Riverfront Times - June 6, 2017

JUNE 7-13, 2017 I VOLUME 41 I NUMBER 23

The

Battle

FOR CHEROKEE

BY NICHOLAS PHILLIPS

FRIDAY, JUNE 16 & S ATURDAY, JUNE 17 RFTSHOWCASE.COM

RIVERFRONTTIMES.COM I FREE

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16 THE DOME AT AMERICA'S CENTER ON SALE MONDAY AT 10AM TICKETS AVAILABLE AT LIVENATION.COM OR CHARGE BY PHONE AT 8007453000

2

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

riverfronttimes.com

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

3

JUNE 8-10

DONNIE BAKER “the bob & tom show”

WORLD FAMOUS COMEDIANS

PREMIUM EVENT SPACE

DAVE ATTELL

JOHN WITHERSPOON

JIM BREUER

“COMEDY UNDERGROUND” JUNE 15-17

“BLACK JESUS” + “FRIDAY” TRILOGY JUNE 22-24

“HALF BAKED” + “SNL” JULY 6-8

laugh. judge. crown the champion.

2 nd

runs throughout june

JOEY DIAZ

JOEL MCHALE

TOM GREEN

“THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE” JULY 13-15

“THE SOUP” + “COMMUNITY” JULY 28-29

“THE TOM GREEN SHOW” AUG 3-5

1151 ST LOUIS GALLERIA ST g ST LOUIS MO 3 1 4 7 2 7 1 2 6 0 g H E L I U M C O M E DY. C O M 4

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

5

THE LEDE

“I have ancestors that were in the Confederacy and the Union, and grandpas that fought in WWII, uncles that fought Vietnam, Korea, a cousin that’s in Iraq right now. It’s a memorial to the vets. That’s what I’m here for; I’m not racist or anything. I’ll fly whatever flag I want.

That’s what America’s about. That’s what my family laid their lives out for.

PHOTO BY THEO WELLING

“I think this has all gone ridiculously too far. Desecrating a monument — I think that’s too far.”

—BRETT ACKERMAN, PHOTOGRAPHED AT THE RALLY TO SAVE THE CONFEDERATE STATUE IN FOREST PARK ON JUNE 3

riverfronttimes.com

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

5

6

TABLE OF CONTENTS FEATURE

12.

The Battle for Cherokee Business is booming on south city’s most dynamic street. But an old problem continues to fester.

Written by

NICHOLAS PHILLIPS Cover Photo

STEVE TRUESDELL

NEWS

CULTURE

DINING

MUSIC

5

27

39

55

The Lede

Calendar

Your friend or neighbor, captured on camera

Seven days worth of great stuff to see and do

9

31

Horses Run Free

Film

A judge said that St. Louis’ taxicab commission cannot regulate horse-drawn carriages.

Now no one’s doing it, reports Danny Wicentowski

Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake earns a rave from Robert Hunt for its sympathetic portrayal of working-class Britons

10

Opera

Shelter Shuffle

Months after the city closed Larry Rice’s shelter, some homeless people say they struggle to find beds

32

The Trial, performed by Opera Theatre St. Louis in its U.S. premiere, demonstrates that opera is where Kafka makes sense, writes Sarah Fenske

36

Books

Evie Hemphill peruses Chavisa Woods’ new story collection, Things to Do When You’re Goth in the Country

6

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

Goose Egg

Still Wild

The Blue Duck goes big in its St. Louis incarnation, but leaves Cheryl Baehr’s tastebuds wanting

Major label success can’t take Alaska out of Portugal. The Man

44

Homespun

Side Dish

60

Evy Dick of Pastaria knows that everything is better with ‘nduja

Grandpa’s Ghost The Carnage Queen I Country of Piss

49

62

New Products

Made in St. Louis, Karuna transforms juice from a sugary eco-hazard to something altogether new

50

Food News

Chef Rick Lewis will open a new spot in the Grove

53

In Memoriam

Cheryl Baehr remembers Larry Lampert, the late pitchmanturned-restaurateur

Out Every Night

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

64

This Just In

This week’s new concert announcements

NULL & CROSSBONES

Real Estate Auction Thur., June 15 at 2:00PM 647 Aqua Ridge Drive

DREADFUL COLLECTABLES

St. Louis, MO

Open House: Sun, June 11, 12-2PM

Publisher Chris Keating Editor in Chief Sarah Fenske

LOCAL AUTHORIZED DAVID GONZALES ART, CLOTHING AND ACCESSORIES DEALER 9319 B MIDLAND • OVERLAND, MO 63114 314-731-NULL

COCO MONTOYA hard truth “Stratocaster-fueled, fierce slash-and-burn guitar work...dramatic, smoldering Southern soul-rooted intensity.

Montoya’s voice is as expressive as his guitar.”

–Washington Post

E D I T O R I A L Arts & Culture Editor Paul Friswold Music Editor Daniel Hill Digital Editor Elizabeth Semko Staff Writers Doyle Murphy, Danny Wicentowski Restaurant Critic Cheryl Baehr Film Critic Robert Hunt Contributing Writers Mike Appelstein, Allison Babka, Sara Graham, Roy Kasten, Jaime Lees, Joseph Hess, Kevin Korinek, Bob McMahon, Nicholas Phillips, Tef Poe, Christian Schaeffer, Mabel Suen, Lauren Milford, Thomas Crone, MaryAnn Johanson, Jenn DeRose Editorial Interns Quinn Wilson, Sara Bannoura

A R T Art Director Kelly Glueck Contributing Photographers Holly Ravazzolo, Mabel Suen, Steve Truesdell, Eric Frazier, Micah Usher, Theo Welling, Corey Woodruff, Tim Lane, Nick Schnelle P R O D U C T I O N Production Manager Brittani Schlager

M U LT I M E D I A A D V E R T I S I N G Sales Director Colin Bell Senior VP Sales & Marketing Mike Lipel Senior Account Executive Cathleen Criswell Multimedia Account Executive Erica Kenney, Jill George, Nicole Starzyk Account Managers Emily Fear, Jennifer Samuel C I R C U L A T I O N Circulation Manager Kevin G. Powers E U C L I D M E D I A G RO U P Chief Executive Officer Andrew Zelman Chief Operating Officers Chris Keating, Michael Wagner Human Resources Director Lisa Beilstein Senior Marketing & Events Director Cassandra Yardeni www.euclidmediagroup.com N A T I O N A L A D V E R T I S I N G VMG Advertising 1-888-278-9866, www.voicemediagroup.com

Auction Held On Site Charming 2BR brick home w/LR & DR combo, kitchen, full bath, walk-out basement and 1 car garage. Corner lot w/2 sheds. Must See! Terms: 6% Buyer’s Premium. $5,000 down day of sale.

Balance due in 30 days.

ADAM’S AUCTION 618-234-8751 LIC#044000169

DID YOU KNOW:

1.3 MILLION PEOPLE READ

S U B S C R I P T I O N S Send address changes to Riverfront Times, 6358 Delmar Blvd., Suite 300, St. Louis, MO 63130. Domestic subscriptions may be purchased for $78/6 months (Missouri residents add $4.74 sales tax) and $156/year (Missouri residents add $9.48 sales tax) for first class.

Allow 6-10 days for standard delivery. www.riverfronttimes.com The Riverfront Times is published weekly

by Euclid Media Group Verified Audit Member Riverfront Times 6358 Delmar Boulevard, Suite 300, St. Louis, MO 63130-4719 www.riverfronttimes.com General information: 314-754-5966 Fax administrative: 314-754-5955 Fax editorial: 314-754-6416

LIVE!

Founded by Ray Hartmann in 1977

Sunday, June 11th at Old Rock House 1200 SOUTH 7th STREET

EACH MONTH

Riverfront Times is available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader. Additional copies of the current issue may be purchased for $1.00 plus postage, payable in advance at the Riverfront Times office. Riverfront Times may be distributed only by Riverfront Times authorized distributors. No person may, without prior written permission of Riverfront Times, take more than one copy of each Riverfront Times weekly issue.

hard truth. Available at alligator.com and other fine retailers GENUINE HOUSEROCKIN’ MUSIC SINCE 1971

The entire contents of Riverfront Times are copyright 2015 by Riverfront Times, LLC. No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part by any means, including electronic retrieval systems, without the expressed written permission of the Publisher, Riverfront Times, 6358 Delmar Blvd., Ste. 300, St. Louis, MO 63130. Please call the Riverfront Times office for back-issue information, 314-754-5966.

riverfronttimes.com

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

7

South City Scooters @ the corner of Connecticut & Morgan Ford

314.664.2737

One Price Shopping $1200

ST. LOUIS’ HOTTEST NEW RETAIL STORE

Includes Scooter, Helmet & Tax

1 Year Parts & 60 Days Labor Warranty Sales & Service

Closed Sunday & Monday Tuesday-Thursday 10 AM - 7 PM • Friday 10AM - 5PM • Saturday 10 AM - 4 PM

Hot Sauce • Sriracha • BBQ Sauce Salsa • Buffalo Sauce • Marinades

Selection of Locally Made and Small Batch Sauces Mild & Flavorful to Insanely Hot!

8205 Gravois Rd. St. Louis MO 63123 314-631-3130

Hours: T-Th 10-7 F 10-8 Sa 9-4 www.midamericaarms.com $200 Merchandise Rebate!

Save Big with Manufacturer Rebates on a Variety of Products

BUY 1 GET 1 FOR HALF OFF

TWO LOCATIONS TO SERVE YOU

Located Inside Our Sister Company Vape - One

half price bottle of equal or lesser value one coupon per visit, expires 6/21/17

4385 Bates Street (At Gravois & Bates) St. Louis, MO 63116 (314)329-8376

1139 Colonnade Center (On Manchester, East of 270) Des Peres, MO 63131 (314) 329-8376

www.Saucy-One.com

10

th

SEASON

ST. LOUIS PUBLIC LIBRARY FREE CONCERT SERIES LIVE ON

OLIVE

Bring your lawn chair, blanket or relax on Central’s front steps. Coolers are welcome! Concerts begin at 7 p.m.*

1301 Olive Street, St. Louis, MO 63103 314-539-0347 I slpl.org

Soul

JUNE 15

Reunion

NSQ! Concert Series is made possible by generous support from:

(Rhythm & Blues)

*In case of severe weather, Live on Olive concerts may be cancelled.

8

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

15549 NSQ SOUL REUNION RFT 1/2 PG AD.indd 1

riverfronttimes.com

5/22/17 11:48 AM

NEWS

9

Judge’s Slap-Down on Horses Leaves Freefor-All Written by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI

O

n May 26, attorney Dan Kolde emailed a fiery complaint to the city of St. Louis and the Metropolitan Taxicab Commission, or MTC. The subject: a horse-drawn carriage he’d spotted clopping along a downtown street during rush hour. Writing on behalf of the St. Louis Animal Rights Team, Kolde noted that the carriage company was violating the MTC’s street codes that specifically prohibit carriages from operating on public streets between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m.

Kolde demanded the city open an investigation and issue a citation. “Frankly,” he wrote, “my client is extremely frustrated and I cannot say that I blame them. For some reason that is lost on me, MTC and the City will not or cannot even enforce the simplest of rules regarding these carriages.”

The frustration felt by Kolde’s client has been building for years.

After a court challenge by the St. Louis Animal Rights Team in 2014, a separate legal agreement with St. Louis city in 2015 formalized the MTC’s regulations on horse carriages. The agreement followed a string of troubling incidents which activists argued were reflective of widespread abuse, including one horse’s tragic death in Tilles Park in 2013. In 2014, the director of the city’s Health Department even tried, unsuccessfully, to banish all horse-drawn carriages from the city.

But a legal challenge by a carriage company operating in the city has put a halt to the MTC’s

For at least six months, horse carriages in St. Louis city and county have operated regulation-free. | PHOTO VIA FLICKR/MITCH BENNETT

involvement. And no one in either St. Louis city or St. Louis County appears to be trying to fill the void.

The MTC hasn’t regulated horsedrawn carriages for six months, and in its absence, no one else has either.

That an industry which uses large animals to pull people around busy streets is unregulated might come as a surprise, particularly if the last thing you read about horse carriages was that a city judge upheld the taxi commission’s September 2016 cease-and-desist order banning Brookdale Farms from operating carriages in the city. The ruling followed allegations that the Eureka-based company violated

taxi commission rules by using unlicensed drivers and illegally working its carriage horses on days when the temperature and humidity crossed the 100-degree threshold.

The company’s ban was widely covered by local media, but everybody (including Riverfront Times) missed what happened little more than a month later: Brookdale Farms challenged the MTC’s cease-and-desist order in St. Louis County Circuit Court — and won.

On October 31, Judge Kristine Kerr stayed further enforcement by the taxi commission, noting simply that its authority under the law covers vehicles using a taximeter. Horse-drawn carriages, she riverfronttimes.com

suggested tersely, are not under its purview.

In response, the MTC quietly decided to stop regulating the horse carriage industry altogether, in both the county and city. While the decision didn’t make headlines last year, the MTC and its lawyers make no secret of it now.

Following Kolde’s May 26 email complaining about a horse carriage operating in downtown during rush hour, MTC attorney Chuck Billings wrote back: “We are under a court order from Judge Kerr in St. Louis County not to enforce the carriage portion of the code.”

In an emailed statement, MTC Continued on pg 11 director Ron

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

9

SHELTER SHUFFLE HAS SOME HOMELESS SEARCHING Bring In This Ad And Receive

$3 OFF MEDIUM BAG

$5 OFF LARGE BAG

of Natural Balance Pet Food Limited to 1 bag. Expires 8/1/17

PET CONNE C TIO N 314-773-7387 2214 S. VANDEVENTER ST. LOUIS, MO 63110 MON-FRI 10AM-6PM SAT-SUN 10AM-4PM

10

RIVERFRONT TIMES

M

ost nights, James Williams just tries to keep moving. “The park closes at ten,” he says. “So I walk the streets all night.”

The 65-year-old has been homeless for about four or five months, ever since his lease ran out and he did not have enough money to keep up payments, he says. Last Thursday, he joined about 150 others north of City Hall in the corner of Kaufman Park, where Rev. Larry Rice and workers from his recently closed homeless shelter handed out bus passes, toiletries, bottles of water and bags of chips.

People here say there are simply not enough beds. The city had promised to find room for those displaced in April when Rice was forced to close New Life Evangelistic Center, the controversial shelter he had operated for more than four decades. Rice lost his occupancy permit in 2015, but persisted for more than two years in staving off shutdown.

When the city finally won its long legal battle against Rice’s operation, municipal leaders opened two 75-bed temporary shelters to fill the vacuum. A makeshift women’s shelter in the 12th and Park recreation center closed on May 23, ahead of a 60-day schedule. Eddie Roth, St. Louis’ director of human resources, says ten of the 60 women and nine kids who were admitted after NLEC closed left on their own. The rest were placed in other shelters before it closed or longterm housing, he says — the city’s ultimate goal.

“Now we’re turning our attention to the guys,” he says.

The city initially set up cots in the St. Louis Weed Control warehouse, but faced a class-action lawsuit from the nonprofit law firm ArchCity Defenders and lawyers from a Saint Louis University Law legal clinic, who argued the conditions were inhumane. The two sides agreed the warehouse would be closed by Monday, although the city says it had always planned to shut it down in June.

As the deadline approached, the city signed a ten-month lease to set up another 75-cot temporary shelter at the former Horizon Club, a vacant drop-in center at the corner of Pine and North 23rd streets. Roth says they’re implementing a six-month

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

James Williams says he walks all night because St. Louis homeless shelters are overcrowded. | DOYLE MURPHY “wind-down” program to guide the men toward more permanent housing. The goal is to cut down the number of people in temporary shelters to zero, or at least drop the population to a size that could be absorbed into Biddle House, a full-service shelter on North 13th Street.

The city has moved toward a housing-first approach to homelessness, a strategy that prioritizes long-term homes over shelters. Biddle, a 98bed facility that opened last year, is lined with offices where an array of service providers work with residents on plans designed to move them off the streets for good.

In the aftermath of NLEC’s closure, the city and a network of agencies focused first on the women and children, Roth says, a project made more difficult because they weren’t sure the privately run shelter was actually closing this time, much less how many people were staying there.

“Winding down the women’s shelter in six weeks I think shows what we’re capable of when we work together,” Roth says.

There are fewer facilities for homeless men, but Roth is optimistic they’ll have similar success in six months.

The city signed a ten-month lease as

a contingency going into the winter months, he says.

Rice, unsurprisingly, remains critical of the city’s strategy. He says more people land on the streets everyday, and it’s disingenuous to talk about decreasing a finite number.

“You took care of that 60 [women and children],” he says. “Great.

What about the other 60 that become homeless?”

Ann Perryman, 49, had stayed at NLEC before it closed. She says she never heard about the temporary shelter run by the city, and overcrowding at other facilities left her with few options.

“When they closed, I just got me a tent,” she says.

Overcrowding at the shelters is a major problem, according to people at the park on Thursday. Williams says he has waited in line for hours at Biddle House, only to see all the available spots evaporate before he could land one. He carries around a folded note from a doctor, describing his medical ailments and need for emergency housing. But it doesn’t do him any good if there aren’t enough beds.

“I don’t get it,” he says. “I don’t get the whole system. I don’t get it, man.”

—Doyle Murphy

HORSES Continued from pg 9 Klein defended the agency’s pullback, citing Judge Kerr’s order.

“We believe the City and the county do have the authority to enforce their own ordinances, and we believe they may legally delegate some of that authority to MTC,” Klein writes. “The subject is being litigated. The judge has stayed the MTC’s enforcement of the ordinances.”

There’s no telling what further litigation might bring, but neither the city or the MTC appear to be rushing to resolve the issue. (It’s possible the MTC could find itself paying damages to Brookdale Farms for the attempted enforcement action stayed by Judge Kerr.)

For now, though, the ambiguity has put government o cials in a tough position. Koran Addo, spokesman for Mayor Lyda Krewson, tells RFT that the city’s Health Department continues to uphold its side of the 2015 “memorandum of understanding” signed with the MTC. But that agreement only covers health inspections on stables and checks on horses’ health.

“The Health Department doesn’t have any authority to regulate horse carriages,” Addo says. “As far as the regulation the taxi commission is supposed to be doing, the city is trying to work something out. Right now things are in limbo.”

To Jerry Kirk, who’s run Brookdale Farms for more than 30 years, the legal squabbles between animal rights activists, the MTC and local governments are little more than noise, signifying few actual limitations on his business.

“The taxicab commission wanted us to knuckle under. We said no,” Kirk tells RFT. “We went to court, and a judge said right away that they’ve got no leg to stand on.”

Indeed, despite the bad press over the MTC’s attempt to ban his business, Kirk simply ignored MTC’s cease-desist-order and now says that he never considered tweaking how his carriages operated.

“Nothing has changed with the way we do business,” he says.

At this point, aside from filing paperwork showing yearly veterinary checkups have been performed and allowing city health inspectors to look at the horse stables, Kirk insists Brookdale Farms doesn’t owe regulators anything.

It’s functioning safely as a self-regulated business, and he says he doesn’t need outside agencies enforcing requirements for commercial liability insurance, vehicle inspections, background checks or driver training.

“This is something all the companies have always done. The companies take care of training its drivers, they teach them everything,” says Kirk. He maintains that Brookdale Farm’s safety and training policies are either equal or more stringent than what MTC’s

street codes required.

“The taxi commission wasn’t involved with training or anything to do with the drivers,” Kirk adds.

“All they did was collect money from the drivers. It had nothing to do with being accountable.”

Trusting companies like Brookdale Farms to keep horses safe, though, sounds to animal rights activists like a fox being commissioned to run a hen-house. Without enforcement on the table — and the possibility of consequences for violating the rules — Kolde and

riverfronttimes.com

the St. Louis Animal Rights Team believe it’s only a matter of time before another tragedy strikes.

“This is an industry which has benefited for years from a lack of regulatory enforcement,” Kolde says. He points out that temperatures are expected to spike next weekend, posing a possible danger to the horses forced to ferry couples and visitors for hours on end.

“That is just wrong,” he says.

“The public and the horses den serve better.”

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

11

Cherokee Street has become the city’s creative hub.

But rising crime in the surrounding neighborhoods remains a big frustration. | STEVE TRUESDELL

12

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

The

Battle

FOR CHEROKEE Business is booming on south city’s most dynamic street. But an old problem continues to fester

BY NICHOLAS PHILLIPS

Y

ou can tell how long someone has lived in the Cherokee neighborhood by how they pronounce the street name. Newcomers punch the first syllable (as in “CHER-o-kee”). Lifers tend to lean on the back end (“cher-o-KEE”).

Francis Rodriguez is a lifer. A restaurateur and artist with wintry stubble, Rodriguez has spent most of his 58 years on Cherokee and the surrounding grid of “state streets.” He watched the area flourish in his youth, then hollow out by the 1990s. Now he is a pillar of its remarkable turnaround — a movement of which he is fiercely protective, especially lately.

Rodriguez embodies Cherokee’s idiosyncrasy. Despite his Latino surname, he speaks no Spanish, but understands some German, having spent time in Europe as a child. His paternal ancestors were the native Yaqui people of Mexico.

That explains why, when he quit teaching biology at Gateway High School to launch a wood-fired pizza joint on Cherokee in 2014, he named it “Yaquis.”

Rodriguez is a kinetic man. He is quick to erupt in anger and just as quick to apologize. While many neighbors his age lean conservative, Rodriguez leans left. His pizzeria has emerged as an informal hub of progressive politics on the city’s south side. It’s where revelers at the Cinco de Mayo festival have bludgeoned piñatas of Donald Trump, and where former rapper Bruce Franks, Jr. stood atop the bar to celebrate his underdog win in last summer’s statehouse race.

Liberal bona fides aside, Rodriguez is also a product of a rough-and-tumble ethos. He has zero patience for delinquency, and has been known to chase down purse-snatchers and to brandish a .22-caliber handgun in self-defense.

“Growing up in this area breeds a certain kind of toughness,” he says.

But even he wasn’t prepared for what occurred in the wee hours of Sunday, April 30.

Rodriguez lives above Yaquis with his wife, Beckie Lewis, and their daughter, now eighteen months old. Shortly before 1 a.m. on that date, he heard a commotion on the street below. Half a block east, the nightclub 2720 had just hosted a free eighteen-and-up EDM show. Scores of patrons were spilling out. An argument flared.

Rodriguez decided to get dressed and check on his staff.

After lacing up his second shoe, he heard a loud BANG just outside. Then gunshots cracked up and down the street.

He raced to the rear of the apartment, where Lewis was Continued on pg 14 now awake and trying to shield the riverfronttimes.com JUNE 7-13, 2017 RIVERFRONT TIMES

13

CHEROKEE Continued from pg 13 baby on the floor. He rushed downstairs to Yaquis. Patrons were taking cover. At the entrance, a woman attempting to flee the gunfire got stuck in the doorway. Rodriguez pulled her in, then locked the front door.

And then, he remembers, he went into “a blind rage.” He stalked out the back door and onto Iowa Avenue, where the crowd was scattering and shell casings littered the pavement.

It was over. At least 60 rounds had been fired — most, apparently, into the air. They were so loud, people heard them from a mile away. While nobody died, two went to the hospital with injuries, and one taco truck was left with a shattered window.

After the police arrived, Rodriguez walked back upstairs to take a breather. He stepped into his bathroom. He vomited. Neither he nor his wife slept the rest of that night.

He became more convinced than ever that Cherokee’s bars and clubs were no place for minors — and he couldn’t wait to give the local busi14

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

ness association a piece of his mind.

“I know I’m a bully,” he says. “I try to work against my darker nature. But when I have to put my baby on the floor, you motherfuckers are going to listen to me.”

Over the past nine months, Cherokee Street — ground zero for the city’s DIY art and nightlife scene — has suffered a rash of violence. The effect has been sobering. Those who brought about the street’s cultural and political flowering did so organically, without a master plan or much interest from City Hall. But their work required a fertile soil of cheap real estate, which came mixed in with poverty and crime. They knew it was a tough place, but with investment, might get better. Now that crime is on the rise, Cherokee denizens want to protect what they’ve grown — but they’ll have to make peace among themselves first.

It’s not merely that stakeholders disagree on whether to address crime with a hard or soft approach — that is, incarceration versus conversation.

There are also personal rifts that linger from the old political order being

Beckie Lewis and Francis Rodriguez own two businesses on Cherokee. They were horrified by an April 30 shooting. | KELLY GLUECK

1 ISRAELI BOX OFFICE HIT

#

A GRIPPING

“

MYSTERY THRILLER – S TEPHEN DALTON, THE HOLLY WOOD REPORTER

38TH ANNUAL ST. LOUIS PRIDEFEST SOLDIERS MEMORIAL • DOWNTOWN ST. LOUIS

JUNE 23 - 25, 2017

” .

PROFOUNDLY

“

MOVING – ALISSA SIMON, VARIE T Y

” .

SUGGESTED $5 DONATION A FILM BY AVI NESHER

INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY

ORION PICTURES AND SAMUEL GOLDWYN FILMS PRESENT A BLEIBERG ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTATION A METRO COMMUNICATIONS / ARTOMAS COMMUNICATIONS / ARS VERITAS PRODUCTIONS / SUNSHINE FILMS PRODUCTION “PAST LIFE” A FILM BY AVI NESHER NELLY TAGAR JOY RIEGER DORON TAVORY EVGENIA DODINA TOM AVNI RAFAEL STACHOWIAK MULI SHULMAN CO-STARRING KATARZYNA GNIEWKOWSKA GILAT ANKORY ORNA ROTBERG LENNY COHEN AVI KORNICK KEREN TZUR ARIE TCHERNER MUSIC BY CYRILLE AUFORT ADDITIONAL ORIGINAL MUSIC ELLA MILCH-SHERIFF AVNER DORMAN SOUND DESIGN GIL TOREN MIX GRAHAM DANIEL COSTUME DESIGNER INBAL SHUKI EDITOR ISAAC SEHAYEK PRODUCTION DESIGNER EYTAN LEVI DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY MICHEL ABRAMOWICZ AFC CO-PRODUCERS ELLA MILCH-SHERIFF ELAD NAGGAR PRODUCERS DAVID M. MILCH DAVID SILBER MOSHE EDERY LEON EDERY RUTH CATS AVI NESHER WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY THIS FILM WAS PRODUCED WITH THE SUPPORT OF THE ISRAEL FUND FOR FILM PRODUCTION

SUPPORTS: PRIDECENTER • SCHOLARSHIP OUTREACH • EDUCATION FESTIVAL

AVI NESHER

PRIDEFEST 2017 IS PRESENTED BY

EXCLUSIVE ENGAGEMENT

STARTS FRIDAY, JUNE 9TH LANDMARK THEATRES

PLAZA FRONTENAC CINEMA 210 PLAZA FRONTENAC (314) 994-3733 ST. LOUIS

St. Louis Front Times Wednesday, 6/7 1colg(2.19)x7

swept aside by younger upstarts.

Some of this is the inevitable result of gentrification, the process by which a once-abandoned neighborhood gets renewed. Yet on these blocks, textbook dichotomies don’t hold.

Nothing is as simple as old versus young, black versus white, or wealthy versus poor. Cherokee has become a complex web of personalities, all trying to pull their neighborhood to safer ground. They’re just not pulling in the same direction.

F

rancis Rodriguez has no direct memory of the grand sweep of Cherokee’s past — how it grew from a grazing pasture in the 1800s to a commercial strip a century later.

He never saw the electric streetcars rolling past Woolworth’s after World War I, nor did he get to hear a young Frank Sinatra croon at the Casa Loma Ballroom in 1939.

But Rodriguez, born in 1958, did witness the tail end of that boom. He sold Globe-Democrat newspapers at crowded taverns in the late 1960s.

He also participated in the tit-for-tat

of old-school ward politics: His family helped campaign for local alderman Louis “Uncle Louie” Buckowitz, who in turn helped Rodriguez land a lifeguard job at public pools.

By the time Rodriguez graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1977, deindustrialization and white flight were draining American cities. Cherokee Street was not spared. East of Jefferson Avenue, some antique merchants managed to stay afloat. On the west side, most storefronts went dark, save the odd pharmacy or head shop selling bongs to suburban teens.

Crack use, alcoholism and homelessness became common. Things got bleak enough that even Rodriguez himself moved to Crestwood in 1993 and stayed there for many years.

But in the early aughts, there was a quiet rebirth. Hispanic entrepreneurs trickled in to sell groceries and tacos.

Developers found architectural gems of red brick and restored them. Poor young artists, meanwhile, took advantage of low rents to set up galleries and play loud guitars.

Over the course of a decade, Continued on pg 16 the steady riverfronttimes.com

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

15

CHEROKEE Continued from pg 15

BOULEVARD STORE CLOSING SALE

UP TO 90% OFF GOING ON NOW* THE BOULEVARD #18 • RICHMOND HEIGHTS, MO 63117

stream of energy, dollars and foot traffic rose into a wave. In 2013, Cherokee saw 23 new establishments open. The next year, 22 followed, with 25 more in 2015 and an additional sixteen in 2016 — a total of 86 new businesses and nonprofits in just four years.

Among them was Yaquis, opened

by Rodriguez, his wife and a third partner, Joe Timm, in 2014. Last September the trio opened a burger-slinging dive bar called the B-Side down the block. Rodriguez has poured most of his finances into these ventures — one reason among many he is so concerned about crime.

A SOLA TOP • FLINT WRAP

BRENDA DRESS • DELANCY HAT

FOR OUR NEW SPRING AND SUMMER ARRIVALS PLEASE CHECK OUT OUR EXISTING TOWN AND COUNTRY LOCATION

Ciggfreeds

liquid & lace

ST. LOUIS’ NEWEST ADULT BOUTIQUE VA P E S U P P L I E S

LINGERIE

A D U LT N O V E LT I E S

PLUS SIZES

6 8 3 9 G R A V O I S • S T. L O U I S , M O 6 3 1 1 6 M O N D A Y - S AT U R D A Y 1 1 A M - 1 0 P M 314-300-8750 • CIGGFREEDS@GMAIL.COM G E T I N TO U C H W I T H U S O N FAC E B OO K ‘ C I G G F R E E D S S T L ’ O R V I E W O U R G A L L E R Y AT W W W . C I G G F R E E D S . C O M

16

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

ccording to an RFT analysis of police data, there was a six percent increase citywide in reported “person crimes” (robberies, assaults, rapes and homicides) from 2012 through 2016. But in the four neighborhoods surrounding Cherokee Street — Gravois Park, Benton Park West, Benton Park and Marine Villa — that increase was 53 percent. And so far this year, such reports are up by a quarter over last year.

The bulk of these incidents have occurred in the state streets. Last September, the Post-Dispatch reported on groups of youths roving Gravois Park attacking people, sometimes at random. On September 25, nearly a dozen people mobbed 37-year-old Rob Ludwig and his girlfriend after she attempted to intervene in the harassment of a young neighbor. They both had to be hospitalized; Ludwig suffered a brain bleed, two black eyes and even a blackened tongue.

The violence occasionally spills onto Cherokee proper. Online police maps show that 24 violent crimes, mostly assaults, have occurred on the street itself in the last six months.

Just steps off the main drag, two incidents even made the news. In October, a 64-year-old Vietnamese shopkeeper recovering from cancer was brutally mugged in an alley behind Cherokee while taking an afternoon walk. He ended up in critical condition. Then, on March 21, a man was shot in the shoulder at Cherokee and California Avenue during an apparent robbery.

Rodriguez was at Yaquis that night.

He saw the police SUVs and walked up to the scene. He noticed with irritation how a streetlight was out, and how the property just north of the intersection lay in shadow. With his cell phone, he made a video, which he uploaded to Facebook under a caption decrying “absentee landlords.”

“Look at this,” he says in the clip, showing the dark lot. “No lights on....

I’m sick and tired of these people who own property down here and put as at peril. They need to take care of their shit down here.”

He didn’t know yet who owned the property. When he found out, his anger swelled.

T

he political winds have shifted abruptly on Cherokee Street: In just two years, voters have ousted three incumbent Democratic committee members, one state representative and two aldermen.

The latter change was key. If a city ward is a fiefdom, the alderman is its lord. He is the liaison to city services and can make life easy — or hard — for entrepreneurs. Cherokee Street has the misfortune of serving as a border between wards.

For more than a decade, that meant that in the central blocks, the north side of the street was repreContinued on pg 18 sented by 9th

Kaveh Razani manages 2720, which has come under fire for its all-ages policies. | MABEL SUEN

WHERE THERE’S CHOICE,

THERE’S HOPE.

Abortion Care Up to 24 Weeks Appointments are available this week.

Most women need only one visit.

Ask for student discount.

618-451-5722 | HOPECLINIC.COM We’re renovating, so everything must go!

ST. LOUIS BLUES

SUMMER SALE

& OPEN HOUSE SATURDAY, JUNE 10 NOON - 5PM at SCOTTRADE CENTER EQUIPMENT

Jazmon Garrett and Devin Jackson work the Cherokee beat. The St. Louis cops are working to build trust with residents. | STEVE TRUESDELL

Snag new and used gear from one of your favorite players! Items include sticks, gloves, skates, helmets, practice jerseys and more.*

MERCHANDISE

Get as much as 75% off team store items and 50% off Winter Classic merchandise! Promotional and community items from past seasons will also be sold.

BUILDING SIGNAGE AND FURNITURE

Own a piece of our building’s history.

Take home section signs, player photos, bar stools, tables and chairs to add to your fan cave!*

TICKET PLAN

OPEN

HOUSE

Check out seats available for 2017-18 Full Season tickets, or place a deposit on a Partial Plan to secure priority to select your seat.

314-622-BLUE // stlouisblues.com * Individuals will be limited on the number of items that may be purchased in certain categories.

No broker sales.

riverfronttimes.com

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

17

HURT & NOT SURE WHERE TO TURN?

ALEXANDER A. WOLFF

“The Cherokee Beach,” a weekends-only pop-up bar erected this spring, exemplifies the neighborhood’s creative spirit. | STEVE TRUESDELL

ATTORNEY AT LAW • 314-584-4105

I handle auto, truck, motorcycle, and bicycle crashes, slip & falls and product liability cases.

Free consultation, no obligation.

The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements. This disclosure is required by rule of the Supreme Court of Missoui.

WHATEVER MAKES YOU FEEL SEXY Waxing & Vajazzling Services • Lingerie • Panties Sleepwear & Loungewear for Women Sizes X-Small - 3X • Girls Night Out Wedding Showers • Bachelorette Parties • Non-Profit Events • Private Parties

* * * * * * * * *COME * * *IN* FOR * * *A* * * * * * * * * $25 GIFT CARD!

Toward Your Wax Visit or Purchase Over $75

************************* 6635 DELMAR IN THE LOOP • ST. LOUIS, MO 63130

314.833.3598 • PRETTIKATBOUTIQUE.COM • TUESDAY-SATURDAY 12-8PM

18

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

CHEROKEE Continued from pg 16 Ward Alderman Ken Ortmann, while much of the south side fell under 20th Ward Alderman Craig Schmid.

Both have been replaced by younger candidates.

The first domino to fall was Schmid.

An attorney by trade, he was considered by many to be an assiduous caretaker, but also risk-averse and uneasy around Cherokee’s weirder element. Challenged in the 2007 primary by artist Galen Gondolfi, Schmid and/or his allies sent voters a mailer linking Gondolfi to “communists, socialists, anarchists, vandals and graffiti ‘artists.’” (In the old Cherokee, those words were slurs; today, they might describe your barista.)

Schmid and Ortmann “had the best of intentions,” says Randy Vines, who with his twin brother Jeff opened the Style House apparel store on Schmid’s part of Cherokee in 2010.

“When they were elected, their sole goal was to preserve livability in a time of steep decline. But the hallmark of urban neighborhoods is they evolve. You cannot protect them from everybody and everything.”

Schmid, for example, had long kept a moratorium on new bars. Under pressure, he lifted it in 2009, but lasted just one more term before losing in 2015 to Cara Spencer, a business analyst backed by the district’s influ-

ential business association. Spencer rescued the Marquette Pool from a summer closure in her first few months, took on the payday lending industry and is even threatening a lawsuit over the city’s plan to pay for $138 million of renovations at Scottrade Center. Her supporters point to her as proof that it’s possible to take on the political establishment and win.

Others followed her lead: Last September, business owner (and Ferguson protester) Bruce Franks Jr., took down the neighborhood’s longtime state representative, Penny Hubbard.

Then in March, Dan Guenther, a pony-tailed organizer with the Benton Park Neighborhood Association, bested Ortmann in the 9th Ward.

Ortmann, whose family owns a Soulard dive bar, is a former U.S. Marine and classic south-city pol. Still smarting from his loss in May, he suggests he’s been a victim of the street’s very success.

“The millennials don’t want to give me credit,” he says. “I don’t think they care how [Cherokee] got there, they weren’t there through the hard times and the development that got done.”

The area’s crime problem was very much on Ortmann’s mind. Before losing the election, he used ward funds that he’d squirreled away to buy a $437,000 system of high-tech police security cameras at ten different intersections in the 9th Ward, including

at two spots on Cherokee.

The cameras, which recognize license plates, help police quickly spot stolen cars — and apprehend their drivers. They’re already active downtown, but they’ll be something new for Cherokee. He expects them to start arriving next month. But Ortmann’s project drew some grumbling online from younger residents, who worry about heavy-handed policing and its impact on young black residents.

Schmid, too, is finding part of his legacy under fire. It turns out that the “absentee landlord” who failed to light the old bank property at Cherokee and California — the landlord against whom Francis Rodriguez railed on Facebook — was the Gravois Park Neighborhood Association. And its members had acquired that property thanks to a sweetheart deal from Schmid.

According to a spokeswoman for the city’s Land Reutilization Authority (LRA), it was common in the mid-aughts for aldermen to acquire distressed properties using federal Community Development Block Grant funds, then gift those properties to constituents who promised to develop them. It was a way to subsidize renewal — or at least, that was the theory.

But renewal is not what happened at the old bank property.

Schmid did not return calls seeking comment. But the record shows that, in 2005, as part of a broader devel-

opment plan for the area, Schmid used $20,000 in federal block grant funds to enable the LRA to buy the old Jefferson Heritage Bank property. He then arranged for the LRA to give it to his allies in the neighborhood association, a nonprofit that agreed in writing to “repair, fence and landscape [it] for [a] community center and retail facility.” If they failed to do so within a year, the city reserved the right to reclaim the property.

A year went by, and the city never took it back. So from that point on, the association has owned it, free and clear. And today, even though it sits in the heart of a thriving commercial strip, the association has done very little with it.

According to city records, only one merchant has occupied the retail space, and only for a few years. The adjacent parking lot is nearly always chained off. Its drains have clogged, causing giant puddles to form after hard rain. Last autumn, neighbors complained to Alderwoman Spencer that criminals were taking advantage of the lot’s darkness. She emailed the association’s officers, concerned about the lack of “significant lighting.”

“I am hoping you can update me on future plans for the site and perhaps a meeting with all involved can help us get on the same page,” Spencer wrote.

Ten minutes later, she received Continued on pg 20 a reply from riverfronttimes.com

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

19

CHEROKEE Continued from pg 19

-

BOWLING THE WAY IT USED TO BE!

100 YEARS OF GREAT TIMES! FULL BAR

BAR

P O O L TA B L E S

&

GRILL

P R I V AT E P A R T I E S

P R I V AT E R E N TA L S

2725 SUTTON BLVD. (DOWNTOWN MAPLEWOOD) (314) 645-5308 • SARATOGALANES.COM

-

3821 LINDELL BLVD. (INSIDE MOOLAH TEMPLE) (314) 6446-6866 • MOOLAHLANES.COM

V I S I T O U R W E B S I T E S TO S I G N U P F O R A F R E E G A M E O F B O W L I N G !

OFFICE SPACE

AVAILABLE Minutes from downtown

Warehouse space available

314 • 268 • 1262 • Potential build to suit • Security badge access • Secured parking • • Cafeteria on-site • 20

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

Shirley Wallace. In the group’s filings, Wallace is listed as treasurer, with an address of 2100 Cherokee. However, she doesn’t own the antique business located there, much less the building it’s in. In fact, public records show that Wallace is a St. Charles resident who owns no property or business in the neighborhood. Still, for more than a decade, she has continued to show up on Cherokee Street to oppose the newcomers at every turn — including Alderwoman Spencer.

Referring to the old bank property, Wallace wrote: “There has never been an incident there in more than ten years.... Significant lighting is not necessary. Our future plans are not your concern and do not require a meeting.”

After the March 17 shooting, Spencer again emailed members of the association, and again, Wallace rebuffed her.

“There is a lot of empty property in the 20th ward part of Cherokee that could use your help,” Wallace wrote.

“We are doing just fine.”

In the weeks that followed, though, the association quietly responded to its neighbors’ concerns. They painted over graffiti, and set up a timed lighting system in the lot.

Secretary Dale Sweet acknowledges to the RFT that the property “has been a little under-utilized,” and that they’ve discussed finding another retail tenant. But he insists it’s their choice to make, adding, “America still has private property rights.”

Gravois Park Neighborhood Association is a holdout from the days of Old Cherokee. It’s not as young or dynamic as its nearby analogues, but it’s not a shell organization either. Its members meet every month in the old bank office. They participate in National Night Out and a mentoring program through the city’s juvenile court system. City records show they pay their property taxes.

Yet they also claim to speak for the neighborhood — for example, by making community impact statements in criminal cases. And they do that without ever holding open elections.

(Both Wallace, the treasurer, and the new president, Daniel Petty, declines to speak to RFT.) In 2016, frustration over their closed elections even led to the creation of an offshoot Gravois Park group. It has since dissolved.

The group’s isolation is not just cultural. The property that has everyone riled up actually lies in Benton Park West, not Gravois Park, and thanks to redistricting, it’s no longer even part of the 20th Ward. It has become

At least 86 new businesses have been formed on the street in the last four years. | STEVE TRUESDELL

a physical symbol of everything that upsets Cherokee’s new guard about the old one. They see it as a stubborn “no” in a neighborhood of “yes.” Some even see it as publicly subsidized land speculation.

Abigail Vargas’ family owns La Vallesana next door. Their corner eatery has grown from a small popsicle hut in 2003 to a large restaurant with two patios and a gazebo. She remembers asking the association twice about buying the bank property, but they told her it’s not for sale.

“If they don’t have a plan or something in mind, a lot of other people probably do,” she says. In the meantime, she too expresses concern about criminals using the bank lot as an escape route. “They can hide back there.”

Three weeks after the March 21 shooting, Francis Rodriguez and his wife Beckie Lewis attended the association’s April meeting with some friends. They broached the topic of Continued on pg 22 lighting in the

IN LOVING MEMORY OF THE LIVES LOST IN ORLANDO THIS FATEFUL DAY, ONE YEAR AGO JUNE 12, 2016

Dan Guenther and Cara Spencer toppled long-time members of the Board of Aldermen to win their seats. | STEVE TRUESDELL

riverfronttimes.com

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

21

DIANE LANE ARNAUD VIARD AND ALEC BALDWIN “A DELICIOUS ROMANTIC BON BON. DIANE LANE IS IRRESISTIBLE.” -Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE

PARIS CAN WAIT a film by

ELEANOR COPPOLA

WWW.SONYCLASSICS.COM

NOW PLAYING

ST. LOUIS HI-POINTE THEATRE 1005 McCausland Ave (314) 995-6273

ST. LOUIS LANDMARK PLAZA FRONTENAC CINEMA 210 Plaza Frontenac (314) 994-3733

VIEW THE TRAILER AT WWW.PARISCANWAIT.COM 4.55" X 2"

dining

ST. LOUIS RIVERFRONT TIMES DUE MON 12PM

WED 6/07

read more at

RIVERFRONTTIMES.COM

CHEROKEE Continued from pg 21 Artist: (circle one:) Emmett Heather Ronnie

AE: (circle one:) Carrie Jane

Steve

Maria

Josh Tim

ART APPROVED AE APPROVED CLIENT APPROVED

Confirmation #:

New 2017 Tacoma SR5 Double Cab 4x4 V6

New 2017 4 Runner SR5 Premium 4x4 V6

MSRP $35,142 • STOCK #30419

MSRP $40,068 • STOCK #30500

$33,404

$37,891

New 2017 Highlander XLE V6 AWD 7 Passenger

$38,674 MSRP $41,328 • STOCK #30461

EXP. 7/5/17 *WITH APPROVED CREDIT. EXCLUDES TAX, TITLE LICENSE + 199 ADMIN FEE.

22

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

lot.

“Our biggest problem as a business owner is crime,” said Lewis. “We walk around here. There are no lights.

This is a parking lot where people feel safe to deal drugs.”

True or not, there was an undercurrent of political tension in her words.

The neighborhood association had aligned with Schmid. Newer business owners like Lewis and Rodriguez had backed Spencer. So when Lewis segued from the topic of crime into questions about the association’s funding, the exchange got heated.

“We lost our temper and the meeting just fell apart,” Rodriguez said later. “You could see they weren’t listening and they weren’t going to move off center.”

O

ne of the thorniest security questions in this neighborhood is how much to involve the cops.

“We have a love-hate relationship with the police on Cherokee,” says Anne McCullough, a spokeswoman for the business association, which is now controlled by the newcomers.

In some ways, the link with law enforcement is as strong as ever: 3rd District Captain Shawn Dace has brought back a pair of officers anchored to the street, even amidst staffing shortag-

es. He says they have made inroads with local kids and helped some folks feel more comfortable speaking to the authorities (which may have contributed to the rise in reported incidents).

Yet some prefer to bypass the police. Cherokee resident Julia Ho, who is the founder of Solidarity Economy St. Louis, has advocated for a restorative justice program. In that scenario, people who commit low-level offenses could acknowledge their misdeeds and make amends outside the court system.

The idea found backers: the Cherokee Street Business Association voted to support it last fall, and even the court’s juvenile division said it was on board. But a March 2017 launch date came and went; Ho says the project is on the backburner for lack of funding.

In any case, Ho believes Cherokee cannot police its way out of entrenched problems. For her, crime is a symptom of poverty, and “safety” has different meanings for different people. To a new shopkeeper, “safety” might mean threats on the sidewalk.

But a block off the main drag, “safety” might describe the threat of rising rents.

McCullough agrees that newcomers to Cherokee should adopt a broad view — and temper expectations.

“While things can feel very personal, especially when gunshots are happening outside of your window, people need to recognize that gunshots

Yaquis has become an unofficial hub for the city’s progressives. | STEVE TRUESDELL

38TH ANNUAL ST. LOUIS PRIDEFEST SOLDIERS MEMORIAL • DOWNTOWN ST. LOUIS

JUNE 23 - 25, 2017

have been happening outside of windows in this neighborhood for twenty years,” she says. “It’s disheartening for them to make it about them, and not about what they’re moving into.

It’s not an easy fix.”

But the crime doesn’t come solely from people living in the neighborhood. In some cases, opportunists from elsewhere come to prey on unsuspecting Cherokee customers. And venues that allow an all-ages crowd make some neighbors nervous.

Kaveh Razani, who has been managing 2720 for the last year and a half (and Blank Space before that) welcomes teenagers to Cherokee. “I reject the notion that this street is for people above the age of 21,” Razani says.

Ever since bullets flew outside 2720 on April 30, he has had to defend his business practices. While Razani does feel responsible for security inside his clubs, he says he can’t control what happens out on the street.

Down the block at Yaquis, Rodriguez disagrees. A career teaching high school convinced him, he says, that kids mature greatly between 18 and 21. Enforcement can’t be 100 percent, indoors or on the street, so allowing teens close proximity to liquor is just courting disaster.

Rodriguez went to the Cherokee Station Business Association Meeting on May 18 to make himself heard.

That evening, about 75 people gathered on the second floor of Nebula Co-working at Cherokee and Jefferson. In a humid event space scented with re-finished hardwood floors, the board addressed a crowd composed of dozens of shopkeepers, residents, two aldermen, one police captain, two dogs, and one baby.

For two hours, they hashed out what happened, how it felt, and possible fixes. One young woman fought back tears as she recalled the storm of bullets.

Seated at the back of the room, Rodriguez took his turn to speak.

But when others jumped in, he grew frustrated and demanded more time.

He began to bicker with three women across the room before losing his temper, shouting and leaving in a huff (followed by a door slam).

And that wasn’t even the finale.

At the end of the meeting, Pat Brannon, the proprietor of Casa Loma, raised hackles.

“I get asked to have rap shows,” he said. “But I turn them down.” He said rap promoters were not ideal business associates, and on top of that, “I know the type of person that’s gonna come in. They’re not gonna respect the Casa Loma.”

Incredulous, Razani interrupted him: “Can I address the room? Do I need to respond to this?”

Meanwhile, Pacia Anderson sat at Continued on pg 24 one of the tall

SUGGESTED $5 DONATION SUPPORTS: PRIDECENTER • SCHOLARSHIP OUTREACH • EDUCATION FESTIVAL

PRIDEFEST 2017 IS PRESENTED BY

riverfronttimes.com

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

23

P R E S E N T E D BY

PLEASE DRINK R E S P O N S I B LY

FRIDAY KICK-OFF EVENT ATOMIC COWBOY PAVILION

4140 Manchester 8 PM ........................................................... THOR AXE 9 PM ................................................ARSHAD GOODS 10 PM ..................................................... SLEEPY KITTY THE BOOTLEG 4140 Manchester 7:30PM ................................................. BERRY BARBIE 8:30PM ................................................ SLEEPY RUBIES 9:30 PM ............................................. SPACETRUCKER 10:30 PM ....................................................... J’DEMUL 11:30 PM ..................................................THE GORGE 12:30 AM .................................................. SHITSTORM 1:30 AM................................................. BUG CHASER DJ BOOTH INSIDE ATOMIC COWBOY 4140 Manchester 11 PM - 1 AM .................................18ANDCOUNTING 1 AM - CLOSE .............................................NEBULOSA

SATURDAY LAYLA 4317 Manchester 2:30 PM ...........................................CONCENTRATOR 3:30 PM .................................................TRUE FRIENDS 4:30 PM .......................................................BEAR CUB 5:30 PM ....................................THE BOBBY DAZZLERS 6:30 PM ...................................................TOWN CARS 7:30 PM ......................................................SUNWYRM 8:30 PM ................................................... KENSHIRO’S 9:30 PM ................................ THE MANESS BROTHERS 10:30 PM ....................................................... DRACLA 11:30 PM .............................................THE STRANGER 12:30 AM ................................ BASS AMP AND DANO

THE GRAMOPHONE 4243 Manchester 2 PM ....................................................OTHER PEOPLE 3 PM ......................................................DJ MAKOSSA 4 PM .........................................................SHARK DAD 5 PM ...................................................JOAN OF DARK 6 PM ..................................CREE RIDER FAMILY BAND 7 PM ........................................... GRANDPA’S GHOST 8 PM ........................................THE STRANGE PLACES 9 PM .................................................WHOA THUNDER 10 PM .....................................PAT SAJAK ASSASSINS 11 PM ..................................MIDDLE CLASS FASHION 12 AM ........................................................ CENTIPEDE 1 AM ................................................INSANE ANALOG

TAHA’A 4199 Manchester 5:30 PM ...................................... LETTER TO MEMPHIS 6:30 PM ....................................................HONEYDEW 7:30 PM .......................................ZAK MARMALEFSKY 8:30 PM ....................................................DUBB NUBB 9:30 PM ...................................... THE VANILLA BEANS 10:30 PM .....................................................LE’PONDS 11:30 PM .....................................................SUZIE CUE

THE READY ROOM 4195 Manchester

5:30 PM ............................................. GOLDEN CURLS 6:30 PM ...........................................CAVEOFSWORDS 7:30 PM ................ BROTHER LEE & THE LEATHER JACKALS 8:30 PM ............................................. BRUISER QUEEN 9:30 PM ...............................................THE KNUCKLES 10:30 PM ............................................................BATES

11:30 PM ...............18ANDCOUNTING & THEONLYENSEMBLE

With featured DJ Kimmy Nu spinning between acts!

12:30 AM .........................................................TEF POE

GEZELLIG 4191 Manchester 3 PM .................................................ELLEN THE FELON 4 PM ........................................................ THE LEONAS 5 PM ............................................................THE GOES 6 PM ...........................................................PAPERKITE 7 PM ..................................................... SYNA SO PRO 8 PM ............................................................. DJ MAHF 9 PM ................................................HANDS AND FEET 10 PM ............................ KINGSTON FAMILY SINGERS

HANDLEBAR 4127 Manchester 2:30 PM .............................................. PRAIRIE REHAB 3:30 PM .............. RATS & PEOPLE MOTION PICTURE ORCHESTRA 4:30 PM ..........................................DAVE STONE TRIO 5:30 PM .............................................THUMPY STICKY 6:30 PM ........................................... MT. THELONIOUS 7:30 PM ...................................................HILLARY FITZ 8:30 PM ................................................RIVER KITTENS 9:30 PM ........................... TORY STARBUCK PROJECT 10:30 PM ............................................... NADIR SMITH 11:30 PM ....................................................... HYLIDAE

ATOMIC COWBOY PAVILION 4140 Manchester 2 PM ........................................... CARA LOUISE BAND 3 PM ............................... SHARON HAZEL TOWNSHIP 4 PM ....................................................THE VIGILETTES 5 PM ........................................................ANDROBEAT 6 PM ............................................SUPER HERO KILLER 7 PM ...................................... LOVE JONES THE BAND 8 PM ............................... MATHIAS AND THE PIRATES 9 PM .............................................................LOOPRAT 10 PM ....................... ANTHONY LUCIUS & THE BAND

THE BOOTLEG 4140 Manchester 2:30 PM .......................................MISS MOLLY SIMMS 3:30 PM ................................................... DINOFIGHT! 4:30 PM ........................................................MARINER 5:30 PM ..................................................... BAGHEERA 6:30 PM .............................................PATH OF MIGHT 7:30 PM .........................................TRAUMA HARNESS 8:30 PM .....................................................GHOST ICE 9:30 PM .............................................................YOWIE 10:30 PM .............................................. NATO CALIPH 11:30 PM ...................................THE DOMINO EFFECT 12:30 AM ................................................. ERIC DONTÉ 1:30 AM..................................................................ICE

SIAM 4121 Manchester 2 PM ........................................................OXHERDING 3 PM ..................................................... TOEFIRE TRIBE 4 PM .....................................................MOTHER BEAR 5 PM ..........................................................ISABEL REX 6 PM .........................................................SHADY BUG 7 PM ..........................................A LEAF IN THE STREET 8 PM ................................................MIRROR MIRROR 9 PM .................................................... FRAGILE FARM 9:45 PM ............................................................ GLUED 10:30 PM ....................................................SKIN TAGS 11:15 PM ........................................LITTLE BIG BANGS 12 AM ....................................................... JANE WAVE 1 AM ....................................................DEMON LOVER

rFTShowcase.com 24

RIVERFRONT TIMES

All Access wristbands are on sale now for $15

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

A tea shop and clothing shop are among the street’s newer additions. | STEVE TRUESDELL

CHEROKEE Continued from pg 23 tables, disgusted. A community organizer originally from Belleville, she has lived on Cherokee since 2014.

What she heard in Brannon’s words was this: Black youth are the problem.

She was offended.

She gathered her things to leave when the person next to her put his hand on her arm. It was state Representative Bruce Franks Jr. (D-St. Louis). A Ferguson protester and battle rapper, Franks won an upset victory last November against one of the city’s old-guard political dynasties.

“I got this,” he whispered.

Franks made his way to the front.

First, he noted all the rap and hip-hop shows he personally had played at Razani’s clubs, without incident.

“You’re right,” he told Brannon. “It is the promoters. But it’s not necessarily this genre of music or these types of people. Because the type of people that you’re talking about is me. You’ve been over here for a long time. I have too.

“There’s really no place in the world like Cherokee,” he continued. “I really think we should concentrate on what solutions we could possibly give to 2720, help empower them, help to grow their business, as we help to grow every other business on Cherokee and within the surrounding area.”

The crowd applauded — and seemed to exhale.

A

week later, Francis Rodriguez sits in Yaquis, dissatisfied. He had hoped for a consensus on a curfew for minors. Instead, he’d lost his temper.

As he runs through his policy argument again, the deeper reason for his behavior emerges: He is still traumatized by the shootings on April 30.

“It makes it hard for me to go to sleep,” he finally says. “I can’t really go to sleep until I know people are out of our building and are safe. I’m afraid I’ll go to sleep and somebody will walk in and kill them.” He chokes up. “I couldn’t live with myself then.”

“Look,” he continues. “There’s a river of good will flowing down the middle of Cherokee in an otherwise hopeless place. If you’re right on Cherokee, you can stick your toe in this river. You feel invigorated. The lights are on. People are drinking. People are happy.”

He gestures south into the state streets. “Walk down that way. There’s no party. There’s no flow down there.”

But he sees no alternative to effort and hope. He wants everyone in the state streets to feel the same hope for Cherokee that he feels — police stats and political grudges be damned.

“They aren’t driving us off,” he says of all the doubters and delinquents.

“We have the high ground. Physically and morally. And in any pitched battle, if you have the high ground, you’re n normally the victor.”

riverfronttimes.com

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

25

Candy • Salt Water Taffy • Gifts • Posters Tin Signs • Over 400 + Sodas • Gags & More!

“Adults are only kids grown up.”

-Walt Disney

THE BOOM BOOM

BOMBSHELLS

BURLESQUE SHOWS EVERY FRIDAY & SATURDAY 7 PM: DINNER SHOW 10 PM: LATE NIGHT SHOW

Tickets and Reservations: 314-436-7000 or theboomboomroomstl.com 26

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

Wednesday,

Friday,

June 7

June 9

Black Black Joe Joe Lewis Lewis

Robbie Robbie Fulks Fulks

Alanna Alanna Royale Royale Gene Gene Jackson Jackson

Thursday,

Parker Parker Millsap Millsap June 7-10, 2017

Saturday,

June 8

Erika Erika Wennerstrom Wennerstrom (of (of Heartless Heartless Bastards) Bastards)

John John Paul Paul White White John John Henry Henry

Cave Cave States States

3509 Lemp, St. Louis

All show times:

Doors 7PM. Shows 8PM.

Tickets on sale at TWANGFEST.COM

June 10

Chuck Chuck Prophet Prophet The The Flat Flat Five Five Town Town Cars Cars

CALENDAR

27

WEEK OF JUNE 8-14

The “spokespup” for this year’s Urban Wanderers art show. | COURTESY OF STRAY RESCUE

BY PAUL FRISWOLD

THURSDAY 06/08 Monsters

the Tower Grove Abbey (2336 Tennessee Avenue; www.straydogtheatre.org). Tickets are $25.

Jeremy and Davis are convinced that they’ve finally done it — they’ve plotted out how to commit the perfect crime. Of course the brothers have concealed their plans and intentions from everyone, but they overlooked one key factor: When your wife finds a man tied up in her basement, she’s gonna start asking questions. Local actor and playwright Stephen Peirick’s new comic-thriller Monsters explores what happens when would-be master criminals forget that you can never fool your wife. Monsters is performed at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday (June 8 to 24) at

FRIDAY 06/09 Urban Wanderers Stray Rescue’s street teams see animals in their worst moments.

Chained up in their own filth, injured and holed up behind dumpsters, malnourished and abused — these animals are found in abominable conditions, and Stray Rescue’s people know it. This year’s Urban Wanderers art show is all about that moment when the cats and dogs are pulled out of the darkness and back into the

world. More than 80 artists have read the individual stories of a cat or dog’s rescue; the artists have then interpreted in their work the animal’s emotional state at the moment Stray Rescue arrived. Actual artifacts found with the rescuee have been incorporated into the exhibit as well. Urban Wanderers: Through Their Eyes opens with a free reception from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, June 9, at the Saint Louis University Museum of Art (3663 Lindell Boulevard; sluma. slu.edu). The show remains up through July 23, and the gallery is open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.

Next to Normal riverfronttimes.com

Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt won three Tony awards and the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for their musical Next to Normal because of its clear-eyed portrayal of the ways mental illness affects families as a unit and as individuals. In it, a mother’s bipolar disorder has kept her caught in an endless cycle of medication that only works until her body adjusts to the dosage. The more her illness flares up, the more it strains her relationship with her husband and children.

Is there a course of medication or therapy that can set her and her family back on the path to normal?

Insight Theatre Company opens its tenth season with Next to Normal.

The show is performed at 8 p.m.

Thursday through Saturday and Continued on pg 28

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

27

DID YOU KNOW:

1.3 MILLION PEOPLE READ

A lonely traveler discusses the importance of “home” in Title and Deed. | TODD DAVIS

CALENDAR Continued from pg 27 at 2 p.m. Sunday (June 8 to 25) at .Zack (3224 Locust Street; www. insighttheatrecompany.com).

Tickets are $20 to $35.

Title and Deed

EACH MONTH

An immigrant — or maybe just a traveler from parts unknown — comes into view with his single piece of luggage and starts talking. He explains that he’s not from here, and slowly begins to reveal snippets about where he’s from. What this stranger is speaking of is the concept of “home”; the sounds and sights and people that make a place dear. But he’s also talking about the isolation that accrues when you haven’t felt any of its comforts for too long. Will Eno’s one-man show Title and Deed addresses the alienation wrought by displacement.

Midnight Company presents the show at 8 p.m. Thursday through Sunday (June 8 to 24) at Avatar Studios (2675 Scott Avenue; www. midnightcompany.com). Tickets are $15.

SATURDAY 06/10 28

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

Titus Mozart’s late opera La clemenza di Tito, now known as Titus, was commissioned to assuage the fears of both the nobility and the peasants of Bohemia following the French Revolution. It tells of the great mercy of Tito, the new emperor of Rome. Vitellia, daughter of the emperor deposed

by Tito’s father, wants revenge.

She plots to kill Tito, enlisting his own friend Sesto as assassin. But Vitellia also has designs on being empress; if Tito were to choose her as his new wife, all her fury would dissipate. Instead he selects Vitellia’s sister, and so Vitellia sets her murderous plan into action. What she hasn’t counted on is Tito’s own belief that a ruler should be both merciful and just — even toward his own wouldbe assassin. Opera Theatre of St. Louis closes its current season with Titus, at the special request of OTSL music director Stephen Lord. This will mark Lord’s final outing with the company he helped establish, and the principal singers are all his former mentees. Titus is performed at 8 p.m. Saturday, June 10, at the Loretto-Hilton Center (130 Edgar Road; www.opera-stl.org), and is performed five more times in repertory through June 24. Tickets are $25 to $135.

Continued on pg 30

* ! % 0 2 O T P U E V A BUY 3 OR MORE & S

JUNE 11

Sun at 3:00pm

JUNE 9

Fri at 7:30pm

MUSIC OF

SINATRA 100 YEARS & BEYOND

JUNE 16

FATHER’S DAY

Fri at 7:30pm

JUNE 18

Sun at 3:00pm

JUNE 23

Fri at 7:30pm SPONSORED BY MOSBY

314-534-1700 stlsymphony.org

GROUPS SAVE! 314-286-4155

BUILDING ARTS

*Excludes boxes and prior sales

2017 PRESENTING SPONSOR

riverfronttimes.com

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

29

CALENDAR Continued from pg 24 Gateway Men’s Chorus June is LGBT Pride month, not that the White House would know. And it’s exactly because this administration is so hostile to the cause that this year’s Pride events are so important. It’s easy to stand up when you’re being honored, but it’s vital to do so in the face of open disdain.

The Gateway Men’s Chorus walks tall with its final show of the season, Shine: A Celebration of Broadway.

The program includes classic and contemporary show tunes, with selections coming from Hamilton, Something Rotten! and Kinky Boots.

The GMC presents Shine at 8 p.m.

Friday and Saturday (June 9 and 10) at the Edison Theatre on Washington University’s campus (6445 Forsyth Boulevard; www.gmcstl. org). Tickets are $15 to $25.

The 39 Steps Richard Hannay is enjoying a night out at the music hall when the crowd is panicked by gunshots. He comforts a distressed woman, who talks him into taking her to his place.

There she reveals some very intimate things about herself; she’s a spy, those shots were meant for her, and she knows there’s a secret organization that wants to steal British military secrets. Her murder later that night proves the truth of her wild claims, setting Hannay on the path to uncover the truth of the “39 Steps,” her last words. Patrick Barlow’s The 39 Steps transforms John Buchan’s spy novel of the same name into a comic romp through the films of Alfred Hitchcock. (Hitch adapted the novel into a film in 1 35. Part of the fun is the very limited cast — four actors play more than 140 roles during the show, adding to Hannay’s paranoia as everyone starts to look the same. Act Inc presents The 39 Steps at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday (June 9 to 11) and again at 8 p.m. Friday, June 24, and 2 p.m. Sunday, June 25, at Lindenwood University’s J. Scheidegger Center for the Arts (2300 West Clay Street; www.actincstl.com). Tickets are $20.

SUNDAY 06/11 30

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

René Barbera stars as Tito in Titus.

Father Dominic Bread has long been regarded as “the staff of life,” which makes Father Dominic the wielder of the staff. The Converse-wearing, smile-sporting Benedictine monk has long popularized the art of baking bread in homes thanks to his former TV career and his ongoing series of books. His newest book, Baking Secrets of the Bread Monk, continues his work with advice for beginners, tricks for advanced bakers and a handy list of substitutions that can replace common ingredients when you come up short. Fr. Dominic visits the Missouri History Museum (Lindell Boulevard and DeBaliviere Avenue; www.mohistory.org) at 1 p.m. today to discuss bread, baking and the satisfaction you get from feeding friends and family. Admission is free.

TUESDAY 06/13 Jesus Christ Superstar The Muny launches its 99th sea-

son with the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice sensation Jesus Christ Superstar. The rock musical tells the story of Jesus and his apostles in the days leading up to the crucifixion. As Jesus faces interference from the Roman governor, he must also deal with dissent from one of his closest companions — the apostle Judas. All the while, Jesus knows what will happen next: who among his disciples will deny him publicly, who among them will betray him, and the inevitability of his earthly demise (and subsequent resurrection). Jesus Christ Superstar is performed at 8:15 p.m.

Monday to Sunday (June 13 to 18) at the Muny in Forest Park (www. muny.org). Tickets are $15 to $95.

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

FILM

31

[REVIEW]

Everyday Hero Ken Loach returns from retirement to give us a compassionate look at modernday working-class Britons Written by

Robert Hunt

I, Daniel Blake

Directed by Ken Loach. Written by Paul Laverty. Starring Dave Johns, Hayley Squires and Briana Shann. Opens Friday, June 9, at the Landmark Tivoli Theatre.

W

hen Ken Loach released the impressive but under-appreciated Jimmy’s Hall three years ago, he also announced that it would be his last film. After a half-century of directing powerful, socially conscious and occasionally even headline-making drama for television and film, Loach was ready to retire.

That didn’t last long.

Watching the rise of right-wing extremism in Great Britain and elsewhere, Loach, a longtime activist and unapologetic socialist, realized he wasn’t willing to take to a rocking chair and keep quiet, so he stepped back into his position as the English cinema’s most outspoken defender of the poor and the working class. But don’t call it a comeback: I, Daniel Blake, which won the Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes film festival, extends Loach’s long line of compassionate, righteously angry movies. It’s also one of the best films he’s ever made.

Loach’s titular hero, played

by Dave Johns, is a 59-year-old woodworker, recently widowed.

His once-productive days at work have been replaced by long hours answering redundant questionnaires and listening to hold music through the phone lines of Brit-

Katie and Dan (Hayley Squires and Dave Johns) struggle to maintain their dignity. | PHOTO BY JOSS BARRATT. COURTESY SUNDANCE SELECTS ain’s social service agencies. Dan is recovering from a severe heart attack, and while his doctor has told him that he’s not prepared to return to work, the bureaucracies of the health and unemployment system aren’t so sure. He tries to navigate his way through the system with humor intact, but it’s not easy. When he tells a case worker that he has no computer experience, he’s told there’s a special number he can call for assistance he just needs to find it online.

On one of his typically fruitless waiting-room outings, he befriends Katie (Hayley Squires , a single mother who has just arrived in ewcastle after being homeless in London. Like Dan, Katie is stubbornly trying to preserve her dignity while living in poverty, starving herself so that her two children can eat. But for a brief period he breaks through her reserve, acting as occasional handyman and babysitter.

That brief description doesn’t

come close to covering the highs and lows of Paul Laverty’s screenplay. Both Dan and Katie experience many ups and downs, though a lot more of the latter, as they continue the high-wire act of economic survival without a safety net. But I, Daniel Blake is less a film that follows a plot from beginning to end than it is a series of observations, sometimes warm and human, other times so bitter that the second time I saw the film I wanted to look away from the screen. There’s not a false moment in the film, but there are many that are simply too truthful for comfort.

Loach is understandably critical of the seemingly indifferent social structures that fail people like Dan and Katie, just as he is angry about the economic injustice that allows poverty to spread unchecked.

But I, Daniel Blake is more than just a film of anger and outrage. It’s also warm and funny, with genuinely appealing figures and superlative performances from Johns riverfronttimes.com

and Squires. Loach takes his material seriously, but he also treats his characters — all of his characters — with honest affection, allowing them the dignity that the political system tries so hard to take from them. It is a film of level-headed compassion, so open to humanity that even the simplest scenes (Dan working around Katie’s apartment, or his casual encounters with his neighbor, a young man hoping to get rich selling knock-off tennis shoes seem unexpectedly revealing.

Although Loach shows tragedy and hardship, he also shows compassion, a rare quality in contemporary films. As we stagger into the annual summertime parade of loud action films and dizzying comic-book adventures, the novelty of I, Daniel Blake is especially appealing. It’s a film that simply respects humanity and reminds us that our real lives, regardless of their economic status or social n standing, really do matter.

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

31

32

THE ARTS

[REVIEW]

And the Law Won Kafka gets the opera treatment in the U.S. premiere of The Trial at Opera Theatre of St. Louis Written by

SARAH FENSKE The Trial

Music by Philip Glass. Libretto by Christopher Hampton. Directed by Michael McCarthy. Presented by Opera Theatre of St. Louis through June 24 at the Loretto-Hilton Center (130 Edgar Road, Webster Groves; 314-961-0644). Tickets $25 to $129.

A

man is awoken and informed that he is being arrested, but the charge is never clear. So begins Franz Kafka’s 1925 novel The Trial, but so too could begin any number of stories ripped from the headlines in the decades since. It matters little who makes the arrests — Stalin’s men in 1930s Russia or U.S. intelligence forces in the Middle East after 9/11. A show trial is a show trial (or maybe there’s no trial at all).

The detainee’s fate is clear from the moment he’s apprehended. His guilt or innocence doesn’t matter.

The Trial is now an opera, thanks to Philip Glass and Christopher Hampton. Their faithful adaptation of the novel first premiered in Wales a few years ago and then was a smash hit in London; Opera Theatre of St. Louis’ staging of the show, which kicked off Sunday, is the U.S. premiere.

And what a premiere! Sunday’s flawless performance came with one of those endings where the audience was holding its breath and didn’t even realize it until that startling closing line (no spoilers here, though it’s in the book). You could almost hear the collective gasp — and then everyone jumped to their feet. Theo Hoffman, who stars as the hapless Josef K., came in for the most applause, and rightly so: He was on stage for every minute of the show, and he was simply

32

RIVERFRONT TIMES

Josef K (Theo Hoffman, left) seeks help from Titorelli (Brenton Ryan). Because who better to help with a court case than a painter? | KEN HOWARD

incredible.

On first thought, it might seem like an odd fit, Kafka as opera.

Yet as becomes readily apparent watching this production, nothing could be more apropos. Reading Kafka, after all, is like being in a nightmare, where nothing quite makes sense, yet the absurdity on the page strikes at a greater truth.

It’s like having a fever; everything is at once both blurry and startlingly clear. And what is opera if not a fever dream? Of course people don’t go around in real life singing their conversations — much less baring their hearts in arias. Yet the truth on stage in a great opera strikes at

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

the heart of the human condition.

Its artifice is a path that allows us to explore our secret hopes, our dreams, our fears.

The Trial has fewer moments allowing for bared souls than you’ll find in operas from the golden age (there is never a moment when Josef K. faces the audience and sings of how he aches for Fräulein Burstner or must fire his lawyer — and rightly so). But the unvoiced desires and fears... they are there, always lurking out of the corner of his eye.

Director Michael McCarthy’s staging relies on a simple set where someone always seems to

be watching Josef K. The singers’ powdered faces might be an homage to Charlie Chaplin, but they also suggest German expressionism. They’re unsettling, the slightly off-kilter visages you’d encounter in a bad dream. That eight singers play more than twenty parts only adds to the dissonance. Everyone seems vaguely familiar even upon first entrance — and that familiarity is menacing rather than comfortable.

It helps that the cast is terrific.

Everyone is good, but Susannah Biller, who plays two of the main female parts, is especially so. As the guards, too, Robert Mellon and

JUNE

M

08

10

17

21

23

THUR

SAT

SAT

WED

FRI

FRI

THUR

M

M

SAT

WED

SUN

NOW NG! I Y A L P “PACKS A DRAMATIC PUNCH AND PLEASES HARMONICALLY...

“WHAT A PREMIERE!

A FIRST-RATE PERFORMANCE.”

...FLAWLESS...

LAUGH OUT LOUD.” - Riverfront Times

JUNE

- St. Louis Post-Dispatch

M

07

11

14

24

WED

SUN

WED

SAT

FINAL FOUR PERFORMANCES!

The guards (Robert Mellon, left and Joshua Blue, right) come for Josef K (Hoffman). Mellon and Blue are hilarious; they also play other roles in the production. | KEN HOWARD

Joshua Blue are quite funny, the comic relief brought to bumbling life.

For all its black humor — and the audience did laugh at loud, much more than you’d think — the show remains harrowing. That Glass’ music pays homage to Bernard Herrmann’s jangly, paranoid score for North by Northwest punctuates the feeling that you’re watching a suspense classic turned on its side.

It’s a world where everyone else may be in on the joke... or maybe there isn’t even a joke. They’re just laughing at you out of contempt.

Kafka himself died before The

Trial was published — years before his name became synonymous with bureaucratic nightmares, and nearly two decades before two of his sisters were themselves apprehended by a government that didn’t have to explain its charges against them. One died in the camp at Chelmno; the other at Auschwitz.

In translating Kafka’s classic tale to opera nearly 100 years after its writing, Glass and Hampton leave us with unsettling truth. History’s grand sweep shows us that the surreal is more real than we’d like to think. We should probably all be a bit more paranoid. n

NG COMI !

SOON OPENS SATURDAY!

ONE NIGHT ONLY! JUNE 20

TGIF OPERA GARDEN PARTIES

Every Friday this season!

Live music. Boozy ice cream. Late night snacks.

Date Night packages available!

(314) 961-0644 | ExperienceOpera.org All performances sung in English and accompanied by members of the St. Louis Symphony.

riverfronttimes.com

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

33

BIGGEST SHOWCASE TO DATE! P R E S E N T E D BY

P L E A S E D R I N K R E S P O N S I B LY 34

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

OVER 100 BANDS PERFORMING

rFTShowcase.com

All Access wristbands are on sale now for $15

Follow us to find out about Exclusive Giveaways leading up to Showcase STL riverfronttimes.com

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

35

[BOOKS]

Goth Girl Timely and haunting, Chavisa Woods’ story collection leads readers deep into rural America Written by

EVIE HEMPHILL

A

sk southern Illinois native Chavisa Woods where her startling plots and characters come from, and the short answer is her imagination. But as weird and wrenching and “out there” as they may seem, her stories also scream real-life Midwest.

Restless adolescents befriend a strange woman living in a cemetery. A fervent young Southern Baptist burns a birthday present believed to be an occult toy.

Casual conversation over cigarettes turns to talk of manslaughter, and a lesbian couple tries to keep it together at a Mensa party immediately after dropping acid.

With eight tales of such people comprising her newest book,

Things to Do When You’re Goth in the Country (Seven Stories Press, 2017), Woods brings an often invisible landscape into rare focus.

It’s a book that feels especially resonant given the current cultural moment in America. While it’s a work of fiction, and one that even ventures into fantasy, the people at its center are the working class and the rural poor. Often dismissed or even despised, they’re shown here in their full complexity over the course of 221 vivid pages.

“I do hope [readers] get a sense of what it feels like to be there,” says Woods, 35, who grew up in rural Sandoval, Illinois, and moved to St. Louis as a young adult.

“Sexism, racism and bigotry are driving forces in these areas for the actions of the people, and there is also a larger structure driving that” — namely, a capitalist system that offers, she says, “very little chance of any serious class climbing.”

One of the stories captures an apocalyptic outlook that seems equal parts hope and despair.

“What’s Happening on the News?” opens with a twenty-year-old Desert Storm soldier visiting his mother’s fourth-grade class with a helmet full of sand from Iraq

36

RIVERFRONT TIMES

Chauvisa Woods left rural Illinois for St. Louis because “they had a punk scene and a gay youth group and arts scene.” | COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR for show and tell. A child in the room — the narrator of the piece — raises her hand when the hero visitor mentions that a secret $1 million bounty has been placed on Saddam Hussein’s head.

“I wanted to know if Saddam Hussein’s head should be delivered on a platter or a stick,” she explains in the story. “I was a child familiar with the Bible. In biblical stories, heads are often delivered on platters, and sometimes left as warnings on sticks.”

For Woods, military recruitment in the U.S. and evangelical Christianity are inextricably linked, and “What’s Happening on the ews ” reflects that overlap and some of the beliefs she herself espoused as a child, like the connection between Israel, the Dome of the Rock and the second coming of Jesus.

“And the adults around me who believed these things were in many ways good, loving people, and gave me a good childhood and cared for me as well as any parent could,” Woods says. “But of course, this aspect of my upbringing was notable and is still very strange to me, and when I write about these beliefs and certain experiences, just solely focusing on these religious superstitions, it sounds

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

really absurd and insane.”

Talking about it from a child’s perspective allows her to present the piece matter-of-factly, without much filter.

“I hope that even though it is a child talking, it’s not lost that these beliefs really do impact our national politics and American culture in a huge way,” she adds.

Based in Brooklyn these days (she moved to New York in 2003), Woods aims to provide a sense of place and the rhythm of life in her fiction, which now includes three full-length works. She also hopes that those from the areas she writes about “see themselves or people they know represented in a meaningful way.”

Along with southern Illinois, St. Louis is a location that keeps cropping up in Woods’ work. Many chapters of her 2013 novel, The Albino Album, take place in the city, as does one of the stories in

Things to Do When You’re Goth in the Country. It’s a place the

author considers both bizarre and vibrant, and she’s looking forward to a return visit this month when she discusses and signs copies of her new book at 7 p.m. June 14 at Left Bank Books.

“Around fifteen years old, I began going to St. Louis on the

weekends and spent many days at a time there in the summers because they had a punk scene and a gay youth group and an arts scene,” says Woods. She also spent a lot of time in Soulard and at MoKaBe’s Coffeehouse, which remains her first stop on trips back to the city.

At eighteen, she moved here.

A member of the St. Louis Poetry Slam team for two years, Woods performed in Shakespeare plays at the Grandel Theatre and became active in the area’s thriving arts community. Woods was also an early resident of C.A.M.P., a south city anarchist collective still in existence today.

Even then she was already seriously pursuing writing, choosing to work part-time whenever it was feasible in order to dedicate time and energy to her craft.

“That means I have made less money than I could have, and of course, it’s a gamble, but so far, it’s been worth it for me,” Woods says.

“I placed my art and the ability to create it at the forefront of my life.

It was a dangerous choice, and I have sacrificed some security for it, but it’s the only choice I could make in good conscience, and I’m glad I did.” n

basic summer ballcaps $5

Fashion Sunglasses $5

women’s team earrings HATS-N-STUFF Sports Merchandise • Adults/Children’s Wear • Gift Ideas $5 Sports Merchandise • Adults/Children’s Wear • Gift Ideas GEAR UP FOR fedora hats SUMMER! team ballcaps $10 $19.99 SPORTS MERCHANDISE FOR LOCAL TEAMS ADULTS/CHILDRENS WEAR cardinals kid’s men’s team GREAT GIFT IDEAS @ UNBELIEVABLE PRICES gear shirts/polos H AT S - N - S T U F F. C O M - ( 3 1 4 ) 7 2 7 - 5 2 5 5 $10 $19.99

fidget spinners $5

HATS-N-STUFF 6 3 6 6 D E L M A R B L V D. - I N T H E L OO P - S T. L O U I S , M O 6 3 1 3 0

& F I N D U S AT S O U L A R D FA R M E R ' S M A R K E T O N S AT U R D AY S !

IN LOVING MEMORY OF THE LIVES LOST IN ORLANDO THIS FATEFUL DAY, ONE YEAR AGO, JUNE 12, 2016

riverfronttimes.com

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

37

our ay 4-7 day

lunch dinner brunch cocktails craft beer

buckets ckets more

DAILY LUNCH SPECIALS

NEW DRINK MENU • NEW HAPPY HOUR • MONDAY-FRIDAY 4-7 • ALL DAY SATURDAY $4 ALL DRAFTS • $4 WELLS • $13 DOMESTIC BUCKETS • $17 MICRO BUCKETS • $2 SLIDERS AND MORE

RFTRFT reader’s choice 2016WINNER winner: READER’S CHOICE

lunch din er brunch co ktails craftber FAVORITE NEW RESTAURANTNEW (2016), BEST APPETIZER SELECTION (2017) FAVORITE RESTAURANT

lunch dinner brunch cocktails craft beer AUTHENTIC MEXICAN FOOD ON CHEROKEE STREET!

“Arguably the City’s best Cevapi.”

(SEASONED GROUND BEEF KEBOB)

SPECIAL CEVAPI & GYRO PL ATTER $9.99

-CHERYL BAEHR, RFT 5/10/17

5005 SOUTH KINGSHIGHWAY • 314-354-8333 • YAPISUBS.COM • TUES-SUN 11-8

FAMOU

50% OFF MARGARITAS DURING HAPPY HOUR 4-7 DAILY NEW FAVORITE

RFT reader’s choice 2016 winner: RESTAURANT

2812 CHEROKEE STREET | (314) 240-5990

CHAPARRITOSSTL.COM

S FRIED CHICKEN

MEET US BEFORE

THE MUNY! 10% DISCOUNT WITH MUNY TICKETS

FRESH & AUTHENTIC BRAZILIAN CUISINE BRAZILIAN CHURRASCO

WE’RE ACROSS FROM FOREST PARK JUST A 5 MINUTE DRIVE TO THE SHOW! 6400 oakland ave, st. louis, mo 63139 | (314) 647-7287

www.patconnollytavern.com

38

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

WWW.BRASILIASTL.COM • 314-932-1034 3212 SOUTH GRAND BLVD

CAFE

39

The Blue Duck has its hits and its misses. The Scotch egg, left, was a success; the grilled pork chop and its odd collection of sides, much less so. | MABEL SUEN

[REVIEW]

Goose Egg The Blue Duck tries hard in Maplewood, but it’s just not ready for the big city Written by

CHERYL BAEHR The Blue Duck

2661 Sutton Boulevard, Maplewood; 314769-9940. Tues.-Thurs. 11 a.m.-midnight; Fri.-Sat. 11-1 a.m.; Sun. 10:30 a.m.-9 p.m.

(Closed Mondays.)

I

had the best ham sandwich of my life at the Blue Duck, the three-month-old Maplewood outpost of the beloved Washington, Missouri, comfort food

spot. House-cured ham, grilled so that the edges develop just a touch of caramelization, has the sweet pork flavor of a country ham steak.

It’s sliced and stacked atop a butter-griddled potato bun, accented with a date-walnut spread and crumbled blue cheese that mingle to form a delectable tapenade the consistency of an old-fashioned cocktail party cheeseball. A drizzle of sorghum molasses plays off the ham’s sweetness and offers a syrupy contrast to the funky blue cheese, while arugula and a single, thick-sliced onion ring serve as garnishes.

This miracle on a bun, known as the “Don Hamm,” is just one of the Blue Duck’s down-home lunchtime successes. In fact, one of my dining companions was so impressed with her quiche and a taste of my sandwich that she went back the next day with her husband. Lunch, she reported, was again delicious.

This pleasurable, home-style food was exactly what I expected from a restaurant that got its start seven years ago in a quaint Missouri river town. Burgers, quiche, salads, mac and cheese — all are examples of the sort of simple, well-executed meal you’d enjoy with Mom after a day spent antiquing on Main Street. This is how owners Chris and Karmen Rayburn built a large enough following to warrant expansion, and it is where the Blue Duck excels.

But something seems to have happened on the restaurant’s migration east on I-44, and it wasn’t for the better. In an apparent attempt to gussy-up the food for more sophisticated tastes, the Blue Duck set its sights a bit higher. Fusion, New American, contemporary riffs on comfort fare — this is the type of food you’d expect to see on the menu of a hip Maplewood eatery. And this is where the Blue riverfronttimes.com

Duck stumbles.

This tale of two ducks begins roughly seven years ago, not long after the Rayburns bought Washington’s Gourmet Café and renamed it the Blue Duck. Though they moved the restaurant to its current digs on the city’s riverfront, the husband and wife team had an even bigger move in mind: They wanted to expand to St. Louis.

After searching for the right location, they came across a subdivided space in the building that used to house Monarch and knew they’d found their spot.

On this last point alone, you have to commend the Rayburns for their bravery. Since Monarch closed five years ago, the building that held one of the crown jewels of St. Louis dining has sat vacant — mostly because it was massive and expensive, but in part (at least in my humble opinion) because no one wanted Continued on pg 41

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

39

Happy Hour M-F 3-7PM

25% Tapas & Wine

1 off domestic beers & well cocktails

$

7344 MANCHESTER BOOGALOOSTL.COM 314-645-4803

7344 MANCHESTER | 314-645-4803 | BOOGALOOSTL.COM Named Best Pulled Pork in St. Louis

by George Mahe!

Voted #1 Indian Restaurant in St. Louis! open tuesday-sunday

2017

lunch buffet 11-2:30, dinner buffet 5-8:30 regular menu always available

winner

DINE-IN • CARRY OUT • CATERING

RESTAURANTS

9720 Page Ave | 314.423.7300 | havelistl.com

MADE YOU LOOK!!

2727 S. 12TH STREET • ST. LOUIS, MO 63118 • (314) 772-1180

LUNCH • CATERING & TAKEOUT • WED-SUN 11AM-3PM 40

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

The “Don Hamm” is sandwich perfection, a miracle on a bun. | MABEL SUEN

BLUE DUCK Continued from pg 39 to occupy such hallowed ground.

Comparisons to Monarch, though unfair, are inevitable, and it took a brazen soul — or, in this case, two of them — to accept such a challenge.

Though the Rayburns in no way are trying to be Monarch 2.0, they pay homage to the building’s storied history by hanging Monarch’s old-fashioned revolving coat-check rack above the bar. It’s the most prominent fixture in an otherwise bland dining space. Exposed ductwork, a dark drop ceiling, a deep, shotgun space that’s windowless save for the very front and icy blue-colored paint on drywall give off the feel of a finished basement. They’ve tried to soften it up with assorted window pane wall hangings, wooden tables and a bright red accent wall, but the room feels both cool and overlarge, even when filled with guests. To the Rayburns’ credit, I overheard an interior designer consulting on the space during one of my visits, indicating that a revamp may be in the works.

A more pressing issue for the Blue Duck, however, is a menu revamp — or at least one capable of revamping part of it. As previously noted, lunchtime offerings are where the restaurant puts its best webbed-foot forward. In addition to the “Don Hamm,” the

restaurant’s signature sandwich, the “DLT,” pairs succulent sliced duck breast with tomato, lettuce and chipotle mayonnaise to offer a touch of heat. A gooey fried egg oozes over the components, and toasted sourdough bread soaks in the yolk, sauce and rendered duck fat. It’s a magnificent take on a BLT. uiche — on my visit filled with spinach and tomatoes — is so fluffy it occupies a perfect, custard-like state. Unlike a more traditional pie shell, the crust on my visit was soft and flaky like brioche, and pouffed away from the egg mixture as if it had been baked en croute.

The restaurant offers the same menu throughout the day, so there are no “lunch” or “dinner” offerings per se. However, the more formal appetizers and entrees you’d be inclined to order for an evening meal were less successful.

Of the starters, the Scotch egg was the standout. The egg was cooked so that the yolk remained liquid, and its coating of breadcrumb and sausage was soft, with a pleasant crispy texture. Pickled mustard seed vinaigrette and arugula offered a refreshing counter to the richness. It’s one of the better examples of the form I’ve tasted.

On-trend braised pork belly steam buns were passable, but not memorable. The pork belly was stringy, and the kimchi lacked spice. Likewise, fried pork belly bites were mediocre. Coated in a bland spice Continued on pg 42 riverfronttimes.com

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

41

BLUE DUCK Continued from pg 41

La Vallesana ENJOY A COLD BEER OR MARGARITA ON OUR LARGE OUTDOOR PATIOS! PATIO BACK BAR NOW OPEN

O PE N 7 DAYS A W EEK 10AM-10PM 2 801 CHE ROKEE ST R EET 314-776-422 3 42

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

Dessert offerings include cake with lemon curd and strawberry ice cream. | MABEL SUEN rub, the cubes of meat had the taste and texture of stale bacon. I found myself soaking them in the accompanying molasses barbecue sauce.

The “Smoked Fried Hot Chicken” piqued my interest because of a most unique and whimsical feature: Red Hot Riplets breading.

The Old Vienna potato chips are beloved in St. Louis for their addictively piquant seasoning. As such, I anticipated the chicken would pick up on such a pronounced spice blend, but it was overpowered by the smoke. The flavor was flat, and in an attempt to give it some oomph I tried dipping the chicken into the accompanying pickled pepper gravy. This was a mistake; the bland goo makes wallpaper paste seem appetizing.

I was worried when the server did not ask our temperature preference for the lamb chops, and the well-done meat that arrived confirmed my suspicions. A mushroom and red wine puree may have reconstituted the meat, but it was so overtaken by a salty olive puree that no other flavors could shine through. A fava bean and barley mélange was the best part of the dish.

The grilled pork chop, though also overcooked, was at least brined and flavorful. However, the overall presentation suggested an awkward attempt to hip-up country cooking. On the plate next to the chop, a crock of shirred eggs

and bacon tasted fine, but made for a strange side dish. Was I supposed to eat them separately? With the chop? It was confusing, but less confusing than the tar-black carrots also served as an accompaniment. The menu said they are “glazed,” though with what I have no idea. They didn’t taste burnt.

In fact, they didn’t taste much like anything but carrot, which only made their appearance odder.

Those smoke-bomb fried whole potatoes also made an appearance, as did a dried-out biscuit.

I was hoping that an apple crumb cake would finish things on a high note, but the crumble was so smoked (yes, they smoke this too) that it overtook what would otherwise have been a decent enough dessert. Bourbon caramel cream cheese and softened apples tried to show off their flavors, but they couldn’t break through.

In some ways, I wonder if that’s not a commentary on many of the restaurant’s problems. There are a few nuggets of solid cooking that want to shine through at the Blue Duck, but they’re masked by a need to try too hard.

Except for that ham sandwich.

Its greatness can shine through just about anything. n The Blue Duck

Scotch egg.........................................$8 “Don Hamm”.....................................$10 Smoked fried hot chicken...............$18

Fat Tire®, Tour de Fat®, New Belgium® and the bicycle logo are trademarks of New Belgium Brewing Co.

NICK WATERHOUSE BEER, BEATS & BEMUSEMENT NOT TO BE MISSED

park soulard market par O N LY $ 2 5 W H I L E S U P P L I E S L A S T !

S T E K C I T newbelgium.com ENJOY NEW BELGIUM RESPONSIBLY

©2017 New Belgium Brewing, Fort Collins, CO & Asheville, NC

riverfronttimes.com

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

43

44

SHORT ORDERS

[SIDE DISH]

Cooking Is Like Dancing for Evy Dick Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

E

vy Dick of Pastaria (7734 Forsyth Boulevard, Clayton; 314-862-6603) had big plans for her culinary empire, dating all the way back to middle school.

“By the time I was in sixth grade, I wanted to open a food truck,” Dick recalls. “This was way before they were cool. I was so set on it that when I was writing my thank you notes for my eighth grade graduation gifts, I’d tell everyone that I was going to put the money toward my food truck.”

No one was surprised by her business plan. As long as she can remember, Dick was in the kitchen, eschewing Pop Tarts and pre-packaged fare for home-cooked food.

Her mother gave her free rein in the kitchen and fostered her passion for cooking by encouraging her creativity. “I used to come home from school and my mom would ask me what we should have for dinner,” Dick recalls. “I’d take whatever was in the refrigerator and make some bowl out of rice or veggies or anything I’d find. My mom called it ‘Evy Chow.’”

Dick was singularly focused on turning her “Evy Chow” into a career and wanted to pursue cooking in lieu of college. After graduating high school, she got a good job working on the line at the Lodge of the Four Seasons at the Lake of the Ozarks — one she talked her way into even though her only professional food service experience at the time had been at Subway.

However, her father insisted she get a four-year degree, so Dick studied dietetics at Mizzou.

There, her classroom learning was matched by the experience she

44

RIVERFRONT TIMES

As sous chef at Pastaria, Evy Dick has learned that ‘nduja makes everything better. | SARA BANNOURA

gained working in the kitchen at the university’s alumni center. Because it was a teaching kitchen, she got to experiment with different ingredients and techniques — an experience that gave her the confidence to pursue her next gig at 44 Stone Public House in Columbia, where her sous chef connected her to Brasserie’s Brian Moxey.

Moxey was Dick’s introduction to Gerard Craft, who recognized her potential and gave her a shot on the line at Pastaria. Four years later, she’s worked her way up to sous chef at the wildly popular Italian spot, a promotion she credits not only to her love of cooking, but also to her rigorous training in her other passion: dance.

When it comes to dance and cooking, “the discipline, energy, passion and dedication are nearly identical,” Dick explains. “People who knew me when I was younger are surprised that I am a chef and not dancing anymore ... except on the line in the kitchen.”

Dick took a break from the line to share her thoughts on the St.

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

Louis food and beverage scene, her love of the city’s small, independent restaurants and why everything is better with ‘nduja.

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

I’ve competitively danced my entire life. I know that most wouldn’t compare a ballerina and a chef, but the discipline, energy, passion and dedication are nearly identical. When I’m expediting a busy service, I’ll tell my line cooks “let’s dance” and they know I’m going to jump in and help push out the dishes as quick as we can, as a team. It’s my favorite part about a service. It’s a beautiful and fun routine.

What daily ritual is non-negotiable for you?

Honestly, I think that I should probably take a step back and make time for something that I do for myself every day and make it a priority.

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

Teleportation, for sure. I had the opportunity to travel the world with my family growing up. Most of the time, when I’m creating dishes, I’m remembering a certain smell or taste or feeling that I experienced in a certain place. If I could just go straight there, just for a minute, I would be on another level.

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

I am loving the gourmet cocktail trend. Bartenders are becoming more like chefs. Each aspect of their cocktails involve so much thought and technique. At the same time, chefs can offer a ton to the bartender. It’s not “front of house/ back of house” anymore.

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

I would love to see more coverage of authentic cuisine. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love to see cuisines brought to a new level Continued on pg 46 by modern

ANOTHER

GIVE FRO

GIVE FROZEN FROZEN GIVE

ANOTHER BAKE ANOTHER BAKE

riverfronttimes.com

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

45

EVY DICK Continued from pg 44

 

BABY BACK RIBS HOUSE RUB, SMOKED WITH CHERRY WOOD, GLAZED, SERVED WITH ONE SIDE

 

  

HOURS MON 11AM - 9PM TUES - FRI 11AM -10PM SAT 11 AM -10 PM | SUN CLOSED 290 0 V I RGI N I A AV EN UE, ST. LO UIS 31 4 -776-1 4 07 WWW.T H ES H AV ED D UC K.CO M

St. Louis’

#1

 



 900 SPRUCE ST. ST. LOUIS, MO 63102 314-932-1456 46

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

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

chefs. However, I think there are some hidden gems in St. Louis that are overlooked because of their lack of advertisement. The Mideast Market on Manchester has the best gyros in all of St. Louis, in the back corner of their small grocery store. Coming back from India, I couldn’t help but crave a street kebab. I didn’t have to look too far to actually find it. I think the small neighborhood markets with genuine products and recipes need to be recognized and supported.

Who is your St. Louis food crush?

Probably Mark Sanfilippo of Salume Beddu. He has turned his passion into an empire. There’s nothing more to say….. except everything is better with ‘nduja.

Which ingredient is most representative of your personality?

There are many negative connotations with lemons, but I can’t think of one thing that’s wrong with them. I believe a lemon (somewhat) represents my personality because I’m mostly behind the scenes, but it makes all the difference in the outcome. When I add lemon to a dish, I do it for balance. When something is balanced, it’s right.

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

After my dad (a very smart man) told me I had to get a four-year degree before doing anything culinary, I decided to go to school for dietetics. I wanted to be a specialty chef for elderly people with particular health problems. I’ve always thought I would be helping elderly people or an art teacher. When I retire one day, I still think I’ll try to become an art teacher.

Name an ingredient never allowed in your kitchen.

This is a very di cult one for me because I’m known to add about anything to my recipes. Probably margarine ... or pre-made pasta.

What is your after-work hangout?

My boyfriend and I just bought a house a couple months ago. So, after work, I cannot get home quickly enough to sit on my kitchen counter and have a glass of wine and relax with him.

What’s your food or beverage guilty pleasure?

Potato chips. I love potato chips.

What would be your last meal on earth?

A French dip roast beef sandwich. Hands down. n

Greek Restaurant Authentic Mediterranean and Greek Cuisine EVERYTHING HOMEMADE

Unique Dine-in Experience

Special Lunch Menu Every Day 11am-4pm

JILLY’S IS PROUD TO SPONSOR THE SIAM STAGE AT THE 2017 RFT MUSIC SHOWCASE!

Great food, great price!

Parking available behind building

6836 Gravois (314) 353-1488 (314) 553-9830 apolloniarestaurant.com

C O MIN G SO O N EDWARDSVILLE, IL LOCATION !

Jilly’s Cupcake Bar & Café

Jilly’s Ice Cream Bar

8509 DELMAR BLVD. 314-993-5455

20 STEPS TO THE LEFT OF CUPCAKE BAR (JUST AROUND THE CORNER)

JI LLYSCUPCAKE BAR. C OM

EVENT S PACE AVAIL ABLE

Tacos & Ice cream are breaking

the rules!

2738 Cherokee Street •St. Louis, MO 63118

MUSIC & EVENTS SCHEDULE THURSDAY JUNE 8

SEDGEWICK BAND CHICAGO, IL

LEXI WEEGE WESTFIELD, MA

FRIDAY, JUNE 9

PERRILLES PROJECT PEORIA, IL L I V E M U S I C B R U N C H BOTTOMS UP 10 JUNE WITH JIM MANLEY DUO BLUES GANG Hot Jazz Brunch with Miss Jubilee & the Humdingers

June 11

SINGER-SONGWRITER SHOWCASE:

KYLE SHERMAN JOE METZKA TRIO • JUNE 13TH FT. WORTH, TX

MONDAY, JUNE 12

512 NORTH EUCLID AVE. 314.367.3644 EVANGELINESSTL.COM riverfronttimes.com

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

47

“AMAZING” ASIAN FOOD WITH A MEXICAN TWIST

314-240-5544 • 2301 CHEROKEE ST 1 block east of jefferson (on antique row) kalbitacoshack.com

Happy Hour Monday – Friday 4:00pm – 6:30pm; Saturday 2:00pm – 4:30pm Now Serving Sunday Brunch Light & Healthy Menu Available

44 N Brentwood Blvd. Clayton (314) 721-9400 oceanobistro.com

48

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

wed-sun 11am-5:30pm

Experience the brunch everyone is talking about!

Saturday and Sunday 11 am - 2 pm

3 101 ARS E NAL | (3 14) 802-70 90 | O PEN DAI LY 1 1 AM - 8PM

[NEW PRODUCTS]

Alt-Juice, Straight Out of St. Louis Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

K

aruna founder Angela Zeng though she was doing the right thing. As a mother, she tried her best to make healthy choices for her children — organic food, fresh fruits and vegetables, no soda. Naturally, she was excited when cold-pressed juices hit the market, making it possible to provide a wholesome, nutritious beverage to her kids without having to personally work a juicer. Or so she thought.

“I flipped over the bottle on its side and was shocked when I read the nutrition label,” Zeng recalls.

“There were 60 grams of sugar in the bottle — granted, a bottle is technically a serving and a half, but still, that’s basically like eating five Krispy Kreme doughnuts. I might as well just have been giving them ice cream. They make these claims to be healthful, but they’re just not true. I should know. I was in the industry.”

Indeed, if anyone was in a position to understand the ins and outs of truth in juice advertising, it was Zeng. A biochemist, medical researcher and holder of a Ph.D in pathology, Zeng has devoted the better part of her career to nutrition science, looking at the ways that the food we eat effects our overall health. She later worked for a pharmaceutical company before being recruited by a Chinese juice company seeking to bring its product to the U.S. — an experience that opened her eyes.

Says Zeng, “It’s what got me into the beverage industry because what I saw made me disturbed.”

It also led her to her new company — Karuna, a line of plant-based superfood drinks based right here in St. Louis.

Zeng was shocked by two things about the juice industry. The first is the amount of waste produced in making cold-pressed juices. Only 30 percent of actual product goes into juice, she says. The rest goes into

Angela Zeng’s line of Karuna beverages now include coffee infusions, as well as a host of exotic ingredients. | KELLY GLUECK

the garbage and hits the landfill.

“Food waste is one of the largest sources of methane in the environment,” Zeng explains. “If the industry doesn’t make a change, we’re not going to be able to feed ourselves.”

However, sustainability was not her only concern. As Zeng explains, she was increasingly disturbed by the misleading claims made by alleged healthy products. “When you hear the words ‘natural’ or ‘organic,’ you assume ‘healthy,’ but that’s not necessarily true,” says Zeng. “A lot of these products may be plant-based, but they’re not necessarily using quality ingredients, or the ingredients they are using are purified with so many chemicals and left in a state the body cannot absorb. Even if an ingredient is ‘good for you,’ consuming it this way gives you none of the benefits.”

With her background in both biochemistry and the juice industry, Zeng knew she could do better.

She founded Karuna early this year as a way to answer what she felt was a need for healthy beverages, made sustainably, with an eye to convenience.

Over the course of the year, Zeng developed eight different bever-

ages using ingredients not typically thought of in the juice industry, including turmeric, aronia berries, chestnuts and even mung bean sprouts grown hydroponically in her downtown production facility.

The results of her efforts are drinks that boast a unique, subtly sweet flavor profile, such as her Divine Pinkalicious protein drink, a tart, pineapple-forward beverage that blends mung bean pulp with quinoa, flaxseed, aronia berry and monk fruit extract.

Recently, Zeng has begun experimenting with a line of coffee infusions, something she admits comes from a need for a caffeine boost and a distaste for plain black coffee.

Currently, she has two blends on the market. The first, Cafe ino, is an alcohol-free infusion that marries coffee that’s been aged in red wine barrels with Chinese dates and cacao nibs. The second, Cafe Turmeric, is her coffee-based answer to chai tea, a delightful melange of coffee, coconut cream, Chinese dates and black soybeans that leaves a pleasant spicy kick on the finish.

Zeng believes her products will appeal to anyone interested in the relationship between what we riverfronttimes.com

eat and how it affects our overall health and the health of our environment. She chose St. Louis as the base of her operations not only because it has been her home for the past twenty years, but because she feels it’s the right market.

“Everyone kept telling me that I would have no luck if I launched Karuna in the Midwest,” says Zeng.

“They kept telling me to move it to California because no one cares about healthy living here. I don’t believe that. We’re having great success here. People like to support local businesses, and we have many people here who want to live healthy lifestyles.”

Currently, Karuna is available in 24 stores around town, including Whole Foods, Straub’s and Dierberg’s. Though she plans to eventually expand out of the area, Karuna is currently more of a boutique operation which allows her to focus on product development and consumer education.

“Can you believe where we’re located,” laughs Zeng. “We’re right across the street from the Department of Health. Really, that’s what we want to do — to help people make healthy decisions whether they buy our products or not.” n

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

49

RAMADAN KAREEM Cultural Experience for Everyone to Enjoy!

N O W -J U N E 2 5 DINNER BUFFET 7-10PM ALL INCLUSIVE: APPETIZRES, ENTREES, DESSERTS, BEVERAGES

ONLY $19.99

DINNER ONLY DURING RAMADAN

HOURS 4PM-MIDNIGHT

2837 CHEROKEE STREET (314) 226-9243 THEPALMTREESTL.COM

Chef Rick Lewis opened Southern two years ago. Now he and his wife Elisa are making plans for a restaurant of their own. | ERIC FRAZIER

[FOOD NEWS]

Voted Favorite Mexican Restaurant -2016 RFT Readers Poll

Voted Best Taco in Missouri

-2016 Best Taco in Every State MSN.COM

GORDITAS

Mon - Fri: 10AM - 9PM Sat - Sun: 9AM - 9PM latejanataqueria.com WHITEHALL PLAZA : 3149 N Lindbergh Blvd, 314-291-8500 50

RIVERFRONT TIMES

RICK LEWIS IS GROVE-BOUND

R

ick Lewis, whose Nashville fried chicken spot Southern (3108 Olive Street) proved a smash hit in Midtown, is going out on his own.

Lewis announced Thursday that he will be leaving Southern after a brief transition period to open a new restaurant at 4270 Manchester Avenue, the spot in the Grove most recently inhabited by Sweetie Pie’s and (briefly) Sweet Times at the Mangrove. His partner in the venture will be his partner in life, wife Elisa Lewis.

Elisa Lewis also has a restaurant pedigree; her parents own Quincy Street Bistro, the south city neighborhood spot where her husband made his name before going into business with Mike Emerson of Pappy’s Smokehouse. During his tenure at Quincy Street Bistro, in 2014, Lewis earned a James Beard nomination

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

as “Rising Star Chef of the Year.”

And the couple’s collaboraration predates even that, Rick Lewis says.

“Before Southern and even before Quincy Street Bistro, Elisa and I worked together at Monarch,” he tells us. “That’s really what built the foundation of a working relationship for us. It isn’t always sunshine and rainbows, but I’d rather spend my days working next to my wife than anyone else.”

Southern, which opened two years ago, in June 2015, was a joint partnership between Lewis and Emerson.

The acclaimed hot chicken restaurant shares bathrooms and a hallway with the landmark barbecue spot.

In a press release, Lewis described his new restaurant as “a counter service concept with a touch of refinement.” The space, located in the heart of the Grove, is 4,000 square feet and will be able to seat up to 100 guests.

Lewis knows he has developed a reputation for fried chicken and soul food, thanks in no small part to Southern, and he doesn’t plan to drift too far from that winning formula at the new restaurant.

“I don’t see myself totally recreating

Rick Lewis and I don’t see us starting completely over from scratch,” Lewis explains. “We’re going to try really hard to one-up ourselves, though. It will be rustic, down-home cooking that we will execute as well as possible.

“Of course you can’t have Southern food or soul food without fried chicken, but we will be paying attention to several other dishes as well. We will change the menu about four times a year to reflect the seasons and will be doing more daily specials.”

Service is another way that the Lewis family’s new concept will differentiate itself from their former venture. Though the restaurant will still be counter service, do not expect it to be fast-casual.

A larger dining room and longer hours will invite guests to linger, providing the time and space for things like Sunday family-style meals, brunch and beer collaborations.

“What we want to focus on is having you feel like you’re coming into Ricky Lewis’ house to be served, eat good food, have a good time and leave feeling valued,” Lewis explains.

—Sarah Fenske and Cheryl Baehr

BRING HOME THE

BACON! ™

WE CATER!

catering@beastcraftbbq.com 20 SOUTH BELT WEST | BELLEVILLE, IL | 618.257.9000 WWW.BEASTCRAFTBBQ.COM

M AD E F ROM SCRAT CH F OOD • F AM IL Y- F RIE N D L Y RE ST AURAN T • 5 8 BE E RS ON T AP • HUG E G L ASSE D - IN P AT IO # ROCKAN D BRE W SST L

17258 CHESTERFIELD AIRPORT RD. • CHESTERFIELD, MO 63005 • (636) 536-2739 • ROCKANDBREWS.COM riverfronttimes.com

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

51

Serving Lunch Monday - Saturday FROM 11AM CAPRESE PIZZA SALAD

CUBAN SANDWICH

ST. PETERSBURGER CAST IRON BURGER

www.corkandbarrel.com 52

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

[IN MEMORIAM]

RIP, Larry Lampert Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

L

arry Lampert, the auto parts entrepreneur and pitchman-turned-prolific restaurateur, passed away earlier this month from pancreatic cancer.

Lampert was 66 years old.

Though he made his fortune in a chain of auto parts stores, Lampert’s claim to fame was his signature catchphrase. “What’s the story, Larry?” someone would ask in the stores’ commercials. He’d reply, “You want it, I got it.”

Lampert brought that mindset with him to the restaurant business, an industry he approached with as much an entrepreneurial spirit as a love for food. Talkative and endlessly enthusiastic, he was always in search of the next big thing, beginning in the 1980s with pizza parlors and then a chain of sandwich shops called Fatman’s Subs. Recognizing a demand for barbecue in town far before there was a smoker on every corner, Lampert began serving smoked meats at his sub shops, eventually converting them to full-fledged barbecue joints.

Lampert briefly retired from the restaurant business, but he just couldn’t stay away from the smoker. In 2005, he opened the popular Plush Pig Barbecue in Clayton to rave reviews. He eventually moved the restaurant to Rock Hill. Here, he pulled his daughter Angie into the business, and the

Larry Lampert (left) started numerous restaurants, including most recently the Red Shack. Daughter Angie (right) was his partner. | MABEL SUEN

pair would go on to run a sandwich shop in Maryland Heights before converting it, too, into a barbecue restaurant.

Their next venture, the Q Shack, saw Lampert dive into the realm of barbecue-meets-Tex-Mex, where he prided himself in standing as a counter to what he saw as the gourmet-ification of barbecue. Though the restaurant was a success (earning a rave in this paper), his insatiable appetite for reinvention could not be contained by a little shack in a Maplewood strip mall. Before

long, Lampert had shuttered the Q Shack and, with Angie, reinvented the concept as a taco, tamale and burrito joint called the Red Shack.

The Dogtown Tex-Mex spot, which opened last June, was run

by Angie. But the restaurant would not survive the death of its patriarch, which was first reported by St. Louis Magazine.

In a Facebook post dated May 25, the Red Shack announced its closure.

“Sadly we lost our leader Larry Lampert on May 8 to cancer,” the

Mi Lindo Michoacan

post reads. “With him gone we are closing the doors to the Red Shack on Friday at 3 p.m.”

However, in true Lampert spirit, Angie seemed to leave the door open for another iteration, some new concept some day. In response to a commenter who asked, “Closing forever, or just that day?” Angie replied, “The Red Shack will close for good. Doesn’t necessarily mean we won’t try something else.”

Larry Lampert may be gone, but his spirit clearly lives on. You n wanted it, he got it.

GREAT CANS AND SMALL BUNS GOURMET SLIDERS, SALADS & SIDES

M E X I C A N R E S TA U R A N T & F U L L B A R

“As Authentic as it Gets!”

1 6 O Z . M A R G A R I TA S $ 3 . 9 9 DURING HAPPY HOUR M O N D AY - F R I D AY 2 - 7 P M 4 5 3 4 GRAVO IS AVENUE - 3 14.2 24.5 495

9528 MANCHESTER ROAD, ROCK HILL; 314-942-6445

STEAK NEW YORK

AD D IT IO N A L PA R K I N G LOT E AS T O F R E S TAU R A N T

@SLIDERHOUSE

riverfronttimes.com

SLIDERHOUSESTL

JUNE 7-13, 2017

@THESLIDERHOUSE

RIVERFRONT TIMES

53

®

THU. 7/20

ON SALE FRI. AT 10AM

TUE 8/29

ON SALE FRI. AT 10AM

MON 9/25

ON SALE FRI. AT 10AM

WED. 10/4

ON SALE FRI. AT 10AM

THU. 10/19

ON SALE FRI. AT 10AM

FRI 10/27

ON SALE FRI. AT 10AM

WED. 11/1

ON SALE FRI. AT 10AM

THURSDAY 6/8

SUNDAY 6/11

MONDAY 6/19

SATURDAY 6/24

MONDAY 6/12

UPCOMING SHOWS 6/25 DRU HILL

8/15 CITY AND COLOUR

6/28 IN THIS MOMENT

8/17 DIE ANTWOORD

7/9 AFTER 7

8/19 RAILROAD EARTH & MOE.

7/18 ALL TIME LOW

9/1 & 9/2 UMPHREY’S MCGEE 9/12 SEU JORGE

7/21 AFI & CIRCA SURVIVE

9/16 MIKE BIRBIGLIA

7/23 DASHBOARD CONFESSIONAL W/ THE ALL-AMERICAN REJECTS

9/18 APOCALYPTICA 9/19 JONNY LANG

7/25 CHEVELLE

9/24 BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE

7/28 LYLE LOVETT & HIS LARGE BAND AT PEABODY OPERA HOUSE

9/26 TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB

7/31 LAMB OF GOD

10/7 THE AVETT BROTHERS AT CHAIFETZ ARENA

8/1 STL FOODBANK BENEFIT W/ MARIA BAMFORD

10/10 MILKY CHANCE

visit us online for complete show information facebook.com/ThePageantSTL

@ThePageantSTL

thepageantstl.tumblr.com

thepageant.com // 6161 delmar blvd. / St. Louis, MO 63112 // 314.726.6161

54

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

MUSIC

55

Portugal. The Man will release its eighth full-length, Woodstock, just days after its St. Louis stop. | MACLAY HERIOT

[PREVIEW]

Still Wild Major-label success can’t take Alaska out of Portugal. The Man Written by

HOWARD HARDEE Portugal. The Man

7 p.m. Sunday, June 11. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Boulevard. $27.50 to $30. 314-7266161.

T

he music video for “Noise Pollution,” the lead single off Portugal. The Man’s new album, begins with frontman John Gourley clinging to the trunk of a bare birch tree. As the song’s electro-bassline kicks in, Gourley drops from his perch and does push-ups in a fast-flowing river.

The video cuts intermittently to a snowmobile on fire.

The images are distinctly Alaskan, which is no mistake: The video was shot on the Susitna River near Wasilla, where the founding members of the band grew up together.

“I learned how to swim — or at least float — in that river when I was four,” says guitarist Eric Howk.

Throughout the band’s history its members have returned to Alaska to shoot videos, and even when they film elsewhere, they find themselves drawn to similar aesthetics, Howk says. For instance, the video for the band’s groovy, swinging follow-up single, “Feel It Still,” was shot in a junkyard in Oregon, but it pretty accurately portrays what it’s like to walk into a subarctic hole-in-the-wall.

“The bars in Wasilla have the same vibe,” Howk says. “You don’t know whether there’s a gas leak in there or if there’s some sort of Fear and Loathing thing going on.

Everybody is looking at you like

they want to fight you.”

Even as Portugal. The Man has become a critically acclaimed, internationally successful indie-rock band, the guys have taken a bit of Alaskan rowdiness with them.

Bassist Zack Carothers explained during an April performance on KEXP 90.3 FM in Seattle that the group often plays small, unannounced shows under different names to test out new material.

“We just go play little bar shows and probably drink too much, get a little bit crazy,” he said. “That’s our way to really let loose.”

Howk spoke to the Riverfront Times by phone ahead of Portugal.

The Man’s show at the Pageant on June 11. Currently in the midst of an international tour, the band will roll through St. Louis less than a week before releasing its new album, Woodstock.

Though Howk has played with the band off and on since its earliest days, he didn’t o cially become a member until 2015. He met riverfronttimes.com

Gourley as a student at Snowshoe Elementary School in the reedy willow forests outside of Wasilla, and he started a band with Carothers in high school.

“We were not good,” he says, “but we were one of the only bands in town, and we always had a feeling that it was what we wanted to do — whether or not we were good at it.”

After relocating to the Pacific Northwest, Howk pursued a career as a touring guitarist with various groups, including the now-defunct power-pop band the Lashes. In 2007, toward the end of that band’s run, he was severely injured after stepping into an unmarked hole at a construction site. The twelve-foot fall fractured his vertebrae and left him paralyzed from the sternum down, but it didn’t keep him from playing guitar; he has performed in a wheelchair ever since.

Meanwhile, Portugal. The Man steadily gained popularity, first with a major Continued on pg 58

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

55

SATURDAY JUNE 10 “MENTION RFT” AND GET $3 OFF AT THE DOOR. NIGHTCHASER & JAMO PRESENT

SO MANY DYNAMOS

DJ HAL GREENS BETWEEN SETS DOORS 6PM // SHOW 7PM $17 IN ADVANCE // $20 DAY OF

ATOMIC COWBOY PAVILION

THEGROVE game discount $1 off all appetizers and

20 % off craft beer during games!

314-932-5232 4353 MANCHESTER “IN THE GROVE” WWW.OSHAYSPUB.COM

AFTERPARTY WITH

SANDWICHKINGZ

NIGHTCHASER DJ ALEXIS TUCCI AND MARK LEWIS

FULL SANDWICH AND SOUP MENU UNTIL 2:30 AM 2 0 B E E R S O N TA P, R O TAT I N G S E L E C T I O N O F B O T T L E S A N D C A N S POOL, DARTS, PINBALL, VIDEO GAMES D J S T H U R S D AY- S U N D AY • L I V E M U S I C 1 P M F R I D AY, S AT U R D AY & S U N D AY

AT THE BOOTLEG 11PM-CLOSE

4243 MANCHESTER AVE. | 314-531-5700 | GRAMOPHONESTL.COM

SPONSORED BY

for more information and to purchase tickets:

BOOTLEGSTL.COM 4140 MANCHESTER AVE. STL, MO 63110

314.775.0775

W E A R E M O R E T H A N A L I Q U O R S TO R E ,

WE ARE A STORE ABOUT LIQUOR

A R T I S A N S P I R I T S • B A R WA R E • V I N TA G E G L A S S WA R E BITTERS • SHRUBS • BOOKS • CLASSES 4321 M A N C H E S T E R AV E . | 314 - 833 - 3088

56

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

VESTL.COM

CLASSES. SHOWS. FOOD. BAR.

ALL ROADS LEAD TO SIAM

DIVORCEE WEDNESDAY’S

3960 CHOUTEAU | THEIMPROVSHOP.COM

SEE BARTENDER FOR SCANDALOUS DRINK SPECIALS SIAMSTL

SIAM_STL

SIAMSTL

4121 MANCHESTER AVE. | WED-SUNDAY 9PM TO 3AM

June Burger of the Month: THE JOHN GOODMAN

1/3 lb beef patty, smoked porksteak, braised onions, BBQ sauce, and creamy slaw on a brioche bun.

4 3 1 7 M a n c h e s t e r R d i n t h e G rove 3 1 4 . 5 5 3 . 92 5 2 | l ay l a s t l . c o m riverfronttimes.com

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

57

GREEN DINER While you recharge yourself, recharge your devices.

Outlets in booths and all u-shaped counters!

LEED Platinum certified!

Meet new friends!

Bowling is social!

OPEN 24 HOURS

Food late night 'til 2:00 am

PeacockLoopDiner.com

6191 Delmar · 314-727-5555 PinUpBowl.com

6261 Delmar in The Loop

music

sat. june 10 10PM The Scandaleros Tribute to Watkins Glen Summer Jam 73 featuring Pat McClellan on Keys plus The Funky Butt Horns playing the music of The Allman Brothers, The Band and The Grateful Dead - $7

wed. june 14 9:30PM The Voodoo Players Tribute to Jimi Hendrix - $7

fri. june 16 10PM

read more at

Grammy Award Winner Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band - $10

sat. june 17 10PM RIVERFRONTTIMES.COM

Jakes Leg - $8

thur. june 22 9PM A founding member of Robert Randolfph and the Family Band, the John Ginty Band - $8

736 S Broadway St. Louis, MO 63102 (314) 621-8811 58

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

PORTUGAL. THE MAN Continued from pg 55 label debut album, 2011’s In the Mountain in the Cloud, and then truly breaking through with hits “Purple Yellow Red & Blue” and “Modern Jesus,” both off 2013’s Evil Friends.

Howk was in and out of the picture throughout that period.

“Any time I was in the same city, or if I was playing the same festival with a different band, I would jump on stage with them,” he says.

“Now, the only difference is that I don’t have the choice to say, ‘No.’” Woodstock is the first album Howk helped build from the ground up, and it was somewhat of a circuitous process. Drawing influence from hip-hop and R B from the early 2000s, the band originally recorded about 40 songs with Mike D of the Beastie Boys, but eventually decided to steer the record in a different direction and worked with super-producer Danger Mouse. (About half the songs that made the final cut are revamped versions from the Mike D sessions.)

“We needed to focus on material that said something, that meant something,” Howk says. “A lot of the songs didn’t feel like the right messages to get out because they were about girlfriends or nature or whatever. We thought there were more interesting, compelling narratives that would come out at some point.”

For example, beneath the hookworm melodies of “Feel It Still” the lyrics are about basic human rights — like access to clean water — and the Black Lives Matter movement.

The song’s buried message of resistance is given more context by the music video, shot in that Alaskan-style junkyard, during which Gourley writhes around, dances like a robot and sings that he’s “a rebel just for kicks.” Carothers, playing the role of some guy at the bar who wants to fight, lays him out with a punch to the face.

Musically, listeners can hear Howk’s influence in the descending guitar run that gives the choruses in “Feel It Still” an exotic, Bollywood-style flavor. He also helps arrange vocal harmonies, but he’s a guitarist first and foremost — as his bandmates can attest.

“They knew exactly what I do, and that’s exactly what they wanted,” Howk says. “I created a dream job for myself and got hired by my best friends.” n

FEATURING 2 NIGHTS OF LIVE MUSIC WITH...

GRATEFUL DEAD EXPERIENCE

THE SCHWAG PINK FLOYD TRIBUTE BAND : ANIMALS

DOORS TRIBUTE BAND : MOONLIGHT DRIVE BOB MARLEY TRIBUTE BAND : NONSTOP REGGAE

AARON KAMM & THE ONE DROPS • STILLSHINE BLUEGRASS BAND

BAUB EIS BAND • MOLLY ADAMSON • BRODY BUSTER • SURCO

$60 PER PERSON FOR FRIDAY & SATURDAY $30 ONE DAY TICKETS AVAILABLE FOR SATURDAY ALL AGES WELCOME - 10 & UNDER ARE FREE INCLUDES CAMPING, PARKING & LIVE MUSIC GATES OPEN ON THURSDAY, JUNE 15 AT 10 AM AND WILL REMAIN OPEN FOR 24 HOURS THRU SUNDAY MORNING NO ILLEGAL DRUGS OR UNDERAGE DRINKING

CAMPGROUND AT 70 LEGION DRIVE, LAKE OZARK, MO

WWW.DAMJAM.NET

3 GREAT BARS sports bar patio bar balcony bar

HDTVs EVERYWHERE

Amazing Food 2001 Menard (corner of Menard & Allen) 314-833-6686 Facebook: dukesinsoulard riverfronttimes.com

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

59

60

HOMESPUN

GRANDPA’S GHOST The Carnage Queen / Country of Piss grandpasghost.bandcamp.com

B

en Hanna has been summoning the knotty, deep-rooted spirits of American music as the guitarist, singer and songwriter of Grandpa’s Ghost since 1994.

From his home in Pocahontas, Illinois, he’s released albums on small but respected labels and engaged in regular collaboration with experimental artists.

While Hanna has kept busy over the past decade, his band’s output has been relatively scarce. That changed in May with the release of the double LP The Carnage Queen and an attendant EP, Country of Piss. All told, Grandpa’s Ghost has delivered 22 new recordings — some from Hanna’s vaults, some recently composed. They were captured in New York City with Hanna’s long-time bandmates Jack Petracek and Bill Emerson, along with Tim Garrigan, a St. Louis native best known for You Fantastic! and Dazzling Killmen.

Despite Hanna’s many collaborations, Grandpa’s Ghost still holds a place of creative primacy for him.

“Grandpa’s Ghost was kind of a prism through me that was still rooted in mine and Bill and Jack’s lineup,” says Hanna. “Bill and I started the group in 1994; we started working with Jack as an engineer in 1996.”

The dichotomy of the band’s output goes beyond the quiet/loud, acoustic/electric divide; the most charged moments for Grandpa’s Ghost are fuzzy, gnarly divining rods, while the more spare tracks create their circular and oblong patterns as if dictated by some long-suspended pendulum. The title tracks give some hint to Grandpa’s Ghost’s dual engines: “Carnage Queen” is the band at its most succinct, a three-minute rock song bathed in twang and overdrive; “Country of Piss” rolls on gentle strums and banjo plucks for fourteen minutes, though Hanna’s up-close delivery makes it feel somehow shorter and longer than its actual running time.

Hanna moved to New York in 2005 to pursue a degree; before moving back to the Midwest, he booked recording time in the city and summoned Emerson and Petracek and the New York-based Garrigan. “I wanted to record all of this stuff — there was part of me that was coming to an end in New York and I wanted to capture some of that feeling,” he says. “I was very conscientious; I just turned 50 and thought this might be the last time.” Working on the score for James Fotopoulos’ adaptation of Alice in Wonderland helped him tap into his musical background, stretching back to his childhood in rural Illinois.

“I sang in the choirs, played cornet, sang in church.

But Alice being a children’s story at its core, it helped me get in touch with a core element of who I was,” he says. “By the time I got these new records, I wanted to get to some of the songs I loved growing up. When we do a cover, you ask, ‘How do you honor the song?’

Sometimes honoring it means deconstructing it.”

60

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

Some of the covers chosen for these paired releases speak to randpa’s host’s more overt influences the pass at Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s “Lookin’ for a Love” is fitting for a band that could seemingly turn any song into “Cortez the Killer.” But the others — John Hiatt’s “Learning How to Love You” and Judas Priest’s “Electric Eye” — speak to the breadth of Hanna’s listening interest. “There’s a political statement in that song, ‘Electric Eye,’” says Hanna.

Since moving back to the St. Louis area, Hanna spent some time readying the live incarnation for a slew of local gigs, including a show this weekend at the Tap Room and a set at next week’s Riverfront Times-sponsored ShowcaseSTL. Poring through the band’s recorded work kept him up past midnight, making notes and trying to discern how best to present the band’s vast catalogue in a 45-minute set.

“You try to be honest to who you are and who the band is,” Hanna says of prepping the live sets. “You try to say what feels right, what’s our energy. It’s challenging — some of [the songs] take on different meanings as you get older.”

Now that he’s been leading Grandpa’s Ghost for more than twenty years, Hanna is reflective about his band’s longevity and his dedication to this decades-long project.

“I think if you have an idea about what you want to do from a creative angle, you can see what the market will bear,” Hanna says. “I didn’t ever really think that we’d make money, so I made an early decision that we would pursue anything and everything that we felt was viable, in more of a longer-term shelf life.

“I don’t know that there’s still any money involved in it,” he adds, “but the longer you stick around, the more you maintain a commitment to your aesthetic and your art.”

Grandpa’s Ghost

9 p.m. Saturday, June 10. The Schlafly Tap Room, 2100 Locust Street.

Free. 314-241-2337.

Friday June 16th: LOCAL ARTIST BEN ANGELLY ART GALLERY W/ JUMPIN’ JOE ROBINSON 9PM-CLOSE. WWW.BENANGELLY.WORDPRESS.COM

INSTAGRAM@ANGELLY701

DANCE PARTY EVERY FRIDAY & SATURDAY

BEST HAPPY HOUR IN ST. LOUIS!

monday - friday 3-6pm $5 TOP SHELT MARGARITAS $2 DOMESTIC BOTTLES 1/2 OFF KETEL ONE, CAPTAIN MORGAN, JACK DANIELS 12314 Natural Bridge Rd. • Bridgeton, MO 63044 • 314-739-2344

D

E S BA

Y BAR

m DJ DAN C

WHERE IT’S ALWAYS A PARTY!

2001 Menard (corner of Menard & Allen) 314-833-6686 Facebook: dukesinsoulard riverfronttimes.com

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

61

62

OUT EVERY NIGHT

THURSDAY 8 CHASE WALKER BAND: 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314436-5222.

THE GREEN MCDONOUGH BAND: 8 p.m., free.

Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314773-5565.

HUMMING HOUSE: 8 p.m., $12-$15. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

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

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

REEVE CARNEY: 8 p.m., $15-$18. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

SARAH JAROSZ: 7:30 p.m., $51. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900.

SATISFACTION: THE INTERNATIONAL ROLLING STONES SHOW: 8 p.m., $12. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

TIG NOTARO: 8 p.m., $35. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

TWANGFEST 21 DAY 2: w/ Erika Wennerstrom, John Paul White, John Henry 8 p.m., $22-$25.

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

FRIDAY 9 ARI HEST: 6 p.m., $25. SqWires, 1415 S 18th St, St. Louis, 314-865-3522.

BILL POSS: 7:30 p.m., $12-$15. Espenschied Chapel, 317 County Road, Mascoutah, 618-5667425.

BILLY PEEK: 9 p.m., $5. Hwy 61 Roadhouse and Kitchen, 34 S Old Orchard Ave, Webster Groves, 314-968-0061.

BLACK PUSSY: w/ Dibiase, Oxbraker, The Judge 8 p.m., $10-$12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

BROODS: 8 p.m., $20-$22.50. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

CHRIS STEPHENS: 7 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-7722100.

GOOD MORNING BEDLAM: 5 p.m., $5. Music Record Shop, 4191 Manchester Ave., St. Louis, 314-272-4607.

HOLLOW CD RELEASE SHOW: w/ A Dark Orbit, Summoning The Lich, Unimagined, Autumn Tint 7 p.m., $10-$12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

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

JJ THAMES: 5 p.m., $10. National Blues Museum, 615 Washington Ave., St. Louis.

LEROY JODIE PIERSON: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314436-5222.

MODEST MOUSE: 8 p.m., $42.50-$45. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-7266161.

SYNTHETIC SUN: w/ Giants In The Sky, Separer 9 p.m., $5. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

TWANGFEST 21 DAY 3: w/ Robbie Fulks, Parker Millsap, Cave States 8 p.m., $22-$25. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363.

SATURDAY 10 DANBURY STREET: 6 p.m., free. Howard’s in Soulard, 2732 S 13th St, St. Louis, 314-349-2850.

DIESEL ISLAND CD RELEASE PARTY: 2:30 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363.

GORGUTS: w/ Defeated Sanity, Exist 7 p.m., $18-$20. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314289-9050.

THE GREEN MCDONOUGH BAND: 8 p.m., free.

Sullivan’s, 907 N. Illinois St., Belleville, 618233-7060.

KILLER INSTINCT: IRON MAIDEN TRIBUTE: w/

62

RIVERFRONT TIMES

Bonehouse 8 p.m., $12-$15. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

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

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

LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314436-5222.

MAD LIBBY: w/ Thames, The Broadcast Obscura, Earth To Sender 7 p.m., $8-$10. Cicero’s, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009.

SEETHER: w/ Kaleido 7 p.m., $32.50-$35. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-7266161.

TRAVELER: w/ Mariner, Union Grove, Church Key, Secondary 6 p.m., $10-$12. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

TWANGFEST 21 DAY 4: w/ Chuck Prophet, The Flat Five, Town Cars 8 p.m., $22-$25. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363.

VYA: w/ The Vigilettes, White Fuzzy Blood Bath 8 p.m., $7. El Lenador, 3124 Cherokee St., St. Louis, 314-771-2222.

SUNDAY 11

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

KING 810: w/ Gost 7 p.m., $16-$18. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

MUSE: w/ Thirty Seconds to Mars 6 p.m., $30-$99.50. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

ST. LOUIS SOCIAL CLUB: 9 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314436-5222.

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

WEDNESDAY 14 BIG RICH MCDONOUGH & RHYTHM RENEGADES: 9 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

BOB “BUMBLE BEE” KAMOSKE: 8 p.m. Beale on Broadway, 701 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-7880.

MISS MAY I: w/ Upon A Burning Body, Kublai Khan, Currents 6 p.m., $20-$23. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

MISTERWIVES: w/ the Greeting Committee 8 p.m., $23-$25. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

TANK & THE BANGAS: 8 p.m., $15. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT JAZZ CRAWL: 5 p.m. continues through Dec. 27, free. The Stage at KDHX, 3524 Washington Ave, St. Louis, 314-925-7543, ext. 815.

THIS JUST IN 1 LAST CHANCE: W/ The Volunteers, New American Classic, Thu., June 15, 8 p.m., $8. Cicero’s, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-8620009, ciceros-stl.

Continued on pg 64

[CRITIC’S PICK]

CHRIS BLACK EXPERIENCE: 5 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

COCO MONTOYA: 8 p.m., $17.50-$20. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

THE DARRELLS: 2 p.m., free. Howard’s in Soulard, 2732 S 13th St, St. Louis, 314-349-2850.

JUSTIN HOSKINS “TRIBUTE TO BABY FACE”: 8:30 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

LEWIS DEL MAR: 8 p.m., $15-$18. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

MZ. SHA & THE KLE’ SHA BAND: 4 p.m., $10.

National Blues Museum, 615 Washington Ave., St. Louis.

PORTUGAL. THE MAN: 8 p.m., $27.50-$30. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-7266161.

REHYDRATE POOL PARTY: w/ EC Twins noon, $15. Ameristar Casino, 1 Ameristar Blvd., St. Charles, 636-949-7777.

SARAH LONGFIELD: w/ Drewsif Stalin’s Musical Endeavors, Lattermath 6 p.m., $12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

SOUL REUNION: 10:30 p.m., $7. Beale on Broadway, 701 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-7880.

THELMA AND THE SLEAZE: w/ Birdcloud, Ex-Girlfriends 8 p.m., $12. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363.

THE WEAPON - HARD ROCK & METAL TRIBUTE: w/ A Shogun Named Marcus: A Tribute To Clutch, Oracle 7 p.m., $5-$6. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

MONDAY 12 AMY BLACK: 8 p.m., $15. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363.

CUT UP: w/ Breakmouth Annie, The Mondales 8 p.m., $8-$10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW: 8 p.m., $30-$50.

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

SOULARD BLUES BAND: 9 p.m., $5. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-6218811.

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

TUESDAY 13 ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO & THE BURN SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL BAND: 8 p.m., $25-$35. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

J. COLE: 8 p.m., $35-$50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

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 Broad-

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

Dave King. | ANDREA CANTER

Dave King Trucking Company 8 p.m. Sunday, June 11.

Joe’s Cafe, 6014 Kingsbury Avenue. $15. 314-8622541.

Fans of inventive, occasionally irreverent jazz let out a collective gasp this spring when the Bad Plus announced that founding pianist Ethan Iverson would be leaving the group, to be replaced by Orrin Evans. It marked the end of an era for the Minneapolis-founded trio, though in recent years its members have kept busy with extracurricular activities. Case in

point: Drummer Dave King has pushed past the trio format with his own Dave King Trucking Company quintet, mixing electric guitar, upright bass and a pair of reed players with more melodic compositions. How all five players will fit on Joe’s Cafe’s famously tiny stage is another matter.

Videodrone: King’s absurd and hilarious YouTube series Rational Funk recently ended after 60 episodes, but his more scripted series Lights Cameron Jackson fills the void nicely.

–Christian Schaeffer

BLUES CRUISE THURSDAY EVENINGS IN THE SUMMER EXPERIENCE A ST. LOUIS RIVERFRONT TRADITION!

Gateway Arch RIVERBOATS JUNE 15 BIG GEORGE JUNE 29 BILLY PEEK JULY 13 SKEET RODGERS & THE INNER CITY BLUES BAND AUGUST 3 SOULARD BUFFET, BLUES BAND ENJOY A DELICIOUS LIVE MUSIC AUGUST 24 BIG MIKE & THE BLU CITY ALL STARS AND THE BEST VIEW OF ST. LOUIS SEPTEMBER 21 JEREMIAH JOHNSON VOTED OCTOBER 12 MARQUISE KNOX BEST PLACE TO SLOW OCTOBER 26 BILLY PEEK

SKYLINE

DINNER CRUISE

DANCE

WINNER

MAKE YOUR RESERVATIONS TODAY!

GATEWAYARCH.COM 877.982.1410 CASH BAR AND CONCESSIONS AVAILABLE. RESERVATIONS RECOMMENDED.

RAWF SH B

E

LIVE MUSIC FR DAYS S

SAT RDAYS DAYS

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK: GOODTIMES.PATIO.BAR

A

riverfronttimes.com

D

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

63

THIS JUST IN Continued from pg 62 [CRITIC’S PICK]

Old Crow Medicine Show. | DANNY CLINCH

Old Crow Medicine Show 8 p.m. Monday, June 12.

The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Boulevard. $30 to $50.

314-726-6161.

Old Crow Medicine Show owes Bob Dylan a solid, so it makes perfect sense that the band would build a tour around tackling the entirety of Blonde on Blonde in honor of its 50th anniversary. Without “Wagon Wheel,” the band’s co-write with Dylan (Dylan never sat down with songwriter Ketch Secor, but he did get 50 percent of the publishing), Old Crow would still be busking outside Boone Drug in

North Carolina. At this point the band is probably as sick of it as you are, but they’re not above appeasing the bluegrass bros with it in concert. So come for the “rock me mama,” but stay for all of “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.”

Nashville Sound: Blonde on Blonde is a modernist rock masterpiece because of the country session players who cut it with Dylan in Nashville. The pickers in Old Crow Medicine Show play the album like they know they’ve got a lot to live up to.

–Roy Kasten [CRITIC’S PICK]

J. Cole 8 p.m. Tuesday, June 13.

The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Boulevard. $35 to $50.

314-726-6161.

Rapper J. Cole’s biggest critic may be a Hampton Inn based in Sandy, Utah.

A beef between rappers and hotels may seem completely absurd, but to be fair, the Hampton Inn started it. On December 9, the date Cole released his latest, 4 Your Eyez Only, the establishment tweeted the following: “Is the new J. Cole album putting you to sleep early? Stop on by and stay the night with us at the Hampton Inn Sandy!” It was a clever way for the hotel to get some attention, sure — and it succeeded, if the sheer number of hip-hop outlets 64

RIVERFRONT TIMES

eager to report on the “feud” can be used as a metric — but we’d argue that its critical assessment of the album was flawed. And fans would agree with us: Already certified platinum by April, every track on 4 Your Eyez Only debuted in the top 40 of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart.

Meanwhile, Hampton Inn’s tweet has since been deleted.

Big Fish: The Pageant is an exceptionally small venue when compared to J. Cole’s considerable drawing power.

Expect to stand shoulder-to-shoulder.

JUNE 7-13, 2017

–Daniel Hill

riverfronttimes.com

com.

120 MINUTES: Sat., June 17, 9 p.m., free. Schlafly Bottleworks, 7260 Southwest Ave, Maplewood, 314-241-233 , schlafly.com.

AIKO TSUCHIDA: W Edgefield C. Johnston Duo, Jon Valley, Sat., June 17, 7 p.m., 7pm. Shameless Grounds, 1901 Withnell Ave., St. Louis, 314-449-1240, shamelessgrounds.com.

ANAPHORA: W/ Tree One Four, Papa Skinny & The Phat Blues Band, Fri., July 7, 7 p.m., $10.

Cicero’s, 66 1 Delmar Blvd., niversity City, 314-862-0009, ciceros-stl.com.

ANGEL OLSEN: W/ Mount Moriah, Wed., Oct. 4, p.m., 20- 22.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161, thepageant.com.

BABY BIRDS DON’T DRINK MILK: W/ Isabel Rex, Warren, Wed., July 5, 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-3525226, theheavyanchor.com.

THE BACKROAD BOYS: Fri., Oct. 13, 7 p.m., $15$18. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505, oldrockhouse.com.

BANKS: Mon., Sept. 18, 8 p.m., $27.50-$30.

Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314726-6161, delmarhall.com.

BILLY PEEK: Fri., June 9, 9 p.m., $5. Hwy 61 Roadhouse and Kitchen, 34 S Old Orchard Ave, Webster Groves, 314-968-0061, hwy61roadhouse.com.

BIRDTALKER: Thu., July 6, 8 p.m., $12. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353, firebirdstl.com.

BLACK BOY JOY: W/ Jime, Golliday, Hello Jizoo, Corey Black, Tre , Sun., June 1 , p.m., 1012. Kranzberg Arts Center, 501 rand Blvd, St. Louis, 314-533-0367, kranzbergartscenter. org.

BODY FOUND: W Cacodyl, Thames, Sat., July 1, p.m., - 10. Cicero’s, 66 1 Delmar Blvd., niversity City, 314- 62-000 , ciceros-stl.com.

BOYS OF SUMMER TOUR: Sat., Aug. 5, 1 p.m., $25-$29. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353, firebirdstl.com.

BRIAN MCKNIGHT: W/ Ginuwine, Sat., Aug. 26, 7 p.m., 45- 100. The Fox Theatre, 52 . rand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-534-1111, fabulousfox.com.

BRONCHO: W Billy Changer, Sun., July 16, p.m., $15. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929, thereadyroom. com.

BRUISE: W Omerta, Polterguts, Chalked p, Mon., June 19, 8 p.m., $7. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050, fubarstl.com.

BUTTERCUP: W/ Separer, Superfun Yeah Yeah Rocketship, Subtroplolis, Fri., July 28, 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226, theheavyanchor.com.

CATALOGUE LIVE: Sat., July 22, 9 p.m., $5. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226, theheavyanchor.com.

CHAPTERS: W Embracer, Biff K’narly And The Reptilians, Marriott, Scribble, Sat., July 15, 7 p.m., 12- 15. Cicero’s, 66 1 Delmar Blvd., niversity City, 314- 62-000 , ciceros-stl.com.

DAVEY SUICIDE: W/ Motograter, Fri., July 14, 7 p.m., $12-$14. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353, firebirdstl.com.

EARLY TURNER: W/ Bad Haircuts, Sun., July 23, 7 p.m., $6-$8. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353, firebirdstl.com.

FATAL BUS ACCIDENT: A COMEDY TALK SHOW: Wed., July 26, 9 p.m., $5. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226, theheavyanchor.com.

FINESSE MITCHELL: Thu., Aug. 17, 7:30 & 10 p.m.; Fri., Aug. 18, 10 p.m.; Sat., Aug. 19, 10 p.m., 1 - 31. Helium Comedy Club, 1151 St. Louis Galleria Saint Louis Galleria Mall, Richmond Heights, 314-727-1260, st-louis. heliumcomedy.com.

GALACTIC EMPIRE: W Dangerkids, Wed., July 19, 7 p.m., $18-$20. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050, fubarstl.com.

GOGOL BORDELLO: W Lucky Chops, Wed., ov.

1, p.m., 25- 2 .50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161, thepageant.com.

THE GREEN MCDONOUGH BAND: Thu., June 8, 8 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 202 S. th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565, hammerstones.net. Sat., June 10, p.m., free. Sullivan’s, 0 . Illinois St., Belleville, 618-233-7060. Fri., June 23, 8 p.m., free. Edwardsville City Park, 112 S. Kansas St., Edwardsville. Sat., June 24, 6 p.m., free.

Howard’s in Soulard, 2 32 S 13th St, St. Louis,

314-349-2850.

HE IS WE: W/ The Icarus Account, Woven In Hiatus, Fri., Sept. 1, 7 p.m., $15-$18. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353, firebirdstl.com.

HOMESHAKE: Wed., Aug. 16, 8 p.m., $12-$14.

The Monocle, 4510 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-935-7003, themonoclestl.com.

ITS A BENEFIT TO HELP CUVI SEE BETTER, GOSH!: W/ Skyline In Ruins, The Faded Truth, Facing Infamy, Cuvi, Austin Estrada, Cody Pratt, Sat., July 29, 6 p.m., $5. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353, firebirdstl.com.

JETPACK BRUCE: W Cost Of Desire, Mr. Wilson’s Heroes, Love Kingsford, Fri., June 23, 7 p.m., . Cicero’s, 66 1 Delmar Blvd., niversity City, 314-862-0009, ciceros-stl.com.

JON BELLION: Thu., Oct. 19, 8 p.m., $32.50-$35.

The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314726-6161, thepageant.com.

MAD LIBBY: W/ Thames, The Broadcast Obscura, Earth To Sender, Sat., June 10, 7 p.m., $8-$10.

Cicero’s, 66 1 Delmar Blvd., niversity City, 314-862-0009, ciceros-stl.com.

MANIAC: W/ Life Sucks, Tue., July 4, 6 p.m., $7.

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

MOON HOOCH: Fri., Oct. 13, 10 p.m., $15-$17.

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

MY LIFE WITH THE THRILL KILL KULT: Tue., Oct. 17, 8 p.m., $20-$25. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929, thereadyroom.com.

PALISADES: Fri., June 30, 8 p.m., $15. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050, fubarstl.com.

RATBOYS: Sun., July 23, 8 p.m., $10-$12. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., niversity City, 314- 2 -4444, blueberryhill. com.

REHYDRATE POOL PARTY: W EC Twins, Sun., June 11, noon, 15. Ameristar Casino, 1 Ameristar Blvd., St. Charles, 636- 4 , ameristar. com.

RETRO CHAMP: W T- Dubz, Major Music, Sat., Aug. 5, 8 p.m., $10-$15. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353, firebirdstl.com.

RHIANNON GIDDENS: Mon., Sept. 25, 8 p.m., $3045. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161, thepageant.com.

RICK KILIAN: W/ The Roads Below, The Right Hooks, Sat., July , p.m., 10. Cicero’s, 66 1 Delmar Blvd., niversity City, 314- 62-000 , ciceros-stl.com.

THE RUN AROUND: W/ the Radio Buzzkills, The Savage Bastards, Suburban Commandos, Fri., July 21, 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226, theheavyanchor.com.

SAWYER FREDERICKS: W/ Gabriel Wolfchild and The orthern Light, Haley Johnsen, Thu., July 13, 7 p.m., $18-$20. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353, firebirdstl.com.

SEARCHING FOR NOSTALGIA: W/ Acceptable Losses, Striking Dawn, A440, Thu., July 6, 6 p.m., $10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-2899050, fubarstl.com.

SECOND TO ALL CD RELEASE: Sat., June 17, 7 p.m., 6- . Cicero’s, 66 1 Delmar Blvd., niversity City, 314- 62-000 , ciceros-stl.com.

SHOTGUN CREEK: W reg Finger Band, Circle The Wagons, Fri., June 16, p.m., 10. Cicero’s, 66 1 Delmar Blvd., niversity City, 314- 620009, ciceros-stl.com.

SPLIT THE SKYLINE CD RELEASE PARTY: Sat., Aug. 19, 7 p.m., $10-$12. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353, firebirdstl.com.

TOM SEGURA: Fri., Oct. 27, 8 p.m., $30-$35. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314- 266161, thepageant.com.

U2: Sat., Sept. 16, 5 p.m., TBA. The Dome at America’s Center, 01 Convention Plaza St., St. Louis, 314-342-5201, explorestlouis.com.

VNV NATION: W/ iVardensphere, Tue., Oct. 10, 8 p.m., 25- 30. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., niversity City, 314- 2 4444, blueberryhill.com.

VYA: W/ The Vigilettes, White Fuzzy Blood Bath, Sat., June 10, p.m., . El Lenador, 3124 Cherokee St., St. Louis, 314-771-2222, lenador.com.

WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Thu., July 20, 8 p.m., $283 . The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161, thepageant.com.

SAVAGE LOVE GET OUT

BY DAN SAVAGE Hey, Dan: I hate how my boyfriend has sex with me. It used to be fine, but a year ago he started adding new moves he obviously got from porn: smacking my pussy with an open palm, vigorously rubbing my clit, wrapping his hands around my neck. I’m not anti-porn; what bothers me is that even though I told him these moves don’t feel good on my body and hurt me, he doesn’t care. It’s not that I don’t want him to enjoy himself, but I don’t feel like his enjoyment should come at the price of mine. I don’t know how to get him to listen to me.

Porn Lessons Erasing All Sexual Energy Your boyfriend listened to you, PLEASE. You told him you don’t like his porny new moves; he told you he likes them and intends to keep doing them. So this isn’t about listening — it’s about caring. Your boyfriend is hurting you and “he doesn’t care.” Dump the motherfucker already.

And while you’re not anti-porn, PLEASE, and I’m certainly not anti-porn, it would appear that porn is part of the problem.

“The porn industry, like every other area of popular culture, is dominated by a closed loop of white guys talking to white guys about other white guys,” said Cindy Gallop, legendary advertising executive, consultant and public speaker. “The most easily accessed mainstream straight porn is all about the man, with zero empathy for the female experience, taken to ludicrous (and for the woman, painful)

extremes.”

At MakeLoveNotPorn.com, Gallop wants not only to balance out porn with socially shared #realworldsex, but to see the porn market flooded with porn made by women. “Seeing more innovative porn — porn that men would find just as hot — would result in everybody having a much better time in bed,” said Gallop. “Men need to see there is no bigger turn-on than being in bed with someone who you know is having an absolutely fabulous time because of you.”

Unfortunately, PLEASE, you’re having an absolutely miserable time. “PLEASE’s boyfriend is operating in his own closed loop,” said Gallop, “the belief that sexual gratification is all about him. He has no idea what sexual gratification really could be. She needs to leave him.”

Hey, Dan: I’m 28 years old and have been with my boyfriend (also 28) for three years. I’m a pretty sexual person.

I like to dominate and be dominated.

However, my boyfriend is non-aggressive, non-dominating and non-initiating. I ALWAYS have to initiate and I’m ALWAYS in the driver’s seat. I’m tired of this. I enjoy strong masculine energy! I’m a feminist, but sometimes in the bedroom it can be incredibly hot to feel like a sex object. We’ve talked and talked, and tried some light bondage (he didn’t like it), and talked about a threesome (he’s opposed). He says sex just isn’t something he “thinks about a lot.” How do I get him to show some sexual aggression?

Wants Him Aggressive More Keep reading, WHAM. Hey, Dan: My husband of seventeen

65

years has never been into sex — which I always knew was a problem, but the other stuff was good. He’s into pornography, though, and I’ve busted him many times. To say I am resentful is an understatement. He uses corn oil for masturbating, and I’ve been reduced to marking the bottle and booby-trapping it to see if he’s been up to his tricks. We have two children, so that’s what keeps me from “pulling the trigger.”

Gagging In Chicago

I wasn’t giving him enough sex. I felt so guilty that I put up with some very coercive situations. I became an orgasm dispenser for a dumbass whose beard prickled my clit painfully, who complained my G-spot moved around, and who fell asleep fingering me. I put up with his shit for far too long. It would have been helpful to be told that GGG needs to be MUTUAL and feel good for both parties.

Sassy Unconquered Babe

GIC: You have three options.

1. Pull the trigger.

2. Redefine your marriage as companionate — it’s about child-rearing and family life, not about sex. If your husband is free to find fulfillment in the bottle (of corn oil), and you’re free to find fulfillment in the bedroom (of another man/men), maybe you can make it work.

3. Continue with what you’re doing now — your husband sneaking off to have a wank, and you monitoring (and booby-trapping?!?) every bottle of corn oil that comes into the house.

WHAM: our boyfriend isn’t going to become someone else — he’s not going to suddenly become more interested in sex or more sexually aggressive — so if you don’t want to be sending me a letter like GIC’s in fourteen years, end this relationship. People who want healthy, functional, monogamous LTRs — free from booby traps and busts — need to prioritize sexual compatibility at the start. That doesn’t mean things can’t go off the rails later (see the first letter , but they’re less likely to.

GGG — good in bed, giving of pleasure, and game for anything within reason — is what we should be for our partners and our partners should be for us. So it absolutely needs to be mutual, SUB, and there are definitely limits.

“Being GGG means considering a partner’s reasonable sexual requests,” I previously responded to a reader who asked for a clarification. “ ot all sexual requests can be fulfilled, and not all needs can be met. But two people who want to make their relationship work need to carve out a mutually satisfying repertoire that doesn’t leave anyone feeling frustrated or used. Does everyone get everything they want? Of course not. But each of us has a right to ask for our needs to be met (without being abusive or coercive) and the responsibility to indulge our partner’s reasonable requests if we can (without being abused or coerced). We should also recognize when the gulf is too great and end the relationship rather than engaging in sex acts that leave us feeling diminished and dehumanized.”

Hey, Dan: I desperately wanted to be GGG in my past relationship. My partner chronically complained that

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

STREAK’S CORNER • by Bob Stretch

riverfronttimes.com

JUNE 7-13, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

65

Adult Entertainment 960 Phone Entertainment

CALLING HOT HORNY ST. LOUISANS! NASTY TALK is waiting for YOU. Join the conversation!

Connect live with sexy local ladies!

Try it FREE! 18+ 314-480-5505

$ 10 BE ST P HON E SE X

Call FREE! 314-932-2568 or 800-811-1633 18+ vibeline.com

CHOOSE FROM: Busty Blondes, Ebony Hotties, Hot Coeds or Older Ladies

8 66-5 15 -F OX Y ( 3 69 9 )

FREE SEX SLGBT

MEET HOT LOCAL SINGLES! Browse & Reply

HOT LOCAL SINGLES 1-800-LET-CHAT (538-2428)

FREE!!

Straight 314-739-7777 Gay & Bi 314-209-0300 Use FREE Code 3275, 18+

Check it out BROWSE FREE!

Then just 20 cents p/m

Only $10 per Call

www.nightexchange.com

FUN, FLIRTY, LOCAL WOMEN Call FREE! 314-932-2564 or 800-210-1010 18+ livelinks.com

Feel The Vibe! Hot Black Chat

CALL GORGEOUS SINGLES ON THE NIGHT EXCHANGE! Live Local Chat.

Try us FREE! 18+ 314-480-5505

www.nightexchange.com

18+

REAL PEOPLE REAL DESIRE REAL FUN.

LA VA LIF E VOICE

Talk to 1000s of EXCITING SINGLES in St. Louis!

1st Time Buyers Special Only $20 for 80 min!

CALL TODAY! 314.450.7920 Must be 18+

THE FORECAST:

Try FREE: 314-932-2564

HOT, STEAMY & SEXY

More Local Numbers: 1-800-926-6000

Ahora español Livelinks.com 18+

LOOKING TO MEET TONIGHT?

WHEN YOU SHOP AT PATRICIAS!

So are the sexy singles waiting for you on the line!!

It doesn’t get HOTTER than this!!!

Try it FREE!! 18+ 314-480-5505

FREE TO LISTEN

Now For That

HOT & EROTIC ENCOUNTER!

Try us FREE!! 18+ 314-480-5505

www.nightexchange.com

CALLING HOT HORNY ST. LOUISANS! NASTY TALK is waiting for YOU. Join the conversation!

Connect live with sexy local ladies!

Try it FREE! 18+ 314-480-5505

www.nightexchange.com

$ 10 BE ST P HON E SE X

CHOOSE FROM: Busty Blondes, Ebony Hotties, Hot Coeds or Older Ladies

8 66-5 15 -F OX Y ( 3 69 9 )

Only $10 per Call

Feel The Vibe! Hot Black Chat Call FREE! 314-932-2568 or 800-811-1633 18+ vibeline.com

FUN, FLIRTY, LOCAL WOMEN Call FREE! 314-932-2564 or 800-210-1010 18+ livelinks.com

www.nightexchange.com

AND REPLY TO ADS Free Code: Riverfront Times

St. Louis’ Premiere Adult Shop

SEXY LOCAL SINGLES

Empowering Your Sexual Wellness

800-538-CHAT (2428)

7 D AY S A W E E K

P AT R I C I A S G I F T S H O P

FIND REAL GAY MEN NEAR YOU

Mid County

St. Louis:

10210 Page Ave.

(314) 209-0300

(3 miles East of Westport Plaza)

314-423-8422

www.megamates.com 18+

Open until Midnight Fri & Sat

.

C O M

South City

St. Peters

3552 Gravois at Grand

314-664-4040

1034 Venture Dr.

(70 & Cave Springs, S. Outer Rd.)

Open until Midnight Fri & Sat

636-928-2144

Open until Midnight Thurs-Sat

Meet sexy friends who really get your vibe...

Dating made Easy

Try FREE: 314-932-2568

FREE

More Local Numbers: 1-800-811-1633

to Listen & Reply to ads.

FREE CODE: Riverfront Times

St. Louis

(314) 739.7777

vibeline.com 18+

18+ www.MegaMates.com

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JUNE 7-13, 2017

FREE 24/7 SEX HOT, BEEFY BI STUDS 800-GAY-MEET (429-6338)

MEN 4 MEN PERSONALIZE YOUR MASSAGE

Time for Summer Body Grooming!

• FULL BODY MASSAGE • SOFT SENSUAL TOUCH • TANTRIC • INCALLS

For other local numbers:

66

ST.LOUIS ADULTS ARE CALLING

WHO ARE YOU TRY FOR AFTER DARK? FREE riverfronttimes.com

314-932-2561

• OUTCALLS TO YOUR HOTEL/MOTEL, HOME & OFFICE 314-236-7060 LIKEITXXXHOTT@AOL.COM

100 Employment 103 Auditions/Show Biz 120 105 Career/Training/Schools Drivers/Delivery/Courier 110 Computer/Technical 112 Construction/Labor 120 Drivers/Delivery/Courier D R Domestic IVE R S N E E D E D 125 127 Education A SA P 130 Entertainment Requires Class E, B 140 Financial/Accounting or A License.

Management/Professional S145 Endorsement Helpful. Must 150 be 25Medical/Dental/Health yrs or older. Will Train.

155 Medical Research Studies er Cab Co 160A BC/Check Office/Clerical CA LLRestaurants/Hotels/Clubs N OW 3 14 -725 -9 5 5 0 167 170 Retail 172 Sales 175CD Telemarketing/Call L-A D R IVE R Center S 177 Salons Ow ner Operators: 180and Security/Law Enforcement 183 $ Trades 1,5 0 0 . 0 0 Sig n-On! 185 Miscellaneous Midwest Runs.

190 Business Opportunities Full Benefits.

193 Employment Information Paid Weekly.

195 Wanted NEWPosition pay scale equals extra CPM!

1-8 8 8 -3 0 0 -9 9 3 5 167 Restaurants/Hotels/Clubs

W A N T E D : D ISHW A SHE R

11939 Olive Blvd.

Creve Coeur

3 14 -9 9 7-4 224

F U LL T IME MA IN T E N A N CE

Must be qualified in: • Plumbing • • Painting • • Electrical • Experienced only need apply.

800 Health & Wellness 805 Registered Massage 807 Registered Sensual Massage 805 810 Health & Massage Wellness General Registered

MA SSA G E !

Specializing in

SPORTS MASSAGE THERAPY

4 Sally Drive Maryland Hghts

3 14 -3 25 -4 63 4

or Book Online amandaminidayspa.com

A New Intuitive Massage Call Natalie 314.799.2314

www.artformassage.info CMT/LMT 2003026388 Escape the Stresses of Life with a relaxing

OR IE N T A L MA SSA G E & R E F LE X OLOG Y

You’ll Come Away Feeling Refreshed & Rejuvenated.

( 63 6) 79 7-4 68 2

Call 314-972-9998

11939 Olive Blvd.

Creve Coeur

3 14 -9 9 7-4 224

190 Business Opportunities

FIT3 IS HERE! Are you ready to get fit financially & physically?

Openings for serious, motivated individuals.

Independent Reliv Distributor

Relaxing 1 Hour Full Body Massage.

Light Touch, Swedish, Deep Tissue.

Daily 10am-5pm South County.

314-620-6386 Ls # 2006003746

for Common Injuries

$12.00 per hour

W A N T E D : D ISHW A SHE R

ULTIMATE MASSAGE BY SUMMER!!!!

Health Therapy Massage Relax, Rejuvenate & Refresh!

F lexib le A ppointments Monday Thru Sunday (Walk-ins welcome) 320 Brooke’s Drive, 63042 Call Cheryl. 314-895-1616 or 314-258-2860 LET#200101083 Now Hiring...Therapists

Simply Marvelous Call Cynthia today for your massage. M-F 7-5, Sat. 9-1.

314-265-9625 - Eureka Area #2001007078

Call (314) 223-8067 now for appointment

815 Mind/Body/Spirit

BE WELL, STAY WELL. Help others be well and stay well.

Build a business helping others get what they need and you WILL get what you need.

Call (314) 223-8067 now for appointment

MA SSA G E !

Specializing in

SPORTS MASSAGE THERAPY

for Common Injuries 4 Sally Drive Maryland Hghts

3 14 -3 25 -4 63 4

or Book Online amandaminidayspa.com

A New Intuitive Massage Call Natalie 314.799.2314

www.artformassage.info CMT/LMT 2003026388 Escape the Stresses of Life with a relaxing

OR IE N T A L MA SSA G E & R E F LE X OLOG Y

500 Services 505 Automotive Services

510 Bus Services 530 515 Computer Misc.

ServicesServices 520 525 527 530 537 540

Financial Services Legal Services Legal Notices Misc. Services Adoptions Travel/Getaways

W A N T ST O P U R CHA SE MIN E R A LS and other oil & gas interests.

Send details to

P . O. Box 13 5 5 7 D enver, CO 8 0 20 1

Pregnant?

Considering Adoption?

Loving NY doctor looking to adopt a baby.

I will give your baby a wonderful, stable and nurturing home.

Home study approved.

1-8 8 8 -8 3 7-3 9 69 elisab ethadopts @ g mail. com

600 Music 605 Musicians Avail./Wanted 610 Musician’s Services 610 615 MusicServices Instruction Musicians 620 Music Equip/Instruments 625 Plug the Band

MUSICIANS Do you have a band?

We have bookings.

Call for information (314)781-6612 Mon-Fri, 10:00-4:30

MUSICIANS AVAILABLE Do You Need...

A Musician?

A Band?

String Quartet?

Call the Musicians Association of St. Louis

(314) 781-6612 M-F, 10:00-4:30

MUSICIANS Do you have a band?

We have bookings.

Call for information (314)781-6612 Mon-Fri, 10:00-4:30

You’ll Come Away Feeling Refreshed & Rejuvenated.

Call 314-972-9998

NORTH COUNTY $539 314-524-3635 We accept City & County Section 8 vouchers.

All electric, gated parking, onsite laundry, close to public transportation.

300 Rentals

350 Vacation 360 Storage 365 Comm Rentals Condos/Townhomes/Duplexes 370 Rentals Wanted 380 Miscellaneous Apartment for Rent SOUTH CITY 385 Rooms for Rent Houses for Rent $515390 Rental Services Short Term/Corporate Housing Manufactured Home 314-707-9975 Rentals

305 Roommates

317 310 Roommate Services 312 Lofts forfor Lease Apartments Rent 315 317 320 330 340

NORTH-COUNTY $510 314-521-0388 Newly renovated 1BR apts for SENIOR LIVING. Safe and affordable.

FIRST MONTH FREE!

Ray & Meramec: 1 BR, All Electric, Hardwood Floors, Central Air, W/D Hook-up.

SOUTH-CITY $515 314-707-9975 Jamieson & Nottingham: 1 BR, All Electric, Hardwood Floors, Central Air, W/D Hook-up.

OVERLAND/ST. ANN $535-$575 314-995-1912 SPECIAL-1 MONTH FREE! Great location near Hwys 170, 64, 70 & 270.

6 minutes to Clayton.

Garage, Clean, safe, quiet.

SOUTH-CITY $600 314-707-9975 Gravois & Pennsylvania: 2 BR, All Electric, Hardwood Floors, Central Air, W/D Hook-up.

RICHMOND-HEIGHTS $525-$575 314-995-1912 SPECIAL-1 MONTH FREE! Near Metrolink, Hwys 40 & 44 & Clayton.

1BR, all electric off Big Bend.

DOWNTOWN Cityside-Apts 314-231-6806 Bring in ad & application fee waived!

Gated prkng, onsite laundry. Controlled access bldgs, pool, fitness, business ctr. Pets welcome

SOUTH CITy $400-$850 314-771-4222

NORTH COUNTY $539 314-524-3635 We accept City & County Section 8 vouchers.

All electric, gated parking, onsite laundry, close to public transportation.

1-3 BR Apts. Many different units.

NO CREDIT, NO PROBLEM! www.stlrr.com

NORTH-COUNTY $510 314-521-0388 Newly renovated 1BR apts for SENIOR LIVING. Safe and affordable.

FIRST MONTH FREE!

UNIVERSITY CITY $795 314-727-1444

OVERLAND/ST. ANN $535-$575 314-995-1912 SPECIAL-1 MONTH FREE! Great location near Hwys 170, 64, 70 & 270.

6 minutes to Clayton.

Garage, Clean, safe, quiet.

RICHMOND-HEIGHTS $525-$575 314-995-1912

2BR, new kitch, bath & carpet, C/A & heat. No pets.

SOUTH CITY $515 314-707-9975 Ray & Meramec: 1 BR, All Electric, Hardwood Floors, Central Air, W/D Hook-up.

SOUTH-CITY $515 314-707-9975 Jamieson & Nottingham: 1 BR, All Electric, Hardwood Floors, Central Air, W/D Hook-up.

SPECIAL-1 MONTH FREE! Near Metrolink, Hwys 40 & 44 & Clayton.

1BR, all electric off Big Bend.

SOUTH-CITY $600 314-707-9975 Gravois & Pennsylvania: 2 BR, All Electric, Hardwood Floors, Central Air, W/D Hook-up.

SOUTH CITy $400-$850 314-771-4222

w w w . LiveInT heG rove. com 320 Houses for Rent

1-3 BR Apts. Many different units.

NO CREDIT, NO PROBLEM! www.stlrr.com SOUTH-CITY 314-504-6797 5052 Miami (West of Kingshighway) Renovated 1 BD with Enclosed Sun Porch, Updated Bathroom, New Cabinets, New Windows, Dishwasher, C/A, Refinished Hardwood Floors, Appliances.

Near Shopping and Bus Line.

DUTCHTOWN $980 314-223-8067 3 BR spacious home for rent. Natural wood floor (1st flr), carpet (2nd flr). Lrg updated kitchen w/double oven gas stove, 2 bath, dining rm, bsmnt, w/d hookup, fenced yard, a/c. Lots of Closets!

210 Houses for Sale

SOUTH-CITY $495 314-443-4478 7327 Michigan Ave (near Loughborough & Hwy 55). 1 BR with large living room and bedroom. Basement storage, W/D hookup.

FILE BANKRUPTCY NOW! CALL ANGELA JANSEN 314-645-5900 BANKRUPTCYSHOPSTL.COM THE CHOICE OF A L AWYER IS AN IMPORTANT DECISION AND SHOULD NOT BE BASED SOLELY ON ADVERTISING.

FIRST MONTH FREE! AFFORDABLE SENIOR LIVING

Newly Renovated 1 Bedroom Apartments $510 Appliances • Energy Efficient Laundry On-Site

HERITAGE SENIOR APARTMENTS NORTH COUNTY AREA 314-521-0388

WESTPORT/LINDBERGH/PAGE $535-$585 314-995-1912 SPECIAL-1 MONTH FREE! Nice Area near Hwys 64, 270, 170, 70 & Clayton.

Patio, laundry, great landlord!

Clean, safe, quiet.

Thur., June 15 at 2:00PM 647 Aqua Ridge Drive St. Louis, MO Auction Held On Site

DOWNTOWN Cityside-Apts 314-231-6806 Bring in ad & application fee waived!

Gated prkng, onsite laundry. Controlled access bldgs, pool, fitness, business ctr. Pets welcome

riverfronttimes.com

Real Estate Auction

JUNE 7-13, 2017

Open House: Sun, June 11 12-2PM adamsauctions.com 618-234-8751

RIVERFRONT TIMES

67

DATING MADE EASY... LOCAL SINGLES! Listen & Reply FREE! 314-739-7777 FREE PROMO CODE: 9512 Telemates

FIRST MONTH FREE!

The Changing Pointe at

AFFORDABLE SENIOR LIVING Newly renovated 1 bedroom apartments in North County.

EarthCircleRecycling.com

Earth Circle’s mission is to creatively assist businesses and residents with their recycling efforts while providing the friendliest and most reliable service in the area.

Heritage Senior Apartments 314-521-0388

ALCOHOL & SUBSTANCE USE TREATMENT FOR ADULTS

Call Today!

314-664-1450

DETOXIFICATION 4-WEEK RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT OUTPATIENT PROGRAMS MEDICATION-ASSISTED TREATMENT AFTERCARE • FAMILY SUPPORT

EVANGELINE’S

NOW SERVING BRUNCH ON SATURDAY & SUNDAY! evangelinesstl.com

PRESENTS...

Murder in the Man Cave!

CALL 1-800-345-5407 24-hour Confidential Assessment with Caring and Compassionate Counselors. No Cost for the Initial Assessment.

Most Major Insurances Accepted.

Every Wednesday

-----------------------------

Bring 5 friends & your ticket is

FREE!

Hope for a bright future

WAXING & WINE EVENT

-----------------------------

Visit gatewayescaperooms.com or call 314-270-9884

Buy One Brazilian Wax for $49 Bring A Friend For Free!

Always receive a pair of cute panties with any bikini wax.

RAMADAN KAREEM

6635 Delmar Blvd (in the Loop) 314-833-3598

Call Angela Jansen ~314-645-5900~ Bankruptcyshopstl.com The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely on advertising.

DINNER BUFFET

CenterPointe Hospital 4801 Weldon Spring Parkway St. Charles, MO 63304

File Bankruptcy Now!

w w w. C e n t e r Po i n t e H o s p i t a l . c o m

AUDIO EXPRESS!

Lowest Installed Price In Town — Every Time!

It’s Road-Trip Time!

Update Your Dash!

Ultimate Massage by

Summer!

2837 Cherokee Street (314) 226-9243 thepalmtreestl.com

INSTALL !

D INCLUDE

Two-Year Warranty

DAILY 10 AM - 5 PM

South County/Lemay Area

314-620-6386

$

# 2006003746

14990

99

Save

$

00*

AM/FM/CD receiver links two phones.

Variable color illumination. DriveEQ audio quality.

Link Two Phones!

Save $130*

24999

$

Save More When We Install It!

COMING SOON! NORTH COUNTY LOCATION RIVERFRONT TIMES

Dinner only during Ramadan

Installed Price Saves You $$$!

SWEDISH & DEEP TISSUE FULL BODY MASSAGE

68

May 27-June 25 7-10pm All Inclusive Appetizer Entree Dessert SL Riverfront Times — Beverage

DVD/CD receiver with 6.2” monitor.

Ready for optional steering wheel control interface.

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

JUNE 7-13, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

AUDIO EXPRESS!

Lowest Installed Price In Town — Every Time!

Real Estate Auction Thur., June 15 at 2:00PM 647 Aqua Ridge Drive

St. Louis, MO

Open House: Sun, June 11, 12-2PM

Auction Held On Site Charming 2BR brick home w/LR & DR combo, kitchen, full bath, walk-out basement and 1 car garage. Corner lot w/2 sheds. Must See! Terms: 6% Buyer’s Premium. $5,000 down day of sale.

Balance due in 30 days.

ADAM’S AUCTION 618-234-8751 LIC#044000169