Riverfront Times - April 12, 2017

APRIL 12–18, 2017 I VOLUME 41 I NUMBER 15

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COMING HOME

Military sexual assault doesn't just traumatize servicewomen.

Their families also pay a high price

BY MIKE FITZGERALD

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—Dustin Gravitt, photoGrapheD at the Korner Konnection stL/choo choo smoKe shop on Bates street on apriL 8

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TABLE OF CONTENTS FEATURE

12.

Coming Home Military sexual assault doesn’t just traumatize servicewomen.

Their families also pay a high price Written by

MIKE FITZGERALD Cover photo by

JOHN GOMEZ

NEWS

CULTURE

DINING

MUSIC

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21

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41

The Lede

Calendar

Your friend or neighbor, captured on camera

Seven days worth of great stuff to see and do

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24

No Joy in Mudville

Soccer fans see their stadium dreams dashed at the polls

9

Film

Robert Hunt has high praise for Colossal, but finds that Assignment feels like just that

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The Wrong Man

A property management company hit up a law student for help evicting tenants. Their mistake

Stage

Paul Friswold revels in Stray Dog’s bloody Sweeney Todd

Side Dish

Audra Luedde, who owns the Libertine with husband Nick, dreams of a drive-through wine bar

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Food News

Doyle Murphy gets the scoop on a food truck court planned for south city

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Homespun

Sarah Fenske visits Polite Society, which is finally open in Lafayette Square

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First Look

Underground Dining

APRIL 12-18, 2017

B-Sides

Jaime Lees celebrates the life of Chuck Berry

Maness Brothers Maness Brothers

Sara Graham gets a taste of what Logan Ely is cooking at his new dinner series

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Monkey Business

The Chimps deliver a “Sunday morning album” with Play No Evil

Out Every Night

The best concerts in St. Louis every night of the week

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This Just In

This week’s new concert announcements

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NEWS

For Soccer Fans, There Is No Joy in Mudville Written by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI

A

s election night dragged on April 4, the once-boisterous crowd of soccer supporters in the Union Station Hotel’s Regency Ballroom began to grow quiet, their excitement replaced by the sullen resignation of sports fans watching their team lose the biggest game of the season. Only in this case, it wasn’t just a game.

It was nearly 11 p.m. when the final results came in and it was clear that Prop 2, which would have earmarked $50 million in new business use tax revenue for a Major League Soccer stadium, had lost.

The election returns left no room for a last-second comeback. Despite months of campaigning and more than $1 million in mailers and TV spots, St. Louis voters had rejected a bid to commit public funds to the downtown stadium.

The DJ cut the music, and the ballroom’s two massive projection screens, which up to this point had displayed a stream of supportive tweets hashtagged #MLS2STL, suddenly went dark. Jim Kavanaugh and the other three main investors behind the stadium plan trudged onto the stage and faced the dejected volunteers and supporters.

It was over.

“You should be very proud of everything that you’ve done; I can tell you I am,” Kavanaugh began.

Nearly six months ago, the CEO of Maryland Heights-based World Wide Technology had announced the plan to build a $200 million stadium that would virtually guarantee the city landing one of MLS’ coveted expansion teams. Now, he was the first to eulogize it.

“It’s a little disappointing,” he told the crowd. “Not a little — very disappointing for us, and all of you, Continued on pg 11 that we’re

Soccer fans winced at the Union Station Hotel as final election returns showed Prop 2 suffering defeat. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI

They Picked the Wrong Drug Expert

T

here’s absolutely no reason to think Aaron Malin would be willing to help a property management company evict its low income tenants for drugs.

That’s because even the most basic Google search would immediately identify the Missouri native as an activist intent on reforming, not enforcing, the state’s drug laws. Now a 24-year-old law student in Colorado, Malin played a visible role in the movement to free Jeff Mizanskey from a life sentence for pot. And more recently, Malin attracted news coverage for his campaign to force Missouri’s secretive drug task forces to follow open records laws.

And yet, last week, an asset manager for a Missouri-based affordable housing company with extensive St. Louis holdings contacted Malin with a bizarre request: Would he be interested in training the company’s employees to conduct drug inspections?

Malin, of course, said no. But not before he asked a few questions.

Then he shared the correspondence with Riverfront Times — correspondence in which, under Malin’s expert questioning, the housing company acknowledged working aggressively to catch low income tenants using drugs.

According to two St. Louis attorneys consulted by the RFT, the policies the housing manager described to Malin aren’t just callous, but possibly illegal — “objectionable on every level,” in the words of one.

Malin, too, finds it deeply troubling.

The company is “ostensibly trying to help people, which is commendable,” Malin tells RFT. But, he adds, “I’m concerned for the well-being of the people who actually live in those units.”

It was 5:47 a.m. last Thursday when Malin received an email from Joy Scharnhorst, an asset manager for Fulson Housing Group. Founded in 2003, the company touts affordable housing as its “key mission” while boasting properties that span “more than 1,000 units and in excess of $100 million of development in 10 communities throughout the state of Missouri.” Those developments include hundreds of units in the St. Louis area. riverfronttimes.com

“Hi Arron,” Scharnhorst’s email began, misspelling Malin’s first name.

The message continued: “I am hosting a training conference with around 15 people throughout our Property Management. In our business we evict tenants for drugs among other things.

I was hoping you knew how or who I could contact about having someone come to our conference and train the managers on what to look for when they are in the apartments doing inspections. The training is the end of April at the Lake of the Ozark.”

While Malin knew he wasn’t interested in helping, he also realized he wanted to know more. He replied with questions, and Scharnhorst obliged.

She asked if Malin could teach a class on “how to detect any types of drugs, the chemicals that are used to produce drugs, the smell of marijuana.”

Malin then gradually teased out details on the housing group’s inspection policies. In a subsequent email, Scharnhorst explained that the company’s landlords conduct inspections on a quarterly, and sometimes even monthly basis, with just 24 hours notice. That didn’t sound right to Malin.

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Law student Aaron Malin seeks to reform, not enforce, drug laws. | COURTESY OF AARON MALIN “Are you sure your company is compliant with Missouri landlord-tenant law?” he wrote. He questioned whether the inspections violated the regulations for low-income properties funded by federal government.

Scharnhorst didn’t seem to pick up on Malin’s squeamishness. In fact, in her final email, she asked Malin if he knew another drug expert who could conduct the training session, and if he could pass along a referral.

“Yes, I do, but I’m morally opposed to doing so,” he responded. “If someone is suffering from a substance use disorder, the last thing they need is to also be made homeless. I cannot, in good conscience, help your group learn techniques and strategies that will be used to make life harder for people suffering from drug addiction.”

Scharnhorst and Fulson Housing Group did not respond to multiple emails and phone messages left Friday seeking comment. However, we did reach Lee Camp, a staff attorney with ArchCity Defenders who has represented clients against Fulson Housing Group in the past.

Camp says he was shocked by the disclosures in Scharnhorst’s emails to Malin. He believes a blanket inspection policy would violate, at the very least, “the spirit” of subsidized housing programs.

Those programs, ranging from tax credits to subsidies administered through the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department, or HUD, are intended to place vulnerable individuals into stable living situations.

Depending on how Fulson Housing Group is operating, Camp says, there may not be anything technically illegal here. Still, he is concerned about what the email exchange describes.

“If a landlord has reasonable sus-

picion, HUD is going to give them some autonomy,” Camp says. “But is reasonable suspicion giving 24-hour notice every month, to run into every single apartment in a complex? Not to me, that’s in no way reasonable.

It seems totally arbitrary, which could potentially give someone a legal hook to battle this.”

Brendan Roediger, an associate professor at Saint Louis University School of Law, also reviewed the email correspondence between Malin and Scharnhorst. He notes that while the law does permit landlords to make inspections, such checks are meant to address a unit’s habitability or structural integrity. That’s not what Fulson Housing Group appears to be doing here.

“If their actual rationale is to spy on people, I think that’s certainly not allowed,” Roediger says. And the fact that the landlords are essentially pretending to be police investigators — while attempting to enlist civilians like Malin to instruct their tactics — poses even deeper problems.

“If they’re evicting based on the fact that they think they can detect the scents of drug precursor and those sorts of things, in my mind that would definitely be illegal,” he says. For Roediger, that kind of guesswork wouldn’t meet the federal government’s eviction standards, which require actual evidence of unlawful activity.

Ultimately, Roediger believes that the emails show enough to raise serious legal questions about Fulson Housing Group’s inspection policies.

“I’d be willing to argue that this is an unlawful practice just based on what I saw in the email,” he says.

“From a moral and ethical standpoint, it’s objectionable on every level.”

—Danny Wicentowski

MLS Continued from pg 9 not bringing an MLS team to St. Louis right now.”

For those in the ballroom, the prospect of the MLS team setting roots in St. Louis had felt like a dream come true, a chance to bring an exciting, on-the-rise sport to a city still reeling from the 2016 departure of the NFL’s Rams. All it would take was passing two ballot propositions: a sales tax increase and a separate measure that would dedicate the revenue of a business tax hike toward the stadium construction. But while voters gave easy passage to the sales tax increase, they refused to earmark the stadium money.

Kavanaugh passed the mic to Paul Edgerley, a billionaire executive for the Boston-based venture capital fund Bain Capital Group.

Edgerley, like the other three men on stage, had just watched months of work vanish, not to mention $1.18 million spent to persuade voters that a stadium would be a solid investment for the city.

In the audience, the members of the St. Louligans leaned against each other in shared grief. The homegrown soccer fan club regularly fills sections at World Wide Technology Soccer Park in Fenton, which is home to the minor league soccer team Kavanaugh founded two years ago. No one wanted an MLS team in St. Louis more than the St. Louligans.

“We’re disappointed for ourselves. It would have been fun,” Edgerley said. “And we’re disappointed for all of you,” he told the crowd, “because you’ve given your heart and soul to this and it hasn’t turned out. And we’re disappointed for St. Louis. I think this would have been a great thing for the city.”

When the mic was passed to Terry Matlack, the crowd began showing its impatience with platitudes. Like Kavanaugh and Edgerley, Matlack (who runs a Kansas City investment fund) thanked the volunteers and noted that he’d been inspired by their passion and friendship.

“Sometimes, it’s whether you win or lose,” said Matlack, searching for yet another layer of silver lining.

“But,” he continued, “sometimes it’s who you get to know along in the journey. Thank you all for joining us on this journey, thank you for believing in us, thank you for hoping with us and, is it exactly how we

Soccer fans were devastated by their loss last week, a nail-biter not resolved until roughly 11 p.m. election night. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI hoped it would turn out? You know what, tomorrow’s another day.”

From the crowd, a voice shouted, “Fuck!”

And if the St. Louligans were feeling heartbroken, Dave Peacock was feeling it too. A former Anheuser-Busch executive and current chairman of the St. Louis Sports Commission, Peacock had presided over the 2015 attempt to keep the Rams from bolting for Los Angeles, and in return he’d watched a $1 billion riverfront stadium proposal rejected, brutally, by team owner Stan Kroenke.

That is to say: Peacock ran out of platitudes a long time ago.

“Well I’m just pissed, I don’t care what what these guys say,” Peacock joked as he took the mic.

His intro was met with laughter and applause from an audience that recognized its own pain.

“We knew this would be close all along,” Peacock said. Voters had been asked to divert $50 million in new tax revenue toward building the stadium, which was expected to cost between $155 million and $200 million. Another $10 million in public money would have been added through TIF funding.

Ultimately, 30 percent of city voters came out — a surprisingly high percentage (higher than the 28 percent who voted in the hotly contested March primary). And 30,603 voted no on Prop 2. Just 3,300 votes separated the soccer fans from victory.

For Peacock, who has now witnessed a stadium plan collapse twice in less than three years, the successive losses indicate that St. Louis residents needs to step up their game if they want to save their city. They need to “get off their ass” and do something, he said.

“It doesn’t have to be soccer. It could be whatever you want. But to me, people sit on the sidelines, chirp and bitch, and they don’t do anything.”

Peacock finished by addressing the St. Louligans and volunteers before him. “You guys did something.

You’re trying to make a difference.

You did make a difference.”

But even as the crowd applauded, the finger-pointing had already begun. On Twitter, the #MLS2STL hashtag became a gathering place for invective directed at the city’s voters and questions about whether Kavanaugh and the ownership group had done enough — though another culprit was being floated as well: the division between St. Louis County and St. Louis city.

Indeed, the fact that St. Louis city residents were expected to foot the bill for a stadium intended to draw regional interest, without a single cent of county money, proved to be an insurmountable flaw in the ownership group’s sales pitch. There was no way around the inequity, and it would have diverted $50 million of city tax revenue with only the promise of repayment decades down the line. riverfronttimes.com

In an interview after the concession speeches, Kavanaugh told the Riverfront Times that he’d discussed the stadium project with St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger, but the talk of county buy-in went nowhere. The county, Kavanaugh said, was simply not interested in paying for a stadium located in downtown St. Louis.

“I think the political structure that we have here in St. Louis can be counter-productive to getting big things done like this,” he said.

“There’s different agendas and different initiatives. If they were working as one team, then maybe we would have moved it forward.”

And that suggests that, for now, St. Louis will have to make its own way — with two professional sports teams, several rebounding and revitalized neighborhoods, a federal monument that is indisputably a marvel of the modern world and an incoming class of progressive city leaders wielding momentum that hasn’t been seen here for decades.

And because voters actually passed the sales tax increase, the fact that there’s no stadium to vacuum up the funds means the money, about $4 million annually, will be a force for city improvement, and not just civic pride or a tourist trap.

That’s little consolation to the St. Louligans and soccer fans. But for many city residents — or at least some 30,000 voters — the stadium proposal’s defeat feels very much n like a win.

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A

rlene Parker recalls the exact moment her military career went south.

It was the late 1970s, and Parker was an Air Force senior airman stationed at Scott Air Force Base, just outside Belleville, Illinois. Parker was a passenger service specialist, helping military and civilian passengers on and off the jetliners that touched down at Scott. It was a job she loved.

In April 1977, three years after joining the Air Force, Parker boarded a bus full of arriving airline passengers. Her boss, a sergeant, walked up behind her and groped her.

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“I turned around and said, ‘Hey, don’t do that,’” Parker recalls. “Afterward, he came after me... He came after me with a vengeance.”

Accused of having a bad attitude, Parker received a series of Article 15s, or non-judicial punishments, for minor infractions. She was demoted, then re-assigned to the Scott rec center.

The more she protested, the more her discipline problems worsened, she says.

By year’s end, Parker was booted from the Air Force. “I still have an anger problem because of that,” says Parker, now 63.

Her anger festered for decades. She couldn’t let go of it. What followed were lost jobs, years of drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness and a period of estrangement from her daughter Akilah.

Now 42, Akilah Haynes lives in Ferguson. She was raised mostly by her grandmother, but was in intermittent contact with Parker, who today

COMING HOME

Military sexual assault doesn't just traumatize servicewomen.

Their families also pay a high price

BY MIKE FITZGERALD

lives in St. Louis.

Haynes recalls the time in middle school when she made a working TV set as part of a Junior Achievement program. “I was very proud of it,” she says. “Well, it wound up disappearing.”

Haynes thinks her mother traded the TV set for drugs.

“It hurt me,” she says. “I love my mom. My mom is my best friend. She’s been off drugs a long time. But you always have that in your head.”

Hundreds of thousands of U.S. military members, both current and former active duty, male and female, are believed to have experienced some type of unwanted sexual contact during their service and suffered psychological harm as a result.

A term has been coined to describe what’s

happened to them: Military Sexual Trauma, or MST. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has defined MST as experiences of sexual assault or repeated, threatening sexual harassment that a veteran experienced during his or her military service. MST covers a wide spectrum of unwanted contact, from sexual innuendo and groping to rape.

Voluminous research suggests that MST can have a lifelong and crippling effect on its victims. What still remains unclear is how MST affects the children of victims.

Kim Dennis, a psychiatrist, specializes in the treatment of trauma and PTSD. She notes that children are “exquisitely sensitive” to their mothers’ emotional states.

“And if the mother is living in fear, and making decisions out of a fear-based place — it’s impossible for that not to affect her household, the way that she’s raising her kids, her relation-

ships with her kids,” says Dennis, the owner of SunCloud Health, an outpatient addiction treatment center in Highland Park, Illinois.

Emotionally, children are sponges, Dennis notes.

“So if I’m going home from work full of anxiety, full of hyper-vigilance, full of fear, my kids are going to pick up on that,” Dennis says. “Typically, they’re not consciously aware, ‘Mom’s really anxious today and I’m absorbing her anxiety.’ It doesn’t work like that. But they do pick up on it.”

A body of work has emerged regarding how parental PTSD can affect children. Studies show increased rates of anxiety and depression and a greater disposition toward developing PTSD of their own for kids with parents afflicted by PTSD, Dennis said.

On average, fifteen percent of adults exposed to most forms of trauma Continued on pg 14

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At Historic Centenary Church unday: April 16 At Historic Centenary Church  Easter Sunday: April 16 at 11:00 Bible StudyatEaster 9:30Sunday: April 16  Worship at 11:00 Bible Study at 9:30  Worship 11:00 Bible Study at 9:30 rhood EasterEgg Hunt atEaster 12:00 Neighborhood EggatHunt at 12:00 0 Good Friday Service: 6:30 p.m. Easter Egg Hunt at 12:00  Neighborhood day Service:6:30 p.m.

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— such as war or weather disasters — develop symptoms of PTSD. With victims of sexual trauma, however, the PTSD rate is about 30 percent, Dennis says.

The U.S. military’s MST epidemic is the focus of intense attention from Pentagon leaders, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and members of Congress, as well as the international community.

In May 2016, Human Rights Watch issued a 128-page report that found that thousands of U.S. troops had lost their military careers after reporting sexual assault.

To make matters worse, they were saddled with discharge papers that prevented them from obtaining jobs and VA benefits — a huge problem for those desperate for counseling, medication for psychological problems, job training and other hurdles arising from their assaults.

Missouri’s own Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, has emerged as a major voice in the U.S. Congress in the campaign to overhaul the military’s handling of sexual assault cases.

A former Kansas City prosecutor who prosecuted many civilian sexual assault cases, McCaskill has helped pass federal legislation to force unit commanders to accept greater accountability, to provide

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much more support for military sexual assault victims, and to protect them from retaliation by their peers.

McCaskill calls the military “the perfect environment for a sexual predator because they move around so frequently.”

Sexual predators move from base to base, into theaters of operation and out of them.

“And so if you are a sexual predator, you can do the crime, and if the woman doesn’t have enough support or feel strong enough to come out of the shadows because of the male-dominated environment,” McCaskill says, “you can move on, and maybe you could in fact have a number of victims before you are held accountable.”

At Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in south St. Louis County, a headstone sits on a hill overlooking a far corner of the grounds.

The headstone houses an urn containing the ashes of Kimetha “Kim” Wells, of Belleville.

Wells passed away after suffering a heart attack in March 2016. She was 60.

A year after her passing, her son Ian Boyer describes Wells as a woman who coped with a long list of challenges stemming from the central trauma of her life: In the early 1970s, soon after joining the Army, Wells was raped by a fellow soldier at a training base in Massachusetts. Wells kept it a secret for most of her life, only disclosing it to Continued on pg 16 her children

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Ian Boyer, left, grew used to the emotional problems affecting his mother, Kim (top right), who died in 2016. Last month, he visited her grave. | STL-PHOTO

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COMING HOME Continued from pg 15 after deciding she could not endure the pain any longer — at least not on her own. Her children needed to know.

When his mother disclosed the rape, it was like all the jumbled bits of a puzzle fell together, says Boyer, now twenty.

“I lived my life wondering why my mom was so different than the other parents, and why she wasn’t normal,” Boyer explains. “There were just a lot of weird things that she did. It really opened my eyes when I found out what happened.”

Boyer visited Jefferson Barracks on March 24, 2017 — the one-year anniversary of his mother’s death.

He did not cry when he visited the grave site.

“When I went there, I really had the feeling of needing to be stronger for her, really,” he says.

In the years before her death, Wells spoke at length about the rape and how it affected so much of her life afterward — a long narrative of challenges and travails marked by drug and alcohol problems, mental health and financial crises, and conflicts with the two sets of children she raised with two different husbands.

But even when her drug and alcohol use were at their worst, her children remained her primary focus, Wells said.

“I always thought about them,” Wells said. “They didn’t know it, which is why they are always angry. They were always the primary focus, but they didn’t think they were.”

I first met Kim Wells in December 1999, while working as a reporter for the Belleville News-Democrat.

Her second husband, Mike Boyer, had been murdered during a

carjacking outside the nightclub where he worked as a security guard. East St. Louis Police had recently arrested his killer.

I had gone to the trailer park in Caseyville, Illinois, where the murder victim’s widow — Wells — lived with her two small children, Ian, then two, and his baby sister.

I wanted to interview Wells about how her husband’s murder had affected her and her family. I remember that I came bearing gifts: a pair of stuffed bears for the kids bought at a nearby Target. And I remember the look in Kim’s eyes when I first met her: an oceanic sadness so deep, so pervasive, I began thinking of my own toddler son, who was almost Ian’s age. I stifled a sudden urge to begin sobbing.

And yet, when she answered the door and led me into her tiny trailer, the smile Wells pulled together made me feel at home

immediately. ¨Hi, Mike,” she said in a voice that almost convinced me we’d been friends forever. “Welcome.”

Flash-forward thirteen years.

By this point I was working as the military affairs reporter for the News-Democrat, and the issue of sexual assault in the U.S. military was starting to generate a lot of headlines. It had become the focus of debate in Congress, even as momentum was building to allow women to take on frontline combat jobs. I wanted to localize this story for our readers. So I contacted a friend who worked with veterans seeking VA benefits. He got me in touch with Wells, who again agreed to an interview.

The years rolled by. I’d work on the story about MST, then put it aside, then work on it again. Other stories got in the way, as well as things in my own life, and my MST story remained on the backburner.

By the summer of 2016, however, I had decided to quit the News-Democrat, but before I left I pounded out my MST story and turned it in to my editors.

It was not to be. The editors said the story had problems and they couldn’t publish it in the form I had written it. I accepted their verdict and moved on with my life.

At least that’s what I thought. But my unfinished MST story gnawed at me. I began feeling guilty. I knew I owed it to the people I had interviewed, especially the women who had come forward, to finish the story and get it published. Simple decency dictated as much. They had wrestled demons far worse than any I had ever known to tell their stories to the world. The least I could do was serve as a conduit for sharing them.

Wells joined the U.S. Army after a troubled childhood in Elgin, Ilriverfronttimes.com

linois, and Belleville. She looked back with pride on her brief military career, her son says. But it was cut short by the worst event in her life: She was raped by a sergeant assigned to her training unit at Fort Devens, Massachusetts.

The rape presaged a life of deep troubles. Her first marriage, which began shortly after she enlisted in the Army in the early 1970s, ended in divorce after years of alcohol and drug abuse. Her second marriage ended with her husband’s murder outside that nightclub in East St. Louis.

Wells suffered from bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. She lived with chronic insomnia, was estranged from the children of her first marriage and exercised often chaotic judgment with her money and the choices of people in her life.

Wells had made a series of benContinued on pg 18 efit claims

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COMING HOME Continued from pg 17 with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The claims included hearing loss, bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder — all of which the VA paid on, according to records I reviewed.

But one claim, for military sexual trauma, or MST, mattered more to her than all the others. That claim centered on the events of one night in October 1974.

After graduating from Belleville Township High School, Wells was eager to begin her military career.

After completing Army basic training, she had just arrived at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, located a little over an hour northwest of Boston.

A sergeant assigned to her training company agreed to escort her around the base. She had no reason to feel afraid, because one of the first things she learned in basic training was to trust her fellow soldiers, particularly officers. From the first day of basic training, it was pounded into their heads to place complete confidence in the career sergeants who controlled seemingly every hour of the new recruit’s day.

The sergeant guided the car to a deserted air strip. He came to a stop and cut the engine. Then, very calmly, he placed a folding knife on the dashboard. “‘Don’t move,’” the sergeant said, according to Wells.

Then he raped her.

The sergeant ordered her not to tell anyone about the rape. Then he dropped her off at her barracks.

“I felt so dirty, so guilty,” she would tell me six months before her death, in what would turn out to be her final interview.

Wells recalled spending three hours in the barracks’ shower after the rape because she felt too numb to move.

Wells was sent to Fort Devens to learn how to become a Morse Code interceptor. But her classroom problems proved overwhelming because of the emotional trauma resulting from the rape.

“I flunked out of the school because of the assault,” she said.

“I couldn’t concentrate. I started drinking to numb myself out.”

One of the hardest parts of dealing with her rape unfolded in the decades that followed, when she would look in the mirror and think of her rapist.

“It bugs the hell out of me.

Because now, when I look in the

mirror, I’m getting older,” she said in that final interview. “To me, he’s always going to be in his twenties.”

Ian Boyer never knew his father, Mike, who was murdered when he was just a toddler. As he grew up, his mother tried to keep his father’s memory alive.

But growing up without a dad, and in the shadow of his mother’s erratic behavior, Boyer often felt perplexed.

“When I was a little kid I was always confused,” Boyer says.

“How she was acting wasn’t usual for somebody. We never really had much conversation about it…How I handled it was, I just kept telling myself things are going to turn out better.”

Boyer attended a vocational school in Fairview Heights to prepare for a job in computer networking. His mother’s VA benefits helped pay his tuition.

Boyer thinks a lot about the good memories that bonded him with his mother. Many of those memories revolve around his junior year at Belleville West, when, thanks to his natural size — six feet, four inches; 275 pounds — he played offensive lineman on the varsity team.

Football allowed a relief valve for the stress and anger of never knowing his slain father, even while his mother suffered from severe emotional problems. “How I express my anger is that anything bad that happens, I build it up inside me... to where I hit harder, I run faster, I’m an-all-out beast... it builds up, it builds up, and just explodes.”

For Wells, watching her son play football provided a ray of hope; it opened a doorway to a better world. Midway through his junior year, in the fall of 2014, Wells couldn’t conceal her immense pride over her son’s athletic success.

“It was wonderful,” she said. “It’s made me feel good. It’s made him feel good. His character has improved. It’s just wonderful.” Not two years later, she died. Ian Boyer became an orphan at nineteen.

Wells wasn’t alone in keeping the story of her sexual assault from her children before finally deciding something had to give.

Kimberly Baxter held onto her secret for more than twenty years, even though it gnawed at her relentlessly.

But then, two years ago, while going through a painful divorce,

Kim Baxter was raped while serving in the Navy, but never learned what happened to her attacker. | STL-PHOTO

she decided to share with her oldest two children the details of the central event of her life — a trauma that she says has shaped and guided every day since.

So one night, Baxter, 42, who lives just outside Belleville, sat down with her teenage son and daughter.

Finally, after so many years of waiting, Baxter disclosed that she had been raped in the basement stairwell of a Navy recruiting center in downtown Philadelphia.

At the time, in March 1994, Baxter had just graduated from basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, near Chicago.

She was assigned to Philadelphia for temporary recruiting duty.

On one of the first mornings of her new assignment, a security guard asked to give her a tour of the building.

“At that point I figured he was just being nice,” she says. “I was in my dress blue uniform. Once down there he assaulted me. He tore my uniform. I remember just trying to get away from him. He kept grabbing me.”

Baxter reported the attack to her then-boyfriend, a Navy non-com-

missioned officer, and the security guard was quickly arrested by police.

But police never interviewed her. Baxter never learned what happened to her attacker. She strongly doubts her rapist was ever brought to justice.

Meanwhile, intense flashbacks stemming from the attack made sleep difficult. Baxter found it almost impossible to get through her Navy training program. Her military career was over before it had barely begun.

Today Baxter rarely leaves her house in a subdivision near Belleville. She has received 100 percent disability from the VA. Now off the antidepressant medications she was prescribed for post-traumatic stress disorder, she receives regular counseling for her PTSD. It’s helped a lot, she says.

Still, the sexual assault from nearly a quarter-century ago continues to play out in her head. She feels dirty, and overwhelmed by a sense of violation. Often she wakes up in the middle of the night and finds herself crying.

“I think about it pretty much daily. There are things that trig-

ger it more,” Baxter says. “Going somewhere by myself. Stairwells, basements, things like that.”

The attack even affects the therapy she receives.

“I have had a really hard time with my therapist,” she said. “I always told her if I had been smarter, had I done something different...”

For Lauren Baxter, sixteen, learning about her mother’s rape helped put into perspective the anxiety and depression her mother has manifested for as long as she can remember. The revelation helps explain so much of their shared lives together — the constant anxiety, the hyper-vigilance, the fears of going out into the world.

“Now it makes sense,” says Lauren, the middle child between two brothers, ages twenty and ten. “I want to try to help her, but it’s hard.”

Lauren, too, finds it difficult to be around crowds. “Sometimes I get freaked out when there are so many people around,” she says.

As for the trauma that continues to plague her mother, “I hope it can be fixed,” she says. “I hope she can feel safer.” riverfronttimes.com

Arlene Parker and her daughter Akilah Haynes have finally reconciled. A lot of healing had to happen first, they say, which was predicated on the acknowledgement of past wrongs. For instance, Parker acknowledged that she might have pawned the TV Akilah made in middle school, even though she can’t really remember the incident.

Parker says she’s in a much better place these days. Sober for years, she’s found a lawyer to represent her VA claims for PTSD and sexual assault, which would allow her to collect financial compensation for the psychological harm she suffered as a result of the abuse.

She hopes that she and her daughter can buy a house in Florissant and move in together.

Parker is still angry at what happened to her in the Air Force.

But the anger is controllable now, locked away, because she’s figured out, she says, what matters more.

“Family is the most important n thing,” she says.

Mike Fitzgerald is a freelance writer who lives near St. Louis.

You can contact him at msfitzgerald2006@gmail.com.

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CALENDAR

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WEEK OF APRIL 12- 19

Aaron Nelson as “Simba” and the ensemble in The Lion King North American tour. | ©DISNEY/PHOTO BY MATTHEW MURPHY

BY PAUL FRISWOLD

THURSDAY 04/13 RiffTrax Live: Samurai Cop Joe Marshall is your typical San Diego beat cop. Sure, he’s got the flowing locks of a runway model, he trained with some mysterious martial arts masters in Japan and he makes everyone call him “Samurai,” but other than that, he’s just like any other officer. Joe gets transferred to Los Angeles to help the LAPD fight its arch-enemies, the Japanese mob known as Katana. But are Joe’s powers enough to defeat Katana powerhouse Yamashita, played by cult action hero Robert Z’Dar? The quip-happy funsters of RiffTrax invite you to

join them as they roast a screening of Amir Shervan’s ramshackle action flick, Samurai Cop. Get in on the fun at 7 p.m. tonight at Marcus Wehrenberg Ronnies Cinema (5320 S. Lindbergh Boulevard; www.fathomevents.com). Tickets are $14.

FRIDAY 04/14 August: Osage County The Westons are an Oklahoma family with some major league problems. Violet, the family matriarch, is sharp-tongued and cruel when not gobbling up pills -and even tougher to handle when she’s downing them by the fistful.

Patriarch Beverly is a poet whose metier is now alcohol. Their three daughters are, respectively, stuck in a bad marriage, approaching spinsterhood and about to enter a bad marriage. Normally they all avoid each other, but when Beverly goes missing, the family rallies together partially for comfort, as well as to stick in the knives they’ve been sharpening for each other for quite some time. Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize winning drama August: Osage County offers a long glance into the dark world of an American family as it circles the bowl. St. Louis Actors’ Studio continues its tenth season with August: Osage County. Performances take place at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday (April 14 to 30) at the Gaslight Theater (358 North Boyle Avenue; www. stlas.org). Tickets are $30 to $35. riverfronttimes.com

Wings One hundred years ago this month, America entered World War I. Cinema St. Louis, the Webster University Film Series and Centre Francophone commemorate the centenary with a screening of William A. Wellman’s 1927 film Wings. The silent drama focuses on two rivals (Charles Rogers and Richard Allen) who join the war effort as fighter pilots and end up falling in love with the same woman (Jobyna Ralston). It won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Picture and features some of the most impressive aerobatics ever caught on film.

Tonight’s 7:30 p.m. screening of Wings includes a live soundtrack provided by the Prima Vista Quartet of France. The film is shown at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East LockContinued on pg 23

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Mother’s Day Weekend May 12–14, 2017

Laumeier Sculpture Park 30th Annual Art Fair Friday, May 12 / 6:00–10:00 p.m.

Saturday, May 13 / 10:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m.

Sunday, May 14 / 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. $10 / Ages 10 and under are FREE Laumeier Members are FREE LAUMEIER SCULPTURE PARK 12580 Rott Road / Saint Louis, Missouri 63127 / 314.615.5278 www.laumeier.org

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CALENDAR Continued from pg 21 wood Avenue; www.webster.edu/ film-series). Tickets are $10.

SATURDAY 04/15 Dancing at Lughnasa It’s a portentous time in the Mundy sisters’ household. Jack, the older brother of the five young women, has returned from his missionary work in Uganda to settle into the small cottage the ladies share in the rural hills of Donegal, Ireland.

This blessing soon causes consternation, as Jack seems to have forgotten his Catholicism -- a requisite for a priest -- and clashes with the stridently religious oldest sister Kate. The sudden arrival of Gerry Evans, one-time beau of Christine and father of seven-year-old Michael, further enrages Kate. As the only gainfully employed sister, Kate’s words carry a lot of weight, but she can’t shake Chris from her dreams of marriage to Gerry any more than she can stop the rest of the village from engaging in the pagan ritual of Lughnasadh, the Celtic harvest festival. Brian Friel’s Tony award-winning drama Dancing at Lughnasa captures an Irish family in the dying days of a glorious summer, right before everything turns harder and meaner. Mustard Seed Theatre closes its current season with Dancing at Lughnasa.

Performances are at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and at 2 p.m.

Sunday (April 13 to 30; no show on April 16) at the Fontbonne Fine Arts Theatre (6800 Wydown Boulevard; www.mustardseedtheatre.com).

Tickets are $30 to $35.

MONDAY 04/17 Cardinals vs.

Pirates After a few seasons of exciting baseball, the Pittsburgh Pirates regressed to losing in 2016. But then so too did the St. Louis Cardinals. Both teams seem positioned to bounce back in 2017, but who knows this early in the year? Pirates center fielder Andrew McCutcheon is now right fielder Andrew

Two rivals fight the Germans and for the love of a woman in Wings | COURTESY OF WEBSTER FILM SERIES McCutcheon, former Cardinals hero David Freese is back on third base and Gregory Polanco has shown some home run power at the plate, so the Pirates have a weapon or two. Stranger things have happened in baseball than the Pirates running away with the Central Division (see: last year’s non-choking Chicago Cubs). The Cardinals take on the Pirates at 6:05 p.m. Monday, 7:15 p.m. Tuesday and 12:45 p.m. Wednesday (April 17 to 19) at Busch Stadium (601 Clark Avenue; www.stlcardinals. com). Tickets are $5 to $235.90.

WEDNESDAY 04/19 Rick Ankiel Rick Ankiel’s abilities as a baseball pitcher gave him fame, fortune and the promise of a long career. And then his skill abandoned him in the third inning of the first game of the 2000 National League Division Series, leaving him unable to throw the ball to his catcher. It happened again in his next start, and in almost every outing after that. Ankiel reinvented himself as a hard-hitting outfielder with a cannon for an arm, but his ability to pitch never returned. Ankiel calls the nervous condition that invaded his mind “the phenomenon.” He named his book The Phenomenon in honor of his nemesis. In it, the former player explains how he worked to remake himself and regain his position in the major leagues, carrying “the phenomenon” on his back the whole way. Ankiel discusses his book with Mike Claiborne of the Cardinals radio broadcast team at 7 p.m. at the Ethical Society of St.

Louis (9001 Clayton Road; www. left-bank.com). After the talk, Ankiel will sign books (only The Phenomenon; no other objects will be autographed). Tickets are $30 for one person and one copy of the book, or $35 for two people and one copy.

The Lion King Musical juggernaut The Lion King is so much a part of American culture that even if you’ve never seen it, you’ll recognize most of the songs. Simba is a young lion who one day will be king, but his uncle Scar arranges the death of King Mufasa and convinces Simba that Mufasa’s death is his fault. Simba runs away to live in the jungle with new friends Timon and Pumbaa.

But one day he will return to claim his throne, won’t he? The Elton John and Tim Rice tunes seem to imply he can do it. The Lion King is performed at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m.

Saturday and 1 and 6:30 p.m.

Sunday (April 19 to May 7) at the Fox Theatre (527 North Grand Boulevard; www.fabulousfox.com).

Tickets are $55 to $199.

Planning an event, exhibiting your art or putting on a play? Let us know and we’ll include it in the calendar section or publish a listing on our website — for free! Send details via e-mail (calendar@riverfronttimes.com), fax (314-754-6416) or mail (6358 Delmar Boulevard, Suite 300, St. Louis, MO 63130, attn: Calendar). Include the date, time, price, contact information and location (including ZIP code). Please submit information three weeks prior to the date of your event. No telephone submissions will be accepted.

Find more events online at www.riverfronttimes.com.

riverfronttimes.com

IT’S CALLED A “FESTIVAL” Picnic on the lawn before the show and party with the cast afterwards.

Put yourself in the story.

OperaStories.org

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24

FILM

Oscar (Jason Sudeikis) and Gloria (Anne Hathaway) may be subconsciously destroying a foreign country through their emotional hangups. | © VOLTAGE PICTURES, BRIGHTLIGHT PICTURES

[REVIEW]

Some Kind of Monster Anne Hathaway gives a towering performance in a big, human role Written by

ROBERT HUNT Colossal

Written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo.

Starring Anne Hathaway, Jason Sudeikis and Tim Blake Nelson. Opens Friday, April 14, at the Landmark Tivoli Theatre.

G

loria (Anne Hathaway) is a typical modern girl with typical modern problems. She’s been out of work for a year, her prissy British boyfriend is dumping her and, as she tends to enjoy the occasional drink or seven, she frequently starts her day with no recollection of what she did the night before. Her life 24

RIVERFRONT TIMES

unwinding, she decides to return to her family home in Maine, now vacant. That’s where she reconnects with Oscar (Jason Sudeikis), a childhood friend who currently runs a bar. She’s hardly even had time to inflate her new air mattress when news appears on CNN of a giant monster smashing its way through South Korea.

These events are not unrelated in Colossal, a dark and clever comedy/horror movie/psychological drama about relationships, personal responsibility and the eternal struggle between the rubber-suited monsters of Asian cinema, called kaiju, and giant robots.

Gloria eventually figures out that there’s a connection between the creature terrorizing Seoul and her own behavior as she wanders home tipsily in the morning: Her unresolved emotional issues are taking physical form some 6,600 miles away. It’s a silly premise, presented with absolute conviction

by Hathaway, Sudeikis and writer-director Nacho Vigalondo, but you don’t have to completely buy in to appreciate what Colossal is doing. Giant monsters may do a lot

APRIL 12-18, 2017

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of damage, but the film finds just as much terror in bad relationships and human nature.

At times, Vigalondo overdoes the film’s “maturing millennials” credentials. (Gloria exclaims, “It’s like a Wes Anderson movie in here” when she sees Oscar’s bar, despite its complete lack of coyly retro design features or Françoise Hardy songs on the jukebox.) Fortunately, though, these moments are few, and Colossal retains a slightly jaded view of contemporary life.

The characters are connected online but unable to communicate, so alienated from life that the havoc on the other side of the world becomes one more on-screen distraction. Vigalondo minimizes the scenes of kaiju chaos but cleverly turns them into a subtle environmental detail: When Monster and Robot are fighting off-screen (as Gloria and Oscar butt heads on screen), we hear the reactions of the unseen audience cheering them on.

At the center of it all, towering over the special effects and the genre-bending tricks, is Anne Hathaway, giving a rich, multifaceted

performance that requires her to be loser and hero, victim and monster, often in the same scene. Hathaway has played lovable screwups like this before, but as Gloria transcends her own weaknesses, the actress provides her with a combination of innocence and fierceness that gives real-world depth to the film’s monster-movie fantasy.

But don’t make the mistake of thinking that Colossal is some kind of life-affirming allegory about battling inner demons. There’s a refreshing lack of sentimentality and not a trace of pop psychology to be found here. As the violence — not all of it physical — escalates, the film crosses boundaries in a surprisingly satisfying climax that pushes the balance of the film firmly over to its pop/junk monster side without abandoning the humanity that Hathaway and Vigalondo have so carefully established.

Colossal reaches what would be a worthy ending for any city-stomping monster movie, but with a thought-provoking twist. We’ve seen the damage that its far-fetched creatures can do, but we’ve also seen what pushed them to it. n

FREE MOVIE!

Michelle Rodriguez is hitman turned hitwoman. | SBS FILMS [REVIEW]

SEE ME AFTER CLASS Walter Hill’s Assignment is sub-par work The Assignment

Directed by Walter Hill. Written by Denis Hamill and Walter Hill. Starring Michelle Rodriguez, Sigourney Weaver and Tony Shalhoub. Now streaming on VOD.

R

emember Walter Hill, the writer/ director who modernized action genres in the 1970s with such critically acclaimed films as The Driver and The Long Riders and the cult favorite The Warriors? Hill had an enormous success in 1982 with 48 Hrs. (Eddie Murphy’s debut film), and ever since, those of us who admired his earlier work have endured a string of misguided high-concept action films, hoping for a return to form for the once-inspired, tough-guy artiste.

Hill’s new film The Assignment has received more attention than any film he’s made in decades, largely thanks to its central theme, which will strike most people as either a questionably contrived gimmick or a deliberate display of insensitivity.

You be the judge: Waking up in a sleazy hotel covered in bandages, hit man Frank Kitchen (Michelle Rodriguez) discovers that he has been the subject of unwanted gender-reassignment surgery performed by a vengeful mad-scientist surgeon (Sigourney Weaver), whose brother had been one of Frank’s targets. Frank comes to terms with this new situation and begins himself to seek revenge.

Frankly, I don’t think that Hill was taking any particular position on gender issues when he made The Assignment any more than he was concerned about facial reconstruction surgery in

Johnny Handsome or the urban blight in East St. Louis in Trespass. Although he gets a few chances to tweak male and female roles — Weaver wears a suit and tie and Rodriguez seems to enjoy playing at macho swagger — Frank’s surgery is just Hill’s MacGuffin, a justification for a neo-noir action that he could direct in his sleep.

That defense aside, The Assignment is something of a mess, albeit the kind of entertaining mess that Hill has served up more than a few times. Far too much time is devoted to a framing device, a dull rehash of The Silence of the Lambs in which the imprisoned Weaver, in a straightjacket, spells out the plot as she Hannibal-lectures investigator Tony Shalhoub on Poe, Shakespeare and her own unappreciated artistry. The remainder of the film follows Frank’s progress and his revenge. It’s fitfully interesting, largely owing to Rodriguez’s efforts.

The Assignment isn’t really clear enough in its intentions to merit indignation. It’s a fuzzy action film built around an idea that was never really taken seriously by its creators, and it’s their lack of commitment that keeps the film from ever becoming coherent.

Some films are met with outrage when they first appear but get a reconsideration years later. (Consider William Friedkin’s Cruising, the subject of protests in 1980 and now considered by some a landmark of gay cinema.) Other films are considered misfires when they premiere but earn a closer look later on when the sense of disappointment isn’t so immediate.

Most of Hill’s films fall into the latter category, adequate action films that still contain a glimpse of the artist’s original skill. I suspect that anyone who takes a second look at The Assignment in twenty years will see it not as a statement on gender but as a minor, occasionally interesting genre piece, just a notch or two below Johnny Handsome.

—Robert Hunt

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THE ARTS

[ S TA G E ]

The Razor’s Edge In the hands of Stray Dog Theatre, Sweeney Todd is a predictably bloody good time Written by

PAUL FRISWOLD Sweeney Todd

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

Book by Hugh Wheeler. From an adaptation

by Christopher Bond. Directed by Justin Been.

Presented by Stray Dog Theatre through April 22 at Tower Grove Abbey (2336 Tennessee Avenue; www.straydogtheatre. org). Tickets are $20 to $25.

I

f you prefer your musicals to be grisly, grimy and nihilistic, Stray Dog Theatre can help you out. The company’s current production of the Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler classic Sweeney Todd is a dark and bloodsoaked monstrosity. That’s not a criticism; it’s a plaudit.

Despite the grand guignol subject material, Sweeney Todd is exceptionally popular with modern audiences. (Stray Dog’s artistic director, Gary F. Bell, announced from the stage that the first two weekends sold out before the show even opened.) Many of the songs have a bouncy, English music hall quality that belies their ugly subtext of revenge, murder, cannibalism and good ol’ manipulation of one’s fellow humans.

To his credit, director Justin Been leans heavily on the show’s origin as a penny dreadful — a depraved short story sold for one cent to England’s thrill-seeking populace in the nineteenth century — wringing out every last damned drop of blood. This is a Sweeney Todd that rolls around in the depravity of mankind’s worst excesses, a tale of madness and murder that no one escapes. While not the jolliest of shows, it makes for a satisfying and effective

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Lavonne Byers makes the worst pies in London, but Jonathan Hey only thinks of revenge. | JOHN LAMB production that overwhelms with beauty and horror in equal measure.

Jonathan Hey is Sweeney Todd, the nom de guerre of Benjamin Barker, a barber who had his wife stolen and raped by a lustful judge. As a criminal, Barker was transported for life to Australia, but he’s fought his way back to England to have his revenge.

With him is Anthony Hope (Cole Gutmann), the young sailor who saved him from drowning.

Hey is hulk of a man, and his shaven head and deep-set eyes give him a menacing air. Speaking in a deep monotone, his Sweeney Todd is more dead than alive. He’s

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well-suited to London, which is teeming with hungry people willing to do anything to get ahead in life.

Anthony is far more lively, looking for — and finding — love quite quickly in the form of Johanna (Eileen Engel), a beautiful young woman kept pent up at home by her guardian, Judge Turpin (Gerry Love). The Judge is the man who Sweeney hunts, and Johanna is Sweeney’s long-lost daughter, something Sweeney soon discovers, thanks to his old acquaintance Mrs. Lovett (Lavonne Byers).

Byers received a round of spontaneous applause when

she took the stage on the night I saw the show, as if the audience already knew how good she was going to be in the role. More of us should have clapped, because Byers exceeded even the highest expectations. Her Mrs. Lovett is a bright and buoyant gossip, ready to share a joke or a secret as needed and able to supply comfort as easily as she serves up people to other people in her pie shop. Cunning and convivial, she worms her way into Sweeney’s good graces and then sets herself up as his partner and lover.

Scenic designer Rob Lippert has built a gray and creaky splitlevel London for these characters to inhabit. Most murders are performed in Sweeney’s second-floor apartment, which rotates to reveal the interior. When Mrs. Lovett reunites Sweeney with his old barbering tools, Hey enters a murderously still trance, straight razor grasped in his red, raw hand. “Now my arm is complete,” he intones as a warning and declaration of intent. It is a beautifully staged nightmare, one of many Been has plotted.

London is the final character in the play, and the most dominant.

Sweeney believes it is London that is to blame for his woes, decrying it as a corrupter of all in the song “No Place Like London.” Been embellishes on this idea throughout the play, as Todd mechanically slays a parade of innocent bystanders and Mrs. Lovett feeds them to hungry customers, who can’t get enough of her home cooking. Judge Turpin goes mad from lust for his ward Johanna, and Anthony is driven to break the law to snatch her from her lawful guardian. Even Mrs. Lovett’s innocent serving boy Tobias (Connor Johnson) is ruined by the city, going mad from the horrors he’s endured under her care. When Anthony and Johanna make their eventual escape, there is the sense that it’s only temporary; London has claimed them, and it will have its way. Johanna has killed a man during their escape, and no good will come of that. London will be waiting for them, just like it waited for Sweeney Todd to n return.

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Salt + Smoke • Lulu Seafood And Dim Sum • Bar Les Freres • Lona’s Lil Eats • The Lib

mission Taco Joint •Brasserie • Sump Coffee • Ices Plain & Fancy • Salume Beddu

The Side Project Cellar • The Shaved Duck • The Scottish Arms...with more to

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Highlights at Hi-Pointe Drive-In include the “Abaconing Sandwich,” a double cheeseburger and the “Guac-ness Monster.” | MABEL SUEN [REVIEW]

Oh, the Glory of It All Sugarfire Smokehouse’s Mike Johnson scores again with HiPointe Drive-In — a temple of delicious excess Written by

CHERYL BAEHR Hi-Pointe Drive-In

1033 McCausland Avenue, 314-349-2720.

Mon.-Sun. 10 a.m.-10 p.m.

M

any moons ago, I took the BulletBoys to Del Taco.

For those who lack questionable taste in music, the BulletBoys were a Los Angeles-based hair band known for such rousing standards as

“Smooth Up In ‘Ya” and a metal version of the O’Jays hit “For the Love of Money.” They were the embodiment of raunchy, late ‘80s hair metal and the debauched lifestyle that accompanied it, a group of architecturally coiffed troubadours whose Aqua Net usage might have single-handedly launched the era of global warming. And there they were, piled into my beat-up ’97 Accord in search of some grub after playing the old Hi-Pointe music venue.

I’d gone to see their “Where are they now” style show — mostly for the ironic comedic value, but also because I have a soft spot for bad music — and got to chatting them up afterwards. They were hungry, but the only place I could think of to take them was the old fast food joint around the corner. After we rolled through the drive-through, I witnessed the lead singer, still clad in sweaty neon-colored spandex, devouring a mammoth “Double Del Cheeseburger.” It was hard to imagine a more

conspicuous display of excess at 1033 McCausland Avenue.

That is, until a few weeks ago, when I had Hi-Pointe Drive-In’s double with American cheese, a burger so hedonistic it should come with an “XXX” rating. Two patties of ground brisket, chuck and short rib glisten with rendered fat, as slices of just-starting-to-ooze cheese peek out of the sides. Lettuce, tomato and pickle give a welcome pop of refreshment through the excess; a buttery potato bun gives its best effort, but it cannot contain this meaty beast. If the late ‘80s Sunset Strip were a food item, it would be this burger.

It’s no surprise that the temple of decadence serving it is the creation of Mike Johnson. At his barbecue concept, Sugarfire Smokehouse, the fine-dining chefturned-restaurateur and pitmaster is not exactly known for restraint.

As Sugarfire’s website explains, Johnson’s professional purpose is to make your “dirty little food dreams come true,” and he’s been riverfronttimes.com

doing just that since he opened his first-of-many smokehouse in Olivette nearly seven years ago.

His barbecue is consistently touted as some of the best in town, but the other secret to his success is a vibrant repertoire of platters and sandwiches (think pimento cheese and bacon) that border on the obscene.

A prolific restaurateur whose résumé includes such successes as Café Mira, Momo’s Greek Tavern, Roxanne and Boogaloo, Johnson had been toying around with the idea of another concept. He’d eyed the old Del Taco (Naugles in its prior life) for some time and originally thought of turning the lot into a hot chicken place. Instead, he opted for foodstuffs that were already part of his successful formula at Sugarfire: burgers and sandwiches.

Johnson had the old fast food shack leveled; he replaced it with a modern building made from old shipping containers. The industrial feel was livened by painting the

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HI-POINT DRIVE-IN Continued from pg 31 mammoth metal containers in bold primary colors. A cow statue, chalked up to show various cuts of beef, sits on top of the building, and a standalone container turned on its side serves as covered patio seating.

The space proves larger than you’d imagine from the outside — roughly fifteen tables under vaulted ceilings that open things up — though it is perpetually packed. The set-up is fast-casual, and the line to the order counter will likely extend well out the front door regardless of when you visit. Somehow, though, you rarely wait for a table here, and your food often arrives before you’ve even grabbed your seat.

Even in the chaos, Johnson runs a well-oiled machine.

Hi-Pointe’s burgers are its calling card, but Johnson’s menu spans several genres’ worth of sandwiches that are equally worthwhile. The “Hot Salami” pairs Salume Beddu’s gold-standard genoa and soppressata with Provel cheese and a spicy house-made giardiniera that cuts through the fatty meat. It’s as wonderful an Italian sub as you’d find on the Hill.

A salmon bánh mì is so refreshing compared to the more decadent offerings, it almost seems like an intermezzo. A filet of beautifully cooked fish is placed atop a crusty baguette and dressed with crunchy pickled vegetables and cilantro.

Chile mango aioli adds a hint of sweetness to this wonderful sandwich.

As an avocado maven, I was eager to try the “Guacness Monster,” an edible love poem to the luscious green fruit. For this vegetarian sandwich, an entire avocado is coated in crushed Funions and deep fried. The avocado party does

Brussels sprouts are a side option, but you’d be wise not to skip the absolutely perfect Belgian-style fries. | MABEL SUEN not stop there, though, as Johnson adds both guacamole and avocado ranch dressing to the sandwich, then garnishes it with sprouts and tomato. The taste is enjoyable, and I’m a sucker for the velvety decadence of fried avocado. However, it’s hard to make it work on a sandwich without getting mushy, especially when it’s topped with additional dressings. The sprouts and Funions were supposed to provide texture, but the impact was muted. I appreciate the effort to develop a new vegetarian sandwich, but this one needs some work.

We Do It All For You! BULK ORDERS FOR ANY OCCASION! Dine-In • Carry-Out Catering • Open 7 Days 3628 S. BIG BEND • 314-781-2097 • www.porterschicken.com

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Though the restaurant’s signature burger is the classic griddled version, Johnson’s “Taco Burger” comes close to stealing the spotlight. Ground beef is seasoned with taco seasoning and a melange of smashed Cool Ranch Doritos and Chili Cheese Fritos, then seared on the flat top. American cheese is melted on top and lettuce, tomato avocado ranch and a piquant hot sauce from Mission Taco Joint crown this fun sandwich. As my friend noted, “Wow. This actually tastes like a taco.” It’s a fun mix of genres that

works swimmingly.

It’s hard to walk into Hi-Pointe Drive-In and not order that double burger, but the “Abaconing” might give you pause. It’s the kind of sandwich that makes your heart skip a beat — not just because of how much you love it but because, well, eating it probably takes a month off your life. Slice upon slice of succulent Wenneman’s bacon is piled onto griddled bread, while bacon fat aioli and green tomatoes coated in bacon bits and deep fried add to the indulgence.

Continued on pg 34

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“amazing!”

HI-POINT DRIVE-IN Continued from pg 32

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The star of the “Abaconing” is Wenneman’s bacon, but there’s also bacon fat aioli, collard greens, white cheddar and a fried tomato coated in bacon bits. | MABEL SUEN Wonderful collard greens that tasted like they’ve been braised in bourbon and brown sugar may be technically a vegetable, but they feel every bit as decadent as the bacon. It’s a glorious celebration of excess.

Sides are a la carte, and though you may think an impossibly hearty sandwich will be more than enough, you must make room for at least one. White cheddar mac & cheese is velvety and luxurious, and jalapeno-flecked vinegar slaw provides a bit of cool yet spicy refreshment. But it’s the fries that you simply cannot pass on. HiPointe serves Belgian frites, which have medium thickness, a saltencrusted, crisp exterior and an interior that’s like a mashed potato.

They’re perfect.

And what better way to wash down all this madness than with

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an adult milkshake? Hi-Pointe Drive-In doesn’t have a pre-set list of alcohol-and-flavor combos — just a selection of classic shakes like butterscotch and strawberry along with shots of liquor. I selected a simple vanilla, which proved impossibly thick and creamy, along with a shot of rum — though does it really matter? It’s ice cream and booze. How can you go wrong?

It’s a shame Hi-Pointe wasn’t open when I was in search of a place to take my carload of hair rockers: I can’t think of a better match than the excess they represented and the sheer hedonism on display at the Drive-In. Both are guilty as hell, but man, are they pleasurable. Well, at least the edible one is. n Hi-Pointe Drive-In

Double burger with cheese ����������������$8 “The Abaconing” ��������������������������� $8�50 Side of Belgian frites �������������������� $2�50

SHORT ORDERS

35

[FOOD NEWS]

‘FOOD TRUCK COURT’ PROPOSED FOR SOUTH CITY

R

Just call her Keyser Söze, because Audra Luedde is the mastermind behind the Libertine. | KELLY GLUECK

[SIDE DISH]

Audra Luedde Is Craving a Dry White Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

I

n some ways, Audra Luedde is the Keyser Söze of the Libertine (7927 Forsyth Boulevard, Clayton; 314-862-2999) — minus the part about being a crime lord, of course. The acclaimed restaurant incorporates her vision, her influence is woven throughout the menu and she spends her days cooking in the kitchen, doing everything from recipe development to pickling radishes for the restau-

rant’s CSA program. And by 5 p.m., she’s gone.

“My job is done before anyone walks through the doors,” explains Luedde. “No one sees me there, so I think they assume I’m not as involved as I am.”

Everyone knows Luedde’s husband Nick as the face of the Libertine, or, as she describes him, “the person who’s going to fill the room.” And indeed, his larger-thanlife personality makes him the restaurant’s mascot — the person people associate with the brand.

But Luedde provides the essential yin to his yang.

“We balance each other out,” Luedde explains. “We have to.”

And Luedde provides much more than balance. A trained chef, sommelier and restaurateur, Luedde has been in the business ever since she left her small agricultural community in rural Illinois to go to school in Chicago.

“I grew up in a farming community where everyone raised either livestock or produce,” Luedde

explains. “My love of food comes from my family — there was never a time in my life when food wasn’t there.” As a college student, she consistently worked in kitchens or restaurants, and after graduating, decided to go to culinary school. “I just knew that food and wine was what I wanted to do with my life.”

During culinary school, Luedde worked at Chicago’s Tasting Room where she did double duty as a chef consultant and sommelier, and then met (and married) Nick, a restaurant general manager.

Though she loved her career and the life she had created there, the couple knew that they wanted to own a restaurant. Doing so in Chicago, though, was simply not possible.

“The cost was just a stumbling block there,” says Luedde. “We just wouldn’t have been able to do our own thing there with how expensive it is. Nick started looking at how much the food scene in St. Louis had changed since he’d left fifteen years Continued on pg 36 riverfronttimes.com

oad warriors of the St. Louis food scene could soon have headquarters in Tower Grove South.

Chef Paul Listenberger, owner of Steak Louie, wants to create a “food truck court” where his rolling kitchen and three popular competitors would park and serve customers out of a former cafe, complete with a shared indoor space for ordering and eating, plus more tables outside for digging in.

“We’ll be the first food truck court in the St. Louis area,” Listenberger says.

In February, he took over the former home of Annie Moons Bakery, which was most recently a comic book shop. The one-story commercial building sits on a quiet corner at Utah Street and Roger Place, six blocks south of Tower Grove Park.

There is a wide patio in front and space for four food trucks in the back.

Listenberger, whose signature “Louie” sandwich is a St. Louis take on the Philly cheesesteak, plans to share space with three other notable trucks. Farmtruk — chef Samantha Mitchell has been featured on the Food Network — serves farm-to-table fare. Go! Gyro!

Go! is a favorite of RFT readers.

And regular visitors to the farmers market in Tower Grove Park are familiar with the long lines in front of the Holy Crepe! truck.

“It’s going to be fun,” Listenberger says.

He’s hoping to start serving customers in May. The concept is still working its way through the city permitting process, and Listenberger says he still has a few ideas that he’s not revealing just yet.

But the basics are set: The chefs will cook on their trucks and serve the food through the cafe.

Patrons can come inside to order from any — or all — of the four, then eat inside or out.

— Doyle Murphy

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AUDRA LUEDDE Continued from pg 35

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earlier, and we decided it was the right place for us.”

The pair returned to town and opened the Libertine in 2013, and Luedde has never looked back.

“St. Louis is such a warm and inviting place, and people really get what we do here,” she says.

And what a lot she does. In addition to helping to conceptualize the ever-evolving menu, Luedde runs the restaurant’s “Meals to Go” program and its CSA, which has evolved from her days in Chicago. “Restaurants used to be just access points for people to pick up items from farmers, but that’s changed,” Luedde explains.

“Now, we try to incorporate the restaurant and ourselves into it: spice rubs, pickles, housemade goods, sausages.

“It’s my baby, but not my third,” Luedde laughs. “I have two boys and my third baby is Nick, so I guess it’s my fourth.”

Luedde took a break from the kitchen to share her thoughts on the St. Louis food and beverage scene, her front-row seat to bartender Ben Bauer’s fireworks, and why St. Louis could really use a wine vending machine.

What is one thing people don’t know about you that you wish they did?

I’m a mother of two, and people know my husband and his wild and wacky beverage and culinary antics ... but I’m here right beside him most days overseeing one of St. Louis’ most successful CSA programs, working with local farmers, writing recipes and cooking.

It’s a lot of work and a lot of fun, but most of the time I am off to pick up the kids before the diners arrive.

What daily ritual is non-negotiable for you?

Coffee. Hands down. The whole world around me could be falling apart, but I don’t notice for those few moments while I am having my first cup of coffee.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Mind reading. Geez, that would make my life so much easier.

What is the most positive thing in food, wine or cocktails that you’ve noticed in St. Louis over the past year?

I really don’t get out as much as I’d like to these days — two kids and a busy restaurant makes Au-

dra a dull girl. That said, I enjoy little more than watching our head barkeep Ben Bauer juggling liquid nitrogen and setting things on fire at the Libertine!

What is something missing in the local food, wine or cocktail scene that you’d like to see?

It’s such an eclectic and diverse food scene here now, and it’s grown so much in the four years since Nick and I left Chicago. It’s really difficult to think of what we are missing … drive-thru bars?

You know, for when the baby is napping. Okay, that’s probably a terrible idea. Wine vending machines in parks? For when the baby is napping? I’m starting to notice a trend here.

Who is your St. Louis food crush?

My hubby, of course!

Who’s the one person to watch right now in the St. Louis dining scene?

M e r e d i t h B e r ko w i t z , o u r manager at the Libertine. She’s doing some pretty special things here in regards to hospitality. She makes the Libertine so warm; it’s a pleasure to watch that lady work her magic.

Which ingredient is most representative of your personality?

Cheese. It’s comforting. Everyone wishes they could hug cheese.

If you weren’t working in the restaurant business, what would you be doing?

Sleeping on a beach in Liguria.

I could use the rest. But seriously, I chose this lifestyle because I’m so passionate about this industry — great food, great drink, great friends. I’m exceptionally proud of what we have here at the Libertine and I am grateful for my part in having helped create it.

Name an ingredient never allowed in your kitchen.

Any negativity or attitude.

When you’re here feeding St. Louis, do it with love and a smile.

What is your after-work hangout?

My deck, with music playing and the stars above. What could be better? Nick’s bartending.

What’s your food or beverage guilty pleasure?

A dry Austrian or Alsatian riesling — but I feel no guilt whatsoever.

What would be your last meal on earth?

My Grandma’s bolognese…with her. n

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Now (Finally) Open in Lafayette Square: Polite Society Written by

SARAH FENSKE

W

hen Jonathan Schoen and Brian Schmitz took over the Lafayette Square space that had long held Ricardo’s last winter, they thought they’d make a few renovations and get the doors open to their new restaurant by June — and by that, they meant June 2016.

But the summer of 2016 came and went, and so did fall. Winter came; winter went. It was only on February 23, that Schoen and Schmitz finally opened Polite Society (1923 Park Avenue, 314-325-2553) — the smart, stylish restaurant they’d always envisioned. And hey, it only took a year.

But all the hard work and renovation stress has now paid off in a

restaurant that has the neighborhood buzzing. After just one week of service, Schmitz notes, “We’ve got some people who’ve already been in two, three times.”

He adds, “They watched us work on this space for a year, and now they’re showing their support by being here — that’s something we don’t take lightly.”

Anyone who ate at Ricardo’s will find themselves simply stunned by the changes the partners have made. There are still three rooms, with the first featuring a bar, and exposed brick walls. But that’s about it; a gut rehab has turned what was a warm, slightly fusty family restaurant into a sophisticated stunner.

The bar area is transformed, with a cool color palate and a large rectangular bar that now dominates the entry room. Meanwhile, the dining rooms have lost their carpet and gained built-in bookshelves, exposed lightbulbs and a few striking pieces of furniture. Large windows face Park Avenue. It’s not fancy, but in its throwback feeling, it somehow seems both modern and smart.

Schmitz explains that the restaurant’s name is meant to suggest civility, not formality. “We want to create an environment that we need more of in this world — an emphasis on consideration,” he says. “That’s for our guests and for our neighborhood. We set out to build a community of wellintentioned, reasonable people.”

And that goes along with the

food. They partners aim to provide a menu that plays with whatever’s available right now, but one that also takes seriously diners’ different needs. You can get filet mignon or diver scallops, but many options are gluten-free, vegetarian or even vegan, no substitutions needed.

The restaurant’s personnel are something of a supergroup — it’s their first time playing together, but they have lengthy resumes that include some of the city’s best restaurants. Schmitz developed Sol and Reference Room, while Schoen has been the general manager for the Cheshire Inn’s restaurants, which at the time included Basso, the Fox and the Hound, and the Restaurant at the Cheshire. They’ve assembled a team led by executive chef Thomas Futrell, previously sous chef at Scape. Travis Hebrank, who runs the bar program, was at Scape as well. Even the sous chef is a rising star — Chris Krzysik was previously the chef at members’ only Blood & Sand.

For the partners, getting the restaurant ready to open has been a labor of love. They did much of the work themselves, down to the wallpaper in the bar area, which Hebrank and his mother stenciled by hand.

A friend in the restaurant business told them that, once the dayto-day grind sets in, they’d miss the part of the journey that involved getting ready for customers. Jokes Schmitz, “I can’t wait to miss it!” n riverfronttimes.com

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Chef Logan Ely works his magic. | JOE CLARKE [UNDERGROUND DINING]

New Dinner Series Expands the Idea of Food Written by

SARA GRAHAM

T

here’s a new sheriff — err, chef — in town, one who’s bringing a new perspective to St. Louis diners. But is it really new, or is it ancient?

Chef Logan Ely, a St. Louis native who recently returned to the city after twelve years cooking in hotspots around the world, believes that chefs must rethink the idea of food when faced with the world’s rapidly growing population and demands on our lands and oceans.

The 32-year-old has recently launched an underground dinner series with service at 8 p.m. every Friday and Sunday in the Delmar Loop. Those interested reach out

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APRIL 12-18, 2017

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on social media and then receive a phone call with details on location, pricing and parking. Ely calls it “the Square One Project.”

The intimate dinners, which seat just twelve guests at three tables of four, provide an introduction to Ely’s novel way of thinking about food. Courses are served by Ely and two co-chefs, along with a description of each dish’s ingredients and preparation. The inaugural dinner on March 17 included ten courses plus a cocktail (and wine pairings).

Many of his dishes are composed of what many consider to be byproducts of the cooking process — spent coffee grounds, brewing grains and peels from fruits and vegetables. Nothing is off limits.

He likes to question long-held standards, such as peeling carrots: “Do you have to? Or, can you use the peels for something else?” He explains, “I think about these things, not because it’s ‘cool’ or because of a shock factor, but because it’s important.”

His style of cooking goes beyond the recent “farm to table” movement that brought local farmers to the forefront of the conversation and the “nose to tail” trend that focused on utilizing every part of an animal to avoid waste. This philosophy takes things to a grander

Ely’s offerings deploy such creative ingredients as, clockwise from left, a frozen sphere that melts to create a cocktail, coffee grounds and leek bottom leaves. | SARA GRAHAM scale, seeking to reconnect people to the land that sustains us.

It was almost inevitable that Ely would become a chef since he grew up with either his mother, grandmother and sisters cooking in the kitchen at home or working in restaurants. And even though he spent his high school years more concerned with being a teenager than figuring out his future, upon graduation he decided to enroll in the culinary program at Forest Park Community College.

He began his career in St. Louis, working locally at An American Place. He then embarked on a culinary tour of the world of sorts, in order to learn and hone his skills. He worked in kitchens in Chicago (North Pond), Hong Kong, New York (Blue Hill at Stone Barns), Napa Valley (the bakery of the French Laundry), Houston

(Pass & Provisions), Copenhagen and Oslo.

Ely moved back to St. Louis earlier this year, even though originally he had no intention of returning to his hometown. He says he made the decision after hearing about the increasingly innovative food scene. He reached out to Vicia’s Michael and Tara Gallina (also both alums of Blue Hill), picked their brains for information and knew this was the right move.

Upon moving back, he set to work rediscovering St. Louis. Several local chefs referred him to Anne Lehman, whose Dirty Girl Farms is based in her backyard in Tower Grove South. Her unique herbs and flavors have proved to be a great fit for his dishes.

“I took a tour of her garden and was immediately impressed.

I’ve never seen anything like that.

She’s doing so much with the space that she has,” he marvels. “I must have seen 50 herbs, and I’d only heard of maybe three of them.”

He’s also working with Such and Such Farms in DeSoto, Missouri.

Ely’s inspiration comes generally from the seasons, nature and what’s available. He’s constantly on the lookout for new ideas.

During the week, Ely’s makeshift kitchen in the Loop is a culinary lab of sorts that allows him to test his ideas. Ely executes his entire menu with just a small induction burner, a toaster oven and two pans. Successful creations are featured in his weekend dinners.

Creativity and efficiency, he says, are the keys to making a lean kitchen work. He’s worked in large, beautiful kitchens with 30 cooks and in tiny basement kitchriverfronttimes.com

ens in New York City — he knows size isn’t everything. In fact, he’s noticed a lot of waste in larger kitchens of food, disposables, space, equipment and utilities, and vowed to rethink that in his own kitchen.

Ely’s long-term plan is to one day own his own restaurant, but he’s not concerned with that at the moment. He’s focused on the experience.

“As a cook, you should want to continue to explore new ideas, techniques and food, new and old, mainly because it’s fun. It’s more fun for me, for example, to figure out a cool and tasty way to serve vegetables than to roast off a piece of foie, or wagyu beef — that’s easy.”

Follow Ely on Instagram and Twitter at @square1_project for more information. n

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MUSIC

41

John Krane (far left), Dave Werner (center) and Jesse Irwin aren’t just monkeying around. | SCOTT ANDROFF

[ALBUM]

Monkey Business The Chimps deliver an intensely personal and harmonious debut with Play No Evil Written by

NICK HORN

I

t’s a Sunday morning album,” says the Chimps’ John Krane of Play No Evil, the group’s first studio effort.

Pressed on exactly what that means, he explains, “To me, it’s melancholy without being depressing —

but there’s some, like, bittersweet happy songs. It’s something that’ll mean something different to you every time you listen to it. If you’re listening to it on a Sunday morning, you’ve got time to pick apart the lyrics and really dive into it.”

Bandmate Jesse Irwin explains the concept in his own illustrative way: “On a Sunday morning you’ve got nowhere to go. You get up, you’re frying some eggs. You can fully listen to an album. You’re not doing anything on a Sunday morning, usually, that captures your full attention; it’s on while you’re picking up your house and you’re making coffee.”

He finishes concisely: “It’s an introspective time of the week, and this is an introspective album.”

The Chimps, a trio of longtime St. Louis-area singer-songwriters made up of Krane and Irwin on vocals and guitar, along with

Dave Werner on vocals and bass, released Play No Evil on March 12 (a Sunday, incidentally) to little fanfare, which isn’t really surprising considering the lack of promotion or build-up for the album’s debut.

Despite the unceremonious nature of the album’s release, it’s apparent upon first listen that an enormous amount of intellectual, emotional and logistical effort went into its creation. The tentrack album features meticulously rehearsed three-part harmonies, consistently good (and occasionally masterful) songwriting, and thoughtful arrangements featuring a long list of area musicians. (Guitarist Nick Gusman and drummer Daniel Moody of Moon Glampers, violinist/violist Brian Seyle of the Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra, and keyboardist Nathan Jatcko of John Henry and the Enriverfronttimes.com

gine all make appearances, among others.)

The impressive nature of Play No Evil — especially considering that it’s the group’s first release — owes much to the group’s uncommon approach to productivity as a band. The Chimps put together a unique set for each live performance, composed of carefully arranged covers alongside a selection of songs by each of the trio’s three members. The group rarely plays the same song live twice.

“With the Chimps, we practice so much more than we play,” Irwin explains. “There’s so little room to make a mistake. All the vocals, all the parts, are so finely tuned — it’s so perishable that we have to practice a lot. We might only play three or four shows in an entire year with the Chimps, but we’re practicing weekly.”

APRIL 12-18, 2017

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THE CHIMPS Continued from pg 41 The album opens with “Hagerty,” a heart-wrenching, bittersweet elegy written by Werner about the death of friend and fellow songwriter David Hagerty.

The song sets the stage for what’s in store throughout the rest of the album, with Werner’s simple yet profoundly emotive lyrics: “Grown men were crying like children that day / And no one could think of the right thing to say / The years have gone by and I feel the same way / Like we buried our David this morning.”

While “Hagerty” may be at the extreme end of the spectrum when it comes to emotional weight, every song on the album is unabashedly personal, dealing not in hypotheticals or overwrought imaginings of invented scenarios, but rather lived — and thoroughly contemplated — experiences.

“We aren’t trying to do this to be a commercial success, we’re doing this to make art — the best art we can, period,” Irwin says.

He credits some of the group’s ability to create a project so deeply personal to the uniquely laidback nature of St. Louis’ musical culture.

“This isn’t a city where people are super-competitive trying to get a record deal or be more popular than the other person. You can be sincere here. None of us is paying $1,500 for a studio apartment. It isn’t a rat race, musically. We’re just able to do the work we want to do at our own pace.”

Another factor contributing to the intimate nature of the songs is the way in which Krane, Irwin and Werner went about delegating — or rather, not delegating — the duties of arrangement and personnel selection.

“The additional musicians that are on [the album] were — I don’t think there’s an exception to this — they were all chosen by whoever wrote the song,” Irwin says. “It was kind of up to whoever wrote the song to choose the arrangement.”

The way he tells it, it was simply the most intuitive choice: “It’s all stuff that’s been in your head since you wrote the song.”

Krane expands on the idea, saying, “If we’re playing a Jesse song, it’s clearly a Jesse song; if we’re playing a Dave song, it’s clearly a Dave song — and not just in who’s singing it, but in the lyrics, the sound of it.”

Sure enough, as the album plays

“We aren’t trying to do this to be a commercial success, we’re doing this to make art — the best art we can, period.” on, three distinct personalities begin to emerge. Songs written

by Werner, the eldest of the group by more than two decades, make up half of the album’s ten tracks.

Werner’s lyrics consistently center on themes related to aging — loss in “Hagerty,” missed opportunities in “Wes,” the immutability of change in “Superman” — and his arrangements often take on a melancholy, reflective mood. Alternatively, the two songs on Play No Evil penned by Irwin share the theme of a young but committed relationship — “My Eyes Rest Easy On You” is an expertly crafted love song, while “Connecticut Street” is a story of temptation and the struggle against it. Krane is the album’s wildcard, showing an offbeat but charming wit with “Troubleshooting” — in which he likens himself to a malfunctioning computer — and an uncanny knack for turning a scene into a story in “Very Bad Thing.”

While the individual personalities of the Chimps’ members are on full display throughout Play No Evil, the end product still manages to come together as a thoroughly cohesive effort that shows off some of the best of what the city’s singer-songwriter scene has to offer.

You’ll probably never find yourself putting this album on while you’re heading to a party, hanging out with friends or even trying to get some work done, but if you find yourself with 45 minutes or so to really listen to a collection of songs — on a Sunday morning, perhaps — Play No Evil is definitely worth the attention.

“A Sunday morning album is what I wanted to make — that’s a perfect description for it,” Irwin says.

He follows, proudly, “That’s what we got.” n

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46

B-SIDES

[IN MEMORIAM]

Rock in Peace Chuck Berry gets a loving goodbye from the city he always called home Written by

JAIME LEES

I

t is impossible to overstate the significance of Chuck Edward Anderson Berry. He was frequently credited with inventing the entire genre of rock & roll, but his influence reached much further than the radio. His existence changed the world. Berry was the ultimate cultural icon.

No other figure in the history of modern music has had such an impact. And as a proud St. Louisan, Berry has always held an extra special place in the heart of locals. Chuck Berry, you see, belonged to us. He was the embodiment of all that is magical about St. Louis culture, and when he died last month, a huge part of our history died along with him.

It took a few weeks to put together, but Berry’s family planned a wonderful series of events to celebrate his life. Berry loved an audience, and the entire weekend was set up so that fans could participate in saying goodbye. There was a toast on Delmar Boulevard on Saturday night, followed by a viewing of Berry’s body on Sunday morning at the Pageant that was open to the public. The private service for the family was scheduled to commence immediately after, and the Berry family gave out passes to 300 members of the public, who queued up excitedly. It was a generous offering to Berry’s biggest fans.

Inside the memorial, it was all love. With Berry’s body was laid out tastefully, a parade of speakers took the stage to sing his praises. Many of them noted

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Family, friends and a host of fans came to the Pageant Sunday to say goodbye to Chuck Berry. | JAIME LEES that Berry was a civil rights icon: What Berry did with music helped people to cross racial divides out in the streets. White audiences who might not have otherwise embraced a black musician were helpless to resist the power of Berry’s guitar.

Gene Simmons of KISS was a surprise speaker. Hiding out in the back, he looked properly devastated before agreeing to

APRIL 12-18, 2017

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say a few words. His impromptu speech was one of the event’s best; he told the audience about being a young immigrant to the U.S. and how Berry and his music helped bring the country together. “It’s a sad day, but I think it’s a happy time. Look at the legacy,” Simmons said. “He broke down the barriers and made all kinds of people’s hearts and minds open up to the idea that we all belong to the same

people.”

But the speech of the afternoon, appropriately, came from Charles Berry Jr. He was funny, sincere and remarkably composed. He explained that his father was his hero and that he felt honored to learn from the master. He said that many people taught him how to be a musician, but that his father taught him how to be a man. Berry Jr. thanked his many friends and

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APRIL 19TH family members in attendance and then, in a remarkable display of Midwestern hospitality, he took a moment to address the public, which had been seated in the balcony area. He looked up and said, “You’re my friends now, too, because you’re here with me.”

The entire service was touching.

There were musical performances from Marlissa Hudson, Dwayne Buggs, Johnny Rivers and Billy Peek. (Little Richard had been scheduled to sing a gospel song, but he fell ill and couldn’t make it.) Condolence letters from Bill Clinton, Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones and St. Louis mayor Mayor Francis Slay were read to the crowd. Slay’s proclamation was read by new mayor-elect Lyda Krewson, who praised Berry for always sticking close to home.

Legendary local bluesman Mat Wilson is a huge fan of Berry who attended every event this weekend that honored his hero, including the public toast and moment of silence outside Blueberry Hill on Saturday. A scholar of American music whose band, the Loot Rock Gang, got to open for Berry, Wilson praises the musician with enthusiasm.

“Chuck is the grandfather of rock & roll and I think it was really special to have him here in our neighborhood,” he says.

“He’s the originator. It’s not to be taken lightly that the originator of rock & roll came from our own town.” Echoing this sentiment, St. Louis native and real life guitar hero Richard Fortus (Guns ‘N’ Roses, Love Spit Love, Thin Lizzy, Pale Divine) also stopped in Sunday to pay his respects.

Fortus said, “For me, this was a big part of my growing up, being from St. Louis. Not only his music, but his persona. The early videos for me were huge: seeing Chuck Berry on TV and what an enigmatic performer he was. I remember playing down on the Landing when I was a kid and him coming in and grabbing a guitar and yelling at people if they didn’t know his songs. It was awesome.

“It was special, growing up in St. Louis and knowing that he was part of the lineage,” he added.

“He’s one of the biggest parts in n the history of rock & roll.”

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APRIL 12-18, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

47

48

HOMESPUN

MANESS BROTHERS Maness Brothers themanessbrothers.bandcamp.com

Maness Brothers Record Release Show

4 p.m. Saturday, April 15. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue. $10. 314-773-3363.

T

he music of the Maness Brothers — David on guitar and Jake on drums, both on vocals — is, by design, quick and dirty. The pair plays an intensified version of hill country blues, employing circular, hypnotic riffs with more than a little grit and gristle on top and an insistent, exploratory approach to rhythm. But while the brothers’ music thrives on immediacy, the process of committing their songs to wax was slightly more arduous.

“The oldest song we wrote in 2013,” Jake says of the material on the new LP, titled Maness Brothers.

“The other ones were written 2014, 2015. We recorded the album in March of 2015 immediately when we got back from a 30-day tour. We went into the studio with Kit Hamon, and then we got it mixed and mastered, looking around for a label to put it out.”

The Maness Brothers had planned on releasing the six-song album with a local label, but a series of miscommunications and obfuscations — test-pressings that never materialized, funding that dried up — eventually scuttled the plans. Thankfully, the band had been in contact with Romanus Records out of Indianapolis, and the label was interested in releasing the new LP. In addition to the high-fidelity pleasures of vinyl records, Romanus specializes in making Willy Wonka-esque combinations with its releases: Jake counts at least seven different iterations of the new LP. Some will be a three-color burst, some will have a paisley imprint on the wax, and others will be filled with colored sand that shifts as the record spins.

The heads of Romanus Records, Chris Banta and Warner Swopes, also make up the band Brother O’ Brother, another guitar-and-drums duo that the Maness Brothers have played with in the past. That band will share the stage with the brothers at the album’s release show this weekend, alongside touring bands Calliope and Catl, and local artists Bug Chaser, Beth Bombara and Stranger Places.

Since the Maness Brothers helm the annual, multiday Whiskey War Festival, booking a release show is a cakewalk. Still, this week’s show represents a continuum of the band’s evolution — expect a fair number of guests coming on stage to help the twopiece flesh out its sound.

“It’s gonna be a big, huge crazy fun time,” Jake says of the seven-band affair. “It’s all interconnected; all the touring bands on the bill are kind of our family.

48

RIVERFRONT TIMES

APRIL 12-18, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

We’ve all been helping each other out the past five or six years.”

Jake contends that the relative economy of his band — two members used to sharing close quarters who can travel light — has made getting on the road relatively easy. “We’re a two-piece band and we toured in a four-cylinder Nissan Rogue that got 22 miles to the gallon,” he says. “Booking the tour wasn’t hard to do.

“We’ve done over 300 days on the road, and a lot of those days — at least a third of those days — are from 2015,” he continues. “This year has been a pretty good year for us, and we’ve finally got jobs where we can take off when we need to and make enough to pay rent and survive.”

The brothers have another year of touring mapped out, including another 30-day jaunt that will take them west. Their schedule also includes a slot at October’s Deep Blues Festival in Clarksdale, Mississippi, alongside a bevy of blues-guitar virtuosos. “That’s been one of our goals since we started the band,” Jake says of playing the festival.

For a band that’s built its reputation on the road, having a physical artifact to show off (and, more importantly, sell at the merch table) is something Jake eagerly awaits. On past tours, the band has sold its debut EP, Grief Factory, alongside assorted swag including prayer candles, posters and patches. But a beefy, candy-colored LP will likely bring some permanence.

“Having this vinyl and going on tour this year with that, it’s gonna be way better,” Jake says. “We’ll make more money on the merch table, and [the fans] will have a super bad-ass twelve-inch to remember us by.

I think our tours are gonna hold more weight in the long run.”

— Christian Schaeffer

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riverfronttimes.com

APRIL 12-18, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

49

50

OUT EVERY NIGHT

THURSDAY 13

[CRITIC’S PICK]

Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

THE ALLEY TONES: 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-4365222.

HIP HOP THROWDOWN: 8 p.m., $10. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

THE HOOTEN HALLERS RECORD RELEASE: 9 p.m., $12-$15. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363.

IVAS JOHN & BRIAN CURRAN: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

KIM MASSIE: 10:30 p.m., $10. Beale on Broadway, 701 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-7880.

LOST STARS: w/ Animals in Hindsight, LeAnder, A Day At War 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

ST. LOUIS SOCIAL CLUB: 9 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis,

AARON WATSON: 8 p.m., $20. Delmar Hall, 6133

Hooten Hollers Record Release 8 p.m. Thursday, April 13.

Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue. $12. 314-7733363.

We’ll be greedy and claim the Hooten Hallers as an honorary St. Louis band. While the trio officially calls the post-collegiate arts community of Columbia, Missouri, its home, it also counts local saxophone icon Kellie Everett (the Southwest Watson Sweethearts, the Gaslight Squares)

314-436-5222.

and St. Louis native John Randall as members. And with its forthcoming self-titled LP being released on local imprint Big Muddy Records, the release show at Off Broadway will be a sort of homecoming as the band burrows into its ramshackle blues and grease-fire rock & roll.

Ramble On: Longtime labelmates and fellow blues-and-boogie-derived trio the Rum Drum Ramblers open the show.

— Christian Schaeffer

NEW ORLEANS SUSPECTS: 9 p.m., $15. Broad-

WEDNESDAY 19 BASS PHYSICS: w/ Blunt Force 9 p.m., $8-$10.

Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314588-0505.

BIG RICH MCDONOUGH & RHYTHM RENEGADES: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

BOB “BUMBLE BEE” KAMOSKE: 8 p.m. Beale on Broadway, 701 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-6217880.

CHRIS RUEST BAND: 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

DOPAPOD: w/ The Werks 9 p.m., $15-$18. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

way Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis,

EMAROSA: 7 p.m., $15. Fubar, 3108 Locust St,

314-621-8811.

Stage at KDHX, 3524 Washington Ave, St. Lou-

SUNDAY 16

OF CLOCKS & CLOUNDS: 6 p.m., $10-$15.

is, 314-925-7543, ext. 815.

CONSTANT COCOON TWO YEAR BIRTHDAY PARTY:

WEDNESDAY NIGHT JAZZ CRAWL: 5 p.m. contin-

w/ Scribble, Seashine, Mariner, Bryn Dawdy,

ues through Dec. 27, free. The Stage at KDHX,

DJ Jillian 7 p.m., $7. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp

3524 Washington Ave, St. Louis, 314-925-7543,

Cicero’s, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City,

St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

314-862-0009.

SATURDAY 15

STS9: 8 p.m., $27.50-$30. The Pageant, 6161

CAVEOFSWORDS: w/ Asumaya, Hands and Feet

Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363.

ext. 815.

Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

9 p.m., free. Schlafly Tap Room, 2100 Locust

DARIUS BRADFORD & FRIENDS: 7 p.m., $25. The

WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE: w/ Erin McKeown

TURKUAZ: w/ Organ Freeman 8 p.m., $13-$16.

St., St. Louis, 314-241-2337.

Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-

8 p.m., $28. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington

The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St.

DAVIS DEE & THE HOT TRACKS BAND: 10 p.m., $5.

6161.

Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900.

Louis, 314-833-3929.

BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St.

THE DARRELLS: 2 p.m., free. Howard’s in Sou-

Louis, 314-436-5222.

lard, 2732 S 13th St, St. Louis, 314-349-2850.

ELEPHANT REVIVAL: 8 p.m., $15-$17. Old Rock

LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: 8 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz,

THIS JUST IN

THE BIG NEWS: w/ Boomtown United 7 p.m.,

House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis,

“THE SOLD OUT SHOW”: W/ ChukkFresh, 3Prob-

$8-$10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-

EMILY KING: 8 p.m., $20-$63.25. The Ready

314-436-5222.

lems, Shana B, Chief RCG, Ejay Moore, Smoove

289-9050.

Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-

NAME SAYERS: w/ Aiko, Edgefield C. Johnston

Life, Coup DV, Pretty Boy Sherm, Sun., April

BO AND THE LOCOMOTIVE: 9 p.m., $10. Off

833-3929.

Duo 8 p.m., $5. CBGB, 3163 S. Grand Blvd., St.

23, 7 p.m., $10. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St.

Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-

GRAFFITI BRIDGE: A TRIBUTE TO PRINCE: 8 p.m.,

Louis.

Louis, 314-535-0353, firebirdstl.com.

3363.

$20-$22.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd.,

OUR LAST WORDS FAREWELL SHOW: 6 p.m.,

4TH ANNUAL SUMMER GRAS: W/ Funky Butt

DEVIN THE DUDE: 8 p.m., $20-$23. The Ready

St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

$10-$12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-

Brass Band, Al Holliday & The East Side

Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-

LARRY GRIFFIN & ERIC MCSPADDEN: 7 p.m., $5.

289-9050.

Rhythm Band, The Grooveliner, The Provels,

833-3929.

BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St.

RENEE SMITH: 4 p.m., $10. National Blues Mu-

Big Mike Aguirre & The Blu City All Stars, Sat.,

EIGHT O’FIVE JIVE BAND: 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz,

Louis, 314-436-5222.

seum, 615 Washington Ave., St. Louis.

June 3, 5 p.m., $10. Old Rock House, 1200 S.

Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis,

LEWIS BLACK: 8 p.m., $22-$72. Peabody Opera

SOUL REUNION: 10:30 p.m., $7. Beale on Broad-

7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505, oldrockhouse.

314-436-5222.

House, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-241-1888.

way, 701 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-7880.

com.

JEREMIAH JOHNSON: 7 p.m., $10. National Blues

LIKE PACIFIC: w/ Decedy, The Cinema Story 6

Museum, 615 Washington Ave., St. Louis.

p.m., $13-$15. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis,

MONDAY 17

JOHN KING & CHRIS CLASSIC: 7 p.m., $10. BB’s

314-289-9050.

JAMES MCCARTNEY: w/ David Beeman 7:30

314-726-6161, thepageant.com.

Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis,

MANESS BROTHERS “SPRING FLING” VINYL

p.m., $15-$20. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jeffer-

ALAN JACKSON: W/ Lee Ann Womack, Fri., Sept.

314-436-5222.

RELEASE: w/ catl, Calliope, Brother O’ Brother,

son Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

8, 7 p.m., $45-$105. Family Arena, 2002 Arena

MOM’S KITCHEN: w/ the Provels 8 p.m., $10.

Beth Bombara, The Strange Places, Bug Chaser

SOULARD BLUES BAND: 9 p.m., $5. Broadway

Parkway, St Charles, 636-896-4200, familyare-

Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-

4 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St.

Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-

na.com.

588-0505.

Louis, 314-773-3363.

621-8811.

ALEX AND THE XO’S: W/ Backwash, Grand

NEW FOUND GLORY: 8 p.m., $24-$28. Delmar

MY POSSE IN EFFECT (A TRIBUTE TO THE BEASTIE

THIRD SIGHT BAND: 9 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues

House, Fri., May 5, 8 p.m., $7. Old Rock House,

Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-

BOYS): 8 p.m., $12-$15. Delmar Hall, 6133

& Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-

1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505, old-

6161.

Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

5222.

rockhouse.com.

OX BRAKER: w/ Sweat Shoppe, Brasky 10 p.m.,

REGGIE AND THE FULL EFFECT: 8 p.m., $15-$18.

free. Schlafly Tap Room, 2100 Locust St., St.

The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-

TUESDAY 18

Louis, 314-241-2337.

0353.

HAYES CARLL: 8 p.m., $20-$25. Off Broadway,

I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights,

SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE: 8 p.m., $10-$12.

SOUTHSIDE JAZZ: 6 p.m., free. Howard’s in Sou-

3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363.

314-298-9944, livenation.com/Verizon-Wire-

Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar

lard, 2732 S 13th St, St. Louis, 314-349-2850.

JAMAICA LIVE TUESDAYS: w/ Ital K, Mr. Roots, DJ

less-Amphitheater-St-Louis-tickets-Mary-

Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

WOMEN’S SAFE HOUSE BENEFIT: w/ The Wil-

Witz, $5/$10. Elmo’s Love Lounge, 7828 Olive

land-Heights/venue/49672.

WILDE AT KDHX: w/ Maxi Glamour, Rydr, Jenna

derness, Sarah McCracken, Grave Neighbors,

Blvd, University City, 314-282-5561.

BIG RICH MCDONOUGH & RHYTHM RENEGADES:

Cydal, Tammy Cannons, Jack Wilde, Mustache

Ordinary Things 8 p.m., $5-$10. San Loo, 3211

KIM MASSIE: 10:30 p.m., $10. Beale on Broad-

Wed., May 10, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues &

Daddy, Luna C. DeVay 8 p.m., $10-$12. The

Cherokee St., St. Louis, 314-696-2888.

way, 701 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-7880.

Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-

FRIDAY 14

50

RIVERFRONT TIMES

APRIL 12-18, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

AFTER 7: W/ DJ Kut, Sun., July 9, 8 p.m., $40$60. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis,

BELL BIV DEVOE: W/ Guy, SWV, Fri., June 16, 6 p.m., $15. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre,

5222, bbsjazzbluessoups.com.

FLAW: W/ It Lies Within, Righteous Vendetta,

Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444, blueber-

Louis, 314-436-5222, bbsjazzbluessoups.com.

BIG THIEF: Wed., July 12, 8 p.m., $10. Old Rock

Light the Fire, Sun., May 14, 5 p.m., $13-$15.

ryhill.com.

LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: Sun., May 7, 10 p.m.,

House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505,

The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-

IMMINENT SONIC DESTRUCTION: W/ Edensong,

$10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway,

oldrockhouse.com.

0353, firebirdstl.com.

Wrecklamation, Wed., May 24, 6 p.m., $10-$12.

St. Louis, 314-436-5222, bbsjazzbluessoups.

BILLY BARNETT BAND: Thu., May 4, 9 p.m., $5.

FOOD ROCKS! CONCERT: W/ Letter to Memphis,

Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050,

com.

BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St.

Flatwoods, Sat., May 13, 7 p.m., $40. Food Roof

fubarstl.com.

MICHAEL BARR: Thu., June 1, 7 p.m., $15.

Louis, 314-436-5222, bbsjazzbluessoups.com.

Farm, 1335 Convention Plaza, St. Louis, 314-

INDIEFEST BY DAN KERNS: W/ Tyler Samuels &

Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050,

BLACK PUSSY: W/ Dibiase, Oxbraker, The

810-6770, urbanharveststl.org/food-roof-farm.

The Bad Haircuts, Bleach, The Schick Brothers,

fubarstl.com.

Judge, Fri., June 9, 8 p.m., $10-$12. Fubar, 3108

FRESCO KANE: Fri., May 5, 8 p.m., $15. Fubar,

A Scarlet Summer, Wed., May 31, 7 p.m., $10.

MT. JOY: Wed., July 19, 8 p.m., $10-$12. Blueber-

Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050, fubarstl.

3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050, fu-

The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-

ry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd.,

com.

barstl.com.

0353, firebirdstl.com.

University City, 314-727-4444, blueberryhill.

BLACKLITE DISTRICT: Tue., May 9, 8 p.m., $12-

GATEWAY JAZZ FESTIVAL: W/ Najee, Maysa, Nic

JIM JEFFERIES: Fri., Aug. 11, 8 p.m., $39.50-

com.

$13. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis,

Colioinne, Pieces of a Dream, Chieli Minucci,

$49.50. Peabody Opera House, 1400 Market St,

MUSIC BENEFIT FOR ORGAN TRANSPLANT

314-535-0353, firebirdstl.com.

Brian Simpson, Steve Oliver, Julian Vaughn,

St. Louis, 314-241-1888, peabodyoperahouse.

AWARENESS: Sun., May 7, 4 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz,

BONE THUGS-N-HARMONY: W/ Cure for Paranoia,

Steve Cole, Chris Strandring, Sat., July 29, 2

com.

Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-

Sat., May 20, 8 p.m., $30-$35. The Ready Room,

p.m., $65. Chesterfield Amphitheater, 631

KING 810: W/ Gost, Tue., June 13, 7 p.m., $16-

436-5222, bbsjazzbluessoups.com.

4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929,

Veterans Place Drive, Chesterfield, chesterfiel-

$18. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-

MUSIC UNLIMITED: Mon., May 8, 8 p.m., $5. BB’s

thereadyroom.com.

damphitheater.com.

9050, fubarstl.com.

Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis,

BOO BOO DAVIS & THE BUMBLE BEE TRIO: Sat.,

THE GREEN-MCDONOUGH BAND: Wed., May 3,

KIP MOORE: Fri., July 14, 6 p.m., $20-$65.

314-436-5222, bbsjazzbluessoups.com.

May 6, 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups,

9 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S.

Chesterfield Amphitheater, 631 Veterans Place

PLANES MISTAKEN FOR STARS: W/ Daybringer,

700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222,

Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222, bbsjazz-

Drive, Chesterfield, chesterfieldamphitheater.

Sep Arer, Kilverez, Thu., June 29, 8 p.m., $10-

bbsjazzbluessoups.com.

bluessoups.com.

com.

$12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-

BRIAN CURRAN: Sat., May 6, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s

HAKEN: W/ Sithu Aye, Fri., Sept. 22, 8 p.m., $22-

THE KNUCKLES: W/ Calliope Musical, Tue., April

9050, fubarstl.com.

Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis,

$30. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis,

25, 8 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave.,

THE PUNKNECKS: W/ Richie Darling and the

314-436-5222, bbsjazzbluessoups.com.

314-726-6161, delmarhall.com.

St. Louis, 314-773-3363, offbroadwaystl.com.

Diamond Cut Blues Band, Fri., May 5, 9 p.m.,

BROODS: Fri., June 9, 8 p.m., $20-$22.50.

HUMMING HOUSE: Thu., June 8, 8 p.m., $12-$15.

LEROY JODIE PIERSON: Fri., May 5, 7 p.m., $5.

$5. The Haunt, 5000 Alaska Ave, St. Louis,

Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-

Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar

BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St.

Continued on pg 52

726-6161, delmarhall.com.

CIVIL YOUTH: Fri., June 23, 6 p.m., $10-$12. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-5350353, firebirdstl.com.

[CRITIC’S PICK]

THE DEAD RABBITS: W/ I Set My Friends On Fire, Set to Stun, Northern Ghost, Article III, Thu., July 6, 6 p.m., $15-$16. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050, fubarstl.com.

DEVON ALLMAN BAND: Fri., June 16, 8 p.m., $15.

Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314588-0505, oldrockhouse.com.

DIET CIG: W/ SPORTS, Fri., June 2, 8 p.m., $12$14. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444, blueberryhill.com.

DRU HILL: Sun., June 25, 8 p.m., $40-$60. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-7266161, thepageant.com.

THE DUST COVERS: Thu., May 18, 7 p.m., $10.

Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314773-3363, offbroadwaystl.com.

EAST SIDERS REVIEW: Wed., May 10, 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222, bbsjazzbluessoups. com.

ESCAPE FROM THE NUTHOUSE TOUR: W/ Yerrty G, Cannibal Crew, JV Friday The 13th, Blak Hatchet, Bobby Knucklez, Court Jester, P. Thang Crazy P. & King Irish, Mon., July 10, 6 p.m., $8. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis,

Devin the Dude. | PHOTO BY ZACH GARNER

314-535-0353, firebirdstl.com.

ETHAN LEINWAND & GUESTS: Tue., May 9, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S.

Devin the Dude

Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222, bbsjazz-

8 p.m. Friday, April 14.

bluessoups.com.

The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Avenue. $20 to $23. 314-833-3929.

FATHER JOHN MISTY: W/ Weyes Blood, Fri., Sept. 22, 8 p.m., $36.50-$42. Peabody Opera House, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-241-1888, peabodyoperahouse.com.

FINN’S MOTEL RECORD RELEASE SHOW: Sun., May 28, 5 p.m., free. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363, offbroadwaystl. com.

Houston’s Devin Copeland, better known as Devin the Dude, has never seen mainstream success. It’s somewhat perplexing, really: The rapper has long been lauded by critics and has worked with everyone from De la Soul to Gucci Mane to Tech N9ne. (He even featured prominently on Dr. Dre’s classic Chronic 2001, lending some bars to

the track “Fuck You.”) With an unassuming and humorous delivery, the Dude often rhymes about marijuana — clearly one of his favorite things — and chasing women. Despite never breaking through to rap’s upper echelons, Copeland maintains a steady cult following that will surely fill the Ready Room with smoke this Friday.

All the Way Live: St. Louis rapper MBz Live will warm the stage with his own heady rhymes and effortless flow.

riverfronttimes.com

— Daniel Hill APRIL 12-18, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

51

THIS JUST IN Continued from pg 51 BEST HAPPY HOUR IN ST. LOUIS!

[CRITIC’S PICK]

monday - friday 3:30-6:30 KETEL, JAGER & CAPTAIN 1/2 OFF $2 DOMESTIC BOTTLES $3 CRAFT BOTTLES $2.50 CRAFT DRAFTS HALF OFF SELECT APPETIZERS

TRIVIA EVERY THURSDAY & SATURDAY NIGHT POOL TOURNEY EVERY OTHER FRIDAY OPEN MIC NIGHT STARTS MAY 7TH - EVERY OTHER SUNDAY LUNCH SPECIALS MON - MEATLOAF, TURKEY BACON CLUB WRAP TUE - HORSERADISH CHEDDAR FRENCH DIP, 9” PIZZA/SALAD WED - GOUDA BACON BURGER, PATTY MELT THUR - FRIED CHICKEN PLATTERS/CHICKEN FRIED STEAK FRI - STEAK & BAKE, TURKEY BACON CLUB WRAP SAT - BOGO 16” PIZZA DINE-IN ONLY - ALL DAY & NIGHT

Hayes Carll. | PHOTO VIA HIGH ROAD TOURING

SUN - $5 BURGERS

12314 Natural Bridge Rd. • Bridgeton, MO 63044 • 314-739-2344

FIND ANY SHOW

IN TOWN

rft ’ s online music listings are now

sortable by artist , venue and price . you can even buy tickets directly from our website

— with

more options on the way !

RIVERFRONTTIMES.COM/CONCERTS 52

RIVERFRONT TIMES

APRIL 12-18, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

Hayes Carll

If you were casting a Netflix series centered around an iconic Texas singer-songwriter, you could do worse than picking Hayes Carll for the lead. The only question is whether the story would be a lyrical drama or an absurdist comedy. Since emerging in the early 2000s, Carll has handled both storylines with grit, grace and a craggy drawl that sounds like he’s weathered

1,001 wasted days and nights. He has, but he’s transformed the image of the honky-tonk poet on the strength of songs that hope to live up to heroes like Townes Van Zandt and co-conspirators like Ray Wylie Hubbard. The best of his off-his-rocker satires and pensive longings make good on those hopes.

True Believers: Contrary to its name, Band of Heathens is nothing if not faithful to the blues and country spirit of Austin rock & roll. Don’t miss the Heathens’ opening set.— Roy Kasten

314-481-5003.

SKEET RODGERS & INNER CITY BLUES BAND: Fri.,

RIVER KITTENS: W/ Oak, Steel & Lightning, Hil-

May 5, 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups,

lary Fitz Band, Sat., May 13, 8 p.m., $5. Delmar

700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222,

Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-

bbsjazzbluessoups.com.

6161, delmarhall.com.

ST. LOUIS SOCIAL CLUB: Tue., May 2, 9 p.m., $5.

ROONEY: W/ Run River North, Sun., June 25, 8

BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St.

p.m., $18-$20. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave.,

Louis, 314-436-5222, bbsjazzbluessoups.com.

St. Louis, 314-773-3363, offbroadwaystl.com.

THIRD SIGHT BAND: Mon., May 1, 8 p.m., $5.

THE ROYAL HOUNDS: Tue., May 9, 9:30 p.m., $10.

BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St.

BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St.

Louis, 314-436-5222, bbsjazzbluessoups.com.

Louis, 314-436-5222, bbsjazzbluessoups.com.

THUNDERHEAD: THE RUSH EXPERIENCE: Sat.,

SEAN ROWE: Tue., July 18, 8 p.m., $15. Off

June 24, 8 p.m., $12-$15. The Pageant, 6161

Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-

Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161, thepag-

3363, offbroadwaystl.com.

eant.com.

SIDEWALK CHALK: Thu., July 6, 8 p.m., $10-$12.

WEDNESDAY 13: W/ Once Human, Grays Divide,

Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar

Arkangela, Wed., July 12, 6 p.m., $15-$18.

Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444, blueber-

Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050,

ryhill.com.

fubarstl.com.

8 p.m. Tuesday, April 18.

Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue. $20 to $35.

314-773-3363.

SAVAGE LOVE HARD LIMITS

BY DAN SAVAGE Hey, Dan: I’m a 27-year-old male with a 42-year-old girlfriend. We met at work; we were both going through divorce. At the beginning, holy moly! My dream girl in the bedroom. We’ve been together for a year, and the sex is still the best I’ve ever had — she says she feels the same — but it’s vanilla. I am assertive and in-control in the bedroom, which works for both of us, as she prefers to be passive and wants me to make moves or switch it up. I want to do other things, but she doesn’t want to do anything anymore other than missionary-position sex. Anal, oral, watching porn together, bondage, voyeurism — she’s not up for any of it. There’s always an excuse: “I’m not young like you,” “I’m not flexible like you,” “I have done that before and don’t like it, no, no, no.” Do I just suck it up and be grateful for what I have or what?

She Hates Options Totally, Desires One Way Now She wants you to be in control and switch it up but doesn’t want to do any of the things you suggest when you take control and attempt to switch things up.

Hmm. Either you’re bad at everything you’ve attempted other than missionary, SHOTDOWN, or she has a very limited sexual repertoire and/or actual physical limitations or health issues she hasn’t divulged to you.

Considering the age difference here, and considering that this is a post-divorce rebound relationship for you both, the odds are stacked against anything long-term. I don’t mean this relationship is doomed to fail. What I mean is

this: You’ll probably be together for another year or two before parting ways.

While most people would define that as a “failed relationship,” I don’t define failure that way. If two people are together for a time, if they enjoy each other’s company (and genitals), if they part amicably and always remember each other fondly and/or remain friends, their relationship can be counted as a success — even if both parties get out of it alive and go on to form new relationships.

Hey, Dan: My BF and I have been dating for two years. He’s 21; I’m 20 (and female). When I noticed my boyfriend wanted his ass played with and liked being submissive, I couldn’t help but wonder if something more was going on. I snooped through his browser history (not my proudest moment) and found he was looking at pictures of naked men.

Then I saw he posted an ad on Craigslist under “men seeking men.” He responded to one person, saying he wasn’t sure if he was straight or bi, but he had a car and could drive over! The guy responded saying how about tonight, and my BF never responded to him. I confronted him. He explained it was just a fantasy, he’s totally straight and he was never planning on going through with it. After the dust settled, he told me he never wanted to lose me.

We then went to a sex shop and bought a strap-on dildo for me to use on him, which we both really enjoy. He bought me a diamond bracelet as an apology and promised never to fuck up again. A couple months have passed, and things are great, but I still feel bothered. He loves my tits, ass and pussy. He eats me out and initiates sex as often as I do. Just cuddling with me gets him hard. Which is why I’m even more perplexed. He doesn’t like to talk about the Craigslist incident and gets

upset when I bring it up. Should I leave it alone? Is my boyfriend secretly gay?

Confused And Curious Let’s review the facts: Your boyfriend digs your tits, cuddling you makes him hard and he loves eating your pussy. You also discovered an ad your boyfriend posted to Craigslist where he said he wasn’t sure if he was bi or straight, a discovery that created a crisis in your relationship, a crisis that was resolved with a strap-on dildo and a diamond bracelet.

Your boyfriend isn’t “secretly gay,” CAC, he’s “actually bisexual.” You know, like he said he was — or said he might be — in that email exchange you found.

At this point, I’m required to tell you that bisexuals are just as capable of honoring monogamous commitments as monosexuals, i.e., gays, lesbians and breeders. But since the data shows that monosexuals are bad at monogamy — the data says bisexuals are too — I’m not sure why I’m required to say that or how it’s supposed to be comforting.

But even if your boyfriend never has sex with a man, CAC, even if it takes him years to drop the “totally straight” line, you should go ahead and accept the fact that your boyfriend is bisexual. Pretend to be shocked when he finally comes out to you — there might be a necklace in it for you — and then get busy setting up your first MMF threesome.

Hey, Dan: My girlfriend and I have been together for about eighteen months. We’re both 29 and are in the process of creating a future together: We live together, we have a great social life, we adopted a dog. We’re compatible, and I do love her.

However, our sex life could be a whole lot better. I like sex to be kinky, and she likes it

53

vanilla. She is adamant about monogamy, while I want to be monogamish. I feel strongly that this is who I am sexually and my sexual desires are not something I can change. My girlfriend thinks I’m searching for something I’ll never find and says I need to work through it. Because we are so compatible in every other aspect of our relationship, should I keep trying to work past the unsatisfying sex?

Needs Advice, Want Threesomes Divorce courts are filled to bursting with couples who made the same mistake you and your girlfriend are currently making — a mistake that gets harder to unmake with every dog you adopt or lease you sign. You’re not sexually compatible, NAWT — and sexual incompatibility is a perfectly legitimate reason to end an otherwise good relationship.

The importance of sexual compatibility in sexually exclusive relationships (the kind your girlfriend wants) cannot be stressed enough.

The gaslight bar is set so low these days that I’m going to go ahead and accuse your girlfriend of gaslighting you: There are people out there who have the kind of relationship you would like to have — it’s a lie that no one has a GGG partner or a successful monogamish relationship — and I have it on good authority that many of these people are straight. You’ll never find everything you want, NAWT, since no one gets everything they want. But you’re too young to settle for the girlfriend you’ve got.

You’ve already made the dog mistake.

Get out before you make the child mistake.

Listen to Dan’s podcast at savagelovecast.com. mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage on Twitter

STREAK’S CORNER • by Bob Stretch

riverfronttimes.com

APRIL 12-18, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

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SOUTH: 5616 S. Lindbergh • (314) 842-1242 WEST: 14633 Manchester • (636) 527-26811 HAZELWOOD: 233 Village Square Center • (314) 731-1212 Mon. - Sat. 9 AM - 7 PM; Sunday Noon - 5 PM Unless otherwise limited, prices are good through Tuesday following publication date. Installed price offers are for product purchased from Audio Express installed in factory-ready locations. Custom work at added cost. Kits, antennas and cables additional. Added charges for shop supplies and environmental disposal where mandated. Illustrations similar. Video pictures may be simulated. Not responsible for typographic errors. Savings off MSRP or our original sales price, may include install savings. Intermediate markdowns may have been taken. Details, conditions and restrictions of manufacturer promotional offers at respective websites. Price match applies to new, non-promotional items from authorized sellers; excludes “shopping cart” or other hidden specials. © 2017, Audio Express.

APRIL 12-18, 2017

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