Issue No. 8-SEPT ’14
the liner notes of st. louis
YOU ARE FREE Cat Power Talks About Her Visit To Help Protestors in Ferguson
WIGG OUT INSIDE: Golden Curls • Old Salt Union • Pokey Lafarge • Sebadoh
Melinda Cooper Talks Shop With The Breeders
High Time Let’s Get Ty Segall to St. Louis, Shall We?
bless this mess
>>
Eleven Magazine Volume 10, issue 8
complimentary
elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 1
DEPT. OF
PERIODICAL LITERATURE ST. LOUIS, MO
Volume 10, Issue No. 8
Front of the book 5 Editor’s Note 6 Where Is My Mind? Columns 8 Introducing by Sean cotton Beauty Pageant
9 Band on the Run by Josephine 10 Behind The Scene by Jarred Gastreich Old Salt Union
September 2014
eleven’s musicalendar Recommended Shows 26 Pokey LaFarge’s Central Time Tour
Bring On the Night Show Previews and Reviews228 Bible Belt Sinners, Nothing Shocking, Lee Fields And The Expressions, How To Dress Well, The Apache Relay, Sebadoh, Shabazz Palaces
Hot Rocks Album Reviews2 31 sElf, Cory Branan, The Muffs, The Rosebuds
features 12 Gold Sounds: Golden Curls by melinda Cooper 14 W hat Would the Community Think Cat Power Raises Money for Ferguson by James Kane
The Rebellious Jukebox 32 by Matt Harnish . Meat Sisters, Maximum Effort
17 Be Here Now: Ty Segall by Jenn Derose 19 Back in the Pool: Josephine Wiggs of The Breeders by Melinda Cooper . 22 Try Them Out This Time: Broncho’s Got a New Album by Jordan Heimburger . On the cover: Nathan Price, Ryan Lindsey, and Benjamin King of Broncho, out shopping for wigs. Photo by Jaret Ferratusco, design by Paige Brubeck.
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Friday September 12
Taj Weekes and Adowa Reggae
Saturday September 13
Futurebirds
Psychadelic Country Sunday Septeber 14
Photo of OKGO at old rock house By Jason Stoff
Featured Concerts
Eleven Magazine Volume 10 | Issue 8 | September 2014
Corb Lund
Country / Folk Sunday September 21
Yuna Pop
Sunday September 28
Reggie Williams Acoustic/Jazz/Pop
Thursday Ocober 9
Publisher Hugh Scott Editor-In-Chief Evan Sult Special assignments editor Paige Brubeck WeB Editor Hugh Scott
Rebirth Brass Band
photo editor Jason Stoff
Friday October 10
Art Director Evan Sult
New Orleans Brass
Rev Peytons Big Damn Band Hi-energy Country Blues Thursday October 16
DopaPod
Progressive Rock and Dance music Thursday October 23
Passafire
Reggae-Rock-Progressive-Dub Friday October 31
Whitey Morgan and the 78's American Honky Tonk Saturday November 8
Devon Allman
Blues, Rock and Soul
Every Monday
Open Mic 7:30pm Free 18+ (unless with legal guardian)
CONTRIBUTING Writers Grant Barnum, Caitlin Bladt, Curt Brewer, Paige Brubeck, Ryan Boyle, Sam Clapp, Raymond Code, Melinda Cooper, Jenn DeRose, Ira Gamerman, Suzie Gilb, Matt Harnish, Jordan Heimburger, Jake Jones, Gabe Karabell, Nelda Kerr, Chris Keith, Cassie Kohler, Kevin Korinek, Josh Levi, Rob Levy, K.E. Luther, Bob McMahon, Geoff Naunheim, Jack Probst, Jason Robinson, Jeremy Segel-Moss, Robert Severson, Michele Ulsohn, Chris Ward, Robin Wheeler, Rev. Daniel W. Wright PHOTOGRAPHERS Nate Burrell, Jarred Gastreich, Abby Gillardi, Jon Gitchoff, Kelly Glueck, Adam Robinson, Jason Stoff, Bill Streeter, Bryan Sutter, Ismael Valenzuela, Theo Welling, Carrie Zukoski
Illustrators Paige Brubeck, Sean Dove, Tyler Gross, Lyndsey Lesh, Curtis Tinsley proofreader Tracy Brubeck Promotions & Distribution Suzie Gilb Ann Scott Consultation Clifford Holekamp Derek Filcoff Cady Seabaugh Hugh Scott III Founded in 2006 by a group including Jonathan Fritz, Josh Petersel and Matthew Strรถm ELEVEN MAGAZINE 3407 S. Jefferson St. Louis, MO 63118 for ADVERTISING INQUIRIES Hugh Scott advertising@elevenmusicmag.com calendar listings listings@elevenmusicmag.com LETTERS TO THE EDITOR deareleven@elevenmusicmag.com We welcome your comments. Please let us know if you do not want your letter published.
HAVE A QUESTION FOR US? info@elevenmusicmag.com ONLINE elevenmusicmag.com twitter.com/elevenmag facebook.com/ElevenMagazine Copyright 2014 Scotty Scott Media, LLC
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Editor’s Note by Evan Sult
Sharing the same space I think it’s safe to say that this has been a crazy month for pretty much everyone in St. Louis. When officer Darren Wilson shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, it drew immediate protests from the neighborhood — and turned out to be a tipping point in a larger national frustration about the interaction of white police and black citizens that boiled over into crowds of protestors, clouds of tear gas, hordes of reporters, and a truly frightening amount of artillery in the streets. I pass over the private grief of Brown’s family and friends, and the private feelings of Wilson and his family and friends, to note that these are the moments that challenge a community. We each have our responsibilities as human beings to think about the other people in our world: our neighbors, our family, our friends, our political representatives, the businesses we frequent, the policemen on patrol, the public places we share. We have a right and responsibility to advocate for justice, and to listen to the other side of the debate. These are moments that challenge musicians: to speak from the stage, to write lyrics and music that address the jolts and scars in our lives, even to reserve judgment or statement if the feelings are unclear. Musicians from all over St. Louis and the county got involved in the protests and debate, marching and documenting and performing benefits and writing and releasing new music reacting directly to the events. And musicians from all over the world were affected as well — besides visitors like Wiz Khalifa and Young Jeezy, Billy Bragg and Joe Purdy, Cat Power and the Dirty Delta Blues Band, there were songs being written about the death of Michael Brown (and Eric Garner in Staten Island, and John Crawford in Beavercreek, Ohio) by everyone from folk singers to hip hop artists to a crowd of Broadway performers in Times Square. The events and emotions in Ferguson, from the deadly encounter between two men to the chaos of the crowds afterwards, will be documented in songs already released and still to come. Meanwhile, life went on in the city and everywhere else, as it always does. That’s the thing. That’s what I was feeling on Saturday, August 16, and I didn’t know how to feel. That was the night of Bob Reuter’s birthday celebration at the Ready Room, in which a whole crowd of Bob’s friends and fellows showed up to celebrate his songs and note his passing, which was a year ago. I’d been looking forward to it all month, because I’ve been missing Bob and feeling blue about that damn truth: life goes on. Life is so ruthless in its passing, in the way it so quickly piles up and covers over the dead. And yet I was running late to the show, because I’d met some cool teenagers earlier in the week who said they had a band called Posture, and they were playing their last show ever because the sisters in the band were headed off to different schools on the East Coast, and of course it was the same night as the other show. But something about those kids, I had to see their show. So there I was at Melt on Cherokee, waiting while they set up, hoping I wouldn’t miss too many of Bob’s songs at the Ready Room across town, hoping my hunch was right. It was. Once they started, Posture was a little clumsy in an endearing way, but also clearly in the true thrall of music, finding and refining their very own version of songwriting. They had the electricity of discovery, and also their songs were well-formed and fascinating in their own right. I was surprised to feel a flood of joy across my darkened heart, because here was the flip side of that old truth: life goes on. Here was a band that existed only for the flicker of a few months, assembled by some kids who were just starting to make music and who knows what is gonna happen to each of them, but their instinct was to write songs on guitars and drums and mics, and damned if the musical instinct wasn’t alive and well and still producing that truly exciting jolt in them and in me. It was the most
ephemeral possible moment, but I relish that I got to catch it. I caught three songs before we ran out to get to the Ready Room. It was a different crowd and a different feeling there, and we’d already missed Johnny Walker, whose performance of Bob’s songs at last year’s memorial filled me with awe. But Bob Reuter’s Alley Ghost was just turning on and turning up, and I recognized damn near everyone in the crowd, and when they kicked in the songs were alive and squalling even if Bob himself was not. And the songs are great, and they do live on, and there is a measure of solace and pride to be taken in the work that Bob did to exist beyond himself. A lot of the crowd was older, and like Bob, everyone there was a lifer. And it was a night that slowed time just a little bit, that hollowed out a space for remembering and re-encountering a missing friend. Somehow, between the evanescent pleasures of Posture — barely there, already gone — and the songs and friends of Bob Reuter — still there after passing thanks to a lifetime of music — I glimpsed what music can do for us in life. It’s for after life, and it’s for right now. It needs to be eternal and immediate both: a record of our feelings and the feeling of those feelings. It’s for playing and for witnessing and for singing along to and for collecting and for remembering and for getting drunk to and for getting the anger or the sadness or the joy out from your body and into the world. Music possesses metaphysical force; to focus on moments we would otherwise lose, to expand beyond our physical selves rushing forward in indifferent time. And, hopefully, to help us understand each other better.
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WHERE IS MY MIND? This Month in the History of Now
Young Jeezy paid respect to Michael Brown at Verizon Amphitheatre on August 12, three days after Brown was shot to death by a police officer in Ferguson. Photo by Ismael Valenzuela
hear the drummer get wicked
Spin the black circle
The afterlife of vinyl continues to stay interesting: this month Music Record Shop opened its doors in the Grove. Focusing on new vinyl from unusual sources, it’s a collector’s kind of shop — though its location, wedged snugly between The Demo and the Ready Room, should bring in curious music fans of all sorts. It’s funny: everywhere else in the US, record stores are all but gone, while here in town we have at least six viable venues for vinyl hounds, two of which — Music Record Shop and Dead Wax Records on East Cherokee — have opened within the last couple years. Plus there continue to be places like oddball new kids Kismet, at Cherokee and Iowa, who stock their shelves with curated collections of personal favorites. Count yourself lucky to live here. Now just make sure your record player’s working right.
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Everyone in the world knows the break beat from the song “Apache” by the Incredible Bongo Band whether we realize it or not. There is probably no more sampled beat in hip hop than the one that drummer Jim Gordon and percussionist King Errisson laid down in a Vancouver studio in 1973 (that’s right: hip hop may have accidently been born in western Canada). Sample This tells the almost unbelievable story of this song, how it came about and how it became what DJ Afrika Bambaataa calls “the national anthem of hip hop.” It’s a complicated narrative, following the confluence of events that led to the creation of the Incredible Bongo Band in a storyline that involves former LA Ram Rosey Grier, New York senator and presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy, and the one and only Charles Manson. As wild as that ride was for the Bongo Band themselves, their album fizzled and the band faded quickly, as so many bands do, into obscurity... until a handful of Bronx
DJs, led by DJ Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash, stumbled upon the record in the discount bins at their neighborhood record stores. They soon discovered that nothing got a crowd moving like a good break beat, and “Apache” was uniquely suited to the discovery that they could extend that break forever with a couple of turntables and their DJ skills. Narrated by KISS’ Gene Simmons, of all people, Sample This handles the complex story brilliantly, with interviews from Afrika Bambaataa, ?uestlove, Grandmaster Caz and all the living members of the Incredible Bongo Band. All, that is, save Jim Gordon, whose life after the band adds an even more bizarre (and tragic) element to the story. Never released theatrically in St. Louis, Sample This was just recently released on iTunes and DVD, so the whole story can now be yours. Though the film slips a few times into a production style a little too close to an E! True Hollywood Story, the truly bizarre story — and especially the music — more than make up for that. Incredible indeed. Hugh Scott
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located on Cherokee Street in STL 815-535-7908 elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 7
INTRODUCING
New bands in their early days by special guest Sean Cotton
Beauty Pageant Noise annoys. That’s what your mom says. But apparently, Beauty Pageant didn’t get the memo. From oil drums and hubcaps to amplifier feedback and screams, the collective utilizes everything in their power to create a sonic landscape that toes carefully the line between harmony and chaos. In an age where the digital reigns supreme and recordings run rampant over Bandcamp and SoundCloud, the scant releases by Beauty Pageant serve to emphasize the importance of live performance, a give and take between artist and audience that would be lost in a room full of microphones. The group’s members fluctuate around a core of individuals: Rick “Wiggpaw” Wilson, “Mister” Ben, Blyre Cpanx, Dave Burnett, and Samanthrax. Wiggpaw, Ben, and Blyre were kind enough to talk with me about their music and the state of the St. Louis noise scene.
every show until we figured out the best one, which is artsy, maybe? Plus art shows, basement shows, weird bars, Stag Nite, I ain’t gonna discriminate. The members of BP fluctuate around a basic core, but we’ve played together so long and it’s easy to improvise in a basement. One member of the basic core, Hi Otter, recently moved to LA. Being a part of the BP “family” means he’s still here in spirit, playing his bird whistle.
for most regular people anyway. It’s not for them. St. Louis has a reputation, in Eleven magazine especially, for being an exciting hub of new ideas, things you can creatively “get away” with. Well, why not something really different? If you can make art your own here, the same goes for its definitions. You’ll never have trouble locating a major seventh chord in St. Louis, but it’s not every day you can watch a guy beat an oil drum with a mallet.
Ben: We’ve had bad luck with “studio” recordings. Wiggpaw has released a Beauty Pageant cassette on his Collinsville-based label, Cum Sun Curiosities.
So how did things get started for you guys? Ben: Things began at the legendary Pig Slop venue during the first installment of the ongoing NOiSE series in spring 2012. At the time we had no name and it was just me and David “Dada Vid” Burnett. By the end of the set, our friends Melanympha Meatbeat and Blyre Cpanx were on the floor, wriggling around and screaming things. Blyre became a member that night.
Image from chizmo.tv
Tell me more about the NOiSE series, what it means to you, and what, from your perspective, it hopes to accomplish. Wiggpaw: NOiSE was an idea Chloe Bethany from Pig Slop (and me) had in early 2012 to explore that word as a concept: “noise” in music, video, and performance, how it could be defined spatially, and how the audience acceptance level fluctuates. The events continue today, mainly musically now, with Avant Garden-variety collaborations. St. Louis has a rich history of refined songcraft; here, very rarely will a “song” be played. In fact, there’s little point. Beauty Pageant came out of that strange, ugly muck. We thrive on that sort of musical anarchy, or “extreme improvisation” if you like. Whatever it accomplishes probably involves puzzled looks and fingers in ear sockets,
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What is Beauty Pageant’s definition of art? How does this definition manifest itself in performance? Blyre: Art is defined by each individual who experiences it. Whatever our “art” or “style,” it will always fluctuate. That’s the beauty of it. Our sets are Improv and change based on feelings (or how intoxicated we are). Sometimes all of our members can’t make it, and sometimes other bands or audience members join in, which inevitably can change the flow of each set. Ben: Yeah, we’re like a noise-family, right? “Noise band” is a weird category. Noise art project. Noise theatre. All those levels deal in responses, and controlling the “vibe” of that response is what BP is all about. Also, for six months we changed our name
Audience and immediacy seem to be integral parts of Beauty Pageant’s performance, but what about studio recordings? Is that a space that you want to explore?
Blyre: We have some live recordings from shows. I think Wiggpaw has a SoundCloud for us. We have had maybe two “band practices” and “recordings” at my place. I live in a loft in downtown. My whole building complained and the building across the street. It was great. You guys have been described as “the Platonic ideal of noise.” What would Plato have to say about Beauty Pageant if he was blasted into the future just to witness one of your shows? Ben: Would love to think Platonic theories on the harmonization of music with existence would carry over to the “high point” of a BP set where we, in Taka’s words, “catch the wave” and surf atop sheets of glorious noise. But really, there’s no accounting for taste. Or for snotty anti-rock with pretentious explanations. I bet Plato’s more of an Eric Hall fan. Check em out yerself at: facebook.com/thebeautypageant
Road Dawg for Life by Josephine Fourteen dollars. That’s what the bartender handed me after a show in Missouri. I looked up at the ceiling so I wouldn’t cry and said, “We drove from Ohio today. Really…that’s all?” The bartender said, “Sorry, there just weren’t enough people here to get you more.” I loaded gear, got in the car, and the tears came. I was so tired. We were kicking ass and playing shows everywhere and still couldn’t get enough cash to fill our gas tank. I should’ve tried to get a guarantee for this show. But most venues don’t do guarantees for unknown bands. A Philly bartender told us about a musician (okay it was Thalia Zedek) who slammed her fist on the bar and yelled at him to get her band more money. He thought she was rude when she yelled, “What? $50?! That’s it?! Are you KIDDING?!” No, I get it. Maybe going off on someone is not the best way to deal with it…but I feel her pain. Ok, so how do you do this? How do you live with such a high degree of uncertainty if you wanna do music full time and make this band your life? Here are a few things that have helped me since my descent into Band on the Run Road Warrior. I cannot claim retention of sanity, but I will tell you I’m fiercer than I thought I could be. I’ve learned to ask for things I need and to let go when I’m barking up the wrong tree. Also, I need less than I thought I did. Also, it’s awesome to focus on your music all the time. You get so much better in a short amount of time that you almost don’t recognize yourself. Who is that? Is that Keith Moon? Oh I think it is...
Some Survival Tips for the Serious Road Dawg:
Illustration by Paige Brubeck
• The most important thing you can do if you’re taking this band to a full-time level is to work on things you can control, as much as you can, which is your music! • Live cheap as hell. Cook a lot and eat something green every day. On tour, find a Whole Foods or a co-op in the city you’re in. You can usually find a healthy awesome meal for between $5-10. Eat as much spinach and kale as you can shove in your piehole. Get snacks like nuts or fruit for the long drives. • Exercise a lot. It’s hard for me to really Josephine plays and sings in a two-piece touring band with Fred. They’re traveling the world and she’s keeping notes.
Band on the Run An Occasional Series
exercise on tour, but I try to walk a lot. It makes you feel better in your head as well as your body. Stretch. I heard that Johnny Marr runs five miles a day on tour and doesn’t drink. I can’t go that far, but I can try to walk a little for chrissakes. • Try to get a guarantee from the shows that you can, and for the shows where you fly by the seat of your pants, at least ask the club booker, “Think they’ll be any bucks for gas money?” Always bring merch because a few record sales = 40 bucks = money in the gas tank. • Maybe try shorter tours: weekend tours or week-long tours….not months on end that demoralize your spirit / funds / vehicle. Unless you’re getting some kind of funding or have support of label / tour managers / bookers….I don’t know any band that can tour for months on end and not go insane or wind up in debt. • Make sure you get rest between tours. • Try to have realistic expectations. Realize that, in a town where no one knows you, it’s an investment for the next time you play there, and you probably won’t be paid much the first time. • Acceptance. Oh that word. Accept the highs and lows. It’s hard, but even that night I
had a meltdown in the car, I learned some shit about the show we played and how to do more prep work for a better experience the next time. Some shows will suck assballs. Embrace this. Maybe the audience are zombies…maybe no one is there…. maybe getting paid is a delusion and you’re so depressed you do shots post-show and talk to the weird old men at the bar. Maybe that turns out to be sort of fun and you end up writing about it, which will become gold for your memoir. And when you least expect it, some shows will be divinely gorgeous and euphoric and full of people and love and dancing and you will feel amazing. And you’re not on any drugs except the high of doing what you love to do! • Celebrate when you have these great shows. • They don’t always go hand in hand, the Great Shows and the Getting Paid. When they do — when everything lines up in the universe the way you dream — that’s when you put your feet up and say, “Fucking hell, I’m a lucky dawg! Let’s get a pizza!” • Remember: The Music Always Comes First. The rest falls into place eventually. It will. And if it doesn’t, well… I was going to offer career advice, but all of us artists are screwed. We know there’s no other option, and we’ll be writing songs in the nursing home. What the hell else are we gonna do? Just make room for my drums in the Day Lounge.
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Behind the Scene Bands in Their Native Environment
Photographs by Jarred Gastreich
OLD SALT UNION Belleville, Illinois has long been known around the country — around the world, really — for producing the kind of heartfelt music that defines the rural American experience. Old Salt Union is that town’s most recent exponent, and they’ve been actively bringing their brand of genial bluegrass out on the road over the last two years. The kinship of John Brighton (violin and mandolin), Dustin Eiskant (acoustic guitar, ukulele), Jesse Farrar (yes, one of those Farrars, on upright bass and acoustic guitar), Ryan Murphey (banjo), and Justin Wallace (mandolin, acoustic guitar) is evident in their shared vocal harmonies and surprisingly sturdy pop song structures. Their hard work has paid off with legions of new fans across the country and prominent spots in recent festivals — including this month at LouFest in Forest Park on Sunday, September 7.
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What’s the best thing about your practice space?
Dustin: Jimmie Spheris, “We Are the Mercury”
Our space is exclusively for practicing. We are free to express ourselves as we wish.
Jesse: Dwight Yoakam, “A Thousand Miles from Nowhere”
The garage has a lot of character to it. What are the stories behind some of your favorite things hanging up?
Ryan: “Rockabye Baby,” sung by Ryan’s mom
We started taking Polaroid photos while on tour at the beginning of 2014. Each picture brings back great memories of the various places life on the road brings us to. Justin likes the basketball hoop.
John: Weird Al Yankovic, “Eat It”
You guys are no strangers to festivals. Does your practice differ when you have a big show like Loufest coming up? Every show, from big festivals to hometown gigs, is important to us. Our goal is to spread our music to everyone who will listen.
What is the first song you remember listening to?
What are some bands you’re looking forward to at Loufest?
Justin: Tom Petty, “Free Fallin’”
CAKE, Outkast, Pretty Little Empire, and Big Brother Thunder & the Master Blasters.
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Go Back to those Gold Sounds St. Louis duo GOLDEN CURLS gets blissfully lost in the haze Lightfoils, CaveofswordS, Golden Curls Friday, September 12 Firebird
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by Melinda Cooper The whispery vocals and gentle approach of St. Louis natives Golden Curls should never be mistaken as fragile or delicate work. A virtual orchestra of guitar and synth tones weaves patterns in and out of the breaths between heavy-driving beats in a complex arrangement that the two members of the band have taken to calling “woozy pop.”
Sarah Downen and Noah Blackwell began Golden Curls as a project strictly for fun in July of 2011. The end result of this largely long-distance creation was the release of their Warm Fiction EP in October of 2012. I met up with Downen at the Whiskey Ring on Cherokee Street recently to catch up on the band’s history and chat about how they’re working now, the value of imperfection, and the importance of having fun.
You went to Truman State University, right? Did you play shows there or around Kirksville?
your recording, and then trying to perform it live by playing along with the tracks. I’m really done with doing that.
We started writing songs when I was in Kirksville. We didn’t intend to play shows at first, [recording] was just kind of a fun thing we both liked to do. I started out writing some new songs that were different from what I was doing before. Noah and I had worked together in a band called Bear (The Ghost) five years ago with Robbie Ritter, so I knew who he was and I knew he could play the guitar. I asked him to add some guitar to a song I’d written called “Moon Maiden.” He ended up singing on it too, writing a bunch of lyrics, and doing a lot of things I didn’t know he was interested in doing. It really worked out and sounded really good, so we just kept doing that through email all through college.
To a point I can understand what you’re saying, but to me the previous performances never came off badly. However, as a performer I’m sure it has to feel a little bit like karaoke with yourself.
He wasn’t in Kirksville? He was in St. Louis and I was in Kirksville. He would add something, send back the raw track, and then I would mix it in and send it back. It worked out really well because we could both be in our zones, in our own private quarters and still very personal. I liked that method of writing even though it seems kind of tricky. That’s how we wrote the first five songs that went on Warm Fiction. Now that I’m back I’ve switched methods in how I’m performing so the songs are changing with the technology I’m using.
It did, yeah. It was also starting to feel like it wasn’t genuine — like the performance couldn’t have any variables, which I think are really important when you’re watching someone live. It was just the same thing every time and wasn’t fun. I see what you mean. You’re doing this because you want to get something out of it. Exactly. It’s not about being perfect, it’s about performing, and it’s about being spontaneous. Feeling the crowd, changing the song if need be, or jamming on a part longer if you want to. It doesn’t have to be the same.
together into a release. We need to really start thinking about that. We’re always looking to the next show and trying to finish up a new song for the next one. It’s a really good way to write songs, but at some point we need to record them, make them really polished, and get some kind of plan together. Warm Fiction was released on Memory Network, which is a label based out of Des Moines, Iowa and started by Dustin [Kniffen] from White Flashes. I collaborated with him on a couple of songs, and he offered to put out a tape for us. Will that tape be available at the show this month? Or just through Bandcamp? Yeah, we actually have a couple cassettes to sell at shows but we sometimes forget to bring them. But we’ll have them at the show with Lightfoils. All of our music is free on the internet. We definitely just want people to have it in their libraries more than we’re concerned about getting money for it.
“For my own peace of mind I want something people can move to, so I can see them reacting.”
To have fun. I really like working with Noah and I like the songs that we put out. It’s a way we can both express ourselves, and we really vibe in that way. I don’t know, I never really thought about why. I know. Maybe it’s a dumb question. There are probably a lot of cliché answers to that question. It’s how we express ourselves, and it’s how we connect with the local community. It’s how we have our voice heard.
When you were first writing were you play- ing on a piano, a guitar? How do you do it now?
Photo courtesy Golden Curls
I was playing it on a little ‘80s Casio, I think it was an MT 120. I recorded the main track with that and then added a lot of effects on it in ProTools. Everything was very meticulously crafted and recorded, but you can’t really duplicate that spontaneously. So for a while we were playing [live shows] with backing tracks. In the last year we’ve transitioned to using an Ableton AKAI APC-40 MIDI controller. We’re triggering things live now. Since you first started playing out, it seems like you’ve widened the variety of your approach to the live version of your music. I saw your performance at the RFT Showcase in June, and it seemed like there was more bass dropped, more negative space... What’s going on there? Yeah, that was with the Ableton, so that was the new set up that I was trying. A lot of the songs were written for the program basically for a live setting. Which is different than recording a song, getting it perfect in
So what’s your aim with all of this?
It’s basically how you interpret things. Yes. It’s how we process our experiences.
Perfect performances are so boring. Yes. Our set wouldn’t exist without the Ableton controller. We don’t play our songs on a guitar, keyboard, or piano: everything is set with the triggers. You can play a lot of different sounds at once and create a really great texture without sticking to just one instrument. Although some people are really skeptical. I’ve heard a lot of people bash having laptops onstage. That’s a topic that comes up a lot. I really resent it. We’re still playing everything live: We’re triggering the samples, adjusting the tempo, the effects — basically mixing everything on the spot. It takes effort and skill and I don’t understand the idea that it’s not legit. When is your new release coming out? What’s your label status? No timeframe. We have a bunch of songs and at some point they’re going to come
What’s your ideal place to play? Would you rather play a place where people are watching you or where they’re dancing around at a party? I think I want to see people react. And I want to see people either nodding their heads, swaying, or moving in some way. I get very self-conscious when the crowd is completely still and only watching you. That’s a lot more pressure, when it’s just eyes on you and they’re not experiencing it in their own way. That kind of scares me. I think we’re moving toward more of a dancey feel, too. I like melodies that make people feel things. That’s not something you can visibly see, that’s something you just take in. But I think for my own peace of mind I want something people can move to, so I can see them reacting. I don’t know if that’s a shallow way to go about it. That makes sense. Yeah. I want to see evidence.
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What Would the Community Think Cat Power’s Chan Marshall arrives in St. Louis to raise funds and spirits for the community protesting the death of Michael Brown Text by James Kane Photos by Gretchen Robinette
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I just handed in a sizable cash donation to a Ferguson church near Canfield Apartments — revenue from two impromptu benefit shows by Cat Power and The Dirty Delta Blues Band held Sunday, August 24 in St. Louis at The Firebird. Chan Marshall, Cat Power’s singer, songwriter and creative center of gravity, wanted to deliver the proceeds personally on Monday, but we arrived to find the worship hall locked up and empty. The congregation was away attending Michael Brown’s funeral services that morning. Marshall thrust the thick envelope into my hands. She needed to get to the airport. “Can you bring this back tomorrow? Are you mad at me?” she asked. I said it was no problem, I’d be honored. We drove to Lambert and talked. We’d only been introduced the day before, but Marshall had reason to trust me. Her label put us in touch because I’m a writer and musician who’s lived in North St. Louis County nearly all my life. I stayed a block from the Ferguson police station until this May, and wrote about my experiences there for Paste magazine in August.
I wanted to ask Marshall why she’d come here. I think I know now. The pastor and a receptionist received the money and a duffel of supplies as a blessing — everything but roughly 30 packs of cigarettes furnished by Marshall for stressed out, chain-smoking protesters. I promptly distributed these directly to the
people.
The lead up Marshall was the sole instigator and financial backer of the events Sunday. I met her and her French bulldog/spirit animal Mona in their hotel room that afternoon. Marshall learned of Brown’s death in Ferguson via social media while laid out in a hospital bed after returning ill and dispirited from Cape Town, South Africa — “a whole ‘nother interview,” she tells me. The news hit her in the chest. “I went through all the emotions you feel,” says Marshall. “I don’t have the depth of the emotion of knowing what that feels like to lose my son, or knowing the multigenerational breakdown of infrastructure for black America and all of that stuff. I
don’t know what that’s like. But the range of emotions I had was my personal range of them. And that’s when I thought, well, maybe I could go and play a show there?” Though the line-up changed throughout the weekend, Firebird staff confirmed the event Friday night. On a prayer and less than 24 hours’ notice, Marshall flew musicians in from Los Angeles and New York and put them up in hotel rooms. She summoned a professional photographer from vacation in the Florida Keys. She rented cars and top-notch backline amps and drums from St. Louis-based Coda Music Company. “All the other thoughts come with that,” she said. “’Can I get Eddie Vedder, Patti Smith, Bono?’ You know, thinking big.” She tweeted at Questlove and President Obama, too. In fact, Marshall’s promotion was all social media-based: Facebook events, Instagram pics, tweets and retweets in ALL CAPS, as is Marshall’s wont. In a post that night, she announced that all profits “WILL GO TO HELP PROTESTERS GET OUT OF JAIL & ANY NEED SUPPLIES & FOOD FOR PROTESTERS & FLOWERS FOR RIFLES #peace #ferguson #standup #america #responsibility #tripartisan #occupy #occuparty.” Marshall says back-and-forth texting
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“The only reason I did it, the only goal was to pull this off. In my heart, in my mind, seeing that people came, I was so happy.”
led to brief bouts of miscommunication. The shows were intended to be donationonly, not ticketed events, but Ticketfly, the Firebird’s online vendor, doesn’t allow for such flexible pricing schemes. Matador, her record label, wasn’t even sure it was happening when we first made contact. “I actually didn’t think it would get pulled off,” Marshall admitted.
Showtime Nevertheless, by the time doors opened at 4pm, more than 100 St. Louisans had taken refuge in the dimly lit, air-conditioned confines of the Firebird as temperatures outside reached a sweltering 97 degrees. The benefit was open to all ages: one particularly cool dad had a daughter and two young sons and in tow, each wide-eyed and engaged, heads on swivels.
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Marshall’s solo set was a display of vocal prowess and solid instrumental rhythm. She jumped between guitar and piano, doing both original material and covers, fretting over every detail. She harped on vocal effects and equalization, marking the ends of several songs by immediately addressing the soundman, firing off an “are-you-madat-me” before the appreciative (if not quite packed) house even has a chance to respond. When it’s their turn to set up, The Dirty Delta Blues Band goes to work. Erik Papparazzi (guitar), Gregg Foreman (keys), Nico Turner (bass), Ailanna Kalaba and Jim White (splitting time on drums) shift line-ups and tweak rented amplifiers mid-soundcheck. The group hasn’t toured as Cat Power in more than a year, but within minutes they’re riffing, laughing, at ease. Marshall is ecstatic. The band opens with The Everly Broth-
Previous pages, left: Chan Marshall onstage. Right: The crowd takes in every note. This page: Marshall practices while her dog, Mona, takes a snooze. Below: a quick backstage runthrough for the evening with Dirty Delta Blues bandmates Judah Bauer and Gregg Foreman.
ers’ “All I Have to Do Is Dream.” They don’t bat an eyelash when their singer sneaks offstage mid-performance to corral little Mona back into the green room. The groove keeps going, and Marshall returns to play songs from Cat Power’s most recent full-length, 2012’s Sun. She covers Billie Holliday and The Velvet Underground while wielding dual microphones, doubling her (Continued on page 34)
Be Here Now Ty Segall is one of garage rock’s most prolific and innovative musicians… who never makes it to St. Louis. Jenn DeRose provides a primer and a plea in advance of his new record, Manipulator. Ty Segall is a dirty blonde, cherubfaced, taco-loving surfer and skateboarder, an archetype of southern Californian dudeness. Although Segall is often labeled a garage revivalist, he refuses to be pigeonholed; solo period John Lennon, heavy metal, surf rock, punk and psychedelia are all incorporated in his music. With eight solo albums, endless touring and dozens of collaborations since 2008, including an active side band called Fuzz, Segall is constantly working; it is through this diligence that he is able to explore his varied tastes. The innovative results are a welcome symptom of the digital age, where Segall and his contemporaries (King Khan, Shannon And The Clams, the late Jay Reatard and Thee Oh Sees) have the space to build, deconstruct and re-arrange influences in their work. Although Segall’s expanding discography is impressive in size, it’s the quality maintained throughout fluctuating styles that is so striking. Any bozo with a laptop can make a ton of music, but it takes a master to create so many records worth owning. Ty Segall’s first releases were in 2006
and 2007 with Epsilons, a sweaty garage band in the order of early White Stripes, although Epsilons were much rowdier. Their second release, Killed ’Em Deader ’n a Six Card Poker Hand, is well suited for background music at a dance party; there are a few gems inside, such as the brutal “Teeny Boppers,” which invites the shallow recipient of Segall’s disgust to “read a book.” The music video / skit for “Teeny Boppers” features a very young Ty Segall alongside lifelong collaborator Mikal Cronin — it is adorable, and well worth looking up. Horn the Unicorn, Segall’s first solo album post-Epsilons, was originally released in 2008 on cassette only. A self-titled release came out later that same year, and both records exhibited more experimental flourish than anything Segall had previously recorded. Crazy jams on Horn the Unicorn include the spastic
“Apples,” whose pumping keyboards could make your grandmother pogo, and “Bike,” where the goofy, high-pitched vocals and jittery pace are as fun and chaotic as a poorly constructed carnival ride. The outstanding track on Horn is the spookily soft “You’re Not Me,” whose juxtaposition of barren silence and chaotic noise heralds the dynamic anarchy to come on future albums. Lemons and Reverse Shark Attack, both released in 2009, move in the open spaces between garage, punk, and lo-fi, with hints of crossover thrash-metal. Highlights on Lemons are “Untitled #2,” an instrumental destined for the soundtrack of an epic chase movie, and “Die Tonight,” a Standells-influenced darksoul rocker. Co-written by Mikal Cronin, Reverse Shark Attack is a breakthrough for
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Segall, where underwater vocals, feedback and sludgy guitars are blended with skillful execution. Residual traces of Reverse Shark Attack appear throughout Melted, released in 2010, such as in the fantastically fuzzy “Mike D’s Coke.” “My Sunshine” is such a freaked-out jammer that Death by Audio was inspired to produce a limited edition reverb pedal called Sunshine Reverberation: only one hundred were made, all signed by Segall. “Girlfriend” is a poppier track with hand-claps and a stompin’ beat; it has such a broad danceable appeal that it might have been a radio hit if Segall had any interest in that sort of thing. Live in Aisle Five and Goodbye Bread were released in 2011, the latter of which is a come-down from the heavy trips in Melted. Segall is still experimenting with distortion, but here he explores the softer, sweeter side of noise, fine-tuning his songwriting craftsmanship — influences like John Lennon and Robyn Hitchcock envelop this album’s aesthetic. Goodbye Bread’s jangly “I Can’t Feel It” has elements of Britpop so strong and infectious that it would not be surprising to find that Damon Albarn shares songwriting credits. Of course, being a Segall release, there are freakouts and guitar assaults, but they are used infrequently in an otherwise mellow effort. In 2012, Ty Segall released a total of three full-length albums: Hair is a collaboration with Timothy Presley, (aka White Fence); Twins,
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which is widely regarded as Segall’s best solo record; and the fierce Slaughterhouse, with Cronin and Charles Moothart as the Ty Segall Band. Of these, Twins is the best place to start if you’re just taking your first steps into Ty Segall’s intimidating discography. Dueling insane-o guitars on “Thank God for Sinners,” the punk attack of “You’re the Doctor,” and the sludgy guitars of “Love Fuzz” make Twins the most representative album of his career yet. His heaviest album to date is the Fuzz self-titled LP released in 2013 on In the Red Records, which sways between Sabbathinspired stoner riffs and the quiet tension that Ty Segall has learned to master in his solo records. Here Segall sits in the back of the band, singing and beating up the drum kit, while bandmate Charles Moothart rips the sky with the shredding solos that make Fuzz such a solid album. Fuzz crushes, kills and destroys; it is easily one of the best albums of 2013. Sleeper, also released in 2013, could not be more different than Fuzz. Written after a series of family tragedies, Segall slows down in this album; acoustic guitars and crisp vocals investigate a dark and honest (if foggy) place in his psyche. Sleeper’s long, slow builds climax in sparse, well-placed freakouts that are well worth the wait, especially in the gorgeous “Man Man.” Manipulator, released last month on Drag City, is a mosaic meticulously arranged from what should be (but aren’t) incompatible genres — punk, ’60s sunshine pop, metal,
psych — buffed to a high-gloss finish. The mellow sweetness of Goodbye Bread and the mature melancholy of Sleeper are evident, while the sinister distortion and harsh buzz of his other records, although present, have faded to supportive roles. Despite this, dueling guitars and spaced-out effects prevent Manipulator from even hinting at mopiness. In fact, the album is positively poppy, and even the lyrics are charmingly goofy: the title track coos about a “drug rug as smooth as silk.” Fans who crave his heavier jammers will have to wait for the next Fuzz record, unless Segall throws everyone for a loop again with his (probably shortly forthcoming) next solo effort – not at all out of the question considering his varied output so far. Ty Segall is out on tour again to support Manipulator — but unfortunately, he is once again not coming our way. Touring endlessly to promote a never-ending supply of fresh releases, it’s odd that Segall has never made his way through St. Louis. He regularly visits Memphis and Chicago, so it seems like our city would be a natural stopover. Directly reaching Segall to ask him to play here is difficult, as he is a private person whose Twitter and Facebook accounts exist only to ward off impostors. Therefore, the ol’ fashioned mailman might be the best way to reach someone who has eschewed social media so successfully. If you would like Mr. Ty Segall to grace St. Louis with his fuzzedup freakouts, please mail the following form to his People:
Back in the Pool Melinda Cooper catches up with The Breeders’ JOSEPHINE WIGGS on the eve of their upcoming tour kickoff at Off Broadway
Photo by andrew kuykendall
The Breeders in Williamsburg. Josephine Wiggs is the one in the glasses with the British accent.
The Breeders started off in 1989 as a side project for Kim Deal and Tanya Donelly from their respective bands, The Pixies and Throwing Muses. Their first album, Pod, was released shortly afterwards, in May of 1990. The initial purpose of their existence was to create a place for Kim Deal’s songs which didn’t necessarily fit in the context of The Pixies. It was more about fulfilling this need than fulfilling the list of lofty goals which actually became the reality a few years later. Pod seemed to appear out of nowhere, and made an immediate impression among a certain set of music lovers. Although it acquired various accolades and the admiration of many peers — Kurt Cobain described Pod as “an epic that will never let you forget your ex-girlfriend,” in a 1992 interview with
The Breeders, The Funs Tuesday, September 2 Off Broadway
Melody Maker magazine — the album basically stayed well underground until after the demise of The Pixies in 1993. Not that it would have mattered if The Pixies were still together, because The Breeders kicked the doors down with their next studio album, Last Splash. As we all know, once “Cannonball” dropped in August 1993 it was on, and it has been ever since. They put a pin in St. Louis a few years back by filming a video for the title track to their Fate to Fatal EP here in South St. Louis
at the Skatium with our very own Arch Rival Roller Girls. Now they’ve chosen to make St. Louis their first stop on an 18-day nationwide tour. Their September 2 show in the cozy confines of Off Broadway jumpstarts a series of twelve which all lead up to the grand finale at the Hollywood Bowl, where they’ll be sharing the stage with Neutral Milk Hotel. After plenty of side-projects, lineup changes, and other random offs and ons, the magical combination of Kim Deal, Kelley Deal, Jim Macpherson, and Josephine Wiggs is back at it and ready to test out some new Breeders material on the crowds that will surely gather for this latest trip across the country. I spoke with Breeders bassist Josephine Wiggs about their latest efforts, as well as
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her own experiences and history outside of the band. Wiggs is responsible for such gems at “Metal Man” and the title track to Last Splash’s follow up 7”, “Head to Toe.” However, she stands out as an artist in her own right with projects such as Ladies Who Lunch with Kate Schellenbach, Dusty Trails with Vivian Trimble, and her own band, The Josephine Wiggs Experience. She also found time recently to compose the soundtrack for the 2014 film Appropriate Behavior. After freaking out a little bit about the fact that I was having a telephone conversation with one of my personal heroes of about 20 years and counting, I was able to work a few solid questions in for this piece. This is the result. What is your primary instrument, or what’d you start with? I actually started with the cello. I took cello lessons from the age of six to, uh, I guess I was sixteen or seventeen when I stopped having lessons. I picked up the guitar at eleven or twelve. But I had a friend who played guitar — my sister’s boyfriend was a pretty good guitarist, and I think he was like, “Oh, you should play bass,” and then we played together. And because of already having a background playing the cello, it felt very natural to me, to be playing an instrument with four strings. Ah, absolutely.
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So I was playing the bass guitar probably by the time I was about thirteen, and it is my favorite instrument. Although I do enjoy playing cello, and I really enjoy playing the piano, although I’m not a proficient piano player by any means. I think it’s a really fantastic instrument, and a fantastic way to make music. But my number one is still bass guitar. Although of course, I do like drums, having said that. I do really enjoy playing drums and I’m a bit of a drum geek. Yeah, drums can be fun because you don’t have to think about anything. Yeah. Playing the drums is a bit like juggling, where you’re doing multiple things, doing something different, and that’s really kind of all you can think about while you’re doing it. It’s kind of a meditative thing, I think. And I love watching drummers. On the rare occasions when I go to shows these days, I’m much more likely to be watching the drummer than anybody else. You were writing between tour dates for the Appropriate Behavior soundtrack. How hectic was that? Luckily the deadline kept moving. So, you know, originally I was like, OK, I’ve got three weeks to finish it, and then as it got toward the end of that they were like, “Oh, actually it’s going to be another month,” because they kept either re-editing or their
whole schedule kept expanding. So luckily that meant that my schedule was able to expand a little bit. It wasn’t too bad, in terms of being nervewracking and only having a limited amount of time and in a very short amount of time. You’ve collaborated with lots of people. Who are some of your favorites? I had a very, very great collaboration with Vivian Trimble, who is the keyboard player from Luscious Jackson. That’s Dusty Trails, right? Yeah, that’s right. That was really great. We literally worked. We would work all day, every day. It was like a regular job. I would show up at her house in the sort of late morning, and we would work six hours a day, five days a week in a very regular kind of way, just recording and arranging. She is a very talented musician, also classically trained. Which was a reason I learned a lot from her about arranging. The two of us were very into that whole aspect of looking microscopically at things and maximizing moments within a song, making transitions work really well, and all that kind of thing. So I did enjoy working with her very much. Yeah, I love pretty much everything she’s done. The KoStars record was my favorite — I’ve ripped that record off probably a million times. And I loved that Ladies Who
Lunch record. Oh, did you really? Yeah, and that’s how I found out about the song “Gigantic.” I didn’t even know The Pixies. No way, oh my god. That is fantastic. That’s a great story. Well, I mean, I haven’t told my friends that, for obvious reasons. That’s very funny. In fact, Kate [Schellenbach] just sent me a link to something on YouTube [where] somebody has made a video to go with, I think it was a song called “Please Kill Me.” It was a B side to one of the Ladies Who Lunch records. “Please Kill Me” was actually a Luscious Jackson song that they never recorded, and I’d completely forgotten about it. So it was kind of hilarious to hear, not only to hear the song again, but to see that someone had made a video to it. Kate does a fantastic Casio keyboard solo in the middle of it, which is just hilarious It’s like a cat had played it. It’s very out there. So that made me laugh a lot. Are you writing a lot when you’re touring, or is it just straight up grueling schedule and tour and that’s it? We finished the Last Splash tour on December 31 [2013], and then we played 60 shows over the course of eight months.
Right before the last run of shows, we had a rehearsal session where we started to think about trying to get some new things up and running. We thought it would be nice to kind of whet people’s appetite, as it were, for the possibility that there might be new things. Since the end of that tour we’ve been rehearsing. Everybody else lives in Dayton, Ohio, but I live in Brooklyn. So one week out of every month I come out and stay with them and we’ll have eight or nine days’ rehearsal. That’s what we’ve been doing since January. I saw that you’re doing the eleven hour commute driving to practice. Man, that’s really something. Right. So, and now, I just arrived [in Dayton] yesterday, and this is going to be the last rehearsal we have before we start doing these dates in September. So it’s like ten days or something. Oh yeah, September 2, here you come. It was nearly a city-wide spazz out when tickets went on sale at 10am that day. I tried to get tickets at 10:02 and the system was already locked up. [laughs] So there will be some new material for this show? Yeah, that’s really why we’re playing these shows, is to try out some of this new material.
To test it and see what you want to record? Yeah. You know, it’s very different to play a new song for the first time in front of people. You hear it in a different way and, you kind of, all of a sudden you’re like, “Oh, does that part really work?” Or you’re kind of aware of how it’s affecting the people who are listening to it. So it’s kind of an important step in the writing process, to play it for other people. Even if it’s just someone who shows up in your rehearsal room. How important do you think it is to have a music community — a group of likeminded people or bands who are friends and cohorts? I think it’s fine to have people you play with. For me that’s part of the reason I started playing in bands in the first place. It was a little bit like being in a gang. It’s like, you have this thing that you do together and it’s not necessarily about anything else other than just being in the same room together. Also — partly because of my background with classical music and knowing what it was like to play with other people — I liked that aspect of it. Not cliquish exactly, but you kind of feel like you’re in a gang. It’s the same reason I like riding bicycles with my friends: you kind of feel like you’re in a biker gang. [laughs] So, you know, I can see why people like it. There’s something really appealing about that.
Monday, September 1 // $7 The Morbids, Dogtooth, Humanoids, Breakmouth Annie Friday, September 5 // 9pm // No Cover Pü Fest Kick Off featuring Black Panties, Tone Rodent, Jack Grelle & Pizza Boys Friday, September 12 Jedi Nighties & 5th Pocket Saturday, September 13 Saturday Night Supper Club w/ Grant Harbron & Trevor Matthews Sunday, September 14 Gadabout Film Festival (gadaboutfilmfest.com/about)
MELT
WA F F L E B AR
Saturday, September 20 // 4pm // No Cover Jason Vargas Music Project - No Cover, 4PM - 6:30PM Monday, September 22 // 3pm-10pm Vanguard Cocktail Arts Festival. Tickets Available at vanguardfest.bpt.me Saturday, September 27 // 9pm Absolutely Not, Tiger Rider, Moon Glampers, Garage Rock Melt Hours: Mon: CLOSED Tues - Thurs: 4pm - 12am
Fri - Sat: 9am - 1:30am Sun: 9am - 3pm
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by Jordan Heimburger
Among Broncho fans, one of the enduring mysteries of the band is how they’re not already a household name in the indie rock world. The Norman, Oklahoma band formed in 2010 around a batch of songs written by singer/guitarist Ryan Lindsey. Their 2011 debut album, Can’t Get Past the Lips, is a catchy, bratty, high energy update of the firstgeneration CBGBs punk sound: tight song structure, quick tempos and conversational vocal cadences. The songs on that album are pretty much all two-minute-or-under gems, easily quotable and extremely memorable, and the band has been touring the US hard for a couple of years to get the word out. Now, the band is about to hit the road
Broncho, Low Litas, Bug Chaser
Wednesday, September 10 Firebird
again — this time in support of their fresh, much-anticipated second album, Just Enough Hip to Be Woman, which will be released this month on Dine Alone Records. The new songs stay close to the spirit of their first record, polishing up and stretching out the songs just a bit. The new album’s production adds a layer or two of new color and grabs references from the generation that followed the first wave of the ’70s punk sound into the heavily reverbed gloss
of the ‘80s. To capture the new sound, they expanded from their core — Lindsey on vocals and guitar, Nathan Price on drums, and Benjamin King on guitar — to include touring members Penny Pitchlynn on bass ond keyboards, and Mandii Larsen on guitar and vocals. Pitchlynn and Larsen are two-thirds of excellent Tulsa band Low Litas, who will be supporting Broncho on this round of touring. Their current US tour brings them to the Firebird on Wednesday, September 10, and they have a stretch of European dates planned, too. Can’t Get Past the Lips, their debut, was actually released twice last year: first on Oklahoma City record-store imprint Guestroom Records, and then again with a bigger PR push on Fairfax Recordings, a subsidiary of Universal Music Group. The almost nonstop touring to support both versions won them
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many small legions of devoted fans across the US — St. Louis crowds are always heavy stocked with local musicians — without quite sparking a larger national awareness. That may be in part because Fairfax, just after signing Broncho, suddenly shut down operations when Universal pulled the label’s funding. Happily, Broncho had an inkling this might happen, and already had a relationship with Toronto-based Dine Alone Records. Dine Alone is a quiet powerhouse of a label, having released or co-released music by relative old-schoolers like Billy Bragg and Brendan Benson, as well as new sensations like Lucius, Shovels & Rope, and DZ Deathrays. It looks to be a good match with Broncho’s particular form of punk-based ambitions. I got on the horn recently with Lindsey to talk about the music, the recording process, and their just-in-time move to a new record label. “The funny thing about Fairfax,” explains Lindsey, “they’re a part of the bigger label, so what happens is bands get upstreamed by, like, the more successful you are, and they get pushed up to the bigger label and the bigger label. So I ran into a couple of bands that we were on that label with us and I was kind of thinking, ‘What are you guys gonna do now that the label’s over?’ because we had Dine Alone ready to go and I kind of felt bad for them if they didn’t have a label ready. They said that they had already been upstreamed, and it turned out that Broncho was the last band. We were like the only band remaining on that label,” he laughs. “So they basically took everybody but us and were like ‘Ok, we’re done.’ One of those hilarious moments.” But that was fine by Broncho. “It ended up being good,” says Lindsey. “Because when you’re dealing with a label as big as Universal you can’t get anything done. There’s just too many people you have to go through to get anything going, so it was a really nice thing that they decided they didn’t want to fund Fairfax. Now we’re on a label that has their own funding, so everything gets done so quickly. You just make a call, send an email, things are done.” The songs for the new album were already taking shape while Broncho was finishing their debut album, and the band had been playing a number of them live in the time leading up to the recording sessions. They did the first round of tracking during two weeks at the Sonic Ranch outside of El Paso, Texas, “a crazy little haunted pecan orchard backed up against the Rio Grande,” says Lindsey. “It’s a wild little environment.”
Sonic Ranch turned out to be the right place at the right time. “It was pretty vital as far as finishing the songwriting of the songs,” says Lindsey. “We had ideas in mind for the way the structures were gonna be, and once we got there we set up and played live and recorded. We had the intention to overdub guitars and vocals. You always hope you don’t have to do that, but we weren’t really prepared to keep vocals and that stuff. All the bass and drums we really liked, so we kept that.” One of Broncho’s stand-out qualities is the ability of the vocal melodies and lyrical phrases to fit together just so. “Usually the first thing that comes is me playing a song and singing to it,” says Lindsey, who writes the lyrics and the first drafts of the songs. “That melody I’m singing is the first thing that will grab my attention, as far as keeping me around to care about an idea if I’m into a melody. So it always starts there, and then as far as the little moments that might happen, the best moments happen completely on the fly. They happen almost
with something,” says Lindsey. “Sometimes it happens in a demo and it’s like, ‘All right, this is good, this is done.’ And then it’s like, ‘This isn’t. We obviously need to record this song.’ And then in that process there’ll be these different times where it’s like, ‘All right, we’re done!’ And then the ultimate mindfuck is when you have to mix them. So it’s a battle in mental stability, for sure. Probably doing anything artistic is, writing or whatever, it’s always a battle.” As an album, Just Enough Hip to Be Woman follows a steady arc from smile to snarl that Lindsey says was intentionally designed to draw listeners in. “I think the songs on side A fit together,” he explains. “They made sense in this place, when you step back and look at the whole record. We want to take you to this place that’s almost a little sweet, this world where things are kind of pretty. And then we get you to this place where, when we get you in, then maybe you’ll be OK with us being a little bit dirtier, maybe a little bit rougher.” That design is easy to observe: the album opens with the laid-back bounce and easy-going vocal delivery of “What,” punctuated by Lindsey’s trademark non-lyrical hook, in this case a catchy little “ooh whaa-at” tagged on the end of the verse. First single “Class Historian” kicks that hook instinct into overdrive with a falsetto vocal lead that sounds like Lindsey pretending to be a guitar effect, riding an eighth-note chop over a cleanly composed guitar melody that would be at home in a new wave tune. It’s pure earworm, unlikely to leave your head once you’ve heard it once. Both tunes — really, side one as a whole — may be dialed down a bit from the spastic energy of Broncho’s first record, but it’s clear the band is branching out into more complex productions. Lindsey’s vocal delivery during the early part of the new album gravitates toward a punchy, almost-spoken tone that hovers somewhere at the intersection of Iggy Pop, Joey Ramone, and one of those rockabilly guys, while not giving dominance to any particular sound. Lindsey’s approach to vocal delivery is all about finding the right thing for each song, “I don’t consciously try to stick to one particular character for the whole thing, but I like to be loose with each song because I think it’s pretty important to the individual song to be flexible as far as cadences and pronunciation and all that stuff so it makes sense in that moment.” By the album’s fifth track, “NC-17,” the distortion knob gets cranked up a bit to bring a touch of fuzz to the reverb-drenched vocals. A brief but satisfying guitar
“We want to take you to this place that’s almost this world where things are kind of pretty — then maybe you’ll be OK ” with us being
Previous pages: Live photos by Ismael Valenzuela, Treatments by paige brubeck
a little sweet,
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a little bit rougher.
by mistake. That’s why I always end up loving demos, ‘cause there’s moments where it’s first takes. Those can be some of the most genuine and true moments of stuff when you’re recording.” The album’s finishing touches took shape at Blackwatch Studios, in Broncho’s hometown, which helped ground the album in familiar territory. “Our friends own it,” and we pretty much do most of the recording on anything we’ve released there, or with them,” says Lindsey. Compared to their debut album, Just Enough Hip to Be Woman uses added guitar melodies — some clean and composed, some dirty and chaotic — as well as more layered vocals to create a thicker and sometimes more complex sound. Lindsey says the new sounds “came naturally, really. We weren’t thinking, ‘This next record is gonna be bigger.’ It just happened, and then it was just song to song. ‘What makes this song make more sense?’ Spending time on each song, you start sort of adding more for better or worse, but in the end I think we were all pretty happy with the way things turned out as far as production.” “It can be tough, especially with some room in the budget, to know when to put on the brakes in the studio. There are so many different stages of feeling finished
Photo by Jaret Ferratusco
Class Historians Broncho left to right: Benjamin King, Ryan Lindsey, and Nathan Price. freakout in the middle of the track breaks through the album’s otherwise steady mood. The only keyboard on the record floats over the top of next track “I’m Gonna Find Out Where He’s At,” doubling the hook’s vocal motif. On the subject of keyboards, “For the most part on the record, we were able to emulate sounds that might be a keyboard with guitars,” says Lindsey. “We always thought, ‘We have guitars, we don’t need to use keyboards,’ but that’s kind of stupid as well. I don’t think it’s necessarily beneficial to stick to any one idea.” The rougher vibe of the album’s second half kicks off with the de-tuned throb of “Taj Mahal”: “Is anyone still having sex?” Lindsey asks over the scrape of guitars feeding back. Throughout the album but especially on “Taj Mahal,” Lindsey shows a flair for cool pronunciation choices, as Lindsey leans on parts of words that don’t usually get emphasis to good effect. And from there through the end of the album, Broncho keeps turning up the heat. “It’s On” works a tempo that fans of Can’t Get Past the Lips will find both familiar and satisfying, and Lindsey delivers some of his most clever turns of phrase here, like “If you try to bust me out with your bell bottoms on, it’s on.” It’s Lindsey at his most cheeky and impetuous, the band at a dynamic high, and a satisfying pop tune. “A lot of the time we’ll just come up
with ideas while we’re hanging out, talking and discussing things and trying to come up with something that’s making us laugh, something that seems like a good point,” says Lindsey. “For the most part, we’re always trying to tell the best joke.” “Kurt” is a crack up of a song: it first made the rounds of the Internet under the title “I Wanna Put It Where Kurt Put It,” so it’s probably safe say that Courtney Love figures into the lyrical theme somewhere. Just Enough Hip to Be Woman closes with “China,” the most sonically aggressive track on the album, with a touch of fuzz on the bass and a lyric that teases both a classic Beach Boys line — “I gotta find a new place where the kids are the shit” — and Jerry Lee Lewis with the opening line, “Goodness gracious, Great Wall of China!” “I like ‘China’ being at the end,” says Lindsey. “It’s this really long song — especially for us it’s really long, you know. Our songs are all around two minutes, and that one is probably double.” With a couple of especially memorable vocal hooks on an album already packed with them, it’s an effective finishing flourish for an album that starts restrained and notches up from there. Now that the album is done and finally about the be released, the band had to figure out how to get the more ambitious instrumentation across onstage. Thus, Broncho is doing this tour as a band within a band,
Photo by Jaret Terrafusco
as three members, Pitchlynn, Larsen and Price, will open for Broncho playing the music of Pitchlynn and Larsen’s band, Low Litas. It’s pretty much an ideal way to get as much done as possible, and should work out well for everyone. Pitchlynn, for her part, is psyched. “Maybe a month after Ryan asked me to play bass for Broncho, he learned that the Low Litas’ album was coming out right before tour started, and also knows Mandii rules at guitar,” says Pitchlynn. “Anyway, he thought of the genius idea to invite Mandii as another guitar and vocal layer and let Low Litas open on the road. Mandii and I say we were ‘miracled.’” I first heard of Broncho through the reputation of their live shows. Lindsey wants to make sure that the energy of the shows stays up where it’s supposed to, which means not getting too distracted by details. “We’re trying to make the smallest keyboard setup possible,” he said. “So we have this tiny little straight stand with a tiny little keyboard on it and Mandii, our other guitar player, is gonna play that part.” While some of the vibe of the new material is comparatively calmer to their first release, it’s safe to say the energy onstage is going to be full on. “Putting on a good show is all about having some energy,” says Lindsey. “So if you can move and sing you’re most of the way there. It’s really kind of like we’re doing aerobics to an extent.”
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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4
LEE BAINES III & THE GLORY FIRES, Tok, Boreal Hills at Off Broadway
BISHOP ALLEN, Jesse Marchant, Ian McGowan & The Good Deeds at Firebird
CHUCK BERRY at the Duck Room
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18
RUNOFF, The Homewreckers, Other People, Googolplexia at Firebird
IRON & WINE at THE PAGEANT
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11
KID CONGO POWERS AND THE PINK MONKEY BIRDS, Little Big Bangs at Off Broadway
BRONCHO, Low Litas, Bug Chaser at Firebird
THE BREEDERS, The Funs at Off Broadway
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2
RECOMMENDED SHOWS
POKEY LAFARGE’S CENTRAL TIME TOUR
LIVING COLOUR at the Duck Room
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24
THE APACHE RELAY at Gramophone
with DOM FLEMONS, JOEY SAVOY, JESSE LEGÉ & THE CAJUN COUNTRY REVIVAL, THE TILLERS, AND THE LOOT ROCK GANG • FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12 AT OLD ROCK HOUSE OUTDOOR PAVILION With the possible exception of the Cardinals, no one has done more in the last decade to further the best qualities of St. Louis and the American Midwest than Pokey LaFarge. For years, he and his band of St. Louisans have brought their colorful iteration of previously sepia-toned Americana all over the Western Hemisphere, and LaFarge himself is consistently eloquent on the subject of Midwestern character and history. With his Central Time Tour, LaFarge brings an old-school musical revue out on a two-week tour of the Central Time neighborhood, in towns throughout Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, Iowa, Kentucky, and more. MC’d by Carolina Chocolate Drops’ Dom Flemons, the touring bands include Cajun music, ragtime, country blues, fiddlin’ tunes, and a broad spectrum of particularly Midwestern music that lives and breathes in the modern era. Like his benefactor Jack White, LaFarge is proving to be a gentleman, a scholar, and an activist for constructively rethinking the past we thought we knew. Now, the Central Time Tour expands on Pokey’s ongoing thesis about American music, and gives us in STL who think we know him a whole new way to hear his music: in the context of an ambitious national revival of our own cultural heritage. EVAN SULT
PHOTO COURTESY WARNERBLASTER
LOUFEST DAY TWO: Pretty Little Empire, Old Salt Union, Portugal. The Man, Grouplove, Matt & Kim, Vintage Trouble, OutKast, more at Forest Park
PÜ FEST DAY TWO: Maximum Effort, Self Help, Kisser, American Cream, Absolutely, Shaved Women, STNNNG, Alex Body, Perfect Pussy, Guerilla Toss, Trauma Harness, Demonlover, more at Empire Hall
YACHT, White Fang at Plush
MINERAL, Into It. Over It., Foxing at Firebird
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16
BLACK LIPS, The King Khan & Barbecue Show at Ready Room
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15
MATT HARNISH’S PINK GUITAR (EP release), Daren Gratton, Bill Michalski, Joe Steinman, Dan Johanning, Carondelet Guy, Tracy & Kelsey (call 314-TOESGRO for info) at Pancake Productions Headquarters Garage Lodge
D.R.I, Cross Examination, Fun With Napalm at Fubar
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 7
TOBACCO, The Stargazer Lilies, Oscillator Bug at Off Broadway
SEBADOH at Off Broadway
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23
Scan this QR Code, or go to ElevenMusicMag.com for a listing of club addresses. Check out our expanded calendar of events at calendar.elevenmusicmag.com, powered by
Mentioned this issue Comedy show
LEGEND
MUSICALENDAR
THE DAM DAMS, What Moon Things, con trails at Firebird I got a chance to see What Moon Things in DC this summer, and they’re the real deal: heavy, psychy, stoned with the sound of melody and distortion. It’s mighty. Take a risk, check ‘em out, you’ll be a fan in no time. ES
SARAH JAROSZ, Blue Canyon Boys, Betse Ellis at The Sheldon
The simple fact is that An Under Cover Weekend is one of STL’s most valuable musical traditions. This year includes some crazy shit (How Flaming Lips? Why Chili Peppers?), but Bluefish deserves singling out for their swing at Rihanna. All male, all white, all standard rock instrumentation, the music of Bluefish qua Bluefish gives no hint how they plan to handle this duty. And that is the spirit of AUCW, and the reason to keep coming back each year. ES
AN UNDER COVER WEEKEND 8: Various Hands as Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blackwater ‘64 as Foo Fighters, Bluefish as Rihanna, Hidden Lakes as The Cure, Brother Mouzone as The Flaming Lips at Firebird
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27
ROB GARZA (Thievery Corp) DJ set at 2720
AN UNDER COVER WEEKEND 8: Volcanoes as Rage Against The Machine, Bear Hive as LCD Soundsystem, Search Parties as Hall & Oates, Al Holliday & The East Side Rhythm Band as Joe Cocker, Brother Lee & The Leather Jackals as Elvis at Firebird
JOHN PRINE, Amanda Shires at the Touhill
JON HARDY & THE PUBLIC, Middle Class Fashion at Off Broadway
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26
WILL HOGE at Off Broadway
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 25
HOW TO DRESS WELL, Nite Jewel at The Luminary
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22
THE FIXX at the Duck Room
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 21
UHF MIDNIGHT SCREENING at Moolah Theatre & Lounge
FUTUREBIRDS at Gramophone
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 14
LEE FIELDS & THE EXPRESSIONS, Big Brother Thunder And The MasterBlasters, Hal Greens at 2720
IAN FISHER & THE PRESENT (7” release), The Reverend John Delore, Yankee Racers at Off Broadway
SPOON, EMA at The Pageant
TOWER OF SONG: A TRIBUTE TO LEONARD COHEN and 80th Birthday Celebration with Brothers Lazaroff, Cave States, Cree Rider Family Band, Genevieve, Indian Blanket, The Jenny Kavanaugh Band, Rough Shop, T&A (Tom Hall & Alice Spencer) at Off Broadway
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20
UHF MIDNIGHT SCREENING at Moolah Theatre & Lounge
STATIC LIFE, Rev Gusto, Yankee Rain at Cicero’s So fresh-faced and foxy they could be confused (in photos, anyway) for a boy band, Rev Gusto is Kansas City’s newest secret weapon. They make unselfconscious good-time indie rock with an instinct for a hook, and their harmonizing charisma positively glows from the stage. This is a perfect example of a band who could suddenly be all up in your feeds tomorrow, so Cicero’s might be just the place to get a good look at ‘em in person.
SHABAZZ PALACES at Firebird
NOTHING SHOCKING at Ready Room
MIKE BIRBIGLIA at The Pageant
BOB MOULD BAND, Cymbals Eat Guitars at Old Rock House
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19
SOCIAL DISTORTION, The Whigs, Johnny Two Bags at The Pageant
TENNIS, Pure Bathing Culture at Ready Room
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13
LIGHTFOILS, CaveofswordS, Golden Curls at Firebird
THE AFGHAN WHIGS, Joseph Arthur at Ready Room
PUJOL at Off Broadway
POKEY LAFARGE’S CENTRAL TIME TOUR (see above for lineup) at the Old Rock House Outdoor Pavilion
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12
CLAIRY BROWNE & THE BANGIN’ RACKETTES, Robbie & The Rockin’ Fools at Firebird
LOUFEST DAY ONE: Big Brother Thunder & The MasterBlasters, San Fermin, Skaters, Washed Out, Those Darlins, Future Islands, Yo La Tengo, The 1975, CAKE, Arctic Monkeys, more at Forest Park
PÜ FEST DAY ONE: The Conformists, Faultfinder, Transmontane, Worried Mothers, Nerv, Digital Leather, Eric Hall, Nervosas, Bug Chaser, Lechuguillas, KneeGrowPleeze, Black James, more at Empire Hall
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6
PÜ FEST KICKOFF SHOW with Jack Grelle, Tone Rodent, Pizza Boys, Black Panties at Melt
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5
Two-thirds of Nashville’s *repeat repeat are a couple, and they’re clearly head over heels for each other: their debut CD, Bad Latitude, boils over with lustful appreciations. But the muscular surf-inflected guitars, dark harmonies, and explosive drums (courtesy of part-time STLer Andy Herrin) keep it heavy as well as sweet. They blast out of the speakers like an American Ting Tings with better lyrics — definitely worth the drive out to Edwardsville. ES
*REPEAT REPEAT, Search Parties, Equal Squeeze at Wildey Theatre
Live Music
BRING ON THE NIGHT = STL band (current and/or honorary)
Billy Bragg and Joe Purdy (pictured) showed up for a surprise St. Louis set at The Royale on Tuesday, August 19. They weren’t scheduled to be in town but changed their plans in the wake of the Michael Brown shooting. Royale owner Steven Smith put the event together in a matter of hours, and used it as an opportunity to gather food and other donations for the residents in Ferguson whose lives have been affected by the protests there following the shooting of Michael Brown.
<<REVIEW
Bible Belt Sinners,
Photo by Bill Streeter
Roland Johnson, Raye Cole Friday, August 1
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LIVERY COMPANY It’s a hot, muggy August evening when we arrive at Livery Company. As we step through the door, we’re stopped by a hooded, bearded creature of a man, holding a broadsword and looking like something out of Greek mythology. I’ve heard that this is what happens when one crosses the River Styx. And me without a coin. Thankfully, after paying the money, the only liquid I come across is strong drink. The place is bare for the moment. But I’m here for good soul music, and this is the calm before the storm. In an hour, I know, this place will be jumping. Raye Cole kicks it off with a strong soul voice that had already lived a lifetime’s worth of happiness and despair at only 27 years of age. With only the accompaniment of pianist Phillip Graves, she strips down every song — original or cover — to the emotional core that so few are able to reach. Cole’s only disadvantage is the distance that St. Louis crowds put between themselves and the artist, something I’ve never been able to understand. But her voice commands attention, and sure enough, by the end of her set, the eyes of every patron, bartender and barfly are squarely on her. Her set ends with a cover of Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” and she belts it
to the back row. Graves deviates from the traditional melody just enough to make it unique, though the lyric will always remain as stirring as ever. And when the set is over, all one can do is give a long exhale. I step outside for a moment while the second act sets up. The crowds are arriving in earnest now, and the anticipation is building for Roland Johnson. Shortly, I hear the faint sounds of instruments from the inside and go back in, slipping through the now large crowd of people to get up front. Johnson’s back-up band for the night is onstage, getting themselves warmed up into a nice bluesy glow. As the jam ends, Johnson hits the stage, pure charisma, and busts into his take on James Brown’s “Sex Machine,” and just like that every woman in the room is out on the dance floor. God damn, this man knows how to work a room! From the moment he stepped foot in the building, we were all in the palm of his hand — we just didn’t know it until he stepped onstage. Midset, he and the band shift into a double dose of Al Green, starting out with a version of “Take Me to the River” that puts both the Al Green and Talking Heads versions to shame. By the time the man hits “Let’s Stay Together” he’s officially singing baby-making music that will no doubt lead to a South City population explosion nine months from tonight. Everyone’s grabbing someone to dance, so I turn to the prettiest girl in the room and ask her to dance and,
Live Music to my surprise, she accepts. The crowd’s applause gets louder and more raucous with every number. By the end, we all need a cold shower. But since that’s not a option, a smoke in the night air will have to do. After two dynamite sets, it’s clear the Bible Belt Sinners have a tall order ahead of them. As they set up, the crowd begins to disperse a bit — understandably, they think it’s not going to get any better than what they’ve just seen. But they’ve obviously never seen the Bible Belt Sinners live before. The Sinners are clearly up for the challenge, picking up where Johnson left off and blasting into their set at 200 miles an hour. The strength of this band has always been their live shows and, though they’re more rock based than Cole or Johnson, theirs is just a different brand of soul music. From the moment the vibrations of Miss Molly Simms’ voice hit the microphone, she lays her soul bare. In the many times I’ve seen her live, solo or otherwise, she has yet to have an off night. The Sinners bring an intensity to each song live that a recording studio just can’t do justice to. Their performance of “Lovesick and Blind,” “Empty Bottles,” and Johnny Cash’s “Big River” sound possessed, and they burn through each song with a blistering fierceness like souls trying to outrun the hellhounds on their trails. It’s over all too quickly. Even after these years with all the countless shows I’ve seen, the sensation of seeing a great show is still one of the best feelings ever. It always will be. Rev. Daniel W. Wright >>PREVIEW
Nothing Shocking
Friday, September 19 the Ready Room The impact of Jane’s Addiction on popular music may be a little bit lost on anyone who wasn’t aware of them in the late ’80s and early ’90s. This isn’t a knock on people who don’t recognize it; it’s actually more of a knock on Jane’s Addiction themselves. Despite their storming of the radio then with songs like “Been Caught Stealing” and the once-ubiquitous “Jane Says,” in the 21st century they seem to be mostly known for their song “Superhero” as the theme song to HBO’s Entourage. And the enormous power and energy that Perry Farrell and the rest of the band exuded in the late ’80s are all but gone today in their own rare live shows. I expect Nothing Shocking can turn that attitude around. The musicians — Eric Lysaght on guitar and vocals, Jeff Gallo on bass and vocals, Bryan Hoskins on lead vocals, Kenneth McCray on drums, Mike Craft on percussion and Mark Hochberg on violin — were all hugely influenced by Jane’s Addiction. Gallo, Hoskins, and Lysaght, who together formed the ’90s STL band L.O.V.E.,
found common ground among their influences in Jane’s. “They changed everything for us,” says Gallo in a recent conversation with Eleven. “Even early on, we would open shows with ‘Down on the Beach/Oceansize’ to crowds who didn’t even know them yet.” He and Lysaght were present at early Jane’s Addiction shows, both for the ’88 Nothing’s Shocking Tour at Mississippi Nights and again when Jane’s rolled through town at the old Kiel Auditorium in 1991 on their “final” tour before their first, six-year breakup. “As a 16-year-old kid, there was nothing cooler than Jane’s Addiction!” says Gallo. Gallo let Eleven in on a couple of things to expect. The show will consist entirely of songs from the first two records, Nothing’s Shocking and Ritual de la Habitual, because those were the records that changed their lives. Gallo said to expect all the vocal effects Farrell uses and first class production being put together by Randy Noldge, whose work at The Pageant has included production design for El Monstero, The Urge and many others. But mostly, you can expect a group of musicians with genuine love for Jane’s Addiction playing those classic songs with all the passion they once commanded, even when Jane’s Addiction can’t seem to muster it up these days. Hugh Scott >>PREVIEW
Lee Fields And The Expressions, Big Brother Thunder And The MasterBlasters, Hal Greens Saturday, September 20
2720 Cherokee Legendary soul singer Lee Fields is coming back to town, and hip St. Louisans are preparing for a night of two-stepping, panty-dropping excitement. I grew up on what Southerners call “beach music” — a distinctive blend of jazz, soul, country blues and doo wop. The first tapes I ever bought were from artists like Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Ben E. King, and Bob Kuban, a Saint Louis native who scored his only major hit with “The Cheater.” In light of this history, it’s thrilling that soul music is enjoying a renaissance, especially among the younger generations. And I am especially grateful that Fields, a fellow North Carolinian, is receiving some long-overdue recognition. Lee Fields has the same oddly familiar backstory as many “rediscovered” soul legends. As a young man, he left the South for the promise of a music career in New York City. He signed with Bedford Records, a small independent label, and released his first single in 1969, a cover of the James Brown hit “Bewildered.” At the time, Brown was one of the most popular singers in America, and Fields was thus promoted as “Little JB,” a decision that
haunted the musician for much of his early career. While Brown enjoyed more than a decade of unparalleled success, Fields struggled to find his way in the industry. He cycled through nearly a dozen labels, until finally he built his own recording studio in the basement of a seafood restaurant. In the early ’90s, Fields toured the blues circuit with well-established artists like Tyrone Davis and B.B. King. While the other musicians played with sizable backing bands, Fields performed solo—with only a cassette tape for accompaniment. Despite the challenges, he attracted the attention of Daptone Records, the label behind Sharon Jones and Charles Bradley. After decades of struggle, Lee Fields finally broke into the mainstream with his 2009 release, My World. Today he travels with the Expressions, one of the tightest backing bands in soul music. As a unit, they tear up stages all over the world with their slow-burning, heart-wrenching performances. Life is all about timing. It took forty years for Lee Fields to achieve the musical success that he deserved. After reaching a career pinnacle, he may decide to stop touring tomorrow. So when he comes to 2720 Cherokee on September 20, the place to be is in the front row, dressed in your Sunday finest. I’ll be ready to break out my best Carolina shag; everyone else can bring the love. K.E. Luther >>PREVIEW
How To Dress Well, Nite Jewel Monday, September 22
The Luminary How To Dress Well is Tom Krell: singer, songwriter, producer. His falsetto voice radiates beauty over smooth and minimal R&B backbeats. On this year’s What Is the Heart?, he presents big production ballads, seductive tones, and slow, sad heartaches. Krell’s illuminated vocals are smooth and, dare I say, steamy, as he croons above synth and samples. When I reviewed his 2012 release, Total Loss, I predicted that “all the indie kids will be making out to these slow jams for years to come,” and What Is the Heart? promises to continue those sessions. Krell fits perfectly on the pop continuum next to charting modern R&B/pop singers like Rihanna and Frank Ocean as much as he does next to contemporaries Autre ne Veut and Active Child. The show is all about Krell and his pair of microphones, one standard, the other drenched in reverb. Live, the beauty is intensified on new tracks like “Words I Don’t Remember” and “Repeat Pleasure” — and if he plays “Set It Right” from Total Loss, I promise you it will bring the house down. The Luminary is the perfect venue to host the level of intimacy you usually only get while listening to How To Dress Well alone, on headphones. Jack Probst
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Live Music >>PREVIEW
The Apache Relay
Tuesday, September 23 The Gramophone This could be the last chance to catch The Apache Relay at a small venue in St. Louis, based on the energy of their latest work and the anticipation that has followed the June release of their self-titled album. The Nashville six-piece has scored stellar reviews from the big music mags, time on NPR, and an opening slot for Jenny Lewis. They’ve earned the accolades by taking the flavor of indie folk that’s become de rigueur — strings, fiddle, plaintive vocals — and expanding its range. Producer Kevin Augunas nudged the band into Wall of Sound territory on the album, which the band’s replicating in concert with an onslaught of electric guitar and keyboards. If Phil Spector produced The Head And The Heart, they might evolve into The Apache Relay. The album’s lead single, “Katie Queen of Tennessee,” births what should be the next generation of pop music. It’s an amalgamation of pop hooks, traditional and electric instruments, ethereal and breathy production, and Motown-inflected pacing. At first listen it sounds like a simple love song, the layers and nuances blending to make it all
seem much easier than it really is. In their April performance on NPR’s World Cafe, the band replicated the big studio sound of the album without sounding over-rehearsed or too polished. They’re still a band that formed in a Belmont College dorm room, and they haven’t forsaken their rough edges. Instead of steel guitar, they recreate the Americana moan with keyboards over a layer of four guitars. The end result’s a big sound from an engaging band that can turn a small venue into a burst-at-the-seams singalong, clap-along exchange that won’t be possible when the band moves on to bigger venues. And they will. Robin Wheeler >>Preview
Sebadoh
Tuesday, September 23 Off Broadway I got the chance to talk to Lou Barlow, Sebadoh frontman and former Dinosaur Jr. bassist, before their set at Off Broadway a couple of summers ago. I’m not sure what we talked about because I was so freaked out to be talking to him. In fact I only remember he said they’d eaten tacos on Cherokee and they were currently touring in support of their new t-shirts. A few minutes later the place was
steamy hot and packed wall-to-wall to see a band who was touring “to support a new t-shirt.” I swear to god I think they must have played 40 songs. We were all jumping around yelling lyrics in each other’s faces for about two solid hours. Everybody was just kind of going crazy and fully engaged until they left the stage for the last time (four encores? I can’t even remember). Two years later, they’re back at Off Broadway on a tour supporting their first studio album in 14 years. Their 13-track 2013 release, Defend Yourself, is their first since putting out a compilation of live and radio recordings in 2007. In fact it’s their first full-on studio release of new songs since 1999’s The Sebadoh. The new one has been streaming for free on Bandcamp for a while and I’ve given it a couple of passes. I keep stopping and going back to listen to Harmacy or Bakesale in the middle of it, but I really do like the choices they’re making with this record. There is no loss of what Barlow has described as “emotionally claustrophobic” angst with Defend Yourself. Sebadoh remains right on track. If this show is anything like the last one, it is definitely not one to miss. You may be bouncing around throughout the duration of a 53-song set, so wear comfortable shoes and remember to buy a t-shirt. Melinda
SHABAZZ PALACES PASSES ALL THE TESTS AT BEING THE BEST OF THE BEST: Factual Accolades by Ira Gamerman Bronson, Run The Jewels, Future, Freddy Gibbs/Madlib, YG, Odd Future, etc). IS YOUR ALBUM DIVIDED INTO 7 SUITES, KANYE??
>>PREVIEW
Shabazz Palaces
Friday, September 19 Firebird
SHABAZZ PALACES PASSES THE SUFJAN STEVENS “A Conjunction of Drones Simulating the Way in Which Sufjan Stevens Has an Existential Crisis in the Great Godfrey Maze” longest song titling test: “Endeavors for Never (The Last Time We Spoke You Said You Were Not Here. I Saw You Though.)”?
SHABAZZ PALACES PASSES THE GRUNGE TEST: Shabazz Palaces are both from Seattle and signed to Sub Pop . SHABAZZ PALACES PASSES THE ’90S BROOKLYN HIP-HOP TEST: Remember how awesom, Digable Planets was? Fuckin’ “Blow Out Comb,” amiright? GUESS WHAT DAWG: Ishmael Butler was the guy in that group who did ALL THE THING$! GRUNGE AND ’90S BROOKLYN HIP HOP? DIGABLE PLANTS ON FIRE, BATMAN! SHABAZZ PALACES PASSES THE KID A TEST: You’d never mistake The Bends for Kid A, just like Shabazz Palace’s 2011 instant classic debut Black Up — a fantasy superjam where alien creatures join forces with Panda Bear, Pharrell, and Pusha T to drop acid and find the true meaning of jazz (in space, obviously) — would never be mistaken for “What Out Comb” by the Whatable Whodats. Everything in its right place. SHABAZZ PALACES PASSES THE YEEZUS TEST: “I’m happy for you and Imma let you finish” but find me another divisive,
30 | ELEVEN | elevenmusicmag.com
SHABAZZ PALACES PASSES THE WATERY DOMESTIC EP TEST: Have ya heard “Blastit” from their eponymous EP? They’ve got style. Miles and miles.
obtuse, musically accomplished, beautifully produced, forward-thinking, or uniquely alien hip hop album that can even approach Lese Majesty’s majesty at this moment in hip hop. I literally dare you (and that’s not a slight as hip hop is currently having a modern renaissance: Danny Brown, Drake, A$AP, Action
SHABAZZ PALACES PASSES THE FAMILY FRIENDLY MODERN ART TEST: In 2013 Shabazz Palaces performed at a Brooklyn playground for The Museum of Contemporary African Diaspora’s Soul of Brooklyn festival (it was awesome). SHABAZZ PALACES PASSES ALL THE TESTS AT BEING THE BEST OF THE BEST: Pick up 2011’s Black Up and 2014’s Lese Majesty on vinyl or iTunes and see Shabazz Palaces at Firebird Friday September 19 already!
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elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 31
Album Reviews
HOT ROCKS = STL band (current and/or honorary)
sElf
Super Fake Nice EP
Guest List Each month we ask a specialist to pick some new release musts. This month’s Guest List is assembled by Jack Probst of Euclid Records Blonde Redhead Barragan Kobalt | Sep 2
The ninth studio album from the New York shoegaze trio, who have been rocking for over 20 years now.
Sinkane Mean Love DFA | Sep 2
Ahmed Gallab, known for playing with Yeasayer, of Montreal, and Caribou, among others, promises another set of trippy, jazz-influenced funky tunes.
Zammuto Anchor Temporary Residence / Sep 2
Former guitars/vocalist of found-sound sampling duo The Books, Nick Zammuto captures a sense of wonder in this collection of experimental pop songs.
Avi Buffalo At Best Cuckold Sub Pop | Sep 9
It’s been four years since the enchanting debut from the Long Beach group lead by Avi Zahner-Isenberg.
Death From Above 1979 The Physical World Sep 9
Reunion album from the elephant-trunked dance punkers, their first in 10 years.
Karen O Crush Songs Cult | Sep 9
Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ spectacular front woman goes lo-fi for her solo debut.
Generationals Alix Polyvinyl | Sep 16
New Orleans duo Ted Joyner and Grant Widmer switch things up by enlisting producer Richard Swift.
Mr. Twin Sister Mr. Twin Sister Twin Group/Infinite Best | Sep 23
For some reason, Twin Sister now added Mr, and based on the two polar opposite singles, this record is leaving behind the dreampop and heading out in many new directions at once.
Tweedy Sukierae dBPM | Sep 23
20 tracks from Jeff Tweedy and son Spencer’s new collaborative project.
JEFF The Brother Dig the Classics EP Warner Bros | Sep 29
Brothers Jake and Jamin Orrall’s guitar and drums rock out covers from the likes of Beck, Pixies, and My Bloody Valentine.
32 | ELEVEN | elevenmusicmag.com
El Camino Music
In a TEDxNashville talk from 2013, songwriter Matt Mahaffey played tunes all by himself on drums and keyboards and talked about the value of writing for commercials. Those who know him know that his real skill is writing genre-bending pop tunes under the moniker sElf. On a string of excellent albums, including 2000’s Gizmodgery, which was played entirely on toy instruments, sElf became known for a witty, kinda silly but sentimental indietinged style that included punk-y Prince covers, fake hip-hop samples of his own voice, Odelay-era Beck freakouts and a hopper full of adjectives for music writers to try and pin to him. Around 2002, when his last album Ornament and Crime was slated to come out but never did thanks to a never-ending struggle with his label over the record’s content, fans of the band (who called themselves “sElfies” — in 2002) lost hope. It seemed sElf was relegated to making songs for Shrek soundtracks and
Cory Branan The No-Hit Wonder
Bloodshot Records
Let’s just forget the past twenty years of pop country music ever happened, okay? Let’s imagine what we’d have if Shania Twain and Mutt Lange didn’t turn the truck onto the paved road. What if polished Nashville southern songwriters like Alan Jackson teamed up with cowpunks like Uncle Tupelo and Old 97’s to make a new generation of country music that retains the heart and gut of classic country storytelling and the rage and energy of punk? That’s what suburban, Memphis-born Cory Branan managed to accomplish on The No-Hit Wonder, his second release for Bloodshot Records, and he brought in some talented friends to help reinvent the wagon wheel. The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn
tribute compilations instead of proper records. Thankfully, the wait is over and the new EP Super Fake Nice, released not on a traditional label but by “music incubator” El Camino Media, is a joy to behold. Mahaffey still has the chops to make a hell of a tune, especially on lead single “Runaway,” which sounds like Prince sitting in with the Beach Boys, all funky synths and sweet vocal harmony. Hell, almost all the tracks are standouts, including “Subconscious Life,” a charming pianodriven stomper that recalls Supertramp or ELO, and “Gonna Rock,” which oddly enough is a laidback funky groove that seems sampled, but probably isn’t. “Hey Hipster” and “Looks and Money,” are more “vintage” sElf, meaning they’re more eclectic, taking the pop hooks Mahaffey is known for and blurring the vocals or adding in unusual instrumentation to make it just off-kilter enough to be intriguing. The only thing missing from this dynamite EP are the guitars. sElf’s music was once awash with them, starting with the 1995 debut album Subliminal Plastic Motives. Here, closing track “Splitting Atoms” brings back the distortion and really hits all the marks. There’s something about the snotty, brash indie rock that brings out the best in Mahaffey, probably because it suits his sometimes snarling vocal style and preference for dynamic shifts in tone. But Mahaffey can still write a hell of a tune and this collection of six tracks is over way too soon. And nearly every one of ‘em is, in an alternate universe, #1 hit potential. Good thing the guy specializes in music from alternate universes. Jason Robinson and Steve Selvidge are almost unrecognizable on the title track, and alt-country darling Jason Isbell contributes to “You Make Me” and “The Highway Home.” The former kicks off the album with a hardcore honky tonk vibe; you can twostep across a sawdust floor to its jangly piano and Isbell’s sweet vocal harmonies. Like the Hold Steady boys, Isbell blends in, giving Branan his well-deserved spotlight. “Sour Mash,” with Tim Easton, updates the whiskey-running tradition. Snare drums and barren, fast-picked warm guitar bring “White Lightning” to mind. The lyrics make some tongue-in-cheek jabs at country’s recent love of tequila and beer: Branan is Tennessee, and for him it’s all about the whiskey, which you can practically smell on his breath as he sings. That voice and sharp guitar-picking are reason enough to love Branan’s album, but it’s his songwriting that puts it into country classic territory.
Album Reviews From the brief expression of longing in “C’mon Shadow” to the album-ending songwriter’s lament of “The Meantime Blues,” Branan expresses the realities of life that, until the recent lyrical factory farming epidemic, were the heart of country: trying to get by in hard times with “reheated dreams” for dinner. He does so alone, with finger-picking and a hint of a Dylanesque whine that lay bare the lineage of country, folk, rock, and any honest music that’s been made in this country in the last half-century. Robin Wheeler
The Muffs
Whoop Dee Doo Burger Records
From the opening sounds of first track “Weird Boy Next Door,” The Muffs’ first album in ten years comes at you like a fuzz-filled hammer to the teeth. The band’s particular brand of alternative power pop has aged very well, and at certain points the album is a straight-up flashback to the glory days of the mid ’90s. Each track’s elegantly direct verse-chorusverse set up belies the fact that, although sonically the band remains untouched by time, lyrically they’re more focused than ever. Upon close listen it seems apparent that Kim Shattuck was listening to a lot of mid-‘60s music during the writing process: as elements of The Byrds, electric-era Dylan, Rubber Soul-era Beatles, and Aftermath-era Stones all crop up, such as in the harmonica intro to “Cheezy” or the solos in “I Get It” that show vague traces of George Harrison and Roger McGuinn. But despite whatever influences the band had while writing the album, they still retain their uncompromising individuality throughout, from first note to last, not least because Shattuck has a voice as distinctive in its way as Joey Ramone’s. By far, this is their strongest record since 1995’s Blonder and Blonder, with Shattuck’s wildcat screams accentuating each song perfectly. Roy McDonald’s drumming is tribal, impulsive and down right primal, adding that live wire spark that has made The Muffs such a fun band to listen to all these years. Ronnie Barnett’s bass hangs back behind the back beat but knows when to step to the fore, joining in lockstep with Shattuck’s guitar. It’s this sense of pop osmosis that keeps The Muffs a fantastic power trio. It’s hard to separate each track to judge them on their own merits, as the
album flows like one long piece. This would be a disadvantage if the writing weren’t as strong as it is. However, each song does have a singular identity, such as the fuzz pop perfection of “Like You Don’t See Me,” the wistful-ballad-from-the-wrongside-of-the-tracks feel of “Up and Down Around,” or the suburban garage band truth of “Because You’re Sad.” Assembled in one place, these twelve tracks paint a wonderful pop punk collage that show, amongst other things, Kim Shattuck is doing just fine since her brief tenure with The Pixies. For starters, she wasn’t on Indie Cindy. Rev. Daniel W. Wright
The Rosebuds Sand + Silence Western Vinyl
The Rosebuds are an act that are deeply connected to a certain cabin-inthe-woods recording artist you’re probably familiar with: North Carolina duo Ivan Howard and Kelly Crisp have found new life working with one of their biggest fans, Justin Vernon of Bon Iver. It isn’t the first time Vernon has sat in the front of the mixing boards for them, but this time he also
The Rebellious Jukebox
contributes some guitar and synth along with Bon Iver drummer Matt McCaughan and bass by Nick Sandborn of electro-pop duo Sylvan Esso. Howard’s songwriting has certainly stepped up a few notches from the bands days with Merge Records. For years The Rosebuds seemed to be making albums full of pleasant background music, but none of it ever seemed to really stick. They’re one of those bands that managed to stay on the radar, but never really hit it big with even a wide indie rock audience. On Sand + Silence, the band seem to have gotten their groove back, and managed to lay down a lot of really solid indie pop tunes. The overhaul in personnel may have something to do with the songs having a lot more substance. “In My Teeth” has a lot more bite (no pun intended) than previous album openers, while “Blue Eyes,” a pretty standard jangly pop track, has a catchy chorus you’ll be singing for days, and an energy not seen from the band before. The tender “Death of an Old Bike” even has its own kind of bounce. While Sand + Silence certainly won’t make too many best of the year lists, it will hopefully have its place in the sun as a good record to commemorate the end of summer. Jack Probst
Life at 45 RPM by Matt Harnish
A friend of mine once dismissed somebody’s record collection as “nothing but political punk 7-inches with black & white sleeves.” I’ve certainly seen that type of collection a time or ten, so I had to laugh, but ever since Jello Biafra started yelling about injustice, there’s been a steady stream of loudmouth bands yelling their politics on stage. Good for them. Back in the early ’90s, a new batch of St Louis high school (or just out of it) punk kids started forming bands & finding new places to play & basically doing an end run around what was left of the ’80s punk clique. The hardest working band in this new scene was the Meat Sisters, & listening to their 1993 “Undermining America’s Traditional Values” 4-song ep is like opening a time capsule. Some of the political ranting is a little naive (though I’m sure all of the dudes would still agree with the basic ideas), some of the musicianship is a little unsure of itself (most of the Meat Sisters later went on to form the incredible Volatiles, though, who put out my favorite St Louis punk rock 45), & there’s that reggae song (yeah, I got nothin’), but mostly what you hear here is a young band making Their Statement & that’s just awesome! Political paranoia, alien conspiracy, & the tyranny of physics are what make the world go ‘round for Maximum Effort, & their new 4-song ep “Kill All Politicians...Seriously, Fucking Kill Every One Of Them” is all wide-eyed rants & riffs that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on a Maximum Rock’n’Roll compilation from 1984. Or 1994. Or 2014. I just wish they’d included a lyric sheet, so I could tell for sure what it is that they think is going to annihilate us all.
elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 33
CAT POWER Cont’d from page 15 vocal. She still isn’t quite satisfied with the reverb on the monitors, of course. This kind of perfectionism can be stressful for her, clearly, and it may be born of insecurity — but that’s Marshall’s process, for better or worse, and it works. Whatever she heard onstage, the audience heard a veteran group of talented blues, rock and pop musicians getting reacquainted. It was a beautiful sound.
What next?
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At a sandwich shop outside Lambert’s TSA security checkpoint Monday, Marshall said she was glad she’d come, and I agreed. She explained she’d spent more to make the performances happen than she raised in donations, but stressed action as the important thing. “You can throw all the money in the world at a problem,” she said. “The only reason I did it, the only goal was to pull this off. I saw that a lot of people came. In my heart, in my mind, seeing that people came, I was so happy. They didn’t have to come. Like, last night at the second show, that was such a wave of relief. Because seeing the young people, like the girl with the punk shirt, with the word ‘punk’ on it — she was like 15?” Marshall speaks of young people often and fondly. She frees Mona to bound
unleashed around a few little kids at the Ferguson church, and again later at the airport departure terminal. She repeatedly brings up Occuparty, a political offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and even branded Sunday’s events an Occuparty #showofsupport. She says one of the collective’s tactics, the street summit, is perfect for Ferguson right now. “It’s almost like a debate team,” she explained, or like a musical chairs-style series of short discussions. “Okay, this person has the floor, now this person has the floor. OK, done, move that way. Everybody’s confronting everybody about everything. The place where it needs to happen in the streets is here.” Marshall thinks the Occuparty can become a viable third option in American politics locally and nationally. She sees too much overlap and conflict of interest in a failing two-party system. “I think Americans feel ashamed, invalidated, powerless,” she said, and “extremely disappointed in the American system. We felt what we felt when Bush was president for two terms, and when we heard there was a ‘change’ and stuff, we sat on our hands again.” Marshall recognizes other large-scale patterns in socioeconomic and political schema worldwide. Issues of social justice around the globe seem to weigh on her greatly. “After getting sick and being in the
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fucking hospital and not getting support from where I should have been getting support,” she said, “I learned something that they don’t teach you in school, they don’t teach you on the news. What they do is, ‘We gotta keep ‘em fat, stupid, sick. Just keep ‘em fucking under.’ That goes with our textbooks, public schools. That creates sickness in your head and your heart.” She says her life was saved by homeopathic medicine. Marshall also says she has a hard time accepting acknowledgement from her friends. She thinks they worry about her and see signs of mania. “People say, ‘Oh, Chan? She’s crazy.’” Suffice it to say, Marshall is an open book. Accordingly, her personal life has been well documented in over 20 years as an artist, both by herself and a sometimes over-eager press, leading to media prognostication of which Marshall seems understandably wary. Yet there we were, still talking as she queued up for a TSA screening. She wound her way through the roped-off line and became harder to hear. I thanked her one more time and turned to go. It’s obvious Chan Marshall’s unusual. That is, she’s different, unlike anyone I’ve ever met: totally kind and just as talented. When she came to St. Louis, she put her money where her mouth is. She was thankful that people showed up, because they didn’t have to — but then, neither did she.
NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH FLOWERS TO THE PEOPLE
STRANDS
Full-service floral & gift boutique, specializing in locally & sustainably grown flowers. All retail gifts made by local STL artists. Delivery available in the metro area.
A relaxing boutique salon in the historic DeMun area, Strands draws inspiration from the world of fashion and art to stay on top of current trends. They create designs to showcase your individual beauty!
Cherokee Street 2317 Cherokee St. (63118) 762-0422 | flowerstothepeople.biz
Demun 730 Demun Ave. (63105) 725-1717 | strands-hair.com
SASHA’S ON SHAW
MELT
Great wines, the best cheeses, always served late! The Shaw Neighborhood’s best bar in the shawdow of the garden.
Melt is a funky & eclectic waffle bar offering waffles, cocktails, beer & coffee. Patrons can enjoy live music, pinball, skeeball & more. Gluten free, vegan & vegetarian options available
Shaw 4069 Shaw Blvd 771-7274 | sashaswinebar.com
Cherokee 2712 Cherokee St (63118) 771-6358
CITY DINER AT THE FOX LATE NIGHT CLUB
THE MUD HOUSE
Complete with food and drink, the Club hosts a variety of unique DJ’s spinning reggae, ska, soul, 60’s garage, surf and rockabilly every Saturday night from 10:30 pm until 3:00 am! Midtown 541 North Grand Blvd (63103) 533-7500
FOAM COFFEE & BEER
Off-beat decor, snack plates, free WiFi and weekly events and live shows. The definitive place to work by day or hang out by night.
Cherokee Street 3359 S. Jefferson (63118) 772-2100 | foamstl.com.com
There is not a better patio in St. Louis to enjoy our tasty sandwiches and salads or a better place to get out and work outside of the office.
Cherokee Street 2101 Cherokee St (63118) 776-6599 | themudhousestl.com
STL STYLEHOUSE St. Louis-inspired wearables, custom screen printing and graphic design. You can’t spell STYLE without STL!
Cherokee Street 3159 Cherokee St (63118) 494-7763 | stl-style.com
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