Issue No. 5-Sep ’12
music, community, and Culture
Dubb Nubb in ny
On tour with the Gateway Twins
Loufest in photos Confetti over Forest Park
INSIDE: The Union Electric • the raveonettes • Obeid Kahn • Tim Mize
PLUS: All-new columns by Bob Reuter, Thomas Crone and more! check it out
Eleven Magazine Volume 8, issue 5
complimentary
elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 1
Upcoming Intro to Recording and Production: September 15th 1pm-3pm October 20th 1pm-3pm Recording 101: September 28th 2pm-4pm The Recording Console: September 5th 4pm-6pm Analog Outboard Gear: October 2nd 1pm-3pm The Plugin: October 4th 3pm-5pm The Microphone: September 13th 11am-1pm October 18th 11am-1pm Live Sound: October 10th 2pm-4pm Recording the Instruments: Call for upcoming dates Recording the Voice: October 22nd 4pm-6pm
classes Intro to Mixing: October 4th 11am-1pm
Mixing: October 18th 1pm-3pm ProTools 101 & 110: September 3rd 4pm-8pm Intro to Production: September 6th 4pm-6pm October 15th 11am-1pm Midi Basics: September 13th 4pm-6pm October 18th 11am-1pm How to make a Beat: October 3rd 1pm-3pm Songwriting: September 20th 11am-1pm October 25th 11am-1pm Video Editing: September 5th 6pm-8pm
To learn more, visit our website at www.eibynelly.com or call 888-841-3602 and make an appointment today! Vatterott ex’treme Institute by Nelly - St Louis 800 N 3rd Street l St. Louis, MO 63102 2 | ELEVEN | elevenmusicmag.com
DEPT. OF
PERIODICAL LITERATURE ST. LOUIS, MO
Issue No. 5, Volume 8
September 2012
This month in music Musicalendar 20
Front of the book 5 Editor’s Note
A comprehensive list of concerts and venue map
6 Where Is My Mind? 7 Hints & Allegations Essentials
. .
Bring On the Night Short List 22
Columns
Shows worth penciling on your calendar
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Live Music Reviews 22
8 Rockin Our Lives Away by Bob Reuter
Jon Hardy & the Public
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Previews223
9 Nook of Revelations by Thomas Crone
An Under Cover Weekend, The Raveonettes
10 The Radius Kansas city, Missouri
. .
Hot Rocks Guest List 24
11 Load In by Dave Anderson
by anna zachritz
Real Talk
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New Album Reviews 24 The Union Electric, Karate Bikini, Estevan, Following the Water, Girls
features
. .
The Rebellious Jukebox 25 by Matt Harnish .
12 Hot Freaks in the 21st Century: Guided By Voices by evan sult 15 An Interview with Tobin Sprout
The Way Back Page
16 LouFest 2012 Photos by Jarred Gastreich
Paper Time Machine 26 by paige Brubeck .
18 Mound City Babies in New York: Dubb Nubb hits the East Coast by nelda kerr
Cover photo: Robert Pollard, Tobin Sprout, and Greg Demos of Guided By Voices at the Metro in Chicago, August 11, 2012 by Lee Klawans More online at elevenmusicmag.com
Eleven Magazine Issue 5 | Volume 8 | September 2012
Publisher Hugh Scott Editor-In-Chief Evan Sult Art DirectION Evan Sult
$2 - ANHEUSER BUSCH BOTTLES - MON $2 - PERENNIAL DRAFT - TUES $2 - GUINNESS PINTS - WED ¢.50 - PBR DRAFT HAPPY HOUR 4 PM -8 PM - THURS LUNCH AVAILABLE ENJOY MAMA GUSTO’S 314 or DAVIS STREET MARKET DELI MON - SAT: 11 AM - 1:30AM 7900 MICHIGAN STL, MO 4 | ELEVEN | elevenmusicmag.com
CONTRIBUTING Writers Dave Anderson Paige Brubeck Juliet Charles Thomas Crone Suzie Gilb Kyle Kapper Nelda Kerr Kevin Koehler Cassie Kohler Amandalyn Krebel Josh Levi Ryan McNeely Tony Patti Bob Reuter Jason Robinson Hugh Scott RØB Severson Blair Stiles Bill Streeter Hannah Westerman Robin Wheeler-Barber PHOTOGRAPHERS Nate Burrell Jarred Gastreich Ashley Gieseking Lee Klawans Bob Reuter Bill Streeter Bryan Sutter Online Contributors Maggie Sanderson Hugh Scott Evan Sult Hannah Westerman
Interns Hannah Westerman Maggie Sanderson Promotions and Distribution Jesse Gernigin Ann Scott Consultation Clifford Holekamp Derek Filcoff Cady Seabaugh Hugh Scott III Founded in 2006 by a group including Jonathan Fritz, Josh Petersel and Mathew 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.
Interested in contributing? getinvolved@elevenmusicmag.com HAVE A QUESTION FOR US? info@elevenmusicmag.com ONLINE elevenmusicmag.com twitter.com/elevenmag facebook.com/ElevenMagazine Copyright 2011 Scotty Scott Media, LLC
Editor’s Note
by Evan Sult
The Liner Notes of St. Louis
Music has always been a fascination, and a joy, and a way of relating to the world for me, but this spring I got music as religion. I was at Euclid Records for Record Store Day, watching Warm Jets USA play their set and feeling the warm sun on my skin and holding a PBR someone had snuck me and I realized: this isn’t just a good day. This is a good way of life. There’s nothing secure in music, and it doesn’t earn many people a pension, but it does hold us together. Record Store Day happens all over the country—from Nashville, TN to Gainesville, FL to Eureka, CA to Brooklyn, NY to St. Louis, MO, those of us who depend on music for our sanity are linked by that day. We are a people, and this is our day. Valentines Day? You can keep it. I’ve got a PBR in one hand and a pair of drum sticks in the other. I want that Record Store Day feeling to go on forever. Then I found myself at one of Roy Kasten’s KDHX benefit tribute shows at Off Broadway, surrounded by musicians and lifelong music fans, and I felt it again. I felt it again at El Leñador on Cherokee Street during the multi-show release bonanza for Tower Groove Records’ double LP. And it’s been there ever since: a sense of responsibility and community in the music scene.
I came to St. Louis about four years ago, after spending the ‘90s in Seattle and most of the ‘00s in Chicago. My first band came together in the newsroom of our college paper, and playing music and writing about music and thinking graphically about music has always seemed about the same thing. St. Louis needs a music magazine. Magazines have always been the way a city tells the story of itself, and a way for musicians to grow and learn about each other. We have a rich music scene in St. Louis, dynamic and bursting at the seams with talent and capability. The stories of what’s going on here in St. Louis are relevant to every music fan in every city that celebrates Record Store Day in America, don’t you think? My goal is to make Eleven magazine the liner notes of the St. Louis music scene. Like liner notes, our writing should contain relevant facts, a comfortable knowledge, and a sense of urgency and significance. It should contain an awareness of history, and a feel for where the city’s music is headed and where it could be headed. Every issue of Eleven should contain fragments of the past, the present, and the future of St. Louis music. We should be seeing the city’s music life from up close,
and looking at it in the context of the region’s music, and the country’s music. Eleven’s not going to be talking about the local music scene: we’re going to be talking about the St. Louis music scene. Right? Because from there, we can stack St. Louis musicians against the musicians of any city in America with confidence. I want this magazine to speak to musicians directl,y as well as to music fans. Eleven’s contributors includes musicians around town—it depends on them—and the scene we’re documenting is a scene we’re all helping to shape with our writing but also with the way we all lead our lives. Music is important to us: and by us I mean you and me, the reader and the writer and the musician and the listener. This issue is just a beginning, of course. We’ll find the scope of the magazine as we go. I’ll get better at what I’m doing, and Eleven’s writing will develop. And I hope that you will be involved as well, by getting out to shows, by playing great music, by writing letters to the magazine, and by telling your friends in other cities about STL bands touring their way. We’re all in this scene together, yeah? Well then: I’ll see you around.
Evan Sult, editor-in-chief
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This Month in the History of Now
Photo: Michael Worful
WHERE IS MY MIND? If you haven’t heard of First Punch Films yet, consider yourself notified. The South City film and video production crew did the titles for the St. Louis International Film Festival last year, and this summer traveled to South America to shoot a chilling portrait of Columbian hip-hop crew Los Calvos in their hometown, complete with burros, fighting cocks, dead-eyed teens, tricky Spanish rhymes, and misty, verdant mountain jungles.
The most recent project completed by First Punch was the video for STL band Née’s song “Pretty Girls,” which they debuted at their studio (located just down the hall from Eleven HQ, conveniently enough) in July. It combines hi-gloss color treatments with animation, dance sequences, and digiriffic lacquered dancefloor pop. It’s impressive stuff, especially if you’ve ever tried to glue sequins on your own face. Get an eyeful at firstpunchfilm.com or neemusic,com. JC
Lit Fit
Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991 by Michael Azerrad
DAVID RAKOFF
NOV 27 1964 - AUG 9 2012 Now at last thy labors cease, Lay down the pen and rest in peace.
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Twelve years ago, Michael Azerrad put together a collection of accounts of how some of the most successful indie bands of the ’80s navigated their own D.I.Y. path through a music business that was often outwardly hostile to them. In the 25 years or so since, the lessons they learned and the paths they forged are just as relevant today. Not unlike the bands and cities that Azerrad covers in the book—Black Flag and The
Photo: Paul nordmann
Rumor has it that the first episode of Boardwalk Empire, HBO’s breakout show about Atlantic City high life and lowlifes during Prohibition, will feature some music by hometown heroes Pokey LaFarge & the South City Three! Duh, right? Their music couldn’t be more perfect, and seeing as Pokey & crew’ve been opening for Jack White around the West Coast (friends report a killer show in Seattle last month), it looks like you’d better get your tickets to their September 28 show at Off Broadway with Colonel Ford ASAP, no? ES Minutemen in LA, Fugazi and Minor Threat in DC, The Replacements and Hüsker Dü in Minneapolis—St. Louis’ own do-it-yourself attitude is what drives the scene forward today, through makeshift venues and vibrant collaborations between musicians, visual artists, video artists and writers. And as in the now-legendary days of Beat Happening’s Olympian origins, St. Louis is seeing a confluence of artists and visionaries putting in the hard work and elbow grease needed to make a scene succeed. Indeed, there is much to be learned from the successes of those bands as they grew from their respective cities and headed out into the rest of the States. In all, Azerrad examines the histories of thirteen bands from all over the country, each unique and each fascinating and each providing a glimpse into how these bands made their mark. HUGH SCOTT
Hints & Allegations For your consideration
by Juliet Charles
and this fall the Music Box Theatre in Chicago will present a Sing-Along version of all twenty-two chapters. On their website, the Music Box lays it down: “To say that [Trapped in the Closet] is astounding would severely undersell the audacity, wonder and (possible) genius of this “work.” . . .The only thing that could improve it would be to present it as a Sing-Along, and that’s exactly what we will do.” Advance tickets are available at musicboxtheatre.com, $12, Friday Nov 16 at midnight, The Music Box Theatre (3733 N. Southport Ave, Chicago, IL)
“We Figured It Was Time for Us to Do Something Really Crazy” The Melvins are apparently seeking the Guinness World Record title of “Fastest Tour of the U.S. by a Band” with their fall tour of 51 shows in 51 days. The band will play a show in each state, plus one in DC at the Black Cat. The tour is already in progress and wraps up in Honolulu in October. If you wanna catch them in Missouri, head to the Blue Note in Columbia on September 14, and hustle!
Now He’s Open-in’ the Clo-set! (Clo-set, Clo-set...)
Seen and Not Heard
R. Kelly fans and cult film lovers alike can finally experience the bizarre and completely sincere drama that is Trapped in the Closet on the big screen this November. The “hip hopera” that began in 2005 weaves together the story of dozens of characters, all voiced by R. Kelly himself,
In collaboration with quarterly concern McSweeney’s, the new record from Beck will be released in the quintessential analog format of sheet music. Due out December 2012, Beck Hansen’s Song Reader features twenty new songs,
bound in a box, each accompanied by full-color artwork designed specifically for that song by an impressive array of visual artists, including Marcel Dzama and Jessica Hische. While no official recording of the album will be released, McSweeney’s plans to feature readers’ renditions of the songs on their website mcsweeneys.net, and if we’re lucky some St. Louis musicians will perform the album in town for the non-sight reading musicians and music lovers in the scene. If you’re gonna try it, tell us so we can be there, yeah?
Singles Going Steady After releasing a double-vinyl, 22-band compilation in May, the musician-run collective Tower Groove Records is planning to release a series of 7” records next year. Singles Club records will feature one of the existing Tower Groove bands on one side, and another band invited into the collective on the other side. This is a make-or-break moment for TGR, who are depending on subscriptions to the Singles Club to cover costs. TGR bands Bunnygrunt and Doom Town are already on the schedule, and the first release will feature Old Lights and new recruits Demon Lover (hot dang!), with recording slated to begin this winter. With a lineup like that, who in their right mind would miss out? Subscribe already!
ESSENTIALS 2
3
1
1 This American Life app for iPhone Whether it’s an amazing true story, or something ordinary told amazingly well, the Public Radio program This American Life sure makes an hour fly by. If you find yourself craving more gripping narrative nonfiction than the weekly episode provides, the This American Life app gives you access to the entire archive, dating back to the first episode in 1995. And it’s only $2.99. Great for tour driving or long commutes! Available in the App Store. 2 Fujifilm Instax 210 Remember how sad you were when Polaroid stopped making 600 film, how no digital filter has come close to filling that void? Well, there’s a solution and (surprise!) it’s on film. Fuji Instax cameras and film create
vibrant, crisp images that whirrs out the top of the camera just like the good ol’ days. The camera even comes with a close up/selfportrait lens, which is a step forward for sure. Available from B&H Photo. 3 Better Life cleaning products Better Life has set out to make effective cleaners that are safe for “people, pets, and the planet.” The St. Louis-based company creates cleaning sprays made from plant-derived ingredients, safe for waterways, and not tested on animals. Best part is, they work as well as the other stuff. Start with the all-purpose what-EVER! and see what you think. Available at Schnucks, Local Harvest and the Cherokee Curio Shoppe. For more info go to cleanhappens.com.
elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 7
ROCKIN OUR LIVES AWAY
A photo and its story by Bob Reuter
Tim Mize, Rocker the phone and at the door, a string of pretty girls assisting out on air. In the later part of the show there was always a point where a mixtape was put on for a certain length of time while weeds were smoked and beverages were drained out front of the station. Stories were told, oaths were taken. It was all such a glorious fucking time! Then there were neighborhood complaints, enough for the station to put the brakes on the live sets and breaktime out front of the station. A while later the shows were resumed live from the old Hi-Pointe Lounge, one of the few punk venues of that period.
Photo: bob reuter
Tim was the spiritual ringleader.
Tim Mize and Matt Meyers, 2003 or 2004. When I first got back to the Southside and rock and roll in 1998, after a selfimposed exile of about ten years, I somehow found my way down to the old Way Out Club on Cherokee Street, which became my home base for a number of years. It’d been a while since. I met a world of new people and among them was Tim Mize. Tim and his partner Matt Meyers did a punk rock show on KDHX called The Super Fun Happy Hour. I had played punk in 1979 but got lost for close to a decade and at that point required some guidance in finding my way back. Tim and Matt schooled me, brought
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me up to date. Later when I began doing my own show on the same station I›d show up and hang out late on Monday nights while they were working. It was always a mix of much planning and major craziness. Rules were bent and sometimes broken. Tim was the spiritual ringmaster. It was so fucking exciting. They brought in cool rockin local bands on a regular basis. They were both such pros, always running out to monitor the band broadcasts on their car radios just to make sure the sound was going out right. Visitors abounded. I met so many cool people. There was a cast of characters on
Tim played an active role in the St. Louis rock and roll community. I had started out playing in punk bands, then moved on to the radio and also worked in various capacities at both the Way Out and Hi-Pointe as doorman, bartender and whatever else was called for. The Super Fun Happy Hour was a major force for its time. Then time passed and passages were made, many aged right out of the scene, raising families, working day jobs. New kids hit the scene and new radio shows rose up. Tim had reached a point where he was letting himself slow down; he had found the love of his life, they bought a house, found new and more dependable sources of income. I remember in some of those last weeks on the air, the boys asking listeners to call in who was playing where. New clubs were springing up that neither of them had ever been to...but ya know, that›s how it usually goes, you don’t stop loving the music but you sometimes come to the end of your fire—not everybody›s an active player their whole lives long. But I’ll tell ya what, there›s tons of kids out there right now standing on Tim›s shoulders, rockers that owe something to Tim that they›re going to pass along to the kids that come after them. That›s how this stuff works. I got a call from Matt earlier today telling me Tim had had a brain aneurysm and was being kept alive in a vegetative state. It was only a matter of time, since he had already made his wishes known that in such a case he did not want to be kept alive by artificial means. I got the word late this evening that Tim had passed. He was my friend and teacher who had once drunkenly slamdanced the back of my head up against a studio wall. Hee hee. Tim Mize was a rocker, don’t ever let anybody tell you any different.
NOOK OF REVELATIONS
A chronicle of musical encounters by Thomas Crone
Boxes of Boots This particular deejay gig called for an eight-hour shift, starting every Thursday afternoon at noon. Supplied was a basic, battered sound system located on a high riser, access to the club’s light show, and a clunky PC loaded with roughly 6,500 cuts. I had a passing knowledge of about half of those tracks, leaving me guessing on the quality, “feel” and usefulness of the rest. The venue was run strangely, to be kind, and my offers to bring the machine home, loading it with another couple thousand songs, were rejected multiple times. People with workaday jobs probably would have little sympathy for this complaint: spinning eight hours of music, under any set of circumstances, can suck. The mind wanders. Songs that you love might not translate to the environment. And everyone in the room has a strong idea of how the set can go better, with their vocal feedback the norm, not the exception. Knowing that stocking a fair amount of modern hip hop was part of the job, I cast around for ways to bolster my own extremely modest collection. To buy even 50 or 60 current songs via iTunes would cost more than the job guaranteed and no one I
personally knew had stacks of modern rap and pop. Casting a wide net for help, a smart man in the local music promo game gave me a true, lasting gift: the name of an underground music shop selling little more than jam-packed, fully illegal compilation CDs.
What’d been a hole in my record collection was now a strength. After finding a closed door on my first drop-by visit, I called ahead the next day, spoke to the owner, and made my way to the storefront before closing time. Not knowing what to expect, I walked into a neat, clean environment, filled with a relatively spare amount of stock. But what was there was exactly what I’d been looking for, with dozens of new releases, and an equal number of old-school jams, sold at ridiculously low prices: $2 a disc, three for $5. The shop obviously makes money off of volume, which I proved by dropping $25 on my first visit, augmenting that with another 10 CDs
the next week. What’d been a hole in my record collection was now a strength. Plus I was surprised to find that I responded to the discs, in some cases rather strongly. I’d seen the names before—Swizz Beatz, Waka Flocka, Wiz Khalifa, DJ Khaled—but I didn’t know the cuts, save for quick hits in weird environments: beats pouring from the windows of cars at gas stations, or played at college basketball halftimes. Buying both full discs and hits-only comps, I found myself digging deeper on artists like Kanye, Outkast, Gang Starr and Kid Cudi. And though I’m not necessarily a fan, I’m now at least able to ID the music and vibe of Rihanna, Katy Perry, Beyoncé and flavor-of-the-week pop divas like Ke$ha. All for $2 a throw. You might have a strong objection to buying music in such an off-the-books manner. And that’s cool. On the other hand, you might want to know where this spot’s at, so that you, too, can get an affordable education in the right-now of pop music. But to say any more would be putting my source out front. And that’s not gon’ happen. ‘Cause we all need our sources, especially when they’re ready and cheap and a little mysterious...
music venue
Sept 27-
PechaKucha Sept 29-
bar happy hour 4-6 daily
DINER/cafe mention this ad and get 20% of breakfast 7am-10am
Guided By Voices Oct 5- Stars Oct 11- Sea Wolf/ Hey, Marseilles Oct 13-
LOS LOBOS 3224 Locust/ 314-535-2686/ plushstl.com elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 9
r.
THE RADIUS
Kansas City, MO EATIN’
Yeah, KC’s got barbecue; you can find it. Check out these great options that anyone can enjoy.
Each month The Radius features a city within a day’s drive of St. Louis. Whether you’re in a touring band or just want to meet some of our neighbors on the map, use this section to get a head start.
Cafe Gratitude 333 Southwest Blvd (816) 474-LOVE | cafegratitude.com Cafe Gratitude is a vegan California chain and the KC location is actually the only one outside of California. They specialize in vegan (and some raw) cuisine that will leave you feeling full and energized. Great brunch spot to power up after a late show night.
by Paige Brubeck and Evan Sult Special thanks to Bryce Olson and Nathan Reusch If you’re a band or a music fan, you should make a point to get yourself out to Kansas City. Only 250 miles or about 4 hours away from St. Louis, it’s got a bustling scene with several different cool hoods. For bands, it’s especially perfect because you can do KC one night and Columbia (halfway between KC and STL) the next, and be home in time for work on Monday.
Bands to know
So ft Reeds Reminiscent of the Talking Heads and B-52s, so bring your dancing shoes (see Secret Handshakes EP) O G iant Man Spot-on harmonies and undeniable pop hooks by regular guys you’d never suspect Co wboy Indian Bear Ethereal and rocking in equal measure, CIB uses guitars, synths, drums and loops—but the intertwined vocals pull it all together (they hit STL a lot too, so keep an eye out) La Guerre Heartfelt lyrics and lovely vocals in the vein of St. Vincent and Rilo Kiley. Check out “23” on the Secret Handshakes EP Sc hwervon! Brooklyn transplants channeling ‘90s indie rock, making them a perfect match for producer Doug Easley (Pavement, Sonic Youth) who they worked with earlier this year. Since moving to KC in April, the guitar/drums two-piece has spent most of their time on tour. Lucky for us, they hit St. Louis 9/7 with Frances With Wolves. Key Track: “Truth Teller” (w/ vocals by Frances McKee of the Vaselines).
Music world
The Record Machine Started by Nathan Reusch and Mike Russo in 2003, TRM has already posted more than 40 releases. They’re focused on KC, but they’ve signed bands from the wider region. They do accept music for review; their preferred format
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Katlyn Conroy and Cowboy Indian Bear
is soundcloud. Check ‘em out at therecordmachine.tumblr.com. Roster includes: Cowboy Indian Bear, Soft Reeds, Capybara, Making Movies, Motor Boater. Golden Sound Records Golden Sound was started by a core of young musicians looking to get out bands by themselves and their friends, including Everyday/Everynight, The Caves, Millions of Boys, and Baby Teardrops (NY). Check ‘em out on the Secret Handshakes EP vinyl split with The Record Machine. Middle of the Map Fest MOTM showed up with a bang in 2011 and revved up from there, with 50 bands the first year and 115 the second. Utilizing venues throughout Westport, MOTM takes over Kansas City in early summer for a lost weekend of true indie music and rad headliners— last year included Mission of Burma, Neon Indian, and White Denim.
FÜD 813 W. 17th St | (816) 785-3454 | eatfud.com An organic, local, vegan restaurant just southwest of downtown. Mud Pie
1615 West 39th St | 816.931.4539 mudpiebakery.com
Coffee shop and vegan bakery in the lively 39th Street West neighborhood.
Also check out Vahalla Studios
vahallastudios.com | (913) 233-0373
Posters and rock music have always gone together. In Kansas City, the work of Vahalla Studios is hard to miss. They do plenty of posters for the KC/Lawrence music scene, as well as shows across the country. Check out their work for Cults, Radiohead, Spoon, Dr. Dog and more.
River Market Antique Mall 115 W 5th It’s too much to absorb in one visit, but this gigantic, four-story hive of vintage vendors is the perfect place to get lost for an afternoon. Old signs, cameras, Record Stores car parts, records, lamps, Vinyl Rennaissance and furniture spread out 1415 W 39th St A poster by Vahalla Studio endlessly before you—and KC lost most of its iconic if that wasn’t enough, they record stores over the just opened another location around the last decade, but Vinyl Rennaissance has corner! Tip: haggling’s not unheard of here, been at this 39th St spot for a couple of so get your game face on. years, and it enriches an already very happenin’ part of town. Stock is mostly new The west Bottoms CDs and LPs, and they run a cool little stage A great zone for DIY weirdness and vintage two doors down called The Sandbox. clothes, KC’s former meatpacking district zebedee’s 1208 W 39th st A relic from the weird old days before the internet, Remedies is run by an odd hippy guy out of an old house filled with records (and CDs). A go-to spot for vinyl fiends, and a good place to hang a show poster.
is made up mostly of giant warehouses, some of which house impressive vintage/ antique shops like Liberty Belle, The Pistol, and Re-Runs. If Halloween’s your thing, The West Bottoms is your place: each year those buildings transform into multi-floor haunted houses!
LOAD IN
Expert gear testimony by Dave Anderson
I Found a Reason to Keep Living
real talk
Obeid Kahn and Reason Amps, St. Louis Later the line was expanded with the 8-watt Bambino head. With the popularity of “lunch box”-style heads and low wattage combos, the Bambino introduced the stacked circuit to the boutique bedroomamp market. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to play the prototype Bambino head when it was built, and in short, I was blown away by the versatility of tones and features that could be attained in such a small package. The most recent model to come from Reason is the Reato. A single-channel, point-to-point hand-wired tube amp, the Reato pays homage to the classic American sound with reverb and vibrato. Available in a 2-, 8-, 20-watt switchable 6v6 power-tube
model or a bigger 40watt 6L6, the Reato is a departure from the previous stacked-series channel-switching amps in that it is a new design that optimizes the tube vibrato effect. And it sounds absolutely beautiful, with or without the vibrato activated. Reason Amps can be seen on stage with such artists as Rich Robinson of the Black Crowes, Doyall Bramhall II, Brad Whitford of Aerosmith, and Stevie D of Buckcherry. Separately, Kahn also manufactures high-end audio equipment such as the VTDI all-tube direct box by Kahn Audio. The philosophy for Kahn and his creations is simple: keep the signal path clean and uninterrupted, use high-quality components, and you will get superior tone. If you haven’t had the opportunity to try a Reason amp, do yourself a favor and test one out. You can find them at Killer Vintage, 3201 Ivanhoe. Buy locally and rock globally! Reason Amps is located at 5988 Mid Rivers Mall Drive in St. Charles, MO, and is open to the public.
Photo: Nate Burrell
Ask around for a good amp tech in St. Louis and the name most likely to come up first is Obeid Kahn. Resident amp tech for local instrument retailer Killer Vintage and co-founder of Reason Amps, Kahn is an electronics wiz and one of the best guitarists in town. His background as a player and years of experience doing repair and restoration on vintage tube amplifiers has given him the tools needed to be one of the best amp designers on the market today. Kahn first got his start in 1991 as a research and development engineer for St. Louis Music, and gained notoriety in the ‘90s developing the Crate Vintage Club series tube amplifiers, which put Crate on the map as a pro-grade tube-amp manufacturer. Anthony Bonadio started Reason as a high-end cabinet manufacturer to leading boutique amp companies in Lansing, Michigan. After making a move to the St. Louis area, Bonadio started looking for a rare gem: an insightful, commandingly talented designer with whom he could establish Reason’s reputation as an innovative company. Kahn, meanwhile, left St. Louis Music when it restructured, and kept an ear out for new opportunities. Being an avid player, word soon reached him that Bonadio had arrived in town and was looking for an engineer to help take Reason Amps to the next level: a full-line boutique amp company. The two met up after a cold call from Kahn, and soon Reason Amps transitioned into the full-line company it is today. Khan had come up with a unique design for the classic two-channel tube amp that would allow both channels to be run in series, or “stacked,” one into the other. Combining the two channels in this way provides a whole new palette of high-gain tones for the player to utilize. This “stack” feature was the basis for the first Reason Amp model, the three-channel SM50. Currently the SM series is offered in a 20- or 25-watt combo as well as a 40- or 50-watt head.
What do you personally think is the most significant electric guitar? “If we’re talking guitar, it would probably have to be Chuck Berry copping Johnie Johnson’s piano licks, or maybe Scotty Moore’s Gibson ES-295 and Butts Echosonic Amp. Les Paul’s Log, the invention of the solidbody guitar. I see guitars as combinations. There’s a chain, and each individual link has it’s own voice that supports the whole. Would there be a Hendrix if he played a Les Paul through a Fender Twin? Picture Johnny Ramone without his Mosrite. Eddie Van Halen with a Telecaster. It seems commonplace now,
but in 1978 he figured out you could put a humbucking pickup (Gibson), in a Fender guitar, with a chisel and some imagination. Having said that, for me a huge line in the sand was an amplifier. The little green Elpico amp Dave Davies used on You Really Got Me. It’s tiny speaker cut up with a razor blade. it shows how rock will destroy itself to create something bold and new. It is the birth of distortion. Rock guitar was never the same.” Jimmy Griffin, guitarist for The Incurables, El Monstero, and a dozen other projects
elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 11
Hot Freaks in th Guided By Voices Keeps It in Motion
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he 21st Century
by Evan Sult Even as one of the legendary bands of underground rock and roll, there has always been something fundamentally unruly about Guided By Voices. Their albums are messy, overlapping collages of short, brilliantly catchy musical shards that don’t even seem to be proper songs, roaring with all the buzz and hiss of overloaded tape machines. Their song titles are just as bizarre—”Mesh Gear Fox,” “Blimps Go 90,” “Gold Star for Robot Boy,” “Kisses to the Crying Cooks”—and the music never settles into any particular genre, hungrily eating up psych rock, punk kick, British Invasion swagger, Lennon-McCartney harmonies, classic rock riffing, pop earworms, acoustic introspection, and even audible midsong mistakes, all of it arriving and slipping into the next song before you hardly have a chance to catch it. Their shows have always been glorious, drunken revelries, with new lineups showing up unpredictably. Even their age defies the norm: lead singer and head troublemaker Robert Pollard was in his early forties when the spotlight hit the band in the early ‘90s. Pollard was a fourth-grade teacher when he started Guided By Voices in Dayton, OH, in 1983 with a constantly shifting lineup of players. Between 1986 and 1992 they released several albums in very small, essentially local editions. The first tapes, including Propeller and Vampire on Titus, were almost unlistenable—hissy
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and seemingly stapled together—except that the hooks at the center of the songs were heroic, gigantic and perfect, the very stuff a hardcore music fan dreams of finding tucked inside some random Midwest scene. Eventually, in 1994 primed by the rise of Pavement, Sebadoh, and other home-recorded chaos-poppers, Scat Records put out GBV’s seventh album, Bee Thousand, and it was time to let the rest of us in on their secret. Twenty-eight cuts deep, Bee Thousand contained such stunners as “Hot Freaks,” “Tractor Rape Chain,” and “I Am a Scientist,” and introduced the wider world to their stunning overabundance of pop soundcraft, even as it hid their light under a bushel of noise—opener “Hardcore UFOs” is built from two separate takes, and the guitarist’s signal cuts in and out, but the melody and the message was clear for those who could hear it. Their 1995 Matador album, Alien Lanes, was the apotheosis of that bubbling surge, and their live shows were legendary. That was the lineup we fell in love with: Pollard with his lower lip pushed out, doing scissor kicks onstage and pulling so many beers from the bucket at his side that he sometimes confused the bottle in his left hand for the mic in his right; Mitch Mitchell with his cigarette permanently threatening to catch his gnarly dreads on fire; Kevin Fennel drunkenly holding down the drums; Greg Demos on bass and the only guy who could potentially keep up with Pollard’s righteous stage moves; and dear Tobin Sprout, the other singer and songwriter in the band, who emerged as the gentler angel to Pollard’s hellbent hellraiser. This was the band who did those first tours and introduced the world to Guided By Voices. Nevertheless, following the touring for Alien Lanes, Pollard abruptly opted for a new band. For those of us listening at the time, this seemed heretical, though the next album, 1997’s Mag Earwhig!, proved that Guided By Voices could and would continue to produce amazingly powerful music. Many other lineups followed, but eventually, in 2004, Pollard announced that Guided By Voices would disband. Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes helped establish the golden age of lo-fi music, where the roar of the medium was enough to keep out the casual mainstream listener but the purity of the pop rang out even stronger to those of us who were trying to figure out how we could get involved in music. As with the best indie music, GBV’s albums from those years glorify pop by helping destroy it, and in destroying it widen the canal between airless pop and shapeless noise. It may seem quaint, now that Macs come standard with GarageBand,
val gigs, suddenly that same band is writing music together and releasing it at an astonishing rate—by November they’ll have released three full-length, 20+ song albums in 2012 alone—and the Guided By Voices team of Pollard, Sprout, Mitchell, Demos and Fennel is a going concern again. This sudden rejuvenation begs the question for those of us who loved the band so dearly in the ‘90s, as well as for those who discovered their canon after the fact: can the Guided By Voices of 2012 compare with the Guided By Voices of the glorious years? The answer, I’m here to tell you, is yes. Yes! You can plug in the headphones, crank up Class Clown Spots a UFO, and get blissed on the endless forward motion of the new albums just like you did with Alien Lanes. But—in defiance of all logic associated with band reunions—it’s a great introduction to GBV as well. This is one of the only albums I’ve heard in the last decade that legitimately sounds like it could have been recorded, released, and toured on in 1995. (And if you ever loved Guided By Voices, those should be the words you need to finally go check the new stuff out.) Class Clown Spots a UFO is pure time
travel. The songs flow by in that GBV dreamstate, where they’re always beginning and concluding and transitioning so that the whole album sounds like one hit song, or like a DJ set that stays in the mood all night long. The tracks are short, but the feeling is long and all-encompassing: within the first five minutes we overhear a conversation and catch the signal-chain buzz of “He Rises! Our Union Bellboy,” ride the choppy waters of “Blue Babbleships Bay,” and roll straight into Tobin Sprout’s meditative “Forever Until It Breaks.” “I like snippets, they cut to the meat of the matter. No fat, no intro, or long good-bye. On to the next,” Sprout says of their song structures, which have always been one of GBV’s signature styles. But it’s Sprout’s voice against Pollard’s that really sends Class Clown down the rabbit hole to GBV’s ‘90s albums. Sprout’s introspection is a natural foil to Pollard’s emotional and vocal sureness, and when their voices wind around each other in “Keep It in Motion,” the sound is timeless. In some ways, this is Sprout’s best album with Guided By Voices—on songs like “Starfire” and “All of This Will Go,” he provides a recessive grace that Pollard, for all of his flexible melodies and bottomless lyrics and chameleon colors, can’t quite manage on his own. “Chain to the Moon”’s first guitar strum and staggered backing vocal style immediately conjure Bee Thousand’s “Gold Heart Mountaintop Queen Directory,” until “Hang Up and Try Again” muscles its way forward. That one’s a new classic—but then so is “Tyson’s High School,” which explodes from the middle of “Keep It in Motion” like an oversized stoner bumping the quiet kid off the sidewalk. The swagger is sexy, and it all comes from Mitchell’s wah’d-out guitars and Fennel’s distorted drums. The whole song is as sure-footed and rad as anything they’ve done, and easily pushes the album onto the list of musthear GBV records. Add to that “Worm w/ 7 Broken Hearts,” “Jon the Croc,” “Be Impeccable”—all songs that, given enough exposure, you might find yourself as eager to hear as “My Valuable Hunting Knife” or “Jane of the Waking Universe” when they hit St. Louis this month. There’s something inherently suspicious about the prospect of a reunion album, and the sort of cashing in on bygone glory that such a thing implies. But the work Pollard and crew have already released in 2012 is more than an indication of their legitimate resurgence, it’s proof. And at the rate they’re moving, we’re lucky to have a chance to keep up.
Preceding page: Guided By Voices performing at the Metro in Chicago on August 11, 2012. Photo by Lee Klawans
Guided By Voices plays with Detective September 28 at Plush.
but at that time their albums were not just satisfying bizarro-pop anthems, but revelations of possibility. That’s their thing: Guided By Voices never made sense in a conventional way. So when they announced they’d be playing a series of shows again with the “classic lineup” it’s no surprise they’re making a perfect mess of this whole “reunion” gig. “This is the band,” Tobin Sprout said in an interview with Eleven, “the one that first hit the road together in Mitch’s van with no heat.” And, after a spate of high-profile festi-
Plug in the headphones, crank up Class Clown Spots a UFO, and get blissed on the endless forward motion just like you did with Alien Lanes.
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Hardcore UFOs:
An interview with Tobin Sprout of Guided By Voices
Eleven: The process of GBV songwriting seems pretty mysterious, since Robert Pollard writes the vast majority of the songs, but never plays an instrument onstage. Who brings what to the practice space, or the studio? Does Pollard write songs on an instrument? Tobin Sprout: He mostly sends out demos of just him playing guitar and singing. We learn the songs before going into the studio where they are worked out. Everyone is open to adding something here or there. Bob does a lot of guitar work in the studio…leads, etc. Mitch and I will add a guitar or lead, and Greg will blow out a smokin’ hot lead. Greg is actually the best guitar player, so we put him on bass. 11: Does GBV meet in a practice space to work out songs? Are many/most of the songs written on the spot, or are they brought in from home? TS: We practice at Mitch’s in his studio garage. It’s real hot in there during the summer and very cold in the winter, but we don’t care. We dress accordingly. I do a lot of my songs in my studio in Leland, Michigan, but will also bring songs for the band to do when we go into the studio. We will be recording next week in Dayton for a few days. 11: When you have a new song, do you present it to the band as a recording, or as a complete piece? You have your share of fragments on this album; how do those pieces get created, and is it a different process than the more traditionally shaped songs? TS: Often I present songs finished for the most part, and as demos to the band to do in the studio. Bob does the same but more with
Key tracks
the band. If I lived closer to the rest of the band in Dayton, Ohio, I would use the band more. It is just quicker for me to record them in Leland. 11: Has the songwriting process for the most recent three albums been similar to your work together in the ‘90s? TS: I think it is about the same. We have better recording equipment now. Bob is also putting together a studio in his home. We might record the next album there. He has high ceilings and large rooms, might make for a different sound, plus he has a pool. 11: I was always amazed at the ability of the band for Pollard to call out a song title and have everyone come in on the one. Do you have any idea how many songs you have ready? How often are you or the band stumped by a song title? TS: We don’t always manage to come in together. “Chocolate Boy” had a rough time in Chicago. Most of the songs (older ones) we know with our eyes closed, “Smothered In Hugs” we could play passed out. I think it takes time for some of the newer songs to tighten up. 11: Pollard’s massive output has made the band a canon unto itself. Do you get a shot of pleasure when Tobin Sprout songs enter the GBV canon? TS: I love writing for GBV, I see no better showcase for my songs. Left on my own I get a little lazy. I need deadlines, and with the amount of albums we are putting out…I get them! It seems better to stay in the mood of writing than to take time off and then try to get back into it. I just wrote a couple songs today that I’m really happy with. It’s really something to hear the way Bob then puts them all together, finished and packaged. 11: Who does the album artwork for GBV?
Photo: Lee Klawans
Guided By Voices albums are long on mysterious sounds and short on explanations. Tobin Sprout is the guitarist, singer, and other songwriter in Guided By Voices—the George Harrison to Robert Pollard’s Lennon/McCartney complex. I figured he might have an answer or two for the curious listener. Evan Sult
The heavy collage style always seem so appropriate to the album itself. TS: It is Bob’s work, He does all the collages, and design work. Bee Thousand had one of his best covers. I wish he still had it. Scat Records used parts of it but changed it. The cover was all blue and purple, with the wizard walking down a hill toward a town or something in the dark. In the sky there was a bright object, a UFO maybe, but we’re not sure. Guided By Voices was backwards like on the record, in white press-on letters. Bob loves press-on letters. The back cover was full collage without the blocks of color. It was incredible. 11: You’re an accomplished painter. Is album artwork a big part of your experience as a listener, or as a musician? TS: The cover is the image of the album. With GBV, we have Bob’s cover images to work with as we write the songs. 11: Do you feel like your experience in the same band this time around is a lot different—not just technologically, but culturally? TS: We were right at that point where analog was giving way to digital. I remember mastering Bee Thousand and putting our tape into a computer. Dragging and dropping pieces here and there. Seeing the songs linear for the first time and being amazed at the possibilities.
GBV albums are best heard from beginning to end—but if you’re looking for a quick primer, here are some anthems for the ages:
Bee Thousand 1994
Alien Lanes 1995
Mag Earwhig! 1997
• Buzzards and Dreadful Crows
• Watch Me Jumpstart
• I Am a Tree
• I Am a Scientist
• Game of Pricks
• Bulldog Skin
• Hot Freaks
• Motor Away
• Jane of the Waking Universe
• Tractor Rape Chain
• My Valuable Hunting Knife
• I Am Produced
• G oldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory
• King & Caroline
elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 15
Bright Lights, Big Party The Third LouFest Lineup Delivers After so many tantalizing dry runs by passing thunderclouds so far this summer, there was something almost poetic about the clouds gathering over Forest Park on Saturday, August 26, where thousands of St. Louisans (and a fair number of out-of-town visitors) were enjoying the music and diversions of LouFest. Two days of (mostly) sunshine, music, and local food and retail, LouFest is St. Louis’ own take on the increasingly popular summer festival format. This is the event’s third year, and the lineup seems to have achieved its logical high point with headliners Girl Talk on Friday and The Flaming Lips on Saturday. Both acts are legendary party burners whose natural habitat is the top spot at outdoor festivals. The whole lineup was deep, though, featuring KDHX favorites like Cults and Phantogram, as well as local legend Son Volt and local-ish Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin. STL bands Sleepy Kitty and Pernikoff Brothers opened their respective days, and Cotton Mather gave particularly strong performances of songs from their 1997 pop masterpiece, Kontiki. As in past LouFests, the penultimate bands came up extra strong each night. Friday, Dinosaur Jr. seared the ears of the crowd, no matter how far from the stage. Saturday, when the rain finally hit, Dr. Dog waited out the brief but intense downpour to belt their sharply crafted harmonies. But it was the last band who ruled the festival, blasting the rain-washed air full of confetti, laser beams, and the smiles of the transfigured crowd. If there is a living Wizard of Oz, his name is Wayne Coyne, and his band is The Flaming Lips. Guess that made St. Louis the Emerald City for one night!
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Clockwise from center right: J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. brought the most decibels to the show. In addition to the wall of Marshall amps behind him, another stack of amps faced him directly. St. Louis’ own Evan Sult and Paige Brubeck of Sleepy Kitty kicked off the festival on Saturday with the Gershwins’ “Summertime” before launching into a set that eventually included guests Jenn Malzone, Gabe Doiron, and Ren Mathew. When it arrived, Sunday’s rain went straight from sprinkle to downpour. All things considered, spirits stayed high. The cheery crowd looked rainbow high as The Flaming Lips’ set neared. Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion of Cults used their long hair to great effect. As expected, Wayne Coyne and the Flaming Lips completely stole the show this year. Smoke machines, confetti cannons, a massive LED screen on overdrive, a human hamster ball, oversized cartoon hands with lighted palms, an enormous disco ball, giant confettifilled balloons, and a smoke-strewing megaphone transformed the nighttime into party time. Dr. Dog’s set started late because of the rain, but they launched into it with admirable gusto, rocking through their classics. By the time their set was over, the rain was a distant memory. GIRL Talk is as much a kind of party as an actual band, so it makes sense that there was a lot of crazy stuff flying through the air. Did you know there was such a thing as a toilet paper gun? You do now. Photos by JARRED GASTREICH
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Photo: Allison Becker
Mound City Babies at Large in New York
Catching Up (Just Barely!) with Dubb Nubb on Tour by Nelda Kerr In late July I meet up with Dubb Nubb at the 42nd Street Bryant Park subway station. We drive 55 miles outside of Brooklyn, across the East River to Long Island. On the way, I ask where we’re heading. “Dunno,” says Hannah. “We met a guy at our show in Washington. He told us we have to play at his friends’ place in Long Island. Could be a bar, could be a house, could be a temple. All we have is a name and an address.” Dubb Nubb is a decidedly family affair. Hannah and Delia Rainey are 20-year-old twins from St. Louis who already have a decade of songwriting under their belts. Their music’s compositional maturity exceeds their years: like Bob Dylan or Joanna Newsom, Delia didn’t wait for permission to belt her own personal twang. She jumps fearlessly in and out of key, while Hannah’s smooth and controlled alto voice lays solid ground below Delia’s vocal leaps. While the twins sing tightly interwoven harmonies and strum guitar, ukulele and mandolin, older sister Amanda Rainey adds percussion on her banjo-head drum, held up with neckties, and her rhythm is a train driving the song. At other times she accents the melody with the lullaby bell tones of a glockenspiel. These elements blend into an
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enchanting sound, painting sincere stories of young love.The songs unfold in vivid landscapes filled with cotton clouds, back country roads, swampy bays and our own Mississippi River. Most immediately, it sounds deeply confident and emotionally resonant in a way that seems bigger than their petite shapes. As we enter a suburban wood, the houses get bigger and further apart. We arrive at a secluded ranch house barely visible from the road. Before we can knock on the door, a nervous and enthusiastic Tyler Taormina greets us. We end up in Taormina’s parents’ basement, crowded in alongside forty-some-odd sober college friends reunited at their self-proclaimed “teenage haven” called Practice Room Records. “We’ve been organizing shows here for years,” Taormina says, smiling. “You’re our first travelling band.” The show holds one impressive act after another, including Toarmina as a one-man band, holding down keys, drums and a pedal board on his own. Each set has a distinct character, and Dubb Nubb is no exception. The room sings along with the wild “ohs” on “Gravestones” as if they’d known the song for years, though this is surely their first time hearing it. The music comes to a dramatic conclusion with a 23-minute
rainstorm-inspired analog synth symphony from Practice Room alum Konrad Kamm. The Raineys sell plenty of LPs, CDs and make-your-own buttons. They give away postcards and stickers. By the time we have to say goodnight, the Practice Room is full of new friends, and Dubb Nubb has a new home in Long Island. Arresting as the twins’ songwriting may be, Amanda Rainey is the reason Dubb Nubb has been able to get as far-flung as they have. Amanda moved to Jackson, MS while the twins were still in high school at Ladue. They were already writing and performing songs in St. Louis as Dubb Nubb, so she started organizing shows for them in Missouri, Mississippi and everywhere in between. She also established Special Passenger Records, a small label “committed to local crafts, DIY packaging, danceable pop songs, and musical collaboration,” and encouraged the girls to record. To date Special Passenger has released two EPs, a split 7”, and a full-length record called “Sunrise Sleepy Eyed” by Dubb Nubb, as well as a half-dozen compilation albums. Amanda was also the organizing force behind their inaugural 28-city, bi-coastal tour. In organizing the Dubb Nubb tours to this point, Amanda’s priority has been to create
Photo: Nelda Kerr
chorus, the bar falls silent for the first positive and meaningful experitime tha t night. Delia’s commandences with her sisters. Over the ing tone on “Tennessee Mountains” years, she has built up a network breaks through every conversation, of musical friends who can add the commanding attention and applause. band to bills across the country. Their songs fill the Brooklyn nightlife “The Long Island house show was with Midwestern sunlight. a marvelous example of making Afterwards, the Raineys complilovely and random connections in ment their fellow musicians and the music world,” Amanda says. greet their audience. They pack up “When you follow up with those and politely excuse themselves for connections, and actually email a six-block walk to Ground Floor, people and keep in touch, then an aptly named apartment venue. magical things can happen.” She Pushing through clusters of NYU art has found that it makes more students, they carve out a place to sense, with the kind of music Dubb Amanda, Hannah, and Delia Rainey winning hearts and minds in Long Island. play in the darkness. This time they’re Nubb plays, to find like-minded playing fast and dirty, tearing into a bands to play with rather than rendition of Tom Waits’ “Tango Till trying to just rely on venues. Bands They’re Sore,” and showing everyone who are excited about playing they know the difference between together “promote the show better,” inspiration and mimicry. The people she explains, “and you make new in this room don’t know, and probfriends In the process!” ably couldn’t suspect, how quietly Amanda’s business strategy beautiful Dubb Nubb’s songs can be. is straightforward: “Make more What they hear tonight is the wilder money than we spend,” she says version, the loose-in-the-city version, simply. This strategy has led the of a young band learning how to put girls between busking, bars, summer The next night is a doubleheader in themselves in front of any crowd they camps and house shows for nearly five years. Brooklyn, and a totally different scene from get and make the most of every moment. As did Woody Guthrie before them, they’ve the outset, starting at the noisy, dimly lit Watching the sisters pull yet another new learned how to perform on the road. Songs Bar 4 in Park Slope. The dimly lit cocktail trick from their bag and win over a third are written in the car between cities, then bar talks loudly through a few sincere crowd in two days, the facts are incontroauditioned on new audiences every night. “We acoustic sets by the other musicians on vertible: Dubb Nubb was born for this, and don’t practice, really, unless we’re recording,” the bill. When Dubb Nubb hits their first there is much more to come. says Delia. “That’s what shows are for.”
I ask where we’re heading. “Dunno,” says Hannah. “Could be a bar, could be a house, could be a temple. All we have is a name and an address.”
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live Want to have your show listed? E-mail listings@elevenmusicmag.com!
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Want to have your show listed? E-mail listings@elevenmusicmag.com! (calendar cont’d from prev page)
22 Way Out Club 23
Jefferson Warehouse
2501 S. Jefferson Street, 63104
Sep 21 27
2525 S. Jefferson Street, 63104 Rat Rod Kings, Butcher Holler, Old Capitol Square Dance Club Troma Movie Nite
24 25 Mangia Italiano CBGB
3163 S. Grand Boulevard, 63118
sep 1 15 20 22 29
3145 S. Grand Street, 63118
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Blues City Deli
Superfun Yeah Yeah Rocketship Popular Mechanics, Eternal Virgins Ellen the Felon, Violet White Death of Yeti, Pat Sajak Assassins Bob Reuter
2438 McNair Avenue, 63104 Sep 22 Streetfest: Funky Butt Brass Band, Miss Jubilee, Big Mike Aguirre & more
27 Venice Café 28 El Leñador
1903 Pestalozzi Street, 63118
3124 Cherokee Street, 63118 SEP 1 Zigtebra
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Mushmaus 2700 Cherokee, 63118 sep 15 BacK2SKoolBOUNCE w/ LVXXTR, 18andCounting, DJ Ryan Snowden
22 | ELEVEN | elevenmusicmag.com
Jon Hardy and the Public w/ Hemmingbirds, Jon Bonham & Friends Off Broadway
Friday, August 17 Did Jon Hardy and the Public even go on a year-long hiatus? One would never have known August 17 at Off Broadway, the band’s first show following Hardy’s serious back injury last summer. “It’s good to be back,” Hardy said, before kicking off the set like an encore performance with “A Hard Year.” There couldn’t have been a more appropriate opening song. Jon Hardy and the Public is tight, each member hitting and holding their parts on time. You could see the elation and performance high on everyone’s face, especially Hardy’s. Obvious camaraderie radiated between members, especially when guitarists Greg Shadwick and Glenn LeBarre exchanged glances and open-mouthed smiles. Even they knew they were bringing their best show. The band unleashed a few new songs midway through the set. The new songs retained the band’s style while incorporating more anthemic builds and grandiosity. Probably due to the audience’s lack of familiarity, they were impressive but not overly captivating and created a short lull. No matter: this will be easily remedied by the scheduled recording sessions in Chicago that Hardy announced from the stage. The high energy and impressive performance left the crowd crazy for an encore. Hardy played a solo song, allowing the band a quick breather before returning to the stage to close with a massive “Cassius Clay.” A crowd favorite, “Cassius Clay”’s crowdsung lyrics reverberated triumphantly through Off Broadway. Cassie Kohler >>PREVIEW
Sister Sparrow & the Dirty Birds
time from a heavy touring schedule that included stops at some of the biggest festivals in America, like South By Southwest and Bonnaroo. “Bonnaroo was amazing,” Kincheloe enthused. “We were so fortunate to play three sets in two days there.” That tour brings them to The Gramophone of September 5, a venue Kincheloe said they are already familiar with: “The Gramophone, I have to say, I love the vibe there. You don’t always get that sort of party vibe and feel like people want to party. I remember thinking when we first played there, ‘We should definitely come back here,’ and that can be kind of rare on the road.” Onstage, Arleigh’s powerful voice blends with Jackson’s sharp harmonica and the rest of the big band to create a sound that conjures thoughts of Janis Joplin, Otis
short list Schwervon! and Frances With Wolves The Heavy Anchor
9pm Friday, September 7
FarFetched presents: A Brave New World with Scripts N Screwz, Adult Fur, Black James, CaveofswordS, iLLphonics, Ou Où, Michael Franco
and more Plush 4pm Saturday, September 8
Mutts and The Feed Off Broadway
9pm Thursday, September 20*
White Mystery CBGB’s
9pm Wednesday, September 26
The Gramophone
Metric and Half Moon Run
September 5
The Pageant
w/ Ruby Velle, The Soulphonics
It’s a family affair with Sister Sparrow & The Dirty Birds. The band was founded in Brooklyn, NY four years ago by the brothersister team of Arleigh and Jackson Kinceloe with their cousin Bram, and in no time they were selling out major clubs in NYC. We spoke to Sister Sparrow herself, Arleigh Kincheloe, as she enjoyed a little down-
8pm Tuesday, October 2* Shows with * are all ages
FYI
Text from a friend in Chicago: Go see “Searching for Sugar Man” and if u haven’t read about it don’t read about it. ... I knew nothing and a friend insisted that I see it. Now I’m insisting the same. It’s a must for musicians and cool people
Metric
White Mystery
METRIC PHOTO: JUSTIN BROADBENT / WHITE MYSTERY PHOTO WHITEMYSTERYBAND.COM
BRING ON THE NIGHT
<<REVIEW
HUGH SCOTT
>>PREVIEW
Sixth Annual An Under Cover Weekend The Firebird
September 7 & 8, An Under Cover Weekend was started by STL scene fixture Mike Tomko (former guitarist for Gentleman Auction House and sometime show promoter), who noticed a while back that there were two totally separate crowds coming to two different kinds of shows: crowds interested in bands playing their own songs in their own styles; and crowds showing up to see cover bands play the hits. Somehow, he figured, there had to be a way to expose the bands writing original music to the crowds who might love their music if they could only be properly prepped to understand it. “The idea,” Tomko says, “was to assemble an amazing cast of local talent, who, for one night, would pay homage to heroes for anyone who would listen. A sort of icebreaker, if you will, for these bands to hopefully meet a whole new audience.” Thus was born a St. Louis music-scene institution, affectionately known as AUCW, now in its sixth year and boasting ten bands over two nights. The rules are basic: pick a reasonably popular band you love, devise a half-hour set of their material, and keep it all a secret while practicing like crazy. The most interesting rule, though, is a choice each band must make: they can either play an interpretive version of the songs, as if they wrote the songs themselves; or they must play note-for-note, take-no-liberties renditions as much like the original as possible. The decision is crucial, and each route is demanding. It also produces much of the anticipation around each band’s set: which way are they going to play it? And what are they gonna wear? As the years have lengthened, so have the legends—and the stakes. The selection process is rigorous (“the worst part of the job,” says Tomko), but the list of each year’s bands is an exercise in anticipation. Year 6 is the latest proof: Friday September 7 is LucaBrasi as U2 / Volcanoes as The Killers / Humdrum as Beck / Animal Empty as PJ Harvey / Aquitaine as Oasis. Saturday, September 8 is Via Dove (with Tomko!) as Aerosmith / Dots Not Feathers as Michael Jackson / Palace as ABBA / Last To Show First To Go as Neil Young / Arthur and the Librarian as
Simon & Garfunkel. This is the only night these bands will play most of these songs, so it’s pretty much impossible that the evening will be anything less than unforgettable. And speaking of unforgettable: AUCW’s previous five years have already yielded plenty of killer performances. Do yourself a favor and just check out undercoverweekend.com/history, where you’ll find a complete list of who’s played whom since 2007. Highlights include the Deep Purple set that almost killed Shame Club—they learned all those crazy “Smoke on the Water” parts on guitar!—and Robb Steele’s meticulously on-point take on The Beastie Boys; Hibernauts hiring a backing band to nail all The Four Tops’ dance moves; Via Dove’s legendary Rolling Stones set so sharp it blossomed into a full-on tribute project, Street Fighting Band; and The Blind Eyes’ arena-worthy Fleetwood Mac with a cast of guest Stevies. (Ed note: Jason Robinson, who contributed to this article, absolutely tore up the stage as a shirtless, belligerent Iggy Pop when his band The Orbz did their take on The Stooges last year.) Plan on being at the Firebird both nights. And get there early: Oasis hits the stage at 8:30! EVAN SULT W/ JASON ROBINSON >>PREVIEW
The Raveonettes
Melody’s Echo Chamber The Firebird
September 28
All Ages
It’s the classic fairytale: a handsome man meets a beautiful woman. They look into each other’s eyes and they instantly know. They were meant to…form a noise pop duo. While you may expect an ending with more sunsets and less guitar riffs, the story of Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo’s actual experience is much better than any happily ever after. The Raveonettes are already enjoying their ten-year anniversary by heading out on tour once more. Known for their fantastic boy-girl harmonies, The Raveonettes weave somber lyrical content with catchy pop melodies. Their hard-edged guitar, layers of electronics, and driving beats can be detected in the roots of contemporaries like the Drums, Dum Dum Girls, and Scot rockers Glasvegas. This tour brings with it their new album, Observator, dropping September 11. After the darkness of last year’s Raven in the Grave, Observator is a return to their signature style, but the Raveonettes are still pushing their sound. Observator is their first time incorporating piano. With her hypnotic, French-inflected dream-pop voice, opener Melody’s Echo Chamber is the perfect gateway act to the alluring world of the Raveonettes. Rave on! Hannah Westerman
(calendar continued)
2720 cherokee
2720 Cherokee Street, 63118 The Big Wu, Dirt Foot EOTO, Spankalicious
Lemp Arts Center
3301 Lemp Avenue, 63118
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SEP Lion House 15
the HEavy Anchor
30
SEP 21 22
5226 Gravois Avenue, 63116 Schwervon!, Frances With Wolves The Dirty Pigeons, Huck Boozer & the 40oz Band The Skekses, The Hobosexuals, Letter To Memphis Dirty Feathers, Fumer
Off Broadway
3511 Lemp Avenue, 63118
Cree Rider Family Band, Royal Smokestacks, The Union Electric Pig Roast feat. Old Lights, Bob Reuter’s Alley Ghost, Hobo Knife ROSCO, The Volta Sound, Tone Rodent The Shivas, Troubadour Dali Bob Log III, Cheap Time, Thee Fine Lines Mutts, The Feed Jans Project, The Deciders, Rough Shop Tennis Pokey LaFarge & The South City Three, Colonel Ford Will Johnson, Anders Parker
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SEP 7 8 14 21
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SEP 1 2 4 6 18 20 21 27 28 29
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Lemmons
5800 Gravois Avenue, 63116
Middle Class Fashion, Auto Man, Highway Heat The Haddonfields, Orange Iguanas Spot Ons, Buffalo Clover
SEP 14 22 29
Pop’s 400 Monsanto Avenue, Sauget IL, 62201 Point Autumn Invasion feat. Brookroyal
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SEP 15
The Killers, as portrayed by Volcanoes.
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Photo: Bryan Sutter
Redding and The Band. Kincheloe attributes the big, classic sound to the family vibe. “It definitely brings an automatic level of comfortableness,” she said. “We’re already so familiar with each other and so tour [is] easy. You already have that level of intimacy because you’ve know them for that long.”
reviews
HOT ROCKS = STL release
Guest List Each month we ask a specialist to pick some new release musts. This month’s Guest List, our very first, is assembled by Anna Zachritz of Euclid Records, aka DJ SuperConductor Deerhoof Breakup Song Polyvinyl
Sep 14 | On white vinyl!
JJ DOOM Keys to the Kuffs Lex
Sep 18 | It’s a bird, it’s a plane! No, it’s DOOOOOM!!!! MF Doom and Jneiro Jarel team up, with a whole slew of sidekicks, including Beth Gibbons of Portishead, to take over the world!
Flying Lotus Until the Quiet Comes Warp Iamwhoiamwhoami Kin To Whom It May Concern/Cooperative Music
Sep 4 | Want to kill an hour? Youtube Iamwhoiamwhoami
Dum Dum Girls End of Daze Sub Pop Sep 25
Efterklang Piramida 4AD
The Union Electric Time Is Gold
Rankoutsider Records
Strange characters and their stranger tales dwell in the corners of Tim Rakel’s subconscious: Chinese workers living in tunnels beneath Southern California and Mexico, their residence kept secret until a mammoth fire drives them aboveground in a bona fide Chinese fire drill. A slave fleeing Texas for Illinois after her interracial marriage to a confederate soldier, just five years after the American Civil War; a chemist killed by insects mutated from the DDT he inadvertently brought home from work; a folk-singing bluesman, stabbed by a jealous contemporary, retaliating by shooting off the envious peer’s genitals in perhaps the greatest substantiation of not bringing a knife to a gunfight. In The Union Electric’s debut fulllength album, Time is Gold, Rakel distills these tales—all true—through songs that put a wild twist on traditional folk, country,
Sep 25
Murs & Fashawn This Generation Duck Down Sep 25
Homeboy Sandman First of a Living Breed Stones Throw Sep 18
Pazy and the Black Hippies WaHo Ha Secret Stash
Sep 4 | Unearthed by the fine folks at Secret Stash Records. Nigerian deep rock-steady grooves and afrobeat rhythms! Originally recorded in 1978.
Kid Koala 12 Bit Blues Ninja Tune Sep 18
Django Django Django Django Ribbon Music Sep 25
Check out
ELEVENMUSICMAG.COM for more reviews and music!
24 | ELEVEN | elevenmusicmag.com
Karate Bikini
Sauce of the Applehorse Self Release
Whatever else Tim McAvin has been up to over the years—and it’s been plenty, including a stint not too long ago in pop-structuralists Tight Pants Syndrome—he seems in Karate Bikini to be writing principally to amuse himself and his friends. So much the better for all of us. Humor may be one of the great engines of rock music, but it’s a treacherous one. Karate Bikini has been horsing around all along, starting with their anthem “Karate Bikini,” and including “Dropping Depth Charges,” two songs that’ve gotten plenty of play on KDHX despite having never been officially released. They’re catchy, harmonized pop gems built on equal parts repetition and “huh?” moments that keep the ear refreshed and the brain
and rock by layering them beneath aching arcs of punk guitar and exquisite, indiefriendly horn pairings. This aural tour de force is fashioned by The Union Electric’s Glenn Burleigh, Melinda Cooper and Mic Boshans, with Rakel manning the helm on lead vocals that veer between the Old 97s’ most driving numbers and Metallica’s James Hetfield at his creepiest. Rakel is especially eerie in Thylacine, a tune about a beast hunted to extinction, with lyrics derived from a poem by St. Louis writer and poet Stefene Russell (“Suitcase jaw, knife stripes/They eat the bones”). Despite such intense source material, The Union Electric never takes itself too seriously. Time Is Gold begins with “Truman,” on its surface a rather belated protest song against that president’s involvement in nuclear warfare, but which reveals itself as a tongue-in-cheek satire on the sole political statement made by legendary country duo The Louvin Brothers. “It’s kind of poking fun at them,” says Rakel. “All their songs are about Jesus except that one about atomic power.” The band extends the joke by contrasting an apocalyptic chorus with wonderfully Opry-worthy harmonies. (Humor also triumphs in a song entirely penned in tribute to the George W. Bush shoe-thrower.) From famed poet Vachel Lindsay, the titular character of “St. Francis of Illinois” (“before there was spoken word,” Rakel contends, “that’s what he was doing”) to Woody Guthrie, many of Rakel’s greatest influences were Midwestern storytellers. The Union Electric carries that torch right here in St. Louis in its awesome debut. Kyle Kapper
amused—and thus open. There are funny lines in McAvin’s lyrics but a real, visceral emotion inside the songs as well. Masterful examples abound. “It’s a Gas” works because the band plays it straight with the chords, and the guitars keep the tension up. When McAvin and band harmonize on the chorus lyrics—”It’s a gas / it will pass / right through”—they can capitalize on both the George Harrison and intestinal references. And this line only thinly disguises the rest of the lyrics’ bleakness; it sounds like it may’ve been written in the aftermath of his Tight Pants departure, especially on the preceding line “songs sung blue / what will you do / now that they’re through with you?” In this context, the chorus ultimately becomes a kind of meditative calming technique for a rueful protagonist. Not a bad emotional range for a line that could more easily land as a simple “Break Like the Wind” Spinal Tap punchline. It’s not all funny, of course, but neither is the best humor. The whole album, in fact, carries a sense of dogged optimism, from
reviews the lyrics to John Horton’s fluid guitar lines, and especially Michelle Rae’s baritone sax notes—sax being an especially tricky instrument, in my opinion, when trying to negotiate emotional resonance. Rae and Horton trade leads on “Hot Box” such that a relatively gnarly habit is rendered almost sweet, and in “Medic,” McAvin is able to make a request of his friends and himself: “take those rotten bananas,” he implores, “and turn them into a bread.” evan sult
Estevan Gloria
Self released
These days a lot of bands throw the phrase “shoegaze” around when describing their sound, but one begins to wonder if they really mean “lo-fi.” That is likely the case with STL’s on Estevan, a band formed in 2010 during the waning days of beloved mopesters Chapters. Estevan’s simultaneously loud but murky rock songs don’t so much recall Loveless-era My Bloody Valentine, but are more akin to The Replacements or Guided By Voices. That genre distinction aside, the boys in Estevan find the sweet spot between sludge and clarity, throwing down an impressive musical gauntlet on their 5-song EP. Between the ’90s-era alternative sound of the boozesoaked rager “Chasing All The Ghosts Away” and the elegiac, almost Uncle Tupelo-aping closer “Oregon,” Estevan’s debut EP finds the sounds of a tight, rowdy band coming to its feet. Jason Robinson
Following The Water Confluence Blues Self release
They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but every once in a while a band arrives with a name so apt that its moniker alone tells you most of what you need to know. Following The Water is that band—and their debut album, Confluence Blue, fits the bill too. It’s as though the duo, made up of Sean Bennight and Brian Ranney, was most influenced by the convergence and steady roll of St. Louis’ two mighty rivers. In every song, the band channels the sounds and emotions of all the bluegrass, rock and roll, Dixieland, country and Delta blues our rivers have carried along the shore over the years. While not the strongest vocalists, the band writes and arranges well enough that their individual voices fit snugly with the music. Songwriting duties are split
between the two, and both musicians take turns on all the instruments, flexing not only their writing abilities but their considerable musicianship on songs that vary from up-tempo jigs like “Already Never After” to somber dirges like “There Was a Time,” even flirting with politics and social commentary on “American Fool.” Hugh Scott
Girls
Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost True Panther Records
Two summers ago I was seduced into a white Honda. The driver was a conspicuously hip English major from Webster. The car was his mother’s, the album he cued up was his own. Alcohol dazed and enchanted by proximity, I was ready when he promised that I would “love this band.” He put on Girls’ Album: “Lust for Life”’s frantic, bleating guitar chords and open-hearted pining came straight at my heart and stole me for two minutes and twenty-four seconds. I fell in love twice at once: with a cat who would show me the meaning of unrequited love, and with a band from San Francisco whose music has since become my solace. But this summer, singer/guitarist Christopher Owens announced the end of
The Rebellious Jukebox
Girls. On July 2, Girls’ label, True Panther, posted Owens’s parting words. He cited “personal reasons” for the split, and hoped leaving Girls would enable him to “progress.” Girls’ other half, Chet “JR” White, has so far remained silent. Girls’ 2010 Broken Dreams Club EP is a testament to being at odds with living. “I just don’t understand how the world keeps going nowhere,” Owens says in that album’s eponymous track. “Carolina” is the sound a soul makes when it has lost touch with reality, imagining itself into an alternate life. If Owens is truly done, Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost is the third and last Girls record. Released last September, the record charts a sequence in which Owens anticipates his next love, loses her in a swell of grief, comes to terms with never knowing when love will show up, and finds virtue in keeping faith for its visits. “Honey Bunny” is Owens’s giddy love note to a girl who may or may not exist, and his restless quest is depicted in the video for “Vomit”: anxious, relentless, he searches San Francisco by night in a glossy, lacquer-red Mustang. There is resilience in Girls’ pain. As low as they go, Girls’ songs are ultimately uplifting, and over and over the message resounds: you will be happy again. I mourn for Girls’ decision to dissolve. But: if you love something, let it go, right? I am hoping Girls comes back to me. Blair stiles
Life at 45 RPM by Matt Harnish
Welcome, spinners of the little records, to the inaugural edition of the Rebellious Jukebox, in which I will try to make sense of this city’s long & storied music scene, at 45 revolutions per minute. Each month I’ll feature a new (or at least new-ish) 45 release, which I’ll then compare & contrast with a 45 from our collected past. Or I’ll just write about some records I like. Whatever. First up we have the debut vinyl offering from Kentucky Knife Fight. They’ve been around for a few years now & have evolved from an Animals-y simmering R&B garage outfit into a high-energy capital “R” rock act. The first few times I saw ‘em I really thought they only needed some sleazy organ or a horn section for that little extra oomph & hey, guess what, Side A’s “Misshapen Love” has horns all over it. It’s a nice Black Crowes-style Southern rock dance floor filler, full of slide guitars, the aforementioned horns, & some “woman-done-me-wrong” self-deprecation. Side B’s “Love The Lonely” starts all sullen & broody, & then builds into a loud guitar storm with some nice dynamics. Good job. Gene Anderson is another fine St. Louis artist who has evolved over the years. Now known, after a stint with P-Funk, as the Poo Poo Man, & a king of the modern Southern party-blues circuit, he started out here in town backed by his band The Dynamic Psychedelics, releasing some top notch funkyfuzzy late 60’s Soul with “What’s Wrong With You Girl” b/w the more typically Northern Soul gem “Baby I Dig You,” which had some underground dancehall popularity in Britain long after it sank without a trace here in the US. I like The Poo Poo Man’s work through the ‘80s up to the present day, but if there’s any more of this stuff floating around, I’m dying to hear it. Find Kentucky Knife Fight’s record at all your local record shops or kentuckyknifefight.net. Stumble across a pretty scratched-up copy of Gene Anderson’s record in a thrift store or pay some nerd on eBay a bunch of money for it.
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ephemera
THE WAY BACK PAGE
Paper Time Machine
Curated by Paige Brubeck
September 16, 1997 A$$troland / Very Metal / Desolation September 20, 1997 17 Years / The Gear Grinders / El Gordo’s Revenge at The Paradise / poster by Jerome Gaynor
Posters are a surprisingly tricky medium. They work like advertising, before the show; then as merch, the day of the show; then as a sort of bookmark in one’s life forever after. They exist in time as much as they do in space, and in memory strongest of all. With that in mind, Eleven presents Paper Time Machine, in which we look at this month in St. Louis rock history.
September 23, 2011 The Horrors / The Stepkids at The Firebird / by Jason Potter
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September 5, 2008 Thom Donovan / LucaBrasi / Carillon at Cicero’s / by Jon Vogl
September 24, 2007 The Flaming Lips / Birds of Avalon at The Pageant / by Lindsey Kuhn
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