May 2014

Issue No. 4-May ’14

the liner notes of st. louis

Street Wise Bill Streeter’s Lo-Fi Cherokee Shoots 16 Videos In One Day!

Crime Scene INSIDE: New Music Circle • Ashley Hohman • Dandy Warhols • con

Ashley Hohman And Dustin McChesney’s Crime And Punishment

Dots Not feathers Farewell To Dolphin World The Place, Hello To The Dolphin World Album

Eleven Magazine Volume 10, issue 4

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DEPT. OF

PERIODICAL LITERATURE ST. LOUIS, MO

Volume 10, Issue No. 4

Front of the book 5 Editor’s Note 6 Where Is My Mind?

Connor Low, Todd Snider, Lo-Fi Cherokee

May 2014

features (cont’d) Burger Time! 18 Sean Bohrman of Burger Rec’ds

by Nelda Kerr .

The Madness of Burgerama 22

by Bryan Sutter .

Columns 8 Introducing

by Sam Clapp Hess/Cunningham Duo

9 Watcherr

by Curtis Tinsley I Love You

10 Behind The Scene

by Jarred Gastreich

eleven’s musicalendar Recommended Shows 24 The Dandy Warhols

Bring On the Night Show Previews and Reviews226 Gary Numan, Ben Folds, Eels, Hooten Hallers, The Whigs, Chvrches

Dots Not Feathers

12 Paper Time Machine

by Paige Brubeck Ryan Duggan’s City of Broken Glass

features 14 Opera Theatre of St. Louis

by Rob Levy 15 The Xerox art of Ashley Hohman & Dustin McChesney:

by Raymond Code 16 New Music Circle Showcase

by Cole Dåis .

Hot Rocks Album Reviews2 29 Notwist, Sun Kil Moon, Con, Wye Oak No Coast, Amen Dunes, Colourmusic

The Rebellious Jukebox 30

by Matt Harnish .

Drunks With Guns, Lumpy And The Dumpers

.

Single File 32

by Ira Gamerman .

The Way Back Page Show Us Your Tats 35

by Suzie Gilb Fred Friction, Ellen the Felon

On the Cover: Cherry Glazerr, Kevin Rhea of nasa space universe, and the crowd at burgerama. This page: Matt Taylor of the Growlers; Jennifer Herrema of Black Bananas; Hunx of Hunx and his punx; Stephanie Luke of The Coathangers. all photos by bryan sutter.

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Two Cherokee residents stare each other down. Photo by Jarred Gastreich

Do You Know About:

Eleven Magazine Volume 10 | Issue 4 | May 2014 Publisher Hugh Scott Editor-In-Chief Evan Sult Special assignments editor Paige Brubeck WeB Editor Hugh Scott photo editor Jason Stoff Art Director Evan Sult CONTRIBUTING Writers Dave Anderson, Caitlin Bladt, Curt Brewer, Paige Brubeck, Ryan Boyle, Juliet Charles, Sam Clapp, Raymond Code, Thomas Crone, Jenn DeRose, Ira Gamerman, Suzie Gilb, Matt Harnish, Jordan Heimburger, Gabe Karabell, Nelda Kerr, Cassie Kohler, Kevin Korinek, John Krane, Josh Levi, Rob Levy, Bob McMahon, Jack Probst, Jason Robinson, Jeremy Segel-Moss, Robert Severson, Michele Ulsohn, Chris Ward, Robin Wheeler, Rev. Daniel W. Wright PHOTOGRAPHERS Nate Burrell, Jarred Gastreich, Abby Gillardi, Patrice Jackson, Lee Klawans, Louis Kwok, Adam Robinson, Jason Stoff, Bill Streeter, Bryan Sutter, Ismael Valenzuela, Angela Vincent, Corey Woodruff intern Christian Soares

Illustrators Paige Brubeck, Sean Dove, Tyler Gross, Lyndsey Lesh, Curtis Tinsley, Sam Washburn proofreader Tracy Brubeck Promotions & Distribution Suzie Gilb Ann Scott Consultation Clifford Holekamp Derek Filcoff Cady Seabaugh Hugh Scott III Founded in 2006 by a group including Jonathan Fritz, Josh Petersel and Matthew Ström ELEVEN MAGAZINE 3407 S. Jefferson St. Louis, MO 63118 for ADVERTISING INQUIRIES Hugh Scott advertising@elevenmusicmag.com calendar listings listings@elevenmusicmag.com LETTERS TO THE EDITOR deareleven@elevenmusicmag.com We welcome your comments. Please let us know if you do not want your letter published.

HAVE A QUESTION FOR US? info@elevenmusicmag.com ONLINE elevenmusicmag.com twitter.com/elevenmag facebook.com/ElevenMagazine Copyright 2013 Scotty Scott Media, LLC

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Editor’s Note by Evan Sult

I met up with a former bandmate recently in Chicago for some catching up. He’s a high school history teacher now, though he still writes and records music. He says he doesn’t see flyers on the walls of the school anymore looking for bassists or drummers; as far as he can tell, live music on electric instruments is being replaced by DJs and computer programs.

For those of us who found ourselves by learning to play an instrument, it’s enough to make a body despair.

That’s why it’s a relief to find a thing like Burger Records. They started in 2007, well after the mp3 was supposed to have destroyed not just record stores but most record labels. And they make it look easy, like all you gotta do is put out a tape (a tape!) and people all over the country will be begging to get their hands on a copy.

Well, the thing is, Burger label dudes Sean Bohrman, Lee Rickard, and Brian Flores have taste. They’re linked into a thing that’s already happening around the country, in Nashville and Denver and Brooklyn and of course LA: the dumb joy of guitars and skateboards and cans of beer and figuring out how to write a song that captures the feeling of being alive. It makes sense that they work in analog forms, because life is analog, if you’re doing it right — it’s offscreen and in the garage, or out on the street at night, or down in someone’s basement where the show is just getting going. It’s hand drawn, hand screenprinted, played on real instruments.

Turns out there are plenty of people around the country who know this... they’re just spread out, and they’re looking for each other.

We’ve always been looking for each other, and there aren’t a lot of us, but there are enough to buy 500 tapes of any rad band, enough to show up and overflow a basement show, enough to wear the pins of the bands we love and tell our friends about for next time.

Unconventional workspace for the unconventionally employed

.com

Viva Analog

mobile • web • branding

located on Cherokee Street in STL 815-535-7908

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WHERE IS MY MIND? This Month in the History of Now

God save the cast Tell the Johnny Rotten of The Filth and the Fury that he’d be starring in an arena spectacular version of Jesus Christ Superstar, and he’d have laughed in your face. Fast forward to 2014, and prepare yourself for, yes, an arena spectacular version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s first rock opera with Johnny Rotten in the role of King Herod. Nothing wrong with the clown prince of punk expanding his horizons... though it’s harder to fathom Rotten sharing the stage (and backstage) each night with Brandon Boyd of Incubus, plus former members of *NSYNC and Destiny’s Child. The cast is signed on for 51 American dates, including a show at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis on July 1. It seems likely that the show itself isn’t going to be the hardest part: Rotten was already throwing bananas at reporters and trying to take over the press conference when the show was announced.

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rock of all ages

know his name, and are rooting for him as he goes. He’ll be repping St. Louis all over the country, and when he comes back, I’m sure he’ll already have another half-dozen gigs booked in town. Evan Sult

lit fit

Never Met a Story I Didn’t Like works as a stand-alone, semiautobiographical story, recounting familiar tales about him and country singer Jerry Jeff Walker, plus encounters with the likes of Jimmy Buffett, the late Ed Bradley, Hunter Thompson (all hanging out together, apparently; now how absurd does that sound?), Garth Brooks, John Prine, and many more. And for each name dropped, another drug is mentioned.

Snider is an enthusiastic fan of drugs, and he thinks everyone should be. In person and print, he’s forthright in his opinion that everyone should be a fan of ‘em and why he’ll never quit being a fan of them. So: whether you’re a fan of Snider, of drugs, or of both at once, don’t let the fact that you probably know the stories already.

They’re still just as funny. And if you’re not a fan, I promise you will be charmed by the somehow cynical yet completely upbeat and positive voice of one of the most endearing wordsmiths in music today. HUGH SCOTT

Recently Ballwin School of Rock announced a St. Louis winner of their Rock National Allstar Tour: 13-year-old guitarist Connor Low. While this is stupendously good news for any young musician — Low and his young cohort will be touring the country this summer, with performances at Red Rocks, Lollapalooza, Hangout Music Fest, Austin City Limits and so on — in this particular case, it seems only natural.

Why is that? Because Low is already essentially a professional musician, playing gigs all over town with as many of the seasoned teachers and players as he can find, while working his way through every rock school within reach.

I got a chance to see him play at Camp Jam last summer, and it was true what I’d been hearing about him: the guy is a tasteful rock musician, writing fully formed melodic guitar parts and working the fretboard like a natural. Even the way he stands at ease with his guitar sets him apart from the other students, and his genuine smile doesn’t hurt the effect. His Facebook page looks like the walls of Blueberry Hill if Joe Edwards had started in grade school: it’s filled with photo mementos of his encounters with musical legends from across the decades. Plus, of course, a comprehensive list of his many upcoming gigs around town.

So: wish Connor Low well on his journey, and keep an eye out for him.

Most of the real players in town already

I Never Met a Story I Didn’t Like: Mostly True Tall Tales

by Todd Snider Todd Snider has been threatening to write a book for years. His songs tell great stories themselves and in concert, he’s as much a raconteur as he is a barefootin’ hippie songwriter.

Most of the stories in the book he’s been telling for years — his fans know them as well as they know his songs — but they retain their charm just as well in print. They may get taller as the years creep on, but that just means they never get dull.

At a recent performance at the Sheldon Theater in which Snider played guitar, sang, read from his book, took requests, conversed with the audience and told even more stories, he joked that the book could have been called Doin’ Drugs and Droppin’ Names. Snider has always worn his idols on his sleeve. Each of the 21 chapters in I

cherokee Streeter show until the end of the long day, when the film and sound crews are exhausted, but giddy to have pulled it off again.

With 16 (!) sets planned in a single day, including songs by The Yowl, Kentucky Knife Fight, Neé, Javier Mendoza, The Feed, Hooten Hallers, Cree Rider, Syna So Pro, Ryan Spearman, Al Holiday & The East Side Rhythm Band and Popular Mechanics, it was an ambitious day for anyone. But after a long day for both the crew and the diehards who followed the cameras from set to set (the crowd gathered as the day went on), the weariness lifted as Pokey LaFarge and his band played an extended five-song set at The Bomb Door to an elated crowd that Mates Of State had grown from those dozen or so earlymorning stragglers to a traveling circus of 500 or so.

So now, check it out: Eleven magazine is proud to co-present the 2014 Lo-Fi Cherokee video debut at The Bomb Door, on May 30 at 8pm. Come see the results of all that hard work and hard play! Hugh Scott

LoFi Cherokee Photos by Jarred Gastreich

There was a moment, early on a Saturday morning, well before Cherokee Street usually gets moving on a weekend, that summed up how cool the Lo-Fi Cherokee video shoots have become. A small crowd of cameramen, sound engineers, light riggers and the curious moved from Ellen the Felon’s just-wrapped shoot west to Tenth Life Cat Rescue, where Sheila Shahpari was just about to start her song. A little further down the block, Middle Class Fashion stood outside the new Velvet Elvis, shouting across the street with Bruiser Queen, who were posted up in front of The Livery Co. It was a moment of pure St. Louis music serendipity, and the perfect way to kick off the series of shoots.

For three years now Bill Streeter has hosted Lo-Fi Cherokee, wherein he and a crew set up a series of one-shot, one-song takes of STL musicians all along the street.

Seeing Streeter and his crew knock out these videos with such grace and precision is impressive. If there’s stress, it doesn’t

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INTRODUCING

New bands in their early days by Sam Clapp

Hess/Cunningham DUO

Photo by Mabel Suen

Joseph Hess and Alex Cunningham are the core of a free improv band. Hess plays drums, and Cunningham plays electric violin and guitar. They pretty much play what comes to mind.

They made a recording at Webster University in December with Nicholas Horn of Brotherfather on guitar and Mabel Suen of Spelling Bee on saxophone. It’s a strange bunch of tracks, with moments of skittering weirdness and crushing distortion placed right up against sparse, dreamy passages.

The lineup is continually evolving. They recently played a couple of shows with Horn, ace free jazzer Dave Stone, and Sean Ballard of Stonechat, and they’re toying with the idea of concocting some songs—or maybe some songs with improvised sections.

When I got to the coffeeshop to interview the dudes, there was a kid—nine, ten years old—sweeping the place. I bought my coffee, he ran around the counter to pour it, and then he ran outside to shout down customers.

The band arrived, and now the kid had an audience. He started hawking pizza to Hess and Cunningham. We negotiated, and got him to promise not to come back for fifteen minutes.

Hess plays in Spelling Bee, Braining, and Totally Gay Cop. Cunningham is a SLU student and music director at KSLU. The two of them met when Cunningham was arranging for the reclusive Houston musician Jandek to come play a rare show at the Billiken Club. Jandek doesn’t travel with a band: he assembles a group of local improvisers in every city he visits. Jandek selected Hess to be the drummer, and in the process Hess and Cunningham became friends.

Improvisation is the basis of most music around the world, but in our musical culture, the stream has gotten dammed up.

When we say “music,” most of the time we mean “recordings,” which are snapshots.

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The craving for consistency has created an expectation that live shows be superloud rehashes of recorded material, plus maybe a confetti cannon. The proliferation of backing tracks has wedged us in a position where performers aren’t just trying to replicate their prior performances: they’re pretty much doing karaoke.

This band is part of an effort to chip away at that dam, to free things up.

That said, improvisation isn’t some magical spring. According to Hess and Cunningham, improvisation is the arranging and rearranging of patterns they’ve learned over the years. As they get better at improvising, the patterns get more personal and nuanced.

The kid came back, long before fifteen minutes was up, and started crawling under the couch to grab the hem of my pants.

The duo hasn’t really been writing songs with chord progressions, rhythmic structures, lyrics, and so on, but they and their collaborators have refined a sound through jamming. Everybody has a sense of what should happen.

The patterns themselves come from practice. Hess sits in his basement and

practices by playing drums with each limb in unison, slowly subdividing the beats to isolate each appendage.

And according to Hess, improvising is actually about listening. Practicing builds up the forms in your mind, but real, flexible improvisation is about responding to the other players and remaining in the moment.

I asked the old genre question, “Do you guys see yourselves as coming more from a free jazz or a noise angle?” and immediately felt like I asked the Pope whether he thinks running the Church is more like air hockey or laser tag. All right, they said, yes, genre distinctions make things easy for music writers, but they’re not really good for anything when you’re actually doing the thing.

The biggest problem with applying a genre descriptor to your music, Cunningham said, is that when you say “free jazz” it turns people off. To his friends, he’s in a band: cool. As soon as it’s a “noise” band, though, people get suspicious.

And in a musical form where part of the point is to strip sounds of their usual significance, where does picking a genre get you? Hess doesn’t believe in the concepts of “shrill” and “harsh.” What makes him cringe is yet another big A-major chord.

After some time, the kid comes back, this time with a butane lighter. He lights a candle on the table, and then holds the flame up to my paper coffee cup, burning the bottom black.

Check ‘em out for yourself: soundcloud.com/phalangestl

Futurism

WATCHERR

by Curtis Tinsley

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Behind the Scene Bands in Their Native Environment

Photographs by Jarred Gastreich

Dots not feathers Formed in 2010 and then reformed, refined, and reimagined since then, Dots Not Feathers is the collaboration of Stephen Baier (vocals and guitar), Ryan Myers (vocals and guitar), Jessica Haley (vocals and Omnichord), Katie Brooking (vocals and piano), Chris Dickey (bass), and Nick Blackburn (drums). Their intricate song structures and sophisticated vocal arrangements are the telltale signs of hardcore practicers, and until very recently the band has been based out of a basement space they call Dolphin World. That space has been a shared home to many STL bands, and last month Dots Not Feathers celebrated the release of their second album, which they named after the room where it was written.

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Ryan Myers: With the way the new lineup formed, and Palace being there, and everyone just coming in and out, it all just comes back to relaxation and the exchange of ideas — a lot of ideas. It’s a think tank. Between us, and Palace, Bye Bye Blackbird, Brother Nature, Union Tree Review... we’ve had all these musical lines coming in and out of Dolphin World and there was just so much music, maybe to our neighbor’s chagrin.

Stephen Baier: Our space is our home within our home, in a lot of ways. That house is a revolving door and people come and go... I think there’s a lot to be said for that practice space affecting the record. I feel like living there has been the golden moment of my songwriting. I don’t know how many of these songs I wrote at three in the morning sitting down in the basement by myself, trying out things half asleep. It feels weird having to leave the space for our new one in Shaw.

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PAPER TIME MACHINE Curated by Paige Brubeck

City of Broken Glass

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Designer Ryan Duggan’s work can be found all over Chicago’s record store windows and venues. They are an active voice in a vibrant scene. With a lot of the venues and bands like Loose Dudes and Maps & Atlases showing up again and again, when you recognize one of his posters, you already know it’s something you want to hear about. His work uses relatively restrained, absurd imagery to create an ongoing narrative taking place in the city of broken glass. Realistic, familiar icons like the city’s ubiquitous metal scrap trucks and police cars rest alongside tiny urban details like a raccoon scoring stoner snacks, Smokey the Bear tripping on LSD, or Gumby and Pokey gassing up a stolen car. The end result is a city remade through the eyes of its creator, somewhere between Peter Bagge’s Hate comix and 1930s Merrie Melodies, in an instantly recognizable hand-drawn, hand-lettered style.

1. Cougars, Rollo Tomasi, Wally Dogger April 5, 2008 The Beat Kitchen Chicago, IL 2. White Mystery, The 1900s, Lover!

August 27, 2010 Lincoln Hall Chicago, IL 3. The Show ‘n Tell Show Anders Nilson, Shawnimals, Susie Kirkwood, Jill Summers, The Curious Cardigans, Diana Sudyka March 28, 2010 Lincoln Hall Chicago, IL 4. Loose Dudes, Bad Drugs, Wooly Bullies May 29, 2011 The Hideout Chicago, IL

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5 5. Netherfriends Tour poster 2008 6. Maps & Atlases, Light Pollution, Gypsy Blood March 11, 2011 Lincoln Hall Chicago, IL 7. Marnie Stern, Diarrhea Planet, Heavy Times, Rabble Rabble DJs March 1, 2014 The Empty Bottle Chicago, IL 8. Racebannon, Non-Agon, Quatre Téte August 15, 2008 The Beat Kitchen Chicago, IL

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Passion, Tradition, and Terror Opera Theatre of St. Louis’ 39th season

By Rob Levy It’s pretty cool that Opera Theatre of St. Louis is not only one of our city’s cultural traditions but also an internationally respected company known for staging both traditional and contemporary works.

For their 39th festival season, Opera Theatre of St. Louis has selected four operas that could not be more different from one another. From the tradition of The Magic Flute to comedic romp The Elixir of Love, the premiere of Twenty-Seven and the walloping closer Dialogue of the Carmelites, this year’s repertoire continues OTSL’s legacy of engaging a diverse audience with evocative works.

The Magic Flute Selected nights May 24-June 28 Opera Theatre opens its 2014 season with a timeless classic from Mozart. The Magic Flute is an operatic buddy adventure about a prince who sets out to rescue a princess, and a bird catcher who joins him hoping to snare love. Rebooted by fashion icon Isaac Mizrahi—who previously worked on OTSL’s 2010 production of A Little Night Music—this splashy and vibrant production features tenor Sean Pannikar (previously seen as Lenski in Eugene Onegin) in a fairytale of adventure, love and friendship.

The Elixir of Love Selected nights May 31-June 25 Anyone looking for comedic opera will enjoy

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Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love, a two-act bel canto set piece that merges melodrama with slapstick flourishes. Absent from the company repertoire since 1982, this invigorating makeover from debuting director Jose Maria Condemi is sure to deliver fireworks.

Set over the course of a single day, it tells the story of Nemorino, an adventurous spirit looking for love in all the wrong places. His quest to capture the heart of the beautiful Adina goes awry after he foolishly purchases a love potion from a suspicious peddler. Unwittingly, his actions change his life forever while also getting his entire village in a dither.

The Elixir of Love offers an abundance of passion while exploring the clever duality of relationships. Tenor Rene Barbera stars as Nemero, with audience favorite Tim Mix returning as Belcore. Soprano Susannah Biller makes her debut as Adina.

Twenty-Seven Selected nights June 14-June 29 In addition to staging traditional classics, Opera Theatre of St. Louis regularly commissions bold new works. The third offering of the 2014 season, Twenty-Seven, is part the company’s New Works Bold Voices series, highlighting new operas and bringing them to the stage.

This world premiere is set in the Roaring Twenties of Gertrude Stein’s Paris, at her infamous salon #27 Rue de Fleurus. Stein’s life in Paris is seen (of course) through the eyes of fellow Lost Generation luminaries

Ernest Hemingway, Henri Matisse, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Pablo Picasso.

Director James Robinson’s sumptuous offering has plenty of tension buoyed by great set design and costumes. Also onboard is composer Michael Christie, who is known for his innovate orchestral work, and OTSL scored quite a coup in bringing in mezzosoprano Stephanie Blythe as Stein. One of the biggest contemporary names in opera, her presence in the production is sure to attract critical acclaim. Supporting her is soprano Elizabeth Futral as Alice B. Toklas.

Dialogues of the Carmelites Selected nights June 18-June 28 Francis Poulenc’s 1956 opera Dialogues of the Carmelites is set amidst the tumult of the French Revolution. This three-act opera is layered with intricacies, as the bloodlust of the Reign of Terror spreads into the secluded world of a Carmelite monastery.

Director Robin Guarino makes her St. Louis debut with this production. Her past work has garnered a reputation for emotional richness while brandishing a guillotine-like sharpness. She joins an operatic all-star esemble, including St. Louisan soprano Christine Brewer and soprano Kelly Kaduce, who has become one of the audience’s most beloved performers. Ward Stare has been charged with making Poulenc’s delicate score underpin the chaos of the opera onstage.

Go to opera-stl.org for full showtimes, address, details, and more.

High Crime Area Two artists collaborate on stark new pieces

by Raymond Code Following the rich lineage of collage art from its Dada roots to its malleable and immediate uses as eye-punching graphics, St. Louis native musician and artist Ashley Hohman has honed a sharp eye, cutting and pasting striking imagery for flyers, zines, album covers, and prints — many of which grace the local underground and punk music scene of St. Louis.

Informed by her tenure as vocalist and bassist in Doom Town — one of STL’s strongest punk exports, now sadly disbanded — as well the recent basementthrash explorations of her newest offering, Self Help, Hohman finds a counterpoint between the music and her collages: “Visual art has always been a very important aspect of punk and DIY music,” she says. “I started doing Xerox collage work through

Crime and Punishment Works by Ashley Hohman and Dustin McChesney Friday, May 9 Bank (3420 Iowa Ave)

making flyers for shows and then realized that being connected to the visual side of creating was just as important to me as the musical. “

To send these visual communications into further terrains, Hohman has been working with the Minneapolis musician and illustrator Dustin McChesney. The two of them will be showing an assortment of old and new works in a show titled Crime and Punishment, opening at Bank art space on

Friday, May 9.

Hohman and McChesney have been planning this collaboration for a while now. “We met via a show I had booked for his band,Total Trash, a couple of years back and became quick friends and fans of whatever the other person was making,” says Hohman. “We decided to do a correspondence where we would send images back and forth to each other: my collages to him and his illustrations to me, and the other person would create something on top.” Stylistically, these works range from hand-drawn psychedelia to stark black and white Xerox arrangements that situate sexually and mystically charged characters onto moire-patterned, infinite planes. Both Hohman’s and McChesney’s individual work as well as their collaborative material will be on display—and they’ll have a new zine available at the opening.

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Something new under the sun Experimental artists converge on St. Louis

Photo of Nathan cook courtesty the artist

by Cole Däis Wrapping up a busy year that highlighted the many cross sections of contemporary sonic experimentation ranging from the immersive electronics of Olivia Block to the spiritual jazz of William Parker, New Music Circle ends its 55th season this month by hosting an annual showcase concert. Local, regional, and touring acts are brought together onto a single bill at the William A. Kerr Foundation, a renovated historic bathhouse perched on the riverfront.

This showcase will see a first time collaborative trio of Yowie guitarist Chris Trull, electronic artist Kevin Harris, and percussionist Tyler Damon. Hailing from Bloomington, IN, Tyler Damon has made prior STL appearances in his psychrock group, Thee Open Sex, at Blank Space

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New Music Circle Showcase Tuesday, May 20, 7pm William A. Kerr Foundation

on Cherokee Street. He also appeared in an unforgettable and hard-hitting collaboration with Darin Gray and Mars Williams last summer at St. Louis Art Museum, where Gray pronounced Damon one of the Midwest’s most dynamic young improvisers.

A returning visit from NYC ecstaticfree-jazz improvisers saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and drummer Tom Rainey will see them performing as a duo. Both Laubrock and Rainey are regular collaborators with guitarist Mary Halvorson and composer Anthony Braxton. Laubrock’s fierce

tenor sax playing begs exception from those who thought such fiery sax explorations may have expired with John Coltrane or Albert Ayler, and the dexterity and dynamism of Rainey’s percussion skill lays a ripe groundwork for the musical interplay this duo explores.

STL sound artist and tape label proprietor Nathan Cook enters his sound creations via a different portal. Collaging together self-built instruments, oscillators, and tape playback, Cook investigates long sonic forms and deep listening. 2013 was an especially busy year for Cook, from curating the monthly Bruxism series, to releasing a handful of new cassettes on his Close-Far tape label, and recording sound work currently installed at the Contemporary Art Museum.

For more info, go to newmusiccircle.org.

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S

ean Bohrman and Lee Rickard started Burger Records in Fullerton, CA, in 2007 when they made a batch of tapes and a 7-inch record for their own band, Thee Makeout Party. They loved the cover art and feel of tapes, and the sound quality was good, and it wasn’t hard to do... So pretty soon they started printing up tapes for cool friends’ bands, more and more often; meanwhile, they met a dude named Brian Flores and opened a record shop together, also called Burger Records, which became their headquarters. Less than seven years later, they’ve produced tapes, LPs, CDs, and now mp3s for over 600 artists, including Ty Segall, The Black Lips, Thee Oh Sees, and JEFF The Brotherhood. In an age where it sometimes seems like Guitar Hero killed the guitar, Burger Records is busting at the seams with real-deal garage rock classics.

On Easter Sunday, I called Burger Records. The shop was open, as it has been every day without fail for nearly five years.

Though practically everywhere else record stores have nosedived out of business, and free mp3s have supposedly killed the joy of running a record/CD/tape label, Burger Records has been exploding in size and popularity practically by the day; this year, Burger showcased 50 bands at SXSW. And as the new releases just keep getting better and bigger, they show no sign of slowing.

Bohrman answered the phone, and we chatted about some of their new releases, the discriminating ethic of their label, and why all this work doesn’t make him want to jump off a bridge. For starters, I asked him about Denney And The Jets and what turns Bohrman on about their debut Mexican Coke, a new release of theirs, in conjunction with Limited Fanfare Records out of Miami.

“We’re just friends with all those guys in Nashville,” he said, “and really connected with the Nashville scene over there, with tons of stuff: Denney And The Jets, Heavy Cream, Diarrhea Planet, Sufis, Paper Heads.

We put out a ton of bands from Nashville, [and] definitely have an ear there as far as, when new music is being made we like to be told about it. Our friends told us about Denney And The Jets and they put out a good start last year, it was really, really good, and then it came about that they had an album and Brian over at Limited Fanfare asked us if we wanted to be involved, and we said definitely, so here we are.

“It’s just down-home country rock and it’s authentic—[Denney], he’s a wild man.

And you can hear it in the songs and he’s not

faking it, it’s just how it is. That’s what we try to look for: realness in artists. Denney And The Jets is real.”

Eleven: I definitely see “realness” as a unifying quality of all Burger Bands.

Sean Bohrman: Yeah. You can hear something that’s fake within two seconds. We get ten demos a day in the mail, and you put on something for two seconds, we look at how they present themselves and how they present the band and if it’s a formula, then you’re probably not gonna get anything from it. But if somebody has drawn a picture for you and written a note, a handwritten note, you know, that’s what’s gonna make us pay attention—not a one-sheet that you printed off with a million other one-sheets and a CD that’s got all the the faces in your band. I don’t know, it’s definitely a fine line to walk between being real and being not, but luckily for us we can see when it is and when it’s not.

Are their other factors that you look for in artists that you want to put under the Burger umbrella?

Definitely: if they’re easy to work with, nice people. There’ve been times where we’ve loved the band or idolized the band even, and the people in the band or the people they’re working with were just unbearable.

They don’t understand that you’re coming from a place of love and they’re all business, so if somebody’s a dick, I don’t want to work with them, even if their music is fucking awesome. We look for people who are nice and we can actually be friends with, more than just a business relationship, someone

we could hang out with. We’ve been extremely lucky. Most of the bands that we’ve worked with are, I would say, very good friends.

Will you tell me about how you came to know Curtis Harding and what you love about his music?

We got to meet him at SXSW, and he came to Burger-rama and Beach Goth [a party put on by the band The Growlers], and he did [Burger] Boogaloo last year. So he hung out a lot and eventually we were like, ‘Let’s do the album,’ so we put him in the studio in Atlanta, in Living Room Studios, and he recorded an amazing soul record there and it’s just getting bigger and bigger and blowing up. People who don’t even know Burger know Curtis Harding now, which is crazy and, yeah, his album is gonna blow up. And that’s just—it’s really, again, he’s totally real and he is super talented. His songwriting ability and his singing is unmatched within the Burger realm. We’ve never really put out something like this before, so we’re all really excited about it, it’s awesome.

It’s such a great record and Living Room Studios did such a great job, really it’s a perfect record all the way through.”

How about Summer Twins?

Summer Twins are one of the hardest working bands that we have. We met them before Burger even started: they were in a punk band called The Scandelles. Make Out Party played with them in Riverside, and we stayed in contact. And they said they had a new band, Summer Twins, and this was maybe four or five years ago, and we started putting out their tapes and their records.

They’re just super talented. They’re sisters in the band. When you have siblings in a band there is a connection between them that you can’t recreate with just putting friends together; when you have brothers or sisters in a band there’s a special connection that you can hear in the music.

You can definitely hear that with Summer Twins. They write great pop songs, and their artwork and their focus and their drive is one hundred percent. They work hard, and that’s another thing we want in a band. If a band is just gonna give us their music and sit there, not a lot is gonna happen. I mean, we’ll do our best, but we feed off the energy that the other bands give us. So if a band doesn’t have the energy to get excited about our release or something like that, then it’s hard for us to get excited about it. But for Summer Twins, it’s super easy to work with them, and we love them 100%.

That’s one thing I love about the development of Burger Records: it seems to have

elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 19

evolved naturally out of that love for music, for rock ‘n’ roll and for the people that you’re around, and watching it grow into something bigger than you ever expected.

Definitely. I never ever expected it to be what it is right now. You know, it started off, Lee put in a hundred dollars, and I put in a hundred dollars, and we released our first cassette, and that was kind of the beginning of Burger Records. Now we’re making way more than a hundred dollars a year and it’s crazy. It’s really, really insane. It’s a blessing and also a curse at times. It’s just growing super super fast and it’s not like we’re getting more employees or that side of it is growing, it’s just, it’s a lot of work to do. I work from 11am to 4am every day and I’ve been doing that for years now. And I look forward to it every day, and I love it, but it’s definitely the hardest job I’ve ever had or probably will ever have. Also the most rewarding, most likely.

Well, I’m thankful that you’re still answering the phone.

Hey, yeah! It’s part of the job. We do all interviews. Any kind of interviews. Except e-mail. We hate doing e-mail interviews.

Now that you’ve reached these heights of success, and released tapes for hundreds of bands, where do you want it to go?

What would you like to see in the future of Burger?

So the main focus of Burger is bringing all these bands, and all these scenes, and all these people together that probably have no reason being together to make connections through music and rock ‘n’ roll. The world is such a super tiny little place. We’re gonna conquer the world. There is no doubt in my mind. The trajectory that we’re on and how we’re going, it’s going to become an international, worldwide thing. So that’s what I’m focusing on right now, and just growing the Burger-rama thing. We’re trying to do it

20 | ELEVEN | elevenmusicmag.com

in Chicago, New York, and Atlanta. Possibly Detroit. If we did that, we would have shows all around the country. We would be surrounding the states with Burger shows every year and eventually bring it to Europe and then just keep releasing bands like crazy. There is more than enough music out there and so many bands cropping up—a neverending stream of music, pretty much.

You just have to know where to look and how to look and what to hear and it’s never gonna end, really.

It’s a good thing and a bad thing, just cuz there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, you know, when you’re working all day and doing all this stuff. We live at the shop, and we don’t have a shower here, so I haven’t showered in a week, today. So there is definitely stuff we have to give up as far as our health and our personal hygiene and relationships and stuff. It kinda has to take that back seat to Burger. So it sucks, in that I was Sean Bohrman, but that person doesn’t exist anymore, it’s just Mr. Burger Records pretty much now. I don’t get to play video games or go see movies or do anything that I enjoy doing, it’s just work 100%. So, dealing with that gets kinda hard sometimes. But it’s good to see everything growing and getting bigger. If it was just stagnant, if we were working so hard and it wasn’t doing anything, that would make me want to jump off a bridge, probably. But since everything is growing with the same intensity that we’re working on it, then we’re doing something right. So, we’re keeping at it, definitely.

So what’s next?

Look out for the Burger Review, or soul show, happening in June; the Burger-a-gogo, [with] all girl bands, happening in August, and the Burgerama Tour—no scratch that, Caravan of Stars Tour! We’re not calling it Burgerama anymore, but we’re going out on tour with of a bunch of Burger bands later this year.

O

n March 22 and 23 a mecca for weirdos and garage rock lovers was set to take place in the form of Burgerama III, a garage rock music festival thrown in sunny Santa Ana, CA. It was the perfect excuse to get away from the miserable Missouri winter that threatened to never end. My friends Austin and Adam had made the Burgerama scene last year, and weren’t about to miss another go at it.

I was supposedly going there to shoot photos, but I knew from the insane stories of last year’s festival that it was going to get a lot more involved than just shooting from the edge of the stage.

Along with our buddy Ray, we braved the greater Los Angeles

metropolitan area for the better part of four days.

While all three of my companions are known for their somewhat infamous contributions to St. Louis underground music culture in the bands Dad Jr. and Animal Teeth, they’re probably more well known in a national sense for their part in the STL CHUD punk zine Acid Kat.

We survived — I even managed to keep ahold of my camera. The scene was insane, from the people to the buildings to the street life to, most definitely, the bands and the crowds. In our travels we hit up spots that ranged from Fullerton to Silver Lake to Santa Ana, locations that might look close on paper but that, well, aren’t, if you’re stuck in one and trying to get to the other. We all crashed in the same hotel together, and caught both days of the festival plus a bonus show the night before. Shit started out weird and only got weirder from there.

The following is a collection of some of the moments we saw, some of the people we hung out with, and some of our thoughts on what happened.

elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 21

Previous pages: Karen Isabel of Habibi on drums; pins from the Burger store; the crowd at Church of Fun. Clockwise from top left: Justin Champlin, aka Nobunny; The Black Lips’ Ian Saint Pé Brown; the crowd at White Fang; Hunx of Hunx And His Punx; Shannon of Shannon And The Clams; David Hackney of legendary Detroit protopunks Death; Melissa Brooks of The Aquadolls; Al Cisneros of Sleep, who played a two-hour set of stoner jams; and the crowd at the Sleep set.

22 | ELEVEN | elevenmusicmag.com

Not so often do you get to see Demonlover play these days, cos their most excellent

tone rodent, Demonlover, Willis at melt

Friday, May 2

Acoustics Anonymous, Old Salt Union at Gramophone

Holly GoliGHtly & tHe Brokeoffs, Town Cars at firebird

Thursday, May 1

Alongside bands like the radically awesome Whitegold, Hello Ocho is part of a psych-freak-art-nomad music scene growing out of Atlanta GA. It’s a gang of artmakers, combining projections and

Hello ocHo, Oliver Johnson, Jeff Powers at foam

Wednesday, May 7

JessicA leA mAyfield, Dylan LeBlanc at firebird

RECOMMENDED SHOWS

May 2014

dAnielle elise, Lizzie Weber at melt

moon GlAmPers, Karate Bikini, The Vondrukes at crack fox

cHuck Berry at the duck room

Thursday, May 15

Thursday, May 22

Wednesday, May 14

with the warlocks • thursday, May 8 at ready rooM Time didn’t stop for The Dandy Warhols after their ‘00 breakout hit “Bohemian Like You” passed into the alt-rock canon: they kept making records, touring the world, and living the major-label life—with or without the label. And why not? As memorably documented in the film DIG! (and their own photo-filled liner notes) Courtney Taylor-Taylor and crew have the charisma, the egos, and the impeccable taste in pop-sculpted drone psych to fit the job description. Their latest album, This Machine, doesn’t have the grandeur of Welcome to the Monkey House or Come Down, but it’s an interesting chapter in their ongoing narrative, with Taylor-Taylor trying out some new voices and attitudes. Openers The Warlocks are similarly obsessed with the Velvet Underground’s noise legacy, diving into long droning ecstasies of pure rock plasma. There’s a pretty great video of their set at Blueberry Hill from 2002 online, and it’ll be interesting to see how they ‘ve progressed in the intervening dozen years. Kudos to Ready Room for getting St. Louis on the map for this tour—that’s what our city’s music scene needs now as much as anything. ES

the daNdy warhols

MusicaleNdar

PHoto By Joe eisner

sunday, May 11 tHe BlAsters, Piñata Protest at off Broadway

dAryl HAll & JoHn oAtes at Peabody opera House

mAtt Pond PA, The Lighthouse & The Whale at duck room

nite oWl (CD release), 3KNGZ at cicero’s

soutHerly, Yardsss at lemp Arts center

kensHiro’s at mangia

tef Poe: Cheer for the Villain Live at Plush

It’s been a long time since Pointfest seemed relevant, but this lineup is pretty undeniable. The Orwells are the latest sensation to jump from teenage Burgerland to a (still teenage) shot at the big time. With QOTSA headlining, the ticket price is already justified, and the crowd for Chelsea Wolfe, Head And The Heart, and Neon Trees should offset some of the deeply unfortunate Offspring bro factor.

This might even be the year to check back in with the Point. Who knew? ES

Pointfest: Queens Of The Stone Age, The Offspring, A.F.I., Blue October, Neon Trees, The Head And The Heart, †††, The Airborne Toxic Event, Band Of Skulls, Morning Parade, The Orwells, Chelsea Wolfe at verizon Amphitheatre

saTurday, May 10

BellA & lily at duck room

Friday, May 9

Anvil, Terra Caput Mundi, Voyage Of Slaves, Hung Like A Martyr at fubar

flAminG Groovies, Bad Dates at Plush

seAHAven, Adventures, Foxing at firebird

tHe dAndy WArHols, The Warlocks at ready room

Thursday, May 8

homemade stage props with bare skin, catchy hooks, extended instrumental passages, and an all-in-for-adventure ethos that makes live music more than exciting—it keeps it sexy and crucial. ES

WolfmotHer at the Pageant

BAGHeerA, Mike Adams At His Honest Weight, Major Cities, Zach Vinson at Plush

Perfect Pussy, Sonic Titan, Yamantaka//Ghost Ice at melt

Tuesday, May 6

WHite Hills, Bug Chaser, Fumer at firebird

Monday, May 5

uH HuH Her, DJ Kim Anh at firebird

With an increasingly electric sound that keeps the spark in American indie rock, The Dodos are an Instagram feed for your ears. Their sound merges doubled harmony flight patterns with heartbeat drum beats and a collection of old xylophones and tap shoe tambourines.

More somber and yet somehow more melodic than ever, new album Carrier moves fluently between bluesy, homemade folk and a driving rock-oriented rhythmic undertone—and when the lyrics hit, it’s with the salty slap of a cold Pacific wave. KK

tHe dodos, Pretty Little Empire at off Broadway

sunday, May 4

crusHed out, Bruiser Queen, The Vondrukes at Heavy Anchor

saTurday, May 3

nAtHAniel rAteliff at duck room

ded BuGs, Better Off Damned, Rat Heart at Plush

drummer lives way to hell an gone. So when you see their name on the wall, take note and show up. This is scraggly wild-ass music made by dudes who communicate most sincerely with their instruments, even if and especially when you can’t tell what the hell they’re saying. It’s a thing of rare beauty. Plus, of course, Tone Rodent, one of St. Louis’ most under-fetishized bands. ES

eAGulls, Twin Peaks at firebird

nmc sHoWcAse feat. Ingrid Laubrock & Tom Rainey, Tyler Damon / Chris Trull / Kevin Harris, Nathan Cook at William A kerr foundation

Tuesday, May 20

Wild Belle, Caught A Ghost at old rock House

Monday, May 19

Wye oAk, Braids at old rock House

sunday, May 18

Cherokee Street’s already gone from off the map to essential in the last five years, but the addition of The Luminary’s ambitious art / music collab space could be another gamechanger for the street’s growing national profile. ES

tHe luminAry grand opening: corner of cherokee and ohio

tHe WHiGs, Turbo Fruits at off Broadway

lAurA JAne GrAce (of Against Me!), Big Eyes at ready room

saTurday, May 17

lyle lovett & His Acoustic GrouP at the Pageant

BoBBy BAre Jr (album release), Brian Henneman, Kip Loui at off Broadway

umBrellA Blvd, Media Ghost at ready room

Friday, May 16

meGAfAunA, Tok, Little Big Bangs at the demo

The infectious grooves of West Africa are the best place to find that inner world-music loving “sensitive pony-tail guy.” Their new album celebrates ten years since their first release and their rise out of the war-torn nation to which that have since returned. HS

sierrA leone refuGee All-stArs at Gramophone

tHe Hooten HAllers, Willy Tea Taylor at off Broadway

Scan this qr code, or go to elevenmusicmag.com for a listing of club addresses. Check out our expanded calendar of events at calendar.elevenmusicmag.com, powered by

discussed this issue comedy show

lEgEND

MusicaleNdar

ex-cult, Dad Jr., Cardiac Arrest at melt

saTurday, May 31

finn’s motel, Erik Voeks And The Amber Graves Of Wayne at off Broadway

BriAn PoseHn, Jeremy Essig at firebird

i love you, Braining, Blight Future, Animal Lover at melt

AlArm Will sound at the sheldon

cHicAGo AfroBeAt ProJect at 2720

Friday, May 30

Joystiq, Wild Hex at foam

Wednesday, May 28

trAns Am, Ring Cicada, The Gorge at firebird

kisHi BAsHi, Busman’s Holiday at ready room

Tuesday, May 27

rockABrAtion iv: Shark Dad, Smooth Talking Perverts, The Vondrukes, Earth Mafia at off Broadway

funky Butt BrAss BAnd at Blues city deli

JosH cAtAlAno & tHe dirty tHouGHts, Ocean Rivals, The Delicious Dinner, The Langaleers at Heavy Anchor

A BiG sAd WHAle at mangia

saTurday, May 24

sun & tHe seA, Pirate Signals, Roundheels at the Gramophone

eels, Chelsea Wolfe at the sheldon

volcAnoes, Stonechat, Lobby Boxer at foam

Friday, May 23

Live Music

BRING ON THE NIGHT = STL band (current and/or honorary)

J. Roddy Walston & The Business brought their heavy old electric piano and their even heavier version of gnarly garage Photo: Abby Gillardi rock to Off Broadway on Thursday, April 3.

<<REVIEW

Gary Numan, Roman Remains, Big Black Delta Wednesday, April 2

Sarah Barthel of Phantogram at the Pageant Tuesday, April 8.

Photo: Ismael Valenzuela

26 | ELEVEN | elevenmusicmag.com

Firebird Gary Numan, the godfather of synth-driven rock, made his first foray to the Gateway City at the cozy confines of the Firebird (club rule: tallest people must stand at the front), in support of his excellent new album, Splinter. While Numan has toured extensively over the years in his native Britain, this was many Midwesterners’ first chance to see him perform live.

Most people only know Numan from “Cars,” his lone American hit in 1980. But for fans who have followed the peaks and valleys of his career in the intervening decades, his current phoenixlike resurgence is not a surprise. Even at his pop peak, Numan’s music was never much like the synth pop acts of the time such as Human League. He had a darker, more dystopian outlook to match the automaton persona he projected on MTV.

Over the years, Numan’s music has taken a turn toward a more industrial style.

But he hasn’t lost his knack for writing melodies. His metal-industrial songs always have a hummable hook to hang onto, as he proved with his sound assault this night. Numan’s dynamic performance included a crowd-pleasing mix of new songs such as “Everything Comes Down to This”

and “My Last Day,” along with such classics as “Down in the Park,” “Are Friends Electric,” and, yes, “Cars.”

I saw Numan perform at the venerable 9:30 Club in DC a decade ago. I can say that his live performance has gotten better since then, and as Splinter shows, his songwriting ability has not flagged. Most musicians who have remained in the public eye for decades eventually reach a point where they can no longer perform at the level they were once capable of. Numan hasn’t hit that point yet. Since he relocated to Los Angeles last year, hopefully Numan will continue to make more US tours. Perhaps next time he passes through he will get to perform at the Pageant.

Opening act Roman Remains offered a set of glitchy electronica-fueled songs from their album Zeal. Singer Leila Moss was in fine voice, and their material showed imaginative arrangements — however, their set also showed the perils of relying on a laptop for backing tracks. If Live goes dead, your performance comes to a halt with deafening silence.

Despite their name, second opener Big Black Delta did not play the blues, but rather a squelchy electro-pop. The duo was solely laptop-based except for live drums, which overwhelmed the sound during their performance. Vocalist/button-pusher Jonathan Bates seemed lost in his own world, oblivious to the audience for most of the set. The laptop stayed the course.

Gerry Kreienkamp

Live Music <<REVIEW

Ben Folds with St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Saturday, April 12

Powell Symphony Hall Songwriter, pianist and singer Ben Folds, probably best known as the leader of eponymous ‘90s band Ben Folds Five (you know you know all the words to that one catchy ballad about teenage abortion) is not the artist who comes to mind when you think of a two-night stand with a world-class symphony orchestra such as ours. But in the last decade, he’s made the orchestra cool again by bringing his solo shtick, a mixture of thoughtful, downbeat ballads and fun, piano-driven pop tunes rife with tonguein-cheek lyrics, to places like Powell Hall, much to the apparent chagrin of many SLSO season ticket holders. Apparently, fun used to be forbidden at the symphony—can’t imagine why musicians like Folds have worked toward their revival.

To be fair, season ticket holders were probably not familiar with the long-running joke between Folds and his fans at live shows (including and especially symphony tours) where he improvises a different version of “Rock This Bitch” at the demand of the audience. Despite the glassy-eyed look you might get when you tell a classically trained musician to just improvise, SLSO members played along and took Folds’ directions well. The choral director was all about it, and the arrangement was truly amazing when it all came together.

By the way, if you’ve never seen a fullblown symphony orchestra, complete with chamber chorus, in action, it is actually pretty freakin’ neat to watch: dozens of delicate bows dance in total synchronicity as the conductor’s wand moves in stylish yet seeming random flourishes following an invisible pattern. I can’t speak for SLSO Resident Conductor Steven Jarvi’s usual style, but if it’s even half as charming as it was during the Ben Folds shows, I’d go see the orchestra just to watch Jarvi. He clearly had a blast, and his enjoyment of his work was quite contagious. The dude’s got moves to match his bubbling energy.

As for Folds’ sets, he covered a lot of ground within the two nights, including “Picture Window,” a tune from his collaboration with author Nick Hornby. Of course he played his breakout hit “Brick” early on in the second set, but it was the only song that felt truly forced. He was pretty heavy on

the banter and stories, but he went straight into and out of the tune, making it obvious he was just checking it off the list so no one would request it later during the encore.

Throughout this tour, he’s been talking up a piano concerto he’s been working on for the last year, which he’s finally debuting on this tour. It’s in three movements, and is a beautifully thought-out musical journey that, despite its lack of lyrics, is both a classical composition and somehow still typically a Ben Folds narrative.

Folds usually has a great rapport with the audience, and the formality of the orchestra did not deter this habit at Powell. The encore was just Folds on the piano and vocals, and he enlisted the audience to vocalize the horn part for “Army” at the very end, during which he kicked the piano bench over backwards while playing. Who said the orchestra can’t be bad ass? Suzie Gilb >>Preview

Yardsss, Southerly Saturday, May 10

Lemp arts center The Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center has seen its share of changes. From stomping ground for budding musicians to Midwest noise mecca to hardcore punk haven, the Center’s mission has remained true: to provide an all-ages space with superior acoustics for underground and DIY musicians. The “stage” has seen performances from Animal Collective, Tune-Yards , Deerhunter, and Indian Jewelry, long before Pitchfork picked up the scent.

This month, don’t make the mistake again of missing one of the more exciting artists flying under the indie press radar: Yardsss, the transcendentally lush project of Portland, OR’s Krist Krueger. Cinematic in scope, this electronic-based act sits comfortably next to groups like M83 or Sigur Ros, conjuring scenes of expansive valleys and apocalyptic war. The feelings evoked are oftentimes heavy and emotional, but to call Krueger’s music tragic would be misleading, as it is often colored by uplifting swells of ornate orchestration. The project’s propensity for dramatics pits towering walls of sound against crushing, anthemic postrock. Sonically enthralling and elementally avant-garde, the project’s focus on instrumental ballads completes each movement as a unique piece, rather than as one more song in a catalog.

On this tour, Krueger will also be revealing his singer-songwriter side with the accompanying project Southerly.

Southerly’s elegiac brand of indie folk rock impresses with its harrowing piano lines and moving vocal harmonies. Reminiscent of The National or Band Of Horses, Krueger’s solo efforts harness both heart and soul with a confessional sensibility and a cleansing musical communion. Josh Levi

>>PREVIEW

Hooten Hallers, Willie Tea Taylor, Jack Grelle Wednesday, May 14

Off Broadway If a hillbilly funk martian made crop circles on Earth, the eight-track music player aboard his interplanetary pickup truck would be playing The Hooten Hallers’ latest release, Chillicothe Fireball (Big Muddy).

The Columbia, MO, natives are back and badder than ever, touring like crazy to support their good tunes and bad habits.

The fact is: horns need to reclaim their place in rock and roll. I’m not talking soul or funk horns, but Exile on Main Street-style rock and roll party horns. And The Hooten Hallers’ new touring lineup, expanded from their long-running two-piece arrangements into brass-laden three-piece, is the answer to that particular prayer.

When multi-instrumentalist Paul Weber brings in tuba, bass and baritone saxophones, the entire band spews a brassfueled, moonshine makeover. Added to drummer Andy Rehm’s high-pitched harmonies, and John Randall’s big muddy guitars and growling voice, the band’s shows are a rollicking good time that may yet convince you to trade in your Master’s degree for life behind a tractor.

Their signature sounds are rounded out with scratchy, amplified harmonica and judicious piano and pedal steel riffs, calling to mind classic rock and blues acts like Black Diamond Heavies or, more recently, J. Roddy Walston and the Business.

“You ain’t broke by doing right / It’s doing wrong you can’t afford,” Randall howls. He makes a good point. Doing wrong would be missing their show at Off Broadway this month. And you can’t afford that.

Just remember: they do not come in peace; they come to drink beer and break shit.

Kevin Korinek

>>Preview

The Whigs, Turbo Fruits Saturday, May 17

Off Broadway Are they magicians? Time travelers? Or something more? Powerhouse rockers The Whigs are doing it Athens, Georgia style, and bringing their ’90s alt-rock grooves to shake the foundation of Off Broadway.

If you haven’t heard The Whigs, don’t feel bad. Yes, they’ve been around for over a decade. Yes, they have five albums that span two great record companies. Yes, you’ve probably seen them on TV as they have become seasoned regulars on the late night circuit. The problem is, you just haven’t been paying attention.

Not to be confused with the Afghan Whigs (but similar in musical density), the Whigs’ latest release on the New West label,

elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 27

Modern Creation, solidifies their place as one of the hardest working bands in the business.

They are constantly touring, constantly recording, eternally trying to carve another notch in the tree of rock stardom. And they now seem closer than ever.

The group maintains a kind of ’90s rock sensibility that is both reformed and refreshing, redefining the power trio for a newer generation. But they perform with a ’70s swagger that never seems to get too full of itself, always coming back down to hit an emotional chord before resolving their songs on a fade-away jam. Guitarist/vocalist Parker Gispert sings with a soft-spoken gusto like a gold-hearted Neil Young, while his massive guitar tones lock in step with Timothy Deaux’s animated bass riffs. Julian Dorio is one of the best drummers around, someone who, given enough time and space to explore, could one day rival Dave Grohl for cementing hard-rocking beats into the rock and roll canon.

While similar acts like Diamond Nights couldn’t keep up the momentum of a great thing, The Whigs are capable and willing to grind their fingers to the bone until you know their name.

Nashville-based garage-rock gospelettes Turbo Fruits get the crowd stoked with their flame-stoked brand of echo-spaced, acid soaked rock and roll. Each song comes

off as a messy, plugged in fuzz bomb with a bad connection, but the attention to detail, the carefully placed effects and reverbs, all speak to something larger happening on stage and in the band: a tightly constructed and impeccably paced set of tunes you can’t say no to. Get thee to this show, St. Louis!

Kevin Korinek

>>PREVIEW

Eels

Friday, May 23 The Sheldon I first heard the music of Mark Oliver Everett, aka E, when the only cool teacher in my high school handed me Electro-Shock Blues by Everett’s band Eels. “I think this is up your alley,” she said, and she was 100% correct. Electro-Shock Blues is a dark album, filled with loss and death and strange loops and sounds like nothing I’d ever heard before. But it also contains small moments of uplifting joy. I instantly started grabbing up what Eels I could find—first their 1996 debut Beautiful Freak, then 2000’s almost perfect Daisies of the Galaxy, which made my jaw drop even further. Souljacker dropped in the fall of my sophomore year. It was rougher, often more aggressive, and yet it retained those rare crucial moments of pure beauty. I still play it at least five times a year, if not more.

As documented in his powerful 2009 autobiography Things the Grandchildren Should Know, E is an interesting man, with a tragic life that seems to get worse any time things start going well. His father was the scientist who originally postulated the theory of parallel universes (to mostly indifference or disdain, until it was too late for him), but he died when E was a young man. His sister and mother both died over the course of the next few years.

E carried on by writing song after song, pouring himself into each word and note, and paying tribute to all he has been lucky enough to have.

While his most recent records have been hit and miss for me over the last few years, there’s always something wonderful on each one that makes each one a key part of his ongoing narrative growth. This will be my first time seeing Eels, and I honestly have no idea what to expect. I’ve read that songs you’re familiar with are arranged into a whole other beast. Will it be mellow or will they rock the fucking house? With the release of new album The Cautionary Tales of Mark Oliver Everett, a majority of the set will most likely be taken up with new songs, but with 11 albums under his belt, who knows what the night may bring.

And that’s the most exciting part!

Jack Probst

SUNDAY MAY 25TH AT OFF BROADWAY

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Album Reviews

HOT ROCKS

= STL band (current and/or honorary)

Guest List Each month we ask a specialist to give us an inside line on some great music.

This month we asked Chris Ward, whose show, loudQUIETloud, airs on 88.1 Kdhx every Monday night at 11pm, and is streamed and archived at kdhx.org.

Liars “Mess on a Mission”

I’m only a month or so into my radio show, and I’ve probably played this song every episode. I know you can’t see it over the air, but when I play it I am wigging out in the studio like I have a fresh head injury.

Coven/Walker Brothers “Satanic Mass”/”The Electrician”

I like to play a song and then just drop the needle on a spoken work record, or a baptist preacher howling, without knowing what they’re going to say and hoping for magic to happen live on the air. Coven’s awesome 13-minute track was written by some producer in Chicago, and I’ll drop over “The Electrician” sometimes.

I crack up when the priest is screaming “KISS! THE GOAT!” Fun fact: that track is the first utterance of “Hail Satan!” in rock music culture. Hilarious.

L.M. Hilton “Have Courage, My Boy, to Say No”

There are thousands of songs on Spotify that have never been played once. Forgotify.com is where you can find them, and there are some bat-shit insane gems that I play on my show. And it’s cool to think you’re the first person to ever play, say, an a capella Mormon folk song called “Have Courage, My Boy, to Say No.”

The Notwist

Close to the Glass Sub Pop

The giddy post–Kid A rush of electronic indie pop hit a peak in 2003, with the both the Postal Service’s blockbuster Give Up and the Notwist’s sadder, stranger Neon Golden. While Give Up went for the cute pop, Neon Golden used its technology to conjure a world of quiet desperation, a disconnection amongst the blinking lights and buzzing machines. It feels like wandering lost in some empty metropolis at night, waiting to be found. A decade later, it still sounds like little else.

Nowadays, the Postal Service plays stadiums; when I saw the Notwist, it was in a former ballroom with no backstage. Perhaps realizing this, the band brought back some of their guitars for The Devil, You + Me, a very friendly, very poppy record in 2008 that was good but disappointing, lacking whatever ineffable alchemy made Neon Golden. Now comes Close to the Glass to split the difference between the two.

A few songs on the new one recapture the strange magic of Neon Golden, including

Living In A Box “Living in a Box”

First, I just love bands that have songs named after the band (this was also their album name—bonus points).

Bad Company’s “Bad Company.” Second, they’re not talking about a metaphorical box. The lyrics are “I’m-a livin’ in a box. I’m-a livin’ in a cardboard box.”

Ironically, I believe they now are.

John Maus “Rights for Gays”

John Maus does this weirdo, avant garde Joy Division thing. This song is an insanely catchy, kind of tonguein-cheek protest song about, you guessed it, rights for gays. But then he just tacks on “...and medical care, for everyone. The doctor is in.”

Wild Beasts Present Tense

My friend Sean’s IM status message was “LISTEN TO MORE WILD BEASTS” for months, and I also can’t emphasize that enough. Their new album is so goddamned good.

Creeper Lagoon “Tonight Was Fun”

My friend Nick introduced me to this song in college, and we ended every radio show with it. I am trying to continue that tradition. It’s such a simple, wistful, perfect song.

Sun Kil Moon Benji

Caldo Verde

2012’s highly underrated Among the Leaves found Mark Kozelek drastically stripping down his sound, opting to record with a simple nylonstring acoustic guitar to accompany rawer than usual lyrics about the frustrations of being a 40-something musician 20-something years into his career. In the hands of a lesser songwriter, this could’ve been indulgent or masturbatory—the lyrics spin tales of awkward one-night stands and surly fans drunkenly demanding the Red House Painters songs on which his reputation rests—but Kozelek conveyed his middle-aged malaise with naked emotional honesty and the tech-

the pinging arpeggiators and string drones of opener “Signals,” the scratchy vinyl sounds and scratchier drum machines of “From One Wrong Place to the Next,” and the wandering hopelessness of “Casinos,” where Markus Acher finally admits in a a quiet moment of self-reflection, “There’s something wrong with me.” The title track finds a moment of true invention as a steel drum sound is shuffled and shuddered, resulting in wildly stuttering bass throbs that are unrelenting and almost hypnotic. It’s a strangely abrasive turn from a band that usually prefers pensive. But perhaps best of all is the gorgeous closer “They Follow Me,” with its ghostly beeps and slowly decaying violins.

And then there’s lead single “Kong,” a sunny turn to guitar strums that, on its own, is a nearly perfect bouncy pop song, but in the context of the album completely undermines the mood of yearning mystery established early in the record. The nearly nine-minute instrumental “Lineri,” while pretty, is far too long and feels strangely situated as the penultimate song, killing momentum before the closer. Even more out of place is the distorted guitar rock of “7-Hour-Drive,” a sound the Notwist haven’t tried since their earliest incarnation as a grunge band—understandably.

Perhaps it’s just a matter of poor sequencing, but the record lurches back and forth like this, toggling between unrelated sounds and irreconcilable moods without ever settling. That’s a problem. As listeners found out on Devil, the band makes good electro-pop music, but that other unique thing they do—that awed melancholy, that searching wonder, that aching lostness—is what’s truly great. And perhaps this same problem, this inability to match previous heights, is the very reason the Postal Service never made another album. Ryan Boyle

nical skill of a songwriting master.

His excellent follow-up, Benji, finds Kozelek exploring family, death, and the frustrations of aging and loss with even further precision and depth. It is a record that feels borderline out of time in the current musical landscape of electro-pop, blog bands, and hip-hop.

It starts with the mournful “Carissa,” a song about Kozelek’s second cousin who died in a freak fire at 35. It is punctuated

by Will Oldham’s distant backing vocals and slowly plucked acoustic guitar strings.

“Carissa” sets an excellent tone for the journey ahead on Benji, as Kozelek sets off home to Ohio “to find some poetry / to make some sense of this / to find deeper meaning in this senseless tragedy.”

Along the way, we are introduced to the characters in his life, from his parents to his

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Album Reviews mentally handicapped neighbor, with striking lyrical detail, delicate acoustic guitars, and at least one killer drum breakdown from Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley.

Benji ends with its peppiest number, “Ben’s My Friend,” a song about eating sportsbar crab cakes and watching The Postal Service on an August evening. “There’s a fine line between a middle aged guy with a backstage pass and a guy with a gut hanging around like a jackass / Everyone there was 20 years younger than me,” Kozelek sings between mundane complaints about his bad back and his father fighting with his girlfriend at some mid-American Panera.

Then, perhaps sensing that he sounds like a curmudgeon, he adds, “Ben’s my friend, and I know he gets it.” It’s a line that punctuates Kozelek’s lyrical frankness perfectly. After spending a majority of the album cataloguing his fears and faults, Kozelek isn’t losing sleep over seeming uncool to the kids dancing at a Ben Gibbard show. Benji is an unflatteringly earnest portrait of middle age, full of homespun charm, carefully crafted detail, and deeply heartfelt humanity. Ira Gamerman

Con

Solstice Part One (Advice from a Fortune Cookie) MMETTMLDOM

Listen up, St. Louis.

Some of the best hip hop in the country is coming from this city: Tef Poe, Rockwell Knuckles, Loose Screwz, Thelonius Kryp-

tonite — and now Con, the lyrical prodigy behind Solstice Part One (Advice from a Fortune Cookie).

Con, better known as Malcolm Chandler, has been performing around St. Louis as one half of the rap duo AtM for the past few years. When his writing partner, Amir Wakil, took a brief hiatus, Chandler put the time toward finishing a solo album. Over the course of a year, he convinced some of the best producers in St. Louis—including Mastermind, Osmoses, Cue Coldblooded and Franco-Hill—to contribute a number of their least domesticated tracks to the project.

The result is the aptly titled Solstice Part One, twelve diverse yet interconnected tracks about coming of age in the 21st century. Like most millennials, Chandler understands that the personal is political, and he uses his story to good effect. A recent breakup serves as a deeper metaphor for adulthood: the loss of innocence, the awareness of political corruption, and the need for self-medication.

These themes come together with the greatest impact on tracks like “Nostalgia” and “I Love You.” On the latter, Chandler and his frequent collaborator Ciej rap over a slithering, minimalist beat that forces them to walk a verbal tightrope across near silence. When the chorus hits, it reads like a double-dutch rhyme for juvenile delinquents. Starting with a capitalist critique— “I ain’t tripping off of no dollar bills / Why y’all let that shit run y’all”—and careening through images of blunted highs, cartoonish gun violence, and ride-or-die women, the lyrics illustrate how a bad relationship can change the worldview of any young man.

The Rebellious Jukebox

Life at 45 RPM by Matt Harnish

Lumbering misanthropy at its finest, Drunks With Guns created some of the most beautifully ugly punk rock to ever come out of St. Louis. The music on their 1985 debut single is primal & repetitive & uncomfortably slow, but never boring. It digs into your skin, making you want to smash something just to relieve the tension, but you can’t stop listening or turn your back on it, because something bad is bound to happen to you if you do. Singer Mike Doskocil rasps & sputters like a little kid trying to sound evil, which sounds creepy as fuck coming out of a grown man. The few lyrics that rise above the muck make you happy that you can’t make out the rest of them.

It took nearly twenty years for St Louis to produce a worthy successor. Lumpy & The Dumpers don’t quite reach the depths of darkness that the Drunks revelled in, but the distorted bass that drives both songs on their “Gnats In The Pisser/Ghoul Breath” debut 45 brings back some of that old uneasy feeling, & the growling snarling vocals sit atop it perfectly. The addition of bizarro/cartoonish imagery to their take on ugliness makes it their own. The best St. Louis punk rock has always been weird.

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While the story is compelling, the real achievement lies in the way that Chandler, his producers and the rest of the MME collective deliver the details. On “Sweater Under Leather,” Chandler comes across as a young Kanye West, racing ahead of the beat one minute and slowing down the next, creating an elastic sense of time on an otherwise straightforward track. Singer Dharma Jean achieves the same effect on the choruses, reaching for high notes in the most unexpected places. The end result is an album of classic ’90s hip hop as reworked by psychedelic artists like Bon Iver and Panda Bear: experimental yet mainstream, nostalgic yet entirely original.

As Chandler points out in interviews, the solstice represents “life on the cusp,” light conquering darkness, growth following decay. With St. Louis poised to make its own comeback, underground hip hop sounds like the future of the city. And this town is ready for the national spotlight. K.E. Luther

Wye Oak Shriek

Merge Records

Wye Oak is receiving a lot of attention about Shriek, mostly with claims about how drastically different it sounds from anything the band has done before. While it’s true that the Baltimore indie-rock duo are branching out, these songs aren’t that fundamentally different from their previous outings.

It’s still a record full of solid songwriting, and Jenn Wasner’s heavenly voice is ever present. There’s just a lot more to it all now.

Wasner was already dipping her toes in the electro-pop pool with last year’s side project Dungeonesse. Their self-titled debut was very ’80s pop influenced, occasionally cheesy in a lot of fun ways, and also, it turns out, a great primer for Wye Oak’s new direction.

Finding themselves on opposite sides of the country, Jenn Wasner and drummer/ keyboardist Andy Stack swapped song ideas for Shriek back and forth, which seems to be a pretty popular — and obviously effective — technique in the age of the Internet.

Album opener “Before” is the thesis statement for the record to come: the bass lines are prominent, there are numerous synth and keyboard sounds, the drums are perfect back and forth in the mix, and Wasner’s pleasant voice delivers all the sweetness you’re used to. This careful balance continues on the title track, as what sounds like chirping birds reverberate far off in the mix.

“Glory” steals the show with a flashy chorus and refreshing groove.

There maybe be considerably less guitar this time around, but it still squeals through on “Paradise,” a track

Eight years running, St. Louis has thrown one of the most rambunctious and committed Record Store Days in the country. With a full host of DJs and/or bands at Vintage Vinyl, Euclid Records, Apop Records and Dead Wax throughout the day (including Bruiser Queen’s outdoor set at Apop), RSD 2014 was a much-needed blast of rock music for the cause.... of rock music.

whose signature synth and thumping drums bring to mind late-era Police and Genesis.

For the skeptical longtime Wye Oak fan, I submit lead-off single “The Tower,” which hit blogs a few months ago. I predict the oddly syncopated synth hook will pique your interest, and the late-arriving cello and buzzing bass will remind you why you liked this band in the first place. There’s no need for Wye Oak fans to decide on disappointment with the band’s new direction on Shriek, because it’s lovely evolution. Jack Probst

No Coast

Rock N’ Roll All Night (Yeah Right)

Photo by Jarred Gastreich

Self Release

Somewhere off mic (in the crowd?) a voice drunkenly shouts the first half of this album’s title—only to be met by the second half’s retort before the drums bust into opener “Enough Is Enough.” Indianapolis’ No Coast stumble through thirty-five minutes of punk, surf and rock that just make you want to joyously dance like an idiot. And I recommend you drop the extra cash to get this album on vinyl and revel in the lo-fi sonic vibrations that come across much better on record than they would on digital download.

Singalongs like “Cruel City” or “Impossible” prove this band can write a good pop song with the best of them, and Side A ends all too quickly in a gorgeous array of guitar feedback which, coupled with the sound of the stylus lifting off the record and coming to rest in its cradle, is among the greatest sounds in human history.

One thought that keeps coming back to me is that this must have been what listening to “Psychotic Reaction” must have felt like to someone in the ‘60s. It’s silly, it’s catchy, it’s fun. It’s a great record to listen to at a party or with the headphones on, or just turned up full blast to test the limit of your speakers. Nate Black’s lyrics yearn for more than the hopeless present and long for that golden past and silver tomorrow, as the band lays their hearts on the line without sticking them in your face. It’s clear this band has done their homework, wrapping evocative lyrics in neat surf rock grooves that would make Brian Wilson proud.

Side B admittedly is not as strong as Side A, but on tracks like “Get Along” and “Outta My Head,” the songs always seem to find themselves by the time the chorus kicks in. By ska-touched closer “Straight Line,” you get that last call sort of feeling to the album, where it’s best to get out before you’re the last to leave. At thirty five minutes, Rock n’ Roll All Night (Yeah Right)

album is fun, fast and very replayable. Rev. Daniel W. Wright

Amen Dunes Love

Sacred Bones

Amen Dunes is the solo project of Damon McMahon, who has maintained a rare commitment to songwriting through relatively straightforward means. While the mechanisms of his songs have remained largely the same since the inception of Amen Dunes, a closer inspection into the catalog reveals small dynamic shifts from album to album and, rather inconspicuously, the new album Love offers a span of new approaches.

Amen Dunes recordings have largely been solitary recording affairs, so adding a variety of guest musicians and a mix of instrumentation has resulted in the much more conversational interplay heard on Love. Comprised of eleven elegant tracks, the songs strut by at a very mid-tempo pace… sometimes even slower. Tracks like “White Child” or “Lonely Richard” are lead by reverb-washed, strummed guitar chords and thumping drum patterns that lay the groundwork for McMahon’s songcraft.

The title track utilizes deep piano chords

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Album Reviews

Single File by Ira Gamerman

THE ORWELLS “Let It Burn” Thrashing raucous young rock n’ roll from Illinois that wouldn’t sound out of place in Seattle circa 1989, “Let It Burn,” from their forthcoming Disgraceland (out June 3 on Canvasback), is pure energy. Mario Cuomo barks at a jilted lover with the ferocity of a pissed off Isaac Brock, but he’d much rather get to the fucking point than spit cryptic Bukowski images. “Take the good with the bad or get out of my town,” he commands over minor-key crunchedout guitars and insistent drums. “How many times do I have to tell you / and when will you ever learn?” he asks.

Hopefully no time soon if it means The Orwells will keep churning out thrashers like this one.

WYE OAK “Glory” Baltimore’s Wye Oak follow up 2011’s excellent Civilian with Shriek (out now on Merge), punctuated by a heavy use of synthesizers instead of Jenn Wasner’s trademark guitar squall. No worries, Wye Oak hasn’t gone popstar. On the stellar “Glory,” Andy Stack’s drums may blast with the steady and exacting precision of a machine, but Wye Oak remains a duo of hot-blooded humans. “We share the cold embrace of cousins,” Wasner coos as electronics swirl like anxious sirens around her. When the stadiumready R&B chorus kicks in, Wye Oak make it just as easy to be moved to tears while you move your feet.

STRAND OF OAKS “Goshen 97” “I found my dad’s old tape machine / That’s where the magic began / I was lonely / I was having fun,” Tim Showalter sings on Strand Of Oak’s exhilarating new single “Goshen ‘97” (from Heal, out June 24 on Dead Oceans). It feels both like a cathartic breakthrough and a nostalgia-fueled musical origin story.

Strand Of Oaks’ previous efforts have mostly been melancholy prog-leaning folk, but “Goshen ‘97” ups the ante with distorted guitars, driving drums, and a killer solo from J Mascis himself.

Showalter paints a lyrical portrait of an angsty teen hiding cigarettes under the bed and singing Smashing Pumpkins songs to the mirror—but don’t let his self-deprecation fool you, this song is a screamalong.

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that glide in and out of tonality, in similarly heavy riff-like movements. Hovering vocals also situate in similar fashion; however, where most vocalists would rush in, McMahon’s delivery maintains carefully measured spaces. Easy comparisons to ’70s songwriter ilk are fairly warranted, but run half short; Love equally brings to mind the saturated and minimalist explorations of The Velvet Underground, the dreamy melodicism of Arthur Russell, and the tonal wanderings of John Fahey — and furthermore, Amen Dunes occupies an interesting and fitting space on Sacred Bones’ diverse roster. Raymond Code

Colourmusic May You Marry Rich Memphis Industries

OKC’s Colourmusic first hit the blog scene in 2006. A band unlike any other, they were heavily influenced by Sir Isaac Newton’s theories of color and light, and put on wild and unpredictable live shows. Two years later they released their first fulllength f, monday, orange, february, venus, lunatic, 1 or 13, also known as their orange album, which was mostly composed of songs off their earlier Red & Yellow EPs (get it?).

These tunes ranged from fresh and poppy to fist-pumpingly powerful. Colourmusic

hit St. Louis a number of times, and crashed through every set whether the room was full or spotty.

Fast forward to the spring of 2011, after the song “Yes!” piqued the interest of a UK label. Colourmusic jumped the spectrum to My ________ Is Pink, a collection of aggressive songs about all the awkwardness, frustration and passion of sex. The band wanted to give the world a rock album, because people need it, and it’s one that compels you to listen to from start to finish in one sitting. May You Marry Rich, their purple album, sees the band rocking hard in a similar fashion.

Most tracks are clouded with layers of bombinating guitars and bass alongside vocals that are so echoed and spaced out they’re almost indiscernible. This isn’t a complaint, as the music speaks louder than the lyrics ever could. The record starts off hard, with a real punch in the face by the second track, “Dreamgirl ‘82,” where a powerful guitar hook pierces your ears, whirring phaser bass and pounding drums melt your brain, and the vocals reverberate evilly around the room. Later, “Silver Tape,” reminiscent of the orange days, finds a more angelic and euphoric tone straight off the bat. “The Idiot” sinks deep into the darkest purple of the album, ending as it does with an atomic bomb. Colourmusic may be a band you’ve never heard, but their brand of heavy space rock might just change your life.

Jack Probst

Wednesday May 7 Yo Momma's Big Fat Booty Band

Saturday May 10 Samantha Fish Friday May 16 Sierra Leone's Refugee AllStars

Saturday May 17 Nappy Roots Wednesday May 21 Jakes Leg Acoustic Saturday May 24 Lucas Jack (early show) Friday May 30 Cody Jinks Saturday May 31 MC Keem (late show)

Wednesday June 4 Mother Falcon Thursday June 5 William Fitzsimmons Friday June 20 The Lonely Bisquits Wednesday July 30 Sundy Best Every Monday: Open Mic every Thursday in April: Acoustic s Anonymous Residency elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 33

Adornment

THE WAY BACK PAGE

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what’s the worth of an image permanently drawn on your body with needles? A story at least.

There are some tattoos worth elaborating on around STL’s music community, and we’re looking out for ’em.

Show Us Your Tats Curated by Suzie Gilb Photos by Theo Welling This month’s tattoos belong to two of my favorite open mic night hosts in STL. Fred Friction, one of several hosts of the long-running Chippewa Chapel traveling open mic, has teamed up with award-winning open mic host Ellen the Felon at Iowa Buffet (2727 Winnebago St) in south STL on Thursday nights to bring you easily the drunkest open mic in town. Check ‘em out.

Fred Friction got this particular tattoo as a symbol of commitment to his thengirlfriend (now wife) Kathleen. Except, well, he was broke and out of town. So he and a buddy went to get tattoos, and Fred had just enough to meet the shop’s minimum of $45.

The full name “Kathleen” was more than 45 bucks’ worth of lettering, as it turned out, so Fred decided to make up a nickname for her and get K-LEEN in the heart. So the artists agrees to it. He returned home from his trip excited to show his special lady his symbol of undying commitment to her. And while very flattered, she had but one question for him: why not just get the name Kathy?

Ellen the Felon has three tattoos that all sort of intermingle on her leg. The swirling piano keys were both first; the quote was the third installment. If you’re familiar with Ellen’s bass-heavy piano-playing antics, the former are fairly self-explanatory. The lady loves pianos—and who could blame her? The lyrics were written by Dave Hagerty, a STL

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musician known for his work in Fattback and The Griner Brothers, before his tragic death in late 2010. They read: “Adventure will capture her by surprise and pull her toward the best parts of the city between, beneath, around all the hard gray lines. No shame, no guilt, no hate, no pity.” The three pieces were all done by separate artists, two of them at Trader Bob’s.

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They create designs to showcase your individual beauty!

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NEBULA COWORKING

CITY DINER AT THE FOX LATE NIGHT CLUB

A collaborative workspace for innovative businesses and creative professionals located on Cherokee. Shared resources, community, and positive experiences: more than just a workplace.

Cherokee Street 3407 S. Jefferson (63118) 632-6488 | nebulastl.com

Complete with food and drink, the Club hosts a variety of unique DJs spinning reggae, ska, soul, â&#x20AC;&#x2122;60s garage, surf, and rockabilly every Saturday night from 10:30pm until 3am!

Midtown 541 North Grand Blvd (63103) 533-7500

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