Riverfront Times - May 2, 2018

MAY 2–8, 2018 I VOLUME 42 I NUMBER 18

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“I think they need to make more activities for the kids. Free activities, more school and education stuff. When we was coming up we had all types of stuff going on, free programs and everything. Now they don’t have nothing for the kids, and when they do have stuff, you have to pay for it. I’m a single parent — I don’t have it like that. And I’m mad because my sons have to sit out of certain stuff because I don’t have help and don’t have the funds.”

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TABLE OF CONTENTS FEATURE

14.

The Man in the Sweat-Filled Arena He’s 39. His back hurts.

He’s a new grandpa. But Jim Hoffarth still wants to be king of the ring.

Written by

MIKE FITZGERALD Cover photograph by

ZIA NIZAMI

NEWS

ARTS

DINING

CULTURE

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33

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The Lede

Calendar

Your friend or neighbor, captured on camera

Seven days worth of great stuff to see and do

Cheryl Baehr has the time of her life at Privado

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Police

A shooting at a south city bar involves no less than four SLMPD officers

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Film

Robert Hunt finds Godard Mon Amour a strangely sour look at Jean-Luc Godard

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Food News

Courts

Gin Week is bringing the world to St. Louis

Convicted of murder, Christopher Dunn has a new chance to sway the judge

Battles

Daniel Hill watches the beat go on at Fresh Produce, now hosted monthly at the Monocle

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Homespun

Christian Schaeffer checks in as Skinker DeBaliviere gets ready for the second annual PorchFest

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Live Music

The smartphone ban at Jack White’s show won’t stop Jaime Lees

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Out Every Night

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

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This Just In

Op-Ed

This week’s new concert announcements

A small-town Missouri newspaper publisher is the latest supporting character in an increasingly strange saga

MAY 2 - 8, 2018

Kevin Klein went from Ste. Genevieve to New Zealand to back home again

Sarah Fenske checks out Rush Bowls and Kiin Essentially Thai

Greg Treifenbach makes a few ride-sharing confessions in Uberville

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Side Dish

First Look

Transportation

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NEWS

9

Confessions of an Uber Driver Written by

ALLISON BABKA

M

any people drive for Uber as a way to make some extra cash. But meeting drunk, self-proclaimed philosophers, celebrities and psychologists may be worth even more than the paycheck.

As an Uber driver in St. Louis, Greg Triefenbach has met hundreds of these riders, and now he’s memorialized their hijinks in his new book Uberville: St. Louis Uber Stories. Through 170 pages of sordid tales (and quite a few uplifting ones), Triefenbach dishes on what St. Louisans really say and do in the back of his car at 3:30 a.m.

“It’s like I’m telling a story in a bar. That’s pretty much exactly how I write,” Treifenbach says.

With chapter titles like “Indecent Proposal,” “The Different Forms of Drunk” and — most intriguingly — “The Story That Should Not Be Told,” Treifenbach’s book is a peek at locals who are, errr, fully experiencing life in their own way.

In one chapter, the author details what it’s like to drive during St. Louis’ notorious Halloween spectacles: I got to wrap up an incredibly entertaining evening with a very drunk female Chewbacca. Even though her mask was tilted back over her face because she was having trouble breathing with it on, I was impressed with her ability to stay in character the whole trip home. She was sitting in the back having a conversation with me while speaking drunk Wookiee. The oddest thing about the entire ride was I’m pretty sure I understood what she was saying.

Unsurprisingly, Triefenbach — who began driving for Uber in 2015, back when the ride-sharing service was operating without regulatory approval, drawing Continued on pg 11

Greg Triefenbach has seen it all: puke, piss, shit and even some crazy propositions. | COURTESY OF GREG TRIEFENBACH

BAR SHOOTING DRAWS PROBE Written by

DOYLE MURPHY

S

t. Louis police are investigating an early-morning shootout between off-duty officers and another customer at a Tower Grove South sports bar Friday.

The chaotic confrontation happened about 1:30 a.m. in the parking lot of Bomber O’Brien’s, 4621 Beck Avenue. Police Chief John Hayden told reporters during a news conference the following morning that four of his officers, all off duty, were hanging out at the bar, eating and drinking.

A 32-year-old officer got into a confrontation with a 22-year-old bar patron, which led to gunfire in the parking lot, Hayden said.

“When we arrived there were two persons shot,” the chief said. “One

was an off-duty officer and another was the person who turned out to be the suspect.”

Hayden said the 22-year-old fired first, hitting the officer in the wrist and shoulder. A fellow officer, who is 25, returned fire and hit the bar patron in the legs and upper shoulder, according to the chief.

The wounded officer and 22-yearold were both in stable condition at the hospital Friday morning. Hayden said police recovered a gun used by the 22-year-old from the shooting scene. The officer’s gun is believed to have been his service weapon.

The chief said police are still investigating what led to the violent confrontation, but he expects the 22-year-old to be charged with assault. Fox 2 News spoke to the 22-year-old’s father early Friday outside the bar. Frank Demanuele Jr. told the station his son had been celebrating his birthday with two friends.

The trio later went outside, and two of the friends left while the 22-year-old was still in his van in the riverfronttimes.com

parking lot. They later got a call that shots had been fired.

The father said his son had gotten into it a week before with an off-duty officer at the bar over some spilled drinks.

“They had an altercation, and the off-duty officer wanted to fight with him,” Demanuele told Fox 2. “When he found out it was an off-duty police officer, they told him they didn’t want no problems and everything else.

And we don’t know if this is linked in to what’s going on up here or what’s going on.”

Hayden said police are still investigating what led up to the shooting.

Asked about the department’s policies regarding officers drinking while armed, he said “The policy is about drinking responsibly, whether you’re armed or not.”

The shooting is being investigated by the department’s Force Investigation Unit, and all four officers who were at the bar have been placed on leave in keeping with the department’s standard protocol. n

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After Witnesses Recant, Convicted Killer Has New Hope Written by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI

T

he shot that rang out just after midnight on May 19, 1990, traveled toward a group of teenage boys who were hanging out on a porch on Labadie Avenue in St. Louis’ Wells-Goodfellow neighborhood. It struck fourteen-year-old Rico Rogers in the head, killing him.

Two of the boys on the porch would eventually testify that Christopher Dunn fired the fatal shot, and St. Louis prosecutors turned that testimony into a conviction.

Now, almost 28 years later, a Texas County judge is preparing to render a ruling on whether Dunn’s current fate — life in prison, plus another 90 years — should be thrown out. Dunn exhausted his appeals years ago, but his latest legal strategy, a writ of habeas corpus asking the judge to vacate his conviction, relies on several new pieces of evidence.

Namely, the two witnesses key to Dunn’s conviction at trial in 1991

Christopher Dunn, center, with his mother and uncle. | COURTESY OF KIRA CAYWOOD are now claiming their testimony was fabricated and coerced. The first witness, Demorris Stepp, recanted in 2005. And in 2017, Dunn’s legal team located the second witness, Michael Davis.

In 1990, Stepp was fifteen. Davis was twelve. Today, both men are incarcerated — Stepp in Missouri, Davis in California. In sworn affidavits, both men claim they knowingly lied to implicate Dunn in the shooting.

During Dunn’s 1991 trial, the prosecution reportedly presented the murder as the result of a fight between gang “wannabes.” That description is backed up, in part, in the more recent affidavits sworn to by the witnesses.

According to Davis and Stepp, their friend-group was affiliated with the Bloods. Dunn was rumored to be a Crip. At the time, the notorious feud between the two West Coast gangs carried weight in the minds of the young gang members in St. Louis. In this

STREAK’S CORNER • by Bob Stretch

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case, according to the affidavits, Dunn’s allegiance to a rival gang made him a reasonable suspect.

In an affidavit signed in 2016, Davis writes that he and Stepp had planned to tell police that Dunn had committed the shooting, even though “from my vantage point, I could not see or identify the shooter.”

Later in the affidavit, though, Davis claims that he did express some hesitation about testifying against Dunn. In response, he says, police showed him graphic pictures of Rogers’ dead body, and even put him on the phone with Rogers’ mother, which “only added to the pressure.”

“They continued to push me to testify that the shooter was Christopher Dunn and I eventually testified in court, claiming I had seen Dunn at the time of the shooting,” Davis writes. “That testimony was false.”

Similarly, Stepp writes in his affidavit that he never saw

the shooter. At the time of the shooting, Stepp was facing the possibility of significant jail time for an unrelated robbery, and he claims to have struck a deal with prosecutors to land a more lenient sentence in his own case.

“I lied during trial because the prosecutor said I would go home if I said everything he asked me to say about Chris Dunn to get the conviction,” Stepp writes in his affidavit. “I was facing 15 to 30 years in prison so I was given a deal to lie. Who wouldn’t have.”

Last year, a third affidavit was added to Dunn’s cache of evidence — an independent eyewitness who was also on the porch that night in 1990. Though he’d been named by other witnesses interrogated during the murder investigation, he was never formally interviewed until 2017, when a private investigator found him living and working in St. Louis.

“It was not possible for any of us to identify the shooter,” the man writes in his affidavit, adding that, had he been called to testify in Dunn’s trial, “I would have testified that Chris Dunn’s name came up immediately after the shooting as speculation, and from there, people began to believe that the shooter had been Chris Dunn, even though none of us could see the shooter.”

Dunn’s attorney, Kent Gipson, filed the writ last year, asking the judge to toss out the 27-year-old conviction. The writ is filed against superintendent of the South Central Correctional Center, where Dunn is incarcerated.

In February, Texas County Circuit Judge William Earl Hickle set a final hearing date for Dunn’s writ for May 30, though Gipson expects the result of that hearing to be appealed Continued on pg 13

UBERVILLE Continued from pg 9 consternation from the area’s taxi commission — tells Riverfront Times that the most exciting encounters happen late at night as the bars begin to close. A night owl himself, he cruises near the popular watering holes between 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., waiting for the app to direct him to inebriated partiers trying to get home.

But Treifenbach has a genius method that nets him countless fares each evening. In Uberville, he shares that he uses an embellished Facebook profile — OK, OK, a “hot girl” — within college-oriented groups to get the scoop on parties and events around town that will be swarming with people in need of a ride home.

“As a ‘good-looking girl,’ I get invited to everything,” Treifenbach tells RFT. “The students all travel in a pack and do these parties together, so then I go down and just go back and forth [between the party and residences]. And it was a Wash U kid who told me to do that!”

As Treifenbach mentions in Uberville, his vehicle has served as the stage for break-ups, make-ups and every kind of bodily function imaginable — especially during the wee hours. He’s dealt with riders’ urine, vomit and even a near-death experience. Treifenbach had quite a scare after one passenger left his zoned-out friend in the car.

We won’t spoil the entire story, but here’s a snippet from a chapter titled “Pass Out Removal Service”: I turned to let his friend know we were here and was shocked at what I saw. The guy was lying on his side with his eyes open and staring nowhere. I thought he was dead. I turned the car off, got out of the car and opened the backseat to see if he was ok. I shook him, no response. I put my ear to his face and could hear him breathing. The dude was passed out with his eyes open. I’ve heard people joke about others being so drunk they were catatonic but I didn’t think that was a real thing.

And of course, Treifenbach has endured his share of propositions.

In the book, he shares the many ways in which riders have hit on him, from men offering $500 for a blow job to young women cuddling up to him in hopes of scoring a free trip.

“It’s just like they were working guys all night for free drinks,” he laughs. “It took me a while to figure

that one out.”

Because his passengers are so unpredictable and Ubering takes a huge toll on cars, Treifenbach bought a used Kia Optima specifically for shuttling people around. He shares that riders are divided on sitting up front versus sitting in the back and that younger fares are baffled by the car’s ancient music setup.

“This car has a tape deck in it, and they’re always asking, ‘Do you have a USB? Do you have a thing so I can plug in my phone?’”

Treifenbach says. “I’m like, ‘I don’t

have one of those, but if you have a mixtape, I can play that.’ They’re like, ‘I don’t even know what you’re talking about right now.’”

In his day job, Treifenbach is head coach for the St. Louis Diving Club in St. Peters, having been a five-time All-American while at Louisiana State University in the 1990s. His students know about his Uber gig and frequently beg to read Uberville, which he’s nixed because of the adult nature of the stories within.

“There’s this eight-year-old boy on the team who’s been talking

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to me about reading the book to them and giving them one, and I know I can’t,” Treifenbach laughs.

“I tell him, ‘You’ve got to talk to your parents,’ and he says, ‘But they won’t let me’ and I say, ‘Well then you can’t have one.’ I think he’ll steal one if he sees it laying around. I always tell his parents, ‘He’s trying to get that book, so you need to check his bag!”

But despite the creepers, the drunks and the intimidators that Treifenbach mentions in Uberville, he says he’s grateful for the chance to connect Continued on pg 12

MAY 2 - 8, 2018

RIVERFRONT TIMES

11

Eric Greitens remains under fire, but the motives of those seeking his downfall have become part of the story thanks to two large cash payments. | DOYLE MURPHY

INVITE YOU AND A GUEST TO

[OP-ED]

The Bagman Is a Newsman Written by

SARAH FENSKE

WEDNESDAY, MAY 9 7:00 P.M.

I

f you previously thought the intrigue surrounding Governor Eric Greitens was straight out of House of Cards, wait ‘til you catch Monday’s episode.

In court that afternoon, the attorney representing Greitens’ most vocal accuser was forced to reveal the person who gave him $50,000 to encourage his advocacy — and it turned out to be a politically connected newspaper publisher.

Attorney Albert Watkins, who is representing the ex-husband of the hairdresser with whom Greitens had an affair, appealed all the way to the Missouri Supreme Court to conceal the source of two $50,000 cash payments made to his firm earlier this year. With appeals exhausted, the Clayton attorney offered two answers that only deepened the mystery. He said he’d received $50,000 in cash from a courier “identified only as Skyler,” as the Kansas City Star reported.

The other $50,000? That came from Scott Faughn, who publishes the Missouri Times.

P r e v i o u s l y t h e m ay o r o f Poplar Bluff, Faughn got into the

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newspaper business in 2012. He’s become a Jefferson City power broker. He hosts This Week in Missouri Politics, which airs at 11 a.m. on Sundays on KDNL (ABC30), as well as on stations in Kansas City and rural Missouri. He’s also a frequent guest on KMOX, where he has been highly critical of Greitens without ever mentioning any financial role in supporting his accusers.

As the Star first reported, one of the major sponsors of Faughn’s show is Sterling Bank. The bank, which is located in Poplar Bluff, is a major player in the low-income housing tax credits that Greitens has vowed to reform — cutting off a large source of revenue for banks like Sterling.

Lt. Governor Mike Parson, who would become governor if Greitens is impeached, supports restoring funding for the tax credits.

In a fifteen-minute monologue live-streamed on Twitter Monday evening, a defiant Faughn failed to explain the reason for the payment or the source of the money. Instead, he sought to distance himself from Greitens’ accusers, saying that he’d never met Watkins’ client or KMOV journalist Lauren Trager, who first broke the story.

And then, bizarrely, he attempted to take the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for its ethics. Faughn apparently took great umbrage that columnist Tony Messenger tweeted that his involvement with the money delivery could cause ethical problems for Missouri Times reporters.

“I’m not going to take that from the Post-Dispatch,” Faughn proclaimed, claiming the daily

has taken money from supporters of Obamacare and then written favorable stories about it. “By God, could you live in a larger glass house?” he demanded.

Faughn did not respond to a direct message seeking further explanation of his role delivering the money to Watkins or where it came from.

In his monologue, Faughn explained only that he’d hired Watkins because he’s working on a book about the 2016 governor’s race.

“This is the juiciest story of all time,” he said at one point. “The fact I’m now in it is unfortunate, but you can go to scottfaughn.com and order your book. It’s not the best thing for me, but it is good for the book, so I’ll take it.”

But what might be good for Faughn’s book could also be very bad for Missouri journalists.

Greitens has already tried to suggest the press is out to get him; the fact that a prominent pundit given a platform by KDNL and KMOX has, in fact, some sort of vested interest in championing the governor’s critics can only add fuel to the fire.

Sure enough, the arguments were already surfacing on Twitter Monday night; it’s surely only a matter of time before Greitens starts paying to sponsor posts on a social media feed near you blasting the “liberal media” for paying his accusers. Never mind that Faughn, a self-described “simple

West Butler County hillbilly,” is no quote-unquote Soros liberal .... and even started his paper with former House Speaker Rod Jetton, a Republican with a sex scandal of his own in his past. (Jetton is no longer involved with the paper.)

“Just to put this whole #Greitens affair in perspective: Scott Faughn, owner of Missouri Times gave at least $50,000 to attorney Al Watkins to go after Greitens. That means the media is directly involved in this political hit job,” tweeted an account called Avenger of Blood on Monday night.

Queried an account calling itself “Straight Don Lemon,” “If @scottfaughn was getting paid, what other journalists were getting paid?? Any at all? Fair question.”

And so it goes. As usual, journalism will take the black eye, and those of us who would never courier $50,000 cash for a “friend,” much less have a “friend” with $50,000 cash in the first place, will keep plodding away trying to call it as we see it.

But we digress. What could possibly happen next in this stranger-than-fiction soap opera?

Tune in for the next episode.

Might we learn more about this mysterious “Skyler”? And after that, might Scott Faughn have to reveal his sources?

UBERVILLE Continued from pg 11

millennials are doing and what they think, but I’m actually talking with them and know what’s going on with them. It’s changed my perspective on people.

“You hear how ‘dangerous’ St. Louis is, but you meet with people and hang out with them. My perception about my own city has changed. I’ve gone out and done my own research,” Treifenbach says. n

with so many of his riders.

“Everybody gets their information on what the world is like from the news or from social media, and if there’s anything I can be truly grateful about it’s that I’m actually out there meeting [people],” Treifenbach says. “Like, everybody writes about what the

NEW HOPE Continued from pg 10 regardless of the outcome. The state, he believes, wants to keep Dunn in prison, and it is not about to give up without taking the matter to a Missouri appellate court.

Gipson isn’t willing to give up easy, either; he says he’ll also appeal a denial to the state appellate court.

Sarah Fenske is the editor in chief of the Riverfront Times. Follow her on Twitter @sarahfenske

Beyond the appeals, a ruling in Dunn’s favor would mean the state would have no choice but to let him go or re-try the original murder case. Gipson doesn’t think the state would take the second option.

“The prosecutor would get laughed out of court,” he says.

“When you only have two witnesses and both of them recant their story, what else do you have?” n

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He’s 39. His back hurts. He’s a new grandpa. But Jim Hoffarth still wants to be king of the ring

THE MAN I N

T H E

SWEAT-FILLED

ARENA

O

n a cold, rainy night in late March, Jim Hoffarth stands in the gravel parking lot of the community center in East Carondelet, Illinois, a few miles up the road from the Jefferson Barracks Bridge across the Mississippi. Despite the chill, he’s still sweating from the bout that had ended minutes before.

Hoffarth is pissed. Known by his nom de guerre “the Big Texan,” Hoffarth is one of the St. Louis region’s top professional wrestlers. Tonight, though, the referee has just disqualified him for an illegal move: Hoffarth heaved his opponent, a bull-necked badass named “Unstable” Dave Vaughn, over the ring’s top rope.

This occurred moments after Hoffarth viciously knee-slammed Vaughn in the crotch. The move electrified the crowd,

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touching off a thunderous explosion of boos and cheers, but it also earned Hoffarth a reprimand.

When the ref called the bout at four minutes and three seconds, he raised Vaughn’s right arm in the air, setting off more wild boos and cheers and sending Hoffarth packing into the wet night.

“Oh yeah, I thought I was going to go longer than that,” Hoffarth says sharply.

Different promoters have different rules, he says. Herb Simmons, the promoter of tonight’s program, the Wrestling Explosion, and the power player behind Southern Illinois Championship Wrestling, is “old school,” Hoffarth explains.

“It’s a little bit different if we were over in St. Louis. St. Louis has their own little rules,” he says. “You can’t use weapons. You can’t use Continued on pg 16

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SWEAT-FILLED ARENA Continued from pg 14 a steel chair.”

But Simmons, “he’s got different rules,” Hoffarth says. “He’s an oldschool rule guy. So throwing people over the top rope is a no-no.”

Nonetheless, Hoffarth still figures he will get paid for his night’s work. The money would not amount to a whole lot — maybe $75, maybe $100, depending on the head count and whether Simmons was pleased with Hoffarth’s performance.

“So I don’t know, I haven’t talked to him yet,” Hoffarth says. “But if he still thinks the match was OK, and if he still liked it, he shouldn’t cut me.”

Hoffarth will get his chance to redeem himself in three weeks’ time at the South Broadway Athletic Club in St. Louis. There, he must defend the Mid-Missouri Wrestling Alliance championship belt that he had won in January.

“I’ll be ready,” the Big Texan says.

O

n the phone, Hoffarth sounds decent and thoughtful as he discusses the history and nuances of his avocation. By day, he works as the manager of an auto parts store in Fairview Heights, Illinois, and it’s easy to imagine Hoffarth patiently explaining to a customer at the counter the merits of the various brands and styles of windshield wiper blades in stock.

Married and with three sons, Hoffarth a few weeks ago welcomed the birth of his first grandchild, a little girl, into the world.

But in person, kitted for combat, Hoffarth is the picture of menace.

He stands well over six feet tall and weighs nearly 300 pounds. Wrestling in East Carondelet, he wears black heavy boots, camouflage pants and a black sleeveless shirt that exposes arms like torpedoes.

Most striking is his mask. Even when he’s finished for the night, he keeps it on. Stitched from shiny leather, with crude slits for his nose, mouth and blue eyes, the mask is Hoffarth’s trademark, his badge.

Hoffarth refuses to remove it out of respect to professional wrestling’s code of kayfabe, in which a wrestler never breaks character in public. And as the Big Texan, Hoffarth is a heel, a comic-book villain who revels in pissing off the home crowd and thrashing their good-guy heroes.

Jim Hoffarth, better known as the Big Texan.

“Having people boo you, and screaming that they hate you,” Hoffarth says, “that is a thrill for a bad guy. That means you’re doing your job. You succeeded. And to have my arm raised at the end of that match, and have them give me that [championship] belt, in front of all of those people who are booing you...”

Hoffarth pauses a moment to savor the image.

“And even now it’s worse,” he says, “because they can’t believe you had just beaten their champion. You took their champion’s belt away from them. It’s the adrenaline. It’s the crowd.”

H

offarth started wrestling sixteen years ago, at the age of twenty-three.

Since then he’s been kicked, punched, pummeled and body-slammed by some of the biggest names in the business. Professional wrestlers normally don’t try to hurt each other.

They train and practice for years to learn the many complex moves and holds, and then how to execute them safely — and still sell the il-

lusion of danger.

Sometimes it’s not an illusion.

Sometimes moves go wrong, or someone’s timing is off, and a wrestler gets hurt, at times badly.

While the fighting might be staged, with outcomes usually pre-determined, the stunts are genuine. When a wrestler the size of an NFL linebacker jumps from the top of the rope onto a beefy opponent, the impact is the same as if they both experienced a lowspeed car collision. When they flip each other, bodies thudding into the tremoring mat, you can hear bones rattle and snap. There’s no faking that.

Never far from Hoffarth’s memory is the match more than a decade ago, when a former World Championship Wrestling star named Ron Powers body-slammed him onto a concrete floor, paralyzing Hoffarth from the waist-down.

Doctors at first thought Hoffarth would never walk again. The injury affected his spine and pinched his nerves.

After two weeks in a wheelchair, he spent the next eighteen months painstakingly learning to walk

again. As the feeling returned to his legs, he learned to move with crutches and then a cane before finally walking on his own. He was lucky, in a way. He had accrued many weeks of unused vacation, and that plus sick leave got his family through.

Then, against the advice of everyone around him, he started learning to wrestle again.

“The first thing that was difficult is wondering if I could still do it,” he says. “Because you have that little bit of fear in you. ‘What if it happens again?’”

His wife Aimi begged him to hang it up. Hoffarth wouldn’t hear of it.

“Those were some family arguments,” he says. “To this day, it’s family arguments.”

Hoffarth acknowledges the difficulty of rationalizing his decision.

He just knew he had to get back into the ring.

“Because this is all I wanted to do,” he says. “As a small kid, this is what my dream was. ... I had to do it for myself. I had to prove I could come back from that.”

All Hoffarth thought about, he says of that dark time, was getting payback against Powers.

“I still had the itch, the bug, or whatever you call it,” Hoffarth says. “I decided to go back. And six months after that, they decided to bring Powers back. They asked me, ‘Would you be willing?’ I said yeah. I got to prove it to myself that I can still do it. And that I’m at his level. It’s just one of those things.”

As he’s hanging out behind the community center in East Carondelet, a small girl approaches Hoffarth.

Kelsey Parker, ten, asks Hoffarth to pose for a picture with her.

Hoffarth, still in his mask, looms over Kelsey while her father, an East Carondelet police officer named Andrew Kersting, snaps photos with his smartphone.

“He’s my favorite,” Kelsey says of the Big Texan. “I love his moves.”

L

isten: That roar you hear is the sound of nearly 200 people going berserk.

Crammed into the East Carondelet Community Center, they scream and whistle; they hoot and shriek at the top of their lungs. An elderly woman and her teenage grandson stand a few feet from the ring and chant in well-practiced unison, over and over, “You suck! You suck!”

The targets of so much spiteful a n i m u s , s u c h Continued on pg 18

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SWEAT-FILLED ARENA Continued from pg 16 sheer animal hatred, are a man and woman who march haughtily through the parting crowd and toward the ring.

Wrestler Curtis Wylde, his long salt-and-pepper hair flowing past his shoulders, is dressed in a garish black robe with sequins and lion’s hair fringe. His “manager” is a woman with long red hair named WyldeFyre. She wears a black jacket, blouse and tight-fitting pants. Their faces are masks of arrogant scorn.

The pair strut through the catcalling crowd with a flamboyant, exaggerated hauteur that would put to shame the nobles of pre-revolutionary France. The pair enter the ring, survey the low-life pond scum in front of them, then raise their arms in triumph.

The boos, the cat calls, the shrieks of “you suck!” hit an ear-splitting crescendo — it’s as if someone turns the volume up to ten, then straight to twenty.

For Wylde and WyldeFyre, this is as good as it gets.

“Our purpose with our characters is to create a resounding,’We’re better than you.’ Of course in real

Curtis Wylde and manager WyldeFyre make their entry at a recent show. life, we’re a little different,” says WyldeFyre, who in real life goes by Chrissi Wylde. Together the married couple is raising a five-yearold daughter in St. Charles.

The Wyldes have been working together since 2005. After getting

married in 2010 and taking time off after the birth of their daughter, they’re back in the game, still hustling to make ends meet — he’s a self-employed DJ, she’s a massage therapist — while they pursue their wrestling dreams.

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“Once this thing bites you, it’s your release,” Curtis Wylde says.

“This is our release. It’s the only time, during that ten or fifteen minutes you are out there in front of a live crowd, that you can turn the world off. Turn Continued on pg 20

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SWEAT-FILLED ARENA Continued from pg 18 everything off and just concentrate on performing for that crowd.”

The payoff for the crowd is also a feeling of release.

“I think a lot of them are able to live vicariously through the people they see wrestling,” he says. “Or they’re able to suspend their disbelief long enough like wrestlers do and forget about the world, make everything go away for just that time and concentrate on that performance art that’s being created before their very eyes.”

For the Wyldes, their wrestling habit feeds their politics, and vice versa. Curtis Wylde is a Bernie Sanders Democrat who serves as one of Missouri’s representatives to the Democratic National Committee. The fact that most of his audience, which is overwhelmingly white and blue collar, probably voted for Trump (if they voted at all) does not faze him.

“Most of the fans can understand the separation between my political life and my pro wrestling life,” he says. “What’s interesting is that somebody on a Saturday night can boo us, hiss us, call us names, throw things at us, then on a Sunday morning they can like the political post that I put out on Facebook.”

Wylde laughs at the paradox at the heart of his dual life.

“I think that the fact that I’m a pro wrestler helps me promote progressive politics,” he says. “I don’t think I can promote politics through pro wrestling just because of my character. It would compromise the character. That’s what you got to do in politics. You gotta get people to like you. And in pro wrestling I got to get people to hate me.”

U

nder the guidance of impresario Sam Muchnik, the St. Louis region was once a hotbed of professional wrestling. A generation of fans spent Sunday mornings from the late 1950s through the early 1980s watching “Wrestling at the Chase” on KPLR (Channel 11).

The show, based at St. Louis’ legendary Chase Park Plaza hotel, featured such high-profile talent as Ric Flair, “Cowboy” Bob Orton, Harley Race, Dick the Bruiser, Gene Kiniski, Lou Thesz and Dory Funk Jr. Kiel Auditorium, located near downtown St. Louis, hosted a wide variety of wrestling events from the late 1950s until its closure in

20

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Legendary wrestling promoter Tony Casta.

1991, by which time Kiel ranked only behind Madison Square Garden as North America’s most famous wrestling venue.

Big-money wrestling has since moved on to the show-biz hype and glitz of WWE spectacles, with TV contracts, packed arena shows and complex morality tales and love triangles.

But a stubbornly loyal fan base still packs pro wrestling events across southern Illinois and Missouri, from American Legion posts to church basements. The epicenter of this world is the South Broadway Athletic Club, located just north of the Anheuser-Busch brewery.

On the second Saturday of the month, more than 600 people cram into the low-ceiling auditorium, lured by the relatively cheap tickets — $9 at the door for adults, $4 for kids — and an interactive entertainment event unlike anything other.

“For two-and-half, three hours they don’t have to worry about light bills, gas bills, they don’t have to worry about the weather,” says Simmons, the Illinois promoter.

“They can cheer the good guys on against the bad guys. It’s their escape from reality. It’s just like John Wayne. If you want to believe John Wayne shot the Indians, who am I to tell you different?”

For fans, there is a chance to see and cheer on heroes and boo villains from only a few feet away.

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“It’s one of the best entertainments around,” says Nick Stoltz during a recent match at South Broadway. “It’s a pretty cool thing to get into.”

Stoltz grew up watching pro wrestling at venues around St. Louis. He even harbored ambitions of someday stepping into the ring as a pro wrestler.

“That didn’t pan out,” he says of his dream. “But wrestling’s not fake. It’s entertainment, so you got to learn how to do it. You can mess up your life if you do it wrong.”

T

he South Broadway Athletic Club is a throwback to an earlier era, an artifact from a world that thrived decades ago. Built in 1904, it is a two-story monument to the human drive to sip deep from the chalice of square-ringed glory.

On a recent midweek morning, the building is quiet. The first floor reeks of beer and mustard, cigar smoke and decades-old sweat. Fading newspaper clippings cover a bulletin board by the entryway to the building’s bar.

Tony Casta, 79, runs the building and promotes the monthly wrestling events. Casta points to a yellowing clip posted on a bulletin board of a Post-Dispatch feature from October 1987. “That’s me when I was young,” Casta says, pointing at the thick-chested guy with jet black hair laying a ham-

merlock on a much larger wrestler named “the Executioner.”

Casta, who wrestled as “Little Dynamite,” stood five feet five inches tall and weighed 185 pounds in his prime.

“Everybody was bigger than I was,” Casta recalls, before launching into a litany of the many times much larger wrestlers turned him into a human missile.

Originally from Rhode Island, Casta wrestled from the early 1970s to late 1980s. He quit because of a severe shoulder injury, in addition to a long list of other injuries.

The pinkie finger on his right hand droops at a permanent right angle more than 30 years after landing on it in a nasty fall.

Yet he still misses his days in the ring.

“It’s like being a dope addict, I guess,” Casta says, chuckling. “I don’t know what it’s like to be a dope addict. But I got to have it.

Matches are going on, but when I’m up there watching it, I’m like this” — he grips the top of the table where he’s sitting, the sinews in his forearms rippling.

“I want to get up there,” he says.

“I can’t. I know it. My body says, ‘I can’t.’ But my brain says, ‘Oh, yeah, you can do that.’”

Casta spent 50 years at Missouri Pipe Fittings Co., where he retired as a general plant foreman.

“They were very lenient with me. I could miss a day or two if I had to

go somewhere,” Casta says. “And make another 50 bucks or something.”

Pro wrestlers in the St. Louis region have to hustle like hell. They spend their weekdays holding down full-time gigs, then spend weekends bombing across the Midwest and mid-South, traveling hundreds of miles between gigs in Kansas, Illinois, Iowa and Tennessee, then racing home to be ready for work by Monday morning.

If they build a following, they can make a few extra bucks off “gimmicks,” T-shirts and other souvenirs. Even so, they risk serious injury if the stunts don’t go right.

Nagging and painful minor injuries are the byproduct of a typical match.

Under the best circumstances, it is a tough life with the promise of few financial rewards and constant trips to the offices of doctors and chiropractors. Which is why Casta, who used to oversee a training facility at South Broadway, says he tells young people to stay away.

“I try to discourage everybody,” he says. “You got to be crazy. That’s what it is.”

Try telling that to Bishop Stevens.

Stevens is tall and fierce-looking, with biceps as big as watermelons.

In person, though, he’s relaxed and friendly, the complete opposite of the image he projects.

Stevens got his start at South Broadway, winning two heavyweight championships there. Then he made a name for himself in the big time: first World Championship Wrestling, then World Wrestling Entertainment.

After suffering a training injury, Stevens received a call from a casting director, which led in 2014 to new career as a film and TV actor. He’s landed parts on AMC’s The Walking Dead, Fox’s Empire, and NBC’s Chicago P.D. A few weeks ago he auditioned for a role in a movie being directed by Clint Eastwood.

Stevens credits his new career to the skills he learned at South Broadway, where he apprenticed as a wrestler at a now-defunct training center once run by Casta.

“A lot of wrestling companies don’t teach their wrestlers humility. You get into the ring, you want to be a star, you know,” Stevens says. “But Tony made us literally start at putting that ring together.

We started setting chairs up. Even when you’re the champion, you’re still one of the guys.”

Casta has little patience for prima donnas, Stevens recalls.

“The champion doesn’t walk in when he feels like it,” Stevens says. “If he does, I’m sure Tony will put him in check. When I was the champion, when you showed up late, you didn’t work that night.

You learn how to act. I really started here.”

And try relaying Casta’s warning to the eighteen-year-old high school student from St. Louis County who wrestles under the name Savanna Stone.

She began wrestling in matches at South Broadway more than a year ago. Lured in after watching YouTube videos about physical fit-

ness, Stone has fallen for the game, hard.

“It’s an amazing feeling, just the confidence that you get,” she says.

“Like knowing you can hit these moves, and feeling strong, almost like a superhero in the ring.”

Stone will miss high school prom and graduation because of wrestling commitments, but she’s cool with it.

“I don’t think people understand how much we really risk our bodies, and put our bodies out on the line,” she says. “We love this. We have to risk our bodies every night.

You never know when you can get

hurt at all. But we do it because we love it, we do it for our fans, we do it for ourselves, all of that.”

Casta echoes the point, noting that local wrestlers aren’t in it for the money.

“It’s that ego thing for the wrestlers,” he says. “They know that the chances are this slim,” Casta says, holding his thumb and forefinger barely apart. “But once they get out of the ring, and the matches are over, sometimes they come down and sign some autographs and you see their eyes light up and they smile.”

All the pain Continued on pg 22

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At 52, Moondog Rover hsa been wrestling for three decades.

SWEAT-FILLED ARENA Continued from pg 21 and injuries, the hardship, the busted dreams and the disappointments — they offer a payoff for wrestlers working even the lowest tier.

“They’re somebody for a little while,” Casta says.

P

ro wrestling is about story lines. It’s about the villain trashing the hero one week, and the hero prevailing over the villain the next week. It’s about threats of utter destruction and righteous retribution. Sudden reversals of fortunes and stunning plot twists.

Abject humiliation and triumphant redemption.

And it’s about the intense energy that’s generated when wrestlers and fans give what each seeks from the other.

“There are times when the crowd boos so loudly we get hit with a wall of sound waves from their boos and you can’t replicate it,” says Curtis Wylde. “It all relies on you, but there’s nothing like that. It’s make-or-break time every match.”

One of the most popular local wrestlers is Paul McKnight of Festus, who wrestles under the name “Moondog Rover.” With his long white hair and beard, McKnight wields a cow bone in one hand as he stalks ring opponents.

McKnight, 52, has been wrestling for three decades, including about twenty years under the name “Moondog.” He’s suffered a lot of injuries, including one to his leg that left ten screws and a plate.

“I never know who I’m going against,” McKnight says. “I don’t care who I’m going against.”

Monday through Friday, McK-

night drives a tractor-trailer around St. Louis. On weekends he wrestles.

“But down here they cheer for me, they ask for my autograph,” he says. “This relieves a lot of stress.”

Hoffarth says he’s still getting used to the passionate loyalty of his fans.

“There’ll be times when I sneak down to go to the bathroom, and I’ll have a guy waiting for me,” Hoffarth says. “I’m going to the bathroom and he wants to shake my hand. I tell him, ‘Let me wash my hands first.’”

Then there is also the sense of purpose that comes from a career in wrestling.

“It’s something different from the modern nine-to-five job where you’re just Joe Schmoe,” Hoffarth says. “Well, I’m not Joe Schmoe Friday, Saturday, Sunday night. I’m the Missouri State Heavyweight Champion.”

I

t’s a Saturday night in early April, and the auditorium at the South Broadway Athletic Club is quickly filling up. This is Hoffarth’s chance for redemption after the aborted match in East Carondelet. The card’s main event is his defense of his Mid-Missouri Wrestling Alliance championship belt.

His opponent: a muscle-bound veteran wrestler named Brian James, also known as “Da Bomb.”

James is about 40 pounds lighter, but with his wide chest and bearlike shoulders, he looks strong enough to bend a frying pan — and more than a match for Hoffarth.

But a potential problem has cropped up that could keep Hoffarth from wrestling tonight. The results from his latest state-mandated blood exam — which tests for Hep B, Hep C and HIV — still

Savannah Stone screams as she knocks down her opoonent. have not come back yet from the lab. If he can’t produce good lab results in time for the match, state and city rules would keep him from competing. He would forfeit his championship belt.

A half hour before the event is set to start, Hoffarth grabs a seat in the auditorium. Without his mask on, few people recognize him.

Hoffarth glumly checks his smartphone for the email that will give him the green light to compete.

Hoffarth’s wife Aimi stands nearby. She too is checking her smartphone.

She acknowledges that she got “really pissed off” when her husband was injured in the first Ron Powers match and spent the subsequent weeks in a wheelchair. Since then she’s come to accept his need to wrestle.

“We really don’t talk about it,” she says.

Over the years, she’s taken a philosophical approach to her husband’s wrestling habit. “We do what we got to do,” she says.

“I have a passion for softball. So I understand where it comes from.”

Only fifteen minutes remain before the start of the program, and Hoffarth still hasn’t been notified if he’s been cleared to wrestle. Still looking anxious, Hoffarth heads up a flight of narrow stairs to the wrestlers’ dressing rooms.

He walks past peeling paint and cracked plaster to the dressing rooms, which are divided into two camps: “good guys” and “heels.”

Hoffarth, naturally, hangs with the heels.

He takes a seat in a corner of the room, nervously checking his phone. With only five minutes to go before the event’s 8 p.m. starting time, Hoffarth still has not received word.

An hour later, however, the news finally comes through. Hoffarth’s blood work is OK and he can wrestle. The championship match is on.

But first there are tributes to pay and other matches to watch.

Both Simmons and Casta are both inducted into the Continued on pg 25

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April 21 .......................................................... The Lettuce Heads April 28................................................................... Diesel Island May 5 ..............................................................................Cree Ride May 12 ............ Dave Hylla’s Good Times Band homespun polka May 19................................................Sweetie & The Toothaches

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Jim Hoffarth grimaces in pain backstage after his fight with Brian James, also known as “Da Bomb.”

SWEAT-FILLED ARENA Continued from pg 22 newly minted Independent St. Louis Wrestling Hall of Fame. “All these guys around here make me look good,” a grateful Casta tells the crowd, “even when I look bad.”

In one of the most anticipated matches of the night, fan favorite “Gorgeous Gary” Jackson, 57, takes on Deacon Cash, who, capitalizing on his name, wears gold-plated sunglasses with dollar signs. “Deacon Cash, last month you called me out,” Jackson proclaims to the crowd. “I got a plan to beat you.

Here are the rules!”

The match’s momentum seesaws back and forth, until Jackson flings Cash into the ropes. Cash ricochets straight into Jackson, flipping him onto his back and winning with a pin.

Savanna Stone takes on another female wrestler named Tootie Lynn Ramsey. Stone wins with a move called a “Samoan drop,” by which Stone drapes Ramsey over her shoulders in a fireman’s carry, then falls backwards, crashing Ramsey to the mat on her back.

Then it’s time for the night’s main attraction: the championship match between Hoffarth and James.

Right from the opening bell, it gets ugly. Hoffarth forearms James to the neck, knocking him down.

The match turns into a brawl that at one point sends both men spilling out of the ring and onto the concrete floor. Hoffarth gets up first and tries to stomp James on the neck, but misses.

Once both men are back in the ring, it’s as if James gets a jolt of super-energy. James executes a

powerbomb, a throw in which he lifts Hoffarth onto his shoulders then crashes him back-first to the mat. Both men land with a shuddering boom.

Hoffarth is visibly stunned. He writhes in pain, but otherwise seems unable to move. James dives onto the helpless Big Texan, then pins him. At nine minutes and 36 seconds into the match, the referee declares James the winner and raises up his arm.

Hoffarth lies flat on his back, motionless. The crowd explodes in a raucous chorus of cheers and boos.

James hoists the championship belt triumphantly above his head as he parades around the ring. A minute elapses, then two, and Hoffarth is still trying to pick himself off the mat.

Finally, he summons the strength to crawl under a rope and, with difficulty, begins walking stiffly, feebly toward the dressing room.

A guy with “staff” on his T-shirt comes up to help Hoffarth.

But Hoffarth, playing the heel role to the hilt, swats the guy away, knocking him easily to the ground.

Aimi Hoffarth smiles.

“Jim’s not hurt,” she says. “I can relax now.”

Upstairs in the dressing room, however, splayed out on a bench, Hoffarth is visibly wincing in pain.

Wrestling with a 39-year-old body is not for men short on endurance.

This is no act.

“I’m bitter,” he says. “I have a bad back.” Then, to no one in particular, he shouts, “I want a rematch. It’s in my contract.”

Jay King, one of the referees that night, turns to Hoffarth.

“Congratulations on not dying,” King says.

“Congratulations?” Hoffarth n says. “I lost.”

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M

Y

CM

MY

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CMY

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A Cherokee Street F e s t i va l from Nebraska to Jefferson

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People’s Joy Parade

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at

1.11pm

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CALENDAR

BY PAUL FRISWOLD

FRIDAY 05/04 Charis Charis, the St. Louis women’s chorus, celebrates its silver anniversary this weekend with two special concerts called Singing with My Sisters. A virtual choir comprising members of other Gay and Lesbian Association Choruses from across the country will join Charis for its performance of Holly Near’s “Singing for Our Lives,” which was written in response to the assassination of Harvey Milk.

Also on the program are the Big Band classic “Sing, Sing, Sing” and Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” Singing with My Sisters takes place at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday (May 4 and 5) at the Missouri History Museum (Lindell Boulevard and DeBaliviere Avenue; www.charischorus. org). Tickets are $13 to $20.

Whose Live Anyway?

Improv comedy gameshow Whose Line Is It Anyway? started way back in 1988 in England, with early standout performers Ryan Stiles (the gangly one) and Greg Proops (the stylish one) showing up a year later. It transferred to America and changed hosts but kept many familiar faces, occasionally leaving TV only to reappear a few years later with pretty much the same regulars, like some sort of audience-participation hydra. Here we are 30 years later and the touring show Whose Live Anyway? hits town with — guess who?

— Ryan Stiles (still gangly) and Greg Proops (still stylish) in the cast. They’re joined by Joel Murray and Jeff B. Davis, and the whole gang will take suggestions from the audience and turn them into ridiculous party games. Whose Live Anyway? starts at 8 p.m. tonight at the Touhill Performing Arts Cen26

RIVERFRONT TIMES

Samuel Phillips Verner (center) with random Africans he bought at the behest of Louisiana Purchase Exposition and passed off as “pygmies” at World’s Fair. | LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ter on the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus (1 University Drive at Natural Bridge Road; www.touhill.org). Tickets are $23 to $79.

SATURDAY 05/05 The Unfair Fair The 1904 World’s Fair was St. Louis’ first moment in the international spotlight, and the city, the fourth-largest in the nation at the time, wanted to put on its best face for the world. A small city was built in and around Forest Park to house display halls, music halls, restaurants, amusement parlors — just about everything you could imagine.

Including, in a special hollow, a group of pygmies from Africa.

They were displayed in all their

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“savageness,” with a walkway over the top so white visitors could literally look down on their fellow human beings and point and laugh.

As historian Angela da Silva explains, this was a far different sort of display than America brought to the 1898 World’s Fair in Paris.

“There was a special exhibit called ‘The Progress of the American Negro’ at the Paris 1898 World’s Fair, curated by W.E.B. Du Bois,” da Silva says. “One of the reasons Du Bois did it was to show that there wasn’t a monolithic black culture in America. A black man at Smithsonian was charged with finding books by black people for the exhibit. Du Bois was hoping for 200 — he found 3,000. Four years later, black people couldn’t get a drink of water on the fairgrounds in St. Louis.”

Da Silva’s recent research reveals that, while the 1904 World’s

Fair welcomed the international community to St. Louis, the invitation didn’t extend to black St. Louis — unless they wanted to work a menial job behind the scenes or be in one of the anthropological displays designed to “prove” their subhuman nature. It’s this research that informs The Unfair Fair: Prejudice on the Pike, held from noon to 5 p.m. at the Mary Meachum Freedom Crossing (28 East Grand Avenue; www.marymeachum.org) on Saturday, May 5.

“We’ll have an hour-long play with vignettes that show, authentically and honestly, what happened at the World’s Fair,” da Silva says.

“Some people are going to be upset — it’s overt racism. Ugly things are shown. But the truth needs to be known.”

Da Silva spent her vacation in the Library of Congress searching for documents and photographs related to the fair. There she found

W E E K O F M AY 2 – 8 photos of the Anthropology Village that housed the pygmies.

“Some anthropologists believed the pygmies were the missing link between man and monkey,” da Silva explains. “I found official portraits that were taken of some of the pygmies, and they’re labeled ‘Missing Link No. 1, Missing Link No. 2.’” She’s had them blown up to life-size so the people can be seen clearly for who they were — human beings.

Officially, the fair did not sanction discrimination. But as da Silva found, it didn’t need to be sanctioned by organizers; plenty of volunteers and businesses were happy to discriminate on their own recognizance, refusing to serve black patrons food, souvenirs, even water.

“The National Association of Colored Women was holding their conference here July 13,” da Silva recalls. “One of the women scouted around on site ahead of the conference and found out she couldn’t get served anywhere; 2,000 women said ‘hell, no. We won’t go,’ and they pulled out of St. Louis.”

One of the most surprising tidbits da Silva learned in her research was about the Boer War, which was fought between the United Kingdom and descendants of Dutch settlers in South Africa at the end of the eighteenth century — and then was briefly reprised here.

“The fair re-fought the Boer War everyday for the crowds,” da Silva says through laughter. “The British contingent brought a group of Zulus over from Africa to tend the animals, just like they did during the war. Black St. Louisans would go see them, these tall Zulus. They started talking to each other and the local blacks would tell them, ‘You’re in America, now. You can leave, you know.’” At the end of the Fair, most of the Zulus donned Western clothes and walked out the front gate and blended in.”

These are the sorts of forgotten (it’s a kinder word than “suppressed”) stories that da Silva loves to share. After sixteen years of planning and performing at the Mary Meachum site, she’s found that modern St. Louis is eager to

is free, but bring money for food and beverages — it’s gonna be a hot one, no matter what the actual weather may be.

SUNDAY 05/06 Cardinals vs. the Cubs

Cinco De Mayo takes over Cherokee Street on Saturday. | KEEGAN HAMILTON learn the truth about its past, warts and all.

“I’m trying to talk about the moments in black history that aren’t spoken about,” da Silva says of her life’s work. “Every year we do this, the crowd is larger. We get a lot of repeat people and there’s a lot of kids. Those kids are engrossed. We often wonder if they’re taking it all in, how much are they getting?

But they keep coming and keep watching.”

bre beginning at 3 p.m. at the corner of Cherokee and Iowa, and there will be numerous folk dance groups performing throughout the day. Admission

The St. Louis Cardinals are flying free ’n’ easy atop the Central Division (at the time of writing), but the Chicago Cubs are only a few games behind.

The two old foes split a threegame series in Chicago a couple weeks ago. (A snow day postponed the first of the games to July, hence the indecisive outcome.) But this weekend’s series takes place in St. Louis, and snow is not in the forecast (“at the time of this writing” added only because this is St. Louis — who knows?). The Cards and Cubs face off at 7:15 p.m.

Friday, 1:15 p.m. Saturday and 7:05 p.m. Sunday (April 4 to 6) at Busch Stadium (601 Clark Avenue; radioastronomical).

Remaining tickets are $15.90 to $575.90.

Cherokee Cinco De Mayo

WEDNESDAY 05/09 Puffs

Cinco De Mayo is always celebrated on a Saturday along Cherokee Street, but this year the holiday and the celebration coincide. That means a huge blow-out party is on tap from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Cherokee Street between Nebraska Street and Jefferson Avenue (www.cincodemayostl.com).

More than 25 musical acts perform on three stages during the street festival, which also boasts a cornucopia of incredible authentic food and drinks from neighborhood restaurants, and the dazzling and daffy People’s Joy Parade, which steps off at 1:11 p.m. On top of all that, Dynamo Pro Wrestling supplies two hours of Lucha Li-

Once upon a time, there was a series of increasingly popular children’s books about a perfect boy wizard and his cool, important friends all attending magic school. Lighting bolt on his head, glasses? Sound familiar? Those kids saved each other and the world. But Puffs isn’t about them. Instead, Matt Cox’s play Puffs, or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic is about a different group of sensitive, outsidery kids who were in the same class but were sorted into a very difference house of magic. You know which one — all heart, no wand? Puffs follows Wayne, Oliver and Megan, who are decidedly not

Yadier Molina and the Cardinals play the Cubs. | MLB

riverfronttimes.com

MAY 2 - 8, 2018

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YOUR SANDWICH PUB IN THE GROVE

20 BEERS ON TAP PLUS A ROTATING SELECTION OF BOTTLES & CANS POOL TABLE • GIANT PAC MAN • BOARD GAMES • DJS THURS-SUN @ 10:30PM

OPEN FOR LUNCH AT 11AM • SAMMIES TILL 2:30AM 4 2 4 3 M A N C H E S T E R AV E N U E • 3 1 4 - 5 3 1 - 5 7 0 0

THIS WEEK THE GROVE SELECTED HAPPENINGS

IN

Day or night, there’s always something going on in The Grove: live bands, great food, beer tastings, shopping events, and so much more. Visit thegrovestl.com for a whole lot more of what makes this neighborhood great.

THURSDAY, MAY 3 LEE DEWYZE

PACES LIFT & BEN BOUNCE “TROPIKORO” VINYL RELEASE

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SATURDAY, MAY 5 MINUS THE BEAR, THE COATHANGERS

$18, 7PM AT THE MONOCLE

$5, ALL AGES, 8PM AT THE READY ROOM

FRIDAY, MAY 4 VOODOO PRINCE

7PM AT ATOMIC COWBOY MJP & T WELCOME

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TUESDAY, MAY 8

WORLD TOUR 2018 “CHOICE CUTS”

DWEEZIL ZAPPA

$25-50, ALL AGES, 7PM AT THE READY ROOM

WEDNESDAY, MAY 9 CHEROKEE MOON, OLD SOULS REVIVAL $3, 8PM AT THE READY ROOM

THURSDAY, MAY 10 THE CALIFORNIA HONEYDROPS, GREYHOUNDS

FRIDAY, MAY 11 NERDS OF PREY BURLESQUE SHOW $10, 8PM AT THE MONOCLE

THE BUG-OUT: A STRAIGHT-UP CLASSIC HIP-HOP JAM WITH WILLPOWER, G-WIZ, JAMES BIKO $5-10, 8PM AT THE READY ROOM

SATURDAY, MAY 12

JUNE 16 & 17

SHOWCASE STL

IN THE GROVE

10 YEAR THROWDOWN!

TRACKSTAR THE DJ, OLD SALT UNION 2PM AT THE GRAMOPHONE

$17, 7PM AT ATOMIC COWBOY

r i v e r f r o n t t i m e s . c or i m v e r f r Jo U n tN t i mE e s2. 0c o- m2 6 , M2A0Y 12 8- 8 ,R 2I V 0 1E8 R F RR IOV ENRTF R TO NI M T TEI SM E S 2 52 9

ROCK

CALENDAR Continued from pg 27

OUT

HUNGER

Dr. Zhivegas Groovethang

June 1, 2018 Gates open at 5 p.m.

Music starts at 6 p.m.

Food trucks on-site and beverages available for purchase No outside food, beverages, or coolers allowed

Tickets $10 Family friendly Kids 12 and under free

For more info and to purchase tickets, visit: STLFoodbank.org/ROH

Eva Tavares in Phantom of the Opera. | MATTHEW MURPHY

SUNDAY BURLESQUE BRUNCH TWO SEATINGS EVERY SUNDAY 10AM & 1PM STARTING MOTHER’S DAY 5 0 0 N . 1 4 T H ST. D OW N TOW N ST. LO U I S 30

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destined to save the world, as they complete the same courses and occasionally get caught up in the perimeter of that most important boy-wizard’s power struggles. The show is both kind-hearted commentary on the house in question and a series of in-jokes about those well-known books. If you read them and loved them, you’ll get those jokes. Puffs was filmed live during an Off-Broadway performance, and now Fathom Events brings that film to theaters around the country. You can see it at 7 p.m. Wednesday and 12:55 p.m. Saturday (May 9 and 12) at the Marcus Wehrenberg Ronnies 20 (5320 South Lindbergh Boulevard; www. fathomevents.com). Tickets are $18.

The Phantom of the Opera Andrew Lloyd Webster’s colossal hit The Phantom of the Opera remains immensely popular for a show about a mercurial stalker. The titular Phantom haunts both an opera house and young chorus

girl Christine. He mysteriously arranges for his obsession to become the star of a new opera written by you-know-who, but then lashes out at Christine when she falls in love with a kind man from her past rather than the masked man who murders her castmates. Full of special effects and Webster’s eternal songs, Phantom still has the power to make audiences appear in their seats in an instant. The musical is performed Tuesday through Sunday (May 9 to 20) at the Fox Theatre (527 North Grand Boulevard; www. fabulousfox.com). Tickets are $39 to $200.

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

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FILM

[REVIEW]

Kill Your Darlings Michel Hazanavicius turns on Jean-Luc Godard in the strangely sour Godard Mon Amour Written by

ROBERT HUNT Godard Mon Amour

Directed and written by Michel Hazanavicius.

Adapted from a novel by Anne Wiazemsky.

Starring Louis Garrel, Stacy Martin and Bérénice Bejo. Opens Friday, May 4, at the Landmark Tivoli Theatre.

J

ean-Luc Godard is one of the most significant filmmakers of all time, but it has become a cliche to dismiss much of his work as cerebral and impenetrable, saturated with obscure philosophical musings and uncompromising political harangues. Like the filmmaker in Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories, whose fans — and even a visiting alien — are constantly telling him they prefer “the early, funny ones,” one often hears that after the early successes of the New Wave — his “early, funny ones” — Godard lost his way.

That position is one of the loose ideas floating around in Michel Hazanavicius’ fuzzy satire Le Redoutable, which is showing up on American screens as Godard Mon Amour. (The original title is a struggling metaphor involving a French nuclear submarine.) The new film covers Godard over a period of two or three years, from the filming of La Chinoise in 1967 to Wind from the East in 1970.

Already made an international celebrity by a string of acclaimed films such as Breathless, Vivre sa vie and Contempt, Godard was swept up in the intellectual and political climate of the day, which would lead to the national protests that immobilized France in May 1968. Perhaps more importantly, the director had fallen in love with Anne Wiazemsky, a nineteen-year-

Jean-Luc Godard (Louis Garrel) and his muse/wife Anne Wiazemsky (Stacy Martin). | ©LES COMPAGNONS DU CINÉMA—PHOTO PHILIPPE AUBRY

old philosophy student who had earlier starred in Robert Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar. As with his previous marriage to Anna Karina, Godard saw no barriers between his personal, professional and political lives and began putting his new muse in his work, even as she reportedly wished for a more conventional acting career.

That summary may sound fairly loaded, but there’s actually a lot less going on in Hazanavicius’ film than you would expect. Loosely based on an autobiographical novel by Wiazemsky (the actress, who died last year, was also the author of twenty books), Godard Mon Amour is essentially a onejoke movie in which the filmmaker is presented as an arrogant and pretentious egotist, ambivalent about his success and oblivious to the poor reception of his new, politically loaded work. (OK, there’s a second joke, if you insist: Godard keeps breaking his glasses.) The romantic relationship is doomed

from the start; he’s overbearing and jealous, she’s young and naive.

(The couple separated just three years after marrying, although they didn’t divorce until 1979.)

Much of this seems forced, a thin romantic comedy padded out with historical names and predictable mimicry of a few Godardian elements, like chapter headings and jump cuts. Hazanavicius imitates the censor-defying nudity of the 1964 film A Married Woman, but opts to show all of the flesh that Godard discreetly avoided. Stacy Martin, who plays Wiazemsky, is undressed frequently in the film; one gets the sense that Hazanavicius is somehow trying to pin his own voyeurism on Godard.

As a biography of Godard (or Wiazemsky), the film is unreliable at best, but at worst, and more frequently, it’s just plain inaccurate.

As a satire of French culture circa 1968, it’s superficial, showing as little interest in Godard’s late ’60s work as in the political events of riverfronttimes.com

the time. Hazanavicius, who was only a year old when students and workers took to the streets in 1968, stages the demonstrations unconvincingly as sight gags.

And while both Martin and Louis Garrel, as Godard, are amiable performers, they’re never given a chance to reveal their characters or do much more than stumble (him) or smile seductively (her).

What is Hazanavicius really saying here? After the international success of The Artist, the director made his own attempt at serious, politically relevant filmmaking with The Search, only to be met with derision. It’s tempting to read Godard Mon Amour as sour grapes, a form of gloating over Godard’s misinterpreted politics as well as his failed marriage. This isn’t a return to the comic form of his earlier films; it’s an explosion of resentment. Hazanavicius doesn’t just disagree with Godard’s ideas; he resents him for having any n ideas at all.

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CAFE

33

Privado’s many courses have included a piece of perfectly cooked prime strip steak with morels and pecorino. | MABEL SUEN

[REVIEW]

Be My Baby Privado is like nothing else in St. Louis — thrilling, experimental, transportive. And did we mention the food?

Written by

CHERYL BAEHR Privado 6665 Delmar Boulevard, University City; 314899-9221; Fri.-Sat. 7 p.m. seating; bar menu served 6-11 p.m. .

I

t’s hard to say which was more intoxicating: The scent of rosemary that perfumed the air, teasing a dish still two courses away, or Patrick Swayze’s aching voice emanating from Privado’s sound system, a longing coo to Jennifer Grey’s “Baby.”

Music plays an integral role in the dining experience at Privado, chef Mike Randolph’s tastingmenu-only, weekends-only experiment on the Loop. It sets a mood, cues the chefs to different points in service and even sometimes winks to diners lucky enough to be in on the joke. And boy, did I want to be in on that joke, though even two weeks later, I’m still trying to tease out what squab has to do with Baby and Johnny Castle. The playful chef was telling us something, right?

Sitting there in the moment, though, it all seemed to make

sense. Leg and thigh pieces of the succulent game bird lay in a pool of truffle jus, fortified with liver.

Lines of grill char seared the delicate skin, but inside, the meat was the color of vibrant pink rose petals, so tender it all but melted on the tongue, mingling with the bird’s skin and fat to form a luxurious texture. It was a dirty dance indeed, but one that speaks to a beautiful love story. Nobody puts this squab in a corner.

If Randolph’s other concepts — Pùblico, Half & Half, and the now-shuttered Randolfi’s and the Good Pie – are his public-facing merengue classes, meant to entertain and pay the bills, Privado is his after-hours, private dance party, done for the sheer pleasure. “La La Land” is what he once called it, aptly. The restaurant business is, after all, a business, and no matter how much a kitchen is a vehicle for riverfronttimes.com

a chef’s creativity, other day-to-day considerations influence its operation. You have to keep the lights on.

Privado is the restaurant you’d open if you didn’t have to worry about such things. Part test kitchen, part dinner party, the twelve-course-plus tasting menu is a very expensive peek into the mind of a chef, unfiltered. But while service is impeccable and the food expertly plated, it’s not stuffy. It’s not just that Randolph is playing rock and silly ‘80s pop; it’s that the music gets loud. The conversations of giddy revelers get louder. Stretching more than three hours, the experience is as much a theatrical production as a meal. You’re transported, you’re whipsawed, you’re stuffed to the gills. And you love every damn minute of it.

This is not the first time Randolph

MAY 2 - 8, 2018

Continued on pg 34

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NOW OPEN

SUNDAYS 10AM-8PM

SERVING BRUNCH 10AM-1PM

618-307-4830 www.clevelandhealth.com 106 N. Main | Edwardsville, IL An egg with shiitake, calamansi and osetra pairs custard with custard, though the zing of citrus cuts through the richness. | MABEL SUEN

BE MY BABY Continued from pg 33 has attempted such an ambitious concept. It seems like a lifetime ago, but in 2012 Randolph attempted a similar dining experience in Little Country Gentleman, an evenings-only tasting-menu restaurant within his popular breakfast and lunch spot, Half & Half. In some ways Little Country Gentleman was ahead of its time; in others it was ahead of his. Now 37, Randolph will be the first to tell you that he has since matured both personally and professionally, an evolution that has led him to this moment.

But Privado is more than that.

It’s also the result of Randolph finally coming to terms with what fine dining means to him. It was a journey that began at Peninsula Grill in South Carolina, got flipped on its head at Moto in Chicago and was tabled when he arrived in St. Louis and opened the Good Pie. Still, even as Randolph opened more casual concepts, he never let go of wanting to explore that side of service. Throughout his many restaurants, he’s played with where he fits on the spectrum of classical to experimental cooking, 34

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the spaces between pomp and circumstance and irreverence.

In fact, if there’s one way of describing him as a chef, “explorer” covers it. He does so in total solitude on the days Privado is open for service, beginning his day by unlocking the doors, putting on Miles Davis and pulling a shot of espresso as he digs into prep for the evening’s service. It’s just him and the watchful eye of the Bruce Springsteen poster-sized photo that hangs prominently in his kitchen until his cooks begin trickling in hours later, and guests a few hours after that.

When it first opened, Privado felt like an after-hours, invite-only event. When you walked into the space, chairs were stacked atop tables in the front dining area, making it feel like you were sneaking into a closed restaurant. Now Privado has converted that front space into an actual dining room for à la carte customers (even La La Land has to pay the bills). The tasting menu takes place in the back of the restaurant, directly in front of the kitchen, like a chef’s table.

Service for the sixteen diners fortunate enough to secure a reservation for the tasting menu experience begins with a cocktail

and an invitation to the kitchen.

Immediately, any pretense of reverence is thrown out the window when Randolph hands you what looks like an ice cream cone — a nod to his first industry gig as a soda jerk. This cone, however, is no frosty confection. Inside is luxurious duck liver mousse that fills the mouth with silk, along with the crunch of a frozen custard waffle cone, only deeply savory.

After returning to the table, that whimsy is replaced with pure decadence when a hollowed-out eggshell filled with earthy shiitake custard and calamansi sabayon arrives at the table. Yes, it’s custard on custard, a pairing that would be overly rich were it not for the zing of the tart citrus that infuses the sabayon. A generous sprinkle of Osetra caviar serves the dual purpose of breaking up the richness with brine, demonstrating that Randolph can do over-the-top luxury as well as irreverence.

He moves with ease between those styles on one course after another. A buckwheat sourdough blini topped with thick yogurt is a delightful vehicle for pea-sized smoked trout roe — a case study in the difference between the fish Continued on pg 36

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BE MY BABY Continued from pg 34

INVITES YOU AND A GUEST TO

TUESDAY, MAY 8 7:00 P.M. PLEASE VISIT WBTICKETS.COM AND ENTER THE CODE RGrcW62440 TO DOWNLOAD YOUR COMPLIMENTARY PASSES! RATED PG-13 FOR SEXUAL MATERIAL, DRUG CONTENT AND PARTYING. Please note: Passes are limited and will be distributed on a first come, first served basis while supplies last. No phone calls, please. Limit one pass per person. Each pass admits two. Seating is not guaranteed. Arrive early. Theater is not responsible for overbooking. This screening will be monitored for unauthorized recording. By attending, you agree not to bring any audio or video recording device into the theater (audio recording devices for credentialed press excepted) and consent to a physical search of your belongings and person.

Any attempted use of recording devices will result in immediate removal from the theater, forfeiture, and may subject you to criminal and civil liability. Please allow additional time for heightened security. You can assist us by leaving all nonessential bags at home or in your vehicle.

IN THEATERS MAY 11 Soundtrack Available Now lifeoftheparty-movie.com #LifeOfTheParty

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Dishes are prepared in an open kitchen, giving nearby diners a view of the chef at work. | MABEL SUEN eggs on the prior dish and those on the current one. After that, a lobster roe tart infused with saffron is paired with burnt bread rouille, a sauce that is deeply nutty and slightly bitter, bringing out the shellfish’s subtle sweetness.

In a subsequent course, cobia belly is served as kinilaw, a Filipino preparation something like ceviche. It’s paired with fresh coconut panna cotta. After that, a cobia filet atop fermented green curry is topped with nuoc cham, a sweet and vinegary condiment that looks over its shoulder at the kinilaw.

Both are fresh, vibrant dishes that break from the richness of all that has come so far.

But much more is to come. Following the aforementioned squab, a slice of lamb loin cooked in its own fat is enlivened by blackberry and mint. As it’s being served, Foreigner’s lead singer is begging to know what love is. If he tasted this lamb, he’d have his answer.

A perfectly cooked piece of prime strip steak follows, classically paired with king oyster and black trumpet mushrooms atop a pan jus, a gift of straightforward heft to anyone who has ever complained about leaving hungry after a tasting menu. And then comes the “Twinkie” — a version filled with foie gras mousse that takes

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the whimsy of the duck liver ice cream cone amuse bouche and turns it into uproarious laughter.

By the time the last plate, a dark chocolate soufflé with nutty porcini sauce, hits the table, you don’t know whether to laugh, cry or applaud. Drunk on wine, Genesis and impeccable food, all of the above seems apropos.

La La Land comes at a price, and you have to pay in advance.

Upon reserving your spot, you’ll be charged for everything, including the twenty percent service fee.

Dinner, an alcoholic beverage pairing, tax and gratuity will run close to $300, making this a privileged experience in every sense of the word. If you choose to go the non-alcoholic pairing route, the cost of drinks goes down a bit ($30 instead of $85) but not the enjoyment. What Privado is doing with mocktails sets the standard for beverage service.

I’ve been asked many times if the price tag is worth it. It’s a hard question to answer. Yes, having the catbird seat at one of our city’s most exciting chef’s tables is thrilling. Could you get just as much enjoyment for the same price flying to Chicago, checking into an Airbnb and eating a double cheeseburger from Au Cheval? Probably. It’s impossible to quantify what an expe-

rience means to someone. But if you have the means and the desire, you will likely not be disappointed.

And even if you don’t have the means, Privado can still afford you a wonderful experience. Though the main draw is the tasting menu, you also have the option of ordering off an à la carte menu in the restaurant’s bar and front dining area. If you knew nothing of the multi-course reverie going on in the back of the restaurant, you would never think you were missing out. Here, it’s as if Randolfi’s never closed; Privado’s bar menu is made up of the Italian-inflected entrees that made its predecessor so beloved. Pasta with ramps and plump clams tasted like springtime, while beef braciole over flawless, creamy tomato risotto made me long for the days I could walk in off the street on a Wednesday and be served the area’s best Italian food.

But that longing only lasted a minute, quickly fading to thoughts of the thrilling dance that comes through fine dining, Mike Randolph style — an experience that is much more than a meal. It could be, n instead, the time of your life.

Privado Tasting menu ..........................................$120 Beverage pairing ...................................... $85 Braciole ..................................................... $34

FRESH & AUTHENTIC BRAZILIAN CUISINE

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

LUNCH BUFFET 11AM-2PM D I N N E R M E N U, A N D S U N DAY B R U N C H 11A M-2:30P M

WWW.BRASILIASTL.COM • 314-932-1034 3212 SOUTH GRAND BLVD Photography by JENNIFER SILVERBERG

Photography by JENNIFER SILVERBERG

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SHORT ORDERS

[SIDE DISH]

feel like the adult version of that would be the ability to manipulate wavelength. If it had to be something a little more mundane, it would have to be the ability to open doors with the correct amount of force every time. I had a horrible habit of putting my full body weight into opening doors and not exactly nailing the whole handle thing.

A Brewer Who Went from Kiwis to Pilsners

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

Written by

There’s been a lot of beers being put out to benefit causes and charities. I think that’d be the most positive. If we’re talking about something I personally am a fan of, it’d be the shift from big flavor bombs to well-executed session beers.

CHERYL BAEHR

I

f you were to write a screenplay about someone’s journey to becoming a craft brewer, there would be no better main character than Kevin Klein. With no post-college plans and an obsession with Lord of the Rings, Klein sold his belongings, bought a oneway ticket to New Zealand and began hitchhiking throughout the country. Then reality set in, and he needed a job.

“I got a job washing kegs in a brewery in exchange for meals and a place to sleep,” Klein recalls. “It just spiraled out of control from there. I picked things up easily and it wasn’t long before I was the assistant brewer.”

Klein recalls the scene that would greet him each morning at the small craft brewery in New Zealand. To one side, he could see the mountains; to the other, the sea. It was an aweinspiring environment, and if his visa hadn’t expired, he probably would never have left.

But though that detail forced Klein home, it did not keep him from the field he had come to love.

Before leaving New Zealand, he lined up a gig with Charleville

Brewery (16937 Boyd Street, Ste. Genevieve; 573-756-4537) in his

hometown, and within three days of being back in the States, he was again behind the beer equipment.

There was just one problem.

“Certainly, I had adjusted to the carefree lifestyle and when I was down there I didn’t really have to worry about bills, but the biggest hurdle was going from the metric 38

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

I’d love to be able to get latenight salchipapas.

Which ingredient is most representative of your personality?

A pineapple.

If someone asked you to describe the current state of St. Louis’ food and beverage climate, what would system to whatever we use here,” malarkey with this beer. It just feels you say?

Kevin Klein’s beer journey took him from New Zealand back to his Missouri hometown. | MONICA MILEUR

Klein explains. “Brewing makes a lot more sense in the metric system. You go from solid to liquid measurements all the time, and the conversions make much more sense in metric.”

Measurements aside, Klein describes his transition back to Missouri as being relatively seamless, and he jumped right in at Charleville, working his way up to head brewer. Under his watch, the brewery has expanded from its operations in Ste. Genevieve to a second location — a brewery, tasting room and restaurant in St. Louis, where Klein gets to play around with more experimental styles and exercise his creativity.

Still, if he had to pick one beer to brew for the rest of his life, it would be a style that is much more straightforward.

“Pilsner,” he says without hesitation when naming his favorite style of beer. “It has all those New Zealand hops I learned to brew with, but really, there’s no

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good brewing it. I love everything about it — brewing it, drinking it.

That’s my baby.”

Klein took a break from brewing Charleville’s Pilsner to share his thoughts on the St. Louis food and beverage scene, the importance of vintage lounge music and why pizza is always the answer.

I’m not sure. There’s certainly heaps of familiarity and comfort, but there’s a lot of creativity, too.

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

What is your after-work hangout?

I am not a fan of sweets. The only exception I’ll make is for my mom’s chocolate chip cookies.

What daily ritual is nonnegotiable for you?

I’ve been listening to Arthur Lyman’s Hawaiian Sunset every morning for the last four years or so. I thought it was just a phase, but the day just feels off if I don’t get my lounge music in.

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

I was a real “my power is to have all the powers” kinda kid. I

Name an ingredient never allowed in your brewery.

I have no ban list. If you can convince me it’ll work and have a plan to clean up after it, let’s party.

You’ll have to be extra convincing with cardamom, though.

After work, I’ll usually have a beer at the bar and then go home. I’m not all that exciting during the week.

What’s your edible or quaffable guilty pleasure?

I don’t feel guilty about pleasure.

What would be your last meal on earth?

That’s a pretty circumstantial question. Is this an armageddon situation? Who’s buying? Am I limited to something readily available? There are a lot of questions to be answered before determining exactly what kind of pizza I would have. n

[FIRST LOOK]

Khao Soi Arrives Downtown Written by

SARAH FENSKE

A

sk St. Louis chefs for their favorite under-the-radar dish, and a surprising number will say the exact same thing: the khao soi at Fork & Stix. The unassuming Thai restaurant on the edge of the Loop has been a cult favorite since it first opened in 2012, name-checked by no less than James Beard winner Gerard Craft. It’s one of Ian Froeb’s “100 Best St. Louis Restaurants” and the RFT’s “40 Restaurants We Love.”

And no menu item has been more lauded than its signature northern Thai curry noodle soup.

And now you don’t even have to drive to the Loop to try it. Last month, Kiin Essentially Thai (550

North 7th Street, 314-241-1989)

quietly opened its doors in the MX building downtown — or at least as quietly as anyone can open their doors in a busy development in the heart of downtown. But while the owners haven’t done much to publicize the opening, word of the restaurant’s pedigree has clearly gotten out ... or maybe just word of that khao soi. On our recent visit, the place was packed.

Now, as the name should make clear, this isn’t Fork & Stix Part II. Phatcharin Wanna, the original restaurant’s proprietor, has opened Kiin with a new partner, Kobe Tanya. And the space has a much different look. With a soaring ceiling and sophisticated visual touches, it’s ready for the downtown lunch crowd, not just food lovers on a mission.

But you’ll find many of Fork & Stix’s highlights on offer, including the hoy jaw, deep-fried dumplings of pork and shrimp served with sweet chile sauce. Good luck trying to stop after eating just one; they’re a steal at $5, but also utterly

Kiin Essentially Thai’s offerings including pad kee mao with tofu, as well as signature dishes from its sister restaurant, Fork & Stix. | SARAH FENSKE

addictive.

If you can somehow manage not to order the khao soi, you’ll find Fork & Stix’s famous Thai sausages, hung leh curry and pad kee mao are all on the menu too.

The hung leh curry features pork shoulder and pork belly with fresh ginger and peanuts over rice, while the pad kee mao combines your choice of protein with stir-fried egg noodles, basil and a host of vegetables.

But for something you can’t get at Fork & Stix, why not try the khao mun gai? Available in either lunch or dinner portions, it’s the Thai version of Hainan chicken, a delicacy in China that’s generally served chilled and deliciously fatty. The Thai iteration has been called a “national favorite” that’s nevertheless seldom served outside of the country’s borders, and after eating it at Kiin Essentially Thai you may wonder why. The sliced chicken is deliciously moist. You can pour the accompanying spicy soy-and-ginger sauce over it, or dip each forkful into the cup of chicken broth on the side. Either way, it’s a unique taste for St. Louis, but still an approachable one.

If you’re feeling less adventurous, it’s OK; Kiin is completely ready for convention-goers and lawyers who lunch, with classic curries, spring rolls and even pad Thai.

Prices are quite reasonable, too; even at dinner, nothing is more than $13. Not many rooms in town this stylish can say that.

Kiin Essentially Thai is open

weekdays for lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and for dinner from 5 to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and from 5 to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. You can drop by for a great Asian option downtown — or just see what the fuss about the khao soi is about. So long as you stay long enough to order, you certainly won’t leave hungry. n

[FIRST LOOK]

SMOOTHIES, BUT WITH SPOONS Written by

SARAH FENSKE

R

ush Bowls (227 Euclid Avenue), the Colorado import that opened its first St. Louis-area shop last month in the Central West End, may remind you a lot of Jamba Juice. It’s quick. It’s healthy. It’s incredibly noisy. And even though you can get them in bowls, its offerings are basically smoothies.

That’s because at the base of those bowls is blended fruit. Depending on which bowl you order, you can get yours blended with fat-free milk, fat-free frozen yogurt or vanilla soy — but if that’s where smoothies end, Rush Bowls is just getting started.

You can get them with a variety of toppings and stir-ins, including açai, chai and granola. One option even includes a really big scoop of fresh peanut butter, along with house-made jelly (naturally!). And if you don’t want to mess with all those additions, Continued on pg 30 sure, you can just get a basic smoothie. There are seventeen

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[FOOD NEWS]

How Gin Week Put Us on the Map Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

Authentic MexicAn Food, Beer, And MArgAritAs!

2817 cherokee st. st. Louis, Mo 63118 314.762.0691 onco.coM www.tAqueriAeLBr 40

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When Natasha Bahrami, also known as the “Gin Girl,” put together her first Gin Week four years ago, she didn’t realize she was founding the nation’s premiere festival dedicated to the spirit. She was simply looking at her schedule.

“I didn’t even realize it was happening, but one month, I looked at my calendar and saw that we had seventeen events planned,” Bahrami recalls. “We had distillers flying in from across the country, seminars, talks. The idea sprung — if they are all coming in anyway, why not get them all together at the same time so we can get more people to experience it?”

It may have come from humble, almost impromptu beginnings, but Gin Week, and its umbrella organization Gin World, has evolved into a major draw. Part celebration, part educational platform, part meeting of the minds, Gin Week is a who’s who of the international gin community and seen as a must-attend festival for the biggest names in the business.

“To tell you how important we think the event is, we will skip other ‘required’ industry events to redirect our investment with Gin World,” says Peter Abrahams, president of Distillery No. 209, a San Francisco-based distillery. “The fact that she can draw such a crowd in a city that isn’t immediately recognized as a one of the top cocktail markets like Los Angeles or New York is impressive.”

Indeed, Bahrami’s groundbreaking event places St. Louis at the hub of a nationwide gin revival. It’s an unlikely distinction for a city known more for its consumption of beer than spirits, a factor that played into the sniping that followed Bahrami’s announcements she would be launching, first, a bar dedicated to gin, and then her Gin World platform.

But St. Louis proved everyone

The Gin Room’s Natasha Bahrami has lured gin experts from the world over. | MABEL SUEN

wrong — or more so, Bahrami did. Over the four years that she has been running both the Gin Room (3200 South Grand Boulevard; 314-771-3411) and Gin World, she has traveled the globe, proselytizing the good news of gin and working tirelessly to thrust the spirit front and center in the cocktail world.

Those efforts will pay off the week of May 7, when some of the top names in the business will descend upon St. Louis for the fourth annual Gin Week. Those slated to appear include Keli Rivers of Whitechapel bar in San Francisco, one of the world’s most renowned gin gurus; Jake Burger, curator of the Ginstitute in England and one of the U.K.’s top barmen; Finlay Nicol of Scotland’s Edinburgh Gin; and Arne Hillesland, master distiller at Distillery No. 209.

“You don’t see gin festivals happen that often, but she is proving there is a market for them,” says Aaron Seyla, head distiller at Philadelphia Distilling Bluecoat Gin. “St. Louis is where it has been happening the longest and is the most mature [festival]. She’s built this thirsty gin community.”

As Distillery No. 209’s Abrahams explains, having that sort of exposure does not just place St. Louis on the map in terms of gin; it shines a light on the city’s food and beverage scene — really, its entire culture.

“From an economic development and tourism standpoint, there are very few events across the globe for the sole purpose of strictly experiencing the culture of a city,” Abrahams says. “It gets you embedded in the city, moving around from restaurant to bar and gives you a bird’s eye view of what’s going on.”

Gin Week will will culminate in the St. Louis Gin World Gin Festival, held May 12 at 2nd Shift Brewing, a day of workshops, seminars, distiller meet-and-greets and, of course, tastings. As Bahrami looks over the roster of those attending, she still can’t believe how much it

SMOOTHIES Continued from pg 39 varieties of those, and they’re all $6.50.

Bowls are sorted into four options, each priced at $7.95. “Enlightened Bowls” include a half-dozen items, including such offerings as the “Yoga Bowl” (mango, pineapple, banana, green tea and your choice of dairy, topped with organic granola and honey) and the “Oasis Bowl,” which is made with coconut milk, mango, pineapple and peach juice and organic granola and honey.

Açai bowls are much the same, only they’re topped with açai, everyone’s favorite super food. The little palm seeds became super trendy a few years ago for being packed with fiber, calcium, anti-oxidants and other healthful goodies, and here they come atop four different options.

Finally, in addition to four seasonal bowls (one for dogs!), Rush Bowls is serving up “Comfort Bowls.” Rest assured, these are not comfort bowls in the Midwestern sense — there are no piles of mashed potatoes or cheese, no nachos, no rice. You can’t even get frozen yogurt with fat in it. The comfort is all in the toppings.

Still, they’re a big step up from the other offerings in the decadence department. In addition to the aforemen-

has grown over the last four years.

“It’s becoming bigger and bigger every year, and I’m just impressed with its growth,” Bahrami explains.

“St. Louis has become such a haven for gin over the last few years, and seeing it come together for this has n been impressive.”

NOW H IR IN G E X P E R IE N

CED SE RVER

S, APPL Y IN P E RSON

“Thanks for voting us Best Greek Restaurant 2017”

tioned peanut butter and jelly, you can get a “Chocolate Covered Strawberry,” a “Peach Cobbler” or “Apple Pie (à la mode).” The “mode” is actually an optional frozen yogurt, but with granola and a dusting of cinnamon, surely no one will complain.

All those blended fruit bases, of course, means that it gets loud in the shop. You order at the counter, and by the time your bowl is ready, you may feel the makings of a serious headache. With a high ceiling and nothing but hard surfaces, the blenders reverberate.

There are a few stools along the walls for those who want to eat their bowl inside, but you might be better off walking over to the fountain just two blocks away on Maryland. On the morning we visited, it was busy enough you couldn’t get a seat anyway.

But this growing chain isn’t catering to people who want a three-course meal anyway. Befitting its Rocky Mountain State roots, Rush Bowls is meant to fill you up after a workout or get you fueled for the next one on your schedule. In that sense, the Central West End is the perfect location for the company to make its St. Louis debut. You could stop over after running in Forest Park or on your way to a class at Steel Wheels. You n could even take a LimeBike.

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Now accepting reservations for Mother’s Day Free Dessert for all moms!

NOW OPEN!

DINE IN, CARRY OUT AND DELIVERY Rush Bowls keeps it healthy, with various fat-free dairy blends. | COURTESY OF RUSH BOWLS riverfronttimes.com

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[ B AT T L E S ]

At Fresh Produce, the Beats Go On Written by

DANIEL HILL Fresh Produce Beat Battle

9 p.m. Wednesday, May 2. The Monocle, 4510 Manchester Avenue. Free. 314-9327003.

A

ye Dre looks rattled.

It’s the final round of the Fresh Produce Beat Battle at the Monocle on April 4, and all eyes are on the St. Louis producer in a black Cardinals hat and a shirt that reads “Beats & Blunts & Bourbon.” He’s standing on the room’s small stage and scrolling through the FL Studio program on his laptop. He’s going to need something good to top the beat that was just delivered by Chicago-based producer Bennie D, a full-on banger based on a Jodeci sample that left the crowd of 100 or so in complete shock.

“Aye Dre’s over there shaking,” host Matt Sawicki says. “He’s shook.”

Aye Dre promptly shoots a look at Sawicki, wordlessly conveying that the competition is not over just yet.

“Oh he’s not shook!” Sawicki responds. “He says he’s got something else, huh? Wow. I’d be shook.”

The Fresh Produce Beat Battle has deep roots in St. Louis, but in the past year it’s really kicked into high gear. Initially founded by DJ Who and Ben Stein of Basement Sound System, it was a feeder for Cincinnati’s vaunted Scribble Jam festival. Scribble Jam held its last event in 2008, but the beat battle continued under the Fresh Produce name, with monthly competitions through 2011.

In 2015 Fresh Produce returned with regular monthly shows at Atomic Cowboy, and occasionally the Demo. In July it moved to the

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Chicago producer Bennie D poses with the Fresh Produce trophy. | LINCOLN JAMES

newly opened Monocle in the Grove, hosting shows on the first Wednesday of each month. It’s become a monthly party that pits some of the area’s hungriest upand-coming beatmakers against one another for the amusement of an ever-growing crowd.

The stakes are high. $300 worth of prizes are on the line, including $100 of studio time at Sawicki’s Suburban Pro Studios and $100 of tattoos from Tower Classic.

Bennie D looks confident. He’s standing stoically on the other side of the stage, clad in a leather jacket, glasses and a beanie. The only producer on the program who traveled hours to be here, he’s been bringing the heat all night.

Aye Dre’s last track of the competition is a beat featuring a sprawling soul sample buried under a bunch of 808 kicks and skittering hi-hats. “It’ll be a symphony/composed to you by me” a singer coos on the looping sample, rather appropriately.

The St. Louis-based producer was a last-minute fill-in. Sawicki approached him at the start of the show, asking if he had any hot

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beats in his pocket. Considering that he’s made it to the final round, with six competitors felled in his and Bennie D’s wake, he clearly did.

But it’s not to be. Much as this St. Louis crowd is surely rooting for the home team, there’s no denying that Bennie D took this one. This month’s judges — producer and head judge JBJR, Farfetched’s Darian Wigfall and Charles Purnell, and producer Vandalyzm — adjourn to tally their votes.

Ten minutes later a consensus is reached, and the producers return to the stage for the announcement of tonight’s winner.

“I’m just gonna be honest with you guys,” Sawicki says. “Chicago took it home tonight. Wow.” Bennie D is presented a triangleshaped trophy with a speaker mounted in the middle — to the victor go the spoils.

“Make some noise for your April 2018 champion!” DJ Mahf says.

The crowd enthusiastically does just that before filtering out of the Monocle’s back room, back to the bar or out into the cool spring night.

Hometown pride aside, JBJR sees the win as a good thing for the ever-expanding event.

“We’ve been seeing people more and more and more from out of town,” he says. “And that’s something that’s beautiful, because that’s exactly what we want.”

The rules for the show are simple.

Producers who are interested in competing fill out a submission form on Fresh Produce’s website.

Sawicki and others then choose which acts will perform, and those producers record short video interviews with Fresh Produce.

Those videos are posted on social media and used at the event itself to introduce the different acts. DJ VThom usually mans the ones and twos between rounds. (Since he’s on tour in Europe during tonight’s event, DJ Mahf subs in.)

There are three rounds and eight producers. Their names are put into a hat, and then a tournament bracket. Competitors play paper rock scissors to determine who will go first in each battle. In the first two rounds, each gets to play one minute of music they’ve made; in the final round, each plays two separate minute-long tracks.

It’s been this way since its inception more than a decade ago, but in recent months, the event has brought in ever larger crowds. JBJR credits the Monocle for a lot of that explosive growth.

“How far we came, coming from our old existing spot to our new current spot that we’re in right now — that gave us an increase,” JBJR explains. “Shout-out to the management for being as cool as they are with everything. It helps everything, all around. It’s true synergy coming here, and everything just falls into place exactly how it needs to.”

Sawicki, who does a hip-hop podcast with JBJR called Fruit of the Boom, has been helping host Fresh Produce for a little more than a year. Prior to that he was simply a sponsor offering studio time, and sometimes a judge. He explains that DJ Who, the show’s longtime host, decamps to Colorado in the winters to ski.

“When he moves out there we need somebody else to host it,” he says. “So I stepped up and started

[HOMESPUN]

Wake the Neighbors Porchfest STL brings St. Louis’ finest musicians right to your front door Written by

CHRISTIAN SCHAEFFER Porchfest STL

1 p.m. Sunday, May 6, 12:30 to 4:15 p.m.

Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood. Free. porchfeststl.tumblr.com.

M Aye Dre was a last-minute fill-in at April’s event, but still nearly took the crown. | LINCOLN JAMES

doing hosting because of that.”

Competitors typically come preloaded with music — this isn’t as spontaneous as rap battles can be.

Most producers play music they’ve created at home off of their laptops or cellphones. The equipment that would be necessary to create a beat on the fly can be prohibitive on a technical level — though there are some exceptions.

“Last month we had a guy, C Major; he came from Memphis,” Sawicki says. “He brought his MPC — he’s got a new one that’s batterypowered and he can just carry it around and plug it in as easily as any of the other guys with their phones. That’s crazy.

“Most of the time with an MPC you’re talking about a 1990s piece of technology. You gotta plug it in, it’s got a SCSI drive, it’s gotta turn on. That shit ain’t easy at all,” he continues. “So he’s playing his beats and live chopping them because he’s got a touchscreen and he’s playing along with it. I support that more than anything. I think that’s the way to go.”

Still, it’s not a common approach.

“Only one or two guys will ever

do that in a whole year,” Sawicki says. “I feel like as the exposure grows we’ll get more of it and people will raise the bar.”

Naturally, C Major took the win for Memphis in March. Before that, in February, Chicago’s Don P Beatz won. Both victories were decided by the crowd, which gets its own vote by way of an SPL meter that measures the volume of its cheers.

Now, with Bennie D’s April victory, St. Louis has not won its own beat battle for the last three events. May’s show will be a special edition of the event, celebrating the release of the collaborative album Tropikoro by Fresh Produce veterans Paces Lift and Ben Bounce.

It will also bring Chicago back to St. Louis by way of producer Custom Made. The hometown heroes on the bill — Klevah!, Major88Keys, SK Mazeratii, TRUE On Tha TRAC, Centipede, Nico and Mr.C — hope to take back the prize.

Regardless, Fresh Produce will stay winning. The event is clearly catching on in other cities, who are exporting their talent here. It’s even recently picked up sponsorships from Urban Chestnut and Red Bull.

Matt Sawicki has been hosting Fresh Produce since November 2016. | LINCOLN JAMES

As far as Sawicki is concerned, the sky is the limit.

“We’re trying to figure out more,” he explains. “We’re getting more sponsors and trying to get more people involved. I’m looking at software companies and people like that to try to get us some giveaways and stuff. We really want to get a bourbon sponsor, too, because we do these ‘beats blunts and bourbon’ shirts. So we just need to find a bourbon sponsor.

“And then we need legal weed in Missouri,” he adds, “and then we’re gonna be on.” n riverfronttimes.com

usic festival season is upon us. Coachella is already in the rearview, and local music fans are already placing bets on which acts will be featured on this year’s LouFest lineup. But this weekend, a smaller, more neighborhood-centric festival takes place not far from LouFest’s Forest Park home.

And rather than performing on stages with a pro sound system, the local performers will use porches and minimal amplification.

Now in its second year, Porchfest STL provides a free and diverse slate of music in a walkable, bike-able setting in the Skinker DeBaliviere neighborhood. And while the roots of Porchfest formally date back to 2007 in Ithaca, New York, the idea simply formalizes what many prize as essential to healthy living: an intersection of art, culture and community feeding off of each other.

Among Porchfest STL’s organizers are two recent Wa s h i n g t o n U n i v e r s i t y graduates, Dylan Bassett and Lauren Chase. Bassett, who had worked at KWUR (90.3 FM), the university’s student radio station, offered help on some of the technical aspects of throwing a festival, but he points to Chase as the prime mover who brought the idea to St. Louis.

“She really Continued on pg 44

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This Sunday, for the second year in a row, PorchFest will take over the Skinker DeBaliviere neighborhood. | THOMAS WHITNEER

HOMESPUN Continued from pg 43 got it going and drew in a bunch of people,” Bassett says. The turnaround, from conception to execution, was so quick that it caught people by surprise. “In two months it went from not existing at all to being a fairly large event with fifteen to twenty bands on eight porches,” says Bassett.

While neither Bassett nor Chase still live in St. Louis, both are offering their organizational knowhow to this year’s festival and will be on-site this weekend. Bassett hopes that their grassroots efforts will continue to grow, with buy-ins from both the Wash U community and its residential neighbors.

“We’re trying to make it a more formal institution,” he says.

Chase, a native of Massachusetts, had experienced a Porchfest in Somerville a few years ago. She lit upon the idea of bringing it here one afternoon last year as she walked through Skinker Debaliviere, which is northeast of Wash U’s campus, and heard

people strumming guitars on their front porch. The neighborhood felt like a perfect fit for such a festival.

“I moved into Skinker DeBaliviere as soon as I was able to move off campus and I fell in love with the neighborhood, and a lot of that is how diverse it is and how intentional it is,” says Chase, who graduated from Wash U last year with a major in American culture and focus on social policy.

“It’s the merger of public and private spaces in a celebratory way,” Chase continues. “I was really excited about having [Porchfest] in the neighborhood I love.”

Organizers enlisted Brandon S t e r l i n g f r o m t h e S k i n ke r DeBaliviere neighborhood council to help with planning, as well as to ensure that the festival was a true integration of art and community, not just a bunch of college kids using the neighborhood as a place to throw a party.

“I wanted to de-center Wash U from this event since it’s about the neighborhood and its residents,” says Chase. “But Brandon was excited to involve the university; it’s

rare to have organic relationships.”

And since Porchfest is, first and foremost, a music festival, the organizers took care to book a variety of acts to fill out the afternoon. “We’ve always taken the approach that we want the music at this festival to represent the full range of musical expression in St. Louis,” says Bassett. “We hope to appeal to people of all age ranges and backgrounds.”

To that end, organizers relied on Will Hunersen, who organizes pop-up concerts through the local outpost of Sofar Sounds, to fill out the bill. This year thirteen acts will fill the neighborhood’s makeshift stages, including soul singer Gene Jackson, upright bassist and vocalist Tonina Saputo and samba-flecked jazz trio the Bonbon Plot.

Another performing musician is Zach Sullentrup, who records as a solo artist and as part of the band Tidal Volume. He played last year and was quick to fill out a submission to play again this year.

“It’s a very cool event, one of those rare music events that engages its surroundings as much as it engages

the crowd,” Sullentrup says. “The community feel alone is worth coming for. Last year everyone was in great spirits and enjoying spending time soaking it all in.”

With repeat performers like Sullentrup and an enthusiastic buy-in from the neighborhood, Chase and Bassett knew the festival would be more than a one-off.

“I was just amazed at the response from the community,” says Chase. “So many people were asking when it was gonna happen again, and people were wanting it to happen multiple times a year.”

It’s a long way from where it started. Chase recalls that in the run-up to last year’s inaugural festival, she went to her neighbors to spread information and garner interest for Porchfest.

“This woman I met going door to door was in her eighties, sitting on her porch,” Chase says. “She was interested in the event, but her son was kind of negative, saying that they weren’t gonna go.

“The day of the event, the whole family was on the porch, enjoying the music.” n

YOUR MUSIC HAS A HISTORY Tuesdays

MAY 1–29

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6–8pm • Forest Park Museum’s North Lawn mohistory.org/twilight-tuesdays

------------MAY 2------------

RHYTHM RENEGADES ------------MAY 3------------

BILLY BARNETT C.W. AYON

------------MAY 4-----------Here’s a totally accurate representation of a Jack White concert. | JAIME LEES

[OUT & ABOUT]

No Phone, No Problem Written by

JAIME LEES Jack White played the Chaifetz Arena last week... maybe. Well, that’s what we heard, but there are were no photos or videos allowed at the show. And going by the rules of the world that we live in: pics or it didn’t happen.

White is currently on a tour where he has “banned” the audience from using their cell phones during the show. This type of request would be completely unacceptable to modern humans if it came from a band like Arcade Fire, but when a genius like Jack White asks you to step away from your technology, audiences are just like “Well, shit. OK. I mean, he already made me buy all of these LPs, I might as well go full old-timey.”

The cell phone ban is intended to help audiences connect with the music and remove the distraction of thousands of tiny glowing screens, but it prevents some people from attending at all. Like if your main boo is an on-call doctor, you’ll probably not choose one of these concerts for date night.

Live music fan Shonda McDaniel didn’t mind the process, though she says she was apprehensive about it at first. When audience members entered the building they were given a pouch that locks to keep their phones in. If they

wanted to use their phones, they took them to a designated area to get the bag unlocked. They could hear their phones or feel them buzzing throughout the show, but not access the screens.

“As a mom I was anxious about an emergency happening with my son, but you could keep your phone turned on so that helped calm my worries,” McDaniel says.

“I really enjoyed it being a phonefree show; it was refreshing to see people actually enjoy the show and each other and not be glued to their phone all night. I hope this becomes a regular thing.”

Though the concert was undersold, all of the reviews we heard were positive. Last night word got around that just before he played “7 Nation Army,” Jack White gave a shout-out to St. Louis’ own Ryan Koenig.

Koenig is a well-respected member of the south city music scene. (And one of this year’s STL77 honorees.) In addition to playing with the Rum Drum Ramblers and Jack Grelle, Koenig is a member of Pokey LaFarge’s band and had toured with White in the past and guested on his album, Blunderbuss.

Koenig was seriously injured last December when he was struck by a car while on a sidewalk in Charleston, South Carolina. After doing some time in the hospital there, Koenig returned home and is recovering well.

Apparently, White wanted to show his love, so he took a quick minute to say, “This one is dedicated to my friend Ryan Koenig.”

We’d love to direct you to a clip of this heartwarming gesture, but, you know, there isn’t one. Just close your eyes and pretend. It’s the best you got. n Awww. Isn’t that sweet?

ALBERT CASTIGLIA BAND

------------MAY 5------------

NATHAN JAMES AARON GRIFFIN BAND ------------MAY 6------------

LOVE JONES "THE BAND"

Thursday may 3 9:30pm Urban Chestnut Presents

Alligator Wine’s Tribute To The Grateful Dead Friday may 4 10PM

4 Hands Brewery presents the right now

Funk & soul from Chicago Saturday May 5 10pm

Marquise Knox Wednesday may 9 9pm Urban Chestnut Presents

A Tribute To Bob Marley Thursday May 10 9pm 4 Hands Brewery Presents

SWAMP FEST

feat. The New Orleans Suspects plus Honey Island Swamp Band Friday May 11 10pm PBR Presents

Sidewalk Chalk

Hip Hop, Soul & Jazz from Chicago with Guests Love Jones The Band riverfronttimes.com

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OUT EVERY NIGHT

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duke’s THE SOULARD SPORTS BAR

[CRITIC’S PICK]

Like & follow us on Facebook for everything going on at Duke’s @dukesinsoulard

VOTED ST. LOUIS’

2017 BEST OF ST. LOUIS Readers Poll

BEST BAR & BEST SPORTS BAR

Cardinals vs Cubs $14 Buckets Free Shuttle

Patty Griffin. | DAVID MCCLISTER

Patty Griffin 7:30 p.m. Sunday, May 6.

The Sheldon Concert Hall, 3648 Washington Boulevard. $35 to $40. 314-533-9900.

With the crash and burn of her rockstarcrossed romance with that guy from Led Zeppelin, one might forgive Patty Griffin for making the breakup album to end all breakup albums. But her most recent release, Servant of Love, haunts and harries with a different mission in mind. With a slurry and crackling voice, like end-of-the-jag Billie Holiday, she gets

THURSDAY 3

BIG TOBACCO: w/ Little Cowboy, Dear Genre 9 p.m., $5. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

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

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

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

JOE POLICASTRO TRIO: 9:30 p.m., free. The Dark

heavy into blues and jazz, with the twin hellhounds of rockabilly guitar and muted trumpet barking all around her. If she’s exorcising demons, she’s doing it on her own terms, through music that swings like after-hours at the juke and transfixes like a snake-charming session.

Songwriter to the Songwriters: When some of the best writers in country music — Miranda Lambert, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Emmylou Harris — cover your songs, as they have with Griffin, you know you’re doing something right. —Roy Kasten Room, 3610 Grandel Square inside Grandel Theatre, St. Louis, 314-776-9550.

LEE DEWYZE: 8 p.m., $12-$58. The Monocle, 4510 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-935-7003.

MARTIN LAWRENCE: w/ DeRay Davis, Rickey Smiley, JB Smoove, Benji Brown 7 p.m., $49.50$150. Chaifetz Arena, 1 S. Compton Ave., St. Louis, 314-977-5000.

T.S.O.L.: 8 p.m., $16-$18. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

TREY: w/ Guys On A Bus, Tri Patterns 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St.

We’ve Got Every Game

Amazing Food

2001 MENARD (AT ALLEN) IN THE HEART OF SOULARD

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[WEEKEND]

BEST BETS

Five sure-fire shows to close out the week

FRIDAY, MAY 4 DDG 8 p.m. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Avenue. $25 to $70. 314-833-3929.

After dropping Lil Yachty diss track “Big Boat,” DDG seemed to rocket straight to the stratosphere, but that boost wouldn’t have happened if the young YouTube star hadn’t laid the groundwork with years of vlogs. The rapper has a sixth sense for social media, with a million-plus followers whom he treats like friends, not just fans. And it’s that uncut connection that resonates, allowing him to stand out in a scene of self-imposed reality TV stars. If his latest collab with TreOnTheBeat ”Arguments” is any indication, DDG’s upward trajectory will assuredly continue.

Gel Set w/ Twins, Pineapple RNR, Hylidae 9:30 p.m. William A Kerr Foundation, 21 O’Fallon Street. $5. 314-436-3325

Just one of the many monikers of Houston native Laura Callier, Gel Set debunks the myth of pop as a polished product to be sucked in without a second thought. Songs are sonic set pieces decorated with tasteful symmetry — a mastery of balance between the human voice and the robotic rip of synths. A performative subtlety carries the sound, with bodily movements creating a live narrative. Tourmate Twins is equally capable with odd pop, bringing a real-time scrambling of sounds through the use of CDJS, a mixer and turntables.

Hayley Kiyoko 8 p.m. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Boulevard. $20 to $25. 314-726-6161.

Actress, director and — what’s most relevant here — singer Hayley Kiyoko works so fast that even her own fan base is lagging behind. That 2015’s “Girls Like Girls” sits at nearly 90 million views is a credit to this pop artist’s Continued on pg 50 ability to endure

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OUT EVERY NIGHT Continued from pg 47 Louis, 314-352-5226.

FRIDAY 4

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

COMRADE CATBOX: w/ People’s Park, Struck Down By Sound 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

DDG: 8 p.m. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

HAYLEY KIYOKO: 8 p.m., $20-$25. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

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

LUCKY OLD SONS: 7 p.m., free. Hwy 61 Roadhouse and Kitchen, 34 S Old Orchard Ave, Webster Groves, 314-968-0061.

RUN RIVER NORTH: 7 p.m., $15-$18. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

TROUT STEAK REVIVAL: 10 p.m., $10-$13. The Bootleg, 4140 Manchester Ave., St. Louis, 314775-0775.

VOODOO PRINCE: 7 p.m., free. Atomic Cowboy Pavilion, 4140 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-775-0775.

SATURDAY 5

310 BASH: w/ echo shorty, FIJI24K, TAMPA, AS IN THE BAY, JAY6, SEOULLIKETHETACO, chris cannibal 7 p.m., $10-$12. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

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

THE ALL PURPOSE BAND: 8 p.m., $15-$20. The Stage at KDHX, 3524 Washington Ave, St. Louis, 314-925-7543, ext. 815.

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

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

CREE RIDER: 7 p.m., free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521.

THE CUBAN MISSILES: w/ Breakmouth Annie, Brasky, Boston Profit 8 p.m., $8-$10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

FUNKY BUTT BRASS BAND: 7 p.m., free. Atomic Cowboy Pavilion, 4140 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-775-0775.

GRASS FED MULE: w/ Kind Country 9 p.m., $7.

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

HWY 61 CRAWFISH BOIL: 1 p.m., $5. Hwy 61 Roadhouse and Kitchen, 34 S Old Orchard Ave, Webster Groves, 314-968-0061.

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

LISA LAMPANELLI: 8 p.m., $29.50-$49.50. River City Casino & Hotel, 777 River City Casino Blvd., St. Louis, 314-388-7777.

MINUS THE BEAR: w/ the Coathangers 9 p.m., $25-$27. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

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

OH WONDER: w/ Astronomyy 8 p.m., $25.

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

SONIC MISCHEIF: 9 p.m., free. Nightshift Bar & Grill, 3979 Mexico Road, St. Peters, 636-4418300.

SUNDAY 6

AUDRA MCDONALD: 7 p.m., $39-$125. Blanche M Touhill Performing Arts Center, 1 University Dr at Natural Bridge Road, Normandy, 314-5164949.

THE CORDOVAS: w/ Tim Lloyd and Sean Canan 8 p.m., free. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

DANNY GATTON TRIBUTE: 5 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-

[CRITIC’S PICK]

#patiolife

Sean Canan’s Voodoo Players | THEO WELLING

Voodoo Prince 7 p.m. Friday, May 4.

The Atomic Cowboy Pavilion, 4140 Manchester Avenue. Free. 314-775-0775.

Two years after his death, the music world shows no signs of letting the memory of Prince Rogers Nelson fade from consciousness. The past few weeks have brought headlines, both from the excavation of his voluminous vault (which yielded a long-rumored studio version of “Nothing Compares 2 U”) as well as more details on his overdose. But Sean Canan’s trusty Voodoo Players will celebrate the man and his best-loved songs with another airing 436-5222.

FISTULA: w/ Come To Grief 8 p.m., $13-$15.

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

PATTY GRIFFIN: 7 p.m., $35-$40. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900.

PORCHFEST STL 2018: 1 p.m., free. Skinker DeBaliviere Community Council, 6008 Kingsbury, St. Louis, 314-862-5122.

of Voodoo Prince, which debuted a year ago and showed the Players’ versatility in tackling the pop, funk and soul of Prince’s output. Singer Laren Loveless will grip the gold-plated mic for most of the set; he can fill out the contours of a purple pleather raincoat and, as the Voodoo Players’ New Year’s tribute to Michael Jackson proved, the dude can nail a falsetto.

Shaking That Ass: Last year Canan brought up horn players as well as Karl “Hearskra-z” Livingston from Blank Generation to perform “Sexy M.F.” Expect a few surprises from this free show as well.

—Christian Schaeffer

SCHOOL OF ROCK: 4 p.m., $10. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

MONDAY 7

MADISON BEER: 8 p.m., $23.50-$28.50. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-7266161.

ALWAYS A GREAT TIME IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD 1818 Sidney (at Lemp) @truemansinsoulard

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[CRITIC’S PICK]

in any medium. Maybe it’s her experience in both theater and songwriting, but music videos seem to marry Kiyoko’s talents into a proven formula of audiovisual euphoria. She’s the kind of overachiever whose infectious hubris empowers others.

SATURDAY, MAY 5 Cinco de Mayo: A Cherokee Street Festival

THIS JUST IN

11 a.m. Cherokee Street between Texas and Nebraska. Free. No phone.

Cherokee Street’s Cinco de Mayo street fest tosses a metric ton of local music into the already boiling cauldron of food and art that is Cherokee Street.

A cultural celebration done right, this day features three stages, each with its own distinct vibe. At Nebraska, it’s a hip-hop heavy platform; at Texas, there’s a punk and twang-tinged lineup.

California hosts what could be considered the main stage with a roster of Latinx talent in Javier Mendoza, Banda Artilleros and Carlos Suarez, to name a few.

Minus the Bear w/ The Coathangers 9 p.m. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Avenue. $25 to $27. 314-833-3929.

Minus the Bear’s ability to shine through of a sea of indie rock metoos could be credited to its initial boost in the early aughts by Suicide Squeeze Records, but that would be fake news. Jake Snider and company have endured by shapeshifting from prog-sensible math rock to pop-friendly indie ballads. And that transformation by no way came overnight or through the course of a single record. While the band has formed its own vocabulary, last year’s Voids shows it’s still finding new ways to tell its story. In a nod to longtime fans, the band tours on its 2007 album Planet of Ice, celebrating more than a decade since the seminal record’s release.

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

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DAY26: 8 p.m., $20-$40. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

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

OSCAR HERRERO: 7:30 p.m., $15. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-5602778.

P.O.S: w/ Serengeti 8 p.m., $15. Blueberry Hill The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

POLYDIMENSIONALS: w/ Bloated Goats, Emily and Aaron 6 p.m., free. Milque Toast Bar, 2212 S Jefferson Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-0085.

ROSEDALE: w/ The Holy Hand Grenades, Saylor Twift, Jason Detroit 7 p.m., $8-$10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

TODD RUNDGREN’S UTOPIA: 7 p.m., $32-$72. Peabody Opera House, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-499-7600.

P.O.S. | NATE RYAN

P.O.S. 8 p.m. Wednesday, May 9.

Blueberry Hill’s Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Boulevard, University City. $15. 314-727-4444.

Minneapolis rapper P.O.S. has been churning out hard-hitting hip-hop with a DIY edge ever since he made the switch from punk rock to rap in 2001. A founding member of the Doomtree collective, P.O.S. has released the majority of his solo work through the venerable Rhymesayers Entertainment label, but his latest, last year’s Chill, Dummy, was put out through his own

OUT EVERY NIGHT Continued from pg 49 MUSHROOMHEAD: w/ Vyces, Gabriel And The Apocalypse, Ventana, Blood Sun 6 p.m., $20-$25.

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

MUSIC UNLIMITED BAND: 9 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

THE 3 BS: BACH, BEETHOVEN & BRAHMS: 7 p.m., $38. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900.

TUESDAY 8

BETH BOMBARA: 8 p.m., $12-$15. The Stage at KDHX, 3524 Washington Ave, St. Louis, 314925-7543, ext. 815.

THE BONER KILLERZ: w/ Escape From The Zoo 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave.,

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Doomtree Records. The album, which features guest spots from frequent collaborators Open Mike Eagle, Astronautalis, Busdriver and more, was received favorably by critics. P.O.S.’s razor-sharp lyricism (he famously counts the vocabularily gifted Aesop Rock as his favorite rapper) is on display throughout.

Family & Friends: Like-minded Chicago rapper Serengeti will open the show; his brand of alternative hip-hop should be welcomed by fans of the headliner. — Daniel Hill St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

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

THE LUCKY LOSERS: 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

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

WEDNESDAY 9

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

CHEROKEE MOON: w/ Old Souls Revival 9 p.m., $3. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

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

‘90S HOUSE PARTY: W/ Vanilla Ice, Naughty By Nature, Coolio, Tone Loc, Montell Jordan, Rob Base, All-4-One, Young MC, Sat., Sept. 8, 6 p.m., $20-$149. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

4TH ANNUAL ROCK PAPER PODCAST BIRTHDAY SHOW: W/ Old Souls Revival, The Scandaleros, Mathias & The Pirates, Sophisticated Babies, The Many Colored Death, Sun., July 8, 2 p.m., free. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

A NIGHT OF MUSIC AND ACTION WITH THE 442’S: Sun., May 20, 7 p.m., $25. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

AARON GRIFFIN BLUES BAND: Sat., May 5, 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

AARON TIPPIN: W/ Sammy Kershaw, Collin Raye, Sat., July 7, 7 p.m., $25-$60. Chesterfield Amphitheater, 631 Veterans Place Drive, Chesterfield.

AFROSEXYCOOL 2 YEAR ANNIVERSARY: Sat., May 26, 8 p.m., $7-$10. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

ALBERT CASTIGLIA BLUES BAND: Fri., May 4, 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

ALEX CLARE: Thu., Oct. 18, 8 p.m., $15-$20. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

THE BEL AIRS: Fri., May 11, 7 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

BEN MORGAN BAND: Sat., June 2, 9 p.m., $7.

Brewskeez O’Fallon, 4251 Keaton Crossing Blvd., St. Charles, 636-329-0027.

BIG GEORGE BROCK & THE HOUSE ROCKERS: Sun., May 13, 4 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

BIG HEAD TODD & THE MONSTERS: W/ Los Lobos, Greyhounds, Sun., Aug. 12, 6 p.m., $35-$85.

Chesterfield Amphitheater, 631 Veterans Place Drive, Chesterfield.

BIG MIKE & BLUE CITY ALL-STARS: Sat., May 12, 10:30 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

BIG RICH MCDONOUGH & RHYTHM RENEGADES: Wed., May 9, 7 p.m., $5. Wed., May 16, 7 p.m., $5. Wed., May 23, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-4365222.

BILLY BARNETT BAND: Thu., May 3, 7 p.m., $5.

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

BROTHER JEFFERSON BAND: Thu., May 17, 9 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE: Tue., Sept. 18, 7 p.m., $32.50-$35. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

C.W. AYON: Thu., May 3, 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

THE CADILLAC THREE: Thu., June 7, 8 p.m., $20$25. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

CAFÉ TACVBA: W/ Ruen Brothers, Sat., Oct. 6, 8 p.m., $35-$40. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd.,

St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

CAROL BURNETT: Thu., Nov. 8, 7:30 p.m., $65$175. Peabody Opera House, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-499-7600.

CHEROKEE MOON: W/ Old Souls Revival, Wed., May 9, 9 p.m., $3. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

THE CORDOVAS: W/ Tim Lloyd and Sean Canan, Sun., May 6, 8 p.m., free. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

DANNY GATTON TRIBUTE: Sun., May 6, 5 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

DAVID DEE & THE HOT TRACKS: Fri., May 11, 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

EDEN: W/ Kacy Hill, Fri., Oct. 19, 8 p.m., $20$25. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

EL MONSTERO: W/ Here Come The Mummies, Sat., Aug. 11, 7 p.m., $20-$55. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

ETHAN LEINWAND & FRIENDS: Tue., May 8, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

FANTASTIC NEGRITO: Tue., July 10, 8 p.m., $20$23. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

FEED THE NEED CONCERT: W/ The Harman Family Blues Band, Sat., Sept. 29, 5 p.m., $48-$108.

Liberty Bank Ampitheater, 1 Riverfront Drive, Alton Township.

FLEETWOOD MAC: Sat., Oct. 20, 8 p.m., $66.50$226.50. Scottrade Center, 1401 Clark Ave., St. Louis, 314-241-1888.

FLYNT FLOSSY: W/ Turquoise Jeep, Fri., July 27, 7 p.m., $12. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

THE GREAT KICKBACK: Sat., May 12, 8 p.m., $7.

The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-5350353.

HOUNDS: Fri., May 25, 7 p.m., free. Saint Louis Art Museum, 1 Fine Arts Dr Forest Park, St. Louis, 314-721-0072.

HOWLIN RAIN: W/ The Mountain Movers, Tue., July 17, 8 p.m., $15. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

IVAS JOHN & BRIAN CURRAN: Thu., May 10, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

JACK TATE VS COLLIN REAGAN: W/ Jason Thompson VS Brandon Dalton, Tony Esteem VS Ricky Rodriguez, Sun., May 27, 8 p.m., $15-$20.

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

JASON COOPER BLUES BAND: Wed., May 9, 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

JIMMIE VAUGHAN: Fri., July 27, 8 p.m., $25. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-5880505.

JOSH HOYER & SOUL COLOSSAL: Fri., May 18, 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

KAMIKAZE COLE: W/ Frost Money, JDK, Marvin Louis, Del Broadway, Dangelo White, Ill Fated, Youngs Law, J Taime The Saint, Swami, Sat., July 21, 8 p.m., $10-$12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

KIM RICHEY: Fri., Aug. 3, 8 p.m., $20-$25. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

KINGDOM BROTHERS BAND: Sat., May 19, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

LARRY GRIFFIN & ERIC MCSPADDEN: Sat., May 12, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

LEMURIA: W/ Katie Ellen, Dusk, Thu., July 26, 8 p.m., $15. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-7274444.

LEROY JODIE PIERSON: Fri., May 4, 7 p.m., $5.

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

LEROY PIERSON: Fri., May 18, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

LOCALS ONLY: Sat., June 9, 7 p.m., $10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: Sun., May 20, 8 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

THE LUCKY LOSERS: Tue., May 8, 10 p.m., $10.

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

THE MACHINIST: W/ Enochian, Eyes From Above, Ghost Decay, Out Of Orbit, Dave the Shredder, Sun., June 24, 7 p.m., $10-$12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

MARQUISE KNOX BLUES BAND: Sat., May 19, 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

MARTY SPIKENER & ON CALL BLUES BAND: Wed., May 16, 10 p.m., $5. Wed., May 23, 10 p.m., $5.

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MILES NIELSEN & THE RUSTED HEARTS: Sat., July 7, 8 p.m., $10. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

MISS JUBILEE: Sun., June 10, 2 p.m., free. Kirkwood Public Library, 140 E. Jefferson, St. Louis, 314-821-5770.

MUSIC UNLIMITED: Mon., May 14, 8 p.m., $10.

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

MUSIC UNLIMITED BAND: Mon., May 7, 9 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

NATHAN JAMES: Sat., May 5, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

OSCAR HERRERO: Wed., May 9, 7:30 p.m., $15.

The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778.

PJ MORTON: W/ Tish Haynes Keys, Sun., June 24, 6 p.m., $35-$40. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

POLYDIMENSIONALS: W/ Bloated Goats, Emily and Aaron, Wed., May 9, 6 p.m., free. Milque Toast Bar, 2212 S Jefferson Ave, St. Louis, 314833-0085.

POWERMAN 5000: W/ Knee High Fox, Fri., June 1, 7 p.m., $16-$18. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

RANDY ROGERS BAND: W/ Casey Donahew, Fri., Aug. 24, 7 p.m., $25-$45. Chesterfield Amphitheater, 631 Veterans Place Drive, Chesterfield.

RAW EARTH: Fri., June 22, 7 p.m., free. Soulard Art Market and Contemporary Art Gallery, 2028 S. 12th St., St. Louis, 314-258-4299. Sat., July 28, 9 p.m., free. Ferguson Farmers’ Market, Spot Drive and Florissant Road, St. Louis, 314324-4298.

RIVER WHYLESS: Wed., Aug. 22, 8 p.m., $15.

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

ROCKY MANTIA & KILLER COMBO: Mon., May 21, 7 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

SCREAMING FEMALES: W/ Kitten Forever, Sun., Sept. 30, 8 p.m., $12-$14. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

SEASAW: W/ Kid Scientist, Sister Wizzard, Wed., June 6, 8 p.m., $7. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

SIMO: Sun., July 15, 8 p.m., $12. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

ST. LOUIS SOCIAL CLUB: Tue., May 15, 8 p.m., $5.

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

THE BLACK & WHITE BAND: Sun., May 20, 5 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

THE BUG OUT: A STRAIGHT-UP CLASSIC HIP-HOP JAM: W/ James Biko, DJ Willpower, The Original G-Wiz, Fri., May 11, 8 p.m., $5-$6.50. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

THEORY OF A DEADMAN: Wed., July 25, 8 p.m., $28-$30. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

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

URIZEN: Sat., June 16, 7 p.m., $12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

VALLEY: W/ Murtaugh, Railhazer, Ox Braker, Fri., June 8, 8 p.m., $8-$10. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

VICKY MICHAELS & EDICKS WAY BAND: Tue., May 22, 9 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

WHO’S BAD: THE ULTIMATE MICHAEL JACKSON TRIBUTE BAND: Thu., July 5, 8 p.m., $20-$25. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

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MAY 2 - 8, 2018

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SAVAGE LOVE QUICKIES

BY DAN SAVAGE Hey, Dan: I wish I had a better question, but this is all I have: My friends and I were discussing the nuances of a straight orgy (a roughly equal number of male and female participants) versus a gang bang (one woman, many men), and we observed that there is no proper name for a one man, many women situation. The internet tells me it’s just a “reverse gang bang,” which is a very disappointing name. Can we please establish a new one?

Curious Nonparticipant How does “pussy riot” grab you?

And while we’re on the subject of flipping gendered expressions: A number of years ago, I was asked to come up with a female version of “sausage fest.” Sticking with the food theme, I proposed “clam bake.” Still mystified as to why it didn’t catch on.

Hey, Dan: Married from 28 to 36, single the last three years, and celibate most of the last couple years.

The last two years of my marriage were sexless, and I saw professionals until I was priced out. I could probably earn twice what I’m making now if I moved away, but my current job gives me the flexibility to spend afternoons with my young kids. Last year, I had a brief relationship (that included the best sex of my life), but I ended it because I needed more me time. So I lack the willingness or the confidence to be in a relationship, and I don’t have the cash to see pros.

I’m not fussed by this. Should I be concerned about my celibacy?

Absolutely Not Getting Sex Today Seeing as your celibacy is intermittent and by your own choice (you walked away from the best sex of your life for me time? What kind of mid-’90s Oprah bullshit is that?), ANGST, you’re unlikely to wind up hanging out on an “incel” forum filled with angry, violent, socially maladapted men who blame the fact that they can’t get laid on women and feminism. So long as you continue to take personal responsibility for all the sex you’re not having, there’s nothing to be concerned about.

Hey, Dan: My boyfriend and I have been together for two years. When we first got together, we had sex every day. Then it dwindled. We had major problems along the way and separated this winter. During that time, he went to another state. We got back together long-distance, and I received many letters from him saying how much he wanted to have sex with me. He moved back two weeks ago, and we’ve had sex only twice. He used to say he wanted me to make the first move. But if he really wanted me, wouldn’t he make a move? I feel so neglected, yet he claims he loves me. Please give me some insight.

No Sex For Weeks

What’s the female version of “sausage fest”?

Sticking with the food theme, I proposed “clam bake.” Still mystified as to why it didn’t catch on.

He says he wants sex (with you), but he doesn’t make a move. You say you want sex (with him), but you don’t make a move. So how about this: The next few times you want sex, NSFW, make a move. If he fucks you two out of three times, maybe he was telling you the truth when he said he’d like you to make the first move. If he rebuffs you every time, then he doesn’t want to have sex with you — and you’ll have to make a move to end this relationship.

need to part ways so you can find someone who wants the same things you do and wants them now, I’ll be devastated but I’ll understand.”

Hey, Dan: I’m a youngish man who’s been in a loving relationship with an older woman for a year. The only area where the age difference comes into play is largely unspoken between us — she wants kids. All of her friends are having kids, and she’s nearing the end of her childbearing years. I’m nowhere near ready, and I sometimes question whether I want to be monogamous to any one person for life. We never discuss it, but I can tell how deeply this bothers her and that in her ideal world, I’d be ready to start planning a future with her. I’m racked with guilt at the possibility that by the time I’m ready for that level of commitment (or, worse, by the time I realize I never will be), she’ll be biologically incapable of having kids, which is really important to her. This is all complicated by the fact that this is easily the most loving, trusting, respectful relationship I’ve ever been in.

Bond Afflicted By Years Speak, BABY: “Look, you want kids.

I’m not ready, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready. Also, I’m not sure about lifelong monogamy. If we

Hey, Dan: I’m a 22-year-old woman living in Central Asia doing development work. There are fourteen other expats within an hour or two of me, but eight of them are in relationships. I’ve always been the “single friend,” and normally I don’t mind. But being surrounded by couples right now has been a tax on my mental health. I know I’m young and should be focusing on this amazing opportunity and my career, but I can’t help but feel lonely at times, especially since I can’t speak the local language well and these fourteen other people are the only ones near me who speak English. What should I do?

Single Anonymous Dame Math. Eight of the fourteen nearby English-speaking expats are in relationships. That means six nearby expats are single like you, SAD. It’s not a lot of people to choose from in real numbers, I realize, but as a percentage — 40 percent of nearby expats are single — it’s statistically significant, as the social scientists say. Focus on this opportunity, focus on your career and focus on that statistically significant number of nearby singles.

Hey, Dan: My husband and I listen to your podcast, and we’ve become a little more open about our wants and needs as a result. Anyway, on two recent occasions, he shaved his riverfronttimes.com

53

pubes. Both times, I told him it was a turnoff. Like, I literally dried up when I saw it. He said he understood, yet now he’s about to take a trip with friends and he’s done it again. Chest too this time. Assuming he’s telling the truth and this manscaping effort is not about other women (eye roll), is it fair to me?

Can I ask him to stop? Shouldn’t he want to stop if it’s a turnoff for me?

Do I have to be GGG on this too?

Not Into Bald Balls I feel your pain — but it’s not hair removal that’s an issue in my relationship, but hair growth. My husband would like to have a mustache. It’s his face (those are your husband’s balls), and he can do what he wants with his face (your husband can do what he wants with his balls). But I can do what I want with my face, and my face doesn’t touch his when there’s a mustache on it. Similarly, NIBB, you’re not obligated to touch your husband and/or his junk when he’s pubeless. When I’m out of town, my husband will grow a mustache, and I don’t complain or temporarily unfollow him on Instagram.

So long as your husband’s balls/ crotch/chest are smooth only when they’re far from you, it shouldn’t be an issue in your marriage — unlike the fact that you think he might be fucking another woman (maybe one who’s into bald balls?) or thinking about fucking other women. That’s an issue you’re going to want to address.

CONFIDENTIAL TO EVERYONE IN TORONTO: You’re in my thoughts, aka atheist prayers.

Listen to Dan’s podcast at savagelovecast.com. mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage on Twitter ITMFA.org Want to reach someone at the RFT? If you’re looking to provide info about an event, please contact calendar@riverfronttimes. com. If you’re passing on a news tip or information related to food, please email sarah. fenske@riverfronttimes.com. If you’ve got the scoop on nightlife, comedy or music, please email daniel.hill@riverfronttimes. com. Love us? Hate us? You can email sarah. fenske@riverfronttimes.com about that too.

Due to the volume of email received, we may not respond, but rest assured we are reading every one.

MAY 2 - 8, 2018

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RIVERFRONT TIMES

55

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

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-2018 RFT Best of St. Louis Readers Poll

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and should not be based solely on advertising.

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

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RIVERFRONT TIMES

MAY 2 - 8, 2018

riverfronttimes.com

BIG Deals On

Above & Below The Belt Grooming For Men

Call For Appointment

407-494-7425 Theshavemster.com