Riverfront Times - May 30, 2018

MAY 30–JUNE 5, 2018 I VOLUME 42 I NUMBER 22

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Scientists spent decades cracking the mysteries of Earth’s most successful parasite. Zi Wang made their breakthroughs disappear

Lose Your Illusion

by DANNY WICENTOWSKI

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TABLE OF CONTENTS FEATURE

14.

Lose Your Illusion Scientists spent decades cracking the mysteries of Earth’s most successful parasite. Zi Wang made their breakthroughs disappear Written by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI Cover design by

TOM CARLSON

NEWS

ARTS

DINING

CULTURE

5

26

37

46

The Lede

Calendar

Your friend or neighbor, captured on camera

Seven days worth of great stuff to see and do

9

33

Police

Stage

Danny Wicentowski visits the SLMPD’s Real Time Crime Center to see where Big Brother does his watching

Sarah Fenske is sobbing over Opera Theatre St. Louis’ glorious La Traviata

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Film

Politics

After months of turmoil, Eric Greitens announces he will resign later this week

35

Solo is a lame attempt to sell more Star Wars merchandise, writes Robert Hunt

At Taste, Drew Lucido’s cocktail dreams have all come true

42

Beer

Scratch Brewing Co. is ‘America’s coolest microbrewery’

My Thai will be opening soon in the Central West End

A child molester advances a novel legal theory, but Missouri’s appeals court isn’t buying it

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Side Dish

Food News

Courts

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44

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Cafe

Cheryl Baehr loves everything about Louie, the new incarnation of King Louie packing in diners in De Mun

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Homespun

For Al Holliday, home is where the horns are

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Profile

Drummer Victor Ribas is the master of the side hustle

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Out Every Night

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

52

This Just In

This week’s new concert announcements

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NEWS

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Where Big Brother Does His Watching Written by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI

L

ike many large cities, St. Louis is increasingly wired for surveillance, with hundreds of distinctive white police cameras — complete with flashing red and blue lights — peering into intersections, alleyways and parks. The footage is sent to a single room inside the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department’s downtown headquarters.

The room is known as the Real Time Crime Center, and it serves as the department’s digital clearinghouse for data pouring in from sources all over the city. But the center’s operations also represent contentious territory, and they’re a source of ongoing concern for privacy rights advocates and city lawmakers.

Last week, a handful of media outlets were permitted a glimpse of the not-quite Orwellian setup located on an upper floor of HQ. Our host for the day, Lieutenant Brent Feig, said that the department deploys about two-thirds of the 600 cameras scattered across the city, with the remainder composed of privately owned systems hooked into the center.

The police cameras are stamped with the police logo and set in prominent exterior locations.

That’s intentional, claims Feig.

“We’re not trying to be covert,” he says. “Our cameras’ primary focus is deterrence.”

Of course, the cameras also come in handy while responding to crimes as they occur. The room is arranged with long tables and computer stations with multiple screens. In fact, much of the room is dedicated to screens, including a single massive projector screen running along a back wall that displays a cross-section of everyday St. Louis life.

One screen shows a quiet neighborhood street. Another shows a playground. One screen, bordered with a red background, is frozen

From headquarters, St. Louis police monitor 600 cameras across the city. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI on a white pickup truck whose license plate was automatically flagged as stolen. (Feig later notes that the automatic license plate recognition system only flags vehicles related to felonies.)

A different screen presents a view of a busy downtown intersection near Busch Stadium. At Feig’s prompting, a detective takes control of the camera in real-time, panning it this way and that, and finally zooming its focus on an individual row of seats overlooking the first base line. It’s a little eerie to watch.

Still, Feig says the current stable of cameras barely covers the important areas in the city, and the department regularly moves the cameras to new spots based on the pattern of crime.

“For the square mileage of the city, 600 cameras is not that many,” he says.

Along with the police cameras, individuals, neighborhood associations and businesses can hook their own cameras into the Real

Time Crime Center’s system — but only, Feig clarifies, if those cameras are pointed out, facing public places.

Normally, detectives in the center monitor multiple dispatch channels for crimes, and then they cross-reference possible cameras angles in the area. Detectives can then relay that information to officers in the field, providing the cops on the ground with “situational awareness.”

“It’s a very manual process now,” adds Feig. “We’re trying to automate those kind of processes and become more effective and efficient.”

But the flip side of “efficiency” contains thorny questions about how a police department should handle sensitive data, especially if its officers are given the tools to quickly track and identify individuals. According to a report

by NPR, several major police departments are showing tentative interest in real-time facial recognition software. With the help of

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Amazon software, police in Orlando are already testing such a program. (Feig says he’s not aware of any plans to install similar facial recognition software in the center.)

A detective demonstrates an example of the system’s Shot Spotter function, which can identify and locate individual gunshots.

Still, local concerns persist. Earlier this month, privacy advocates gathered at City Hall to urge the city to create new policies around surveillance.

For Alderman Terry Kennedy, the crux of the problem is that those policies are currently determined by the police department’s internal administration.

“The guidelines and policies and procedures that they have presently were created in an administrative process, not a legislative one,” says Kennedy, who previously sponsored a board bill that would have mandated surveillance systems undergo alderman-

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Greitens Calls It Quits Written by

SARAH FENSKE

A

fter months of taking aim at his foes in advertisements, through press conferences and on social media, on Monday, Missouri Governor Eric Greitens gave up.

The embattled governor, who is facing an impeachment probe as well as at least one felony charge, announced his resignation at a press conference this afternoon, saying it would be effective this Friday, June 1, at 5 p.m.

The normally combative Greitens briefly struggled with his composure toward the end of his remarks — but was unrepentant in giving his reasons for quitting.

“The last few months have been incredibly difficult, for me, for my family, for my team, for my friends and for many, many people that I love,” he said. “This ordeal has been designed to cause an incredible amount of strain on my family. Millions of dollars of mounting legal bills, endless amounts of personal attacks designed to cause maximum damage to family and friends, legal harassment of colleagues, friends and campaign workers.

“And it’s clear that for the forces that oppose us there is no end in sight. I cannot allow those forces to continue to cause pain and difficulty to the people I love.”

Lt. Governor Mike Parson, also a Republican, will become governor.

Monday had been another rough day in a long series for the embattled governor, an outsider who beat a crowded field of can-

didates to win the GOP nomination and then the governorship in November 2016.

Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem ruled that Greitens’ political nonprofit, A New Missouri, must comply with a House subpoena demanding a host of documents.

Greitens’ critics believe those documents will show coordination between the nonprofit, the official Greitens campaign committee and the governor. They also believe they may reveal efforts to circumvent the state’s campaign finance laws. A former campaign aide has testified that Greitens’ campaign sought to conceal the true source of donations by funneling them through limited liability companies.

And that’s in addition to the criminal case still pending in St. Louis Circuit Court, which accuses the governor of obtaining or transferring a donor list from the non-profit he founded to his political campaign.

In a statement, Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner indicated she’d cut some sort of deal. “I have been in contact with the Governor’s defense team over the past several days,” she said. “We have reached a fair and just resolution of the pending charges. We will provide more information tomorrow.”

However, Greitens could still face charges related to his treatment of his former hairdresser, with whom he had an affair in 2015. The woman has alleged he hit her, coerced her into giving him oral sex and took a photo of her with the intent of securing her future silence. On May 15, Gardner’s office suddenly dismissed a felony invasion of privacy charge stemming from the allegation, but special prosecutor Jean Peters Baker has a few more weeks to

STREAK’S CORNER • by Bob Stretch

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ﬔe governor appeared to get briefly choked up during his remarks. | SCREENSHOT VIA KMOV

refile. Baker released a statement saying she is not part of any deal and will continue to investigate.

Greitens had big plans for his political career — famously reserving the URL “ericgreitensforpresident” before he was even elected governor. But with news of his alleged sexual misconduct breaking on the night of his State of Union address, the governor has spent the last five months fighting for his very survival.

He’s been mostly unapologetic, blaming his troubles on “liberal prosecutor” Gardner and George Soros. But as Missouri Republicans have aggressively investigated everything from his sex life to his finances, he’s been increasingly alone (other than his phalanx of attorneys). At his Monday press conference, Greitens said he would “let the fairness of the process be judged by history.”

“This is not the end of our fight,” he added. “I will always be a fighter for the people of Missouri. A great deal of work is left undone.

The time has come, though” — and here the governor appeared to briefly get choked up — “to tend to those who have been wounded.

And to care for those who need us most.

“So for the moment let us walk off the battlefield with our head held high. We have a good and proud story to tell our children.

Let’s love them and each other every day. May God continue to bless you and to bless the great state of Missouri.”

As usual, Greitens left the dais without taking any questions.

Yet even as he walked away, one loud question shouted by a newsman could be heard above all others: “Governor, did you take the photo?”

■

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING Continued from pg 9

Some city cameras flag license plates involved in a felony. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI

June 2 ........................................................................ Miss Jubilee June 9 ..................................................................Grace Basement June 16 ............................. Tommy Halloran’s Guerrilla Swing June 23 .................................................................... Modern Gold June 30 ........................................................................... Trigger 5

Aldermen are seeking an ordinance to regulate police surveillance work. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI

ic evaluation and approval.

Kennedy says he plans to refile a version of the bill soon, once its language is refined based on feedback from other aldermen.

Another focus of concern is the matter of data retention — that is, how long the department holds on to the video footage it’s collected.

According to Feig, the department currently saves the footage for up to 30 days.

Privacy advocates also worry that surveillance systems commonly sweep up unrelated subjects, creating a storehouse of personal info that’s not related to specific criminal investigations — a collection that, in the wrong hands, would be ripe for abuse or

exploitation.

Kennedy says he isn’t opposed to the surveillance cameras in general, and he acknowledges that some neighborhood residents are eager to see more cameras installed. But he’s urging the city to lay down policies that are shaped and accountable to the public, not just the internal police bureaucracy.

“We need policies for how data is stored, who maintains the data, how long it’s stored, how many people have what kinds of access to it,” he says. “Having good policy and being able to use surveillance equipment is not mutually exclusive, but complementary.” n

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IF LIFE BEGINS AT CONCEPTION ...

Written by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI

I

t takes a bold individual to argue in court that the teen he sexually abused was actually nine months older than her birth date. But ever since his 2016 conviction for child molestation, Eric Ryan Crider has been claiming just that.

Crider, of Holts Summit in central Missouri, is currently serving a 90-year prison sentence on three counts of firstdegree child molestation in Callaway County. Crider was 32 at the time he sexually abused his victim in December 2014. She was thirteen.

Or was she?

Crider, who is represented by a public defender, appealed his conviction on the grounds that the Callaway County prosecutors failed to prove his victim was younger than fourteen at the time he was accused of abusing her. In his appeal, Crider argues that, under Missouri law, her age should be calculated from her date of conception, not her date of birth.

As support, he cites a 1986 statute that declares, “The life of each human being

begins at conception.”

First of all: Yes, Missouri law really does weigh in on the contentious matter of when life begins, though the law’s pro-life authors surely never envisioned it would be invoked by a child molester in court.

Anyway, why should a nine-month difference in age matter in Crider’s conviction? Well, under Missouri law, a single charge of first-degree child molestation carries a prison sentence of up to 30 years, but the statute is specifically limited to crimes committed against victims under fourteen.

If Crider prevailed on appeal, he could conceivably seek a new trial, one in which he’d face charges for second-degree child molestation, a class-B felony that carries a maximum sentence of fifteen years. He’d be facing a maximum of 45 years in prison, not 90.

The three-judge panel of the state appeals court was not swayed. In fact, its ruling, issued last week, cites a previous, unsuccessful attempt to make the same argument. In that earlier case, the enterprising legal mind was a 24-year-old politician one year shy of the minimum age to be certified as a candidate in the August 1990 primary for the Missouri House. The political hopeful’s argument was rejected on the grounds that, basically, it was dumb and numbers don’t work that way.

Ruling on Crider’s attempt to weasel

Convicted molester Eric Crider had a novel legal theory. | VIA MO DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS out of decades of prison time, Judge Lisa White Hardwick writes that the convicted abuser “concedes on appeal that if [his victim’s] age is determined by her date of birth, the State presented sufficient evidence to support his convictions for first-degree child molestation.”

Hardwick’s ruling also quotes the 1990 decision, which notes, quite incisively, “Age has always been calculated from the date of birth.”

It’s worth noting that even if Crider’s somehow made this argument stick,

prosecutors in Callaway County may have had separate grounds to charge him with first-degree child molestation.

After he was sentenced in 2017, the Jefferson City News Tribune reported that prosecutors had enhanced the charges, from class B to class A, based on Crider’s prior conviction for child molestation in 2010 in Pettis County.

Crider was out on parole when he assaulted his latest child victim in 2015.

Considering his current 90-year sentence, it’s almost certain that he won’t

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It was another Saturday in the lab, the time past 2 a.m.

Zi Wang was again spending it alone, with the parasite.

Located behind access-restricted doors on the ninth floor of a research building on the campus of the Washington University School of Medicine, the lab is active at all hours, bustling with staff scientists, postdoc researchers and graduate students. They work under the watch of Dr. David Sibley, each investigating some aspect of the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, commonly shortened to Toxo.

Toxo is a single-celled parasite that infects billions of people. It causes a disease called toxoplasmosis, and while many people who are infected never even realize it, for some with weakened immune systems, it’s a monster capable of killing its host. It can damage the eyes or other organs. For infants who are affected in the womb, it can lead to brain damage.

No vaccine currently exists for Toxo. Scientists have spent the last century piecing together how Toxo spreads, infects and attacks the immune system. One day, scientists hope, these discoveries will become building blocks for effective treatment.

In 2016, Wang was a 28-year-old Ph.D. candidate.

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He had joined the Sibley Lab because he was drawn to a different question involving the parasite, one that’s even less understood than its effects on the body. He wanted to explore its effects on the mind — specifically the minds of rodents.

Researchers running behavioral tests in the mid1990s first began noticing that rats and mice infected with Toxo lost some of their natural fear of cats. In fact, the rodents seemed attracted, sexually, to a dangerous animal that wanted to kill them.

Originally a fringe line of inquiry, it gained credence as a half-dozen labs corroborated the strange effect.

Scientists began to ponder what it meant. Clearly, the theory went, the parasite was messing with its victims’ brains.

There was an elegant logic at play, and it posed an irresistible puzzle for the young scientist: Toxo, for all its widespread success, can only reproduce in cat intestines. (That’s one reason pregnant women are warned against handling cat feces.) Turning a mouse into a zombie that’s horny for its natural predator has all the marks of a good deal for the parasite, shuttling it to its Continued on pg 16 preferred feline host.

Scientists spent decades cracking the mysteries of earth’s most successful parasite. Zi Wang made their breakthroughs disappear

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LOSE YOUR ILLUSION Continued from pg 14

Another angle spurred Wang’s interest: a different, more humancentric question.

“These parasites are obviously altering the behavior of mice

Toxoplasma gondii. | COURTESY OF DAVID SIBLEY

when they get into the brain,” Wang says. “And three billion people have this in their head.”

Now employed as a scientist at Sigma-Aldrich, Wang’s current work focuses on testing and performing product demonstrations for gene-editing equipment. Still, he’s no less fascinated by the question behind Toxo’s mind-control powers. For him, it’s the one that got away.

Several studies had detected statistical connections between Toxo infection and mental illness, particularly schizophrenia. But without a mechanism, and without explaining how Toxo might cause mental problems, these studies are essentially correlation, an interesting connection and little more.

The question for Wang, in his own words: “Is this causing subtle behavioral change for huge chunks of people?”

During his time in the Sibley Lab, Wang’s research was unique among his colleagues. He wasn’t studying one small battlefield after another in the parasite’s war on the immune system. Instead, he sought to conclusively evaluate researchers’ best theory of Toxo’s brain manipulation.

It was, Wang says, “a beautiful theory.”

The delicate genetic engineering consumed more than five years of his life, and his conclusion couldn’t have been more different from his expectations. Not only did Wang rip enormous holes in the hypothesis, but his results called into question longstanding assumptions about the parasite’s activity in the brain. He had

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Working a crowd, card-trick wizard Zi Wang is always in control. Around parasites, it’s a different story. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI

set out expecting to make a breakthrough, and instead added doubt. He made a mess of the beautiful theory.

Yet, Wang still looks back at that Saturday in 2016 with wistfulness, particularly that moment, early in the morning, when he bolted up from his samples and let out a whoop, bounding into the hallway on a dual rush of relief and triumph.

“I was skipping down the halls of the lab at two in the morning, just screaming, jumping for joy,” he recalls. “I was convinced that what I had was what I was looking for.”

D

avid Sibley had already spent twenty years studying Toxo when Wang joined his lab in 2012. Sibley remembers giving the grad student a warn-

ing.

“When I agreed to let Zi do this project, I told him, ‘Whether you prove it’s probably right or whether you disprove it, you have to be willing to accept either outcome, and think that they’re equally interesting.’”

It’s early afternoon inside the Sibley Lab, and its namesake, a professor of molecular microbiology, sits behind his office desk. His bike leans on a wall just outside, and the door is covered with blown-up photos of Toxo, a subject that’s captivated his entire scientific career. In the dyed colors of the photographs,

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the parasite’s rosette form looks like a strangely delicate flower, one stained in garish greens, yellows and blues.

The lab opened in 1991, and on any given day, Sibley supervises more than a dozen projects while guiding the lab’s ongoing work to deconstruct the mechanisms that make Toxo what it is. Around 2000, Sibley read the first studies that described curious behavioral changes in infected rodents, but until Wang, no one in the Sibley Lab followed up on that research.

In the brain, neurotransmitters work as chemical messages delivered to different parts of the body, triggering impulses that range from movement to emotion. The dominant theory for Toxo’s behavioral modification was staked on a 1985 lab study, conducted a decade before scientists starting suspecting Toxo of precision brain-manipulation.

It found that infected rodents’ brains were being hit with a fourteen percent bump in the neurotransmitter dopamine.

Some neurotransmitters perform multiple functions, taking multiple pathways in the brain.

Dopamine is one of the most versatile, affecting, among other things, motor control — people with Parkinson’s suffer from low levels of dopamine — but also influencing such things as attraction, anticipation, reward and sexual gratification.

“If you alter levels of dopamine,

you can change things fundamentally,” Sibley says. “The idea was, the parasite lives in the brain, and they’re making a precursor and sort of feeding this into the neurotransmitter system. That’s what’s causing the behavioral change.”

Critically, the dopamine hypothesis seemed to account for the statistical connection between Toxo and schizophrenia, whose sufferers frequently have elevated levels of dopamine. Dopamine was also believed to be a likely cause of Toxo’s mind-control powers in rats, as it is critical to the brain’s processing of fear and risk responses.

If Wang could prove that Toxo relied on dopamine to make rats attracted to cats, that wouldn’t just be news for the animal kingdom. Our species shares much of its biology with rodents, and scientists would be confronted with a strong suggestion that, for humans as well as mice, Toxo was not a benign guest.

But Sibley was skeptical of the dopamine theory. It was too simple. Toxoplasmosis threw the body’s immune system into chaos, inflaming tissue and implanting thick-walled cysts in seemingly no order across the brain and skeletal muscle. Other unknown side effects could be at work simultaneously. And elevated dopamine levels in rat brains didn’t explain why this multi-talented neurotransmitter was generating

such specific cat-related behavior.

Wang, on the other hand, says he expected to confirm Toxo’s secret assault on the brain. He believed he would prove the dopamine theory correct.

“I came into this with high hopes of solving this whole problem, and answering a huge puzzle about mental illness,” Wang says. “I remember my first thesis committee meeting, the professors asking, ‘What if you’re wrong, what if you don’t see these changes?’ And I thought to myself, ‘What a dumb question.’”

Despite Sibley’s earlier admonition — that a researcher should accept either outcome — Wang readily admits that he undertook his research “desperately wanting this to be true.” Decades of previous research backed up that optimism, and the theory made intuitive sense. Sure, Sibley’s objectivity is noble, but nobility isn’t always glorious. Wang wanted to be right.

He wanted to build upon the work of the other scientists, to add his link to the chain of hypothesis and experiment.

Sibley’s lab isn’t equipped for behavioral tests — there are no mice in cages here — but its specialty in genetic engineering gave Wang exactly what he needed to evaluate the theory. He sought to build on the work of the 1985 study, as well as later experiments that appeared to confirm it.

In 2009, a British lab published a groundbreaking paper on Toxo, directly implicating two of the parasite’s genes, AHH1 and AHH2, for the dopamine spike detailed in the 1985 study. Wang planned to target those genes.

Using genetic engineering, Wang would snip out the two dopamineproducing genes from Toxo, and then use that mutated parasite to infect mice. If the infected rodent brains showed dopamine levels similar to those in non-infected mice, it would suggest that Toxo had lost its dopamine-producing power.

Ultimately, if the theory was right, a mutated parasite that can’t tweak dopamine should lose its mind-control powers, and the infected rodents would behave normally around cat urine.

On the other hand, if the infected animals’ dopamine levels stayed high, the deleted genes couldn’t be tied to the increased dopamine in the brain. Something else would have to be causing the elevated levels.

Wang’s first step was to trick the parasite into erasing its own genes. He started by growing the parasite strain, nourishing them on a diet of foreskin stem cells.

“I wound up running face-first into the wall of, ‘I can’t replicate any of this.’”

Then he electrocuted them repeatedly, until the current opened gaps in the cell wall large enough to introduce artificial “knock-out” genes designed to fool the cell’s automatic repair function. Blind to the swap, the parasite replaced H1 and H2 for the lab-created filler DNA. As precise as the lab tools were, the genes seemed to resist Wang’s editing. After knocking out H2 in 2012, it took him four years to reach the moment where he skipped down the lab hallway believing he’d finally knocked out H1. He soon learned that his 2 a.m. victory dance was actually celebrating a false positive that set him back months.

Months later, he skipped down the hallway on yet another false positive. It wasn’t until late 2016 that Wang finally managed to create a mutated version of Toxo missing its H1 DNA. Wang could finally celebrate in earnest.

But even at the height of his scientific optimism, Wang was bracing against a mounting pile of evidence that something was wrong with this model. In fact, the dopamine hypothesis was starting to fall apart.

O

n the first Saturday in May, Zi Wang glides between attendees at the seventh annual Cabaret Risque, a benefit gala for the Gateway Men’s Chorus at Soulard’s Mad Art Gallery. The crowd is variously dressed in gowns, tuxedos and leather chaps. Around him, suits mingle with burlesque performers, and somewhere in the crowd a professional balloon artist is twisting pornographically detailed versions of a balloon-based Papa Smurf.

It’s a bit of a scene, the sort of party where you wouldn’t be entirely surprised to encounter a roving magician called “Zi the Mentalist.”

Wang guides his willing rubes to a rear room of the gallery. In a previous life, the building was a police station, and it still boasts off-green wall tile and barred jail cells. Four men carrying small Continued on pg 18

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LOSE YOUR ILLUSION Continued from pg 17

plates of appetizers arrange themselves around one of the room’s lamp-lit tables. Wang produces a deck of cards.

He’s wearing his usual performance outfit — a deep-red dress shirt and a jet-black suit.

Wang introduces himself to the table without much flourish. He starts shuffling immediately.

When he turns it on, Wang has the voice of a showman, a blend of assertive storyteller and intentionally hacky standup comic. Beneath the conversation, his hands move like bandits.

The cards chosen by the audience disappear into the deck, only to appear later in some impossible fashion. Cards turn up in Wang’s wallet, his sock, his jacket pocket. A three of diamonds, when rubbed just the right way, becomes a queen of hearts in the upturned palm of one astonished patron.

At one point, Wang makes a stack of three cards vanish, and he casually retrieves them beneath a card box on the other side of the table. One of the men, a blonde with a high laugh, leans closer, pressing his forearms against the table in absolute concentration.

For his next trick, Wang bends a chosen card lengthwise, creasing it, and drops it on the top of one half of a cut deck.

“You can see, the bend is right here,” Wang remarks, showing the table. Four pairs of eyes stare at the card as Wang buries it beneath the other half of the deck.

Now, the mentalist hovers his hand over cards, and the blonde emits a shriek, then laughs and jerks away from the table. There’s the bent card on the top of the deck. Another man wipes a hand over his eyes, as if trying to adjust the grin on his face.

Wang offers reassurance; he never claims to be some supernatural mystic. “It’s all just sleight of hand and misdirection,” he tells them. “The crazy part is, would you miss it if it happens again?”

They do miss it again. And again. And again.

Wang got into studying magic in college, though he says he’s always been a fidgeter, shuffling poker chips and playing cards as a nervous habit long before he learned how to bend the laws of object-permanence.

“There are physical limitations of what you can do with a few pieces of cardboard,” Wang says during a brief break in the gala’s action. Over the course of two hours, he’s made a handful more

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Since 1991, Washington University scientist David Sibley has focused his lab on one subject: the Toxo parasite. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI people sputter in disbelief, their mouths hanging open or caught in mid-groan. They stare at a card in their hand, confounded, their expressions pictures of accusation.

“That’s why I love close-up magic,” Wang says later. He never tires of these reactions — that mix of surprise and outrage and wonder. “It’s the illusion of choice,” he suggests, that gets people so riled up. Up close, in physical contact with the cards or within inches of Wang, “they feel like they should have complete control over the outcome of the trick.”

Of course, they don’t.

“The more fair they feel that it is, the more frustration and joy and wonder comes out of impossible results,” he adds. “As a magician, it makes me aware of how flawed my own perceptions are, and the ways in which we’re systematically mistaken about the world.”

Born in Beijing in the late 1980s, Wang’s early life aspirations were shaped by his parents — and those expectations didn’t include either geneticist or magician.

They wanted him to be a medical doctor. His father’s career as a chemical engineer kept the young family moving, and Wang spent time living in Singapore and Toronto before they finally settled in upstate New York.

After high school, Wang moved to St. Louis to attend Washington University, completing an undergraduate degree in biology. By the time he started his Ph.D. program

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in 2010 he was understandably tired of cross-country relocation.

He liked St. Louis and the university’s research program, one lab especially.

As an undergrad, Wang had attended a lecture by David Sibley, and he later kept showing up in the professor’s office, brimming with questions about Toxo. Sibley became his mentor for the better part of the next decade.

In that time, Wang would learn what it feels like to be the rube.

T

hough Toxo appears to live a quiet life of dormancy in most its hosts, the bug is no pacifist.

Every year in the U.S., there’s an estimated one million new infections, and about 200,000 of those lead to illness. Along with the parasite’s lethal effect on fetuses and newborns, studies continue to find statistical links between Toxo and some mental illnesses.

Some theories seem to tilt at windmills. Czech scientist Jaroslav Flegr has made a career out of Toxo behavioral studies. In a 2007 paper, Flegr concluded that the infected stood a higher chance of dying as pedestrians in car accidents. A different study by Flegr suggested that infected subjects “expressed higher attraction to nonconventional sexual practices,” including “bondage, violence, zoophilia [and] fetishism.” Flegr even theorized that his own tendency toward risk-taking and selfdestruction was, perhaps, connect-

ed to the Toxo inside him.

Flegr’s studies make headlines, but scientifically, they’re dubious.

Sibley recounts a dinner he once shared with some colleagues and Flegr. At the table, the Czech scientist claimed he could predict a man’s Toxo status from his choice of timepiece.

As Sibley tells it, Flegr “had this idea, that for men who are seropositive, their personal hygiene standards relax. They’re very disgruntled and anti-authoritarian.

They dress more shabbily, and so they wear like a broken Timex watch. And if they’re seronegative, they wear a Rolex.”

Flegr’s theory turned out to be easy to test; all the researchers at the table knew their Toxo status.

“We went around the table to see who was wearing what watch,” Sibley says, laughing. “It turned out he was 100 percent wrong.”

Wang’s obsession with Toxo didn’t carry him quite as far as Flegr. Wang wanted to know about dopamine, a discrete, measurable component that could be converted into numbers and analyzed, reviewed and eventually turned into answers that would be stamped into science textbooks and journal pages. Or so he hoped.

The Sibley Lab wasn’t the only lab attempting to create engineered parasite strains missing the H1 and H2 genes, but Wang was the first to knock out H2. Four years later, with the help of an advanced genome editing tool called CRISPR, he did the same to H1.

In the meantime, however, Wang was having trouble replicating the influential 1985 study on which he’d based his own experiment. Try as he might, he couldn’t detect a significant swing in dopamine inside the brains of mice infected with the standard strain of Toxo.

Wang was flabbergasted. It was like dropping an apple and watching it float off your hand and into the clouds. The dopamine theory hinged on the basic assumption that Toxo changed dopamine levels.

“I wound up running face-first into the wall of, ‘I can’t replicate any of this,’” he says.

Wang kept trying, which involved removing the brains from dozens of mice, grinding the individual organs into paste and then measuring the dopamine content. Over time, the possibility for error or fluke hardened into near-certainty. The data was sending him a message.

“If you squint real hard and ignore the error bars, then maybe there was an increase,” Wang concedes, “but the increase wasn’t significant.” And in any case, the increase wasn’t anywhere near the level claimed in the widely cited 1985 study.

Wang spent months, then years, trying to account for the discrepancy. Perhaps he had simply been unlucky, producing outlier results that weren’t representative of what was really happening in the brains of zombified rodents.

Maybe only H1 was fiddling with dopamine levels, and H2 was a red herring. Somewhere, he thought, there must be a mistake.

Over time, he says the rival labs that were looking into the dopamine theory quietly moved on to other projects. “These things didn’t replicate in their lab, either,” he suggests.

With the help of the precision gene-editing capabilities of CRISPR, Wang eventually mastered the cut-and-swap of H1 and H2. He could cut it from Toxo and replace it at will. If those genes functioned like a dopamine lever that controlled mice, sending them to their doom, they should behave as one.

They didn’t. Present or absent, the genes didn’t change the amount of dopamine in the infected mouse brains.

There was one other test to try.

It was a test that would attempt to evaluate the dopamine theory by using Wang’s genetically modified Toxo strain, but in an environment that had nothing to do with cats or their urine.

In 2014, Wang shipped samples of his homegrown strain to a

lab at Johns Hopkins University.

There, scientists infected mice with the mutated parasites. Then the researchers injected their furry test subjects with cocaine and amphetamine.

Why the hard drugs? Previous experiments demonstrated that Toxo infection tends to blunt the hyperactive effects of the high.

In mice, as in humans, those effects are primarily controlled by dopamine. In a lab environment, scientists can track and measure the drug-addled rodents’ physical movements, and that data allows them to make conclusions about the dopamine levels during the

coke party. Wang hoped the results would show that his earlier tests had missed something, that science’s previous assumptions about Toxo — and its puppetmaster pull on dopamine — were based in reality.

But after cranking up the infected mice up with big doses of both stimulants, the rodents infected with Wang’s mutant strain showed no difference than those infected with normal Toxo. Clearly, the parasite wasn’t using those genes as a lever to control the flow of dopamine. In Wang’s hands, the basic premise of Toxo’s mindcontrol power had floated away.

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Wang and Sibley started publishing their early results on the dopamine hypothesis in 2015.

The Johns Hopkins lab published its results this year in Behavioral Brain Research.

To Sibley and Wang, these studies appeared to be the nails in the coffin of the dopamine theory. The results rocked the Toxo scientific community, forcing researchers — particularly those investigating ties between Toxo and mental illness — to consider alternative mechanisms to dopamine.

Wang certainly isn’t the first graduate student to blunder into

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LOSE YOUR ILLUSION Continued from pg 19

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a theory and wind up staring at its wreckage. But it still leaves researchers with no choice but to start back at the beginning.

“We don’t have good candidate for a simple explanation that would replace the dopamine idea,” Sibley acknowledges.

The truth is, Toxo’s behavior lends itself to a vast number of branching hypotheses and interpretations, and the bug’s presence in billions of people means that it can be shown to correlate with any number of things. Could Toxo really be behind schizophrenia?

Or depression? Or implicated in untold millions of car accidents?

Could it really be manipulating the type of watch you wear?

Maybe, says Sibley. Maybe not.

“On one level it sounds crazy, but there might be something to it. It does cause chronic infection in the brain. It could alter behavior and maybe it makes you less fearful and you step in front of a bus.”

What Sibley is certain of, however, is that scientists will continue to perform association studies that draw correlations between Toxo and human behavior, especially psychiatric illness.

“The thing is,” he adds, “is that we don’t really have a way to alter those outcomes, even if they’re true.”

Without dopamine, a cogent, simple theory of cause and effect, scientists are left stumbling, searching for a new light to illuminate Toxo’s darkness.

L

ike any good magician, Wang doesn’t reveal the secrets behind his tricks. The day after his gig at the benefit gala, Wang shuffles a deck of cards onto a table at a Soulard cafe.

Late-morning sunlight streams onto the succession of numbered cards and tranquil royal faces, and the pieces of painted cardboard seem to glow.

“The secrets of magic are ugly,” Wang says, squaring the deck in his hands. “They’re not entertaining and they’re not enjoyable.

They’re pretty much universally disappointing.”

Still, on the condition that the details of his specific methods remained concealed in publication, Wang runs through one of his tricks for a reporter, spelling out each step, each misdirection, each sleight of hand.

He’s right about the disappointment, of course. The trick creates, in Wang’s words, “impossible suggestions” of movement and space.

To a normal audience, it is a captivating wonder that looks like, well, magic — especially when Wang rattles off several variations of the impossible in a manner of seconds.

In fact, the trick is built on several verbal lies, tactical use of body language and blazing-fast hand speed. Wang has spent years training to accomplish more in a half second with one hand than most people could do with five minutes. Even if you know what he’s doing, his movements are hard to track.

Visually, the card is resting in your hand. You can feel the glossy surface pressed between your fingers. You can see it entering into a deck at a particular point, and moments later it’s in an impossible location on the other side of the table, in a different deck of cards entirely.

Of course, the real magic is happening in Wang’s hands, too fast for the eye to detect.

It takes four demonstrations — the final attempt done at quarterspeed — for this slow reporter to finally wrap his head around the mechanism behind the “magic.”

In a moment, the truth is obvious, and it is a definite let-down. It leaves a sudden stabbing embarrassment. You feel dumb for missing it before.

Wang tries to be reassuring, but he knows, in a way, what it’s like.

The death of his dopamine hypothesis was crushing. It forced him to wrestle with years of builtup expectation.

Over seven years working towards his Ph.D, Wang had imagined how this breakthrough could make his work famous. He could see the headlines in his mind. “Parasite Turns Rats Crazy: Here’s How It Does It.” “I never wanted anything more,” Wang says. He’s put his cards away. He notes that a Toxo lab in England, which was behind the widely cited 2009 study supporting the dopamine theory, published a 749-word critique of Wang’s journal article, alleging his experiment showed methodological and technical flaws.

Wang and Sibley responded with a 1,716-word rebuttal.

Other labs are still actively investigating Toxo’s link to schizophrenia, and some scientists continue to find interesting links in the parasite’s spread to humans.

Going forward, though, Wang (and Sibley) consider dopamine a broken hypothesis.

“The stack of evidence has piled up to suggest that whole dopamine idea is wrong, it’s pretty high,” Wang says bluntly. “It’s pretty robust. I Continued on pg 22

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LOSE YOUR ILLUSION Continued from pg 20

wouldn’t expect good results at continuing to hammer at it.”

Still, it’s not like Wang’s research produced nothing. As detailed in a 2017 study published in the journal PLOS Pathogens by Wang and colleagues at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the work on dopamine uncovered something new about H1 that didn’t have anything to do with dopamine. Instead, USDA scientists found that H1 actually supplies key materials for building the protective shell around Toxo spores during the reproductive stage inside cats.

When H1 is sliced out of Toxo, the spores are left vulnerable.

Without the protection of a sufficiently thick shell, the parasite isn’t viable outside the cat.

“It turns that [H1] is not just a precursor to dopamine, it’s also a precursor to a lot of structural proteins,” Wang explains. “It’s probably a precursor of the outer shell that the parasites use to go dormant and form a spore and survive in the environment.”

It’s not a world-shattering discovery, but it’s one in line with the steady, drip-by-drip process of research that’s traditionally come out of the Sibley Lab. And there’s possible relevance for a future treatment: If the parasite’s reproductive cycle can be disrupted, it could stop Toxo’s spread.

Asking Wang — or any scientist — to broadly speculate about their work is usually a tricky proposition. At some point, the conversation crosses a line into story and myth, and that’s how you get experiments framed around belief and assumption. The story of Toxoplasma is still being written, and, sometimes, erased.

The future of the research continues, in the Sibley Lab and in similar labs across the world. And the tiny parasite continues to be one of the most successful parasites on Earth, reproducing, forming spores and spreading to more hosts. What it’s doing in the majority of its human hosts, we still don’t know.

Those discoveries could lie years or decades in the future, and it shouldn’t be a surprise when new, promising hypotheses arise claiming to unlock the parasite’s secrets.

Wang has seen Toxo’s tricks up close, and he knows how seductive a single, perfect answer can be.

“We all want to see the world the way we believe it to be. It’s just human,” he muses. “We’re so much better at identifying evidence that confirms things we believe already.”

For now, Wang — who earned his Ph.D. in 2017 — splits his time between his lab and his magic.

During the workday, he investigates and catalogues the physical properties of the world, while on the nights and weekends he gives every appearance of violating the laws of physics with a stack of painted cardboard paper. Every week, Wang the Mentalist leaves a new audience gasping at tricks that they know, deep down, can’t be real.

Wang has embraced this life of performative deception, and with it attention and applause. Still, the mystery of Toxoplasma is never far from his mind. The question remains: What is Toxo really doing in the human brain?

It’s not for Wang to answer. The next round of discoveries will fall to some other researcher. A scientist with some other beautiful theory. Next time, if they watch closely, they just might glimpse the blur of the parasite’s hands. n

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CALENDAR

BY PAUL FRISWOLD

THURSDAY 05/31 Yeast Nation Love and musicals have been creative partners for a long time, but three billion years ago, both were foreign concepts. Then, on the floor of the primal ocean, singlecelled yeast are the dominant species on the half-baked earth. These yeast cells all share the name Jan, and they all eat nothing but salt.

Salt is becoming more difficult to find, and all the Jans are starting to worry about what that means for the future. The spontaneous appearance of love, which is shared by two of the Jans, further threatens the yeast society. Something has to change, but what will it be? Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis’ musical Yeast Nation has the irreverence and meta-nature of their earlier collaboration Urinetown, but with perhaps a little more optimism. New Line Theatre presents Yeast Nation at 8 p.m.

Thursday through Saturday (May 31 to June 23) at the Marcelle Theater (3310 Samuel Shepard Drive; www.newlinetheatre.com). Tickets are $15 to $22.

Justin King’s Serengeti Park hole shows the art of putt-putt. | COURTESY OF THE ARTIST/THE SHELDON GALLERIES

FRIDAY 06/01 Luchadora!

Anna Skidis Vargas is a familiar sight on St. Louis stages, as is her brilliant, singular singing voice.

She’s starred in musicals all over town, from classics like Godspell to the low-rent thrills of Evil Dead the Musical, and worked behind the scenes as a director as well, most often for Theatre Nuevo.

She’s as gifted an actor as she is a vocalist, which adds depth to every role she assays.

Her current passion is lucha libre, the Mexican style of professional wrestling that often features fabulously masked luchadores performing high-flying acrobatic maneuvers and technical holds.

But Skidis Vargas is not planning a career change; she’s in the midst of directing Luchadora!, Alvaro Saar Rios’ award-winning play about a family of luchadores.

In fact, although she’s engrossed in the subject matter, she wouldn’t

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call herself a fan of lucha libre.

“No, it would generally not be my bag — but I have a healthy respect for it,” she promises. “I would support anybody who would want to do it. My dad got us into martial arts as a kid, and that was something we did as a family, so I understand it.”

The play is a family-friendly story inspired by the legend of Mulan, the Chinese girl who disguised herself as a man to fight a war in her father’s stead. Luchadora! centers on a grandmother and granddaughter in a similar situation. Nana Lupita wanted to become a luchadore when she was a young girl, but the ring wasn’t an option for women in the 1960s. Still, with the right costume and a mask, Lupita could maybe pass for a man and fulfill her dreams of becoming a famous luchadore. She recounts the story of her adventures to

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her granddaughter Vanessa, who shares similarly outsized dreams.

The show is a joint production of Theatre Nuevo and Mustard Seed Theatre, but how that came about is a bit of a mystery, even to the director.

At Mustard Seed’s production of Yasmina’s Necklace, Skidis Vargas says she was sitting in the lobby and ended up catching up with Mustard Seed artistic director Deanna Jent. “She asked about Theatre Nuevo and how we’re doing,” she recalls. “In the words of Hamilton, we’re still young, hungry and scrappy. We have a small budget. I told her I had a play that I would love to do, but no place to do it. She suggested we talk more about it, and here we are.”

And by that, she means jointly mounting a play that has quite a bit of wrestling in it.

“There is a decent amount,” agrees Skids Vargas. “We’ve got a

big final fight, that’s there. There are exhibition fights, training for fights, characters watching it on TV. We have two very capable gentleman helping us with fights.

Our fight choreographer is Mark Kelly and Ryan Lawson Maeske is our fight captain. He also plays several wrestlers, so he gets a workout.”

For Mexicans, lucha libre is more than just fighting: It’s a cultural tradition that permeates society in a way America’s own wrestling promotions can’t. There is an honor code, and the masks themselves continue a legacy that began with the ritual masks of the Aztecs. It’s this other element of Luchadora! that most deeply resonates with Skidis Vargas.

“One of the things that’s near and dear to my heart about the play is that it shows how rich Mexican culture is,” she says. “Beyond the masks and the sport, Rios

WEEK OF MAY 31–JUNE 6

Luchadora! makes its St. Louis debut this Friday. | COURTESY OF ANNA SKIDS VARGAS touches on migrant works, war, the migrant experience, identity and feminism. It’s feminism for young Chicana girls. We’re not always portrayed well on TV, but this depicts our culture in such a beautiful way.”

Theatre Nuevo and Mustard Seed Theatre present Luchadora! at 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 6 p.m. Saturday and 2 and 8 p.m. Sunday (June 1 to 16) at the Fontbonne University Fine Arts Theatre (6800 Wydown Boulevard; www.mustardseedtheatre.com), with a final 2 p.m. performance on Sunday, June 17. Tickets are $15 to $35.

ing peanuts. Justin King’s Serengeti Park hole mimics an urban park, but with beautifully detailed, anthropomorphic cardboard animals sitting on the benches and strolling

the paths. There’s an Alice in Wonderland hole courtesy of Natalie Pinson, and design firm Arcturis used lighting and mirrors to create a simple-looking green that will bedevil duffers with optic distortions and tricky slopes. Golf in the Galleries officially opens with a public viewing from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, June 1, but tee times start at 11 a.m.

Sunday, June 3. The course is open noon to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday through August 12. Greens fees are $6 to $12.

SATURDAY 06/02 I Do! I Do!

Golf in the Galleries Miniature golf courses are part sport, part pop-art installation, with an emphasis on big, colorful distractions and obstacles surrounding the final hole. The galleries at the Sheldon (3648 Washington Boulevard; www.thesheldon.org) embrace the art portion of the setup with their summer exhibition, Golf in the Galleries. Local artists and institutions were given the chance to design their own creative hole on a nine-hole course that fills the galleries. B.J. Vogt crafted a volcano-themed hole; sink your ball and it erupts in a cloud of pack-

The collected Jans of Yeast Nation. | JILL RITTER LINDBERG

Corey Jones as Romeo in 2001. | COURTESY OF SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL ST. LOUIS

Fifty years is a long time for anything to last, but a marriage that lasts for five decades is a lifetime.

The musical I Do! I Do! opens with Michael and Agnes on their wedding day, and then periodically peeks in on their bedroom for the next 50 years. They experience the joys and pains of any longtime relationship, as well as the doubts, mistakes and regrets of people who take love for granted.

The Harvey Schmidt/Tom Jones musical I Do! I Do! opens Stages St.

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Louis’ new season. Performances are Tuesday through Sunday at the Robert G. Reim Theatre (111 South Geyer Avenue; www.stagesstlouis. org). Tickets are $41 to $63.

Romeo and Juliet Romeo is but a simple boy of Verona’s ruling class who deeply loves his fair Rosaline. Or so he says; once he sees Juliet, he forgets ol’ what’s-her-name and ardently pursues the fair Capulet instead.

But he’s a Montague, and the Montagues and Capulets are locked in a power struggle. What begins with love at first sight becomes a series of duels to the death and tit-for-tat attacks. Poor Romeo and Juliet, drunk on young love, are caught up in the middle of it all, which does add a certain frisson to the romance. Shakespeare Festival St. Louis brings the beloved tragedy Romeo and Juliet back to Forest Park for the first time since the festival’s 2001 debut season. This new production is performed at 8 p.m. Wednesday through Monday (June 1 to 24) at Shakespeare Glen in Forest Park (Fine Art and Government drives; www.sfstl.com).

Admission is free.

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SUNDAY 06/03 An American Soldier

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America at its best is a nation based on the belief that people who may not look alike, worship the same way or come from the same background are all capable of believing in and defending the American dream. Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang’s opera An American Soldier is inspired by an incident when soldiers refused to accept one of their own because of the way he looked. Danny Chen was born in New York’s Chinatown and enlisted in the Army after high school. During basic training he was welcomed as another true patriot, willing to fight and die for his country. But when he arrives in Afghanistan, he quickly learns his Chinese-American background doesn’t sit well with his racist superiors, who repeatedly and sometimes violently abuse him under the guise of “hazing.” The world premiere of the full-length version of An American Soldier gets underway at 7 p.m. tonight at the Loretto-Hilton Center (130 Edgar Road; www.opera-stl.org). The show is performed five more times in repertory through Friday, June 22.

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TO DOWNLOAD YOUR COMPLIMENTARY PASSES! RATED PG-13 FOR LANGUAGE, DRUG USE, AND SOME SUGGESTIVE CONTENT. Please note: Passes are limited and will be distributed on a first come, first served basis while supplies last. No phone calls, please. Limit one pass per person. Each pass admits two. Seating is not guaranteed. Arrive early. Theater is not responsible for overbooking. This screening will be monitored for unauthorized recording. By attending, you agree not to bring any audio or video recording device into the theater (audio recording devices for credentialed press excepted) and consent to a physical search of your belongings and person. Any attempted use of recording devices will result in immediate removal from the theater, forfeiture, and may subject you to criminal and civil liability. Please allow additional time for heightened security. You can assist us by leaving all nonessential bags at home or in your vehicle.

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Tommy Wiseau in Best F(r)iends Vol. 2. | KRISTOPHER MACGREGOR

MONDAY 06/04 Best F(r)iends Vol. 2 Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero’s epic road movie continues in Best F(r)iends Vol. 2. When we last left the drifter Jon (Sestero), he was on the run in the Southwest after double-crossing Harvey the mortician

(Wiseau), his one-time partner in crime. Jon encounters a host of bizarre characters, while the betrayed Harvey pursues him to the surprising end of the road. Best F(r)iends Vol. 2 screens at 8 p.m. tonight at the Marcus Wehrenberg Des Peres 14 Cine (12701 Manchester Road, Des Peres; www.fathomevents.com). Tickets are $14.50.

WEDNESDAY 06/06 Run-On Sentence The women-in-prison genre is a frequent subject for film and TV, but incarceration isn’t always as entertaining as Hollywood would have you believe. Prison Performing Arts commissioned playwright Stacie Lents to write a play about the true world of women’s prisons.

Lents interviewed the inmates of Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic, and Correctional Center in Vandalia about their experiences and then crafted the drama RunOn Sentence. The play focuses on how the arrival of a new inmate breaks up the routine and lives of a group of cellmates, and not necessarily in a good way. SATE opens its twelfth season with RunOn Sentence. It will be performed at 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday (June 6 to 9) and Wednesday through Sunday (June 13 to 17) at the Chapel (6238 Alexander Drive; www.slightlyoff.org). Tickets are $15 to $20.

Mallrats The Strange Brew film series has a new home — screenings now take place at Urban Chestnut’s Brewery and Bierhall in the Grove (4465 Manchester Avenue; www.webster.edu/film-series). The series’ commitment to the weird and unfairly ignored films of the world remains, though, as do the price ($5) and the starting time (8 p.m.).

For the inaugural film in its new location tonight, Strange Brew serves up Mallrats, Kevin Smith’s second feature. It’s another Jersey story about slackers slowly rumbling toward maturity, with Jason Lee as the man-child Brodie and Jeremy London as his best friend, TS Quint. The duo hang out at the mall after being dumped by their girlfriends, bicker about their love lives and occasionally pal around with Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Smith) while arguing about the importance of comic books and Star Wars. Keep an eye out for the Jaws references, too — they pay off when the shark finally appears. n

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STAGE

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[REVIEW]

To Die For Opera Theatre St. Louis presents a thrilling La Traviata Written by

SARAH FENSKE La Traviata Music by Giuseppe Verdi. Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, English translation

by Edmund Tracey. Directed by Patricia Racette. Presented through June 23 by Opera Theatre St. Louis at the Loretto-Hilton Center (130 Edgar Road, Webster Groves; 314-9610644). Tickets $25 to $129.

Y

ou already know La Traviata. You may not realize this going in — you may think you’re not up to speed on opera, much less nineteenth century opera. But as you settle into the glorious production of La Traviata now being performed by Opera Theatre St. Louis, you’ll realize you’re wrong.

You definitely know the rousing song the guests sing at the opening party (“Libiamo ne’lieti calici,” or as we say in English, “Let’s get wasted”). You likely remember the heroine’s passionate “Amani Alfredo” from the end of Pretty Woman. And you certainly know the plot, if not its particulars. A courtesan falls in love, but is persuaded to give up her beloved by his disapproving father. Then she dies of consumption. No spoilers here; The story’s been told, and retold, since first being published in the novel La Dame aux Camélias in 1848.

In truth, the plot isn’t much.

Our main characters fall in love instantly and passionately; in the next act, our heroine, Violetta, is persuaded to give up everything, without much in the way of motivation other than that she apparently really does have a heart of gold to the point of making terrible financial choices. Our hero, unaware of her selflessness, reacts badly. The tension explored at the end of the first act — should one choose the thrill of the party or the embrace of true love — is never really revisited. Choices are made; the plot keeps moving.

Sydney Mancasola’s portrayal of Violetta is a shattering, star-marking turn. | COURTESY OF OPERA THEATRE ST. LOUIS But the reason La Traviata has been a cultural touchstone for several hundred years isn’t that the librettist added much insight to original source material. It is, instead, all Verdi. The music resonates, a series of expertly interwoven high points that could each star in its very own luxury car commercial. And here it is so achingly beautiful, you’ll be wiping a tear from your eye long before Violetta ascends to her reward.

Actually, make that tears.

For this, blame Sydney Mancasola, a young soprano who previously played the maid at Opera Theatre St. Louis’ excellent La rondine, and with this performance emerges as a full-blown star. Her voice is so pure and so powerful it could persuade angels to switch sides. But she doesn’t rest on vocal technique. She absolutely inhabits the part, making a completely convincing Violetta. Even when the libretto doesn’t really give much explanation for Violetta’s various changes of heart, this talented performer pulls you along. And in the end, you’ll truly believe she’s

dying, with a finale that’s one of the most effective on-stage deaths you’ll ever witness. It’s a marvelous trick, being able to convincingly portray terrible weakness even while your voice remains strong.

Mancasola pulls it off.

She’s ably assisted by Geoffrey Agpalo (Alfredo) and Joo Won Kang (Giorgio), who make a compelling father-and-son duo. The young Agpalo is winning, with a smooth voice and believably rash manner, while Kang’s terrific baritone sells you on the father’s quest. You’ll respect his paternal motivations even as he comes in like a wrecking ball on the blissedout lovers.

But it’s not just the three leads who deliver in this production.

Patricia Racette, who makes her debut as a director, is an opera star who herself played Violetta at the Met, and her affinity for the material is clear. Take the party scenes. This is the rare play where the revelers genuinely seem to be having a blast — and not just in that fake-laughter way so often seen on stage. This crew gives

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every appearance of being giddily naughty, a little taste of the demi-monde. (Perhaps one reason you’ll question why Violetta would give up being a courtesan for a life in the country: Her Paris friends seem so fun!)

Credit goes both to the great supporting cast and to costume designer Kaye Voyce. Setting the action in the 1930s was an inspired choice, and Voyce runs with it. The sets by Laura Jellinek may be deceptively simple, with their giant camellia evoking Georgia O’Keefe, but Voyce’s clothes provide the spot-on details that set the mood for each scene.

It’s a grand production, to the point that at the performance I attended, audience members shouted “bravo!” after numerous high points — something unusual even for St. Louis’ famously enthusiastic audiences. Swept along by Verdi’s music, blown away by the performances, you may want to join in. It’s a stunning directorial debut. We should all hope to see more from Patricia Racette — and her talented Violetta, too. n

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Enjoy delicious summer cocktails featuring Tito’s Handmade Vodka, Ketel One’s Botanical, Deep Eddy and more plus hand passed hors d’ouevres and a vodka-infused candy bar. Take advantage of the very limited VIP and get early entry, gift bag and valet parking.

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FILM

35

[REVIEW]

Star Bores Solo? More like “it blows” Written by

ROBERT HUNT Solo: A Star Wars Story Directed by Ron Howard. Written by Jonathan Kasdan and Lawrence Kasdan. Starring Alden Ehrenreich, Joonas Suotamo, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke and Donald Glover.

Now screening at multiple theaters.

T

he behemoth operating under the collective title of Star Wars has evolved and expanded over four decades, pulling along a substantial portion of the entertainment industry in its undertow. It began benignly with George Lucas’ 1977 film, a gently clumsy, nostalgiafueled pastiche of earlier cinematic pleasures both high (Kurosawa, Hawks) and low (Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe). Over the next seven years, Lucas (having wisely turned the writing and direction over to more accomplished hands) continued to shape his story into the centerpiece of a media empire. When he returned to filmmaking in 1999 for the first of a trio of generally disappointing prequels, the movies themselves seemed almost marginal, just one product among a sea of toys and books and games.

When Lucas sold the franchise to the Walt Disney Company in 2012, a new model for future Star Wars films was formed, one in step with the comic-book corporate empires that dominate today’s film industry. Releases now include two sequels to the original sextet in which the now mature Luke, Leia and Han take their bows and two stand-alone films set around the periphery of the 1977 movie. Each is the product of a well-regulated entertainment factory, pieced together fan-boy trivia and the collective memory of its predecessors. They aren’t meant to provide a coherent or even an enjoyable narrative (and they don’t). They’re a combination of ritual and smorgasbord, a catalog of generic effects that play to the audience’s

Lando (Donald Glover) plays cards, sure to soon be licensed Star Wars merchandise. | JONATHAN OLLEY © 2017 LUCASFILM LTD nostalgia for the earlier films without challenging it.

Solo: A Star Wars Story is the latest of what will probably be a full line of spin-off films about the central characters, and it’s set roughly ten years or so before its eponymous hero met up with Luke Skywalker. For those who have been wondering just how the wise-cracking hero met Chewbacca, how he acquired the Millennium Falcon or if Han Solo is his real name (it’s not), the new film provides the chance to see a younger version of the character doing and saying things that are more or less similar to things you remember him doing and saying in the earlier films. If you’re the kind of fan who nods appreciatively at any reference to making the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs, you may find Solo engaging, but it’s not much to carry a 135-minute film.

Directed by Ron Howard (who replaced Phil Lord and Christopher Miller of The Lego Movie after they had been filming for six months, reshooting about three-

It’s not a movie, it’s the cinematic equivalent of a Pavlovian bell. fourths of their work), Solo places the hero (Alden Ehrenreich) in a string of large-scale action sequences as he and a handful of space bandits led by Woody Harrelson try to steal quantities of a MacGuffin-like fuel called Coaxium from a moving train, a distant mining planet and ultimately each other. There are hints of a romance, a last-minute eruption of idealism and enough shifts of loyalty and turns of character to create the illusion of plot twists, but for the most part the film sticks safely to the same formula as The Force Awakens: Create scenes that recall the earlier films, fill every inch of the screen with CGI creatures and keep moving so the audience is too distracted to

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notice the slightness of the whole structure.

Solo is hectic, visually unattractive and, worst of all, just plain dull. Because the characters aren’t meant to do anything but fill their familiar places, there’s nothing at stake, no emotional nuance or shades of personality. The players realize they’re only expected to conform to their action-figure models, and at least one of them, Donald Glover, as the younger version of Billy Dee Williams’ Lando Calrissian, makes it clear that he’s not even interested in doing that.

(It doesn’t help that he’s at the center of two scenes involving a poker-like game that neither Howard nor the writers bother to explain to the audience.) It’s not a movie, it’s just a cynical marketing tool, the cinematic equivalent of a Pavlovian bell meant solely to evoke a sentimental set of associations. It’s lazy, even by the limited standards of franchise filmmaking, a by-thenumbers adventure film with plot points as interchangeable and replaceable as Lego blocks (and Hollywood directors). n

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CAFE

37

Louie’s food, which includes this pork chop with shishito and chermoula, is simple. But it’s also flawlessly executed. | MABEL SUEN

[REVIEW]

Long Live the King Louie returns, with gusto — and a reminder of everything that made the original great Written by

CHERYL BAEHR Louie 706 De Mun Avenue, Clayton; 314-3008188; Mon.-Thurs. 5-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 5-11 p.m. (Closed Sundays.)

R

eflecting on his restaurant career, Matt McGuire likes to paraphrase a Miles Davis quote. “You have to play an instrument for a very long time before you can play like yourself,” he says. “I’ve always liked that.”

Yet it’s almost shocking that someone with as impressive a résumé as McGuire feels as if he is only now coming into his own.

If restaurants are his instrument, he’s a virtuoso, having played a masterful tune at such esteemed establishments as Monarch, Brasserie, Central Table Food Hall, Herbie’s and Niche Food Group, where he was director of service for all of Gerard Craft’s restaurants. To say that he’s been at the top of the city’s restaurant game is an understatement — in terms of the front of the house, he is the biggest game in town.

And none of it might have happened were it not for King Louie’s.

When McGuire opened the beloved restaurant in 1995, he was, in his words, just a kid, with little restaurant experience outside of cooking on the line while in art school in Chicago. He was lured into the business full time when some high school friends presented him with the opportunity to help them open a bar, and for a while, that’s what King Louie’s was — a college tavern for Saint Louis

University and Washington University students who appreciated its almost secretive locale. Tucked under a viaduct off Chouteau and 39th Street between South Grand and Vandeventer, King Louie’s felt like an oasis in the midst of an industrial part of town.

Eventually, the college bar atmosphere gave way to that of a solid neighborhood tavern, which in turn transitioned into a bona fide fine-dining restaurant that played a crucial role in helping to shape today’s St. Louis restaurant scene. King Louie’s was so popular, it might still be open were it not for road construction. A twoyear project virtually closed off access to the restaurant, confusing its customers and cutting business in half almost overnight. McGuire remembers his daughter talking about how cool it was to be able to skateboard across the vacant stretch of road that severed the restaurant from the rest of civilization. His response: “You don’t know how uncool this is.”

A victim of the construction, King Louie’s closed its doors in

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2007. Though McGuire would go on to work in some fulfilling roles for great people, he still always had the urge to again do a project of his own.

That opportunity presented itself last year when another institution, Jimmy’s on the Park, closed, leaving its attractive space in the heart of Clayton’s DeMun neighborhood in search of a new tenant. McGuire had always loved that area; in fact, its leafy environs were the one thing he always felt was missing from King Louie’s, a place he often referred to as a “neighborhood restaurant without a neighborhood.”

Perhaps that is why McGuire feels that the five-month-old Louie is the culmination of who he is as a restaurateur: It finally has all of the elements in place. From the food to the hospitality, the aesthetic to the neighborhood, all come together to create a complete dining package that is nothing short of joyous.

At Louie, McGuire has created the sort of restaurant where ev-

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NOW OPEN

SUNDAYS 10AM-8PM

SERVING BRUNCH 10AM-1PM

Louie’s head chef Sean Turner, left, and owner Matt McGuire. | MABEL SUEN

LOUIE

Continued from pg 37

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eryone wants to eat — a factor that makes it an incredibly difficult reservation to score. The small, shotgun dining room, simply appointed with wooden tables, exposed ductwork and a wall of striking, floral-print wallpaper, fills quickly. That’s why McGuire decided to reserve its sizable bar for walk-in diners, something only a hospitality veteran can pull off without offending thirsty would-be imbibers.

If the dining room is lovely in its simplicity, the food is even more so. A relatively compact menu of Italian-inflected cuisine anchors the restaurant, thereby speaking to the confidence and prowess of McGuire and his team. Pizza, pasta and simple roast chicken provide little cover for mistakes.

They have to be executed flawlessly — and they are.

Much of the credit goes to executive chef Sean Turner, who worked with McGuire at Brasserie and Central Table Food Hall, then moved to New York where he cooked for Jonathan Benno, a Per Se alum. His menu is not comfort food in the mashed-potatoes-andfried-chicken sense of the word.

It’s more like “comforting food.”

What could be more warmly satisfying than an appetizer special of arancini, the most authentic rendition of the Sicilian dish I have seen outside the old country?

Spheres of risotto as big as tennis balls are fried so that the outside develops a delicate crust that yields to the creamy interior with just the touch of a fork. Ground beef, prosciutto and rich tomato sauce are a savory prize at the

center. They are the perfection of the form.

Hummus is equally excellent, this version made from white beans and liberally spiked with fresh mint. The velvety spread begs to be slathered onto the accompanying wood-fired bread; its charred exterior adds a bitter component that combines beautifully with the sweet mint.

Even a simple platter of prosciutto dazzles. Like the recently crowned Duchess of Sussex’s wedding gown, something so straightforward and unadorned demands impeccable quality. The silken, rosy meat, interspersed with ribbons of buttery fat, is shaved so thin you can see through it. It melts on the tongue, pairing with the salty Parmigiano Reggiano as if they were made for each other.

McGuire and Turner do nothing to this meat and cheese but source it and serve it properly, yet they prove that doing so can be an art form.

Louie’s menu contains just two pastas, a number that might seem small until you realize they leave you wanting for nothing more.

Chitarra, a thick spaghetti-like noodle, is tossed with just a few simple ingredients: tomato sauce, basil, chile flakes and Grana Padano cheese. They are balanced perfectly, making clear why less can be more.

Agnolotti is no fussier, yet it’s positively luxurious. Rectangular pillows of delicate pasta are filled with ricotta, spring peas and mint, then covered in a Grana Padano blanket that looks like a dusting of snow on a springtime garden. It’s glorious.

Pizzas follow suit, the key to their success being a crust that is nothing short of perfect. Neapolitan in

spirit, the dough is naturally leavened, then well hydrated to stand the searing-hot oven. This results in a thick, springy exterior that is soft but has a nice amount of pull.

Char from the wood oven speckles the crust, an ideal canvas for a Margherita presentation. Crushed tomatoes, mozzarella and basil finish off what is one of the best renditions of the classic around.

But Louie is not simply a pizzaand-pasta spot. Larger entrees excel, like a thick-cut pork chop that sits on a bed of chermoula, the coriander-forward North Africaninspired sauce. Charred shishito peppers surround the meat, add-

flawless execution. You can screw up a roasted chicken (trust me), so those factors are laudable. However, what makes it taste so sweet is also about the spirit in which it is served. McGuire is known for genuine, empathetic hospitality, and every last person on his staff gets that. He wouldn’t hire them if they didn’t.

That chicken is delicious. I thought so; my daughter thought so. What was also delicious was the glass of orange juice she washed it down with. Our server, Jordan, had told us it was a beverage option. However, when he got back to the bar, he realized they were

ALL KILLER. NO FILLER. HAND-CRAFTED SMOKED MEATS AND BREWS

Photography by JENNIFER SILVERBERG

Floral wallpaper provides visual appeal on one wall. | MABEL SUEN

ing a bittersweet snap to an already electrifying dish.

Dorade, a light and flaky Mediterranean white fish, is served skin-on, its delicate flesh seared by the grill. A salad of farro, lima beans, preserved lemons and herbs makes you feel as if you are sitting in an Italian seaside trattoria, not the middle of the heartland.

The roast chicken is perhaps the dish that is most representative of what McGuire and company want to achieve at Louie. It’s nothing that we haven’t eaten 100 times before: a brined and seared breast and thigh, served with the skin on and crisped. The meat is succulent; it doesn’t need sauce, but an intensely savory pan jus deepens its flavor. It is a straightforward, uncomplicated dish, yet it’s stunning.

The reason it’s so revelatory is not just a matter of flavor and

out. Instead of telling us no (which we would have gladly accepted), he went to the kitchen and handsqueezed an entire glassful of juice in the middle of a busy service.

You may see a roasted chicken on every other restaurant menu in town, but you don’t see that sort of earnest commitment to taking care of people — notably a four-year-old who’s not going to drop serious coin on a bottle of Brunello — everywhere you go. You can tell a lot about a restaurant in how the staff treats the least of its patrons. And it starts from the top, from a restaurant veteran who has come full circle to find his tune — one we all will be humming happily for years to come.

Photography by JENNIFER SILVERBERG

Louie White bean hummus ................................ $12 Chitarra .................................................... $16 Roast chicken .......................................... $24

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SHORT ORDERS

Drew Lucido has worked at Sanctuaria, Juniper, Olio and Nixta, but he finds that Taste really is home sweet home: “It was the place I always wanted to work.” | SPENCER PERNIKOFF

[SIDE DISH]

At Taste, His Dreams Are Now Reality Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

D

rew Lucido may be behind the bar these days at Taste (4584 Laclede Avenue, 314361-1200), one of the city’s most revered cocktail institutions, but his bartending beginnings were much more humble.

“I started working in the restaurant industry at the age of seventeen as a busser at Mangia [Italiano],” Lucido recalls. “I went away

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to school for a while but dropped out, and when I came back I started bar-backing there. A bartending position opened up when I turned 21, so I took that and was a latenight bartender for two years.”

While slinging drinks to the 3 a.m. set on South Grand was a much different atmosphere than where he is today, Lucido counts that time as a great learning experience. Not only did it teach him about keeping pace in a busy environment and the basics of building drinks, it also instilled in him a passion for the industry that he could not shake, even as he felt compelled to finish college and explore other paths.

School did provide him with clarity on his future career, though not through anything that happened in the classroom. Because of his studies, he transitioned from late-night shifts to Mangia’s dinner service, an environment that allowed him to take his time and be

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more thoughtful. As he gained confidence, he began experimenting with recipes and eventually asked the restaurant’s owner if he could put together a list.

The results were not great.

“It was a mix of classic cocktails and my own — and they were bad,” Lucido laughs. “I recently found that list. I did not know what I was doing.”

Lucido left Mangia for Sanctuaria, a change that allowed him to develop his skills at one of St. Louis’ most innovative cocktail bars. There, he took a deeper dive into the craft, learning how to make syrups and infusions and develop good recipes. That experience positioned him to accept his first bar manager position at Juniper, where he was able to exercise creative control over the restaurant’s beverage program. He was hooked.

“It was exciting,” Lucido says.

“I was reading articles and buy-

ing books and finding out about different trends — trying to copy them but also do them my way.”

After Juniper, Lucido worked for Ben Poremba’s restaurant group, first at Olio, then eventually at Parigi and Nixta, where he was able to put together lists for a diverse group of properties. It was a gig he thoroughly enjoyed, but then his dream job came knocking: Gerard Craft’s heralded Taste.

“It was the place I’d always wanted to work because the focus is totally on cocktails,” Lucido explains.

“Not a lot of places exist because of cocktails — they have cool cocktail programs, but it is more about the food than the drinks. Here, it’s all about the cocktails.”

Though Lucido finished his degree in history, art history and graphical studies, he can’t imagine doing anything but working in the spirits industry, where he can not only indulge his passion for the past in terms of the history of

cocktail culture but, more importantly to him, relish the present with the knowledge that there’s no place he’d rather be.

“I realize that this is what I want to do and what excites me,” Lucido says. “Getting to be behind this bar is a dream come true.”

Lucido took a break from putting together Taste’s new cocktail menu to share his thoughts on the St. Louis restaurant scene, his caffeinated daily ritual and why you will never see plastic bottles behind his bar.

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

That I’m a huge nerd. I love to read sci-fi and fantasy novels and play tabletop role-playing games.

I actually just finished re-reading the Harry Potter series.

What daily ritual is non-negotiable for you?

Drinking coffee. I make a 32-ounce French press every morning and drink all of it while I read a book.

Honestly, I schedule it into my

morning by getting up an extra hour early just so I have time to drink it all.

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

I would want the power to instantly transport anywhere. I want to travel all over the world and try all of the amazing food and drinks.

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

I’m really happy to see people opening up their own places.

There is so much talent in St. Louis, and it seems like people are finally able to spread their wings.

What is one thing missing or that you’d like to see in the local food-and-beverage scene?

I’m sure there’s something, but honestly we’re still growing as a culinary city, so I’m pretty content to be a part of the scene while we all learn together.

Who is your St. Louis food or drink crush?

Harrison Massie. We worked to-

gether at Sanctuaria when we were both starting out in the cocktail scene. Now he’s running Small Change, the perfect neighborhood bar. Also, he’s a really good hugger.

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

I think that the beverage scene in general bears watching. As it spreads and grows, we’re seeing lots of amazing bars with fantastic cocktail programs.

Which ingredient is most representative of your personality?

I’d have to go with Amaro, but definitely one from closer to the Alps. They’re dry and bitter but once you adjust to them you’ll love them.

If someone asked you to describe the current state of St. Louis’ foodand-beverage climate, what would you say?

It’s like a high school graduate that’s going on to an Ivy League school. It’s been doing really well and with more hard work, it’s going to be one of the best.

If you were not tending bar, what would you be doing?

Working for a major spirit company. You get to travel and talk with people about cocktails and spirits.

Name an ingredient never allowed behind your bar.

Cheap spirits. I started bartending at 3 a.m. bars, and a lot of the well bottles were made of plastic.

Now, even the least expensive thing is something that I’d be more than happy to drink at my own house.

What is your after-work hangout?

My couch most of the time, but I’m also fond of the Ready Room and Parlor.

What’s your edible or quaffable guilty pleasure?

Chocolate milk.

What would be your last meal on earth? Including drinks, of course.

The tasting menu at Elaia — twelve courses with wine pairings and a Negroni to finish it off. If I’m going to die, I’d like to be full and a little drunk. n

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Located two hours from St. Louis, Scratch Brewing Co. draws beer lovers from all over the U.S. | COURTESY OF SCRATCH BREWERY

[BEER]

Meet America’s ‘Coolest’ Brewery Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

A

wine’s value is based upon it. Cheese is affected by it — butter too. Even lamb possesses it. For beer, however, it has remained elusive.

That X factor, terroir, can be thought of as the presence of growing environs in a finished product. It’s usually discussed in terms of wine but can be applied to any product in which the land, climate and character of a place play a noticeable role in its composition.

Aaron Kleidon, co-founder of Scratch Brewing Company (264

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Thompson Road, Ava, Illinois; 618-426-1415), could not help but notice how the concept of terroir was missing in beer — and American culture as a whole. After college, the Southern Illinois native was living in Colorado where he worked at an airport. The job afforded him the ability to fly standby with regularity, and he took every opportunity to explore different locales. His travels made him aware that the U.S. was missing the sort of regional food and drink found throughout Europe.

The observation would lead him back home to Ava, Illinois, determined to change that and create a product that was distinctly of its place.

“It was a way I could move home,” Kleidon explains. “I grew up here, and I like it in Southern Illinois better than anywhere I have ever traveled.”

For Kleidon, beer was a natural focus for his ambition. He’d taken up home brewing in Colorado, and he had an additional skill set that would allow him to express the land in his beers: foraging.

Growing up on the outskirts of the Shawnee National Forest, Kleidon spent a good part of his childhood in the woods, gathering plants

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With their brewery devoted to foraged beer, Josephson and Kleidon are bound by the land. and hunting for mushrooms with his parents and grandparents. He developed an expertise in edible plants and, eventually, began incorporating those ingredients in his beer.

Kleidon was not the only person in the area interested in brewing unique beers. Marika Josephson, who would become Scratch’s cofounder and head brewer, was also an avid home brewer with a love for the land. At a local homebrewing event, she met Kleidon and immediately realized he was a kindred spirit. As the pair got to know each other, they would share their thoughts on opening a brewery. One day, they decided to each write down their ideas for their dream brewery. When they compared notes, their visions were nearly identical.

Out of that shared vision, Scratch Brewing Company was born, a three-acre farm and brewery with facilities — including a tasting room, grain smoker and wood oven — built by Kleidon and his father. Scratch is surrounded by the 75-acre property owned by Kleidon’s parents as well as additional acreage that belongs to family friends, giving him ample space to forage for ingredients.

As Kleidon explains, the brewery just feels like it belongs in the environment. It immerses guests in all that goes into the beer.

Since opening in 2013, Scratch has attracted a clientele willing to travel to experience its unique beers and facilities. It’s not just St. Louisans making a two-hour trek. People have come from all over the country — and even the world — to visit Scratch, prompted in part by the book Josephson, Kleidon and their then-partner Ryan Tockstein co-authored: The Homebrewer’s Almanac. The book serves as a guide for anyone looking to learn how to make beer from ingredients in the local environment.

The brewery has also caught beer drinkers’ attention because of the national accolades it has received — including being recognized as one of the nation’s most interesting breweries by All About Beer magazine and even “America’s Coolest Microbrewery” by Men’s Journal.

“Scratch is the great American microbrewery, built by hand and rooted in Midwestern soil,” writes Jed Portman in Men’s Journal.

“The rest of the world is beginning to catch on, but you can still find a moment of serenity — and a few bottles to take home — if you are willing to make the trip.”

Many have been willing to do just that as the brewery has risen to prominence in the craft-beer community. Yet no matter how big the buzz, Scratch remains — and plans to remain — a small operation.

Its very nature dictates that.

With their brewery devoted to foraged beer, Josephson and Kleidon are bound by the land.

If chanterelle mushrooms do not come up, they will not use them in their beer. The same goes for cherries and every other fruit in their popular beers. They refuse to buy these ingredients, which makes mass production virtually impossible. As Kleidon explains, they brew with an eye not toward replication but toward research.

“There’s no shortage of ideas when we brew beer,” says Kleidon.

Continued on pg 43

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Marika Josephson hangs with Weezy the goat. | COURTESY OF SCRATCH BREWERY

SCRATCH BREWERY Continued from pg 42

“We brew beer as an experiment and always try to make a beer that will benefit us further down the road. We have the potential with every beer to learn a lot.”

But they’re not just dabbling. Josephson and Kleidon brew yearround and make preparations for winter, including drying herbs and preserving what ingredients they can in the fall. Additionally, they use a lot of bark and trees in their beers, which are available during wintertime.

In addition to beer, Scratch has a baking component. The brewery produces naturally fermented sourdough, some of which is sold at a nearby weekly farmers market. They keep the rest to use on the tasting room’s small menu.

They make their own pizza crust, grow all of the ingredients found on their pizzas and use the same sourdough leaven to make the beer.

Josephson and Kleidon hope that the “maker culture” they live out at Scratch will have an impact on the broader community. As Kleidon notes, the area around the brewery was a hub for coal mining in the 1980s. As that industry died, the community has struggled to find an alternative.

The pair hope that what they are doing at Scratch will inspire other businesses to locate in the area.

“We can grow absolutely everything here in the Midwest, and there are a whole lot of opportunities for making stuff that is different,” Kleidon says. “If we can

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encourage other business to open up or things to start up, then that is pretty important to us as well.”

For their part, the partners are content with what they have, focused on remaining a 300-barrel a year brewery that exists as a way to take care of both the land and those who work it. If they have to grow in order to provide health insurance for their employees or

Aaron Kleidon scours the land for ingredients. | COURTESY OF SCRATCH BREWERY to make their lives more comfortable, they will do so. However, their main focus is to take care of their people, create a community, serve as an incubator for ideas — and produce a beer that is a reflection of their little slice of the world.

“I think our beer is different than anywhere else,” says Kleidon. “We are really trying to make a beer that you can only make

here in southern Illinois. We’re not 100 percent there yet, but it is a long-term goal, and we are working toward that.”

Scratch’s tasting room is open Thursday through Sunday. It’s cash only and cannot accommodate large parties without prior arrangements. For more information and what’s currently on tap, visit www.scratchbeer.com. n

[FOOD NEWS]

My Thai Eyes CWE

T

en years ago, Somying Fox opened Basil Spice Thai Cuisine (3183 South Grand Boulevard, 314-7761530) in Tower Grove South. But even as she found success, earning strong reviews and “Best Thai” honors from the RFT, she had her eye on the strip mall at the corner of Forest Park and Euclid avenues in the Central West End. The high-traffic intersection couldn’t be beat for its visibility, she thought. It was also one of the only strip malls in the bustling neighborhood to boast its own parking lot — perfect for both customers and delivery drivers.

And as Fox prepares to open a spinoff restaurant in the strip mall, My Thai (4495 Forest Park Avenue), she sees an additional benefit. “It’s close to my house,” she says, “so I can be there all the time!”

A Central West End resident, Fox understands the rhythms of the neighborhood: harried lunch crowds by day, with both neighborhood and destination diners at night. To best serve them, she plans to offer a fast-casual lunch experience, with full service at dinner. Photos

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You’d never realize My Thai used to be a Great Clips hair salon. | SOMYING FOX show the extent of renovations, which have transformed the space from a Great Clips hair salon to an elegant restaurant capable of seating, and feeding, 49.

She’s also applied for a liquor license.

For food, Fox intends to focus on healthy offerings, with fresh ingredients and vegetable-based sides at lunch. But there are also more decadent options.

In addition to the classic Thai dishes on offer at Basil Spice, Fox says she’ll be

serving Thai-style fried chicken atop rice, as well as an entree of “American fried rice,” which Fox says is popular in Thailand. She also intends to serve Thai crab, a rarity in the St. Louis area.

“I like to make food that makes customers happy, and also is healthy,” she says.

Fox adds that construction is largely finished; she’s mostly waiting for inspections, with hopes to open in June.

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56

CULTURE

[HOMESPUN]

Home Is Where the Horns Are Al Holliday’s latest album, 4963, was inspired by and recorded at his south city home Written by

CHRISTIAN SCHAEFFER

T

he Holliday family homestead, tucked in a residential slice of the Hill’s eastern edge amid banks, doughnut shops and car washes, holds more than you might guess when viewing from the curb. Singer, pianist and bandleader Al Holliday and his wife, Emily Ligon, occupy the first floor of the two-family unit along with two dogs and a cat.

And it’s on the front porch that Holliday, tall, broad and tanned, greets a visitor on a Monday afternoon in late May with a magnumsized jam jar full of iced tea in his grip.

The ensuing tour is brief but full of surprises; the two identical front rooms serve as a living room and an office, and it’s here that Holliday’s upright piano sits.

He bends down to the baseboards and pulls back a piece of trim to reveal a hole in the floor that Holliday used to sneak microphone cables up from the basement, which houses the rest of his musical and recording equipment.

Home is important to Holliday, and he treats his modest southside spot as an expansive, creative space that serves as the headquarters for his ten-person R&B group, the East Side Rhythm Band. So it was fitting that his third album, 4963, simply bears the address of his abode. For Holliday and his band, those four numbers contain multitudes.

Once we descend into the unfinished basement, the scope of Holliday’s home operation becomes apparent. Ignore the washer, dryer and slop sink, and there’s

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Al Holliday (upper left) and some of the members of his East Side Rhythm Band lay down tracks for the new record. | ROBERT ROHE enough vintage equipment to make an analog purist weep. Holliday’s keyboard rig gives him a perch over the rest of the band, with a Fender Rhodes at his left hand and a Hammond organ at his right. And in between his Leslie speaker and mixing desk sits the secret weapon of 4963, a twoinch tape machine that allowed the band to record direct to mag-

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netic tape. It’s a format that is antiquated and expensive, but Holliday prefers it to modern digital methods.

“That was the whole spirit of the record — capture a good performance,” Holliday says.

4963 is the East Side Rhythm Band’s third record, and it finds Holliday and company at a place of assuredness in their sound and

approach. This particular group of ten players is about to celebrate its second full year together, and that inter-band communication — amid horn players, in the rhythm section, and among Holliday and the three women who sing alongside him —shows up on the tracks.

Corralling a band the size of a baseball team isn’t easy, and while Holliday pulls liberally from the

dining playbooks of his heroes — Leon Russell, the Band, Allen Toussaint — his skill at arranging keeps the horn-heavy, harmony-laden tracks from feeling overstuffed.

“I don’t know how I figured out music theory; I basically had a few lessons as a kid,” Holliday recalls. “I just kind of figured out music by learning the Beatles and learning how music and theory all worked.”

He didn’t study music full time while he was a student at Mizzou, but his year-long course in jazz harmony and arranging — which he calls “the coolest, hardest class” of his college years — terminated in Holliday charting a song, by hand, for a big-band. That almost makes writing for the East Side Rhythm players a breeze.

“It’s kind of unique to our band because it allows me to put my fingerprint on it and it empowers me to create with the band,” he says, “to just put things that are in my head on paper for people to play.”

But if writing music and arranging horn charts is a technical skill, composing music and lyrics taps into a different part of his brain.

“Writing songs is such a mysterious thing, and it just keeps getting more mysterious,” Holliday says. “I’m never the person who says ‘I must sit and write a song today.’ It just comes from out of nowhere. I just try to come as organically as I possibly can with the lyrics and from the places that I am and the places that I feel like people can relate to.”

One of those lyrics inspired the album’s title and another thread to Holliday’s broad, welcoming concept of “home.”

“I think the seed of it came from a lyric that says ‘you can find me at 4963,’ and that lyric in itself, to me, is empathy. Like, I’m here if you need me; I’m here where I am, and I am the way that I am.

“That’s the whole credo of the spirit of this music,” he continues. “Really, it’s where we cut the record. It’s my house, it’s where I live, it’s where our band has its world headquarters. I legitimately have my animals on the record; you can hear my wife on the record; there’s the family that lives upstairs. It’s all in the tracks.”

read more at

RIVERFRONTTIMES.COM

Experience the brunch everyone is talking about!

Saturday and Sunday 11 am - 2 pm

3 101 ARS E NAL | (3 14) 8 02-70 90 | O PEN DAI LY 1 1 AM - 8PM

Al Holliday and the East Side Rhythm Band Record Release 7 p.m. Saturday, June 2. The Old Rock House, 1200 South 7th Street. $10. 314-588-0505.

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M A Y 3 0 - j u ne 5 , 2 0 1 8

RIVERFRONT TIMES

47

Ribas is the drummer for Smile Empty Soul and Hurt, among many other projects. | VIA THE ARTIST

[PROFILE]

Victor Ribas, Master of the Side Hustle Written by

THOMAS CRONE

V

ictor Ribas is the type of guy who, when discussing his various musical pursuits, casually drops in the fact that, at 31, he’s found an unlikely additional income as a model.

“I’ve been working with Talent Plus,” he says nonchalantly, though not without appreciation for the unexpected work. “They just kinda found me. ‘Would you be interested in modeling? We have clients in need of your look, which is ethnically ambiguous.’ I went in for one photo shoot and they figured I could fill different demographics. I thought it’d be an audition. But I signed a contract that day and did my first shoot for the Missouri History Museum; I’m on the homepage of their website. I’ve done steady commercial shoots since then.”

Modeling is the side hustle.

Well, one of a few. Ribas also juggles work as a touring drummer (more on that in a second) with a day job at Coda Music Company.

“We provide instruments for most of the large acts that play St. Louis,” he says. “For example, LouFest rents from us. So when

48

RIVERFRONT TIMES

M A Y 3 0 - j u ne 5 , 2 0 1 8

riverfronttimes.com

they hosted the Chuck Berry tribute last year, all the gear was ours.

We work with the Peabody, the Sheldon, Verizon Amphitheatre, the Pageant … at all of the major venues, we’re there. It’s really a pretty basic concept: We have awesome gear, millions of dollars of it. And when a band’s touring through St. Louis and has a need, we supply it. We’ve got 50 drum kits, hundreds of guitars and amplifiers, grand pianos.”

Coda’s Valley Park warehouse is neighbor to the world-class lightand-sound-design business Logic Systems. Combined, the two places allow Ribas a daily playground of incredible gear, and he’s plenty busy during the concert season, supplying his accounts with all that good stuff. And this summer there will be several occasions when he takes leave of the day gig for road trips to music festivals in major markets.

“I do the buildout for festival sites for AEG,” he says. “I was in Carolina for the Carolina Rebellion, a festival with an attendance of 40,000 a day. I’ll be working the Mo Pop Festival in Detroit, which does about 15,000 a day for three days. For those, I’m the site operations director. I’m in charge of overseeing the buildout. We decide where port-o-johns go, where dressing rooms and fences are set.”

This would seem the perfect side gig for a touring musician, and enough for any one person. But Ribas has the type of personality that won’t allow him to settle into one gig and let that be The Thing, so he works his primary job as a musiContinued on pg 59

SIDE HUSTLER Continued from pg 58

cian in a variety of contexts.

A native of Seattle who has split his life between that city and St. Louis, Ribas is currently working for the St. Louis Blues on an annual project that sees him co-writing the team’s entrance-to-the-ice music. It’s the kind of fun, random thing that’s fallen his way over the years, with his deep connections in the industry paying off in various ways: He’s a sponsored drummer, rocking endorsements for Ddrum drum kits, Paiste cymbals and Westone ear plugs. In each case, the opportunities came about through unusual means; for example, he scored the Ddrum’s gig when the company was scouting another player on the same bill.

“It is about who you know,” Ribas says, “and, at times, I’ve really hated that. But you practice for hours a day for years. If you’re talented and work hard, you’ll succeed. My first gig came from knowing somebody who knew somebody. Luck is about getting the audition. Getting the gig is about craft.”

Touring for the past eight years, primarily in the hard rock bands Hurt (currently on hiatus) and Smile Empty Soul, Ribas has found ways to make his daily gigs fit into an active touring schedule. While Smile Empty Soul has sometimes toured without him, he is the band’s primary drummer, and he’s out on the road with the band for tours that, these days, top out at four weeks, max.

Coda, he says, is key.

“The job allows me the ability to travel. That’s the stability that so many touring musicians don’t have. I come home and have friends here. It just ingrains me into the music industry of St. Louis, where I get to work with the best venues and personalities. I get to be part of the greatest projects.”

When not working in Valley Park, he’s on the road. While all those hours on the bus can be taxing, Ribas seems to have cracked the code of surviving and thriving in that self-contained world.

“I feel like a lot of musicians would say ‘I can’t do this forever.’ But I can’t see that,” he says.

“I have an extreme passion for people and culture and geography and history. When I go on tour, the second I’m off the bus I just walk four miles in one direction. I like to discover things, meet people and hear stories. Sometimes, it’s just about shutting the fuck up and listening to a complete stranger.

I’ve met the best, coolest people by

Ribas is currently working for the St. Louis Blues co-writing the team’s entranceto-the-ice music.

It’s the kind of fun, random thing that’s fallen his way over the years. just walking around a town and talking to strangers. The diversity of cultures we have in America is insane. The way people talk, interact, dress, eat … it’s crazy.”

Ribas tells a lot of stories in a short amount of time, each of them containing some level of enthusiasm. In one, when on a tour stop in Memphis, he bounced off of the tour bus and walked over to some street musicians. Not long after arriving, he was playing the bucket-drums. For the next hour, he walked the neighborhood and joined in with other bands, never imposing and never self-conscious.

“There are so many things like that that I’ve enjoyed,” he says.

“So many people are just buried in their phones. I’ve been on a tour bus with eleven dudes, and 90 percent of the time, they’re like this [stares at phone]. I get to travel the world. How many people can say they’ve been to every state, like ten times? I’ve done that well before 35. I’m not bragging, I’m just so blessed. I wanna use music to experience the world.

I don’t see an end to touring because of my love of people.”

As our conversation winds down, it’s obvious that Victor Ribas could take on another job for his couple of free minutes: as a life coach. An upbeat cat by nature, Ribas isn’t without the awareness that he’s on an interesting path right now, with opportunities arriving and calendars updating regularly. Being that the stars have aligned for him of late, he understands that he sounds, well, happy.

“Oh, my gosh, it’s been really crazy the last couple of years,” he says. “I have a lot of stuff going on. The music industry’s been really good to me and I’m so grateful, so lucky.” n

ANNETTE BENING

SAOIRSE RONAN

COREY STOLL

ELISABETH MARE MOSS WINNINGHAM

JON TENNEY

GLENN MICHAEL FLESHLER ZEGEN

“EVERY SINGLE ACTOR DAZZLES.”

BILLY HOWLE

BRIAN DENNEHY

AND

-Dana Schwartz, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

THE

SEAGULL

SCREENPLAY BY

DIRECTED BY

LOUIS ST. LOUIS LANDMARK PLAZA HI-POINTE THEATRE STARTS FRIDAY, ST. FRONTENAC CINEMA 1005 McCausland Ave JUNE 1VIEW THE TRAILER 210 Plaza Frontenac (314) 994-3733 (314) 995-6273 AT WWW.THESEAGULL-MOVIE.COM

STEPHEN KARAM

MICHAEL MAYER

ST. LOUIS RIVERFRONT TIMES 4.55” X 2” WED 5/30 DUE TUES 9AM PT

Artist:

(circle one:)

Thursday May 31 9PM Emmett Heather

AE: (circle one:) Carrie Jane

Shawn DJ Hughes andSteve the Fuze Maria

Josh Tim

ART APPROVED AE APPROVED CLIENT APPROVED

Friday June Confirmation #: 1 10PM

Robert Kimbrough Sr. Real Blues from Mississippi Saturday June 2 10PM

Marquis Knox

Real Blues from St. Louis Sunday June 3 4PM

Melissa Neels Band FREE SHOW!

Wednesday June 6 9:30PM Urban Chestnut Presents

The Voodoo Players Tribute To Bob Weir

Thursday June 7 9:30PM Urban Chestnut Presents

Alligator Wine’s Tribute To Jerry Garcia Saturday June 9 10PM

Kofi Baker’s Psychedelic Trip Ginger Bakers Son!

dining read more at

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49

50

OUT EVERY NIGHT

THURSDAY 31

CRUZ DE NAVAJAS: w/ Sea Priestess, False Figure 9 p.m., $7. CBGB, 3163 S. Grand Blvd., St. Louis.

GO OUTSIDE: w/ Little Cowboy, Seabed 9 p.m., $5. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

LIL SCRUB: 7 p.m., $15. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

LIVE COMEDY DVD: 9 p.m., $5. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-3525226.

LOS LONELY BOYS: 8 p.m., $50-$60. Wildey Theatre, 254 N. Main St., Edwardsville, 618692-7538.

RED WANTING BLUE: 8 p.m., $15-$18. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

TORREY CASEY & SOUTHSIDE HUSTLE: 8 p.m., $5.

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

FRIDAY 1

10 YEARS: w/ Karma Dealer, Echoes From Ashes 6 p.m., $20-$22. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720.

ANDREW BRYANT: w/ Andrew Ryan & The Travelers 7 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

BILLY DECHAND CD RELEASE: 7:30 p.m., $10. Pat Connolly Tavern, 6400 Oakland Ave., St. Louis, 314-647-7287.

DRUIDS: w/ Quaere Verum, Railhazer 8 p.m., $7. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

JACKSEPTICEYE: 8 p.m., $27.50-$100. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-

726-6161.

LEROY JODIE PIERSON: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

MARGARET CHO: 7 p.m., $27. Helium Comedy Club, 1151 St. Louis Galleria Saint Louis Galleria Mall, Richmond Heights, 314-727-1260.

MARTY SPIKENER & ON CALL BLUES BAND: 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

POWERMAN 5000: w/ Knee High Fox 7 p.m., $16-$18. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314289-9050.

RED SCARVES: w/ Pyramids, Hanna Holladay 9 p.m., free. CBGB, 3163 S. Grand Blvd., St. Louis.

SAFETY THIRD: A TRIBUTE TO GREEN DAY: w/ The Small Things: A Tribute to Blink 182 8 p.m., $10. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

ST. LOUIS AREA FOODBANK ROCK OUT HUNGER CONCERT: w/ Dr. Zhivegas, Groovethang 5 p.m., $10. Chesterfield Amphitheater, 631 Veterans Place Drive, Chesterfield.

SWITCHBACK CONCERT: 7 p.m., $10-$20. First Unitarian Church, 5007 Waterman Blvd., St. Louis, 314-361-0595.

TIGER RIDER ALBUM RELEASE: w/ Sister Wizzard, Bounce House 8 p.m., $4. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

VOODOO MICHAEL JACKSON: 7 p.m., free.

Atomic Cowboy Pavilion, 4140 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-775-0775.

THE WONDER YEARS: w/ Tigers Jaw, Tiny Moving Parts, Worriers 7 p.m., $23-$25. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

SATURDAY 2

AGITATE THE AIRWAVES BIRTHDAY DEBAUCHERY: w/ The Former Me, Pure October, Dead Planet, Eurydice, Anima Animus, Frost Money 7 p.m., $10-$12. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

AMERICAN AQUARIUM: w/ Cory Branan 8 p.m., $17-$20. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

BELMONT: w/ Young Culture, Scuzz, Cloy 6 p.m., $10-$12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314289-9050.

BEN MORGAN BAND: 9 p.m., $7. Brewskeez O’Fallon, 4251 Keaton Crossing Blvd., St. Charles, 636-329-0027.

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

CRACKER: 8 p.m., $25-$28. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

DIERKS BENTLEY: 7 p.m., $24-$99. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

KAY B BROWN: w/ T-Dubb-O, Kenny Knox, CD7, Cinematic, DJ D-Whit 8 p.m., $5. 2720 Cherokee Performing Arts Center, 2720 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314-276-2700.

LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314436-5222.

MARGARET CHO: 7 p.m., $27. Helium Comedy Club, 1151 St. Louis Galleria Saint Louis Galleria Mall, Richmond Heights, 314-727-1260.

MATTHEW LOGAN VASQUEZ: 8 p.m., $12-$15.

Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

MISS JUBILEE AND THE HUMDINGERS: 7 p.m.,

free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521.

OUT AMONGST THE MASSES EP RELEASE SHOW: w/ Conquer As They Come, Silent Hollow, Skydweller, Divide the Empire 7 p.m., $5-$8. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720.

PARQUET COURTS: w/ Goat Girl 9 p.m., $20. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

SHIVER: 9 p.m., free. Nightshift Bar & Grill, 3979 Mexico Road, St. Peters, 636-441-8300.

SLLAW: ST. LOUIS LADY ARM WRESTLING BRAWL: 8 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

SLSO TRIBUTE TO TOM PETTY: 7:30 p.m., $35-$68.

Powell Hall, 718 N. Grand Blvd, St. Louis, 314534-1700.

TUNIC: w/ Complainer, Blessed, Blight Future 8:30 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

WEEN: 8 p.m., $50-$70. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

SUNDAY 3

FOSTER THE PEOPLE: 8 p.m., $29.50-$32.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-7266161.

GENESIS JAZZ PROJECT: 6 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314436-5222.

I PREVAIL: w/ Bad Wolves, Broken Youth 8 p.m., $26-$28. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720.

LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: 8 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314436-5222.

DISCOVER THE SOUNDTRACK DISCOVER THE SOUNDTRACK TO AN UNFORGETTABLE NIGHT TO AN UNFORGETTABLE NIGHT live music every week

DECEMBER MIXTAPE live music08 every week

JUNE01 JUNE02 JUNE08 JUNE09 JUNE15

C A R PE NOCTEM

HELLA HONEYVOX SNAPS DECEMBER 15 LONE RANGERS THE LUSTRELIGHTS JUNE 22 MCLOVIN DECEMBER 16 BIG RAIN JUNE23 GROOVETHANG WILDFIRE DECEMBER 22 RETRONERDS EL SCORCHO! JUNE 29 HAZZARD TO YA BOOTY DECEMBER 23 GRIFFIN & THE GARGOYLES THE MIX TAPES JUNE30 STAGGER CATT DECEMBER 29 KINGPIN VIEW MORE AT DECEMBER w e s t p o r t s29 o c i a l- s t l . c o mMCLOVIN DECEMBER 09

THE LONE RANGERS

JUNE 16

VIEW MORE AT

9 1 0 w e s t p o r t P L A Z A d r i v e • s a i n t l o u i s , m i s swo eu rsit6p3o 1 4r6 t •s o3 1c4 .i5a4l8 . 2s8t7 6l . c o m 50

9 1 0 w e s t pM AoY r3 0t - Pj uLneA5Z, A2 0 1d8 rrii vve ref r o n•t t i mse sa. cionm t l o u i s , m i s s o u r i 6 3 1 4 6 • 6 3 6 .7 5 1 . 5 7 6 o

RIVERFRONT TIMES

It’s Always a Party!

[CRITIC’S PICK]

Andrew Bryant. | VIA ARTIST’S BANDCAMP

ANDREW BRYANT

unadorned palette of overdriven gui-

7 p.m. Friday, June 1. Foam Coffee and Beer, 3359 South Jefferson Avenue. $5.

314-772-2100.

tars and a low-slung, blues-kissed mien

If St. Louisans recognize Andrew Bry-

mos finds Bryant both clear-eyed and

ant at all, it’s most likely that they saw

searching, with riffs and themes that

him play drums and sing harmony with

fans of Strand of Oaks and Jason Mo-

Water Liars, the band Justin Kinkel-

lina will recognize.

Schuster started after Theodore broke

Rhyme Time: More than just a similar-

up and he left town for Oxford, Missis-

sounding first name unites Andrew Bry-

sippi. But with Water Liars on perma-

ant with local opener Andrew Ryan &

nent hiatus, Bryant has more time to

the Travelers; Ryan and company play

resume his own work as a singer and

earnest and yearning Americana with

songwriter. He treads in some of the

aplomb.

same streams as his old band, with an

giving way to moments of crackling catharsis. This year’s Ain’t It Like the Cos-

duke’s VOTED ST. LOUIS’ FAVORITE BAR & BEST SPORTS BAR AT THE CORNER OF MENARD & ALLEN IN THE HEART OF HISTORIC SOULARD

—Christian Schaeffer

Duke’s Photos by Big Stu Media MAGIC GIANT: w/ Tall Heights 8 p.m., $15. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

MATISYAHU AND STEPHEN MARLEY: 7 p.m., $25$30. Atomic Cowboy Pavilion, 4140 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-775-0775.

RAMONA DEFLOWERED: w/ Aquaholics Anonymous, 9:09 7 p.m., $7-$10. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

SKATING POLLY: w/ Potty Mouth 8 p.m., $12-$15.

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

SUPER STOLIE: 2 p.m., free. Tick Tock Tavern, 3459 Magnolia Ave, St. Louis.

MONDAY 4

3RD ANNUAL ST. LOUIS PIANO FESTIVAL: 6 p.m., $20. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

THE BREVET: 8 p.m., $13-$15. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

CLOSET WITCH: w/ Euth, Life in Vacuum, Ankou, Man the Manipulator 8 p.m., $8. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-7722100.

FUTURE CRIB: w/ Cricketfish, Change Your Hair, Change Your Life 8 p.m., free. CBGB, 3163 S. Grand Blvd., St. Louis.

JESSE MARCHANT: 8 p.m., $10-$12. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314833-3929.

TUESDAY 5

JUSSIE SMOLLETT: 8 p.m., $20-$23. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

KUINKA: 8 p.m., $10-$13. The Bootleg, 4140 Manchester Ave., St. Louis, 314-775-0775.

MERKULES: w/ C The Gray, DJ Scotty Wu 7 p.m., $20. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

PACKIE: w/ VampyVicious, Plain and Simple, REUX 8 p.m., $5. 2720 Cherokee Performing Arts Center, 2720 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314276-2700.

SIGNS OF THE SWARM: 7 p.m., $10-$12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

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

THE TOASTERS: 8 p.m., $13-$15. Blueberry Hill The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

TRIFE DIESEL: w/ Rec Riddles, M80, Brief, Subtle Aggression Monopoly 9 p.m., $5. The Monocle, 4510 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-935-7003.

THE WEE HEAVIES: 7 p.m., $12. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-5339900.

Duke’s Sports Bar Where the Games Begin

WEDNESDAY 6

ALT-J: 7 p.m., $53.50-$73.50. Peabody Opera House, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-499-7600.

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

DREKKA: w/ Zach Rowden, Alex Cunningham/ Alberto Patino Duo 9 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-7722100.

FRESH PRODUCE: THE BEAT BATTLE: first Wednesday of every month, 9 p.m., free. The Monocle, 4510 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314935-7003.

GEN POP: MKii, Miss Lady, Pineapple RnR, Mom 9 p.m., $7. Blank Space, 2847 Cherokee St., St. Louis.

HOLLYWOOD KNOCKOUTS HOT OIL & CREAM WRESTLING & DANCE REVUE,: 9 p.m., $10-$20.

Continued on pg 52

FIND OUT ALL THAT’S GOING ON @DUKESINSOULARD

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M A Y 3 0 - j u ne 5 , 2 0 1 8

RIVERFRONT TIMES

51

[CRITIC’S PICK]

[WEEKEND]

BEST BETS

Five sure-fire shows to close out the week

FRIDAY, JUNE 1 Powerman 5000 w/ Knee High Fox 7 p.m. Fubar, 3108 Locust Street. $16 to $18.

314-289-9050.

Ah 1999, a halcyon time in history and arguably the most ’90s year of the entire decade. Powerman 5000 was the Surge soda of rock

Matthew Logan Vasquez. | VIA SEDATE BOOKINGS

bands, standing out for its overthe-top neon sci-fi vibe and caffeinated riffing. Frontman Spider One, whose name fit right in with

MATTHEW LOGAN VASQUEZ

regimen. On the strength of last year’s aching and soaring Does What He

out eight records since the release

8 p.m. Saturday, June 2. Blueberry Hill Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Boulevard. $12 to $15. 314-727-2277.

of 1999’s hit single “When Worlds

Two years ago, Matthew Logan Vasquez

terrific crooner, an even better wailer,

Collide.” Nostalgia is a hell of a

broke with his band Delta Spirit, so he

a catchy melody shaper and a true

drug, but luckily not one needed to

left New York, moved in with his mom

believer in what a great rock song can

enjoy the band’s current brand of

in Texas, and finally set up a new life

do: dispel old demons while conjuring

metallic camp.

in the outer Austin enclave of Dripping

newer, wilder ones just to keep you in

Springs. He says he’s just on vacation

fighting form.

from the band, only one of the most

RIYL:

underrated rock & roll outfits of the

Leithauser, John J. McCauley or any

7 p.m. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Avenue. $23 to $25. 314-833-3929.

last ten years (someone had to say it).

other rocker who sings wildly (and bril-

Since flying solo he’s tapped into a pro-

liantly) beyond his means.

The Wonder Years seems to bring

lific songwriting, recording and touring

—Roy Kasten

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

JOSH COCKS: 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

NEW FOUND GLORY: w/ Bayside, The Movielife, William Ryan Key 7 p.m., $24-$28. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-7266161.

SEASAW: w/ Kid Scientist, Sister Wizzard 8 p.m., $7. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

TWANGFEST 22: THE CACTUS BLOSSOMS: w/ John Paul Keith 8 p.m., $18. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

BIG RICH MCDONOUGH & RHYTHM RENEGADES: Wed., June 13, 9 p.m., $5. Wed., June 20, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

BILLY BARNETT BAND: Sun., June 10, 7 p.m., $10.

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

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

BLVCK SPVDE: W/ ScienZe, Mistresses, Sat., June 9, 8 p.m., $7. Blank Space, 2847 Cherokee St., St. Louis.

BOSS MODE: W/ Nova Freak, NORFAIR, K_I_T, Tue., June 26, 8 p.m., $5. 2720 Cherokee Performing Arts Center, 2720 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314-276-2700.

BRADLEY PALERMO: W/ Ike Fonseca, Andrew JR Hyland, Andrew Ryan, Wed., July 11, 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

BRENT FAIYAZ: Thu., Sept. 6, 7 p.m., $20-$25.

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

BROKEN YOUTH EP RELEASE SHOW: W/ A Promise To Burn, Fallen We Divide, Unimagined, City of Parks, Torn at the Seams, Fri., June 22, 6 p.m., $10-$12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

BROTHER JEFFERSON BLUES BAND: Sat., June 9, 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

BROTHER JEFFERSON DUO: Thu., June 21, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

CALAMITYCAST VARIETY SHOW: W/ 3of5, True Friends, Sat., July 21, 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

the era’s pro wrestlers, has stayed the course over the years, churning

The Wonder Years w/ Tiny Moving Parts, Tigers Jaw, Worriers

Wants, he should at least break even, if not gain deserved recognition as a

Nathaniel

Rateliff,

Hamilton

a different vibe with each new album, painting its distinct pop-punk with all the colors of hardcore, alt-rock and emo. With 2018’s Sister Cities, the band pulls even deeper from its cauldron of styles.

The melodic peaks and heavy straightaways that comprise a Wonder Years song are thankfully still here, but the sound moves through a bevy of moods. At this show you can also catch Tiny Moving Parts, which hails from the far side of the pop-sensible spectrum with a jittery brand of math-rock that walks on stilts.

SATURDAY, JUNE 2 Beauty Pageant w/ Data Bank, Wax Fruit, Flutterbug, Alex Cunningham 9 p.m. Schlafly Tap Room, 2100 Locust Street. Free.

314-241-2337.

Beauty Pageant trips up on the stairway to heaven and tumbles down the steps with bent guitar

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THIS JUST IN 10 YEARS: W/ Karma Dealer, Echoes From Ashes, Fri., June 1, 6 p.m., $20-$22. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720.

AARON GRIFFIN: Fri., June 15, 7 p.m., free. Hwy 61 Roadhouse and Kitchen, 34 S Old Orchard Ave, Webster Groves, 314-968-0061.

ACOUSTIC HOT TUNA: Tue., Dec. 11, 8 p.m., $50$55. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

THE ALLEY TONES: Sat., July 14, 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

BENJI BAM & DJ TAB: Thu., June 14, 9 p.m., $5.

2720 Cherokee Performing Arts Center, 2720 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314-276-2700.

BEWITCHER: Sat., Aug. 18, 8 p.m., $12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

BIG MIKE AGUIRRE: Fri., June 8, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

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DARLING WEST: Sun., Aug. 26, 8 p.m., $10-$12.

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

FALLING FENCES: W/ Meramec Valley Girl, Sat., Aug. 18, 8 p.m., $15-$20. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

GARY ROBERT AND COMMUNITY: W/ Tracing Wires, Guy Morgan And The FT Crew, Sat., July 14, 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

GEN POP: MKii, Miss Lady, Pineapple RnR, Mom, Wed., June 6, 9 p.m., $7. Blank Space, 2847 Cherokee St., St. Louis.

HANDS AND FEET: W/ Memory Keepers, Paperkite, Modern Welfare, Thu., July 5, 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

HOLLYWOOD KNOCKOUTS HOT OIL & CREAM WRESTLING & DANCE REVUE,: Wed., June 6, 9 p.m., $10-$20. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

I PREVAIL: W/ Bad Wolves, Broken Youth, Sun., June 3, 8 p.m., $26-$28. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720.

IVAS JOHN & BRIAN CURRAN: Thu., June 14, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

JEREMIAH JOHNSON BAND: Fri., June 15, 8 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

JOE METZKA BAND: Tue., June 12, 9 p.m., $5.

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

JOHN FORD: Fri., June 15, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314436-5222.

JOYWAVE: W/ Grandson, Thu., July 26, 8 p.m., $16-$18. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

KAY B BROWN: W/ T-Dubb-O, Kenny Knox, CD7, Cinematic, DJ D-Whit, Sat., June 2, 8 p.m., $5.

2720 Cherokee Performing Arts Center, 2720 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314-276-2700.

KELLY LATIMORE: W/ Mikey Trieb, Sat., June 9, 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

KID KOSHER: W/ Josh Clark, TOXIK CULTR, Where’s Will Tho?, Tue., June 12, 8 p.m., $5.

2720 Cherokee Performing Arts Center, 2720 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314-276-2700.

KILBORN ALLEY BLUES BAND: Fri., June 8, 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

KINKY FRIEDMAN: Thu., Aug. 9, 8 p.m., $30. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-4986989.

LARRY GRIFFIN & ERIC MCSPADDEN: Sat., June 9, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

LIVE COMEDY DVD: Thu., July 26, 9 p.m., $5. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

LOS LONELY BOYS: Thu., May 31, 8 p.m., $50-$60.

Wildey Theatre, 254 N. Main St., Edwardsville, 618-692-7538.

LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: Sun., June 10, 9 p.m., $10. Sun., June 17, 9 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-4365222.

MATT “THE RATTLESNAKE” LESCH: Sat., June 9, 8 p.m., $5. Hwy 61 Roadhouse and Kitchen, 34 S Old Orchard Ave, Webster Groves, 314-9680061.

MELVIN SEALS AND JGB: Sat., Sept. 22, 7 p.m., $25. Atomic Cowboy Pavilion, 4140 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-775-0775.

MINIATURE TIGERS: Fri., Sept. 21, 9 p.m., $20$25. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

MOCK IDENTITY: W/ Ex Salis, Thu., June 28, 9 p.m., $7. Blank Space, 2847 Cherokee St., St. Louis.

MUSIC UNLIMITED BAND: Mon., June 11, 8 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

OUT AMONGST THE MASSES EP RELEASE SHOW: W/ Conquer As They Come, Silent Hollow, Skydweller, Divide the Empire, Sat., June 2, 7 p.m., $5-$8. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720.

PACKIE: W/ VampyVicious, Plain and Simple, REUX, Tue., June 5, 8 p.m., $5. 2720 Cherokee Performing Arts Center, 2720 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314-276-2700.

PALISADES: W/ Letters From The Fire, Savage

Hands, Tue., July 24, 6 p.m., $15. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

PRIDEFEST: W/ Mýa, Steve Grand, Paige Alyssa, La Bouche, Bonnie McKee, Sat., June 23, 2 p.m.; Sun., June 24, 2 p.m., free. Soldiers Memorial Plaza, 14th St. and Chestnut St., St. Louis.

REMO DRIVE: Thu., July 12, 8 p.m., $13-$15.

Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

RENEE SMITH & DADDY’S LITTLE GIRLS: Sun., June 17, 5 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

ROBERT RANDOLPH AND THE FAMILY BAND: Fri., Aug. 31, 7 p.m., $25. Atomic Cowboy Pavilion, 4140 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-7750775.

ROCKIN’ JOHNNY BURGIN: Fri., June 15, 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

ROCKY MANTIA & KILLER COMBO: Mon., June 18, 7 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

ROGERS & NIENHAUS: Sat., June 23, 7 p.m., $5.

Hwy 61 Roadhouse and Kitchen, 34 S Old Orchard Ave, Webster Groves, 314-968-0061.

ROYAL BRAT: W/ Shux, Kiki, Wed., July 18, 9 p.m., $7. Blank Space, 2847 Cherokee St., St. Louis.

SKEET RODGERS & INNER CITY BLUES BAND: Sat., June 16, 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

SKINTDISCO: W/ DropJa, Kappzilla, Sleach, Tue., July 10, 8:45 p.m., $5. 2720 Cherokee Performing Arts Center, 2720 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314-276-2700.

SPACE CADAVER: W/ Old Hand, Fri., June 15, 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

ST. LOUIS SOCIAL CLUB: Tue., June 19, 9 p.m., $5.

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

THE STORY COLLIDER: Thu., June 28, 8 p.m., $10.

The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

SUTPHIN: W/ Shark Dad, Tue., June 19, 9 p.m., $5. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St.

WEEKEND Continued from pg 52

Louis, 314-833-3929.

SYVERS: W/ Dutch Courage, Fri., June 29, 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

T-DUBB-O,: W/ Hittamane, Big Lou, Spotlite, Gwuala Stackz, Mona Linski, Trap Dawgs, Cold Kase, Da Money Counters, Sat., June 9, 9 p.m., $5-$10. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720.

TAB BENOIT: Fri., Aug. 24, 7 p.m., $25. Atomic Cowboy Pavilion, 4140 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-775-0775.

TAKE 6 WITH SLSO: Thu., Dec. 20, 7 p.m., $42.75$62.75. Powell Hall, 718 N. Grand Blvd, St. Louis, 314-534-1700.

THAT PURPLE STUFF: A TRIBUTE TO PRINCE: Sat., June 9, 8 p.m., $5-$10. 2720 Cherokee Performing Arts Center, 2720 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314-276-2700.

TOM HALL: Sat., June 16, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314436-5222.

TORREY CASEY & SOUTHSIDE HUSTLE: Wed., June 20, 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

TRAMPLED BY TURTLES & INFAMOUS STRINGDUSTERS: Thu., Oct. 11, 8 p.m., $25-$30. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-7266161.

A TRIBUTE TO TUPAC SHAKUR: Sat., June 16, 7 p.m., $5. 2720 Cherokee Performing Arts Center, 2720 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314-276-2700.

VICKY MICHAELS & EDICKS WAY BAND: Thu., June 21, 9 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

THE WEE HEAVIES: Tue., June 5, 7 p.m., $12. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900.

WHY? PLAYS ALOPECIA: Wed., Nov. 21, 7 p.m., $15-$18. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

THE WLDLFE: W/ TREY, Wild & Free, The Friction, Calloway Circus, Thu., June 21, 7 p.m., $10-$12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314289-9050.

STL’s Hottest Dance Party!

réed into what will likely be the template for new indie-rock bands five years from now. Essential and timely

necks, fried circuits and trash-can

songs are delivered by a set of subtle

percussion. Each beat is met with

hands.

shrieks from burlesque shapeshifter Blyre Cpanx, who directs traffic with

SUNDAY, JUNE 3

elastic vocal work. Dada meets de-

Stephen Marley & Matisyahu

construction for a scene that stinks

6 p.m. Atomic Cowboy Pavillion, 4140 Manchester Avenue. $25 to $30. 314-775-0775.

like a beach bum party on ancient Mars. Space-age tools are met with a

Reggae royalty is a fact of life for

primitive approach that suggests the

Stephen Marley, who shares the

surf sub-genre of no-wave — a singu-

crown while keeping both feet on the

lar style that only Beauty Pageant can

ground. He smoothly moves through

call its own.

dance hall and hip-hop with an un-

Duke’s Photos by Big Stu Media

Always Fun and Games on the Patio

deniable musical royalty DNA, but

Parquet Courts w/ Goat Girl

even in some alternate reality where

9 p.m. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Avenue. $20.

314-833-3929.

Stephen wasn’t born a Marley, we’re

Sure, Parquet Courts casts enough

to win eight Grammy Awards as a

shade to starve Trump of the sun for

singer, guitarist and producer. His rap

the next two years, but Wide Awake

roots run deep too, ranging from col-

carries weight beyond the band’s

labs with Bone Thugs N Harmony and

politics, which occupy the center of

Mos Def to Pit Bull.

a Venn Diagram between freshmanyear idealism and plain common sense. Musically the band produces a spectrum of sound that is equal parts Grace Jones and the Minutemen, pu-

sure he would still have found a way

—Joseph Hess Each week we bring you our picks for the best concerts of the weekend. To submit your show for consideration, visit riverfronttimes. com/stlouis/Events/AddEvent. All events subject to change; check with the venue for the most up-to-date information.

AT THE CORNER OF MENARD & ALLEN IN THE HEART OF HISTORIC SOULARD FIND OUT ALL THAT’S GOING ON @DUKESINSOULARD

riverfronttimes.com

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JUST ADDED! Thu 6/28

Don’t Care

UPCOMING! Thu 5/31 Sat 6/2 Sun 6/3 Mon 6/4 Tue 6/5 Thu 6/7 Sun 6/10 Wed 6/13 Sun 6/17 Tue 6/19

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Red Wanting Blue Matthew Logan Vasquez Magic Giant The Bad Haircuts The Toasters Brendan Mayer Laughing at Blueberry Hill Trashcan Sinatras Laughin’ Wit Yo Daddy Speedy Ortiz

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VOTED STL’S FAVORITE WINGS & FAVORITE APPETIZERS

Make Good Times Your Weekend Destination 200 N. MAIN, DUPO, IL @GOODTIMES.PATIO.BAR riverfronttimes.com

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SAVAGE LOVE WHAT WORKS

BY DAN SAVAGE Hey, Dan: I am a 38-year-old gay man with a serious problem. My boyfriend of five years has developed a strange fascination. We’ve always watched porn together, but now he has been looking at straight porn and even lesbian porn (!!!) more and more often.

More than once he has expressed an interest in having a MMF threesome — and he’s a self-proclaimed gold-star gay! This week, I discovered he had hidden a Fleshlight from me. I could tell he had used it.

What is going on with him? On the other hand, we still have sex pretty frequently. He really gets off when I call his ass a “pussy,” which I’ll do to turn him on, but I find it pretty weird. He also tells me he gets off on the thought of the two of us fucking a woman together. This really seems bizarre! Could my beautiful bottom boy be turning bi? If he is, I don’t know how we can handle it.

Guy Alarmed, Yeah, By Younger Boyfriend’s Interest Turning bi? Unlikely.

Always was bi and only just realized it? Likelier.

Always was bi but identified as gay because (1) he prefers men as romantic partners and (2) the biphobia he encountered in gay male spaces/bedrooms/buttholes convinced him to stay closeted but he doesn’t want to live a lie anymore and he’s done hiding from the man he loves but instead of using his words and coming out to you like a grownup, GAYBYBI, your boyfriend is letting you know he’s bi with his porn choices and a big push to make a MMF threesome sound like a sexy adventure you would both enjoy? Likeliest.

As for how to handle it, GAYBYBI, you’ll have to use your words: Ask your boyfriend if he’s bi. (Spoiler: He’s bi, bicurious or so homoflexible he could tour with Cirque du Soleil.) If you’re not interested in having sex with women, tell him so. If being with you means he can never have sex with a woman, tell him so. And if you would never knowingly date a bi guy, tell him he deserves better.

Hey, Dan: A relationship question that doesn’t involve sex: Occasionally when two people live together, they bump into each other or one may get in the way of the other. Is it reasonable to be put off if rather than simply hearing “excuse me” when you are inadvertently in someone’s way, the person trying to gain access says, “Do you have to stand there?”

Just Seems Rude People who are courteous to strangers (“Excuse me, can I squeeze past you?”) and contemptuous with intimate partners (“Do you have to stand there, you fucking dumbass?”) don’t value their partners and don’t deserve intimacy. People who are assholes to everyone don’t deserve intimacy either, of course, but they get points for being consistent.

Hey, Dan: I recently posted an online ad for a jack-off buddy. I got a response from a man who turned out to be a gorgeous, young Sri Lankan dude with a huge, beautiful uncut cock. Anyway, I was really looking forward to him jacking me off and vice versa. But when I arrived, he said he was only interested in me giving him a massage and then a handjob. Apparently, he’s a straight guy who wanted to experiment with men in a very limited way. Like I said, SUPER HOT, so I happily obliged. But after he came, I was really aching for release myself. But as I stated earlier, he made it clear he did not want to reciprocate. After we were finished, he indicated that he might hit me up again. Do you think I should continue with the massage and “happy ending” in hopes he will someday feel comfortable enough to reciprocate? Or should I just go ahead and find myself another jack-off buddy?

Craving Uncut Masculine Sri Lankan Another jack-off buddy? No, no.

Additional jack-off buddy.

Hey, Dan: I recently spent a wonderful weekend with a young woman from out of town who identifies as queer and poly. Being the curious guy I am, I had her explain what these things meant to her. She went on to say that she is considering changing from poly to nonmonogamous. I find this confusing.

I’m certainly nonmonogamous,

but I’ve never thought of myself as poly. What is the difference?

Confused Over Lines Inside Names I would describe the difference as googleable, COLIN. But since you asked: A nonmonogamous person has sex with their partner and others; a poly person has or is open to having committed and concurrent romantic relationships. For one example: An ethically nonmonogamous woman fucks the boyfriend/husband she loves and other guys she doesn’t; a poly woman has two (or more) guys she both loves and fucks.

Hey, Dan: I have two complaints: one with the world and one with you. My problem with the world is that it seems to think it is possible to embrace the rights of sex workers and still stigmatize the men who employ them. I am in a happy monogamish marriage, and I enjoy a very good, vanilla-but-borderingon-tantric sex life with my wife.

Early on, when we discussed how open our marriage should be, we decided it would be all right for me to see escorts several times a year.

This gives me some sexual variety and keeps her from feeling threatened by my becoming emotionally involved with a third party. She is very mono and has no interest in going outside the marriage for sex. My quarrel with you has to do with your oft-repeated advice that people should break things off with partners who don’t perform oral sex. My wife doesn’t like to give head — and I really don’t like getting it from her, since she doesn’t like doing it. It is, however, one of the things on my list for my quarterly pro session. So I go down on her, she doesn’t go down on me, and I see escorts who do. And...

It Works For Us In regards to your first complaint, IWFU, there are sex workers out there fighting for their rights and fighting the stigma against sex work — along with fighting prohibition, the Nordic Model and SESTA (google it) — but you don’t see the men who employ them stepping up and joining the fight. “[It’s time for] all of you clients out there [to] get off your duffs and fight,” as sex worker and sexworker-rights advocate Maggie McNeill wrote on her blog. “Regu-

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57

Since you asked: A nonmonogamous person has sex with their partner and others; a poly person has or is open to having committed and concurrent romantic relationships. lar clients outnumber full-time whores by at least 60 to 1. Gentlemen, I suggest you rethink your current silence, unless you want to be the next one with your name and picture splashed across newspapers, TV screens, and websites.”

In regards to your second complaint, IWFU, it is true that I’ve said — on one or two occasions — that oral comes standard and any model that arrives without oral should be returned to the lot.

I’ve also said that you can’t be in an LTR without paying the price of admission, and I’ve said that a lot more often. If not getting oral at home is the price of admission you’re willing to pay to be with your wife, and if allowing you to get oral elsewhere is the price of admission she’s willing to pay to be with you, then Godspeed, IWFU, and tip the sex workers you patronize and speak up to fight the stigma against doing sex work and hiring sex workers.

Want to reach someone at the RFT? If you’re looking to provide info about an event, please contact calendar@ riverfronttimes.com. If you’re passing on a news tip or information relating to food, please email sarah.fenske@riverfronttimes.com. If you’ve got the scoop on nightlife, comedy or music, please email daniel.hill@riverfronttimes.com.

Love us? Hate us? You can email sarah. fenske@riverfronttimes.com about that too. Due to the volume of email we receive, we may not respond -- but rest assured we are reading every one.

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314-664-4040

Open until Midnight Fri & Sat

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St. Peters

1034 Venture Dr.

(70 & Cave Springs, S. Outer Rd.)

636-928-2144

Open until Midnight Thurs-Sat

Rentals

Health & Wellness

Amazing Touch

By Leia Relaxing Full Body Therapeutic Massage For Men DEEP TISSUE MASSAGE SOFT SENSUAL TOUCH

7 Days A Week

573-227-0281 (No Texts) Florissant, MO

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Licensed practitioner #2002030286

Call Natalie 314-799-2314 Artformassage.org

National Board Certified LMT 2003026388

MASSAGE

By Tanya Swedish Deep Tissue Reflexology Reiki CALL or TEXT 314-202-5222 Outcall (Home-Office-Hotel)

HANDS Will Leave You Happy & Healthy 314-852-0234

314-895-1616

Call Cynthia today for your massage 314-265-9625 Eureka Area M-F 7-5, Sat. 9-1 #2001007078

SWEDISH MASSAGE FOR MEN DAILY SPECIAL! 60 Minutes Only $50!

By Appt Only

314-643-7309 11115 New Halls Ferry Road Suite 200 Florissant, MO 63033

NEW O’ Fallon Location

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$800

Escape The Stresses of Life with a Relaxing

ORIENTAL MASSAGE & REFLEXOLOGY You’ll Come Away Feeling Refreshed & Rejuvenated!

314-972-9998

314-727-1444 WESTPORT/ LINDBERGH/PAGE

$400/$850 314-771-4222 www.stirr.com

Mon-Fri 10-4:30

MUSICIANS AVAILABLE Do you Need: A Musician?

A Band?

String Quartet?

Call The Musicians Association of St. Louis

314-781-6612

Mon-Fri 10-4:30

Services ARE YOU ADDICTED TO PAIN MEDICATIONS OR HEROIN? Suboxone can help.

Covered by most insurance.

Free & confidential assessments.

Outpatient Services.

Get Ready For Summer!

WANTS TO PURCHASE MINERALS and other oil & gas

• FULL BODY MASSAGE • SOFT SENSUAL TOUCH • TANNING • INCALLS • OUT CALLS TO YOUR HOTEL/MOTEL, HOME & OFFICE

763 S. New Ballas Rd, Ste. 310

interests. Send Details To: PO Box 13557, Denver, CO 80201

Above & Below g capin The Belt s n a M Grooming For Men Call For Appointment 407-494-7425

314-236-7060

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CBD/HEMP OIL Opportunity

Make Money in Hottest Wellness Trend & Next Billion Dollar Industry FREE To Join the New Product Line Revolution

www.EarnWithHemp.com 1-860-248-4000

Immediate Openings!

Work every Home Baseball Game!

Concession Workers • Event Staff Cooks • $9.00 Email or call for interview

stlouis@LGCAssociates.com 314-863-7400

MEN 4 MEN MEN 4 MEN 1/12 Page AdEXFOLIATION Here BODY & GROOMING FOR MEN! #95299

314-995-1912

Employment

Center Pointe Hospital 314-292-7323 or 800-3455407

PERSONALIZE YOUR MASSAGE

$595/$635

Nice area near Hwy 170, 64, 70 & 270 & Clayton Patio, laundry, great landlord!

CLEAN, SAFE QUIET!

Music

314-781-6612

$795

2 BR apt, new kitchen, bath & carpet.

C/A & heat. No Pets.

1 - 3 BR apts. Many different units.

NO CREDIT, NO PROBLEM!

Call For Information

Beautiful 1 BR Duplex For Rent.

UNIVERSITY CITY

SOUTH CITY

Bookings

UNIVERSITY CITY 6515 Bartmer

Call For Details 314-956-0383

A MUST SEE! 314-724-8842 nprent@aol.com

MUSICIANS

$475

2030 Ann Ave 1 Bedroom, Appliances Included, Ceiling fans & hardwood floors.

A Must See!!

A MUST SEE!

• 1st/2nd floor 2 BR • Spacious • Old World Charm • Hdwd floors • Yard, Fireplaces • Off street parking • No C/A, • Nonsmoking bldg • Storage • Professional Oriented

Do you have a band?

We have

#1 Ebony Magic Moves

SOULARD

(NO TEXTS)

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Open 9am-9pm

THERAPEUTIC MASSAGE Call For Appt 314-683-0894

CLEAN, SAFE QUIET!

SOUTH CITY

314-776-6429

314-995-1912

LMT 200101083

Simply Marvelous

314-865-4695

FULL BODY

CLEAN, SAFE QUIET!

Call Cheryl

Appointments Mon thru Sun (walk-ins welcome) 320 Brook’s Drive 63042

STRONG HANDS

Contact Jenny For A

ONE MONTH FREE!

314-995-1912

RICHMOND HEIGHTS/MAPLEWOOD $555/$645 Near MetroLink, Hwy 40, 44 & Clayton.

Online Booking

Licensed Massage Therapist

$585/$625

Great location near Hwy 170, 64, 70 & 270.

10 minutes to Clayton.

Relax Rejuvenate & Refresh

Or

Discounts Available

To Soothe & Relax Jeffrey

OVERLAND/ST. ANN

314-258-2860

(775) 210-1217

A NEW INTUITIVE MASSAGE A Wonderfully Relaxing Intuitive Massage 314-706-4076

THERAPEUTIC

Health Therapy Massage

Senior Software Engineer @ Mastercard (O'Fallon, MO) F/T Design, analyze, dvlp & implmnt essentl apps for spcific techncl dlvrbls. Undrtke code reviews of the dvlpmnt team. Reqs a Master's deg, or frgn equiv, in Cmptr Scnce, Cmptr Info Systms, Mngmnt Info Systms, Cmptr Engg, Elctrnc Engg, or rltd, & 2 yrs of exp in the job offrd, Sftwr Eng, Tech Anlyst, Sr Asscte, or rltd. Altrntvly, emp will accpt a Bachelor's degree, or frgn equiv, & 5 yrs of prgrssvly resp exp. Exp mst inclde 2 yrs w/ each: Java; J2EE; Spring; Hibernate; GIT; JSON; Javascript; JQuery; CSS; Eclipse; Tomcat; Websphere; JBOSS; XML; Rest; SOAP Web services; Oracle; PL/SQL; UNIX. Emp will accept any suita combo of edu, training, or exp. Mail resume to Pushkala Lakshmipathy @ Mastercard, 2200 Mastercard Blvd, O'Fallon, MO 63368. Ref MC17-2018.

Ldr, Operations & Tech @ Mastercard (O'Fallon, MO) F/T: Cllbrte w/ biz & tchncl prtnrs to idntify & scope the opprtnts, outlne potntial value, idntify risks, benefits & constraints. Contribte to the overall strtgy & mnge complx issues w/ in tchncl exprtse. Reqs a Master's deg, or frgn equiv, in Cmptr Scnce, Cmptr Engg, Mchncl Engg, or rltd, & 2 yrs of exp in the job offrd, or as an Asscte, Assstnt Systms Cnsltnt or rltd. Altrntvly, emp will accpt a Bachelor's degree, or frgn equiv, & 5 yrs of prgrssvly resp exp. Exp mst inclde 2 yrs w/ each: major, minor enhncmnts & prdctn spprt; analyzing user & systm reqs; prprng design docs; coding; unit tstng; systm tsting &/or supprt; User Accptnce tstng spprt; relse mngmnt; prdctn implmnttn spprt; Mainframe dvlpmnt (JCL, COBOL, DB2). Emp will accept any suita combo of edu, training, or exp. Mail resume to Pushkala Lakshmipathy @ Mastercard, 2200 Mastercard Blvd, O'Fallon, MO 63368. Ref MC18-2018.

MAY 30 - june 5, 2018

RIVERFRONT TIMES

59

If You Witness An Overdose DON’T RUN, CALL 911

b VOTED BEST CHINESE! ~2018 RFT Best of St. Louis Poll~

Missouri’s “Good Samaritan” law protects people who call 911 from arrest & prosecution for possession of drugs or paraphernalia.

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South City 3552 Gravois at Grand Mid County 10210 Page Ave (3 mi East of Westport) St. Peters 1034 Venture Dr (70 & Cave Springs-Outer Rd)

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DO YOU SUFFER FROM ERECTILE DISFUNCTION?

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For Treatment!

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314-236-7060

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Happy Traveling!

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

Above & Below The Belt Manscaping ForAd Menfor Backpage

Ultimate Massage by

Summer!

SWEDISH & DEEP TISSUE FULL BODY MASSAGE MONDAY-FRIDAY 10AM-5PM SOME WEEKENDS

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314-620-6386 # 2006003746

Call for appointment

407-494-7425 Theshavemster.com

Video Package!

Versatile multimedia receiver with 6.2” touchscreen.

Dual phone connection for hands-free calling and media access. Plus a big 14” drop-down monitor.

2-Camera DashCam!

379

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99

Compact Radar/Laser Detector!

Split-screen view.

12999

159

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SOUTH: 5616 S. Lindbergh • (314) 842-1242 WEST: 14633 Manchester • (636) 527-26811 HAZELWOOD: 233 Village Square Center • (314) 731-1212 Mon. - Sat. 9 AM - 7 PM; Sunday Noon - 5 PM Unless otherwise limited, prices are good through Tuesday following publication date. Installed price offers are for product purchased from Audio Express installed in factory-ready locations. Custom work at added cost. Kits, antennas and cables additional. Added charges for shop supplies and environmental disposal where mandated. Illustrations similar. Video pictures may be simulated. Not responsible for typographic errors. Savings off MSRP or our original sales price, may include install savings. Intermediate markdowns may have been taken. Details, conditions and restrictions of manufacturer promotional offers at respective websites. Price match applies to new, non-promotional items from authorized sellers; excludes “shopping cart” or other hidden specials. © 2019, Audio Express.

60

RIVERFRONT TIMES

M A Y 3 0 - j u ne 5 , 2 0 1 8

riverfronttimes.com

DAILY SPECIAL 60 Minutes ONLY $50

314-643-7309

By Appointment Only No Texts 11115 New Halls Ferry Rd Suite 200 Florissant, MO 63033

Amandasminidayspa.com

5/3