiting your art or putting on a play? Let us know and we’ll include it in the Night & Day section or publish a listing in the online calendar — for free! Send details via e-mail (calendar@riverfronttimes.com), fax (314-754-6416) or mail (6358 Delmar Boulevard, Suite 200, St. Louis, MO 63130, attn: Calendar). Include the date, time, price, contact information and location (including ZIP code). Please submit information three weeks prior to the date of your event. No telephone submissions will be accepted. Find more events online at www.riverfronttimes.com.

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film The Filth and the Fury

Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) and Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) take aim in Mad Max: Fury Road.

GEORGE MILLER BRINGS REAL STUNTS AND BRUTAL PEOPLE TO THRILLING LIFE IN A POST-APOCALYPTIC FUTURE Mad Max: Fury Road Directed by George Miller. Written by George Miller, Brendan McCarthy and Nick Lathouris. Starring Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Hugh Keays-Byrne and Nicholas Hoult. Opens Friday, May 15, at multiple locations.

he action genre requires a refreshening every dozen years or so. The last one was 1999’s The Matrix, so we’re overdue. Mad Max: Fury Road might not be that refreshening, but if it isn’t, it’s most definitely a reminder than the refreshening is desperately needed, and a BY hint of what that refreshenM A R YA N N ing might feel like. (It feels good!) JOHANSON Fury Road is astonishing in a way that makes you feel like you haven’t seen a true action movie in a while, by underscoring how sterile and cold what has passed for the genre has become. If it doesn’t represent a continued on page 25

Come to Dust MICHAEL ALMEREYDA’S CYMBELINE UPDATES AND REWORKS SHAKESPEARE’S TROUBLESOME PLAY INTO A GANGLAND PUZZLER Cymbeline Written by Michael Almereyda and William Shakespeare. Directed by Michael Almereyda. Starring Ethan Hawke, Ed Harris, Milla Jovovich, Penn Badgley and Dakota Johnson. Now streaming through VOD at Amazon and other outlets. DVD release on Tuesday, May 19.

L

ate last year, it was announced that Michael Almereyda’s latest Shakespearean film was going to be released under the distinctively non-Shakespearean title Anarchy (possibly as a lure to fans of the TV series Sons of Anarchy, which features Shakespearean themes placed in a biker-gang setting). The producers thought better of the name change, but you can sympathize with their dilemma: The new film is peopled with drug dealers, skateboarders and punks, and punctuated with gunfire and explosives. Wouldn’t Shakespeare himself agree that Anarchy had more box-office appeal than The Tragedie of Cymbeline? Anachronistic revisions of Shakespeare are 24

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common these days (probably too common), but what many directors fail to consider is that resetting a play into a new and perhaps intentionally “wrong” location runs the risk of losing its meaning. Some directors find a metaphor that gives new meanings to the play (Orson Welles’ famous productions of Macbeth and Julius Caesar, set in Haiti and fascist Italy, respectively); while others do best by playing down the discrepancy between setting and text (Kenneth Branagh’s admirable nineteenthcentury Hamlet). In Almereyda’s makeover of Cymbeline, rival armies become rival gangs; leaders expecting to be paid tributes become crooked cops expecting payoffs. Swords are replaced by guns, and exposition comes from TV news reports. Granted, this his been done before — by Ralph Fiennes in Coriolanus, Baz Luhrman in Romeo + Juliet and countless other films — but it still tends to be more of a distraction than a legitimate reinterpretation of the play. Almereyda’s film is at its best when he can ignore the mean-streets setting and let the characters take precedence over the production design. Cymbeline — the original play — takes place in ancient Britain, as the title character, a British king, prepares for war against the Romans, all the while distracted by family troubles. His daughter (and sole heir), Imogen,

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has married her true love, Posthumus, who is immediately banished by Cymbeline for his presumptuousness. Meanwhile the Queen, Imogen’s stepmother, is secretly planning to set up one of her own sons as Imogen’s husband, and then poison Cymbeline so that said son takes the throne. Toss in faked suicide, genderswitching disguises and that Shakespearean standard, the reappearance of characters long believed to be dead, and you’ve got the makings of a complex and engaging romance. Almereyda, sharing the opinion of most Shakespeare scholars, realizes that the heart of the play is the story of Imogen and Posthumus. The lovers are separated by Cymbeline and tricked by the sinister Iachimo, who bets Posthumus that he can seduce the young bride. Much of this plot is isolated from the surrounding violence and action, so the characters and original text work without any unnecessary gimmickry. Penn Badgley is adequate as a baby-faced Posthumus, but Dakota Johnson, as Imogen, is considerably better here than she was as the rag-doll sex toy of Fifty Shades of Grey. As Iachimo, Ethan Hawke, who played Hamlet for Almereyda’s earlier Shakespearean outing, is good enough to make you wish he had a larger role. He’s a scheming, self-serving jerk, yet he can pull off one the play’s most famous

scenes, where he sneaks into Imogen’s room by having himself shipped in a crate, without turning it into a farce. The Imogen and Posthumus plot aside, the rest of the film is uneven, and the action-movie setting is stretched too thin to be taken seriously. Almereyda is ruthless, even reckless, in editing the play, so most of the other characters are downsized to the barest outlines. But even reduced Shakespeare can be absorbing, and Almereyda’s frequently unconventional casting is surprisingly effective. Ed Harris’ Cymbeline is forceful, despite the role being reduced to barely more than a cameo. Even better is the underrated Milla Jovovich as the unnamed Queen, overflowing with villainous mischief. For all of his extreme revisions, Almereyda has the good sense to know when to ignore his convoluted framework and stick with the story, albeit in a scaled-back form. As with all such Shakespearean hybrids, this is certainly not the Cymbeline that audiences at the Globe saw in 1609; purists might argue that it barely deserves to considered Shakespearean at all — and they may be right. By its very conception, a production like this disregards Hamlet’s famous advice for actors (“Suit the action to the word, the word to the action”), but somehow the words always manage to hold their own anyway. — ROBERT HUNT

Fury Road

continued from page 24

© L I O N S G AT E . A K E E P YO U R H E A D / B E N A R OYA P I C T U R E S P R O D U C T I O N .

refreshening, it’s only because it achieves its grotesque, magnificent brutality in an oldfashioned way: with a simple, straightforward good-versus-evil story set in a carefully conceived imaginary world brought to visceral plausibility through the sheer physicality of shooting real people doing real things in the real world. Even the most lovingly produced CGI could not have replicated the dusty authenticity of putting real actors and stunt performers in real vehicles and racing — and crashing! — them in a real desert. Which is what Australian cinematic maestro George Miller has done for his return to the postapocalyptic, water- and gas-thirsty future he created in 1979’s Mad Max. There are no green screens here, and CGI is used so sparingly that it’s barely noticeable. The bulk of the film consists of vehicular warfare carried out across sandblasted landscapes, and it is an assault on the senses in a good way, in the way that action movies used to be before they were disconnected from the physics of how the real world operates, and the sweat and the fear of how the human body responds to danger. And unlike with many of its genre brethren, the story here is not beside the point. Warlord Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) thinks he’s sending his trusted Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) on a mission to bring back fuel from Gas Town to the Citadel he rules with an iron fist, but she’s got a secret mission of her own: to free the enslaved “breeders” of Joe’s children and bring them to the “Green Place” far away she remembers from her own childhood. The battles pit Joe’s army against Furiosa, who is more than a match in her “War Rig.” She hadn’t planned on loner Max (Tom Hardy) being part of her crew, but that

happens accidentally when — Well, I’ll leave that you to find out. When I say that Fury Road is grotesque, I mean that Miller’s vision of this cruel future is monstrous in almost unthinkable ways, one of which is how Max comes to be caught up in events. Miller’s world employs tropes of sci-fi and particularly of post-apocalyptic stories in ways that smack them down, that insist that whatever horrors of human nature that the end of civilization may bring out, those horrors will not go unrebelled against. Immortan Joe, among his many other crimes against humanity, has reduced women to beasts, to farm animals...but that doesn’t mean they like it or accept it. There are no damsels in distress here: There are angry women fighting back and rescuing themselves. (The “wives” of Joe are played by Zoë Kravitz, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Abbey Lee and Courtney Eaton.) Miller depicts warlordism as something truly shocking, and whatever signifiers of “cool” he may deploy in his massive conflagrations of cars and men will later get a smackdown, a reminder that Joe is the villain here, and that he is not cool. Miller’s critique of warlordism could be said to extend to the sorts of filmmakers who try to control every aspect of their films down the tiniest detail — the sort of control that CGI allows — instead of letting unpredictable reality rule. The religious worship Joe inspires, by calculated plan, in his young soldiers, such as fervently devoted Nux (Nicholas Hoult), is of course destined only for disillusionment and disappointment when its promises go unfulfilled. The promises of warlord directors, tweaking every drop of rain onscreen, every splatter of blood, every screech of tires, can tend toward much the same disillusionment. Freedom and surprise are better, and more fun. Q

Cymbeline proves that every work of Shakespeare doesn’t fit every genre. Take note, directors! riverfronttimes.com

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STILL ROLLING

A C A D E M Y

A W A R D

®

N O M I N E E

ETHAN HAWKE BRUCE ZOË GREENWOOD KRAVITZ

JAKE ABEL

AND

JANUARY JONES

OUR ONGOING, OCCASIONALLY SMARTASS, DEFINITELY UNOFFICIAL GUIDE TO WHAT’S PLAYING IN ST. LOUIS THEATERS Urbanaire 2015

Travelogue Salt of the Earth is the op-

posite of some yahoo on vacation with a selfie stick and bottomless rum punch: This stunning film traces the career of social photographer Sebastião Salgado, whose work is often stark and unsettling, but also transfixing in the “don’t want to look but can’t help looking” kind of way. Urbanaire 2015

Famine in Africa, razed forests in Brazil, the Rwandan genocide: Pictures might be worth a thousand words, but the deeper insights from

Look for the RFT Street Team at the

“

A SMART, PULSATING WAR DRAMA THAT IS AT ONCE FORWARD-THINKING AND EXHILARATINGLY OF THE MOMENT.” -Guy Lodge, VARIETY

Salgado himself are also endlessly illuminating.

following featured events this week:

O Olivier Assayas’ Clouds of Sils Maria sounds exactly like the kind of film that’d be

Wednesday 5.13.15

A FILM BY

ANDREW NICCOL

nominated for a French Oscar. In unrelated Howard’s Grand Opening

news, Clouds was nominated for two Césars:

What: Parties in the Park

Kristen Stewart for Supporting Actress and

When: 4:300 - 8:30 PM

Juliette Binoche for Actress. Binoche stars as an aging actress who’s asked to again be in

Where: Central Ave, Clayton

the play that catapulted her to stardom. Now, twenty years later, she’s to portray the crinkly

Thursday 5.14.15

GOOD KILL

Howard’s Grand Opening

boss instead of the hot young thing. But it’s crinkly of Hollywood proportions (not french

What: RFT Open Casting Call

fry), so don’t feel too bad about the whole deal.

When: 7 - 8 PM

O Armed with sticks and a dubious talent for

Where: Casa Del Mar

finding underground water, Russell Crowe stars as Joshua Connor in The Water Diviner.

INVITE YOU TO ENTER FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN A RUN-OFENGAGEMENT PASS TO SEE

He encouraged his three sons to fight in Turkey’s

Saturday 5.16.15

Twilight Tuesday

Battle of Gallipoli in World War I; none returned.

What: Bark in the Park

Thanks, Dad! So he travels to Istanbul to try

When: 9 AM - 1 PM

and recover their remains. Not a bad set-up,

Visit

but Crowe’s directorial debut somehow still

riverfronttimes.com/ promotions

Where: Forest Park

lacks flavor. We recommend a shot of rakı. O When thinking about Reese Witherspoon Twilight Tuesday

Saturday 5.16.15

and Sofía Vergara, surely the first things that come to mind are “short” and “not white,”

What: Rocket Fizz 1 Year Anniversary Party

respectively. Wait, they’re not? Tell that to the

When: 1- 3 PM

(questionable) brains behind Hot Pursuit,

Where: Rocket Fizz Delmar

a film wherein most of the (alleged) laughs are

to enter for your chance to win one admit-two pass to attend a showing of the film.

wrung from those two elements. The two tear Laumeier Art Fair

through Texas, hoping to outrun some bad guys who want ’em dead. Cop Witherspoon tries to be the long arm of the law, but she can’t...she’s too short! Please let this be an actual joke in the movie. If not, it’s a missed opportunity,

For more photos go to the Street Team website at www.riverfronttimes.com.

much like Pursuit is for these two talented, Laumeier Art Fair

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charismatic leads.

—Kristie McClanahan

Passes are available on a first-come, first-served basis. No purchase necessary. While supplies last. One admit-two pass per person. See passes for additional details.

IN THEATRES NATIONWIDE MAY 22! IFCfilms.com/films/Good-Kill

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Here Come the Brides

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MY MOTHER’S LESBIAN JEWISH WICCAN WEDDING IS A DELIGHTFUL ROM-COM, GROUNDED IN REAL LIFE My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding Through May 31 at the Jewish Community Center’s Wool Studio Theatre, 2 Millstone Campus Drive, Creve Coeur. Tickets are $36 to $40. Call 314-442-3283 or visit www. newjewishtheatre.org.

y Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding is not what you think it is. Oh, sure, the title’s a mouthful that promises a great deal of proselytizing and earnestness, but it’s just a way to get your attention. No, David Hein and Irene Sankoff’s musical (based on Hein’s own mothers’ courtship) is in fact a romantic comedy with a twist: Instead of watching two twentysomeBY things fumble through a roPA U L mance only to save it in the end, here we see a mature, F R I S W O L D thoughtful love story about a middle-aged woman ďŹ nally coming to terms with herself. Our heroine is Claire (Laura Ackermann), newly divorced and starting life over in her forties. This second start entails leaving her son, David, behind in Nebraska with her exhusband while she heads to Ottawa for a new job and new scenery. David is played by Pierce Hastings as a young man and Ben Nordstrom as an adult. Nordstrom also serves as the narrator, a role that’s tailor-made for the actor. He’s genial and charming as always, but he also gets to act; watch him as he sits on the bandstand and sees his life play out again. Nordstrom has a persistent half-smile that gives way to embarrassed grimaces when life gets wobbly. Armed with a guitar, he also joins the band in many of the songs, which hew closely to folk and classic country, with the occasional foray into pop. But as charming as both Davids are, this is Claire’s story. Adrift in the Great White North, Claire ďŹ nds a roommate (Anna Skidis) who sings in a politically active lesbian choir. Practice is held in their front room, and in short order Claire meets Jane (Deborah Sharn), who is the Wiccan of the title. The pair become great friends, and on a walking tour of the city they share their ďŹ rst kiss. Sharn and Ackermann make a fantastic couple. The duo create sparks when singing their ďŹ rst song, and their relationship proceeds naturally toward a love so true it can survive an awkward dinner at Hooters with David and his

M

Above: Deborah Sharn, Pierce Hastings, Laura Ackermann and Ben Nordstrom. Right: Jane (Sharn) and Claire (Ackermann), happy as one.

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ďŹ rst serious girlfriend, Irene (Jennifer ThebyQuinn). The moms are unappable as they grill Irene about her birth-control choices and sing of pleasurable sex that doesn’t involve a penis. (A gentleman in the front row actually did the “hands-on-cheeks, mouth-wide-openâ€? face from Home Alone when “You Don’t Need A Penisâ€? started, then burst out laughing.) It’s awkward, but riotously funny. At some point in any rom-com, there’s a senseless argument or an overheard comment that forces the two lovers apart. Or perhaps the conict will be that Claire is not sure she likes Jane “that wayâ€?? This play is far smarter than that. Claire has no doubts about her feelings for Jane, and because she’s a psychologist and Jane’s a social worker, the two have no misunderstanding they can’t talk their way through. Their greatest obstacle as a couple is Jane’s own self doubt: How can she truly love Jane if she doesn’t love herself? This personal conict is bound up in Jane’s feelings about her forceful Jewish mother and her own lapsed faith. Again, what makes the script so effective is how it deals with Jane’s inner turmoil. There’s no quick solution, no moment of epiphany that frees her; instead there are years of talking and loving, of shared experiences and slow movements toward selfrealization. Ultimately, Jane’s unstinting love helps Claire on the path to freedom. When Claire reaches that point, it feels true because it’s hard-won. Life is never as easy as a romcom, and My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding is grounded in real life. There is a great deal of story crammed in the

AT HALF PRICE.

EXPIRES 5/27/15

321 EAST DAVIS 314.833.3470 play’s 90 minutes, but director Edward CofďŹ eld still allows everything room to breathe. In the latter third of the show, the focus shifts toward the effort to legalize gay marriage in Canada, which is ushered in by the anthemic “Legalize Love.â€? This is as political as things get, and as rousing as the song is, the message is sung rather than shouted. And anyway, what’s wrong with a little more love in the world? It’s love that brings Claire and Jane together, it’s love that ďŹ nally heals Claire’s wounded spirit, and it’s love that brings everybody together for the wedding we’ve long been promised. You can write a sharp script that subverts every expectation and clichĂŠ, but you still have to include a wedding. Not even the Supreme Court can change that. Q riverfronttimes.com

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$15 lunch, $20 dinner 44 N. Brentwood Blvd. Clayton, MO 63105 314-721-9400 • www.oceanobistro.com 28

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cafe Combination vermicelli bowl with grilled pork, grilled shrimp and egg rolls.

Do You Want a Manicure with That?

Butter-garlic chicken wings, spring rolls and grilled pork banh mi.

RED LOTUS SPA & BISTRO TRIES TO COMBINE SPA TREATMENTS WITH FOOD. IT DOESN’T WORK.

W

alk into Red Lotus, look to the right, and you’ll see a bowl of bubbling liquid. The fragrant steam perfumes the air of this Vietnamese bistro, but it’s not pho. Oddly, it’s not even edible. It’s a footbath. BY That there are now three C H E R Y L pedicure chairs, three manicure stations and several tables topped BAEHR with bottles of nail polish in what was once the dining room of a successful restaurant is mind-boggling. Perhaps what’s stranger is the very concept of the place:

Kebob House & Taverna

Voted #1 Greek Restaurant in St. Louis! P H OTO S B Y M A B E L S U E N

Red Lotus Spa & Bistro 9737 Manchester Road, Rock Hill; 314-9188868. Mon. 11 a.m.-8 p.m.; Wed.-Thurs. 11 a.m.-8 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 10 a.m.-8 p.m. (Closed Tuesdays)

1999-2015 RFT Restaurant Polls Don't miss our 35th Anniversary Party! Saturday, July 18th

a combination spa/bistro where guests can get a gel pedicure while noshing on spring rolls. Dee Dee Tran understands the apprehension, though she believes in her concept. As owner of the building’s original incarnation, Mi Linh, Tran had enjoyed booming business and rave reviews. However, a family dispute

led to the departure of her half-brother, chef Nelson Padilla, who had been the driving force behind Mi Linh’s excellent food. (He’s now the chef/owner of Linh Mi Gia.) The restaurant went downhill and lost customers, forcing Tran to try something different. She decided to combine her experience continued on page 30 riverfronttimes.com

PATIO OPEN! olympiakebobandtaverna.com

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The spa area of Red Lotus Spa & Bistro.

La Vallesana

a ffamilyy restaurant since 2000

Tacos * Tortas * Quesadillas * Burritos Gyros * Fajitas * Full Bar * Margaritas Pineapple Margaritas made from Fresh Fruit

2801 Cherokee St. 314 776 4223

30

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Red Lotus

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“I couldn’t help but feel a little dirty having some poor woman hunched over my toes as I gnawed on a chicken wing.”

in running nail salons with her tenure at Mi Linh, rebranding the space as Red Lotus Spa & Bistro in late February. Red Lotus looks nearly identical to Mi Linh: wine-colored walls, a giant black-and-white brush painting of cloud-covered mountains and lotus-blossom pendant lamps. To the left of the front door, the former lounge and satellite dining area that is now the “restaurant side” of sauce and butter combined for a deliciously rich Red Lotus remains mostly unchanged. There’s and salty accompaniment. I also enjoyed the strong star anise flavor a small bar with a few stools and roughly ten of Red Lotus’ pho; the rice noodles and thinly tables. The spa side occupies its predecessor’s main sliced rare beef picked up the fresh licorice dining room and looks exactly like you might taste. However, the broth hadn’t been clarified expect — as if a nail salon had set up shop in or strained enough, leaving it on the greasy side. a restaurant. Red Lotus has pushed several of Still, it was an agreeable dish overall. I’d previously had a religious experience the old tables into the middle of the room and refashioned them into a staging area for beauty while indulging in Mi Linh’s butter-garlic products. A few hightop tables are scattered chicken wings, and if not for that, I would have throughout the room for those who want to found Red Lotus’ version decent. Unfortunately relax over appetizers and drinks on the spa for Red Lotus, that history was on my mind, and side while they select their services. The option their attempt at recreating such a mind-blowing to dine while enjoying a spa service or two is dish was disappointing. Flavor-wise, I enjoyed the peppery coatalso available. On my first visit, my friend and I dined on ing, which was spicier than Mi Linh’s seasonthe restaurant side, finished our meals and took ing blend. However, the chicken was stringy, our nightcaps over to the spa for manicures. The the diced green and white onions oily and the breading limp and greasy. Fine enough, were I second time in, I ate while getting a pedicure. On both occasions, Red Lotus’ food was ad- a first-time diner — but because this is the dish equate. Spring rolls, wrapped in translucent that put Mi Linh on the map, Red Lotus’ version lives in that shadow. rice paper, were generously I love that my hair salon ofstuffed with shrimp, shredRed Lotus Spa & Bistro fers me a glass of wine upon arded pork, vermicelli, lettuce, Fried butter-garlic rival. Half the fun of going to a peanuts and herbs — the mint chicken wings blow-dry bar comes in the unwas pleasantly prominent. But (four pieces) ............. $6 Banh mi with limited mimosas served with while I appreciated the fried grilled pork...........$4.75 a $50 blowout. This seems tofu’s creamy-crunchy texture Pho bo ....................... $12 to be what Tran is going for combination, it tasted incredwith Red Lotus, but the food ibly bland. Soy-ginger dipping component makes it a little sauce provided the only hint of flavor on the dish, but this delicate liquid barely awkward. It was fine when I received my spa treatments after dining, but combining the two clung to the fritters. Pickled carrots and daikon brightened a sim- was a bit off-putting. I couldn’t help but feel a ple “Asian Salad” of lettuce, cucumber, mint and little dirty having some poor woman hunched cilantro. However, chewy discs of bland fried over my toes as I gnawed on a chicken wing. It remains to be seen whether Red Lotus Spa wonton wrappers detracted from an otherwise successful dish. I missed pâté on the banh mi, & Bistro will be an oasis of comfort or simply a though it was an otherwise respectable version, place that pushes people out of their comfort with thinly sliced grilled pork, mayonnaise, jala- zones. I may have left spiffier than when I arpenos, cilantro and pickled vegetables stacked rived, but Red Lotus looked better before the Q onto crispy Vietnamese bread. Drizzles of soy makeover.

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short orders [CHEF CHAT]

Leon Augustus Braxton Jr., a.k.a., Miss Leon.

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Leon Augustus Braxton Jr., the soul behind Miss Leon’s (3960 Chouteau Avenue; 314652-0011) soul food, insists you refer to him as a cook and not a chef. He wasn’t formally trained, he’ll tell you, unless you count the untold hours he spent in his grandmother’s kitchen. Call him whatever you want, but there is no denying he is a master of Southern cooking. Though he’s been cooking his entire life, Braxton had a career path much different than that of a restaurateur. A mortgage banker by trade, he found himself in need of a new line of work when the financial crisis hit in 2008. Braxton saw this as an opportunity for reinvention and began cooking his soon-to-be famous fried chicken at Rehab Bar & Grill. He developed such a following that when owners Chad Fox and Jim Weckmann opened their new concept, Bombers Hideaway, they gave Braxton the reins of the kitchen. From his tiny corner inside of Bombers, Braxton operates Miss Leon’s, a Southernstyle soul food restaurant with all-you-can-eat fried-chicken Sundays that pack the house. Braxton took a break from the fryer to share his thoughts on his rituals, his peppery persona and his taste for Southern Comfort. What is one thing people don’t know about you that you wish they did? That I am horribly shy. What daily ritual is non-negotiable for you? Taking my hormones first thing in the [HAPPY HOUR HANDBOOK]

HAPPY HOUR COMBINES TRACKS AND COCKTAILS he Demo (4191 Manchester Avenue; 314-8335532) opened its doors in the Grove last year, joined by Music Record Shop (4191A Manchester Avenue; 314-675-8675) — an independent vinyl, CD and cassette-tape shop — the following summer. The Demo features a live-music stage with a variety of performances several times a week, as well as a full bar that serves cocktails, draft beer and more. Once a week, the side-by-side businesses collaborate for a new-release happy hour, spinning new cuts and offering specials at the bar. During our visit, we caught some new tracks from Calexico and Tyler the Creator. See what new releases and giveaways await each week by following the new-release happy hour Facebook page. The Demo has just one food offering, but it’s one

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MABEL SUEN

Meet the Peppery Persona Behind Miss Leon’s

morning. Due to my gender mosaic I’m in menopause, and I have to take them every day, sometimes twice a day. If you could have any superpower, what would it be? The ability to run fast. I would love to be the Flash. What is the most positive trend in food, wine or cocktails that you’ve noticed in St. Louis over the past year? The rise in comfort/Southern/soul food. Who is your St. Louis food crush? Bryan Young of Catering Plus. Who’s the one person to watch right now in worth noting. Master Pieza — named the best thin-crust pizza in RFT’s Best of St. Louis 2014 — whips up a few different kinds of individual pies specifically for the business to serve hungry bargoers. Choose from straightforward go-to options including cheese and pepperoni, or opt for more adventurous combinations: pineapple jalapeño, meat lovers or mushroom black olive. In addition to draft beer and well drinks, the Demo features rotating cocktails on tap, plus freshly concocted specials. On-tap options include “the 86db Margarita” with Sauza Blanco tequila, triple sec, fresh lime juice, sugar and club soda, as well as the “Good Neighbor” with New Amsterdam vodka, lemonade, raspberry and strawberry. Set to the soundtrack of new tunes, the partnership between music-loving neighbors proves to be a fine-sounding pairing. The Hours: Every Tuesday from 3 until 7 p.m. or later. The Deals: $5 pizzas from Master Pieza. Half-price draft beer and well drinks. $2 off of cocktails on special — MABEL SUEN and cocktails on tap.

the St. Louis dining scene? Me. I’m not being self absorbed. I just believe in myself. Which ingredient is most representative of your personality? Crushed red pepper, because it is made from hot dried red peppers and is not made of one type of chile, but from various combinations of ancho, bell, cayenne and other dried red peppers. Much like myself. If someone asked you to describe the current state of St. Louis’ culinary climate, what would you say? I would say that it’s bursting at the seams with some great new comfort-food restaurants. It seems that fried chicken is making a resurgence. I think people are looking for food that reminds them of home and their childhood. Name an ingredient never allowed in your kitchen. Barilla pasta. What is your after-work hangout? My apartment. Because I spend so much time at work and in public, there is no place like home to unwind and relax. What’s your food or beverage guilty pleasure? Southern Comfort. What would be your last meal on earth? That’s easy! A classic wedge salad, smothered oxtails over buttered rice with fried cabbage, cornbread and an ice-cold Stella Artois. Dessert would be a shot of Southern Comfort. — CHERYL BAEHR Find hundreds of restaurant listings and reviews, as well as the latest in Gut Check, at riverfronttimes.com

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dining guide

many restaurant discussions begin and end with Tony’s, for very good reason. The Bommarito clan, which owns the restaurant, is positively fanatical about perfection in every aspect of the meal. EntrĂŠes are not particularly elaborate but are perfectly balanced. Lobster Albanello is considered something of a signature dish, but nowhere will you ďŹ nd a better veal chop. There is generally something available either on or off the menu to please any mood, including a layering of roasted fresh vegetables for the non-carnivore. Throughout the meal, patriarch Vince Bommarito wanders and schmoozes. $$$$

MAPLEWOOD The Dining Guide lists only restaurants recommended by RFT food critics. The print listings below rotate regularly, as space allows. Our complete Dining Guide is available online; view menus and search local restaurants by name or neighborhood. Price Guide (based on a three-course meal for one, excluding tax, tip and beverages): $ up to $15 per person $$ $15 - $25 $$$ $25 - $40 $$$$ more than $40

DOWNTOWN

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67 &+(52.(( 6 67 /28,6 02 21&2 &20 5 % / ( ,$ 5 ( 8 4 $ 7 : : : 34

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Death in the Afternoon 808 Chestnut Street; 314-6213236. Death in the Afternoon is a culinary oasis set in downtown’s idyllic Citygarden. The weekday lunch spot is the brainchild of Adam Frager and TJ Vytlacil of the members-only restaurant and bar Blood & Sand. Death in the Afternoon features impeccably presented soups, salads, sandwiches and snacks. From kimchi and pickled vegetables to housemade pastrami served on a pretzel, the menu offers something for everyone’s palate. The mahi mahi sandwich is spectacular: The fresh grilled ďŹ sh is so moist it’s as if it were poached. Served with Meyer lemon and dill aioli, pickles and fennel salad, it’s an excellent lunchtime treat. The restaurant’s signature entrĂŠe is the tonkotsu ramen, a bowl of mouthwatering pork broth teeming with housemade noodles, mushrooms, pork loin and belly, a soft-boiled egg and garnished with black garlic oil. It’s comfort in a bowl. And lest the kids romping in Citygardens’ fountains have all the fun, Death in the Afternoon serves a rotating selection of cotton candy for dessert. It’s a whimsical end to a perfect meal — a great way to kill an afternoon. $$-$$$ Eat-Rite Diner 622 Chouteau Avenue; 314-621-9621. “Eat Rite or Don’t Eat At All.â€? So it says on the coffee cups (and the souvenir T-shirts) at this no-frills 24-hour greasy spoon amid the industrial wasteland between downtown and Soulard. Folks come from miles around to ďŹ ll up on the breakfast-andburgers menu: bar-hoppers T H IS C O D E and club kids ďŹ nally coming TO DOWNLOAD THE FREE down from their late-nightRIVERFRONT TIMES into-early-morning highs; IPHONE/ANDROID APP factory workers and blueFOR MORE RESTAURANTS OR VISIT collars getting off graveyard riverfronttimes.com shifts; curious newcomers who’ve heard about the bizarro vibe that pervades these cramped counter-only environs. To call the food at Eat-Rite cheap is an understatement — six burgers (real-size, not White Castle-size) run $4.50. And many swear by the Eat-Rite’s redoubtable slinger (for the uninitiated, that’d be fried eggs, hash browns and a burger patty, avec chili). $ Maurizio’s Pizza & Pasta Bowl 220 S. Tucker Boulevard; 314-621-1997. Dives usually aren’t this spacious; there are enough tables and chairs set up in Maurizio’s to make it look like a cross between a sports bar and a corporate cafeteria. Dives also never boast menus this expansive: New York-style pizzas, strombolis, lasagna, manicotti, rib-eye steak, lemon chicken, pork steak, subs, burgers, salads and — the icing on the cake — tiramisu. And while getting tons of food at cheap prices is great and all, what makes Maurizio’s a don’t-miss is the late-night people-watching. Open till 3 a.m. seven days a week, Maurizio’s is the place to cap off a night of downtown debauchery — and to witness all walks of Lou life in their after-hours glory. $ Rooster 1104 Locust Street; 314-241-8118. This charming crĂŞperie brings a little bit of Paris to downtown. Savory crĂŞpes feature both the hearty (“German-styleâ€? sausages, bacon, roasted sirloin) and the delicate (brie with roasted apples, egg with Gruyère). Fans of owner Dave Bailey’s Lafayette Square hot spot Baileys’ Chocolate Bar won’t be surprised by the excellent sweet crĂŞpes, from a simple lemon one dusted with sugar to the indulgent “Peanut Butter Cup,â€? which is even richer than its namesake. The menu also features soups, salads and sandwiches, as well as Serendipity ice cream and Kaldi’s coffee. $ Tony’s 410 Market Street; 314-231-7007. In St. Louis,

SCAN

Bolyard’s Meat & Provisions 2810 Sutton Boulevard, Maplewood; 314-647-2567. On a typical day at Bolyard’s Meat & Provisions, chef Chris Bolyard wields a sharp boning knife from a trusty chain-link utility belt armed with additional tools of the trade. He skillfully breaks down a cut of grass-fed beef from Double B Ranch out of Perryville, one of the many local farms he sources for pasture-raised animals. Elsewhere in his new full-service butcher shop, his staff preps sausage, braunschweiger and stocks from scratch. $$-$$$ Piccadilly at Manhattan 7201 Piccadilly Avenue, Maplewood; 314-646-0016. The Collida family opened the original Piccadilly at Manhattan in the 1920s. Nick and Maggie Collida undertook a major renovation and reopened it in late 2007. The neighborhood spirit remains, friendly and familial, and the food is fun. The fried chicken is very good, and the burger might steal the show: a fat patty (or two), beautifully charred, thicker at the center than around the edges. If barbecue is available, splurge on a half or even a whole slab of meaty baby-back ribs. $-$$ A Pizza Story 7278 Manchester Road, Maplewood; 314899-0011. Huhammad Alwagheri, Sherif Nasser and Nael Saad didn’t set out to open a restaurant. The three Washington University academics just loved food. But at dinner parties, the conversation would quickly turn to: “What if we opened a restaurant?â€? The three ďŹ nally took the leap and opened A Pizza Story in downtown Maplewood. The Neapolitan-style pizzeria serves classic wood-ďŹ red pies, like the Margherita, which simply consists of perfectly charred crust, fresh tomato sauce, basil and mozzarella cheese. Heat-seeking meat eaters should try the “Thrillerâ€?: Its ďŹ ery capicola, spicy tomato sauce and caramelized onions make for a satisfying meal. Though the restaurant is called A Pizza Story, other menu offerings take a starring role: A salad of arugula and beets pairs perfectly with goat cheese and lemon vinaigrette. The two pastas, shells ragu and fettuccine all’amatriciana are lightly sauced and full of meat: The ragu is like beef stew over shell-shaped pasta, and the fettuccine is simply heaped with pancetta. Save room for the creamy tiramisu — one of the best versions in town — and housemade gelato. It’s a sweet end to a Neapolitan feast. $$

MIDTOWN The Dark Room 615 N Grand Boulevard; 314-531-3416. Shutterbugs and winos alike will delight in Grand Center’s Dark Room. Part art gallery and part bar, the Dark Room features monthly photography exhibits curated by the International Photography Hall of Fame alongside an artisan wine program highlighting a substantial selection by the glass or bottle. The minimal space features decorative vintage ďŹ lm equipment and clean, contemporary design. Small Batch Whiskey & Fare 3001 Locust Street; 314-380-2040. Restaurateur David Bailey takes the whiskey-bar trend in an unexpected direction with his vegetarian eatery, Small Batch. Bailey doesn’t bill the place as a crunchy vegetarian spot; instead, he hopes that diners will enjoy the vegetable-focused concept so much that they fail to miss the meat. The carbonara pasta, made with housemade linguine, replaces the richness of bacon with smoked mushrooms. Even the most die-hard carnivore will be satisďŹ ed by the “burger,â€? a greasy-spoon-style corn and black bean patty topped with creamy guacamole, Chihuahua cheese, and Bailey’s signature “Roosterâ€? sauce (tangy mayonnaise). Small Batch’s bourbon selection and creative cocktails are also impressive. The “Smokeysweet,â€? a blend of smoked cherries, rye and rhubarb, tastes like drinking punch by a campďŹ re. For a taste of summer in a glass, the “Rickeyâ€? is a bright concoction of elderower liquor, grapefruit, lime and white corn whiskey. The gorgeous, vintage setting provides an ideal spot to indulge in some Prohibition-erastyle drinking. $-$$ Triumph Grill 3419 Olive Street; 314-446-1801. Another addition to midtown’s suddenly teeming restaurant scene, the Triumph Grill is attached to the Moto Museum and named for the classic motorcycle. (Brando and Dean each owned one. So did Dylan.) The lengthy menu includes many of the dishes that spring to mind when you call a restaurant a “grillâ€? — wings, calamari and onion rings; nine different salads and more than a dozen sandwiches; steaks, pork chops, chicken breasts and salmon — but with occasional, unexpected touches from the cuisines of Japan, India and the American southwest. The dĂŠcor is contemporary-art gallery. When the place is crowded, though, the hubbub will make you think of a passing eet of Harleys. $$-$$$

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music

B-Sides 38 Critics’ Picks 40 Concerts 42 Clubs

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Re-Built to Spill DOUG MARTSCH PRESSES ON WITH A NEW LINEUP ON UNTETHERED MOON Built to Spill 8 p.m. Friday, May 22. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Avenue. 314-833-3929. $22 to $25.

oug Martsch and Built to Spill — his highdecibel, highly influential rock troupe — have been at this a while. Indie-rock standbys for almost 25 years, they’ve collaborated and shared bills with everyone from the band’s principal forerunner, Dinosaur Jr., to a number of well-known northwestern guitar acts the group has helped inspire, including Modest Mouse and Death Cab for Cutie. Despite seismic shifts in the music industry over the course of a long career, Martsch says his methodology remains largely unchanged. At age 45, BY his knee no longer tolerates JAMES any pre-show hooping at the local YMCA, but otherwise, KANE he’s still doing most of the advance work for his own tours and hustling around the country in a van, year after year. “The process is pretty much the same,” Martsch says from his home in Boise, Idaho. “As far as touring and playing places, I enjoy the kind of routine, playing everywhere we already played — in St. Louis and everywhere else, you know? Playing live is definitely the more immediately fun thing to do. The relationship with the audience — seeing their reactions to what you’re doing immediately — is very satisfying.” He contrasts the fast feedback and pace of tour life with the slow, punctuated equilibrium of studio recording. “The studio is pretty tedious, and it can be pretty stressful. But when something cool happens, it’s pretty exciting because it’s there forever,” he says. “That’s kind of what got me into music in the first place — recorded music, listening to the radio, these permanent records.” In those terms, Built to Spill’s newest permanent record is Untethered Moon, released on April 22. It’s the band’s eighth full-length — its first in six years, and its first without the long-reigning rhythm section of Brett Nelson (bass) and Scott Plouf (drums), who had been with the group since its early days in the mid’90s. The two left in 2012, citing tour burnout,

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Doug Martsch .

“Playing live is definitely the more immediately fun thing to do. The audience — seeing their reactions to what you’re doing immediately — is very satisfying.” though not before recording a handful of tracks that would eventually be incorporated into the new album. “We actually had recorded half the songs on this record in 2012, right before those guys quit. I bagged it and kind of reworked that

stuff,” Martsch says. Plouf and Nelson retired mid-tour, but within weeks a new live lineup was back on the road, re-Built to Spill. Old friends of the band Jason Albertini and Steve Gere were no-brainer picks as replacements, Martsch says. “These guys have been part of our crew for a long time. They know what we’re all about,” he explains. “They understand what my music is as much as I do — and I don’t know how much that is, but it was really easy. Kind of a dream fit. If there are only two people that could replace Scott and Brett, it’s these guys. “They’re both multi-instrumentalists,” he adds, “so we decided Steve would play drums and Jason would play bass, and that was that.” The group took its time writing and rehearsing the new songs, methodically working through Martsch’s chord progressions and instrumental demos over months on the road and in the practice space. “We had tons and tons of rehearsing,” Martsch says. “I brought a lot of things into rehearsal, lots of demos, lots of recordings, lots riverfronttimes.com

of trying out different parts with other parts. Sometimes I just bring a part and we just jam on this chord progression for twenty minutes until maybe something interesting happens. Or nothing happens, and we get it out of our system.” They eventually holed up in the Portland, Oregon, studio of frequent producer and collaborator Sam Coomes for the better part of a year, editing and re-editing tracks. By this time Martsch and his new bandmates had become a well-oiled machine. “They were completely confident and knocked the stuff out, and played with a lot of passion,” Martsch says. “The rhythm section knew exactly what to do. I knew pretty much what to do with all the rhythm guitars and some of the leads. Then there was a little bit of messing around in the studio to kind of put the finishing touches on.” Martsch and Co. would ultimately produce ten songs that build upon the group’s signature sound without straying too far from it. Gere’s acrobatic drum fills continued on page 38

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b-sides continued from page 37

stand out on every tune while Albertini’s effortless low end holds tight to the pocket. Martsch’s vocals, nasal in timbre as ever, are more upfront in the mix and more fullthroated — an impressive feat, given the potential wear inflicted on those pipes over the years. There are meta, self-referential lyrics throughout. “Living Zoo” sounds like a musical metaphor for band life, and on “All Our Songs,” Martsch reaffirms his commitment to and faith in his craft: “All night we listened to their second record/It had all these songs, sounded like we’re in this together/And I found a place where I know I’ll always be tethered/And I knew when I woke up/Rock & roll will be here forever.” It’s a nice sentiment, but after a long career in a notoriously difficult industry, Martsch insists he’s no idealist. “Oh, I’m cynical,” he laughs. “I talk shit about a lot of stuff.” And he expresses some wariness toward the media. “Well, I have mixed feelings. The first few times you do interviews, it’s super fun. You get to talk about yourself and all that. But you do it for a lot of years — it’s something I don’t look forward to. I often get off the phone and I’m like, ‘I can’t believe I just said that; that is so stupid.’ It’s a little bit difficult,” he explains. “I often try to make up something new to answer the same questions and I find myself thinking, ‘That’s not even true! I don’t know why I even said that!’” And even for veterans of the live circuit, he says, things don’t come together perfectly each and every night. “Playing live is really fun, but sometimes playing live can be kind of a drag,” he says. “It doesn’t sound very good onstage and you just have to use your imagination — like, it probably sounds good out there, even though up here I can only hear my guitar and I can’t really hear my vocals at all.” As its members set out upon yet another touring cycle, what’s next for a band that has already accomplished so much? “Maybe I have my heart set on trying to make a couple more records. But I feel like I don’t really have my heart set on anything,” he says. “I feel like we’ve always been a band that had the freedom to do what we wanted. The record label let us do whatever we wanted; the fans let us do whatever we wanted. Whatever we can come up with, we’ve been able to do it, as far as music goes. It’s been really nice — a lucky experience.” Q

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A New Bar for Cherokee

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he space on Cherokee Street that previously housed the Livery Company is getting a new tenant — a neighborhood bar called Johnnie Walker’s San Loo that hopes to open up in as early as a week. The space, at 3211 Cherokee just east of Gravois, includes a sizable patio, which its new owners want to use for a beer garden in the summer. They’ve applied for a full license allowing wine, beer and liquor, and also intend to host live music. The bar is a project from three friends. John Walker Eckles, who gave the concept his first and middle name, says he’s known both Mike Cuneio and Jon Coriell forever and brought them together for this project. They all have bar experience, but this is their first attempt at ownership. The Livery Company, which opened in the space in 2012, recently moved two doors to the west into the old Radio Cherokee space at 3227 Cherokee. That provided a great opportunity, Eckles says. “We happened to discover the space, and it was perfect,” he says. Part of the appeal was the look of the place — the long bar, the tin ceiling, that big outdoor area, even a small stage for music. Another key was the location. Coriell grew up in the neighborhood. And while Eckles was born in Fenton, his family also hails from the surrounding streets, with their familial homestead at Spring and Gravois. They intend for the venture to be a true

SARAH FENSKE

Built to Spill

bar — they’ll offer plenty of menus from neighborhood restaurants, but no food of their own. And it won’t be fancy mixology so much as good drinks, Eckles says. “It’s going to be a neighborhood-type place,” he says. A musician, Coriell plays with Wolfpussy, has been a member of Reverend Whiskey Richard and the Holy Smokes, and also performs solo as Johnny Gun. He hopes to book a variety of music acts. “Country, folk, punk rock, blues — everything’s welcome,” he says. One plan involves hosting smaller

The space at 3211 Cherokee Street.

national touring punk bands, as well as a local event that used to regularly happen on Wednesdays and needs a new home. (He declined to give more specifics on that front, saying some readers would be able to guess.) “We’re not going to go crazy with it, but we will have shows,” Coriell says, suggesting that live bands will perform at least two nights a week within the space. — SARAH FENSKE

HOMESPUN

WITCH DOCTOR Witch Doctor witchdoctor4.bandcamp.com

Witch Doctor CD Release Show 9 p.m. Friday, May 15. Utopia Studios, 3957 Park Avenue. $7. 314-773-3660.

It’s one thing to call someone a Rock & Roll Lifer — and depending on how well the leather jacket fits, it can be a term of respect or derision — but Pat Oldani has earned the title of Rock & Roll Survivor, and not just because he’s been leading hard-charging rock bands for more than fifteen years. A Stage IV cancer diagnosis in January of 2013 kept Oldani out of the spotlight for some time, but in between rounds of maintenance chemotherapy, he is now back in front of the microphone. In a 2000 Riverfront Times article written by long-time St. Louis music writer Jordan Oakes, Oldani is described as promoting his then-current gig Starnineteen “with the charisma of a medicine man.” Perhaps Oldani took that blurb to heart; his latest outing, Witch Doctor, is named for a different kind of shaman, but his adherence to the hoodoo-voodoo of hard rock has lost none of its zeal. Oldani most recently fronted the short-lived cock-rock combo Noisy Boyz under

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the name Calvin Flash, and here he goes by the similarly spangled handle Paddy Lee Bling. Whatever the stage name, Oldani’s voice has a sweet snarl befitting his band’s hair-metal aspirations. In a town where the concept of the “KSHE Klassic” is a revered art form, few original bands hew closely to the station’s “real rock” format without diluting it with irony or hipster affectation. Chris Walker, formerly of Head On Collision, writes crunchy guitar leads that can delve into EVH-esque finger-taps, while former LoFreq drummer Ted Magos is solid, no-nonsense beat keeper. There’s certainly an element of campy peacocking in Witch Doctor’s approach — both leather pants and face paint are featured in the band’s press photos — and the songs don’t always hold up to scrutiny. Much of the self-titled debut album is referential, from the riffs to the themes to the delivery, and a whiff of ’80s-era debauchery permeates these eight tracks. You’ll hear little deviation from the formula on the album, but Oldani and company’s conviction in the power of this music is hard to deny. —CHRISTIAN SCHAEFFER Want your CD to be considered for a review in this space? Send music c/o Riverfront Times, Attn: Homespun, 6358 Delmar Boulevard, Suite 200, St. Louis, Missouri, 63130. Email music@riverfronttimes.com for more information.

T R I V I A , E V E RY N IG H T O F T H E WO R K W E E K

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or St. Louisans dismayed at the season break of their favorite television shows and the ennui that traditionally accompanies it, some other brand of affordable evening entertainment is clearly in order. Luckily, our fair city is awash in opportunities to show off all that otherwise useless knowledge crowding up your cranium. So here’s a (not-exhaustive) list of where to let it out, every night of the workweek. — NICK HORN

SUNDAY

Llywelyn’s Pub–Soulard (1732 Ninth Street; 314-436-3255)

Scottish Arms (8 S Sarah Street; 314-5350551) Stacked STL (7637 Ivory; 314-544-4900) Tom’s Bar and Grill (20 S Euclid Avenue; 314-367-4900) Van Goghz Martini Bar & Bistro (3200 Shenandoah Avenue; 314-865-3345)

MONDAY

WEDNESDAY

The weekend’s drawing to a close, but you need to steel yourself for the days ahead.

Monday’s one of the best nights to find some trivia around town. Gather up a few of your smartest friends and prepare to win a few free drinks at one of these trivia nights. Anheuser-Busch Biergarten (12th and Lynch Street; 314-577-2626) Blue Sky Tower Grill (1034 S Brentwood Boulevard, Richmond Heights; 314-726-2583) The Crow’s Nest (7336 Manchester Road, Maplewood; 314-781-0989) Harry’s (2144 Market Street; 314-421-6969) Helen Fitzgerald’s (3650 S Lindbergh Boulevard, Sunset Hills; 314-984-0026) Highway 61 Roadhouse and Kitchen (34 S Old Orchard Avenue, Webster Groves; 314968-0061) Joey B’s on the Hill (2524 Hampton Avenue; 314-645-7300) O’Leary’s Restaurant and Pub (3828 South Lindbergh Boulevard #118, Sunset Hills; 314842-7678) The Shaved Duck (2900 Virginia Avenue; 314-776-1407) Syberg’s Gravois (7802 Gravois Road; 314832-3560) West End Grill and Pub (354 N Boyle Avenue; 314-531-4607) The Wood (2733 Sutton Boulevard, Maplewood; 314-781-4607)

TUESDAY

Tuesdays are also rife with opportunities to show off your wealth of frivolous knowledge. The Dubliner (1025 Washington Avenue; 314421-4300) Felix’s (6401 Clayton Avenue; 314-645-6565) The Heavy Anchor (5226 Gravois Avenue; 314-352-5226) Humphrey’s (3700 Laclede Avenue; 314-5350700) International Tap House–Soulard (1711 S Ninth Street; 314-621-4333) The Mack (4615 Macklind Avenue; 314-8328199) Nellie Glenn’s (6109 Gravois Avenue; 314457-8766) Meyer’s Grove (4510 Manchester Avenue; 314-932-7003)

Fun fact: Humpday’s the biggest trivia night of the week in St. Louis. Amsterdam Tavern (3175 Morgan Ford Road; 314-772-8224) CBGB (3163 S Grand Boulevard; 314-7763756) The Gramophone (4243 Manchester Avenue; 314-531-5700) Great Grizzly Bear (1027 Geyer Avenue; 314231-0444) Halo Bar (6161 Delmar Boulevard; 314-7266161) Llywelyn’s Pub–Central West End (4747 McPherson Avenue; 314-361-3003) Market Pub House (6655 Delmar Boulevard, University City; 314-727-8880) Mike Duffy’s (6662 Clayton Road, Richmond Heights; 314-644-3700) Morgan Street Brewery (721 N Second Street; 314-231-9970) O’Shay’s Pub (4353 Manchester Avenue; 314-932-5232) Pepper’s Grill & Bar (5452 Gravois Avenue; 314-352-9909) The Post Sports Bar & Grill (7372 Manchester Road, Maplewood; 314-645-1109) SOHA Bar and Grill (2605 Hampton Avenue; 314-802-7877) Southtown Pub (3707 S Kingshighway Boulevard; 314-832-9009) Trueman’s Place (1818 Sidney Street; 314865-5900) Three Monkeys (3153 Morgan Ford Road; 314-772-9800)

THURSDAY

The weekend’s nigh, but here are a few places to play some tipsy trivia and hold you over. Anthonino’s Taverna (2225 Macklind Avenue; 314-773-4455) Capitalist Pig (2727 S 12th Street; 314-7721180) HandleBar (4127 Manchester Avenue; 314652-2212) International Tap House – Central West End (16 S Euclid Avenue; 314-367-4827) Tower Pub (3234 Morgan Ford Road; 314771-7979) riverfronttimes.com

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SHERVIN LAINEZ

critics’ picks

SAN FERMIN

8 p.m. Thursday, May 14. The Luminary, 2701 Cherokee Street. $14. 314-807-5984. If you fell under the sway of the symphonic, cinematic pop of San Fermin’s self-titled debut, you’ll certainly find much to love on the octet’s new LP, Jackrabbit. But rather than plot another suite of songs that take an intoxicating (if somewhat languorous) look at love and self-doubt, songwriter and composer Ellis Ludwig-Leone has turbocharged his outfit, pumping synth, strings and skronky sax up front. Allen Tate still handles the male vocal parts with a fragile baritone, while newcomer Charlene Kaye displays a pop-star sheen on her songs. This Too Shall Prass: Natalie Prass, a former member of Jenny Lewis’ band, will open the show with songs from her debut, self-titled LP. —CHRISTIAN SCHAEFFER

JUDAS PRIEST

7:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 19. Family Arena, 2002 Arena Parkway. $33 to $83. 636-896-4200. This should really go without saying, but we’ll say it anyway: You should go see Judas Priest, you idiot. Apologies for the adversarial tone, but come on — this one is a no-brainer. Oh, sorry, you thought Priest was past its prime? A forgotten relic of a bygone era? Kindly cram the band’s 2010 Grammy win for “Best Metal Performance” right up that thought-hole of yours, will you? Make sure you leave room for 2008’s Nostradamus — the group’s highest-charting album of its entire career — and last year’s Redeemer of Souls as well. Washed up? Man, sometimes you can be really dense. And the Bands Played On: You’d be forgiven for writing off Saxon, considering its best output was indeed released decades ago. Just know that the band’s name still carries considerable weight in its UK homeland, and don’t forget about Denim and Leather, OK? —DANIEL HILL 40

RIVERFRONT TIMES

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riverfronttimes.com

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS

9 p.m. Saturday, May 16. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Boulevard. $25 to $32. 314-726-6161. Stop what you are doing right now, pull out your phone and call the following number: 844-387-6962. Like what you hear? Welcome to They Might Be Giants’ relaunched “Dial-A-Song” service, where each week you can listen to a brand-new TMBG track. John Flansburgh and John Linnell first launched the quirky experiment in 1983, placing a mysterious ad in the back of New York’s Village Voice and recording songs as the outgoing message of their home answering machine. The old number was active through 2006, pumping hundreds of free tunes into the ears of eager fans in an age before MP3 downloads ruled the industry. This January the band revived the effort, and it remains just as silly and fun as ever. Arrive On Time: There will be no opening acts on this show, so if you don’t want to miss the start of the set, make sure you are in the building by 9 p.m. sharp. You’ve been warned. —DANIEL HILL

J O E E LY

9 p.m. Wednesday, May 20. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue. $25. 314-773-3363. In the beginning, Joe Ely was there. He was the guy who picked up a hitchhiking Townes Van Zandt and heard the legend’s debut masterpiece for the first time. The Flatlanders, a band he founded with Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock, may not have been the Big Bang of cosmic country, but, like the Velvet Underground before them, inspirred everyone who heard its music to pick up a guitar (or try to). The Amarillo, Texas, native went on to tour with the Clash and has created an enduring, Latininfluenced form of country-rock music, which should be recognized as a greater influence on alternative-country and Americana than it is. He’s major, and he’s still riveting. Rediscovered with Ronstadt: Last year, Ely released “Where Is My Love,” a duet with Linda Ronstadt recorded in 1987, long thought to be lost. —ROY KASTEN

D E N N Y R E N S H AW

Clockwise from the top: They Might Be Giants. San Fermin. Joe Ely.

A L L P H OTO S B Y S T E V E T R U E S D E L L

kdhx midwest mayhem

O

nce again, Midwest Mayhem took over the City Museum to raise some cash for the good people at KDHX (88.1 FM). The event brought a dozen bands (and burlesque!) to ďŹ ve stages on Thursday, May 7, and photographer Steve Truesdell captured some of the madness. See the rest at riverfronttimes.com/slideshow.

MAY 15

the Bayou Swamp Band

10PM

MAY 16

Dirty Bourbon River from New Orleans

10PM

MAY 28

Davis Rogan from New Orleans

9PM

JUNE 12

Andy Frasco and the UN

10PM

JUNE 17

Paul Sanchez and Minimum Rage from New Orleans

9PM

Chubby Carrier and

MAY 22 & 23 Crawfish Fesitval and Boil 736 S Broadway St. Louis, MO 63102 (314) 621-8811 riverfronttimes.com

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concerts THIS JUST IN Anthony Raneri: W/ What's Eating Gilbert, Allison Weiss, Sat., July 25, 8 p.m., $13-$16. The Demo, 4191 Manchester Ave, St. Louis. As Earth Shatters: W/ Along Came Tragedy, Pick Your Poison, Thu., May 28, 6 p.m., $12. Pop's Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. B Side Players: W/ the Plywood Inspectors, Mon., May 25, 8 p.m., $10. The Demo, 4191 Manchester Ave, St. Louis. Big Smo: W/ Haden Carpenter, DJ Orig, Sat., June 27, 6 p.m., $20. Pop's Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. Bill O'Reilly and Dennis Miller: Fri., Oct. 23, 7:30 p.m., $55-$125. Peabody Opera House, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-241-1888. BitchWizard: W/ Hell Night, Ashes And Iron, Sun., July 12, 8 p.m., $8. The Demo, 4191 Manchester Ave, St. Louis. Captains Courageous CD Release: W/ Kids in Color, Decedy, the Weekend Routine, Alt Road, Fri., July 31, 6 p.m., $8-$10. Cicero's, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009. Ces Cru: Sun., July 26, 7 p.m., $15. The Demo, 4191 Manchester Ave, St. Louis. Chapters: W/ Wolf Nativ, Make Room, Stevie, Thu., June 25, 7 p.m., $7. Cicero's, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009. The Conformists: W/ Yowie, Maximum Effort, Fri., June 19, 9 p.m., Free. Schlafly Tap Room, 2100 Locust St., St. Louis, 314-241-2337. Dawn Patrol: W/ Mother Meat, Tropical Storm!, Sat., July 18, 8 p.m., $8. The Demo, 4191 Manchester Ave, St. Louis. Disastronaut: W/ Fumer, Planet Eater, ((ZXEL)), Thu., July 2, 8 p.m., $8. The Demo, 4191 Manchester Ave, St. Louis. Discrepancies: W/ the Few, Inner Outlines, Ky & the Yodees, Stevie, Thu., June 4, 6:30 p.m., $5-$10. Cicero's, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009. El Monstero: A Tribute to Pink Floyd: Sat., Aug. 8, 6 p.m., $20-$45. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944. Elle King: Mon., June 15, 8 p.m., $15-$17. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. The Former Me: W/ Equal Squeeze, the Weekend Routine, Echoes & Icons, Fairway, Inner Outlines, Fri., June 12, 6 p.m., $8-$10. Cicero's, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009. Fred Lonberg-Holm: W/ Ghost Ice vs. Dave Stone, Vernacular String Trio, Sat., June 27, 9 p.m., Free. Schlafly Tap Room, 2100 Locust St., St. Louis, 314-241-2337. Gary Schoenberger: Sat., June 6, 8 p.m., Free. Cicero's, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009. Genevieve: W/ Marie and the Americans, Adartis, Sat., May 16, 9 p.m., Free. Schlafly Tap Room, 2100 Locust St., St. Louis, 314-241-2337. GGM: W/ J3, Bizzy Production, Kingston O'Nasty, Wally Kuhlenberg, Meech & Driz, Young Ace, Red Famous, Fri., June 5, 8 p.m., $6-$8. Pop's Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. Ghost Ice: W/ Louis Wall, Trancers, Thu., May 21, 9 p.m., Free. Schlafly Tap Room, 2100 Locust St., 314-241-2337. Gwar: W/ Butcher Babies, Battlecross, Thorhammer, Fri., Sept. 11, 7 p.m., $18-$20. Pop's Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. Hands and Feet: W/ Centipede, Subtle Aggression Monopoly, Thu., June 25, 9 p.m., Free. Schlafly Tap Room, 2100 Locust St., St. Louis, 314-241-2337. Hinder: W/ Full Devil Jacket, Sat., June 13, 7 p.m., $18-$20. Pop's Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618274-6720. The Hollow End: W/ the Leonas, the Defeated County, Fri., June 12, 9 p.m., Free. Schlafly Tap Room, 2100 Locust St., St. Louis, 314-241-2337. IDYLLZ: W/ F1E, Dre Cannon, Keith Spadez, J.Hop, Skoota and Star, Sat., May 23, 8 p.m., $15. Cicero's, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009. Ink Spot Block Party Showcase #3: W/ Fivefold, Ashland, Apollo's Daughter, Taller than Trees, City of Parks, Angelhead, Fri., July 24, 6 p.m., $7. Pop's Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. Ink Spot Block Party Showcase #1: W/ Inimical Drive, Monster Eats Manhattan, Midnight Hour, Discrepancies, Revolution Broadcast, Isabella, Sky Burnt White, Sat., May 16, 6 p.m., $7. Pop's Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. Ink Spot Block Party Showcase #2: W/ Facing Infamy, Nothing Set in Stone, Hung Like a Martyr, New Lingo, KY and the Yodees, Fri., June 19, 6 p.m., $7. Pop's Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720.

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riverfronttimes.com

Jake's Leg: Fri., June 5, 8 p.m., $7. Cicero's, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009. JBOMB: W/ TYMA, Apollo, Jake Guidry, Fri., May 29, 8 p.m., $6-$8. Cicero's, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314862-0009. Joe Nichols: Thu., July 9, 8 p.m., $27.50-$30. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. Kristeen Young: W/ FEA, Tue., July 14, 8 p.m., $10. The Demo, 4191 Manchester Ave, St. Louis. The Lonely Biscuits: Sat., Aug. 22, 9 p.m., $10-$12. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363. Midwest Avengers: W/ Hollow Point Heros, Illphonics, Blank Generation, Beast Mode, RC Fonzarelli, Sat., June 13, 8 p.m., $10. Cicero's, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009. Moon Hooch: W/ Tangents, Wed., May 20, 7 p.m., $14. 2720 Cherokee Performing Arts Center, 2720 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314-276-2700. M.O.P.: Thu., June 25, 8 p.m., $20. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353. The Nearly Deads: W/ Mental Fixation, Shock the Junkie, Which Way, Pure October, Crazy XXX Girlfriend, Wed., May 20, 6 p.m., $10-$14. Pop's Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. Nick Barbieri Record Release: W/ Poetry Scores, Dug Out Canoe, Sat., May 30, 9 p.m., Free. Schlafly Tap Room, 2100 Locust St., St. Louis, 314-241-2337. NyCe Mixtape Release: W/ Asia Major, Wan Maan, Shotta G, Broderick, DJ Pharaoh, Sat., May 30, 8 p.m., $10. Cicero's, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009. Particle: W/ Lusid, Tue., June 9, 9 p.m., $15. 2720 Cherokee Performing Arts Center, 2720 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314276-2700. P.R.E.A.C.H.: W/ Sawblade, P.O.W., Beast Mode, ZEUS, Mark Bone, Uno Joven, Yearty Gee, Jarod, Stogie La Russa, Freakz R Us, the Filthee Benjaminz, Kurosive, Fri., May 29, 7 p.m., Free. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. Raekwon and Ghostface Killah: Sat., July 11, 8 p.m., $26$30. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis. The Revivalists: Wed., June 17, 8 p.m., $12-$15. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. Ringo Deathstarr: W/ Bantam Foxes, Thu., July 16, 8 p.m., $12-$14. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-5350353. Rob Bell: Sat., Aug. 1, 8 p.m., $25-$100. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. Rome Fortune: Sat., July 11, 8 p.m., $12-$15. The Demo, 4191 Manchester Ave, St. Louis. Shapes and Colors: W/ Foreverandnever, Get At Me, the Cinema Story, Tue., June 2, 7 p.m., $8-$10. Cicero's, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009. Shivery Shakes: W/ Moon Glampers, the Vanilla Beans, Kid Scientist, Sun., May 17, 8 p.m., $8. The Demo, 4191 Manchester Ave, St. Louis. S.L.U.M. Fest 2015: Sat., June 27, 1 p.m., $10-$13. 2720 Cherokee Performing Arts Center, 2720 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314-276-2700. The Sorry People: W/ Green Harper, Vaudevileins, Fri., May 22, 9 p.m., Free. Schlafly Tap Room, 2100 Locust St., St. Louis, 314-241-2337. SriKaloGY: Sat., May 30, 10 p.m., $10. 2720 Cherokee Performing Arts Center, 2720 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314276-2700. Summer Block Party: W/ Jill Scott, Common, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Thu., July 9, 5 p.m., TBA. Peabody Opera House, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-241-1888. Superfun Yeah Yeah Rocketship: W/ Miss Massive Snowflake, Vanilla Beans, Fri., May 29, 9 p.m., Free. Schlafly Tap Room, 2100 Locust St., St. Louis, 314-241-2337. The Tallest Man on Earth: Wed., July 29, 8 p.m., $25. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. The Riverside Wanderers: W/ the Warbuckles, the Deer Run Drifters, Sat., May 23, 9 p.m., Free. Schlafly Tap Room, 2100 Locust St., St. Louis, 314-241-2337. TKO Low Dose: W/ Looprat, Sol Asar, J-Shipp, Mo$ High, Prime, Sat., June 20, 8 p.m., $5-$7. Cicero's, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009. The Tory Starbuck Project: W/ Kevin Harris, Dave Stone, Thu., May 28, 9 p.m., Free. Schlafly Tap Room, 2100 Locust St., St. Louis, 314-241-2337. Tyler Barham: W/ Matt Jordan, Tyler Filmore, Thu., May 28, 7 p.m., $10. Cicero's, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009. Unwelcome Guests: W/ Breakmouth Annie, 30 Helens Agree, Fri., May 15, 9 p.m., $7. The Demo, 4191 Manchester Ave, St. Louis. The Wandering Trails: Thu., June 11, 8 p.m., Free. Cicero's, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009. Wild and Blue: A Tribute to Anne Tkach: W/ Fred Friction, the Skekses, Peck of Dirt, Ransom Note, the Good Griefs, Rough Shop, Hazeldine, Magic City, Fri., July 10, 8 p.m., $10-$20. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314773-3363. The Wilderness: W/ Andy Cook, Brother Lee & the Leather Jackals, Thu., June 11, 9 p.m., Free. Schlafly Tap Room, 2100 Locust St., St. Louis, 314-241-2337. Woody Pines: Sat., June 6, 9 p.m., $10. The Demo, 4191 Manchester Ave, St. Louis. Zach Deputy: W/ Aaron Kamm & the One Drops, Tue., June 9, 8 p.m., $10-$12. Cicero's, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009. Zolopht: W/ A Brighter Side, Thu., July 23, 8 p.m., $8. Cicero's, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009.

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24/7 PeacockLoopDiner.com

6191 Delmar · 314-727-5555 PinUpBowl.com

6261 Delmar in The Loop

"YOUR #1 CHOICE SINCE 1994!"

riverfronttimes.com

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clubs ROCK 2720 Cherokee Performing Arts Center: 2720 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314-276-2700. Moon Hooch, w/ Tangents, Wed., May 20, 7 p.m., $14. Blumenhof Vineyards: Highway 94, P.O. Box 30, Dutzow, 800-419-2245. Rick Curtright, Fri., May 15, 4 p.m., free. Steve Leslie, Sat., May 16, 2 p.m., free. Paydirt, Sun., May 17, 2 p.m., free. Cicero's: 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009. Macabre Messenger, Fri., May 15, 8 p.m., $10. The Weekend Classic, w/ Foreverandnever, Tue., May 19, 6:30 p.m., $10. The Demo: 4191 Manchester Ave, St. Louis. Quiet Company, w/ The Rocketboys, Thu., May 14, 7:30 p.m., $12. Marc Martel, Wed., May 20, 7:30 p.m., TBA. The Firebird: 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353. The Damnwells, Thu., May 14, 8 p.m., $15. Jeff Radford, w/ Hazard to Ya Booty, Chris Nathan, Fri., May 15, 8 p.m., $10. Tremonti, w/ Man the Mighty, Sun., May 17, 8 p.m., $22$25. Fidlar, w/ Metz, Tue., May 19, 7:30 p.m., $15/$17. Foam Coffee & Beer: 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314772-2100. Ferver Verve, Fri., May 15, 8 p.m., $5; The Fog Lights, w/ Frontal Lobe, Defeated County, Fri., May 15, 9 p.m., $5. 521 Briar, w/ Ryan M, Sun., May 17, 8 p.m., $5. The Fox Theatre: 527 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-5341111. Jeff Beck, Tue., May 19, 8 p.m., $49-$129. Halo Bar: 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-1414. Other People, Sat., May 16, 11 p.m., Free. Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center: 3301 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-771-1096. WaterMeDown, w/ LifeWithout, Einsam, Fri., May 15, 8 p.m., $5. Chipper Jones, w/ Corduroi, Mike Brown, Sat., May 16, 8 p.m., $5. Viking Moses, w/ Jesse Edmister, Sun., May 17, 8 p.m., $5. The Luminary: 2701 Cherokee St, St. Louis. San Fermin, w/ Natalie Prass, Thu., May 14, 9 p.m., $12-$14. Sam Prekop of the Sea and Cake, Tue., May 19, 9 p.m., $13-$15. Off Broadway: 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363. Powder Mill, w/ Matt Poss, Sat., May 16, 9 p.m., $10; Powder Mill, w/ Matt Poss, Sat., May 16, 9 p.m., $10. Merchandise, w/ Bug Chaser, Maximum Effort, Mon., May 18, 8 p.m., $8. Other Lives, w/ Riothorse Royale, Tue., May 19, 8:30 p.m., $15. Old Rock House: 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. Candlebox, Tue., May 19, 8 p.m., $15-$25. Dopapod, w/ Twiddle, Wed., May 20, 9 p.m., $12-$15. The Pageant: 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. All Time Low, Thu., May 14, 6 p.m., $27.50/$30. They Might Be Giants, Sat., May 16, 9 p.m., $25-$32. Scott Weiland and the Wildabouts, Mon., May 18, 8 p.m., $25-$29.50. Halestorm, Wed., May 20, 7:30 p.m., $29.99/$32.50. Pop's Nightclub: 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618274-6720. Ink Spot Block Party Showcase #1, w/ Inimical Drive, Monster Eats Manhattan, Midnight Hour, Discrepancies, Revolution Broadcast, Isabella, Sky Burnt White, Sat., May 16, 6 p.m., $7. The Nearly Deads, w/ Mental Fixation, Shock the Junkie, Which Way, Pure October, Crazy XXX Girlfriend, Wed., May 20, 6 p.m., $10-$14. The Ready Room: 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis. Sensory, Thu., May 14, 8 p.m., $15-$20. Scottrade Center: 1401 Clark Ave., St. Louis, 314-241-1888. Rush 40th Anniversary Tour, Thu., May 14, 7:30 p.m., TBA.

PHOTOGRAPHER: TODD OWYOUNG BAND: SLEEPY KITTY

FIND ANY SHOW IN TOWN...

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R

POP The Demo: 4191 Manchester Ave, St. Louis. Shivery Shakes, w/ Moon Glampers, the Vanilla Beans, Kid Scientist, Sun., May 17, 8 p.m., $8. The Ready Room: 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis. IM5, w/ Austin Jones, Bailey McConnell, The Weekend Riot, The House on Cliff, Fri., May 15, 6:30 p.m., $20.

With our new and improved concert calendar! RFT’s online music listings are now sortable by artist, venue and price. You can even buy tickets directly from our website—with more options on the way!

www.riverfronttimes.com/concerts/

RIVERFRONT TIMES

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riverfronttimes.com

BLUES Ameristar Casino-Bottleneck Blues Bar: 1 Ameristar Blvd., St. Charles, 636-940-4966. Mike Zito, Fri., May 15, 9:30 p.m., $15. BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups: 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. Rocky Mantia Group, Thu., May 14, 7 p.m.; Sun., May 24, 4 p.m., $5; Love Jones "The Band," Thu., May 14, 10 p.m.; Sat., May 16, 10 p.m.; Thu., May 21, 10 p.m., $5. Leroy Jodie Pierson, Fri., May 15, 7 p.m.; Fri., May 22, 7 p.m.; Fri., May 29, 7 p.m., $5; Mississippi Fever Blues Band, Fri., May 15, 10 p.m., $5. Patti & the Hitmen, Sat., May 16, 3 p.m., Free; Tom Hall, Sat., May 16, 7 p.m., $5. Bob "Bumblebee" Kamoske & Mighty Mike Graham, Sun., May 17, 8 p.m.; Sun., May 24, 8 p.m., $5. Blind Willie & the Broadway Collective, Mon., May 18, 8 p.m., $5. Tom Hall & Ethan Leinwand, Tue., May 19, 7 p.m., $5; St. Louis Social

Club, Tue., May 19, 9 p.m., $5. Big Rich & the Rhythm Renegades, Wed., May 20, 7 p.m.; Wed., May 27, 9:30 p.m., $5; Third Sight Band, Wed., May 20, 7 p.m., $5. Beale on Broadway: 701 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-6217880. Bob "Bumble Bee" Kamoske, Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Off Broadway: 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363. Jesse Lafser, w/ Becca Mancari, Thu., May 14, 8 p.m., $10.

HIP-HOP The Firebird: 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353. Project Underground 2, w/ Riley B., Indiana Rome, Alkilah Jae, Louis Conphliction, the Domino Effect, JSkillz, Tank the Machine, Attitude, Sat., May 16, 9 p.m., $10. STL Hip-Hop Showcase, w/ Notorious Prime, Savon, OG Breezy, Jewleyy B, E.T. Alex, Sun., May 17, 7 p.m., $7-$10. Fubar: 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. Coast 2 Coast Live, Fri., May 15, 9 p.m., $10. Nate the Great, w/ Clay L, Jo Ary, Big Dude RoseGoldman, Chan-E Chain, Chezboi, SkareKrow, Scott, N.P.Y., Sun., May 17, 8 p.m., $10. The Mad Magician: 5625 Manchester Ave., St. Louis, 314875-0644. Big Gipp, w/ Murphy Lee, Sat., May 16, 9 p.m., $15-$20. The Pageant: 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. Atmosphere, w/ B Dolan, Dem Atlas, DJ Adatrak, Fri., May 15, 8 p.m., $25-$27.50.

EDM The Firebird: 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353. Filibusta, Wed., May 20, 7 p.m., $15-$17. Gateway Motorsports Park: 700 Raceway Blvd., Madison, 618-215-8888. Color Fun Fest, Sat., May 16, 2 p.m., $20-$60.

E X P E R I M E N TA L Foam Coffee & Beer: 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314772-2100. Ex Oh Ex, w/ Hands and Feet, Heel Turn, Thu., May 14, 8 p.m., $5. Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center: 3301 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-771-1096. Burning Palms, w/ SeaKings, Polar, Thu., May 14, 8 p.m., $5.

INDIE ROCK The Heavy Anchor: 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-3525226. Scarlet Tanager, w/ Typhoon Jackson, Major Cities, Thu., May 14, 9 p.m., free. Off Broadway: 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363. Jon Hardy and the Public, w/ Minor Character, Fri., May 15, 9 p.m., $10. The Ready Room: 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis. Jenny Lewis, Sun., May 17, 8 p.m., $22-$25.

M E TA L Family Arena: 2002 Arena Parkway, St Charles, 636-8964200. Judas Priest, Tue., May 19, 7:30 p.m., $33-$83. Fubar: 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. It Lies Within, w/ Nevada Rose, the Party Foul, Reconcera, Thu., May 14, 6 p.m., $12. Dawn of the Shred Fest, w/ Shapist, Aenimus, WRVTH, Scarred Atlas, Arcane Haven, Alaya, Bungler, Absala, Claim Your Kingdom, Noesis, CarolAnne, Alt Road, Our Transfixion, Torn at the Seams, Running With Tarantulas, Sat., May 16, 5 p.m., $10-$12. The Contortionist, w/ Chon, Auras, Noesis, Tue., May 19, 6 p.m., $15-$17. Pop's Nightclub: 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. Of Mice & Men, Sun., May 17, 6:30 p.m., $22-$25.

NOISE The Luminary: 2701 Cherokee St, St. Louis. Alex Cunningham, w/ Ghost Ice, Lobster, Sat., May 16, 8 p.m., $5. Schlafly Tap Room: 2100 Locust St., St. Louis, 314-2412337. Skarekrau Radio, w/ Naan Violence, Bear Cub, Thu., May 14, 9 p.m., Free.

PUNK The Demo: 4191 Manchester Ave, St. Louis. Unwelcome Guests, w/ Breakmouth Annie, 30 Helens Agree, Fri., May 15, 9 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer: 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314772-2100. Township, w/ Mariner, LifeWithout, Krelboyne, Lobby Boxer, Mon., May 18, 9 p.m., $5. Fubar: 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. Anti-Flag, w/ The Homeless Gospel Choir, War On Women, Fri., May 15, 8 p.m., $18-$20. The Business, Wed., May 20, 8 p.m., $12-$14. Schlafly Tap Room: 2100 Locust St., St. Louis, 314-2412337. Milstadt Justice, w/ Powerline Sneakers, the Timmys, Fri., May 15, 9 p.m., Free.

SINGER- SONGWRITER The Demo: 4191 Manchester Ave, St. Louis. Matt Townsend & The Wonder Of The World, w/ Pretty Little Empire, Letter To Memphis, Sat., May 16, 8:30 p.m., $10. The Heavy Anchor: 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-3525226. Jesse W. Johnson, w/ Matthew Kennedy, Fri., May 15, 9 p.m., $5.

Colony Theater a Cocktails adult lounge

savage love

Open during remodel the fun never stops!

Fixated Hey, Dan: My wife is one of those women who need manual stimulation of her clit during sex to climax. Before meeting her, I had several long-term girlfriends, and not one needed to do this in order to climax. Before we got married, I explained that I wanted to explore and push the boundaries, and she promised me that would happen. But she has no fantasies, kinks, or fetishes, and she’s not into any of the things I’ve proposed. Bringing this all together is that when we are having sex, she’s so fixBY ated on stimulating her clit, it’s almost like we are in two DAN different worlds. When she’s working toS AVA G E ward an orgasm, her eyes are shut and she’s concentrating on the rubbing — whether she’s doing it or I am — and I can’t help but wonder if the work it takes to get her to orgasm is part of the reason she’s not interested in exploring. I’ve talked to her several times about how I’m yearning to do more, but I haven’t brought up my thoughts on how the way she comes may be affecting things. Come As You Are

My thoughts, in no particular order… 1. Three out of four women need direct, focused and sometimes intense stimulation of their clit in order to climax — sailing a dick up the vaginal canal isn’t going to do it for most women — so either you lucked out and all of your previous girlfriends were 25 percenters or many/most/all of your previous girlfriends were faking it. 2. I’ve never met a man who wasn’t fixated on stimulating his dick during sex and/ or having his dick stimulated for him during sex. 3. If your wife is picking up on your negativity about the way her pussy works, that could negatively impact her enthusiasm for sex in general and sex with you in particular. 4. Your wife is fantasizing about something when she closes her eyes and starts rubbing her clit. You might be able to have more productive conversations about your sex life — and your desire for a more adventurous one — if you drew her out about what’s going on in her head when she’s getting off. Tell her how sexy she looks, tell her you would love to know what she’s thinking about, tell her how hot her fantasy is if she opens up about it (and don’t freak out if she’s not fantasizing about you), carefully build on her fantasy with some dirty talk. Once she opens up about whatever it is that’s unspooling in her head, you can suggest realizing her fantasies in real life — and a few of yours as well.

Some things never change: Entertainment Music, dancing, drinks Two private theaters

5. And…um…lastly…Your wife may need to block you out — she may need to clamp her eyes shut — in order to climax because…um… she may not be sexually attracted to you. That’s harsh, I realize, and I hope that’s not the case. But if marital sex for her is a joyless exercise — she gets you off then clamps her eyes shut and gets herself off — then this is a problem that can’t be fixed, and spending the next five decades trying to fix it will be both futile and frustrating. Here’s hoping your wife’s issue is something more common and something that can be fixed — she’s sexually repressed but can work through it, this clamp-eyes-and-rubclit routine was her masturbatory go-to for years, but you two can find new and exciting ways to get her off. Those new and exciting ways to get her off will most likely require her to fixate on stimulating her clit — and that’s OK.

Now under new management For details call Linda: 314-255-9376 4500 Forest Boulevard • East St. Louis, IL 618-874-9621 Open Friday & Saturday 8PM - 3AM

Hey, Dan: I’m a lesbian who has been pretty successful at online dating. Lately, however, I’ve had a few women contact me who turn out not to be cisgender. I’ve tried to remain open, but I have never been attracted to a trans woman. I don’t rule out the possibility that it could happen. But one great thing about online dating is that you can express preferences before going on a date, and I’d rather not unknowingly walk into these potentially awkward and painful situations. Is there something I could put on my profile expressing my preference for cisgender women that is not offensive to trans people? It’s important to me that I remain an ally. Can I Say?

You can put “not into trans women” in your online dating profile, CIS, but you’ll have to hand in your Trans Ally card. Gay men are likewise free to put “no fats, no femmes” or “white guys only — just expressing my preference” on their profiles, and too many do (and not all of them are white guys), but gay men who do that have to hand in their Not an Asshole cards. Occasionally having coffee with someone you’re not into — and having to tiptoe through the awkwardness — isn’t something you can avoid in online dating. You would have to do that even if only cis lesbians responded to your ads, as you’re presumably not attracted to all cis lesbians. Having a coffee now and then with a trans woman you most likely won’t find attractive — but you never know — is a small price to pay to make the online dating world a less shitty place for trans people. It’s what an ally would do. Don’t miss Sherman Alexie on the Savage Lovecast: savagelovecast.com. mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage on Twitter riverfronttimes.com

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RIVERFRONT TIMES

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riverfronttimes.com

100 Employment

185 Miscellaneous MAKE $1000 Weekly!! Mailing Brochures From Home. Helping home workers since 2001. Genuine Opportunity. No Experience Required. Start Immediately. www.theworkingcorner.com (AAN CAN)

105 Career/Training/Schools AIRLINE CAREERS begin here - Get trained as FAA certified Aviation Technician. Housing and Financial aid for qualified students. Job placement assistance. Call Aviation Institute of Maintenance 800-725-1563 (AAN CAN)

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190 Business Opportunities Avon Full Time/Part Time, $15 Fee. Call Carla: 314-665-4585 For Appointment or Details Independent Avon Rep.

120 Drivers/Delivery/Courier

193 Employment Information

! Drivers Needed ASAP ! Requires Class E, B or A License. S Endorsement Helpful. Must be 25 yrs or older. Will Train. ABC/Checker Cab Co CALL NOW 314-725-9550

CDL- A DRIVERS and Owner Operators: $1,000.00 sign on, Company/ Safety Bonuses. Home daily/ weekly. Regional runs. Great Benefits. 1-888-300-9935

155 Medical Research Studies

800 Health & Wellness

Interested in research studies on diabetes call Washington University, Vitamin D Study at (314) 362–0934.

810 Health & Wellness General

Women! Have you had unprotected sex within the last 5 days? Washington University seeks participants for a study. Call 314–747–1331.

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167 Restaurants/Hotels/Clubs Dealers for Self Defense Products. Daily Money. Pocket or bank, it's up to you! Hannah 314-801-8733

s Complete Relaxation s s s Ireland Monroe s s West Co. Area. 270/Olive. In/Out Calls 24/7. Relaxing & Cozy Atmosphere. Mature Therapist 818-455-5273

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530 Misc. Services AUTO INSURANCE STARTING AT $25/ MONTH! Call 855-977-9537 (AAN CAN)

537 Adoptions PREGNANT? THINKING OF ADOPTION? Talk with caring agency specializing in matching Birthmothers with Families Nationwide. LIVING EXPENSES PAID. Call 24/7 Abby's One True Gift Adoptions. 866-413-6293. Void in Illinois/New Mexico/Indiana (AAN CAN)

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Ultimate Massage by Summer!!!! Relaxing 1 Hr Full Body Massage. Light Touch, Swedish, Deep Tissue. Daily 10am-5pm South County. 314-620-6386 Ls # 2006003746

500 Services 525 Legal Services

400 Buy-Sell-Trade 420 Auto-Truck

300 Rentals

317 Apartments for Rent ST. CHARLES COUNTY 314-579-1201 or 636-939-3808 1 & 2 BR apts for rent. www.eatonproperties.com. Sec. 8 welcome

317 Apartments for Rent DOWNTOWN

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475 Want/Trade

600 Music

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605 Musicians Available/Wanted

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SOUTH CITY 314-504-6797 37XX Chippewa: 3 rms, 1BR. all elec exc. heat. C/A, appls, at bus stop SOUTH CITY $400-$850 314-771-4222 Many different units www.stlrr.com 1-3 BR, no credit no problem SOUTH CITY $440 314-223-8067 Spacious 1BRs, Vinyl Floors, Ceiling Fans, Stove & Refrigerator, A/C, close to busline. W/D Hook-Up, Nice area SOUTH CITY $475 314-223-8067 Move in Special! Spacious 1BRs, Oak Floors, Ceiling Fans, Stove & Refrigerator, A/C, W/D Hook-Up, Nice area

The choice of a lawyer is an important decision & should not be based solely on advertising.

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610 Musicians Services

Personal Injury, Workers Comp, DWI, Traffic 314-621-0500

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SOUTH CITY $600 314-922-1889 3736 Keokuk Duplex, 1st flr, 2.5 BR, hdwd flrs, D/W, stove, fridge SOUTH CITY! $375 314-309-2043 1br, all appliances, hardwoods & tile, pets allowed, no app fee, ready to rent! rs-stl.com RGL58

MUSICIANS AVAILABLE Do you need musicians? A Band? A String Quartet? Call the Musicians Association of St. Louis (314)781-6612, M-F, 10:00-4:30

MUSICIANS Do you have a band? We have bookings. Call (314)781-6612 for information Mon-Fri, 10:00-4:30

VANDEVENTER! $450 314-309-2043 2br, frosty a/c, all appliances, hardwood floors, basement storage, w/d hookups! rs-stl.com RGL6A

GRANITE CITY, IL $600 314-322-6975 2BR, 9 miles from downtown STL, inc. W/S/T. Mature adult comm.

SOUTH CITY $530 314-481-6443 6429 Gravois- Apt. 2 BR, C/A, Carpet, Draperies. $530 deposit DWI/BANKRUPTCY HOTLINE: R.O.C. LAW , A Debt Relief Agency, Helping People File For Bankruptcy Relief Under the New Bankruptcy Code. 314-843-0220 The choice of a lawyer is an important decision & shouldn't be based solely upon advertisements.

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WESTPORT/LINDBERGH/PAGE $515-$575 314-995-1912 1 mo FREE! 1BR ($515) & 2BR ($575 specials) Clean, safe, quiet. Patio, laundry, great landlord! Nice Area near I-64, 270, 170, 70 or Clayton

SOUTH CITY $400-$465 314-277-0204 3329 Lawn:studio; 3841 Gustine 1 BR; 3901 Keokuk:1BR WANTS TO Purchase minerals and other oil/gas interest. Send details to: P.O. Box 13557, Denver, CO 80201

UNIVERSITY CITY Beautiful 1BR duplex for rent. 6515 Bartmer.

DOWNTOWN Cityside Apts 314-231-6806 Bring in ad & application fee waived! Gated prkng, onsite laundry. Controlled access bldgs, pool, fitness, business ctr. Pets welcome

MADISON, IL $450 314-322-6975 1BR, 8 mi from DT STL, inc. W/S/T, Sec 8 OK. Mature adult comm. CASH FOR CARS: Any Car/Truck. Running or Not! Top Dollar Paid. We Come To You! Call For Instant Offer: 1-888-420-3808 www.cash4car.com (AAN CAN)

TOWER GROVE $615 314-255-3409 43xx Juniata 1Br, 2nd Fl, Lrg Rms, Hwd Fl, Off Str Pkg, All Appcs, W/D Hk Up

SOUTH ST. LOUIS CITY 314-579-1201 or 636-939-3808 1, 2 & 3 BR apts for rent. www.eatonproperties.com. Sec. 8 welcome SOUTH ST. LOUIS CITY $600 314-374-6366 3449 Hereford: 2 bl W of Kingshwy at Oleatha. 1BR, deck in rear & lrg fncd yard. A/C, refin hdwds, coin lndry onsite. No app fee SOUTHWEST CITY $700 314-374-6366 4933 Devonshire: Large liv rm & din rm, 2 BR, hardwood, W/D hkup, on site prkg. No App Fee SOUTHWEST CITY! $525 314-309-2043 2br, cold a/c, all appliances, hardwoods, pets, recent updates, ready now! rs-stl.com RGL6D

320 Houses for Rent MARYLAND HEIGHTS $1100 314-443-4478 1557 Redcoat: All elec. 3 bdrm, 2 bath house. Parkway Schools. NORTH COUNTY! $525 314-309-2043 2 bedroom house, full basement, fenced yard, hardwood floors, pets, flexible deposit, no app fee! rs-stl.com RGL68 NORTH ST. LOUIS COUNTY 314-579-1201 or 636-939-3808 2,3 & 4BR homes for rent. eatonproperties.com. Sec. 8 welcome PATTONVILLE SCHOOLS! $650 314-309-2043 2 bed house, fenced yard, hardwood floors, cold a/c, all appliances, pets, washer/dryer included! rs-stl.com RGL7B RITENOUR SCHOOLS! $500 314-309-2043 2-3 bed house, cold a/c, walkout finished basement, newer carpet, pets allowed, covered deck! rs-stl.com RGL67 SOUTH CITY! $550 314-309-2043 Roomy 1 bedroom house, all appliances, pets allowed, near bus line, ready to rent! rs-stl.com RGL69 SOUTH CITY! $700 314-309-2043 Sharp 2 bed house, finished basement, fenced yard, frosty a/c, loaded kitchen, nice deck, available now! rs-stl.com RGL7C SOUTH CITY! $775 314-309-2043 Private 3 bed, 2 bath house, finished basement, family room, fenced yard, appliances, deck, hardwoods! rs-stl.com RGL7D UNIVERSITY CITY! $600 314-309-2043 2 bed house, newer carpet, full basement, cold a/c, ceiling fans, great deck, off street parking! rs-stl.com RGL7A

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200 Real Estate for Sale 210 Houses for Sale GATE DISTRICT $99,900 314-229-4530 Beautiful 3BR, 1BA rehabbed property, new windows, kitch, custom cabinets, granite counter, s/s appls. New baths, refin wood flrs

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IF YOU DESIRE TO MAKE MORE MONEY AND NEED A NEW JOB EARNING $45-$50 thousand the 1st year, great beneďŹ ts, call SMTDS, Financial assistance available if you qualify. Free living quarters. 6 students max per class. 4 wks. 192 hours. • More driving time than any other school in the state •

riverfronttimes.com

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Ultimate Massage by

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Specials $30 $50

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Las Palmas 1901 Washington Ave. St. Louis 63103. 314-241-1557 Mon - Sat: 11am - 1am; Sun: 11am - 12am Find us on Facebook

Firehouse Bar & Grill "A Place to Hang Your Helmet" Express Lunch - Happy Hour M-F 3-6pm - Great Dinner Menu 3500 Lemay Ferry in South County 314-892-6903 CAMPS, WINERIES, SPORTING EVENTS, WEDDINGS, PARTIES, GROUP OUTINGS

Complete Home Package includes:

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Are you addicted to Opiates? Pain medications or heroin? SUBOXONE CAN HELP

w w w. S U N R I S E DAYS PA .C O M

DWI/BANKRUPTCY HOTLINE:

ATTORNEY BRUCE E. HOPSON The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should

www.HelfersLaw.com The choice of a lawyer is an important decision & should not be based solely on advertising

Donate at Octapharma Plasma today. 1FSTIBMM 3PBE )B[FMXPPE .0 t 314-524-9015 Must be 18-64 years old with valid ID, proof of social security number and current residence postmarked within 30 days. Information at octapharmaplasma.com.

NEW DONORS EARN UP TO $250 FOR THE FIRST FIVE DONATIONS

South City Scooters Great Selection of Scooters from $995 & Up. Sales & Service.

AFRAID TO DRIVE? • TRAFFIC TICKETS/WARRANTS? FEES FROM $25 •

@ the corner of Connecticut & Morgan Ford. 314.664.2737

•(314)773-2111•M. Motley, Atty.*The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon ads

PAINLESS TATTOO REMOVAL SEE OUR AD ON PAGE 6 OR CALL 866-626-8346

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Furnish an Entire Apartment for Only $590! Complete Home Package includes:

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Specializing in Adolescents, Adults, and Women Medication Management and Therapy 255 SPENCER RD., ST. PETERS MO 63376

RIVERFRONT TIMES

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OUTPATIENT SERVICES

763 S. NEW BALLAS RD. STE. 310 SAINT LOUIS, MO 63141

314-292-7323 or

5000 CEDAR PLAZA PKWY., STE. 380 SAINT LOUIS, MO 63128

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After hours or weekends 800-345-5407 riverfronttimes.com

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DWI/Traf $50+/Personal Injury

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not be based solely on advertising.

www.LiveInTheGrove.com

Made You Look!

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Personal Injury, Workers Comp, DWI, TrafďŹ c 314-621-0500

Join the RFT Email lists for an inside look on Concert listings, ticket sales, events & more! www.Riverfronttimes.com to sign up

Download the FREE Best of...App to See Best of St. Louis winners and ďŹ nalists near you, or search by category, popularity and neighborhood. www.bestof.voiceplaces.com. Want to ďŹ nd a good Happy Hour? Download the RFT's Free Happy Hour Phone app - search "Happy Hour"

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Mark Helfers, 314-862-6666- CRIMINAL former Asst US Attorney, 32 years exp

CALL 636-477-6111

48

314-993-0517

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No upfront fees. Covered by most insurance.

NOT AFFILIATED WITH A HOSPITAL OS

9441 OLIVE BLVD. ST. LOUIS, MO 63132 HOURS 9AM - 9PM

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Therapeutic Foot Massage 1 Hr. Full Body Massage

DATING MADE EASY... LOCAL SINGLES! Listen & Reply FREE! 314-739-7777 FREE PROMO CODE: 9512 Telemates Like the Riverfront Times? Make it ofďŹ cial. www.facebook.com/riverfronttimees Interested in being on the RFT Street team? Promotional P/T work/ $10 Hr. Resume & some exp req'd Email: Emily.Westerholt@riverfronttimes.com

MUSIC RECORD SHOP Looking to sell or trade your metal, punk, rap or rock LP collection. Call us. 4191-A Manchester. musicrecordshop.com , 314-732-0164

NEW LOCATION NOW OPEN!!

Las Palmas 1901 Washington Ave. St. Louis 63103. 314-241-1557 Mon - Sat: 11am - 1am; Sun: 11am - 12am Find us on Facebook

Firehouse Bar & Grill "A Place to Hang Your Helmet" Express Lunch - Happy Hour M-F 3-6pm - Great Dinner Menu 3500 Lemay Ferry in South County 314-892-6903 CAMPS, WINERIES, SPORTING EVENTS, WEDDINGS, PARTIES, GROUP OUTINGS Call First Student to pick you up! Charter & School Bus Rental. 866.514.TRIP or www.ďŹ rstcharterbus.com

PAINLESS TATTOO REMOVAL SEE OUR AD ON PAGE 6 OR CALL 866-626-8346

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