Riverfront Times - December 27, 2017

DECEMBER 27–JANUARY 9, 2018 I VOLUME 41 I NUMBER 52

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Hope for a bright future

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5

THE LEDE

“I think it’s going to be a wild ride in 2018, and I’m not really sure where it’s gonna go.

With people I read, I always tell them you just have to hold on and ride the rollercoaster....

But I hope 2018 improves. I guess I’m kind of timid about it and a little nervous.”

PHOTO BY THEO WELLING

—TaroT card reader adam BaThon, phoTographed aT mysTic Valley in maplewood on decemBer 21, 2017

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5

6

TABLE OF CONTENTS FEATURE

12.

17 Things St. Louis Got Right in 2017

Written by

RFT STAFF Cover by

KELLY GLUECK

NEWS

CULTURE

DINING

MUSIC

5

23

33

47

The Lede

Your friend or neighbor, captured on camera

9

Arrests Target Blacks

Calendar

Christian Schaeffer presents the year’s best local albums and best local songs

25

39

52

What Are You Doing New Year’s?

9

Film

Juan Thompson terrorized an ex and Jewish community centers, too. Now the St. Louis native is going to prison

Side Dish

A complete guide to the fun

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

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40

54

Robert Hunt lists the year’s best (and worst) films

First Look

Ye Ethiopian Restaurant is now open on Delmar

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Food News

BEAST Craft BBQ is offering meat you can’t get anywhere else

Bars

Parlor brings the arcade experience to the Grove

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Out Every Night

Adam Altnether is coming back to the restaurant business

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6

The Sound of St. Louis

Cheryl Baehr details her picks for 2017’s ten best new restaurant openings

Police records show a concerning trend continuing in St. Louis: a disproportionately large percentage of those cited for pot possession are black

Ex-Journalist Sentenced

Simply the Best

Special holiday edition: two weeks’ worth of great stuff to see and do

DECEMBER 27, 2017 - JANUARY 9, 2018

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NEWS

9

Pot Busts Target Blacks, Data Shows Written by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI

I

n 2013, the final year before St. Louis attempted to decriminalize marijuana, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department made 1,056 arrests solely for pot possession — with black suspects accounting for 87 percent of those arrested.

But in the four years since the city made big changes to the way it handles marijuana possession cases, police records show that black suspects have continued to comprise roughly the same percentage of violations: a total of about 85 percent from 2014 to October of 2017.

That statistic, first obtained by the Riverfront Times through a Sunshine law request, was startling to civil rights attorneys. Sara Baker, the legislative and policy director for the ACLU of Missouri, remarks that the new data stands as “a reconfirmation of an old problem.”

Proponents of reforming the city’s drug laws had cheered the policy change that was implemented in 2014, following the passage of a bill that enjoyed broad approval by the city’s Board of Aldermen. Prior to the bill’s passage, officers sent all drug cases, even for small quantities of weed, to the Circuit Attorney’s Office for state-level misdemeanor and felony charges, which can carry significant fines and jail time.

Then came the decriminalization proposal sponsored by Alderman Shane Cohn. Starting in 2014, officers were instructed to treat those suspected of possessing less than 35 grams of marijuana similar to someone committing a traffic offense, with fines between $100 and $500.

But the racial dynamics of who Continued on pg 10

St. Louis police statistics show that 85 percent of those cited for marijuana possession have been black. | CHAMELEONSEYE/SHUTTERSTOCK

Ex-Journalist Sentenced Written by

DOYLE MURPHY

D

isgraced ex-journalist Juan Thompson was sentenced December 20 in New York City to five years in federal prison for calling in bomb threats to Jewish community centers across the country.

The threats were part of the St. Louis native’s bonkers campaign to terrorize an ex-girlfriend.

Thompson, 32, harassed the woman for months after she ended their relationship in the summer of 2016.

The bizarre onslaught that followed included revenge-porn-style threats to release nude pictures of her, vile anonymous emails to her bosses and eventually attempts to frame her in the hoax bomb threats.

The former reporter for The Intercept was arrested in March in St. Louis and pleaded guilty in June to charges related to cyber stalking and the bogus threats.

“Today, Juan Thompson was held to account and justly punished for his efforts to harass an ex-girlfriend by sending disturbing and dangerous hoax threats to Jewish Community Centers and other organizations across the country in her name,” acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Joon Kim said in a statement. “Thompson’s harassment and threats caused severe distress to both his victim and to Jewish communities around the country.

We thank our partners at the FBI for their excellent work on this important case.”

Thompson had been hoping for a sentence of three years and had agreed not to contest anything be-

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yond three years and ten months.

But U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel instead gave him five years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.

At one time, Thompson was a rising talent in the journalism world.

He parlayed internships in Chicago into a job at The Intercept, the site started by Glenn Greenwald and best known for its cache of documents leaked by former national security contractor Edward Snowden.

But Thompson was fired in January 2016 after the site’s editors discovered he was making up sources.

In response, he claimed the editors were racist and made some pretty dubious claims about having cancer.

The Riverfront Times published a cover story about Thompson in February 2016. We uncovered even more lies and traced a pattern of deceit back Continued on pg 10

DECEMBER 27, 2017 - JANUARY 9, 2018

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POT POSSESSION Continued from pg 9

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JUAN THOMPSON Continued from pg 9 to his college days. He was furious, and put his fabrication skills to work defaming the story’s author.

His smear campaign against his ex-girlfriend began in the summer of 2016.

The woman had dumped him on July 26. So, naturally, Thompson posed as a producer of a national news organization the next day and sent her boss an email, claiming the woman had been stopped for drunk driving and sued for spreading sexually transmitted disease.

It would only get weirder and uglier from there. During the next seven-plus months, the woman received anonymous emails with nude pictures of herself and threats to release them. She learned her bosses were getting not only emails but faxes, sometimes with pictures of her. Some accused her of being anti-Semitic. Another said she had threatened to kill Thompson.

He kept multiple fake email accounts humming in those days, even after St. Louis and New York City police told him to stop bothering the woman.

In October 2016, three months after the woman dumped Thompson, he sent an anonymous message to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that tried to paint her as a pedophile.

“I was at a disco-tech two weeks ago and met [the woman] who said she watched child porn,” the message said. “I thought she was joking until she showed me two pictures, on her phone, of a child engaged in sex

DECEMBER 27, 2017 - JANUARY 9, 2018

acts.”

The FBI was later able to trace the unique internet protocol address to Thompson in St. Louis.

The woman got a restraining order. She renewed it and renewed it again. And still Thompson’s attacks continued.

He finally overplayed his hand in late January and February when he started reporting fake bomb threats. FBI agents traced twelve threats to Thompson, directed at Jewish institutions in New York City, Michigan and San Diego, California.

He seemed to be inspired by the wave of bomb threats against Jews that was sweeping across the nation at the time. He emailed some threats and called in others, using a device to disguise his voice in at least one case, authorities say.

The FBI noted that Thompson’s hoaxes fell into two categories: threats he made in the woman’s name and threats he made in his own name.

The threats in his name were a complicated attempt at a reverse frame job, according to the FBI. He was apparently trying to make people think that the woman was framing him, a convoluted move he supported with a series of Twitter postings in February.

“Know any good lawyers?” he tweeted on February 24. “Need to stop this nasty/racist #whitegirl I dated who sent bomb threat in my name & wants me to be raped in jail.”

A week later, FBI agents and St. Louis police raided Thompson’s grandmother’s house and arrested him. He has been locked up ever n since.

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was being cited, records now show, have stayed stubbornly the same.

Officers may have changed the paperwork form on which they wrote the charges, but not the racial makeup of the people they cited.

“What’s incredibly revealing about the data,” says the ACLU’s Baker, “is that, time and time again, when we see reforms either at the state or local level, and particularly reforms that still allow for fees or for low level criminalization, we might see a dip in is the amount of people overall that are arrested and charged. But that disparity rate remains shockingly persistent.”

Operating under the new policy in 2014 for the first time, pot possession arrests in St. Louis dipped from the previous year. But that modest decrease still showed virtually the same racial breakdown seen in prior years.

In 2014, officers recorded 294 arrests for violations of the city’s updated municipal code; 85 percent of those people arrested were black. African Americans also accounted for 87 percent of the 618 arrests made on state charges, now reserved for suspects with more than 35 grams or those with at least two prior possession arrests in the city.

Across all five years’ worth data, there’s no significant departure from the pattern. The only year in which the percent of black arrests dipped below 85 percent was 2016, which showed ordinance violations given to black suspects in 77 percent of cases. By 2017, with data from January 1 to October, the percentage of black suspects had ticked back up to 85 percent.

That breakdown is nothing new: According to a 2013 report by the ACLU, which pulled data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime reporting program, African Americans were eighteen times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites in St. Louis city. That disparity neither conforms to the city’s racial demographics — about 50 percent of the city’s population is African American — or to the rate of marijuana use, which studies have repeatedly shown to be about the same for blacks and whites.

The persistence of the racial gap in arrests continues to worry Baker and the ACLU of Missouri. However, Rick Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis whose work focuses on crime

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money and resources on low-level possession, we’re not getting at the roots of what needs to change in St. Louis.”

Attorneys warn that merely lowering the fines, as Reed’s bill proposes, won’t solve the problems of racial bias baked into the results of St. Louis’ decriminalized drug enforcement policies. And getting a citation, they say, has very real consequences. Defense attorney Andrea Storey Rogers warns that people believe pot possession in St. Louis is handled “just like a traffic ticket,” but that’s far from the case.

“They pay the fine because it’s so cheap,” Rogers says. But what they don’t realize is that they’ve effectively pleaded guilty to a drug crime. “People think this is nothing, but if you plead guilty to it, even in a municipal court, it would show up in a criminal background check.

It doesn’t matter how low the fine is.”

And for those who can’t pay the fine? Blake Strode, the incoming executive director of ArchCity Defenders, argues that even “decriminalized” violations pose a serious danger to clients who are homeless or indigent.

“It would be a mistake to assume that because these are treated like ‘traffic tickets’ that they don’t result in actual arrests,” he says.

For years, ArchCity Defenders has tried to help people who rack up court debt and miss court dates for municipal violations just like St. Louis’ decriminalized pot citations.

For many, even traffic tickets can eventually lead to a warrant for their arrest, which can land them in the workhouse when they can’t afford to pay bail.

“The proliferation of debtor’s prisons in the region arises not from state-level charges, but from municipal ordinance violations,” Strode notes. These seemingly minor cases act as entryways into the criminal justice system, with all its attendant complications, fines and dangers. And for poor people of color, those dangers are magnified by patterns of policing that produce results that smack of racial bias.

That’s why Strode doesn’t see either marijuana bill, Green’s or Reed’s, as a sufficient solution on its own.

“We should understand that the decriminalization bills that are under consideration now do nothing about the disparate policing that leads to the 85 percent of marijuana arrests being made against black people,” he says. n

LET’S GO BLUES

statistics, says it’s not necessarily a sign of racial bias among cops.

Instead, he suggests, it may reflect the way blacks are more likely to live in neighborhoods plagued by violent crime. “[Officers] stop blacks on the street, typically young black men, out of a concern of violent crime,” he explains. “They find no evidence that that individual was involved in violence crime, but they do find marijuana on the individual. And they arrest him.”

“That seems to be the pattern.

That’s not the only reason. It’s possible there’s racial bias involved in some of these arrests.” Racial bias could be just one element in the stew, Rosenfeld notes. Officers in neighborhoods suffering violent crime tend to be proactive and on the lookout to stop violence before it happens. They make judgment calls based on experience and (hopefully) reasonable suspicion.

Sometimes those judgment calls need a convenient “pretexual arrest,” like a traffic stop or marijuana possession.

“Because of a focus on our violent crime, they’re stopping people they suspect might be involved in violence,” he says. “They don’t have sufficient evidence for an arrest for violence, they find marijuana on the individual, and they take him off the street for a time for that reason. They make an arrest on the drug charge. “ That would change if an ambitious plan to further decriminalize marijuana gets aldermanic approval. The bill, sponsored by Alderwoman Megan Green, would outright abolish penalties for pot possession by prohibiting the police department from expending “any resources on the civil or criminal punishment” for the use or possession of two ounces or less of marijuana, or the growing of ten plants.

A counterproposal by Board of Aldermen President Lewis Reed would simply lower the fine for pot possession to $25.

In the opinion of the ACLU of Missouri, Green’s bill is on the right track.

“I think the focus on deprioritizing enforcement is incredibly important for the city,” says Baker.

“When you have the continued use of fines,” she continues, “we’re worried that it’s still going to plague the city with the same selective enforcement that we’ve seen with marijuana laws. If we continue to spend a significant amount of

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17 Things St. Louis Got Right in 2017

Y

eah, yeah, Trump took office. Lots of celebrities died.

Thanks to the potent combination of crackpots on both sides of the Pacific with access to some mighty powerful weapons, we inched ever-closer to nuclear annihilation.

But setting aside the prospect of apocalypse, in St. Louis, 2017 was far from all bad. And it’s not just that it was a damn good year within the city’s dining scene, with several new restaurants generating national buzz. (Read more about that in Cheryl Baehr’s list of the area’s top ten openings in our dining section.) For a city with a history of terrible judgment and provincial thinking, we also made some surprisingly good decisions and achieved progress in a few key unlikely areas.

Yes, we’ve still got some big problems to tackle (among others, we’d list the murder rate, the region’s troubling inequality and the continued employment of one Jeffrey Roorda). But let’s celebrate what we got right for once. We’ll save the other 51 issues of the year for our usual bellyaching.

1. WE ELECTED A WOMAN MAYOR St. Louis can be a tough place for women. A comprehensive 2015 study by PayScale examined the salaries of 1.4 million workers across the U.S. and found that St. Louis men and women had the greatest pay disparity of any metro area nationwide. The anecdotal evidence when it comes to key executive positions is just as appalling. As of December 2016, St. Louis County had never had a female executive and St. Louis had never had a female mayor. Statewide, women were shut out of the governor’s office and also the office of Missouri Attorney General. And of the seventeen Fortune 500 companies based in the Gateway City, as of December 2016, just two had female CEOs. Enter 2017, and that picture suddenly looks a little rosier. It’s

We said no to soccer. We put a woman on top. We resisted bad ideas and came together for good ones. Was this year really so bad in St. Louis? | THEO WELLING not just that St. Louis voters finally elected a woman as mayor — it’s that the men barely even registered as contenders. Lyda Krewson and Tishaura Jones collectively smoked the male challengers who made up the rest of the mayoral race’s crowded field; that Krewson ultimately bested Jones by 888 votes, with everyone else in the dust, suggests that neither the centrist voters who made up Krewson’s coalition nor Jones’ more progressive base had any doubts about putting a woman on top. And neither the media nor the political chattering class even attempted a whisper campaign suggesting gender might hold back either candidate, thank God. Perhaps that’s because neither Krewson nor Jones made their sex an issue; they ran as the best person for the job, period, and voters responded accordingly.

Krewson’s election wasn’t the only good news for women. Even with the retirement of longtime circuit attorney Jennifer Joyce, women held onto the role of the city’s top prosecutor, as former state representative Kim Gardner beat three other candidates to win the seat. And the coterie of female CEOs has grown by leaps

and bounds: St. Louis now boasts a six percent increase in Fortune 500 companies run by women. Yes, that figure is entirely due to one woman’s ascent, with Anna Manning becoming CEO of Reinsurance Group of America effective January 1, but you know what? We’ll take it.

—Sarah Fenske

2. WE SAID NO TO THE MLS RACKET A bunch of rich assholes from Boston and Kansas City asked a poor and broken city to give them $60 million for a soccer stadium. So of course we had to give it to them, right? “This is good for St. Louis,” tweeted Jim Kavanaugh, the CEO of World Wide Technology. Kicking in money for the stadium is a “moral and economic imperative,” said then-Mayor Francis Slay. Supposedly, it was even the “proactive and progressive and pro-St. Louis” thing to do, as a breathtakingly tone-deaf column claimed in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Yet St. Louis voters said no. Even with a $1.18 million campaign expressly designed to manipulate

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us into believing that subsidizing soccer was the only way to stop our slide to third-rate status, the city said no. No to billionaires begging for things they themselves could easily pay for. No to go-italone anti-regionalism that sticks city taxpayers with the entire bill even as county sports fans reap the benefits. No to being hectored and lectured about how corporate welfare will save us from becoming a backwater.

Of course we didn’t get everything right; you could argue we were so distracted by the fight against the MLS stadium that we missed the far bigger threat, a deal fast-tracked by Board of Aldermen President Lewis Reed in February to spend as much as $105 million to upgrade the home of the St. Louis Blues, without any regional cooperation or so much as a public vote.

But this is St. Louis; we need to find our victories where we can.

We could have ended 2017 looking at $105 million for hockey and $60 million for soccer; one of the two is bad, but it could have been so much worse.

And if nothing else, we sent an important message to professional

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Confluence Kombucha was one of the vegetable-forward eateries changing how St. Louis eats in 2017.| MABEL SUEN

sports rackets like the MLS. The league had been explicit in saying that cities wanting a team had to build a new facility, but once St. Louis refused, MLS was left with a finalist group that included Detroit — a city that planned to house its team in the very stadium used by its NFL team. (The horror!) The more cities like St. Louis are willing to call the billionaires’ bluff, the more we might see municipalities opt for this kind of frugality. After all, these billionaires can only go around picking the taxpayers’ pockets if we’re stupid enough to let them. And in this year, in this one limited scenario, we were not.

Call it proactive; call it progressive.

We like to call it pro-St. Louis.

—Sarah Fenske

3. WE MADE MAJOR STRIDES IN SHOWING WORK BY BLACK ARTISTS AT OUR MAJOR INSTITUTIONS This was a bellwether year for St. Louis arts institutions. Black artists had formally complained about the lack of representation — and in the case of Kelley Walker’s 2016 exhibition at Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, misrepresentation — and to their credit, curators listened and responded.

This past year saw several major exhibitions of work by living black artists. Glenn Ligon displayed Blue Black, his response to Ellsworth Kelly’s sculpture of the same name, at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation. Ligon’s exhibition overlapped with Chicago-based artists Amanda Williams and Andres L. Hernandez’s installation, A Way, Away (Listen While I Say), which transformed a vacant lot in Grand Center into a temporary venue. CAM stepped up with Mickalene Thomas: Mentors, Muses and Celebrities, in which Thomas reimagined conceptions of beauty, gender and race, particularly for black women. (The show closes December 31, so hurry if you want to see it again.)

But change is not confined to a single year; in early 2018, Ghanaian-American artist Addoley Dzegede will explore the ideas of home, migration and hybrid identities through an exhibition of her handmade batiks as part of the Great Rivers Biennial at CAM. 14

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And the Saint Louis Art Museum just recently announced the gift of 81 artworks by contemporary black artists from the Thelma and Bert Ollie Memorial Art Collection, which will go on display in 2019.

Donor Ronald Ollie grew up in St. Louis and was inspired to collect art — particularly abstract art — through frequent visits to the museum. He and his wife made their gift in hopes that their collection would inspire future generations to appreciate art.

And that, folks, is why representation matters.

—Paul Friswold

4. WE FINALLY DECIDED TO EAT OUR VEGGIES Twenty, ten, even five years ago, if you would have said that the hottest opening of the year in St. Louis would be a restaurant that bills itself as “vegetable forward,” you would have been laughed all the way to the nearest feed lot. It’s not that we meat-and-potatoes Midwesterners are vegetable averse; it’s just that we’ve tended to relegate them to the side of the plate ... oftentimes after they’re buttered or creamed.

Then came Vicia, our city’s break into the culinary big leagues, helmed by an acclaimed chef who — gasp — wanted to feed us turnip tops. And we ate them up. We ate the beets too, and the carrots and the mushroom-filled kohlrabi

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Mickalene Thomas, Blues, 2016. | COURTESY THE ARTIST; LEHMANN MAUPIN, NEW YORK AND HONG KONG; AND ARTIST RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK.

tacos, so focused on chef Michael Gallina’s technical prowess and mastery with flavor that we didn’t realize he was inching even the most committed of carnivores toward plant-based dinners. Sure, he may have glazed some of them in beef fat or thrown in some Berkshire pork, but those proved to be accompaniments rather than the main show — in other words, the exact opposite of how we’d been accustomed to eating.

Vicia’s vegetable-focused menu may have dominated the culinary

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year in St. Louis, but its success piggybacks on a critical mass of plant-focused, vegetarian and even vegan restaurants that are serving food so good it defies labels — among them the gastroLAB at Confluence Kombucha, Seedz Cafe, Pizza Head, Lulu’s Local Eatery and Tree House. Even Nixta, the new Latin spot that vied with Vicia for national acclaim, offers as its most dazzling dish the meatless “Mexican Pizza,” or tlayuda.

What’s most striking about all of these restaurants isn’t that they

figured out how to make vegetarian food “gourmet”; it’s that they got even the most impassioned meat-eaters to admit they aren’t missing anything by putting plants first. The effect may be healthier bodies, a more sustainable food system and ethical eating, but our favorite result of this veggie-forward phenomenon is how good it tastes.

—Cheryl Baehr

5. WE TOOK DOWN THE CONFEDERATE MONUMENT It only took St. Louis 103 years to make its Confederate monument disappear. Far from a magic trick, the removal of the 32-foot-tall granite shaft was the culmination of years of people seeking to rid Forest Park of a rosy, sanitized symbol of the Lost Cause. Nestled alongside Confederate Drive, it drew controversy for its entire lifetime — from the moment it was proposed by the Daughters of the Confederacy to the protests that took place there almost daily in the late spring to the week in June when it was finally taken apart, piece by piece, loaded onto flatbed trucks and whisked away.

It was 2015 when then-mayor Francis Slay put out a request for proposals to move the monument, and of the ten responses, nine were variations on “no.” The sole yes came from the Missouri Civil War Museum. Two years later, it was the museum that stepped in to wrest control of the monument from the city after Mayor Lyda Krewson made it clear that it was coming down. Facing a potential lawsuit, Krewson relented.

“It didn’t belong in the park,” says Mark Trout, the museum’s founder and CEO. Although Trout lamented the vandalism and property damage inflicted on the statue in its final days, he argues that Confederate monuments are only defensible when they exist in the context of their history.

“They’re not sitting out there by themselves, misunderstood,” he explains. “Once they’re in their proper location and contexts, sitting on battlefields and cemeteries and museums, it justifies them.”

The city’s settlement with the museum decrees that the monument can only be rebuilt “at a Civil War museum, battlefield or cemetery” outside of St. Louis and St. Louis County. Trout and the museum aren’t yet ready to discuss plans for possibly relocating the

monument — or, for that matter, the contents of the time capsule Trout unearthed from the statue’s base.

For now, the monument stays mothballed until the museum can figure out a way to present it, history and all. “We’re in no hurry,” Trout says. Above all, he wants to makes sure they get it right. “If and when it ever goes up, it will be the last time.” —Danny Wicentowski

6. WE RECONSIDERED BASKETBALL COURTS Basketball is finally coming back to St. Louis’ premier parks! Maybe!

Tower Grove Park and Forest Park planners both spent part of 2017 doing some serious flirting with the idea of adding courts to their acres of greenery. Tower Grove’s administrators even wrote them into a draft of the park’s new master plan after being deluged with requests.

It turns out that one of the country’s favorite sports is pretty popular here, too. But it’s also controversial. “There is a general feeling basketball courts bring out young black men, and with it there is a stereotypical idea that it’s going to bring crime,” Alderman Terry Kennedy told the RFT earlier this year. “Those two things are not synonymous. It’s a stereotype that the city needs to work through.”

When then-Alderman Antonio French was pushing for basketball courts in Forest Park in 2016, he said the conspicuous absence of hoops in the city’s largest park was like an “unwelcome sign” for black people.

Interestingly, the latest attempt to bring hoops to Forest Park was sponsored by Joe Vaccaro, who represents one of the city’s whitest wards. He said it was a matter of public decency. And while we still don’t have a place to shoot baskets in Forest Park, Vaccaro’s support is a sign that we’ve got to be getting closer. (No, we don’t want to learn to play handball instead.)

As for Tower Grove Park, it used to have courts. The park installed them in 1902, back when the balls had those weird laces and everything. In January, when the modern-day administration asked people what today’s park was missing, basketball was the top answer.

So they put two courts on a map, drawing them in a short walk east

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Washington University pediatric endocrinologist Christopher Lewis, MD, with patient Jessica, is changing how transgender youth are treated. | COURTESY OF ST. LOUIS CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL

of Center Cross Drive.

Just because they’re now on the master plan doesn’t mean they’ll ever actually get built, but it feels like a big step in the right direction.

And hey, if it happens, the first person to use the Turkish Pavilion in a game of H-O-R-S-E is going to be a legend.

—Doyle Murphy

7. WE LED THE WAY ON TRANSGENDER ISSUES Despite being located within a state where you can still be fired from your job or denied housing for your sexuality, St. Louis has consistently proven itself an LGBTQ-friendly island. NerdWallet named us one of the top-20 LGBTQ-friendly cities in the country all the way back in 2013. In 2016, we became the first city west of the Mississippi to fly the transgender flag at City Hall. This year, sixteen major companies and law firms in St. Louis received a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 2018 Corporate Equality Index.

The new Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital comes within that tradition. The center, which opened on August 1, sees patients at both St. Louis Children’s Hospital and the Children’s Specialty Care Center in Chesterfield. Directed

by Washington University pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Christopher Lewis, the center focuses on young transgender and gender non-congruent patients, serving as a one-stop shop offering quality care for a variety of needs, including mental health counseling, hormonal therapy, voice therapy, legal assistance, referral to surgical options and more.

The Transgender Center has been about three years in the making, dating back to the beginning of Lewis’ fellowship at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, during which Lewis worked with TransParent, a local support group for parents of transgender youth. Learning about the lack of medical resources for these patients spurred him, along with Dr. Sarah Garwood and Dr. Abby Solomon Hollander, to begin proposals for the clinic.

“Almost any graduate from a U.S. medical school can .... counsel a patient on the basics of type -1 diabetes, but almost none can counsel a patient on various aspects of transgender health,” Lewis says. “And that right there is a health disparity. So 16

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seeing that, plus all the other things that were going on at that meeting, knowing that I was going into endocrinology, I was like, ‘Well, we can make a difference and provide care here, increase medical competency of the education within Washington University and hopefully one day provide a center of excellence for transgender health amongst the Midwest in the St. Louis metropolitan area.’”

Previously, a patient in the St. Louis area would have to travel to Kansas City or Chicago for a similar center, and the wait for new patients was long. Now, Lewis says, the Transgender Center provides care for young people all over Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas.

In its short existence, the center has received recognition from the Human Rights Campaign, with staff asked to give presentations in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Nashville and Kansas City. In addition to its primary goal of providing care for transgender patients, the center also aims to develop a database and research opportunities on transgender health, establish a research network, increase awareness and support in the community and more.

Is St. Louis a perfect place for those with non-binary gender? As the police shooting of trans woman Kiwi Herring reminded us this summer, we still have a ways to go. And, yes, we’re still stuck in Missouri. But with this new clinic, the medical community is making strides in the right direction. —Elizabeth Semko

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8. WE REOPENED THE KINGSHIGHWAY BRIDGE (WITHOUT EVEN TOWING THAT INNOCENT KIA) If a city is a body, a thing with a soul, a heart, a pulse, then surely its bridges are the veins pumping lifeblood — and for two years, St. Louis’ blood fucking boiled in frustration as the Kingshighway Bridge was closed to traffic. Shut down in July 2015 after 75 years of use, the total blockage allowed for the viaduct to be dismantled and rebuilt — even as it sent the 55,000 or so vehicles that cross the bridge daily off on ponderous detours through Shaw Avenue and the already congested Vandeventer Avenue.

But in May of this blessed year of Bridge Construction Being Sufficiently Done, St. Louis felt the collective relief of a body made whole again. The bridge was back, baby (albeit in a temporary, slimmeddown version); our days of detours were over.

However, to the embarrassment of the city’s Streets Department, one hole was left incomplete. In the predawn hours before the grand reopening on May 13, work crews installing the final layer of asphalt on Shaw Avenue came to a blue Kia sedan parked in their path. Somehow, no one had thought to place a No Parking sign on the street. And someone, naturally, parked there.

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What to do? A more callous city would have simply towed the car.

Really, who could quibble with an injustice to one motorist when an entire $21 million project is at the finish line?

But no. That’s not the soul of St. Louis. Instead of blunt efficiency, the city workers chose to follow the path decreed by their lack of foresight to its logical conclusion: They meticulously paved a perfect rectangle around the Kia, leaving the vehicle safe on a shallow, sunken island of rough gravel amid a sea of fresh black asphalt. And that morning, when the Kia driver arrived to pick up her car, she uttered the only reasonable response: “This would only happen in St. Louis.”

The Kia escaped un-towed, the car-shaped asphalt hole was paved in just days later, and order was reestablished in south city.

Still, the story is not quite over for the Kingshighway Bridge: Sidewalks and decorative side barriers won’t be installed until the spring 2018, which means the project still isn’t done. But who are we to complain? We might need something to celebrate at this time next year.

—Danny Wicentowski

9. WE GAVE CHUCK BERRY THE EPIC SENDOFF HE DESERVED The world lost a titan on March 18 when Chuck Berry passed away at

90 in his Wentzville home. Shock waves from his death were felt around the globe — and since nearly every popular musician today owes at least some credit to the man for their careers, it makes sense that his passing would be mourned by some of music’s biggest stars. Considering Berry’s lifelong St. Louis residency, it also makes sense that some of those same stars would band together to celebrate his life at LouFest this year, delivering a raucous, high-energy set of Berry’s best hits. The tribute, dubbed Hail! Hail! Chuck Berry!, brought members of the Roots, Spoon, Dave Matthews Band, Cage the Elephant, Huey Lewis and more to perform alongside a group of St. Louis scene stalwarts led by bandleader Kevin Bowers. Berry’s family was closely involved with the project as well: Charles Berry Jr. and Charles Berry III joined in for a few tunes, with Jr. playing Berry’s iconic red 1960 Gibson ES345 during the last song of the set, the indelible “Johnny B. Goode.”

It was free and fun, an exhilarating dive into Berry’s catalog by a crack team. LouFest’s organizers say that Hail! Hail! is intended to be an annual affair at the fest — a fitting tribute to the man who not only invented rock & roll, but indisputably gave it its swagger.

—Daniel Hill

10. WE EMPLOYED DEXTER FOWLER OK, so right off the bat — heh — we should note that the Cardinals signed phenom center fielder Dexter Fowler in December 2016. But give us this one. Baseball starts in April, and Fowler made the 2017 season one to remember.

Even in a disappointing year, Fowler’s bulb never seemed to dim. At bat, he blasted nine triples and a career-best eighteen homers. And outside Busch Stadium, he demonstrated a version of the Cardinal Way that was less about smugness or pride and more about being a decent human being.

When, for instance, Fowler found out that a seven-year-old girl with a prosthetic right arm was seeking to throw the ceremonial first pitch for every MLB team, he got in touch with the family, making plans to bring her to Busch Stadium faster than you can say “Go Cards Go.” But what really set Fowler apart

in 2017 was his reaction to Donald Trump. As the president championed a transparently discriminatory travel ban aimed at people in Muslim countries, Fowler expressed a guarded worry about how the crackdown would affect his Iranian-born wife and extended family.

Cardinals fans tried to put Fowler in his place. “Stick to baseball,” they said. “You’re property of the Cardinals,” others argued. One Facebook commenter, disgusted, wrote, “This guy isn’t Cardinals material.”

Fowler responded by tweet, “For the record. I know this is going to sound absolutely crazy, but athletes are humans, and not properties of the team they work for.”

The response was understated, but the point resonated: Fowler was sticking up for his own family. And by putting a human face to an inhuman policy, he surely helped some MAGA supporters understand that the vast majority of people from Muslim countries aren’t terrorists in training. They’re college graduates and entrepreneurs, parents and baseball wives.

Some of them, like Darya Fowler, are all four of those things. And surely the Best Fans in Baseball know that you don’t let a bully pick on your wife, right?

—Danny Wicentowski

11. WE FINALLY FIXED THE CRATERED NIGHTMARE OF ROADWAYS INSIDE TOWER GROVE PARK Tower Grove Park is one of the jewels of St. Louis, some 289 acres of trees and trails, ponds and pavilions, a welcoming oasis on the city’s south side. The land, donated to the city by Henry Shaw in 1868, is so well-designed and nicely maintained that it has been named a National Historic Landmark, one of the nation’s best examples of a late nineteenth-century public park.

But for all its charm and beauty, the park has long had a dark side.

For years, cyclists have been taking their lives into their own hands each time they dared ride through the crater-pocked nightmare of its streets. With roads so bumpy they rattled your teeth out of your skull, and towering speed mountains capable of exploding the spokes out of your wheels, the situation was rough.

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Businesses came together to do what government refused to mandate. | CELINA DELLA CROCE

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And so it was a relief on July 5 when workers set to the task of milling and repaving that rocky moonscape into the butter-smooth ride it is today. According to Will Rein, the park’s director of operations, it has been decades since these streets saw such an improvement. “We’re not exactly sure” when it was last repaved, he says, “but it has at least been since the early 1990s, because patches from work known to have been completed at that time are still visible.”

The new improvements are part of a larger effort, says executive director Bill Reininger. The park worked with Traffic Commissioner Deanna Venker to figure out best practices for calming traffic and improving safety. The City of St. Louis Street Department completed the milling and paving work with funding from the 8th Ward, at a cost of around $80,000.

Since the park is a public-private partnership, the park’s own money is covering the additional cost of striping and installing new (much, much gentler) speed bumps.

The project is not yet entirely complete, but it’s already starting to pay off. Nowadays, disfiguring accidents are at an all-time low, and those old speed bumps, which once stretched so far into the heavens that they threatened to block out the sun, have been replaced with new speed “humps,” which sit much closer to the ground, down where they belong.

The beauty of a freshly paved road may never match up to that of the park itself — but it’s still enough to bring a tear to the eye.

—Daniel Hill

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12. WE VOLUNTARILY AGREED TO PAY MORE THAN THE MINIMUM WAGE This summer, the unthinkable happened. Even as states across the U.S. passed minimum wage increases, giving workers a muchneeded paycheck boost, we actually reduced our minimum from $10 to $7.70. The shocking rollback earned St. Louis a flood of negative attention — with national media outlets sneering at our rank backwardness.

This time, though, it wasn’t our fault. (Honest!) The reduction in wages came entirely because of the state legislature, which not only gutted the increase the city had labored to pass, but did so with the cruelest of timing.

In short: Back in 2015, the city’s Board of Aldermen approved an ordinance raising the minimum wage to $10/hour. A lawsuit delayed things for a few years, but the city actually won the battle — and the increase kicked in.

Enter the state legislature, which held a special session to ensure that cities didn’t have the right to set their own limits. Governor Eric Greitens refused to sign the bill but still passively allowed it to become law (he was making some sort of point, but damned if we weren’t too pissed to care what it was). By the time the state preemption limped into law, the city’s increase had already been in effect for three months — meaning workers briefly enjoyed a raise only to lose it.

It’s the kind of easy narrative that negative campaign ads are made from (big bad governor steals pay increase from the work-

14. WE HIRED JIMMIE EDWARDS

Muslims and Jews worked side by side to clean up a cemetery after a senseless act of vandalism.| DANNY WICENTOWSKI

ing poor!). But unlike most tales of political grinchiness, this one actually had a silver lining, at least for some workers.

Those workers were the ones lucky enough to make their living at a St. Louis business pledging to “Save the Raise.” The campaign earned voluntary sign-on from more than 100 restaurants, bars, shops and startups, which agreed to keep paying $10 or more, almost as if the legislature hadn’t intervened. Vibrantly hued #SavetheRaise signs in storefronts across St. Louis let consumers know which businesses go beyond what’s required to do what’s right.

There is a bit of irony, of course, in commercial enterprises vowing to do what government refuses to require — if not quite an invisible hand, it’s at least a savvily positioned one. But while some of these businesses surely get a marketing boost from their altruism, the heart of the story is less about free markets and more about compassion. At a time when politicians are less concerned with the fate of the poor and working class than seemingly ever before, progressives have learned that they can’t count on the people who ought to provide a safety net to do so. Few small business owners have an extra $100,000 lying around to made the chattering

class listen to their concerns a la the Koch Brothers — but if they can make a difference by paying an extra $2.30 an hour, they showed, they’ll find the money.

And as for the rest of us, we may not all have the wherewithal to open a business of our own, but we can think hard about where choose to spend what we do have.

It’s true that your avocado toast may cost more if you purchase it from an eatery that’s paying its workers a living wage. But surely it tastes better when it comes with a side of “screw the Missouri legislature.”

—Sarah Fenske

13. WE CREATED THE WONDERFUL INSANITY THAT IS THE ST. LUNATIC BURGER Genius or madman? There is a thin line between brilliance and insanity, and in 2017, no St. Louisan better captured that dynamic than Adam Pritchett.

Back in May, the Hi-Pointe Drive-In chef was pitching in at the St. Charles location of Hi-Pointe’s sister restaurant, Sugarfire Smokehouse, when the inspiration struck for the ultimate St. Louis superfood: the St. Lunatic Burger.

A single cheeseburger topped with

a BBQ pork steak and Red Hot Riplets, it’s then smothered in Provel cheese, with some toasted raviolis tossed in for good measure. Two slices of Imo’s pizza for the buns.

The only way this thing could taste more like St. Louis is if an actual chunk of the Arch was wedged in there.

Pritchett’s creation was conceived as a special, and the Sugarfire team prepped enough for 50 servings. After posting a photo on the restaurant’s Facebook page, though, they blasted through that run in short order. The eatery has not offered the burger since — a manager says its individual components are just too costly for the price point to make sense — but it’s possible Sugarfire will bring the sandwich back for its one-year anniversary.

As it should. The St. Lunatic is a fully edible piece of civic pride, a true high note of delicious delirium. So what if the city again suffered the indignity of being one of the two most dangerous in the nation this year? And who cares if we’re going broke? We’re also the kind of wonderful place that puts a pork steak on a burger and then brings out pizza for the buns.

Do we contradict ourselves?

Very well, we contradict ourselves. We are large. We contain multitudes.

—Daniel Hill

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Who knew the guy was even willing to change jobs? Judge Jimmie Edwards was… a judge. He was a well-respected judge — one who cared so much about the kids coming through his courtroom that in 2009 he launched a school, Innovative Concept Academy, to catch the ones already falling through the cracks. People, Ebony and a handful of documentary filmmakers lauded his work.

“Those who advocated zero tolerance for children in the late 1980s and early 1990s got it wrong,” he says during a compelling TEDxStLouis speech in 2010. “They got it wrong.”

Even in the middle of a particularly contentious moment in the city, the reaction was pleasant surprise through most corners when Mayor Lyda Krewson announced in October that Edwards was coming on as the new director of public safety. This was a decision neither police union nor protester could argue with.

The St. Louis native grew up poor next to the Pruitt-Igoe projects and was an attorney for Southwestern Bell before spurning corporate law to become a St. Louis Circuit judge in 1992. His new job calls on him to shepherd more than 3,400 city employees, including cops and firefighters. It’s not going to be easy, as anyone who watched divisions between police and citizens play out in dozens of protests this fall can attest. But Edwards is a proven problem solver, and he almost certainly did not switch jobs to lay low.

—Doyle Murphy

15. WE CAME TOGETHER TO CLEAN UP A JEWISH CEMETERY We still don’t know how 154 headstones in the Chesed Shel Emeth cemetery were toppled. Or who did it. Or why. We don’t even know precisely when it occurred.

We only know that on the third Monday in February, groundskeepers returning after the weekend discovered the stones laying broken and heavy on the soft soil. Since then, despite efforts to review more than 100 hours of surveillance footage, University

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17 REASONS Continued from pg 19 City Police have announced no suspects or leads.

Yet what we know beyond that is more remarkable than the mystery that still taunts us. In the days that followed the desecration, the helpers started showing up — and, yes, that included Vice President Mike Pence and Missouri Governor Eric Greitens. But even the injection of politics couldn’t overshadow the scene: Hundreds of volunteers, from every corner of the St. Louis region, coming together to do good.

In any given row, you could see an interdenominational sampling of virtually every religion and ethnic group. Girls in Catholic school uniforms darted along footpaths with cleaning rags in their hands.

Fifty feet from a college student wearing an Israeli flag as a cape, Durra Asarwani leaned on a rake and helped translate her husband’s Arabic. They’d fled Syria only seven months prior. “We are here to help,” Asarwani said in a beginner’s English. “We are struggling together.”

From one perspective, nothing has changed in the ten months since the gravestones were discovered upturned and defiled. We are all those groundskeepers, looking around in bewilderment, trying to make sense of the senselessness.

Why would somebody do this?

We don’t have an answer, and so the question floats, still adrift in a spectrum between thoughtless vandalism and something much, much worse.

But whether it was a hate crime or a prank, what resonates is that scene of hundreds of volunteers raking muck and polishing grime from names and dates. A scene of shared dignity. We know what St. Louis looks like when it comes together. And in this world, that makes all the difference.

—Danny Wicentowski

16. WE KEPT CALM — AND WE LISTENED For many, many days this fall, St. Louis went on the march. We railed against the “not guilty” verdict for a former police officer who sure as hell seemed guilty of something. (“I’m going to kill this motherfucker, don’t you know” felt kind of like a threat to us, but what do we know?) We shouted 20

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When protesters filled the streets, residents and business owners listened.| THEO WELLING

Everybody understood that a broken window isn’t the end of the world, that life goes on, and mostly importantly, that there are bigger conversations to be had. that Black Lives Matter. We took the message to the highway and even the shopping mall, disrupting commerce in the name of racial justice.

And the people being disrupted said, in many cases, “You’re right.”

Business owners brought water to protesters. They pushed back against police actions that seemed to bring the violence, not contain it. They spoke out — in some cases, like that of Pi Pizzeria owner Chris Sommers, triggering a reaction from the police union that put their livelihoods at risk.

More than anything, they kept things in perspective.

“The damage that we have or potentially could sustain during these demonstrations is a small price to pay in the fight for justice,” Eliza

DECEMBER 27, 2017 - JANUARY 9, 2018

Coriell, the owner of the Crow’s Nest, wrote in a letter co-signed by 45 other business owners. “Although we do not condone vandalism of any nature, we understand it. We recognize the feelings that come from generations of oppression. We understand how those feelings could bring residents of our community to conclude that there is no other way to be heard.

While we believe in personal responsibility, we believe that deeper responsibility lies with our local governments and all those who have turned a blind eye to abuse.

We must all take our share of the responsibility.”

Early on in the protests, rabble-rousers in the Loop waited until the official demonstration was over and then turned on storefronts with bricks, pieces of pottery, even chairs. The damage was done in minutes, leaving shop after shop with gaping holes and shattered glass.

But by the next morning, the street was already full. Full of workers getting ready for business, full of people ready to spend money to support them.

And here’s the crazy thing. No one was cursing out the protesters — or even the vandals who’d hijacked their march. Everybody understood that a broken window isn’t the end of the world, that life goes on, and most importantly, that there are bigger conversa-

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tions to be had. That felt like real progress.

Maybe, in 2018, we can focus on having them.

—Sarah Fenske

17. WE MANAGED NOT TO KILL A SINGLE PERSON WITH OUR NEW TROLLEY For the second year in a row, St. Louis is officially #blessed that the Delmar Loop Trolley has failed to claim a single life, human or otherwise. This is huge because, in the past month, trolley operators actually began logging their mandatory training hours by running the route. Even more importantly, Clayco just stepped up to front the $500,000 necessary for the trolley to become fully operational.

What that means: At some point in early 2018, the greatest technological forward leap since the Apollo space missions of the 1960s will begin ferrying passengers from the Missouri History Museum all the way to Racanelli’s in the Loop. That’s a journey of 29 minutes by foot during the 5 to 5:30 p.m. rush hour; by trolley, perhaps as little as half an hour, depending on the time of day.

Zooline Railroad, your days are numbered as the region’s leading passenger-transporting rail line.

— Paul Friswold

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WEEKS OF DECEMBER 30-JANUARY 8

Cinderella, despite her woes, still dances like nobody’s watching. | CAROL ROSEGG

BY PAUL FRISWOLD

SATURDAY 12/30 Cinderella The 2013 Broadway reimagining of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella features an updated book

by Douglas Carter Beane. Young Ella is still mistreated by her stepmother and two stepsisters, but now she dreams of a kinder, friendlier kingdom, not just going to the ball. Her stepsisters are similarly fleshed out, with one imperious and the other timid. The Prince, uncertain about what kind of ruler he will make, is now looking for guidance. Still, the basics that make this story a classic for the ages remain, with a Fairy Godmother appearing to help Ella achieve her dream of attending a royal ball, a series of remarkable on-stage transformations and those

lovely Rodgers and Hammerstein songs. Cinderella plays the Fox Theatre (527 North Grand Boulevard; www.fabulousfox.com) for a brief run. Performances are at 1 and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, and Friday, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 2 and 7:30 p.m.

Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday (December 27 to 31). Tickets are $35 to $125.

SUNDAY 12/31 Silver Screen Spectaculaire Lola van Ella and her burlesque friends celebrate New Year’s Eve with some Old Hollywood glamour at the Silver Screen Spectaculaire. Inspired by the golden age of film and MGM musicals, van Ella

and Bazuka Joe, Midnite Martini and Ray Gunn take the stage to a grand film score performed live by the Spectaculaire Orchestra. Expect thrills and chills, along with some bawdy humor that would never be allowed under the Hays Code. The Silver Screen Spectaculaire takes place from 9 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. tonight at Casa Loma Ballroom (3354 Iowa Avenue; www. vanellaproductions.com). Tickets are $55 to $350.

NYE Live!

Ballpark Village always goes large for New Year’s Eve, and this year is no exception. NYE Live! sprawls across five venues inside Ballpark Village (601 Clark Avenue; www. stlballparkvillage.com), with party favors, a midnight toast and a live performance by DJ Dynamix. The

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party also has the ubiquitous inhouse ball drop at midnight, but this one has a twist; thousands of dollars will be mixed in with the confetti this year, yours for the grabbing. NYE Live! takes place from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. tonight at Ballpark Village (601 Clark Avenue; www.stlballparkvillage.com).

Tickets are $75 to $110, with VIP buffets at Budweiser Brew House and Cardinals Nation.

Irish New Year’s Toast As you age, celebrating New Year’s Eve begins to feel like more of a hassle than it’s worth. It starts late, you have to eat a heap of food to prepare your alcohol reception base, everybody’s shouting, etcetera.

DECEMBER 27, 2017 - JANUARY 9, 2018

Continued on pg 24

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23

CALENDAR Continued from pg 23 Nothing but headache. For the urbane celebrant, the Pat Connolly Tavern (6400 Oakland Avenue; www.patconnollytavern.com) offers an Irish New Year’s Toast.

The hook is that, rather than celebrating at midnight CST, the tavern centers its festivities around midnight in Ireland, which is 6 p.m. our time. Free Guinness stout samples are available for the traditional “midnight” toast, and there will be live music all night. The Irish New Year’s Toast takes place from 4 to 8 p.m., and there’s no cover. You may notice that the time would also work for the young person who believes in pre-gaming before the big event — no judgments.

WEDNESDAY 01/03 Escape from New York John Carpenter’s 1981 sci-fi thriller Escape from New York is in the early stages of a Hollywood reboot/ prequel, but you have to wonder why. The original is so entertaining and tautly paced that it’s going to be tough to best, let alone equal. In Carpenter’s grim vision of the future, the president is shot down over New York, which is a city-sized prison. The government sends in the criminal Snake Plissken to track him down and bring him back alive. The film famously stars St. Louis as Manhattan’s stunt double, with a pre-renovation Union Station and the Chain of Rocks Bridge getting enough screen time to deserve a credit on the film poster. The Webster Film Series presents Escape from New York at 8 p.m. Wednesday, January 3, at Schlafly Bottleworks (7260 Southwest Avenue, Maplewood; www.webster.edu/film-series). Admission is $5.

THURSDAY 01/04 St. Louis Blues The NHL’s newest team, the Vegas Golden Knights, embarks on its maiden voyage to St. Louis on Thursday, January 4. The expansion team is one of the surprise sto24

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The Silver Screen Spectaculaire promises glitz and glamour. | COURTESY OF LOLA VAN ELLA ries of the season, racking up wins with its no-star roster rather than turning in the woeful performance most experts predicted. Is this collection of unheralded players coming together as underdogs, or is it maybe their particular home-ice advantage? The Knights’ lopsided home record strongly implies the latter — visiting young men with money can find just about any distraction with a free night in Sin City and no game until the following evening. And yet, here we are in January with the boys from Vegas still winning games. Fortunately, the Knights are the visitors on Thursday. The St. Louis Blues host the Vegas Golden Knights at 7 p.m. at the Scottrade Center (1401 Clark Avenue; www.stlblues.com).

Tickets are $34 to $159.

FRIDAY 01/05 Fences Troy Maxson is finally seeing real progress at age 53. The former Negro Leaguer great is on the verge of becoming the first black garbage truck driver in Pittsburgh. It’s a small achievement, but it’s one of the few allowed to a black man in the 1950s. His life is not all smooth sailing, though. He and his son keep fighting over the boy’s future, and Troy can’t get him to understand the value of a steady paycheck over the possibility of a career in football — but maybe that’s just Troy’s own deferred dreams talking. August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-win-

DECEMBER 27, 2017 - JANUARY 9, 2018

ning drama Fences is about a man who has grown embittered over the years, becoming a cold and distant tyrant in his own home. The Black Rep performs Fences at 7 p.m.

Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday (January 4 to 21) at Washington University’s Edison Theatre (6445 Forsyth Boulevard; www.theblackrep.org).

Tickets are $15 to $45.

The Marvelous Wonderettes There hasn’t been a successful girl group in the modern era since Destiny’s Child, but back in the ‘50s and ‘60s the power of multiple women’s voices could carry a group to the top. Those days are back again in Roger Bean’s musical comedy The Marvelous Wonderettes. Members of the titular group are high school seniors in 1958 performing for their senior prom. During their show, the quartet discovers that two of them are dating the same boy, one of them has a secret love, and all of them are in the running to become prom queen. Ten years later, the group returns to perform for their high school reunion. It’s a show packed with the songs of the ‘50s and ‘60s, as well as a few laughs. The Repertory Theatre St. Louis opens the second half of its season with The Marvelous Wonderettes. Performances take place Tuesday through Sunday (January 5 to 28) at the Loretto-Hilton Center (130 Edgar Road; www.repstl.org).

Tickets are $18.50 to $89.

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MONDAY 01/08 The Zombies of Penzance Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Zombies of Penzance, or At Night Come the Flesh Eaters, never made it to stage during the duo’s lifetimes. The musical was rejected by their publisher, and they reluctantly rewrote it as The Pirates of Penzance, while the original was lost to history. But New Line Theatre’s Scott Miller has found it, or at least its fragments, and intends to mount a full production in October 2018, with composer John Gerdes reconstructing the score. The plot is close to that of its more famous rewrite, but here Major-General Stanley is a retired zombie hunter who hates the walking dead and refuses to allow his daughters to marry any of the Zombie King’s decaying followers. New Line Theatre provides a sneak preview at a free public reading of the play. It takes place at 8 p.m. Monday, January 8, at the Marcelle Theater (3310 Samuel Shepard Drive; www.newlinetheatre.com).

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 (308 N. 21st Street, Suite 300, St. Louis, MO 63103, 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.

Our guide to the best places in St. Louis to ring in 2018 Afrosexycool NYE: Black Spade, DJ Nico and James Biko. Sun., Dec. 31, 9 p.m., $15-$40. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave., St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

Cork & Barrel New Year’s Eve: Special dinner menu with wine pairing, live music from Kevin Babb (6:309:30 p.m.) and Joe Bizelli (9:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m.). Sun., Dec. 31, 6:30 p.m., call 636-387-7030 for reservations. Cork & Barrel, 7337 Mexico Rd., St. Peters.

Dress Up to Get Down: Celebrate New Year’s Eve in style at Tin Roof, with complimentary champagne toast, open bar from 8 p.m. to midnight, party favors and live music by Super Majik Robots & DJ Flex City.

21+. Sun., Dec. 31, 8 p.m., $75$2,500. Tin Roof St. Louis, 1000 Clark Ave., St. Louis, 314-240-5400.

Drunken Fish New Year’s Eve Party: Includes unlimited premium drink package, late-night sushi, appetizer buffet and DJ Daddy J. Midnight champagne toast. 21+. Sun., Dec. 31, 9 p.m.-1 a.m., $80. The Drunken Fish-Central West End, 1 Maryland Plaza, St. Louis, 314-367-4222.

A Harry Potter New Year’s Eve Experience: Travel to Hogwarts, visit Honeydukes, the Leaking Cauldron and Ollivanders Wand Shop. Meet real live owls in the Owlery, create a personalized flipbook at the Daily Prophet, take a potions class, challenge the professors to Quidditch Pong in the Triwizard Tournament, visit the Hall of Prophecies, have your tea leaves read by our tarot experts and enjoy a champagne toast.

Sun., Dec. 31, 8 p.m.-12:30 a.m., $150-$250, 314-681-0370, hpnye. eventbrite.com. Barnett on Washington, 3207 Washington Ave., St. Louis.

Irish New Year’s Toast: Sneak in an early NYE countdown with a toast at 6 p.m. when Ireland ushers in 2018.

Whether you want to be in bed when

the ball drops or get the party started early, Pat’s is the place to celebrate. Great drink specials and live music all night. Sun., Dec. 31, 4-8 p.m., 314-647-7287, www.facebook. com/events/182768302290100/.

Pat Connolly Tavern, 6400 Oakland Ave., St. Louis.

KSHE-95 Dirty New Year’s Eve: Live music by Joe Dirt & the Dirty Boys, party favors and midnight toast. 21+ with valid ID. Sun., Dec. 31, 9 p.m., $25-$30. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

The Matching Shoe: Live music from the Matching Shoe with cocktails and food for purchase. Sun., Dec. 31, 8 p.m., $10. Kirkwood Station Brewing Company, 105 E. Jefferson Ave., Kirkwood, 314-9662739.

New Queer’s Eve II: Radical queers and our friends. Dancing.

Performances by Maxi Glamour, Schuyler Control, Mustache Daddy, Jack Wilde, Claw’d, Enigma, the WILDE Coven and Vinca Minor, along with visuals and art by EAV. $5 cover, but no one turned away for lack of funds. Cash bar. Sun., Dec. 31, 9 p.m.-2 a.m., $5. 314827-4730, www.facebook.com/ events/1728529270493064/.

Community Arts and Movement Project, 3022-A Cherokee St., St. Louis.

New Year’s Eve at Juniper: For an all-inclusive $75 per person, revel in a variety of hors d’oeuvres, an open bar and DJ Hal Greens on the ones and twos. Stick around until midnight for the balloon drop and a glass of bubbly. Tickets are limited: https:// www.eventbrite.com/e/nye-celebration-tickets-40743941225.

Sun., Dec. 31, 8 p.m., $75. Juniper, 360 N. Boyle Ave., St. Louis, 314-3297696.

New Year’s Eve at Molly’s: Enjoy seven premium open bars, DJs, Continued on pg 26

THE BOOM BOOM

BOMBSHELLS

BURLESQUE SHOWS EVERY FRIDAY & SATURDAY 7 PM: DINNER SHOW 10 PM: LATE NIGHT SHOW PERFECT FOR BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS!

Tickets and Reservations: 314-436-7000 or theboomboomroomstl.com 500 N. 14TH ST. DOWNTOWN ST. LOUIS

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DECEMBER 27, 2017 - JANUARY 9, 2018

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25

NYE LISTINGS Continued from pg 25

Pearl Cafe Thai Cuisine • St. Louis, MO

innovating st. louis’ thai dining experience!

dancing, complimentary toast at midnight, two balloon drops, covered heated patios, party favors and one wild night.Reserve a VIP table, cabana or booth with bottle service at 314-2416200 x2. VIP preparty tickets available on Eventbrite or Facebook. Sun., Dec. 31, 7 p.m.-1:30 a.m., $75-$95. Molly’s in Soulard, 816 Geyer Ave., St. Louis.

New Year’s Eve Celebration: Start 2018 off with a bang at Innsbrook’s lodge-like Aspen Center for a Black and White Ball. Enjoy midnight fireworks over Lake Aspen with a champagne toast after dinner and dancing.

Sun., Dec. 31, 7 p.m.-1 a.m., $100 per person, 636-928-3366, guest. services@innsbrook-resor t.com, www.innsbrook-resort.com/dining/ events#newyears. Innsbrook Resort, 1 Aspen Lake Dr., Wright City.

New Year’s Eve Limo Bus Bar Crawl: Party with Washington Ave., Soulard & Landing Bars for NYE Limo Bus Crawl.

Check in at Lucas Park Grille (1234 Washington Ave.) from 8-10 p.m.

Venues TBA. Sun., Dec. 31, 8 p.m.-2 a.m., $24, 312-600-9038, info@besocialscene.com. Lucas Park Grille, 1234 Washington Ave., St. Louis.

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New Year’s Eve Party: Ring in the New Year at Pere Marquette Lodge with an overnight party package. Show off your cocktail attire and indulge in appetizers, an open bar and a buffet dinner. Dancing, midnight champagne toast and even party favors. Take the elevator home. $389 plus tax, double occupancy. Sun., Dec. 31, 10 p.m.-2 a.m., 618-786-2331, www.pmlodge. net/2016/11/new-years-eve-party/.

Pere Marquette Lodge, 13653 Lodge Blvd., Grafton, IL.

PEARL BBQ FRIED RICE

Murder on 34th Street: Kris Kringle aka Santa Claus has been on trial before, but this time it’s for murder. Join us for the trial of the century while enjoying a four-course meal to die for!

Sun., Dec. 31, 7-10 p.m., $59.95 per person, 314-533-9830, www.bissellmansiontheatre.com. Bissell Mansion Restaurant & Dinner Theatre, 4426 Randall Place, St. Louis.

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DECEMBER 27, 2017 - JANUARY 9, 2018

New Year’s Eve at Hwy 61: Two dinner seatings at 6-8 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m. Each seating includes any entree and either a cocktail or a house salad, gumbo, jambalaya or an appetizer tasting from a special New Year’s Eve menu. Paul Bonn and the Bluesmen perform from 8:30 p.m.12:30 a.m. Sun., Dec. 31, $10 cover

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without package purchase, 314-9680061, info@hwy61roadhouse.com, hwy61roadhouse.com/events/. Hwy 61 Roadhouse and Kitchen, 34 S. Old Orchard Ave., Webster Groves.

New Year’s Eve at Howl at the Moon: Howl at the Moon St. Louis’ fabulous NYE party packages offer everything you need to kiss 2017 goodbye. Sun., Dec. 31, 7 p.m.-2 a.m., 314-736-4695, www.howlatthemoon.com/nye-stl/.

Howl at the Moon, 601 Clark Ave. Unit J, in Ballpark Village, St. Louis.

New Year’s Eve Comedy Jam: Live comedy show with performances by Corey Holcomb, J Anthony Brown, Tony Rock, Dominique, Red Grand and Tony Roberts. Sun., Dec. 31, 7 p.m., $52$82. Chaifetz Arena, 1 S. Compton Ave., St. Louis, 314-977-5000.

New Year’s Eve with Clayton Plaza Hotel: Clayton Plaza Hotel offers four separate rooms with four different bands, plus a DJ. Enjoy hors d’oeuvres, dinner and open bar until 1 a.m. with beer, wine and select cocktails.

Pricing starts at $70. Sun., Dec. 31, 6:30 p.m.-1 a.m., 314-726-5400, www.cpclayton.com/specials-packages-en.html. Clayton Plaza Hotel, 7750 Carondelet Ave., Clayton.

NYE Bash: Evangeline’s celebrates all day with brunch, dinner and cocktail menus, plus delicious New Year’s Eve-themed entrees and appetizer specials for the evening. Live music from Miss Jubilee & the Humdingers, Sweetie & the Toothaches, Joe Metzka Blues Trio and the Jazz Troubadors.

Dress to impress. Sun., Dec. 31, no cover. Evangeline’s, 512 N. Euclid Ave., St. Louis, 314-367-3644.

NYE Live: Ring in the new year at NYE Live 2018 at Ballpark Village. Ticket packages include access to five different venues all under one roof. All-inclusive package includes party favors, midnight toast, live DJ performance by DJ Dynamix, confetti at midnight and the only ball drop in St. Louis. Sun., Dec. 31, 7 p.m.-3 a.m., $75+. Ballpark Village, 601 Clark Ave., St. Louis, 314345-9481.

An NYE Silver Screen Spectaculaire: Van Ella Studios presents “Old Hollywood for the New Year!” It’s a risqué, retro romp starring Lola van Ella, Bazuka Joe, Midnite Martini, Ray Gunn, the Bon Bons and many more and featuring the Spectaculaire Orchestra. Burlesque, acrobatics, aerial artistry, juggling, production numbers, a large dance floor and more. Sun., Dec. 31, 9 p.m.-2:30 a.m., $55-$350, 314-384-2532, www.

eventbrite.com/e/a-silver-screen-spectaculaire-tickets-38824255393. Casa Loma Ballroom, 3354 Iowa Ave., St. Louis.

A New Year’s Speakeasy: Join us for the swankiest party in town at the Boom Boom Room. Tickets include four-course dinner, open premium bar, an amazing burlesque show from the Boom Boom Bombshells and a dance party with a confetti cannon. Sun., Dec. 31, 7 p.m.-1:30 a.m., $90-$200.

314-436-7000, theboomboomroomstl.com. The Boom Boom Room, 500 N. 14th St., St. Louis.

Russo’s NYE Bash 2108: Celebrate the New Year with Russo’s at Spazio Westport. Enjoy a full open premium bar, appetizers, dinner, a live band, food-truck midnight snack, photo booth, hotel accommodations and much more.Sun., Dec. 31, 7 p.m.-1 a.m., $90 per person, 314-576-0400, russosgourmet.com/nye/. Spazio at West Port, 12031 Lackland, Maryland Heights.

360 Annual New Year’s Eve Bash: Amp up the night at Three Sixty with bottle service and an impressive ball drop on both the east and west side of the rooftop. General admission is $35 and will be standing-room only.

Two reserved seating times at 9 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Food and beverage minimum of $110+ per person for seats.

Sun., Dec. 31, 9 p.m.-2 a.m., 314-6418842, www.360-stl.com. Three Sixty St. Louis, 1 S. Broadway, St. Louis.

The 2018 New Year’s Eve Ball: Enjoy the Grand Ballroom and the Grand Pavillion, along with exquisite food, a premium open bar, lodging at the newly renovated Marriott and live entertainment. Sun., Dec. 31, 7 p.m., $100 - $349, 314-291-7371, contagiousparty.com/. Marriott St. Louis Airport, 10700 Pear Tree Lanene, St. Louis.

Ultimate New Year’s Eve Party: Hyatt Regency St. Louis at The Arch offers an open bar and full buffet dinner, a late-night snack, party favors for all attendees, a champagne toast and confetti drop at midnight and live music. The hotel’s New Year’s Eve package includes an overnight stay and two tickets to the party. Rates start at $349. Event-only tickets are $129 including tax and can be purchased at Eventbrite.com. 21+. Sun., Dec. 31, 8 p.m.-1 a.m., $129, 314-655-1234, stlouisarch.regency.hyatt.com/en/ hotel/news-and-events/events/ultimate-new-year-s-eve-party1.html. Hyatt Regency St. Louis at the Arch, 315 Chestnut St., St. Louis.

Yule Balls: The first annual St. Louis YULE BALLS. Sun., Dec. 31, 6 p.m.-1 a.m., $50-$175, 314-222-2111, www. denstl.com/yule-balls.html. The Den, 711 N. 13th St., St. Louis.

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DECEMBER 27, 2017 - JANUARY 9, 2018

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Ring in the new year at Hyatt Regency St. Louis at The Arch with the Ultimate New Year’s Eve Party, featuring Dr. Zhivegas and Groovethang.

The celebration starts at 8:00 PM on December 31, 2017, and runs until 1:00 AM. Enjoy a full dinner buffet, open bar, Champagne toast, party favors and confetti drop at midnight. To book or for more information, visit stlouisarch.regency.hyatt.com or call 800 233 1234.

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FILM

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Florence Pugh is a decidedly ruthless Lady Macbeth. | LAURIE SPARHAM, COURTESY ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS [LIST]

He Lost It at the Movies Our critic counts down the best of 2017 film — and also names a few worst Written by

ROBERT HUNT

A

s we come to the end of a year seemingly designed to confirm nearly every cynical thought we’ve ever held, where would we find comfort, reassurance or even optimism? At the movies?

Not so fast, kid. The films of 2017 were, like the year’s headlines (or tweets, for those who have already given up on print or hold national office), an assortment of mixed messages. We saw the escalation of a battle over the dissemina-

tion and even the very definition of information, as the president picked an almost daily succession of schoolyard fights against those who report the news — even as we saw movies defend the importance of free journalism. We saw racial inequality remain a major problem, but not one unaddressed by filmmakers.

Yet we also saw a rise in gun violence and mass murder matched by films that continue to present such things as defensible or even pretty darn cool as long as the person holding the guns has the right soundtrack. We saw powerful figures brought down by boorish even criminal behavior, and then we saw similar actions endorsed on screen, as long as the perpetrators were suitably labeled as “bad” moms, grandmas and grandpas.

In short, as both a nation and in our films, we were inconsistent and incoherent. Sometimes we stood up to the wrongs of the world; in others, we wallowed in them.

The films of 2017 were sometimes corrective, sometimes cautionary, but nearly always as conflicted and

Dave Johns and Hayley Squires excel in I, Daniel Blake. | JOSS BARRAT/© 2016 SUNDANCE SELECTS confused as the world they tried to represent. This list of the brightest moments of 2017 includes films that spoke up for change, conceded defeat or sometimes admitted they were just as confused as the rest of us.

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1. I, Daniel Blake British director Ken Loach had announced his retirement a few years ago, but as he watched the rise of the extreme right and the continued failure of the economic system to provide a safety Continued on pg 30

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2017 FILM HIGHLIGHTS Continued from pg 29 7. The Trip to Spain More great improvisation and dueling egos in Michael Winterbottom’s film help Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon preserve their status as international treasures.

Coogan also deserves praise for his nervy performance in The Dinner as a character so convincingly irritating that you wish you could reach through the screen and slap him.

8. Wonderstruck Defying categorization, Todd Haynes’ adaptation of Brian Selznick’s semi-graphic novel was a children’s adventure for adults, a dizzying journey through history and a gorgeous collision of movie techniques both classical and modern, with an uncanny performance from young Millicent Simmonds as a deaf girl making her way through the streets of 1927 Manhattan.

In Mudbound, Florence and Hap Jackson (Mary J. Blige and Rob Morgan) have trouble on their farm even before their white neighbors arrive. | STEVE DIETL/NETFLIX 3. Lady Macbeth 4. A Quiet Passion Two extraordinary portraits of feminine repression guided by powerful performances. As the heroine of William Oldroyd’s Lady Macbeth, Florence Pugh challenges social customs with malevolent glee. As Emily Dickinson in Terence Davies’ A Quiet Passion, Cynthia Nixon fights the same customs and calmly, tragically turns inward. In a year of strong performances from women, these two actresses soar above the rest.

Kristen Stewart starred in Personal Shopper. | CAROLE BETHUEL/COURTESY OF IFC FILMS net for the working class, he came back in fury. I, Daniel Blake is the story of a reluctantly retired man trying to find employment only to encounter a lazy and indifferent social welfare system. It’s an angry film with a powerfully humanist message, guided by warm, realistic performances by Dave Johns in the title role and Hayley Squires as a young single mother he befriends.

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2. The Shape of Water Take two cultural threads from the 1950s — Cold War tension and monster movies — and stir gently to produce a deliriously charming romantic fantasy. Guillermo del Toro’s film is what movies would have been like if Jean Cocteau and Roger Corman had put their heads together and taken over a Hollywood backlot in 1960.

DECEMBER 27, 2017 - JANUARY 9, 2018

5. Toni Erdmann The smartest comedy of the year was both a broad, warm, character-driven comedy and a pointed satire of contemporary economics and business. Director Maren Ade’s political commentary wasn’t afraid to wear a set of hideous joke-shop fake teeth to make a point.

6. Wonder Wheel With his 48th theatrical film, Woody Allen continues to ignore fashion and pursue his interest in the magic of storytelling and the inexplicable power of art, this time aided by Vittorio Storaro’s otherworldly photography and an earthy, gut-wrenching performance by Kate Winslet.

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9. Mudbound An understated epic about race and class in the rural south during World War II, Dee Rees’ film was lifted by a complex narrative, efficient production design and a powerful ensemble of acting talent.

10. Personal Shopper In this quietly mysterious chamber drama/ghost story, director Olivier Assayas again finds a powerful muse in Kristen Stewart.

In a good year for non-fiction films, the standouts were Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis’ locally-filmed Whose Streets?, Errol Morris’ The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography and Matthew Heineman’s City of Ghosts.

But surely, you ask, in a year where no less than six films jumped on the ironic-use-of-John Denver-songs bandwagon, there must have been low spots? Unfortunately, you’re right. There were Band Aid, The Square, Woodshock, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Patti Cake$, the awkwardly titled Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, and XXX: The Return of Xander Cage.

As for Baby Driver and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, they’re my picks for the two most overrated films of the year. Let us speak of them no more. n

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[LIST]

Simply the Best Here are the ten finest restaurants to open in 2017, a terrific year for St. Louis dining Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

I

t was a very good year for the St. Louis food scene, if nowhere else. The year 2017 saw the city’s chefs, bartenders, owners and restaurants staking their claims and finally coming into what they were meant to be. It also put St. Louis on the national map, pushed into the spotlight by two restaurants in the conversation for the best new restaurant in the entire country.

These places don’t play it safe.

One comes from a hometown son who realized that striking out on his own meant coming home and reclaiming the soil. The other took ownership of what it means to be a Mexican restaurant in 2017 America by brazenly throwing off preconceptions.

They weren’t alone. The city also saw immigrant restaurateurs boldly gamble on Midwestern diners’ willingness to embrace modern Chinese food and Bosnian chefs who, after years of seeing their cuisine fly under the radar, finally got the respect they deserve.

A tenacious grocer and burger cook made it his mission to redefine the food system, while a James Beard Award-winning chef reclaimed the joy he felt in cooking.

We have a lot to look forward to in 2018 (including a handful of restaurants that opened too late to be reviewed and included in this list). But if there is any one thing the new guard can take away from the class of 2017, it’s that knowing who you are and being fearless in showing it is the path to success.

And it tastes pretty damn good too.

Vicia has proven a game changer in St. Louis, with vegetable-forward cuisine presented with intention. | MABEL SUEN

1. VICIA If you want to know why Vicia (4260 Forest Park Avenue, 314-5539239) is the best restaurant in St. Louis, you have to look beyond the food, the hospitality and even the environs. All are, of course, impeccable. Chef Michael Gallina’s mastery of flavor and texture can make you feel like you are eating a beet for the first time, even as, under his wife Tara Gallina’s thoughtful direction, every last person on the staff treats your dining experience as if it is of the utmost, personal importance. Then there is the design, a light-filled room that feels modern and warm at the same time. All of these elements make Vicia great. What makes it the best can be summed up in a scene I witnessed on one of my visits.

It was a busy dinner service, and the restaurant was bustling, but chef Gallina not only made time to meet with one of his purveyors, he called all the staff members he could find to gather around his chef table to examine and learn about their wares. It wasn’t just his sous chef and line cooks who got in on the fun. He had servers,

bartenders, servers’ assistants and even a dishwasher there, empowering them with a sense of a shared ownership that, in turn, translates to the guest experience. There is national buzz about this restaurant; it’s even a serious contender for USA Today’s best new opening of 2017. If Vicia takes home the top prize, it’s because the Gallinas have created more than just good food; they’ve created a culture.

2. NIXTA With Nixta (1621 Tower Grove Avenue, 314-899-9000), restaurateur Ben Poremba and chef Tello Carreon did not just defy the cliche of what a Mexican restaurant should be; they basically created a culinary fusion never before seen.

Playing around in the kitchen of Poremba’s flagship Elaia, the Israeli restauranteur and the Mexico-born chef came to appreciate how beautifully Mediterranean and Mexican flavors work together. From that realization came Nixta, a tangentially Mexican restaurant that refuses to be pigeonholed by preconceptions. Just consider the one of the restaurant’s

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most exciting dishes, the tlayuda, which pairs pomegranate molasses with guajillo chiles for a “Mexican Pizza” that is just as much Middle Eastern as it is Central American.

Though he is no longer with the restaurant, much credit must be given to Carreon, who used the cuisine of his native land as a jumping off point for global culinary exploration. The flavors are riveting, and the restaurant pulsates with a sultry energy. It’s no wonder the national press took notice of this thrilling spot.

3. SARDELLA If Gerard Craft’s Niche made you feel like you had to sit up a little bit straighter in your seat, its successor, Sardella (7734 Forsyth Boulevard, Clayton; 314-773-7755), gives you permission to sink back into it.

The difference is intentional, born of the James Beard Award winning chef’s desire to shake off the heaviness he felt at his former flagship in favor of something lighter, breezier and more accessible. He’s achieved that in Sardella, not just by breaking free of Niche’s self-

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TOP RESTAURANTS Continued from pg 33

concepts and make them seem cohesive with near-perfect execution — if you haven’t had his bestin-class shrimp and grits you are missing one of the best dishes of 2017. However delicious the food, though, Polite Society’s big draw is that you walk out feeling a little better than when you walked in.

You may not be able to put your finger on exactly why, but that’s not because nothing stood out; it’s because everything came together.

imposed hyper-local confines, but by giving diners, his staff and himself permission to have fun.

You would have never sat in the old dining room for a burger, a whole roasted chicken or lasagna, but Sardella proves that you can have all those comforts while still enjoying the polish you’d expect from Craft and his team. “We open the restaurants we want to eat at,” Craft said when he announced Sardella. It turns out, we want to eat there too.

4. CATE ZONE

7. BALKAN TREAT BOX Cate Zone’s “Hot Crisp Fish” and mala soup bring modern Chinese cuisine to St. Louis. | MABEL SUEN

In the not-so-distant past, St. Louis diners had basically two options for Chinese food: The cloyingly sweet Americanized stuff that bears no resemblance to actual Chinese cuisine or the old guard traditional restaurants and dim sum spots that line Olive Boulevard. Recent years have seen a striking change to the Chinese culinary landscape as a crop of young, often first-time restaurateurs have given St. Louis a peek into what it’s like to dine out today in the bustling metropolises of their homeland. Bing Bing, Corner 17, Yummy 17 and last year’s honorable mention Tai Ke have all disrupted our ideas of Chinese food, and perhaps none more so than Cate Zone Chinese Cafe (8146 Olive Boulevard, University City; 314-738-9923), the quizzically named eatery from Daniel Ma and Quincy Lin. Both had toiled away at Americanized spots after first moving to town from China, dreaming that they could one day open a fiercely authentic yet thoroughly modern place of their own. They’ve achieved that in Cate Zone, with a menu of flawlessly executed and

complexly spiced dishes that run the gamut of Chinese regional cuisine. One taste of the mouth-numbing Sichuan peppercorn-coated “Hot Crisp Fish” will have you realize what St. Louis has been missing.

5. NUDO HOUSE When they started their journey into the world of ramen over three years ago, Qui Tran and Marie-Anne Velasco weren’t just looking to develop a good bowl of broth and noodles: They were on a mission to bring to St. Louis the absolute best. Their quest took them across the country, from New York to Los Angeles, where they learned from top chefs, including famed Japanese ramen chef Shigetoshi Nakamura. After teaching them his craft, he looked at them and said, “I have no doubt you will be successful.” The man knew what he was talking about, as Nudo House (11423 Olive Boulevard, Creve Coeur; 314-274-8046) has set the standard for ramen in St. Louis —

if not the entire Midwest. St. Louis waited what seemed like an eternity to taste the duo’s classic pork tonkotsu, schmaltz-laden “Hebrew Hammer” and shockingly luscious vegetarian “Shroomed Out”; Tran and Velasco show that good things come to those who wait.

6. POLITE SOCIETY Polite Society (1923 Park Avenue, 314-325-2553) is less about good food, killer cocktails, attentive service and stylish digs —though those are all there — than it is about the feeling you get when you walk into a place with all the elements in perfect harmony.

Restaurateurs Brian Schmitz and Jonathan Schoen recognized the need for a gathering place filled with warmth, hospitality and thoughtfulness, and that translates into an experience that makes you feel like you are an invited guest in their home. Kudos go to chef Thomas Futrell for being able to take eclectic food

It may have taken two decades, but this year, St. Louis finally woke up to what a culinary gem it has in its Bosnian community.

Granted, there have been successful Bosnian restaurants before 2017 — the bounty of this year only exists because of the Grbics of the world, who paved the way by introducing the city to Bosnian food. Yet this year, thanks in large part to a new generation of chefs, the light switch flipped on and cevapi is now a household word. Though many bright spots played a part in this phenomenon, the brightest was Balkan Treat Box (@BalkanTreatBox), a humble food truck with a tiny menu that serves up authentic Balkan cuisine with a hip, modern air about it. Owned by Loryn and Edo Nalic, Balkan Treat Box celebrates food from throughout the region, including doner kebabs, cevapi on wood-fired somun bread and a show-stopping Turkish pide filled with a mild Turkish cheese and mozzarella blend. Balkan Treat Box has become so popular, it has a legion of fans, constant lines and regularly sells out of its wares.

Clearly, it’s the taste we’ve all been waiting for.

Continued on pg 36

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The “Rip Fries” and triple pork burger at Mac’s Local Eats show a chef’s care in both preparation and sourcing. | MABEL SUEN

8. MAC’S LOCAL EATS

9. PIZZA HEAD

10. THE STELLAR HOG

For the patrons of the Dogtown watering hole Tamm Avenue Grill, a simple counter offering burger and fries would have sufficed as the bar’s food-service option. And in some ways, that’s exactly what they got in Chris “Mac” McKenzie’s Mac’s Local Eats (1227 Tamm Avenue, 314479-8155). However, as someone who has made it his life’s work to educate consumers on humanely raised, sustainable meat consumption, McKenzie shows with his no-frills sandwich counter what you can do good ol’ greasy bar food without sacrificing your ethics. When McKenzie talks about his food, the phrase that he repeatedly uses is “respect for the animal,” which he does by transforming a pig into his “Naked Pig,” a sandwich of sous vide pork tenderloin the color and texture of rose petals, or a cow into his classic diner-style griddle burger. As McKenzie says, the animals just taste happy. Noshing on them with a side of McKenzie’s trademark Red Hot Riplet seasoned “Rip Fries” makes us pretty happy, too.

On its surface, Pizza Head (3196 South Grand Boulevard, 314-2665400), with its punk rock ethos and its middle finger to anyone who would dare to tell the kitchen what kind of tomatoes to use in its sauce, could not be more different from chef/owner Scott Sandler’s freshman effort, Pizzeoli, a temple to Neapolitan pizza perfection. Yet even though Sandler has left behind the rigid confines of Neapolitan style, his passion for making the best pizza possible remains unyielding. This time around, he’s tackled the quintessential New York slice in all of its monstrously-sized, greasy glory, hitting the nail so precisely on the head that even the most hard-to-please New Yorker would approve. The classic cheese and (shhh, vegan) pepperoni glistens with that characteristic orange-hued grease that stains the bottom of the paper plate on which it’s served. Then there’s the white pizza, which dazzles with the simplicity of ricotta, garlic and olive oil. Sandler may have gone from Michelangelo to Banksy, but he proves his art is world-class, no matter what the style.

When Alex Cupp took over the beloved south city dive Super’s Bungalow, he knew he had a delicate balance to strike. On one hand, he wanted to honor the neighborhood bar’s nearly century-old legacy, making sure any polish he added didn’t shine up the joint so bright as to make it unrecognizable. On the other, he had big plans for the food service, his sights set on turning the kitchen into a bastion of fine barbecue. Somehow, he found the perfect balance, maintaining Super’s character even while smoking up some of the best brisket and ribs in the area under the name the Stellar Hog (5623 Leona Street, 314-481-8448). On any given night, you’ll find the bar packed with old-timers throwing back draughts of Busch to a soundtrack of Van Halen, only now what they’re washing down with those cold ones is some of the most sublime brisket, ribs and pulled pork in town. Coming from the Pappy’s family, where he learned from the aces of St. Louis ‘cue, Cupp knows a thing or two about barbecue. That he can showcase his talents inside the legendary Super’s is about as good of a homage to the place as you can get. n

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just want people to come in, have a great time, laugh and smile. That’s all we want to see.”

Altnether took a break from the Elmwood preparations — he describes a May opening as “ambitious — to share his thoughts on the St. Louis food and beverage scene, how he escapes from reality, and why you should think twice about sitting at the poker table with him.

Adam Altnether Is Back in the Biz Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

W

hen Adam Altnether, chef and co-owner of the forthcoming Elmwood (2704 Sutton Boulevard, Maplewood), thinks of the happiest things in life, the smell of a slow-cooker is at the top his list.

“Growing up, my parents did a lot of cooking out of necessity. We loved to go out to eat but couldn’t do it all the time,” Altnether recalls.

“I can remember coming home for the day and something would be in the slow-cooker. There was nothing better in life than that. I’d open the lid and it would just hit me: ‘Yep, I’m home.’”

Food’s ability to provide such joy and sense of place inspired Altnether to start cooking at an early age. The Food Network added to the mystique, and when he found out about the Career Discovery program for high school students at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), he jumped at the chance to see what cooking school was like.

After immersing himself in the program, he worked his way up to becoming a teaching assistant in his cooking classes and graduated high school with his sights set on attending culinary school.

He enrolled in the CIA, and, after graduating, came back to St. Louis where he landed a job with Gerard Craft’s Niche Food Group. There, he worked his way up to Niche’s chef de cuisine, became a partner in the restaurant and achieved accolades including being named to Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list.

Altnether departed Niche to take a job with the St. Louis Cardinals,

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Formerly chef de cuisine at Niche, Adam Altnether plans to open Elmwood in 2018. | SARA BANNOURA where he cooked for the players and became a personal chef for one of them. He loved the job, calling it a dream for someone who grew up in St. Louis, but he remained open to returning to the restaurant business. The opportunity just had to be right.

It came thanks to former Niche general manager Chris Kelling.

Friends at Niche, the co-workers remained close even after Altnether departed the restaurant.

As they met for coffee and chatted about what their dream restaurant would look like, they realized they were actually making plans. Once those plans got to a certain point, they decided to take the leap.

Altnether describes the forthcoming Elmwood as a place that will evoke a sense of community — somewhere that large tables filled with families can gather and share a meal together. “A big thing for us is that there is no pretense,” explains Altnether. “We don’t want you walking in and feeling uncom-

fortable because you think it’s too fancy or you feel underdressed or that the menu confuses you.”

Kelling and Altnether intend for Elmwood to be a place that appeals to someone looking to grab a burger and a beer after work on a Tuesday, then return to celebrate an anniversary or a birthday on a weekend night. “We want to appeal to every group for every occasion,” says Altnether.

Of course, food will be an essential element of Elmwood, but as Altnether explains, the restaurant will be less about a particular type of cuisine and more about conveying a feeling. “We can make food for everyone. We’re not narrowing this down to a certain type of cuisine. If it’s delicious, we will cook it.”

What’s more important, Altnether insists, is something that harkens back to his days coming home and opening that lid on the slow-cooker. “We’re trying to evoke a feeling,” he explains. “We

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

I like to read a lot of fiction, from Harry Potter to Ready Player One. It’s fun to just let your mind escape sometimes and take a deep dive into those literary works.

What daily ritual is non-negotiable for you?

I don’t really have a daily ritual that is non-negotiable, but we just received a lot of new coffee-making equipment at the house, so I’ve been perfecting my morning brew each day before I hop into the shower and read emails and headlines.

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

Time travel. Not only to go back to historic periods and see how life actually was back then, but it would be amazing to have the ability to act on the saying “hindsight is 20/20.”

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

It is super exciting to see more interest and investment in St. Louis from restaurateurs and beverage professionals opening new places and expanding concepts throughout the metropolitan area. And it’s great to see all of these places being supported by the community.

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

I think it would be cool to see more distilleries come to town. It is a process and art form that I have been interested in for quite a while, and I believe St. Louis has a captive audience for it.

Who is your St. Louis food crush?

Brian Lagerstrom of Union

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[FOOD NEWS]

BEAST Goes Big Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

D Classic Ethiopian stewed vegetables and meats are on offer at Ye Ethiopian Restaurant, along with more exotic offerings like dulet. | SARAH FENSKE

[FIRST LOOK]

Ethiopian Spot Opens on Delmar Written by

SARAH FENSKE

W

hen Teddy Argaw saw a “for lease” sign on the standalone brick building that would become Ye Ethiopian Restaurant (5916 Delmar Boulevard, 314-361-9202), he was so sure it was the place for him that he called right away — and when the landlord didn’t call back, he kept at it, ringing her again and again. At one point, he even used his wife’s cell phone.

Maybe, he thought, the landlord just didn’t want to call back someone with a Chicago area code.

As it turned out, she was just on vacation, not dodging his calls. And when she finally let him see the inside, he was even more convinced.

“As soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted it,” Argaw says.

It was, more than anything, a question of location. The building is nice and spacious, but nothing fancy. Where it was located, however, struck Argaw as absolutely

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perfect.

“I wanted to be on Delmar, but not inside the Loop,” he explains.

“Just outside the Loop a little bit.”

He’s a savvy enough businessman to know that he would pay a huge premium to be in the walkable part of the district — and he’s confident enough in his abilities to be certain his spot will be a destination even a mile to the east.

He comes by his ego honestly. Argaw was previously the chef-owner of Selam Ethiopian Restaurant, which he opened, yes, just east of the Loop in 2007. (During that time, his avocado shake earned a “Best of St. Louis” award from the RFT.) Argaw sold the place after three years to take a corporate job in his native Chicago; two years after that, it closed.

After a few years working in Chicago, Argaw found himself craving the affordability of life in St. Louis and the creativity of cooking the kind of food he truly wants to cook.

Once he found the building on Delmar, he knew it was only a matter of time before he was again open for business as a restaurateur.

Along with his brother Naty and wife Gelila Abebe, he opened the place a few weeks ago, but he’s waiting for his liquor license to celebrate the grand opening. In the mean time, however, Ye Ethiopian Restaurant has already picked up loyal customers from the city’s Ethiopian community, who Argaw says are thrilled to have found a true taste of home.

DECEMBER 27, 2017 - JANUARY 9, 2018

It’s not just the stewed vegetables and meats that you may be familiar with from other Ethiopian restaurants, and not just the spongy, house-made injera that serves as both bread and a utensil alternative.

In addition to those award-winning avocado shakes, Argaw also makes a number of house specialties that only ex-pats and the savviest travelers have already tried — from beef zilzil tibs, served in a steaming hot platter almost like Mexican fajitas, to dulet, an Ethiopian classic involving liver, heart and other offal, cooked in clarified butter.

He says he’s been thrilled to see his customers’ delight at his downhome treats. “When somebody takes something to go, that means they liked it,” he says.

And that means Ethiopians from different tribes and regions. Ethnic clashes have plagued the country recently, with violence breaking out again after a few years of relative peace. Argaw says the name of the restaurant, Ye, is an Ethiopian word that loosely means “my” — and by combining it with the word Ethiopian, he’s suggesting it’s a place that can bring everyone together.

“I want to invite all of Ethiopia,” he says. “Not just one tribe, but all of them.”

Ye Ethiopian restaurant is open from 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Friday. It’s open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday and noon to 10 p.m. on Sunday. n

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avid Sandusky could coast. Since opening BEAST Craft BBQ (20 S Belt W, Belleville, Illinois; 618-257-9000) in December 2014, the acclaimed pitmaster has been at the helm of one of the bi-state area’s top barbecue restaurants, winning accolades, numerous awards and legions of fans for his “all killer no filler” approach to smoked meat, including a pork steak so legendary it has become the standard upon which all other pork steaks are judged.

And it’s still not enough.

“It’s never enough. I want to be the best in the nation,” Sandusky says. “My goal is to be a driving force for better product and better barbecue.

The barbecue market is blowing up and if we’re not pushing to get better, that bubble is going to pop. There is no room for mediocrity.”

To that end, Sandusky has announced an overhaul to BEAST Craft BBQ, both in terms of the product he serves and the way he serves it.

“We can’t be the best is we are serving the same commodity product that everyone else is,” Sandusky explains. “The meat is what drives what we do, so we are now sourcing the best and doing minimal things to it. It’s about respect for the animal and sustainability. It’s about knowing that the animals were treated respectfully and not pumped full of antibiotics.”

Though Sandusky has always been committed to using only high quality meats, his new pork and brisket are at a level not seen anywhere in the area — if not the entire country. For the last few months, he has been the only restaurant in the U.S. to use Compart Farms premium Duroc pork across his entire menu, a product so revered for its quality that it’s the go-to for the competitive

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“We’re the only ones who have this across the entire menu,” Sandusky explains. “It’s not contractually an exclusive, but they only produce enough for us. There’s no better product out there.”

Sandusky describes the pork as unlike anything he’d ever tasted.

The moment he saw it — ruby red and shockingly marbled — he knew he had to use it, even if it meant eating its substantially higher cost. “It’s so glorious I was like, ‘Man, how do you not take this on, even if it’s three times the price?’ This is a ten out of ten,” he says.

BEAST Craft BBQ is also upping its brisket game, switching from already high-quality prime brisket to Waygu beef from Snake River Farms. To his knowledge, his will be the only barbecue restaurant in the region using Waygu beef for brisket.

As Sandusky explains, the changes in product will place BEAST Craft BBQ in a class of its own, turning the restaurant into a truly premium smokehouse. And that comes with a price — one that is driving the other big change that is in store for the restaurant.

Beginning last week, BEAST Craft BBQ transitioned to a fully a

DINNER MENU AND SUNDAY BRUNCH 11AM-2:30PM

la carte menu. Gone are the combination platters and composed plates served with sides, like the ones found at traditional barbecue restaurants. Instead, guests will choose every item individually, giving them more flexibility in what they want to spend and allowing Sandusky to charge what he needs for the premium meat without giving anyone sticker shock.

“I’m losing my ass on this,” Sandusky laughs. “But I’ve been so blown away by this product that I had to figure out a way to do it.”

Sandusky believes that the new menu format will be well-received, cushioning the cost of the premium product while giving diners the ability to enjoy the best smoked meat possible.

“Barbecue is no longer about gingham tablecloths and picnic tables. We’re in a revival, and we want to be a part of the small group that is pushing the envelope and raising everyone else to a higher level,” Sandusky says.

“There is nothing better out there than this that is able to be sold.

We think this is going to make us one of the best in the nation — we think of our competition as the big destination places. That’s the game we are playing.” n riverfronttimes.com

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ADAM ALTNETHER Continued from pg 39

Parlor offers billiards tables, as well as a changing roster of nostalgic arcade games. | MELISSA BUELT [BARS]

Arcade Games Come to the Grove Written by

MELISSA BUELT

T

he new spot that that opened in the Grove on November 30, Parlor (4170 Manchester Avenue), offers arcade games, a stocked bar and even an on-site food truck.

Himself a gamer, owner Sean Baltzell would seek out arcade bars in other cities and explore different concepts he could bring to St. Louis.

“I really enjoy places that are an experience, as opposed to just a bar where you’re just staring at each other, drinking,” Baltzell says.

As the founder of Tower Classic Tattooing, Baltzell has been doing business in the Grove for almost a decade (even before it was called the Grove). He felt the neighborhood was ready for a new genera-

tion of bar concept and the timing was right.

The bar’s name references Baltzell’s work in the tattoo parlor, as well as connoting parlor games, a parlor lounge and even parlor tricks.

“For us, it was just a strong word that really represented the vibe behind what we were going for,” Baltzell says.

Casey Colgan, Baltzell’s business partner and Parlor’s bar manager, crafted all the cocktails. He previously tended bar at neighborhood hotspots Handlebar and Atomic Cowboy, and was aiming for drinks that have a New Orleans feel — slightly elevated but not too serious.

“We don’t want to be a cocktail bar ... we just want something that’s easy, fast but also tastes really good at the same time,” Colgan notes.

The partners hope to draw both people who come for the games and people who come for the bar. Baltzell says he wants to sub in new games every couple months or so to keep customers excited.

“I feel like we live in this real detached society right now and everybody is looking at their phone, so we want people to come in here and truly engage with each other,”

Baltzell says.

The food is provided by Bob Brazell of Byrd & Barrel, who has parked a permanent food truck on the patio. The menu will include chicken waffle on a stick — carny style food, Baltzell says — as well as Brazell’s classic chicken nugs and some side items.

The 2,500-square-foot space, at Manchester and Kentucky, previously held Honey. It’s a handsome spot, with exposed brick walls and a sizable patio.

Hand-painted artwork, both local and collected from elsewhere, is displayed on the walls, including three hand-painted movie posters from Ghana. “We try to have a lot of statement pieces and things to keep your eyes busy when you’re here,” Baltzell says. “I wanted people to have a visual relationship with the space.”

The bar also features an elevated DJ booth, which they hope to put to use on the weekends.

“As you’re walking past, it just pulls you in — the lights and the sounds of the games,” Baltzell says.

Parlor is open Monday through Friday 3 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., Saturday 11 a.m.- 1:30 a.m., and Sunday 11 a.m. to midnight. n

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Loafers. Something about that baguette bad boy just gets me every time.

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

It’s not one person, but I think that the team at Louie is doing something really special. Great food, great atmosphere, great team. It’s just really fun to eat there, and they take great care of their guests while making it seem so effortless.

Which ingredient is most representative of your personality?

Lemongrass. Unassuming and plain on the outside, but once you get into it, there’s so much more to offer.

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

I absolutely love playing poker.

It’s really fun to go and play for a while, trying not to lose too much, but what I love the most is meeting new people from so many different walks of life.

Name an ingredient never allowed in your restaurant.

Negativity. There will be no place for that in the restaurant.

It brings everyone down and ruins the potential of any great team.

What is your after-work hangout?

I’m pretty boring. Typically, after leaving the restaurant I would just go home and relax, maybe with a beer some nights.

That’s about it. I’ve been working as a personal chef with a really great family for a while, so lately, after dinner is finished and cleaned up, we usually hang out with them and play with the kids before going home to relax and recharge for the next day.

What’s your food or beverage guilty pleasure?

I love wings, so when we don’t feel like cooking or we just feel like being a little lazy we’ll head to Buffalo Wild Wings for quick and easy wings.

What would be your last meal on earth?

I don’t want to leave here without a huge family meal with tons of Vietnamese food, from spring rolls and bánh xèo to a variety of noodles and soups. I want the works, with all our family and friends present. That’s most imn portant.

DECEMBER 27, 2017 - JANUARY 9, 2018

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MUSIC

47

[LIST]

The Sound of St. Louis Give a listen to the ten best local albums and songs of the last twelve months Written by

CHRISTIAN SCHAEFFER

E

ach year, the sound of St. Louis gets broader, deeper, brighter and darker — and harder to pin down. Not that we don’t try. Each week, in fact, our long-running Homespun column takes a local album for a spin and talks with the artists behind the songs.

This list compiles ten of the best albums and EPs that came across our desk in 2017, plus ten more songs from other noteworthy local releases. If you don’t know, now you know: This is the music that helped St. Louis sing and dance our way through 2017.

ALBUMS Bloom, [SIN]SES Kalyn McNeil made [SIN]SES, her seven-song release under the name Bloom, with St. Louis-bred, Los Angeles-based Dylan Brady, and while the producer’s deft touch with decaying atmospherics is well-deployed, it is McNeil’s octave-spanning vocals that fill out the spectrum. She gets operatic on opening track “Incredible” and seeks to exorcise some demons on the cavernous “Raindrops.” Together, McNeil and Brady make post-apocalyptic R&B, creating a kind of grey-scale sensuality.

Ashley Byrne, Bedroom Ballads Ashely Byrne calls her first self-titled release Bedroom Ballads, but that’s only halfway true. The eighttrack album was made at home with nothing more than a MIDI keyboard, GarageBand and Byrne’s voice, but she shows a range be-

Illphonics’ live-band hip-hop shines bright on June’s excellent Purple Piano Society. | ANNA SELLE yond thoughtful, diaristic ballads here. “Lived Long” introduces Byrne as a soloist in a church choir, her multi-tracked vocals settling into sometimes austere harmony against a well of reverb and a subtle, tremolo-heavy keyboard pattern. It’s a fearless way to open her first solo outing, and on the rest of the album she drifts from coy delivery to steely resolve. Whatever mood she channels, Byrne doesn’t flinch or pull punches.

Finn’s Motel, Jupiter Rex Finn’s Motel, Joe Thebeau’s long-running quartet mining the patch of land between power-pop and garage rock, came out of a thirteen-year hibernation with a pair of thirteen-track albums. Quinta Del Sordo dropped in the middle of December, but this spring’s Jupiter Rex reintroduced a band that’s lost none of its pep. From the first rumble of opening track “Grounded,” it’s clear that neither the band nor its members have settled into middle-aged boredom. Galloping bongos and fuzz-bombed bass attend quick and crunchy guitar

bursts. But perhaps in keeping with a reflective songwriter given to big-picture musings — Thebeau received his degree in philosophy a few years ago — the most striking moments on the album are the quietest and most ruminative, the piano- and twelve-string-led “Awake, Alive, Alone” in particular.

Illphonics, Purple Piano Society While much of the material on the new album stays true to Illphonics’ established style of live-band hip-hop, many of the tracks put a focus on pairing frontman Larry Morris’ verses with more melodic hooks and choruses; to help with that sweetening, the band has partnered with a number of guest vocalists. Lena Charlie aids the snappy, syncopated sound of “Heights,” while Joaquin Musick guests on a few songs here, including the subtle triumphs of opening track “We Are (Majestic).” Taken as a whole, Purple Piano Society shows the a continued evolution of a band that has never worried too much about staying in one lane.

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LéPonds, Heat Lisa Houdei released her first proper album as LéPonds at the tail end of 2016, but it lit the way for a year in which her hushed, artful folk music could act as a signal-flare for other artists in town.

The music on Heat starts small — voice, tinny acoustic guitar, a droning synth — but Houdei is able to populate these spare compositions with the warmth of layered harmonies and earthen instrumentation.

“Please,” the album’s opening track, largely ignores acoustic guitar and opens with the gentle wheeze of a pump organ. It builds with soft synth arpeggios and a delicately fingerpicked guitar pattern; the arrangement sets a mood that can feel both weightless and kinetic.

Ryan Koenig, Two Different Worlds St. Louis music fans have had the chance to see Ryan Koenig’s development and varied styles for some time — either as part of the Rum Drum Ramblers, with his wife Kellie Everett in the South-

DECEMBER 27, 2017 - JANUARY 9, 2018

Continued on pg 49

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SOUND OF STL Continued from pg 47 west Watson Sweethearts, or as Pokey LaFarge’s right-hand man.

But with the early-October release of his solo debut, the singer and multi-instrumentalist has gathered the many strands of his musical identity — and many local musicians — to create a spirited and varied record that fluidly captures country, rock and Mexican folk music into a cohesive whole.

Mad Keys, LoveWaves While keys and beats fill in most of the space on the largely instrumental LoveWaves, the first sound you hear is that of artist Brandon McCadney’s primary instrument — the violin. On opening track “Blossom,” a dramatic violin filigree gets mangled by distortion and taken into hyper-speed overdrive before dissolving into a soft bed of electric piano. The introduction serves as a warning that typical lounge grooves and Soulquarian vibes are subject to interpretation.

Smidley, Smidley You wouldn’t think Conor Murphy would have the time or inclination to step outside of his role as Foxing’s lead singer to create a solo album, but Smidley’s eponymous debut tones down some of the cathartic, engrossing drama of his main gig. When it came time to write the songs on Smidley, Murphy dug into his library for inspiration — he name-checks Belle & Sebastian, Broken Social Scene and the New Pornographers as acts he sought to “rip off.” He channels some of the verve of the best power-pop bands — “Power Word Kill” chugs along without shattering its crystalline haze — while a delicate acoustic guitar and chunky Mellotron chords are all the backing “Milkshake” needs to allow Murphy’s expressive, cigarette-stained voice to bend and break.

Stacey Winter, We’re Both Right Now Kit Hamon has long been a valuable utility player on stages across St. Louis; you can find him backing up his wife Beth Bombara on drums, bass, fiddle and more, and he provided much of the melodic glue in the final and greatest Old Lights line-up. But it took an alter ego (Stacey Winter) and a six-song EP of electro-fried, falsetto-heavy pop songs (We’re Both Right Now) for Hamon to fully claim his mu-

sical inheritance. On the album he channels classic R&B (“You & I”) as easily as he wields laser-beam synths on opening cut “Lines.”

Yowie, Syncromysticism Yowie, the post-everything trio that delights in bending tone and shifting time signatures, never stays still long enough to get a clear picture of its attributes (in fact, the band will play its final show with its current line-up at the end of December). On a track like “Mysterium Tremedum” from this year’s Synchromysticism, a meek, spindly guitar pattern grows claws as it butts up against an aggressive, quick-fire drum kit. Another guitar, its tone both assured and questioning, peeks over the fence.

Questions and decibels arise: Are these instruments in communion or discord? Is that tympani-like throb coming from a drum head or a low guitar string? Can you dance, or even bang your head, in time with this music?

HAPPY NEW YEAR

DJ DANCE PARTY FRI SAT SUN

Paige Alyssa’s “Worth It” is a synth-drenched throwback to ‘80s pop and R&B. | RJ HARTBECK

SOUND OF STL Continued from pg 49

Opening track “The End” floats in like a blend of folky dream-pop and Beach Boys b-sides, with her captivating barroom yarn in his layered vocals and glistening organ VOTED ST. LOUIS’ just-countrified rasp. chords providing a feathery landing for what would otherwise be a Beth Bombara, “I Tried (Too sad-sack break-up song.

Late)” (from Map & No Direc2017 BEST OF tion) ST. LOUIS Karate Bikini, “The Maze” Readers Poll Singer-songwriter Bombara re- (from Chimera) leased her most trenchant and Karate Bikini’s Hydra-headed apPaige Alyssa, “Worth It” personal album this year, and “I proach pays dividends on “The (single) “Worth It” channels the kind Tried (Too Late)” opens it with a Maze,” AT written and sung by guiof ‘80s-era pop and R&B with a sharp slice of burbling, bluesy rock tarist Mike Martin (formerly of the banging palette of 808 drums and & roll that recalls a young Lucinda Painkillers and Tinhorn). On it, he swoopy synths that defined hits by Williams backed up by the Heart- sounds a little like a young Eric CarWhitney Houston and Jody Wat- breakers. men fronting the Turtles, and the ley. It’s a heavy dose of throwback band’s peppy upstrokes recall the R&B, but young soul singer Paige Bruiser Queen, “Wanderlust” Beatles’ “Getting Better” both in Alyssa’s able and expressive per- (from Heavy High) form and message. formance keeps the heart and soul Coming at the end of the garage-pop duo’s latest full-length, Pokey LaFarge, “Silent Movie” of the message at the forefront.

“Wanderlust” borrows a little from (from Manic Revelations) Santo & Johnny’s guitar tones and Manic Revelations proved a big Bates, “Strange Woman” (from Phil Spector’s signature drum beat, step in Pokey LaFarge’s continued Strange Woman) If you needed an anthem for the but it’s Morgan Nusbaum’s vocals evolution, an album that looked recent rise of women speaking that change the atmosphere, mov- to the tone and arrangements of truth to power — ugly, abusive, ing from a whisper to an (eventual) early ‘60s soul music, among other misogynistic power — you can’t scream. sources, for its inspiration. “Silent do much better than the opening Movie” benefits from this fleshedtrack from Bates’ war cry, wherein Cue Coldblooded, “Fly Away” out production, supporting a set Bates (a.k.a. Tamara Dodd) gathers (from Yourz Truly) of lyrics that see LaFarge trying a host of women MCs to claim dom- Preston Bradley is better known to find some solace in a world of inance while epochal choral music as Cue Coldblooded, half of the communication overload. churns in the track. hip-hop duo the Domino Effect, but on this solo track he cops to Whoa Thunder, “Just a Few Chuck Berry, “Dutchman” the fear and frustration that can Things to Do” (from The Depths (from Chuck) cloud his daily life — and some of of the Deep End) St. Louis, and the rest of the world, the chemical and bodily pleasures Heartbreak put Brian McClelland 2001 Menard said goodbye to our hometown’s he indulges in to alleviate the pain. back(at on his Allen) heels, but the leader greatest musical export in 2017, of Whoa Thunder can swing right In the Heart back ofonSoulard but the release of the long-awaited, Suzie Cue, “The End” (from So this standout from the long-belabored Chuck helped alle- It Goes) recent EP. OnUS the track, LIKE, FOLLOW &band’s CONTACT viate some of the sting. This stand- For Suzie Cue’s So It Goes, the sing- swoopy synths fill in the majority ON FACEBOOK out track finds Berry performing er-songwriter suffuses her songs of the mid-range, leaving room for @dukesinsoulard spoken-word lyrics that present a with multi-tracked instruments McClelland’s most studied and perContinued on pg 50 and harmony-laden warmth. formative singing to date. n riverfronttimes.com DECEMBER 27, 2017 - JANUARY 9, 2018 RIVERFRONT TIMES 49

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SOUND OF STL Continued from pg 47 west Watson Sweethearts, or as Pokey LaFarge’s right-hand man.

But with the early-October release of his solo debut, the singer and multi-instrumentalist has gathered the many strands of his musical identity — and many local musicians — to create a spirited and varied record that fluidly captures country, rock and Mexican folk music into a cohesive whole.

Mad Keys, LoveWaves While keys and beats fill in most of the space on the largely instrumental LoveWaves, the first sound you hear is that of artist Brandon McCadney’s primary instrument — the violin. On opening track “Blossom,” a dramatic violin filigree gets mangled by distortion and taken into hyper-speed overdrive before dissolving into a soft bed of electric piano. The introduction serves as a warning that typical lounge grooves and Soulquarian vibes are subject to interpretation.

Smidley, Smidley You wouldn’t think Conor Murphy would have the time or inclination to step outside of his role as Foxing’s lead singer to create a solo album, but Smidley’s eponymous debut tones down some of the cathartic, engrossing drama of his main gig. When it came time to write the songs on Smidley, Murphy dug into his library for inspiration — he name-checks Belle & Sebastian, Broken Social Scene and the New Pornographers as acts he sought to “rip off.” He channels some of the verve of the best power-pop bands — “Power Word Kill” chugs along without shattering its crystalline haze — while a delicate acoustic guitar and chunky Mellotron chords are all the backing “Milkshake” needs to allow Murphy’s expressive, cigarette-stained voice to bend and break.

Stacey Winter, We’re Both Right Now Kit Hamon has long been a valuable utility player on stages across St. Louis; you can find him backing up his wife Beth Bombara on drums, bass, fiddle and more, and he provided much of the melodic glue in the final and greatest Old Lights line-up. But it took an alter ego (Stacey Winter) and a six-song EP of electro-fried, falsetto-heavy pop songs (We’re Both Right Now) for Hamon to fully claim his mu50

RIVERFRONT TIMES

sical inheritance. On the album he channels classic R&B (“You & I”) as easily as he wields laser-beam synths on opening cut “Lines.”

Yowie, Syncromysticism Yowie, the post-everything trio that delights in bending tone and shifting time signatures, never stays still long enough to get a clear picture of its attributes (in fact, the band will play its final show with its current line-up at the end of December). On a track like “Mysterium Tremedum” from this year’s Synchromysticism, a meek, spindly guitar pattern grows claws as it butts up against an aggressive, quick-fire drum kit. Another guitar, its tone both assured and questioning, peeks over the fence.

Questions and decibels arise: Are these instruments in communion or discord? Is that tympani-like throb coming from a drum head or a low guitar string? Can you dance, or even bang your head, in time with this music?

SONGS Paige Alyssa, “Worth It” (single) “Worth It” channels the kind of ‘80s-era pop and R&B with a banging palette of 808 drums and swoopy synths that defined hits by Whitney Houston and Jody Watley. It’s a heavy dose of throwback R&B, but young soul singer Paige Alyssa’s able and expressive performance keeps the heart and soul of the message at the forefront.

Bates, “Strange Woman” (from Strange Woman) If you needed an anthem for the recent rise of women speaking truth to power — ugly, abusive, misogynistic power — you can’t do much better than the opening track from Bates’ war cry, wherein Bates (a.k.a. Tamara Dodd) gathers a host of women MCs to claim dominance while epochal choral music churns in the track.

Chuck Berry, “Dutchman” (from Chuck) St. Louis, and the rest of the world, said goodbye to our hometown’s greatest musical export in 2017, but the release of the long-awaited, long-belabored Chuck helped alleviate some of the sting. This standout track finds Berry performing spoken-word lyrics that present a Continued on pg 50

DECEMBER 27, 2017 - JANUARY 9, 2018

Paige Alyssa’s “Worth It” is a synth-drenched throwback to ‘80s pop and R&B. | RJ HARTBECK

SOUND OF STL Continued from pg 49 captivating barroom yarn in his just-countrified rasp.

Beth Bombara, “I Tried (Too Late)” (from Map & No Direction) Singer-songwriter Bombara released her most trenchant and personal album this year, and “I Tried (Too Late)” opens it with a sharp slice of burbling, bluesy rock & roll that recalls a young Lucinda Williams backed up by the Heartbreakers.

Bruiser Queen, “Wanderlust” (from Heavy High) Coming at the end of the garage-pop duo’s latest full-length, “Wanderlust” borrows a little from Santo & Johnny’s guitar tones and Phil Spector’s signature drum beat, but it’s Morgan Nusbaum’s vocals that change the atmosphere, moving from a whisper to an (eventual) scream.

Cue Coldblooded, “Fly Away” (from Yourz Truly) Preston Bradley is better known as Cue Coldblooded, half of the hip-hop duo the Domino Effect, but on this solo track he cops to the fear and frustration that can cloud his daily life — and some of the chemical and bodily pleasures he indulges in to alleviate the pain.

Suzie Cue, “The End” (from So It Goes) For Suzie Cue’s So It Goes, the singer-songwriter suffuses her songs with multi-tracked instruments and harmony-laden warmth.

riverfronttimes.com

Opening track “The End” floats in like a blend of folky dream-pop and Beach Boys b-sides, with her layered vocals and glistening organ chords providing a feathery landing for what would otherwise be a sad-sack break-up song.

Karate Bikini, “The Maze” (from Chimera) Karate Bikini’s Hydra-headed approach pays dividends on “The Maze,” written and sung by guitarist Mike Martin (formerly of the Painkillers and Tinhorn). On it, he sounds a little like a young Eric Carmen fronting the Turtles, and the band’s peppy upstrokes recall the Beatles’ “Getting Better” both in form and message.

Pokey LaFarge, “Silent Movie” (from Manic Revelations) Manic Revelations proved a big step in Pokey LaFarge’s continued evolution, an album that looked to the tone and arrangements of early ‘60s soul music, among other sources, for its inspiration. “Silent Movie” benefits from this fleshedout production, supporting a set of lyrics that see LaFarge trying to find some solace in a world of communication overload.

Whoa Thunder, “Just a Few Things to Do” (from The Depths of the Deep End) Heartbreak put Brian McClelland back on his heels, but the leader of Whoa Thunder can swing right back on this standout from the band’s recent EP. On the track, swoopy synths fill in the majority of the mid-range, leaving room for McClelland’s most studied and pern formative singing to date.

ST. LOUIS’ HOTTEST DANCE PARTY

736 S Broadway St. Louis, MO 63102 (314) 621-8811 wed. december 27

URBAN CHESTNUT PRESENTS THE VOODOO PLAYERS TRIBUTE TO JERRY GARCIA 9 PM

thur. december 28

ANNIE AND THE FUR TRAPPERS 10 PM

St. Louis’

#1

Steakhouse 19 Years In A Row! 1998-2017 RFT Readers Restaurant Polls HISTORIC SOULARD

2117 South 12th St. 314-772-5977

SOUTH COUNTY

3939 Union Rd. 314-845-2584

WEST COUNTY

14282 Manchester 636-227-8062

www.TuckersPlaceSTL.com

New Years Eve

sat. december 30

ROBERT KIMBROUGH SR.’S BLUES CONNECTION NORTH MISSISSIPPI BLUES 10pm

sun. december 31

FUNKY BUTT BRASS BAND NEW YEARS EVE SHOW

Funny Hats, Masks & Noise Makers Midnight Champagne Toast & Balloon Drop

10 PM

DJ DAN-C

9 PM - CLOSE

check out

broadwayoysterbar.com

for more details on upcoming shows and events!

NO COVER - NO RESERVATIONS NO PACKAGE ... JUST FUN 2001 MENARD (AT ALLEN) IN THE HEART OF SOULARD LIKE & FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK: @dukesinsoulard

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DECEMBER 27, 2017 - JANUARY 9, 2018

RIVERFRONT TIMES

51

52

OUT EVERY NIGHT

THURSDAY 28 EL MONSTERO: 8 p.m.; Dec. 29, 8 p.m.; Dec. 30,

Peters, 636-441-8300.

[CRITIC’S PICK]

NEW YEAR’S EVE MICHAEL JACKSON DANCE

8 p.m., $27.50-$75. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar

PARTY: w/ Sean Canan’s Voodoo Players 9 p.m.,

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

$15. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis,

JOE METZKA DUO: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues

314-498-6989.

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

NYE AT DAS BEVO: w/ Miss Jubilee, Roya and the

5222.

High Timers 9 p.m., $75. Das Bevo Biergarten,

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

4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521.

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

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

THE MATCHING SHOE: 8 p.m., $7. Old Rock

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

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

TORREY CASEY & SOUTHSIDE HUSTLE: 7 p.m.,

NAKED MIKE: 4 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028

$20. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway,

S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

POKEY LAFARGE: 8 p.m., $20-$22. Off Broadway,

TRUE FRIENDS: 8 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer,

3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

TORREY CASEY & SOUTHSIDE HUSTLE: 10 p.m.,

MONDAY 1

$5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

ANGELHEAD: 7 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer,

Lil Wayne. | JORDAN STRAUSS

FRIDAY 29

3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

BOTTOM BRACKET: w/ PJ Baby, Wake, Reaver 7

AS EARTH SHATTERS: w/ A Dark Orbit, Murder Machine, Dead Medusa, Ton 7 p.m., $8-$10.

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

EL MONSTERO: Dec. 28, 8 p.m.; 8 p.m.; Dec. 30, 8 p.m., $27.50-$75. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

HENHOUSE PROWLERS: 9 p.m., $10-$13. The Bootleg, 4140 Manchester Ave., St. Louis, 314775-0775.

JOE METZKA BAND: 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-4365222.

LIL WAYNE AND MIGOS: 7 p.m., $70-$200.

Chaifetz Arena, 1 S. Compton Ave., St. Louis, 314-977-5000.

POKEY LAFARGE: 8 p.m., $20. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

THE RIVERSIDE WANDERERS: w/ Steph Plant 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

SOUTH CITY SECRET SANTA: 8 p.m., free. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

SATURDAY 30

Lil Wayne and Migos 7 p.m. Friday, December 29.

Chaifetz Arena, 1 South Compton Avenue. $70 to $200. 314-977-5000.

Two titans of the rap world will converge on St. Louis this Friday for ResoLOUtion 2017 at Chaifetz Arena. Lil Wayne, now a decade or so removed from the dizzying heights of his career peak, has retained his smart, free-association style of lyricism as well as his inimitable ten-blunts-a-day vocal delivery, even as his output has stalled thanks to ongoing litigation with his longtime label, Cash Money Records.

Still, Wayne insists the long-delayed Tha Carter V will eventually see the light of day, and in the mean time he has a deep back catalog of hits to pull from.

Migos, meanwhile, is in the midst of a

seemingly endless upward trajectory.

The trio of rappers Quavo, Offset and Takeoff scored a humongous hit with January’s “Bad and Boujee,” which has proven inescapable on commercial radio and was dubbed by no less than Donald Glover — Lando Calrissian himself — “the best song ever.” With even the Force on Migos’ side it is conceivable its members will one day be as pop-icon huge as 2008 Lil Wayne.

Skate or Die: Lil Wayne is an avid skateboarder, and usually finds time to push some wood in the towns where he makes tour stops. Not to blow up the spot too hard, but last time he was in town he popped up at a certain ultra-unique skate park on the city’s north side. Maybe he will again this time?

—Daniel Hill

p.m., $7. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

JOHN MORGAN: 7 p.m., $5-$35. Funny Bone Comedy Club-Westport Plaza, 614 Westport Plaza, Maryland Heights, 314-469-6692.

SOULARD BLUES BAND: 9 p.m., $5. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314621-8811.

THIRD SIGHT BAND: 8 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-4365222.

TUESDAY 2 BUCKET: w/ Mother Meat, Mississippi Surfers 9 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

JAMAICA LIVE TUESDAYS: w/ Ital K, Mr. Roots, DJ Witz, $5/$10. Elmo’s Love Lounge, 7828 Olive Blvd, University City, 314-282-5561.

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

ST. LOUIS SOCIAL CLUB: 8 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314436-5222.

VICTOR RUGGIERO: 8 p.m., $10-$12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

THE BEL AIRS: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-4365222.

314-621-8811.

ERIK BROOKS: 2:30 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s,

WEDNESDAY 3

BOOSIE BADAZZ: 8 p.m., $40-$65. Ambassador,

ROCKY & THE WRANGLERS: 4 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz,

2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

BIG RICH MCDONOUGH & RHYTHM RENEGADES: 9

9800 Halls Ferry Rd, North St. Louis County,

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

JOE DIRTY & THE DIRTY BOYS: 9 p.m., $25-$30.

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

314-869-9090.

436-5222.

The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis,

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

EL MONSTERO: Dec. 28, 8 p.m.; Dec. 29, 8 p.m.;

SPLIT LIP RAYFIELD: w/ Clusterpluck 9 p.m.,

314-726-6161.

THE BODY: w/ Bates, Ra Child, Dave Stone 9

8 p.m., $27.50-$75. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar

$20. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis,

KATT WILLIAMS AND MIKE EPPS: 8 p.m., $62-

p.m., $7. Blank Space, 2847 Cherokee St., St.

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

314-588-0505.

$178. Scottrade Center, 1401 Clark Ave., St.

Louis.

2017 INDIE ARTIST AWARDS & PRE-NEW YEAR’S

YOWIE: 8 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359

Louis, 314-241-1888.

FRESH PRODUCE: THE BEAT BATTLE: first

EVE PARTY: 6 p.m., $15. The Ready Room, 4195

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

LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: 10 p.m., $20. BB’s Jazz,

Wednesday of every month, 9 p.m., free. The

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

Monocle, 4510 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-

436-5222.

935-7003.

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

IVAS JOHN BAND: 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues

SUNDAY 31

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

AFROSEXYCOOL NYE: 9 p.m., $15-$45. The Ready

MY POSSE IN EFFECT: A TRIBUTE TO THE BEASTIE

JET BLACK ALLEY CAT: w/ Captains Courageous,

5222.

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

BOYS: w/ Looprat, DJ Mahf 9 p.m., $20-$25.

The Band Camino, Hardcastle 7 p.m., $10. The

ONE DAY: 6 p.m., $8-$10. The Firebird, 2706

833-3929.

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

Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

BLACK LABEL SOCIETY: 8 p.m., $42-$45. Pop’s

726-6161.

KALI MASI: w/ Red Foreman, Dear Genre 8 p.m.,

ROBERT KIMBROUGH SR.: 10 p.m., $10. Broad-

Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis,

NEW YEAR’S EVE WITH SHIVER: 9 p.m., free.

$5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St.

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

618-274-6720.

Nightshift Bar & Grill, 3979 Mexico Road, St.

Louis, 314-772-2100.

52

RIVERFRONT TIMES

DECEMBER 27, 2017 - JANUARY 9, 2018

riverfronttimes.com

[CRITIC’S PICK]

Fresh Produce Beat Battle 9 p.m. Wednesday, January 3.

The Monocle, 4510 Manchester Avenue. Free. 314935-7003.

The new year is all about making — and occasionally keeping — commitments for self-betterment. Some fade pretty quickly (no, you’re not really going to run five miles a day, especially in January), but others prove a bit less painful. To wit: You’re always intending to see more live music and support upand-coming artists, and the monthly Fresh Produce beat-battle series is a great place to start. Matthew Sawicki (of Suburban Pro Studio) and DJ Who

host this first-Wednesday-of-the-month event, and the format works tournament-style: Eight producers pair off in head-to-head combat, with the eventual winner taking home fame and acclaim. Major 88 Keys walked off with December’s crown, so pop into the Monocle this week and peep the city’s hottest crop of producers and beat-makers; this is a new year’s resolution you’ll be happy to keep.

Boomtown: You can learn more about the competitors and listen to Fresh Produce’s official podcast, Fruit of the Boom, over at freshproducestl.com.

—Christian Schaeffer

MARGARET AND ERIC: 4 p.m., free. Hammer-

SATURDAY 6

stone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

2ND ANNUAL WINTER DISCO: w/ Surco, The

VOODOO NEIL YOUNG: 9 p.m., $10. Broadway

Echo Base Quartet, Brother Francis and the

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

Soultones 8 p.m., $10. The Bootleg, 4140 Man-

621-8811.

chester Ave., St. Louis, 314-775-0775.

THURSDAY 4

DOGS OF SOCIETY: w/ T.J Müller 8 p.m., $12.50-$15. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd.,

BILLY BARNETT BAND: w/ Joe Metzka Band 7

St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

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

THE KAIJU KILLERS: w/ Lysergik, Frago, Name

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

It Now 6 p.m., $8-$10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St,

DANIEL SMITH: 7 p.m., $5. Evangeline’s, 512 N

St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

Euclid Ave, St. Louis, 314-367-3644.

MEMORIES OF ELVIS: w/ Steve Davis & The

DEVIL’S ELBOW: 6 p.m., $7. Blues City Deli, 2438

Midsouth Revival, Rivertown Sound & Dou-

McNair Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-8225.

ble Trouble, Thomas Hickey as Buddy Holly,

J BLISS: 7 p.m., $10-$18. Funny Bone Comedy

Shanna Fredrick as Patsy Cline 7 p.m., $20.

Club-Westport Plaza, 614 Westport Plaza,

The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis,

Maryland Heights, 314-469-6692.

314-726-6161.

JOSHUA REDMAN QUARTET: 7:30 p.m., $36.50.

OUTCOME OF BETRAYAL: w/ Autumn Tint,

Jazz At the Bistro, 634 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis,

Doomed To Burn, Stormrazor, Lights Over

314-534-3663.

Arcadia 6 p.m., $5-$10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St,

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

St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

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

ROCKIN’ CHAIR: Jan. 5, 7 p.m.; 7 p.m., $15-$20.

FRIDAY 5

STALL 3 SATURDAY

UFC 219

K

elly s SATURDAY NIGHT DANCE & KARAOKE

PARTY

314-588-0505.

THAT RAT FEST 2: 9 p.m., $10. The Ready

Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis,

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

314-352-5226.

833-3929.

DO OR DIE TOUR: 8 p.m., $15. Fubar, 3108 Locust

VALLEY: w/ Scuzz, Path Of Might, Beyonder

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

8 p.m., $10. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St.

FASTER PUSSYCAT: w/ Right Quick 8 p.m., $20-

Louis, 314-535-0353.

314-726-6161.

SUNDAY 7

JORDAN BAUMSTARK: w/ Darius Hickman,

THE CINEMA STORY: w/ Forgetting January,

Slambino Upnexx, Armani Abomb, Crashjordy,

Secondary, The Last Stanza, An Unfortunate

Frnklin 8 p.m., $10-$12. The Firebird, 2706

Trend, As We Are 6 p.m., $6-$8. The Firebird,

Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

ROCKIN’ CHAIR: 7 p.m.; Jan. 6, 7 p.m., $15-$20.

COREY HOLCOMB: 7 p.m., $29-$39. Helium Com-

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

edy Club, 1151 St. Louis Galleria Saint Louis

588-0505.

Galleria Mall, Richmond Heights, 314-727-1260.

THE SUEDE CHAIN REUNION: 8 p.m., $10. Off Broad-

GENESIS JAZZ PROJECT: 5 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz,

way, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

ROCK ‘N ROLL WITH

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

AUBURN KISS: w/ Old Hand 9 p.m., $5. The

$25. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis,

NEW YEARS EVE

Continued on pg 54

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NO COVER - NO PACKAGE NO RESERVATIONS

LIKE & FOLLOW US on FACEBOOK @goodtimes.patio.bar DECEMBER 27, 2017 - JANUARY 9, 2018

RIVERFRONT TIMES

53

OUT EVERY NIGHT Continued from pg 53

[CRITIC’S PICK] Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band. | TYLER ZOLLER

Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band 8 p.m. Saturday, December 30.

Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue. $14 to $17. 314773-3363.

Contrary to what a random sample of Pitchfork stringers believe, there’s nothing wrong with respect, and even reverence, for musical traditions. In fact, you can’t transform a tradition without loving it first. Hailing from the Southern wilderness of Indiana, Reverend Peyton has absorbed all manner of stomping, moaning, juke-joint traditions. But in his big, burly embrace, the moonshine blues become an antidote

4140 Manchester Ave., St. Louis, 314-775-0775.

436-5222.

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

LOUDNESS WAR: w/ MFG, Cult Season 9 p.m., $5.

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

The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis,

Blvd, University City, 314-282-5561.

314-328-2309.

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

RIVER CITY OPRY: 1 p.m., $5. Off Broadway, 3509

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

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

WEDNESDAY 10

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

BIG RICH MCDONOUGH & RHYTHM RENEGADES:

MONDAY 8

IN HISTORIC SOULARD

314. 241.019 0 54

RIVERFRONT TIMES

•

G R AV I T Y S T R I N G S . C O M

DECEMBER 27, 2017 - JANUARY 9, 2018

—Roy Kasten

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

Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

1546 S. Broadway

to stuffy studiousness and abject primitivism for primitivism’s sake. He’s also a razor-lethal musician; whether tackling the eternal “Stagger Lee” or leaping from all the branches of hillbilly guitar styles on “Flying Squirrels,” the good Reverend is always bad to the deep blues bone.

Damn That Band: Peyton performs in different formations, and often his “Big Damn Band” is just washboarder Breezy Peyton and/or Max Senteney thumping on a suitcase. As rhythm sections go, they pack a wallop.

9 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

INFERNAL COIL: w/ Faustian Nihilist, Chalked Up

COMPASS IMPROV’: 8 p.m., $5. The Heavy

8 p.m., $7. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway,

Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-

St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

352-5226.

MUSIC UNLIMITED: 8 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues

KRIZZ KALIKO: 8 p.m., $15. Pop’s Nightclub,

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

401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-

5222.

6720.

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

MARGARET AND ERIC: 4 p.m., free. Hammer-

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

stone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-

621-8811.

5565.

TUESDAY 9

RYAN BENTHALL: 7 p.m., $10. Evangeline’s, 512 N Euclid Ave, St. Louis, 314-367-3644.

ADAM NEWMAN: 8 p.m., $10. The Ready Room,

VOODOO CLAPTON: 9 p.m., $10. Broadway

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

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

BEN MILLER BAND: 8 p.m., $10-$13. The Bootleg,

621-8811.

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SAVAGE LOVE QUICKIES

BY DAN SAVAGE Hey, Dan: I have been with my unicorn boyfriend for four months. The sexual chemistry between us is out of this world! I’m a woman who’s very open-minded when it comes to trying new things: I’ve had threesomes and foursomes, tried every toy on the market, done anal sex, BDSM and many other things. He is sexually experienced, but he’s not open-minded. One thing he won’t do is kiss me after I’ve swallowed his load. We’ve been together only four months, so maybe I just need to wait and hope that he’ll come around. Or is there something I can do to get him to try it?

Can’t Unicorn Man Up? If that’s the only thing he won’t do, then he’s pretty adventurous. But if kissing after you’ve swallowed is the only mildly kinky thing you’ve attempted with him and it was a no, he may not be adventurous enough to deserve unicorn status. But I will say this in his defense…

Kissing someone who has just swallowed your load (or snowballing with someone who wants you to swallow your own load) presents a challenge for many men. Some silly straight men worry that tasting their own come will turn them gay or make them look gay — I’ve gotten letters from girlfriends who thought their boyfriends were gay because they were too willing to kiss them after a blowjob. But there are gay men out there who don’t want to deep-kiss the guy who just blew them — and they’re obviously not worried about turning gay (already are) or

seeming gay (ditto). So what gives?

Blame what’s known as the “refractory period,” CUMU. Immediately after a man ejaculates, his dick starts to go soft and he loses all interest in sex — hormones have been released into his bloodstream that short-circuit sexual arousal. Bodily fluids and orifices a man was happily lapping up or at a minute ago are suddenly repulsive, not because the dude is necessarily inhibited or insecure, CUMU, but because he’s having his period — his refractory period.

Hey, Dan: I’ve been seeing this guy who keeps making D/s-ish jokes and moves — he smacks my butt a lot, for example. When I let him know I like it, he’s suddenly not into it. He says it’s “disturbing” that I like what he’s been doing. Two questions: (1) Smacking my butt is okay so long as I don’t want it?

(2) Enjoying what he’s doing makes me a freak?

Joking About Consensual Kinks Two options: (1) He goes in for domineering head games and “playful” violence because he’s abusive and controlling. (2) He’s got kinks, but he hasn’t managed to incorporate his kinks into his sex life in a healthy, consensual manner — and now that he knows you enjoy the same things he does (but you’re healthier about them than he is), he’s projecting his self-loathing onto you. Either way, JACK, you’re going to need to DTMFA. Hey, Dan: You recently said it’s OK to fantasize about other people so long as we keep it to ourselves. Social media and dating apps have given us access to tons of spank material, from that

new crush on OkCupid to the (monogamously) married neighbor you always wanted to bang. In this era, we can see actual pictures of the people we’re fantasizing about more often than not. Facebook stalking for spank bank purposes is fine, but does it cross a line to actually download the pictures for later? I feel like it’s at least a little creepy to be taking screenshots of people’s photos. But as long as you’re the only one using your phone, what’s the practical difference between looking at Facebook and looking at saved screenshots?

Screenshot Porn As New Kontent Keep whatever you want on your phone, SPANK, so long as you keep it to yourself and your phone is password protected.

Hey, Dan: I am a 29-year-old straight woman on the West Coast in a new relationship. My boyfriend and I have just begun exploring anal sex. Question: HOW DO I AVOID POOP LEAKAGE?!?

The first time we had anal sex, my boyfriend came in my ass and then pulled out. Then we decided to go for a run.

(We didn’t think it through, CLEARLY.) A few minutes in, I was leaking all over my pants. In short, GROSS. Obviously it wasn’t a good idea to go for a run afterward (NOTED!), but what can I do in the future immediately after anal to avoid poopy come from leaking out of my butt?

Anal Newbie Avoiding Leakage Yeah, don’t go for a run immediately after anal. Spend a few minutes on the toilet instead — bring your phone, post something to Instagram, let gravity do its thing. And that wasn’t poop leaking out of you on that run, ANAL, it was

55

santorum — “the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex.”

Hey, Dan: No one aroused by BDSM could ever truly love someone, could they?

Violence Isn’t Love, Eh? Of course not, VILE. But only the Duggar girls and Princess Diana’s boys are capable of truly loving someone. The rest of us are just playing.

Hey, Dan: My boyfriend complains that our sex life is too vanilla. I want him to be satisfied, but he won’t tell me what else he wants to do. Recently, he suggested an open relationship. I don’t want to be in an open relationship and I told him as much. But I’m fully open to being more kinky or whatever else he needs. I’ve tried mixing it up, but he just looks at me strangely and asks me to stop whatever I’m doing. Can I do anything to fix this? Any insight would be appreciated.

I’m Not Good At Acronyms He knows what he wants, and he can’t or won’t tell you. Either he can’t because he’s so sexually repressed that he’s incapable of pushing the words out of his mouth, or he won’t because his non-vanilla desires are so extreme as to be deal-breaker-level repulsive to anyone who doesn’t share them.

But complaining about your sex life without elaborating or giving you any constructive feedback at all is disqualifying assholery, INGAA. You’ll also have to DTMFA. mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage on Twitter

STREAK’S CORNER • by Bob Stretch

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S I P P I N’ S M OOTH RYE F R OM THE J A C K D A N I E L D I STI L L E RY

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