Riverfront Times - May 16, 2018

MAY 16–25, 2018 I VOLUME 41 I NUMBER 20

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First World Problems THEY ESCAPED CIVIL WAR AND TRAUMA IN THE MIDDLE EAST — ONLY TO LAND IN ONE OF ST. LOUIS’ TOUGHEST NEIGHBORHOODS

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THE LEDE

“It’s hard. It’s not as easy as some people think it is to get a job and get off the streets.

I’ve been homeless for four years now, and it basically became a way of life for me. I had opportunities and went and stayed with some people in their houses, and it just wasn’t the same. Homeless is like a community. We all try to help each other and watch out for each other. It’s like a family out here.”

PHOTO BY THEO WELLING

—Crystal Mae young, photographed with Jasen JaCkson on May 13 on Chouteau island

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MAY 16 - 22, 2018

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TABLE OF CONTENTS FEATURE

14.

First World Problems They escaped civil war and trauma in the Middle East — only to land in one of St. Louis’ toughest neighborhoods Written by

ROBERT LANGELLIER Cover photo by

SARA BANNOURA

NEWS

ARTS

DINING

CULTURE

8

20

33

43

Police

Calendar

A St. Louis attorney is fighting to access the police report her own client filed

Seven days worth of great stuff to see and do

9

Stage

North County

27

Cafe

Homespun

Cheryl Baehr gets a little taste of the Hill on Cherokee at Parm Pasta & Sandwich Co.

Middle Class Fashion examines its lead singer’s season of selfabsorption in EGO

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44

Side Dish

Preview

The mayor of Vinita Park resigns after his felony conviction comes to light

A Streetcar Named Desire proves that Tennessee Williams’ masterpiece holds up to the ravages of time

Jim Fiala has gone from the Village Bar to twenty years of restaurant brilliance

Spoon returns to St. Louis after its LouFest triumph

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31

38

Radio

Politics

Eric Greitens skates on a criminal charge for invasion of privacy .... for now

12

Film

RBG examines the life of the notoriously brilliant Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Food News

Sultan Mediterranean Cuisine will open soon in the Grove

38

First Look

Surveillance

Mas Tequila Cantina will have you ordering just that in Laclede’s Landing, while Barrio replaces oysters with burritos in DeMun

A Missouri sheriff becomes the poster boy for a national scandal

45

Nathaniel Farrell wants to give St. Louis a Cure for Pain

46

Out Every Night

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

47

This Just In

This week’s new concert announcements

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MAY 16 - 22, 2018

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NEWS

Police Fight to Seal Rape Report Written by

SARAH FENSKE

I

n April 2008, just a little more than ten years ago, a woman filed a police report saying she’d been raped by a St. Louis cop.

The woman, who the Riverfront Times is not identifying by name, told workers at St. Anthony’s Medical Center that the cousin of her assailant lived in the apartment below hers in south city. At a party he was hosting, she alleged, the cop showed up in uniform and, eventually, forced her to perform oral sex. She said he then shoved his fist in her vagina.

But though she filed a police report, and Internal Affairs opened an investigation, nothing seemed to come of it. The officer was never charged. He remains on the force to this day.

This year, with the #MeToo movement making headlines around the world, the woman felt galvanized. She began protesting outside St. Louis police headquarters — ten years after she found herself in the emergency room.

But her requests to access the original police report from her case have been denied. In fact, the department now hopes to use a little-known procedure called a “motion to close records” to keep the woman from being able ever to see the report.

“The fact they’re putting up such a fight for what should be a simple process is crazy to me,” says attorney Chelsea Merta, who is representing the woman.

As Merta explains it, the woman hired her in February after the officer and his wife filed for an order of protection in response to her picketing at the police station.

(Other Blues Lives Matter supporters, too, have filed for orders of protection against the woman, Merta says, but alleges they’ve never interacted other than online.)

At that point, the woman had already requested a copy of the

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police report. In response, she was given only a two-page “incident report” that contained no details — not even the woman’s own name, much less that of the officer she’d accused. Oddly, the bare-bones report indicates the case was still active as of its printing in February.

Pushing for more, in April Merta demanded the actual police report, this time under her firm’s letterhead. In response, she was told it was now inactive and asked to pay $5.

The department cashed her check, Merta says. But instead of the seven days she was initially quoted, staffers suddenly said they’d need more time. And then, on Wednesday, she was emailed docketing information showing the department had filed a petition in St. Louis City Circuit Court, asking a judge to issue an order saying the records should be kept from her.

City Counselor Julian Bush says he is not aware of the particulars of Merta’s case. However, he says, the maneuver is a procedure outlined in Missouri law.

“We have the right to ask a court to do this,” he says. “It will be up to the city to prove in court that the facts they’re alleging are true.” If so, the judge could order the reports sealed.

At this point, the facts being alleged are a bit vague. The city’s petition says only that “the safety of witnesses and other individuals cannot be reasonably ensured should an unedited and unaltered copy of the PD’s police report be released.”

As the legal justification for its request, the police department cites part of the law that reads as follows: To compel investigators to reveal contents of their investigative reports before the culmination of the investigation and, when appropriate, the prosecution, could result in compromising the investigation and prosecution by disclosing the status of the investigation, jeopardizing witnesses, aid the guilty in the destruction of yet undiscovered evidence, promote fabricated evidence by the guilty party, and foster other inhibiting consequences. News-Press and Gazzette Co. v. Cathcart, 974 S.W.2d 576, 579 (Mo. App. W.D. 1998) (footnote 3).

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

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Attorney Chelsea Merta requested a police report filed by her client. She was denied. | COURTESY OF CHELSEA MERTA (Emphasis added.)

But as Merta notes, the investigation appears to have already culminated — no one believes the department is still investigating.

Beyond that, if they’re worried about “the safety of witnesses,” why not just redact those details?

Merta says she is hoping for a court date next week to argue that the file should be open — a decision that will now be up to a St. Louis Circuit judge.

“I have difficulty believing that a judge would want to set the precedent that victims cannot obtain copies of their own police reports,” she says.

In the three months that Merta has represented the woman, she’s tracked down the order of protec-

tion she filed against the officer in 2008, as well as her hospital records. They show that nurses found bruising to the woman’s upper and lower lip, the bridge of her nose, and her posterior neck.

However, a rape kit could not be performed because, in addition to urinating and brushing her teeth since the incident, the woman had gotten her period.

Even though ten years have passed since the incident, Merta says everything the woman told her matches what’s recorded in the documents. “Sometimes clients exaggerate, or distort facts,” she acknowledges. “That has not been the case with this woman.

She has been telling the same story since 2008.” n

Vinita Park Mayor Resigns Written by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI

T

hree days before he stunned a meeting of the Vinita Park City Council by tendering his resignation, Mayor Gerald French texted his recently vanquished electoral opponent, Ward 1 Alderman Brian Gremaud.

In the text, French urged Gremaud to attend the hastily called meeting, held May 7. “This will be VERY VERY important and will effect [sic] you tremendously,” French wrote, adding, “I promise you will NOT regret coming.”

French won the mayor’s job on April 3, but city voters didn’t know that their preferred candidate was also a convicted felon who had pleaded guilty in 2004 to cashing counterfeit checks. Neither, it seems, did election authorities.

And that’s a problem: Missouri law expressly forbids felons from holding elected office. French’s decade-old conviction should have barred him from running, much less serving as mayor.

When Gremaud showed up to the May 7 meeting, he says French handed him and the other aldermen a memo stating the mayor’s intent to resign.

At the time, Gremaud says, “We

didn’t know why.”

In the days leading up to the meeting, Gremaud claims he had heard rumors that French was planning to ditch the job of leading the tiny municipality, which boasts a population barely cracking 2,000. French had previously worked as the city’s public works director.

“I was guessing that he was leaving because the mayor’s pay was cut in half,” Gremaud says.

One week prior, the board approved a measure to lower the mayoral salary, slashing it from $40,000 to $20,000. (The old salary was more than double what most mayors earned in similarly sized municipalities; it was so disproportionate, it attracted the ire of Fox2’s Elliott Davis, who dedicated a March 2016 “You Paid For It” segment to the outsized salary.)

“I was thinking, he’s got a family, and he was going to want his public works job back,” Gremaud recalls. But at the Monday night meeting, French didn’t provide any clarification for his decision.

In Gremaud’s telling, French simply handed in his walking papers, ranted a bit and left.

“He kind of blasted out the whole board,” Gremaud says.

“He marched out in a huff and slammed two doors behind him.”

It wasn’t until the next morning that Gremaud says he got a straight answer from French.

Over text, Gremaud asked French point-blank why he’d resigned.

French replied, “I have a felony conviction. [It’s] never my intention to hurt the city, residents or employees.” French added that

Gerald French, right, with a supporter. | FRIENDS TO ELECT GERALD B. FRENCH SR. he didn’t want to “fight it” and attract further embarrassment and media attention to the city.

“I thought it best to step down,” French wrote, according to a screenshot of the conversation Gremaud provided to the RFT. According to a federal indictment, between July and August 2002 French had cashed three counterfeit checks for a total of $24,800. Each of the three checks bore a “forged signature,” the indictment alleged.

In February 2005, French plead-

ed guilty to a single count of passing a counterfeit check. He received a sentence of five years probation and was ordered to pay restitution.

French’s background wasn’t a mystery to Gremaud, though he says that during the campaign he “wasn’t certain” about the exact nature of French’s criminal history. In any case, Gremaud chose not to air the allegation during the campaign, and the alderman ultimately lost his bid for mayor, 239-119.

Continued on pg 10

STREAK’S CORNER • by Bob Stretch

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MAY 16 - 22, 2018

RIVERFRONT TIMES

9

Governor Walks — for Now Written by

SARAH FENSKE

SUNDAY BURLESQUE BRUNCH TWO SEATINGS EVERY SUNDAY 10AM & 1PM 5 0 0 N . 1 4 T H ST. D OW N TOW N ST. LO U I S

P

rosecutors dropped a bombshell Monday after three days of jury selection in the invasion of privacy case against Missouri Governor Eric Greitens, dismissing charges just before it was set to go to trial.

The announcement was made just before 5 p.m. on Monday after prosecutors and defense attorneys met in the chambers of Judge Rex Burlison. Prosecutors say they now intend to hire a special prosecutor. They’ll have to act fast, as the statute of limitations will run in a matter of weeks.

The decision follows a series of motions filed under seal by defense attorneys seeking to call Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner as a witness.

In a statement, Gardner acknowledged that Judge Burlison had recently granted the request — necessitating her office’s decision to drop the case. “The court’s order places the Circuit Attorney in the impossible position of being

MAYOR RESIGNS Continued from pg 9

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MAY 16 - 22, 2018

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Still, the day after the election, “Instead of calling him and congratulating [French],” Gremaud says, “I called the prosecuting attorney’s office.”

Prosecutors apparently took note. On May 7, the Vinita Park Board of Aldermen received a memo from the city clerk: The St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was seeking French’s election-filing materials from the April 3 election.

What’s next for Vinita Park?

City ordinances stipulate that the current board president will take over until the aldermen can nominate a new mayor, Gremaud says.

Another election won’t be held until April 2019.

That would mean the mayorship will fall temporarily to current board president Celeste McGee, wife of former mayor James McGee. In a Monday night text to Gremaud, French pleaded with the

a witness, subject to cross-examination within the offer of proof by her own subordinates,” Gardner said in a prepared statement.

“When the court and the defense team put the state in the impossible position of choosing between her professional obligations and the pursuit of justice, the Circuit Attorney will always choose the pursuit of justice. The court’s order leaves the Circuit Attorney no adequate means of proceeding with this trial. Therefore, the court has left the Circuit Attorney with no other legal option than to dismiss and refile this matter.”

Gardner called Burlison’s decision “unprecedented” and vowed to find someone else to press forward and refile the case.

However, defense attorneys noted that the judge’s ruling was upheld by the Missouri court of appeals after prosecutors made a hail-mary plea for reversal on Monday.

“The Circuit Attorney’s Office attacks on Judge Burlison are completely irresponsible,” said attorney Scott Rosenblum.

A defiant Rosenblum insisted the charges will never be refiled. “This case is never going to charged again, there’s not going to be a special prosecutor,” he said.

Said fellow defense attorney Jim Bennett, “Everyone knows the real reason this case was dismissed, which is what we put in our motion four hours ago, which is that

aldermen keep an eye on things at city hall — specifically, McGee. “I’m praying you guys don’t let McGee sit too long as acting mayor,” French wrote. “The city can’t take another McGee.” When Gremaud told him that she would only serve as acting mayor for two weeks, French replied, “That’s still too long.”

However, to the RFT, Gremaud also raises the possibility of stepping into the mayor’s office himself.

“Can you resign when you never should have had the office anyway? That’s what I’m trying to wrap my head around,” he says. “I’m not certain about what really is the appropriate avenue that we should take. It seems like common sense says that I would get the job, but I’m not certain what the law says.” Reached by phone, French declined to comment or confirm his resignation, instead directing all questions to his lawyer. French’s lawyer did not respond to messages left at his office. n

there’s no evidence of a crime.”

Defense attorneys said that they were horrified by what they’d witnessed.

“What we’ve seen in this case by the Circuit Attorney’s Office, I can tell you, makes me fearful as to what’s going on with other defendants that may not have the wherewithal to show what’s going on,” Rosenblum said.

Earlier on Monday, prosecutors conceded that they had failed to find evidence of a photo of the victim on Greitens’ smartphone — a critical piece of evidence since the single felony count against Greitens in the case rested on the allegation that he photographed a woman in a state of partial nudity without her consent.

“There was no evidence of a photo, no evidence of a deletion, but that continued to fall upon deaf ears for this prosecuting attorney’s office,” Rosenblum told reporters after court.

Still, despite their last-minute attempts to access Greitens’ phone, it had long been known that prosecutors did not have the photo in their possession. They had planned to build their case on the woman’s testimony. She has told a House committee investigating Greitens that she was blindfolded, The New York Times

but saw a flash and heard a noise like that made by a smartphone taking a photo. “You’re not going to mention my name. Don’t even mention my name to anybody at all, because if you do, I’m going to take these pictures, and I’m going to put them everywhere I can.

They are going to be everywhere, and then everyone will know what a little whore you are,” she reports Greitens saying.

Greitens continues to face a separate criminal case in St. Louis Circuit Court for felony computer tampering.

In remarks on the courthouse steps soon after the shocking dismissal, an uncharacteristically somber Eric Greitens faced the cameras — and for once, he did not lash out at the media, prosecutors or the many causes funded by George Soros.

Instead, the governor said, “This experience has been humbling, and I have emerged from it a changed man.” He added, “Above all, I am sorry for the pain that this process and my actions have caused my family, my friends and the people of Missouri.”

In his remarks, Greitens also called the decision to drop the invasion of privacy charge “a great victory and a long time coming.”

Eric Greitens was somber after a felony case against him was dismissed Monday. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI “I am also tremendously grateful for the patience and courage of my family and friends and people of faith who have all recognized that in time comes the truth,” he said. “We have a great mission before, and I would ask people of good will to come together so all of us can continue to do good to-

gether.”

Asked a few follow-up questions, Greitens was again uncharacteristically polite to the media, which he has long reviled. “I’m going to be with my family right now, and I look forward to following up with you,” he said as he walked away. n

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ory Hutcheson was ahead of his time.

Last week, a U.S. Senator from Oregon called for an investigation into the security and software company that the now-suspended rural Missouri sheriff used to track cell phones of five state troopers, the former sheriff and a sitting judge in the Bootheel. The New York Times published a story online Thursday, leading to flurry of articles in other media.

For many, it was the first time they had heard of the company in question, Securus Technologies Incorporated. And they were stunned to learn the private firm could pinpoint any of millions of people’s cell phones “in seconds.”

But Hutcheson had been well aware of its powers for years.

If his name sounds familiar, it should.

We’ve written extensively about the Mississippi County sheriff’s legal troubles, including a cover story in April 2017.

The tough-talking lawman, a Republican elected in the Trump wave of 2016, didn’t even last six months in office before being hit with criminal charges. He currently faces charges for more than two dozen state and federal crimes, including robbery and identity theft.

He is also being sued in numerous civil suits. One was filed by the family of a woman who died of a drug overdose in the Mississippi County jail as staff allegedly mocked her. Another was filed by the ACLU on behalf of a former inmate who claims her baby was stillborn because jail staff refused to get her medical help.

There is more, but the latest interest is the Securus business. As the service provider for pricey inmate phone calls, it is a major contractor at facilities around the country.

Tracking cell phones is a little-known side service. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) says he only recently learned about it but sees potential for some serious invasions of privacy. As he and the Times story revealed, Securus buys location data through a middleman from all the major carriers, including AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile. It then makes that data available to its government clients through a convenient web portal.

All a client — say, the administrator of a Bootheel jail — has to do is go online, punch in the phone number they want to locate, upload a legal document that says they have permission to access that info and then click an authorization box.

Securus pulls up the phone’s GPS data and delivers a location within moments.

As a selling point, law enforcement has reportedly been able to find wandering Alzheimer’s patients and move quick-

ly in other emergency situations.

But Wyden says its a system ripe for abuse, and he is asking the Federal Communications Commission to investigate.

He has also written to wireless carriers, warning them they could be responsible for Securus jeopardizing the security of their customers’ data. He likens the authorization process of Securus’ web portal to a “pinky promise” between the company and its clients.

“This practice skirts wireless carriers’ legal obligation to be the sole conduit by which the government conducts surveillance of Americans’ phone records and needlessly exposes millions of Americans to potential abuse and surveillance by the government,” he writes in a letter to the FCC chairman.

Wyden says cell phone companies are legally obligated to protect customers’ data and personally vet any law enforcement requests for that data. Instead, they’re selling that data to other companies that do little to safeguard it. Top officials at Securus have told Wyden that they do nothing to make sure that the affidavits or other legal documents submitted by law enforcement are legit or actually give them permission, he writes.

In case anyone needed an example of what could go wrong, the Times story lays out Hutcheson’s case. The Missouri Attorney General and the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri have filed separate criminal cases against the suspended sheriff, alleging he repeatedly and illegally accessed cell phone data.

In a probable cause statement filed last year, Missouri State Police claimed Hutcheson used the Securus service to track or “ping” cell phones of troopers, then-Sheriff Keith Moore and Judge David Dolan between July and November 2014.

“Those ‘pings’ provide the current location of cellular telephones in near real time,” state police Corporal D.B. Reed writes in the probable cause statement.

To gain access, Hutcheson uploaded affidavits that falsely made it appear he had permission for what amounted to warrantless searches, state police say. Even a quick scan of the documents should have revealed them as illegitimate. State police say Hutcheson was listed as both the author and notary on the affidavits, which isn’t allowed. But Securus handed over the information anyway.

Moore was Hutcheson’s boss at the time of the tracking, and the two were quickly becoming rivals. Hutcheson ultimately ran against the longtime sheriff in 2016 and unseated him following a bitter campaign. He took office in January 2017 and was in the job less than a year before he was arrested.

Moore told the RFT last year that Hutcheson had been under investigation for years. He said the FBI seized Hutcheson’s work computer back in 2014.

Hutcheson has continuously denied any wrongdoing. He is fighting the criminal charges, civil lawsuits and suspension of his peace officer’s license. n

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13

SYRIAN REFUGEES ESCAPED CIVIL WAR AND TRAUMA IN THE MIDDLE EAST, ONLY TO LAND IN ONE OF ST. LOUIS’ TOUGHEST NEIGHBORHOOODS

First World Problems

BY ROBERT LANGELLIER PHOTOS BY SARA BANNOURA

A

t the dinner to benefit Syrian refugees, there aren’t enough seats for the Syrians. The room at the Boo Cat Club is packed, and Jessica Bueler is flit-

ting around, managing the event, making sure the crowd of mostly white St. Louis women is enjoying the food. A young Syrian boy stops her and quietly asks where he’s allowed to sit.

“Anywhere,” Bueler says, smiling, continuing on.

The boy walks back to where his family of five is standing pinned against the side wall of the event, and whispers something to his dad. His dad looks as if he were told to sit in every seat at the same time. Bueler catches this and zips over, leading the family to a central table where she asks spreadout diners to scooch together.

This is Bueler’s thirteenth Supper Club dinner, in which she invites St. Louisans to pay $25 for the chance to eat home-cooked

Syrian food and meet a few of the 68 Syrian refugee families that have been resettled in St. Louis since 2014. Six of them cooked this evening, and all the night’s proceeds will go to them.

In 2016, Bueler founded the grassroots organization Welcome Neighbor STL after she was horrified by an RFT story detailing the beating of teenage Syrians in north city, and she’s been rallying St. Louisans to provide support for refugees ever since. Playing the role of pep-rally leader, she uses loud and ESL-friendly language to

All quotes from Syrians are translated from Arabic by Sara Bannoura

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MAY 16 - 22, 2018

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introduce the audience to the evening’s cooks, who announce what they’ve cooked — shawarma, kibbeh, fattoush, tabouleh, hummus — and stand awkwardly for the accolades. The thrum of applause thermals into a frenzy when Alifa Alahmad steps forward and says the word “baklava.”

T

hree of the Syrian cooks live in the Garden Apartments near Hodiamont and Page, about a mile north of Delmar.

The block, which adjoins Amherst Park, features the splintered and rotted bones of old homes and a too-wide street paved with more traffic in mind. This is the neighborhood where some Syrian teens were beaten in 2016, drawing Bueler’s attention. A dozen or so refugee families have left the area already. The ones who remain haven’t had the choice.

No fewer than eleven Syrians greet me in a living room with tea, kibbeh with olive oil and za’atar, olives, makdous, labneh and Arabic coffee set on Continued on pg 16

Iman Alkrad, far left, with her sons Abdal and Mohammad and husband Ammar. Years after arriving in the U.S., the family is still living in a run-down apartment complex on Hodiamont.

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Iman Alkrad, left, offers tea from one of the few possessions she was able to bring with her from Syria. Below right, her son Mohammad smokes a hookah, a Middle Eastern tradition.

Below left, Najlaa Alsaadi’s children were sitting on the couch when someone threw a rock through the window behind them.

FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS Continued from pg 14

a tablecloth on the floor.

Apparently still shocked by the violence they’ve witnessed in north city, the group ticks off a list of what they’ve experienced collectively at the Garden Apartments in the last two years: the beating of their teenagers, a holdup at gunpoint, two cars smashed in by baseball bats, a chilling attempted kidnapping of one of their daughters, a rock thrown through their living-room window, kids hit with baseball bats, a stolen bicycle, a man creeping around with a stocking mask on (two weeks ago), men breaking into their living room wielding a Taser (one week ago). The wives stay awake until their husbands get home, sometimes as late as 2

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a.m. They’ve called 911 so many times that dispatch provided them with a special number to call.

Then there are the living conditions themselves. A roach crawls across the floor. Iman Alkrad, one of the Supper Club cooks, casually picks it up with a paper towel and kills it. Soon after, I spot another across the room, on the wall.

Later, they show me a five-inchby-ten-inch sticky trap plastered with fully 1,000 insects. They inform me that this trap is today’s.

As in only today’s. Happily, winter put a break on the bed bug infestation that had attacked their children’s legs. “When I leave, I’ll only take our clothes and some kitchen tools,” Iman Alkrad says.

“Everything else is going to waste,” her husband Ammar says.

“The roaches are inside the furniture.”

With an invisible grace, Alah-

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

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mad and Najlaa Alsaadi take my dishes, sweep away the dinner crumbs, and clean the apartment before I even notice.

Some have suggested that the Syrians’ problem in north city is cultural. In 2016, Jeffrey Boyd, the alderman for this ward, suggested to KMOX that perhaps if the Syrians didn’t eat their meals on the floor, they might not have an insect infestation. The same week, KSDK’s Jason Aubry wrote, “A number of those (cockroach and field mice) problems can be associated with the refugee [sic] themselves not knowing or understanding how things work here in the Midwest, surrounded by an abundance of bugs and animals foreign to them.”

Mohammad Rehman, whose company manages the Garden Apartments, suggests that the bed bug and roach problems were

caused by bringing in outside mattresses and furniture, and claims that the problem was resolved a year ago. He says he is unaware of the roaches’ continued presence.

“We have an office in the apartments,” he says. “If they have a problem, they have to come over and tell us. That’s why we’re sitting over here.”

Others might suggest the problem is capitalist. Our system incentivizes landlords to take advantage of renters with, say, no English proficiency, few-to-no community ties and nowhere else to go — and therefore no ability to complain. The families blame the insect infestation on their landlord neglecting to cut the grass, and they claim he one day tried to resolve a mold issue by painting over it. (Rehman says this is not true.) Boyd himself disclosed — transparently, at least — in

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The Alkrads show off a single day’s roach collection. the 2016 KMOX interview that the Garden Apartments manager once contributed to his campaign.

Jessica Bueler, for her part, maintains that Boyd has offered her no more than lip service about helping the Syrians. Boyd did not respond to an interview request.

“Conflict is normal between people,” Abu Osama, who lives at the Garden Apartments, says.

“We’ve been through trouble back home, but people figure things out. Here, it’s so easy for people to pull out a gun. I’ve seen so many people pull guns out flippantly.

I’ve seen someone shoot someone in the leg just down the street. I’ve seen someone get shot at a gas station just a couple weeks ago.”

“We left death and came to another death,” the Alkrads’ son Mohammad says.

“If we knew this is what it was going to be like, we would’ve stayed in Jordan,” Iman Alkrad says.

“We’re not asking to live in Clayton,” Ammar Alkrad interposes, already keenly aware of the places a St. Louisan might aspire to.

“Just a better place, something better than this.”

The Dar Al-Jalal mosque and Welcome Neighbor STL have worked to relocate Syrians from Garden Apartments to other parts of the city and county. The mosque paid to help with families’ leases for one year, while Welcome Neighbor STL raised $15,000, providing $1,000 to each moving family to help subsidize the new residences. Only three remain. The money is there, Bueler says; the complication is a matter of rehoming large families with several children. After getting the Syrians out, Bueler says she wants to focus on Somalian families living at the Garden Apartments, who are also facing violence.

Until mounting back rent forced her to shutter in March, Bueler owned HSB Tobacconist on the Loop; her father founded the business in 1972. Although she founded Welcome Neighbor STL long before closing HSB, the vacuum that followed the tobacco store’s closure has shifted Welcome Neighbor STL into overdrive, for the Syrians at Hodiamont and beyond. Bueler recently designed curricula for twice-weekly English lessons for eighteen Syrians at Grace United Methodist Church, organizing pickup, dropoff and daycare services for mothers. The Supper Club she founded has also exploded; Welcome Neighbor STL has received so many recent requests that they’ve had to put a temporary hold on reserving the cooks.

Bueler stepping in with Welcome Neighbor STL has been a lifeline for the families still at Hodiamont. But the situation continues to rankle. What has been discouraging, Ammar says, is that their section of the apartment complex was where all the incidents occurred, and yet they have been the ones who’ve proven too difficult to rehome quickly.

“We’ve become part of the past tense now,” he says. “People and the media have forgotten about us.”

Abu Osama, who has five children, fixes on me intently. He has heart problems stemming from the war in Syria. Certificates earned by some of the young children in school hang on the wall, opposite a boarded-up window.

Two of the men in the room in their early twenties hadn’t been to a single day of class since the Arab Spring began, and are now working full time to support their families.

“We don’t want Continued on pg 18

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17

FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS Continued from pg 17

food or water,” Osama says. “We just want our kids to be safe and have a good life. That’s all we want. Our future is gone. Now we need to take care of them.”

B

ack at the Welcome dinner, the guests are savoring their baklava. Bueler, standing at the head of the room, calls attention and gives thanks to everyone involved, to applause.

She announces the next Supper Club event. Then she indicates the woman standing next to her, Iman Alkrad.

“Iman would like to share a story with you all. Iman, do you want to talk about your first day in St. Louis?”

Alkrad speaks haltingly, to accommodate a translator. “It was a bad day,” she says. “I was crying. (Translation.) I traveled a long distance. (Translation.) It’s been seven years since I’ve seen my daughters. (Translation.) I felt scared. (Translation.) And after I met people here and Jessica came to visit me at home with the group, with Susan, they became like my family, like sisters. (Translation.)

They helped us, thank Allah.”

In the pauses during translations, Alkrad returns to Daraa, on the southern tip of Syria. She fled in February 2013 with blankets and kitchen tools, her home demolished, leaving one daughter behind. It was two years after the outbreak of Syrian unrest, 700 days of bloodshed. One day, during Eid al-Adha (“Feast of Sacrifice”), an explosion shook the city.

A car bomb had gone off outside a restaurant where children were playing. Blood and flesh flew everywhere. Children and women screamed. Iman’s kids had only just left the area to come home.

Another time, Alkrad’s 21-yearold nephew’s house was shelled.

His one-month-old daughter survived with a broken leg. They found the mother in pieces in the bathroom. The father’s head exploded on the living room carpet.

Alkrad fled with her family to the Jordanian desert, where they lived for two months in a tent camp. The tents were candle-lit and would sometimes catch fire, burning up their inhabitants. Because there was no security in the camp, rape was common; someone always kept watch through the night.

It was there they learned that Iman’s mother-in-law, trapped in a basement in Syria, had suffocated from the fumes of a gas

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Jessica Bueler, center left, works with Alifa Alahmed, Iman Alkrad and Najlaa Alsaadi to plan an upcoming Supper Club event. bomb. Eventually Alkrad’s family smuggled themselves out on a bus and got onto a list for UN refugee resettlement, from which Alkrad and her husband were sent to St. Louis.

“I wish I could hold my daughter,” Alkrad says. “I don’t know if I’ll see her again. I don’t know if I’ll see my brothers. Only Allah knows. Inshallah [God willing].”

Alifa Alahmad, who is standing next to Alkrad at the dinner

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

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and preparing to speak, suddenly finds herself back in Aleppo, site of the brutal four-year Battle of Aleppo between the Syrian military and opposition forces. No one left their shelled homes; snipers hiding in the ruins fixed on anything that moved. A pregnant woman in labor finally ventured outside, holding a white rag as a sign of peace, desperately looking for a place to give birth. They shot her.

A

lderman Boyd, in a separate 2016 interview with KMOV, argues that violence terrorizes his whole ward, not just the Syrians living in it. It’s a fair point.

Many have lived their entire lives amid violence. The question becomes a nebulous one, one of quantifying St. Louis’ complicated violence: Do the Syrians, who did not grow up in this community, deserve to leapfrog black residents, who have suffered centuries of

racial and economic discrimination, into a safe neighborhood?

And yet in Syria, at least these families were thrust into a chaos for which they had context. Here in north St. Louis they are not only scared but culturally lost. For those born here, the world expands at the rate at which we speak to others, unfolding their worlds into our own. For a refugee who doesn’t know the language, the world is fixed to the size of how many other Syrian refugees are around them. At Hodiamont, the world has shrunk to three families big.

It’s not the poverty or the bed bugs’ bite that overwhelms. It’s the unfilled promise of peace, the anxiety of red memories that never leave, and the new alien fear that every brushed hair, itch, tic or any other minute sensation is a bed bug or roach that eventually overwhelms.

Najlaa Alsaadi, another of the Supper Club cooks, speaking of Syria, later tells me: “It never escapes us, never escapes our mind.

I was just on the phone with my mother yesterday. She said she wishes she can hold me, and I started crying, and she started crying. Even after we hung up, she called me again five minutes later, just to tell me to stop crying.”

T

he Supper Club event is winding down. Those Americans who came with friends are leaving; those who managed to introduce themselves to Syrians are still chatting excitedly with them. At the end of one table, next to the plundered remnants of food trays, Maysaa Telmesani speaks into a cell phone, waiting for Google Translate to perform its charms. She then passes it to the woman across her, who looks at the English and laughs.

“This is the thing that’s empowering them to take the next step, to talk to people, to give them the confidence to use English, and to actually make money,” Bueler says. Supper Clubs serve all of these ends.

Telmesani, a Syrian teacher, arrived in the U.S. four hours before Trump’s Muslim ban took effect.

A week later, Telmesani receives the chance to teach again for one hour at Mallinckrodt Academy, a south-city school for the gifted.

In front of a crowd of bored, relatively affluent young children, Telmesani shows the children a slideshow photo of her onceupon-a-time Syrian students.

Then she wrings from her nascent English vocabulary the story of Daraa, where the Syrian revolution began on March 6, 2011.

“Some students — I think that

they were at the same age as you — in Daraa,” she says, “wrote some words in the street. The statement... The meaning of the statement in English was, ‘Dr. Bashar, your return is coming.’

“An officer in Daraa — he was the cousin of the president — he took these students who wrote these statements and took them to a place. We can say it was a prison. They force fear on them and killed them and take their [finger] nails from their places. He took their nails.”

Schoolchildren seldom give public speakers serious attention, especially if the speaker is an adult with a thick accent. Yet several of the students here gasp, locked onto Telmesani. One young girl gapes

“It never escapes us, never escapes our mind. I was just on the phone with my mother yesterday. She said she wishes she can hold me, and I started crying, and she started crying.” for the rest of the hour, horrified.

Telmesani goes on to describe how Syrian officials broke her father’s skull. One of the teachers raises her eyebrows and glances at the students, concerned yet ultimately unwilling to stop this grown woman tearing up in front of children she’s met this week.

There’s a fantasy that refugees, once they arrive, start life anew.

But of course they don’t. They continue living, and every time gunshots ring out in north city, a family member, a friend or a pregnant woman holding a white flag dies again, and the past keeps knocking on the door of the future.

Since the Supper Club event at the Boo Cat Club, Alifa Alahmad and her family have relocated from the Garden Apartments to a home in Crestwood. Three families remain, including Iman and Ammar Alkrad’s, waiting for the war to end. n

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MAY 16 - 22, 2018

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CALENDAR

BY PAUL FRISWOLD 7:30 and 10 p.m. Thursday, 7:30 p.m. Friday (May 17 and 18) at 2720 Cherokee Performing Arts Center (2720 Cherokee Street) and 9 p.m. Saturday, May 19, at the Casa Loma Ballroom (3354 Iowa Avenue). Friday night’s show is the Red Light Revue and includes entrance to the Van Ella Bordella after-party at 10:30 p.m., which combines a speakeasy with a Weimar-era German cabaret. The waitresses are surly, the band’s version of jazz is sleazy and the entertainment is better seen than described. Tickets are $10 to $125 depending on the performances you pick. They’re available through www.showmeburlesque.com.

SATURDAY 05/19 La traviata

Prime opens its second season of new plays on Saturday. | COURTESY OF PRIME

THURSDAY 05/17 Macbeth Shakespeare’s Hamlet gets the plaudits as the best drama ever written, but it’s mostly actors pushing that narrative. (Hamlet gets more time on stage than anyone, so of course hammy thespians love the part.) In terms of actual drama and character development, however, Macbeth is the far superior play. A noble Scottish warrior feels the surge of power in the aftermath of a war he helped win and thinks more power might be just what he needs.

His wife implores him to follow through on this plan, and when things get sticky she’s there to do whatever is necessary. England’s National Theatre has a new production of the dark tragedy in the works with Rufus Norris direct-

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ing Rory Kinnear and Anne-Marie Duff as Lord and Lady Macbeth.

You can see a recording of a live performance at 7 p.m. tonight at Marcus Wehrenberg Des Peres 14 Cine (12701 Manchester Road, Des Peres; www.fathomevents.com).

Tickets are $20.

FRIDAY 05/18 Risk! Live Supposedly, everyone has a story in them, and Kevin Allison encourages people to tell them. And not the fictitious ones, either. Allison’s podcast Risk! features people from all walks of life telling real stories from their past, particularly the stories they thought they’d never share with a stranger, let alone a room full of them.

He brings his Risk! Live tour to town tonight at 8 p.m. at Delmar

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

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Hall (6133 Delmar Hall; www. delmarhall.com), which is where St. Louisans Amy Brooks, David Wraith, Mimi Le Uke and Rafe Williams will tell their true and risky tales. Tickets are $20.

Show Me Burlesque Lola Van Ella’s Show Me Burlesque Festival has grown over the course of nine years to an incredible size. Four different shows spread over three nights are required to accommodate the performers who represent the best of the burlesque, neo-burlesque, cabaret, modern vaudeville and circus scenes. New York’s Nasty Canasta and San Francisco’s Alotta Boutte are the headliners, and scores of other performers will take the stage throughout the festival as well. Performances are at

Late May in St. Louis means the return of Opera Theatre St. Louis, and here the company is, right on time with Giuseppe Verdi’s wildly popular La traviata. It’s the story of the queen of Paris courtesans, Violetta. She keeps things light, joyful and decidedly impersonal — “don’t fall in love” is the rule she never flaunts. But then she meets young idealist Alfredo at a party and contemplates breaking her own iron rule. To make matters worse, her nagging cough seems to be back, just as she believed she had beaten it. La traviata is performed at 8 p.m. Saturday, May 19, at the Loretto-Hilton Center (130 Edgar Road; www.experienceopera.org) and then seven more times in repertory through June 23. Tickets are $25 to $127.

Reverie Local theater company Prime returns for a second season with the theme of “Know Thyself.” First up is Reverie, a waking exploration of dreams. Six plays that were written, cast and rehearsed in 24 hours dive deeply into the mysterious world of our sleeping mind — and what it all means.

Are dreams prophesies, or are they the language of our unbridled emotions? Find out at 8 p.m. tonight in an unused storefront at 2712 Cherokee Street (www.primetheatre.org), which has been

WEEK OF MAY 17-23

Cary Grant (then still Archibald Leach) made his Muny debut in 1931. | COURTESY OF THE MUNY transformed into a dreamworld by a group of local artists expressly for this show. Tickets are $15.

SUNDAY 05/20 Muny Birthday Bash One hundred years ago St. Louis was a very different place. Many of the institutions we consider essential to our collective identity were either just getting started or not even dreamed up yet. And yet in 1918 as World War I ended and the glow from the 1904 World’s Fair faded, Mayor Henry Kiel be-

lieved what St. Louis needed was a municipal theater that could provide entertainment and culture for everybody.

Here we are 100 years later, and the seed planted so long ago still bears fruit every summer. The Muny marks a century of performances, stars, changing tastes and audiences with a party on Sunday, May 20. The Muny Birthday Bash holds true to Kiel’s inspired vision: It’s free, and everybody is invited.

Tracy Utzmyers is the Muny’s production manager, and she’s currently in the midst of final preparations for the party. Still, she hesitates to claim ownership of an event a long time in the making.

“I’m not planning the Birth-

Annie Get Your Gun has been produced at the Muny seven times. | COURTESY OF THE MUNY day Bash on my own, and I don’t want to say I’m in charge. I’m just the loudest person in the room,” Utzmyers clarifies. “We’ve been talking about the party for probably a year and a half, or two years now. We started sorting out the logistics of the big day probably back in September.”

The “big day” is musically themed, naturally, with events that harken back to the deep repertoire of shows in the Muny’s history. Highlights include Aladdin’s camel rides for the kids, an All Shook Up bandstand and a Meet Me in St. Louis Ferris wheel, as well as food trucks, cupcakes and strolling characters.

“I keep thinking of it as a street

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Yul Brynner starred in The King and I in the Muny’s 1976 season. | COURTESY OF THE MUNY

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fair; you’re not going to be able to do everything,” cautions Utzmyers.

“You’re going to have to pick and choose what you want to do. We have kid zones, some local bands, and we’ll shut down the street in front of the Muny for the food trucks. It goes all the way up the hills toward the upper parking lot.”

One of the most interesting options is the interactive backstage tour, which shines a spotlight on the Muny staffers who never take the stage.

“It’s a self-guided tour that will take you through the whole backstage area,” explains Utzmyers.

“The orchestra, hair, wardrobe, wig and craft people will show you what they do to bring the Muny to life. They’re the core of how we get this done every year.

Oh, and the technical crew will be striking the lighting rig from the Friday night gala, so you can see how that comes down.”

Of course, the audience is included in the celebration.

“The tour ends on stage, where we’re encouraging people to take photos of themselves on stage,” Utzmyers says. “If you use the hashtag ‘muny100’ with those selfies and photos, they’ll be pulled into a program that will make a mosaic of our logo out of all the faces. That will be displayed around St. Louis in a number of places throughout the year. “ As always, no trip to the Muny is complete without a big finish that gets everybody on their feet.

Utzmyers is tight-lipped about exact details, but she’s willing to share a bit of information.

“We’re going to video [record] the whole audience doing a singalong at the end. I’m not sure what’s going to happen with the video, but it will be shared in a few places,” she promises. “The theater community keeps coming out every summer and asking for more. This is about everybody at the Muny thanking the community for what they bring, and asking them to celebrate a once-in-alifetime event with us.”

The Muny Birthday Bash takes place from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday, May 20, at the Muny in Forest Park (www.muny.org). Admission is free, and everybody is welcome.

ily Service’s schedule. The charity heks kids from infancy to age 21 who have been abused or are at risk find a safe place and learn the skills they need to overcome hardship and become successful in life.

The 108th edition of the spring spectacular starts at 11 a.m. today at 20th and Market streets (www. anniemalone.com/parade). There will be decorated floats, food and merchandise booths and essentially all of black St. Louis gathered to celebrate the legacy of Annie Malone, and to guarantee the future of the organization that bears her name.

WEDNESDAY 05/23 Life Sucks The New Jewish Theatre closes its season with Aaron Posner’s Life Sucks, which is adapted from Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya.

In Chekhov’s original play, an extended family and their close friends stew over regrets and long for change while all occupying the same country house. Posner reassembles the pieces in a modern setting. He leaves the yearning and ennui intact as he guilds

the characters with wryness and a tender playfulness. After all, the nineteenth-century Russian countryside may be a world (and a century and a half) away from modern America, but trying to make sense of life remains a time-honored occupation. Life Sucks is performed at 7:30 p.m.

Wednesday and Thursday, 8 p.m.

Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday (May 23 to June 10) in the Wool Studio Theatre at the Jewish Community Center (2 Millstone Campus Drive, Creve Coeur; www.newjewishtheatre.org). Tickets are $41 to $44. n

Annie Malone Parade The Annie Malone May Day Parade is famously the second-largest African American parade in the country, but it’s also the most important fundraiser on the Annie Malone Children and Fam-

riverfronttimes.com

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

RIVERFRONT TIMES

25

s u n i o J 9th Annual

for the

a i v i r T x Se Saturday, June 9, 2018 Doors open at 6:00 p.m.

Trivia starts at 7:00 p.m.

An evening of cheeky trivia, games, raffles, 50/50 and more to benefit Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri CONGREGATION TEMPLE ISRAEL 1 Rabbi Alvan D. Rubin Dr, (Ladue @ Spoede Roads) St. Louis, MO 63141

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MAY 16 - 22, 2018

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2015

W IN N ER !

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STAGE

27

Back with the Brutes The Tennessee Williams Festival kicks off with an on-point production of his greatest play Written by

SARAH FENSKE A Streetcar Named Desire Written by Tennessee Williams. Directed by Tim Ocel. Starring Sophia Brown, Nick Narcisi and Lana Dvorak. Presented by the Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis through May 19 at the Grandel Theater (3610 Grandel Square; www.twstl.org). Tickets are $25 to $45.

S

tella!!!!” By now it’s a joke, it’s a cliché, and it’s a reminder of the star who was born in the original A Streetcar Named Desire, first mounted on Broadway in 1947. The plot doesn’t need rehashing; if you don’t already know about Marlon Brando’s tight T-shirt and the kindness of strangers, it’s too late for you to care.

The good news is that, in the resonant new production that kicks off this year’s Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis, you won’t even think about Brando. Tim Ocel’s direction gives us a play that is both faithful to the original script and startlingly fresh. It doesn’t feel like one of those paint-by-numbers productions offering the highlight reel from a beloved movie version, thank God. This Streetcar feels positively insightful, even with all the years that have passed and the cultural touchstones that can’t help but clutter your perception of it.

Indeed, many classic plays, upon being remounted in 2018, require a bit of reworking. The swishy gay roommate no longer seems quite so funny; the oncecharming battle of the sexes now embarrassingly misogynist.

Not so A Streetcar Named Desire. Watching the exceptionally well-acted production that made its premiere last Thursday, I couldn’t help but think about how the #MeToo movement hasn’t rendered this play outdated — it’s only primed the audience for its impact. Williams’ two sisters,

Blanche (Sophia Brown) confronts her new surroundings as Eunice (Amy Loui) welcomes her to New Orleans. | HAMILTON RIDE “pulled down from the columns” of their family’s once-grand Mississippi manor and reunited in a crowded two-room New Orleans flat with the younger sister’s brutish husband, find their desire leads them to abuse, condemnation and, ultimately, rape.

Their choices aren’t easy, but the play succeeds because the playwright acknowledges that and never judges them for it. As a gay man observing the heterosexual pas de deux from the outside looking in, Williams saw women with astonishing clarity — our desire, and the judgment we face for having it; our weakness, and the choices it condemns us to. Even so, he gives us his full sympathy.

It’s no wonder the play holds up so well even in a tense cultural moment.

Credit for this goes, in part, to director Ocel and his talented cast, which includes an incandescent Lana Dvorak as Stella and a puppyish Spencer Sickmann, excellent as Mitch.

But at heart, what makes Streetcar so great is the script, and this production excels because Ocel is smart enough to be faithful to the

text. He doesn’t try to put spin on a play that doesn’t need it. The set,

by James Wolk, would have been right at home in 1948; the lighting,

by Sean Savoie, is effective, but doesn’t show off. The words are what carries this play.

The words and, of course, Blanche. Brando’s sheer charisma may have unfairly tilted the original production to Stanley, but what has made every Streetcar since rise or fall is its leading lady, and in Sophia Brown, Ocel has a wonderful one. Brown has a deep, throaty voice that immediately makes you realize she’s not imitating Vivien Leigh — her Blanche is tougher, more grounded in her certainties. But when she falls, she falls even harder. It’s such a terrific performance that, by the end, you’ll have a hard time imagining Brown in any other role.

She’s that convincing.

Anyone who’s seen Streetcar before — and is there anyone who hasn’t seen Streetcar before? — knows that it will end terribly for Blanche, that no oil-well millionaire will show up to waltz her off to Dallas, that Mitch isn’t going to marry her, that Stanley (a surpris-

riverfronttimes.com

ingly effective Nick Narcisi) will destroy her, emotionally and then physically.

Knowing this doesn’t lessen the impact. Instead, it allows you to take in not just the rape that ultimately pushes Blanche over the edge but the violence that surrounds all the women in the play, and the way their friends, neighbors and sisters learn to accommodate it. Even our heroine laughs when the slatternly crone upstairs is the one taking a beating. She’s not of her class; her sympathies have their limits.

“I couldn’t believe her story and go on living with Stanley,” Stella says of her sister near the end, and it’s less an explanation than a terrible confession, perhaps the most soul-crushing moment in a play full of them. So many times, we choose not to believe a “story” because we can’t accept what the truth will require of us; we can’t summon the courage to leave or don’t want to give up the comforts that deception affords us. Williams understood all this back in 1947. In every perfect detail, this production reminds us of the clarity of his vision. n

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

RIVERFRONT TIMES

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

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MAY 16 - 22, 2018

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FILM

31

[REVIEW]

Positively Notorious A new documentary about Ruth Bader Ginsburg is almost as good as its subject RBG Directed by Julie Cohen and Betsy West.

Starring Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Gloria Steinem and Nina Totenberg. Opens Friday, May 18, at the Landmark Tivoli Theatre.

Written by

ROBERT HUNT

T

he moving image — whether it’s film, television or that six-second video of a kitten doing back flips you saw on Facebook — has a unique and privileged relationship with time. We can look at an event that happened a century ago knowing it’s from the past but still feel as if we’re seeing it in real time. And through that time-straddling quality comes another unique relationship: From the Lumière’s first filmed images to whatever event is live-streaming as you’re reading this, history became something you can watch.

Perhaps it took the emergence of the 24-hour news cycle, or the rise of enormous online databases cataloging everything from straightforward facts to the commercial jingles you remember from childhood, for non-fiction film to take full advantage of our 120-year archive of historical images. Documentary films, once known for their stentorian narration and pedagogic techniques, no longer have to tell the viewer what’s going on. Now we can see it for ourselves.

That access to filmed history has a lot to do with the simple satisfactions provided by a film like RBG, a detailed biography and enthusiastic celebration of the life, career and unexpected fame of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the 85-year-old Supreme Court Justice who has become a symbol of feisty dissent in an increasingly conservative

Ruth Bader Ginsburg stays in peak physical condition to fight for equality. | COURTESY OF MAGNOLIA PICTURES judicial system. Produced by CNN Films, it’s a sober, straightforward and surprisingly informative portrait, providing a detailed account of Ginsburg’s legal accomplishments even while acknowledging her emergence in popular culture (the SNL sketches, the panoply of t-shirts and coffee mugs lauding “the Notorious R.B.G.,” the Tumblr site dedicated to Ginsburg’s dissents and achievements). It’s a film that deftly operates on two planes, providing a look at the past but remaining resolutely contemporary.

Filmmakers Julie Cohen and Betsy West follow a conventional path (talking heads and archival footage, all set to a muted pseudoGlassian score) in telling Ginsburg’s story, but she nevertheless emerges as a refreshingly unconventional heroine. Ginsburg is, by

all accounts, a determined and serious person.

The film provides friends and family members attesting to her dislike of small talk, her long working hours and her dedication to the law. More revealingly, it offers a thorough account of her legal career prior to her current position, where she fought for a variety of civil rights issues, ensuring equal pay for women in the military and challenging a law that excused women from jury duty. According to the film, hers became a systematic battle for equality, each victory chipping away at long-standing practices of discrimination. Her current status as a spirited legal superhero in a black robe and lace jabot is, it turns out, well-deserved.

As a history of Ginsburg’s public career, including her Supreme

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Court opinions and her position in the Court’s shifting ideological balance, RBG packs a lot of information in its 98 minutes without trivializing its subject, but those who only know the justice through her meme status won’t be disappointed. We get a close look at Ginsburg’s personal life as well — her passion for opera, her daily trips to the gym and, perhaps most tellingly, her understated amusement at all of the fuss she’s now accorded. (She bought dozens of Notorious R.B.G. T-shirts to give to friends.) Balancing a wellresearched social history with the personal details of Ginsburg’s life, RBG is modest, respectful and ultimately convincing in positioning its subject as a central figure in the long battle for legal equality. It’s a good film — and a great subject. n

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

RIVERFRONT TIMES

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Parm’s meatballs, shown here in its meatball sandwich, are perfection of the form, so wonderfully cooked they almost melt in your mouth. | MABEL SUEN

[REVIEW]

The Family Way Cherokee Street’s delightful Parm Pasta & Sandwich Co. offers food just like Nonna used to make it Written by

CHERYL BAEHR Parm Pasta & Sandwich Co. 2619 Cherokee Street, 314-833-3034; Mon.-Fri. 11 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sat. 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

(Closed Sundays.)

I

f you walk into Parm Pasta & Sandwich Co. and order a salsiccia sandwich with a side of mostaccioli, there is a good chance no one will know what you mean.

“One sah-zeetz-uh and a mus-

kacholi,” co-owner Diane Maijala calls out to her father, Salvatore D’Ippolito.

“I hear you, sah-zeetz,” D’Ippolito yells back, leading you to wonder whether Don Corleone himself is cooking up the sandwiches in the back of this tiny Cherokee Street storefront.

That St. Louis-Sicilian-Italian dialect isn’t only on display in the language. It’s also evident in Parm’s style of Americanized Italian food, with all of its cheesybaked, sweet-red-sauce-smothered glory. Maijala and D’Ippolito are more concerned with how much Provel they can cram onto their house salad than whether their food qualifies as “authentic” — unless your definition of authentic is what Nonna cooked at her home kitchen on the Hill.

And that’s OK. As the fatherdaughter team proves, there is a time and a place for unapologetic Americanized Italian comfort food, cuisine that, if not invented by, was certainly popularized by their family’s business, Cunetto

House of Pasta. D’Ippolito, who is the nephew of Cunetto’s founders, got his start in the restaurant industry working at the popular Hill mainstay before branching off on his own with an Italian-American eatery in Lafayette Square in the 1980s.

After a hiatus from the industry, D’Ippolito decided to join forces with his daughter, who had spent her career in the medical field. They knew they wanted to do something small scale and casual and scouted locations around Soulard before settling on the micro-storefront on Cherokee Street that used to house Teatopia, and the Little Dipper before that.

If you ever patronized either of the building’s former tenants, you’ll know what I mean by “micro.” Parm is so small that a person of average height could stretch out their arms and nearly touch both walls. At 300 square feet, there is no room for indoor tables; in fact, there is barely room for the two chairs that sit to the side of the order counter.

riverfronttimes.com

If more than three customers decided to patronize the place at the same time, the line would stretch out the door. It’s so small it’s almost dizzying.

The restaurant may lack physical space, but it is big on St. Louis charm. The cream-colored walls are covered in photographs and memorabilia, a visual representation of the city’s history. From a framed sketch of the Weatherbird to a photo of the massive Amoco sign that towers over the intersection of Skinker Boulevard and Clayton Road, Parm is steeped in the sort of nostalgia that makes you proud to be from here.

That nostalgia is not just evident on the walls. Granted, your Italian cousins visiting from Florence might scoff at what Parm bills as Italian, but it’s St. Louis Italian in the way that Maull’s soaked pork steaks are barbecue and Imo’s is pizza. The “Anthony’s Pride” is emblematic — basically a Gerber sandwich that someone looked at and said, “Hey, this needs roast beef.”

Continued on pg 34

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

RIVERFRONT TIMES

33

PARM

Continued from pg 33

Heaps of shaved ham and roasted beef are piled onto cheese garlic bread that becomes so gooey thanks to the melting Provel that you’ll wonder if it’s actually a sauce. Lettuce, tomato, pickles and pepperoncini garnish this monstrous wonder, their presence cutting through the richness.

It also makes the sandwich a bit soggy if you wait too long to eat it — not that you’ll want to. After watching them prep this lovely concoction, you’ll be lucky if you make it past the patio tables out front.

The “Salvatore” might as well be called “What the Hill Tastes Like.”

Piles of ham, salami and cappicola compete for space on the crusty French roll with Provel, lettuce and tomato. Zesty “special sauce,” which tastes like an Italian vinaigrette, dresses this beauty, adding a zing of acidity to the fatty meat — and somehow, in this case, it does not make the bread soggy.

When you crave an Italian deli sandwich, this is it to a T. I have never seen a turkey sandwich as large as Parm’s turkey club; there has to be at least a pound of meat on it, and that doesn’t include the generous portion of bacon that accompanies it.

Simply adorned with lettuce, tomato and Provel, it doesn’t break the mold; it shows you why the mold was made in the first place.

It’s basically impossible to execute an eggplant Parmesan sandwich without having it become mushy, and the texture on Parm’s version does have that problem.

However, as the breaded eggplant breaks down and mingles with the sweet tomato sauce and Provel cheese, it becomes a delectable, gooey spread that soaks into the interior of the bread while the exterior remains crisp. It’s a mess of a sandwich, but it is a delicious mess.

Parm’s housemade meatballs are perfection of the form: tender, flecked with parsley, garlic and breadcrumbs and so well cooked they all but melt in the mouth.

Piled onto crusty bread and slathered with simple tomato sauce, you’ll want nothing more in a sandwich — well, you’ll want to ask for the optional cheese on top to make this into a meatball Parmesan. It’s flawless.

I’m not sure which there was more of on Parm’s salad: croutons or cheese. Lettuce was but an afterthought, a way to make you feel less guilty about eating deep-fried bread and cheese tossed in vin-

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RIVERFRONT TIMES

Diane Maijala and Salvatore D’Ippolito have roots in the city’s Italian-American dining scene. | MABEL SUEN aigrette — basically a south-side panzanella. The dressing breaks down the Provel and mixes into it, becoming a creamy garlic sauce.

You probably need to have been born within KMOX’s broadcasting range to enjoy such a concoction, but if you were, it’s a nostalgic St. Louis treat.

It’s not the most St. Louis thing on the menu, though. That award goes to the mostaccioli, tubularshaped noodles tossed in a meaty tomato sauce that tastes as much like a south-city wedding reception as Busch on tap. Again, pasta drowned in meat sauce is not a complicated dish, but the rich sauce, al dente noodles and generous dusting of powdery Parmesan cheese makes for pure comfort.

Parm completes its SicilianAmerican feast with housemade cannoli, filled to order with rich espresso-laden ricotta. Flaky crust encapsulates the luxurious cream filling, bookended by two maraschino cherries.

Those maraschinos no more resemble cherries that come off the tree than the meat sauce on Parm’s mostaccioli resembles a classic Bolognese. But when you find one of those cherries at the bottom of your drink, dammit if you don’t enjoy chomping into that syrupy fruit. Sometimes, it’s even sweeter than the real thing.

Parm Pasta & Sandwich Co. Mostaccioli (large) ............................... $5.95 Eggplant parm ....................................... $6.95 “The Salvatore”. ..................................... $8.95

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

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“Anthony’s Pride” is topped with ham, roast beef, tomato, pickle and pepperoncini on cheesy garlic bread, sort of like a Gerber on steroids. | MABEL SUEN

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MAY 16 - 22, 2018

RIVERFRONT TIMES

35

36

SHORT ORDERS

[SIDE DISH]

A Top Chef Who Started at Village Bar Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

A

sk Jim Fiala why he got into cooking, and he doesn’t hesitate with the answer: burnt steaks.

“My family would travel, and my dad would ask what was the best restaurant in town. Sometimes, that was a steakhouse, and they would burn the meat on one side,” recalls Fiala, whose longtime restaurant the Crossing (7823 Forsyth Boulevard, Clayton; 314-721-7375) is widely regarded as one of the county’s best. “I hated it. It was toxic to me, but when we would eat steaks at home, sometimes my dad would get to talking to someone while he was cooking and do the same thing. Finally, I said, ‘Dad, let me cook the steaks.’”

A distracted cook he may have been, but Fiala’s father knew good food. The self-made businessman made it a point to take his family out on a regular basis, instilling in them a love of food and hospitality that influenced Fiala from an early age. Their meals would involve much more than eating; Fiala and his father would spend their time around the table deconstructing every aspect of the experience, from the service to the food to the atmosphere.

Though food got under his skin, Fiala did not immediately pursue it professionally. Instead, he enrolled in college in Dallas where he earned a science degree, thinking he would open his own business one day but not knowing what exactly that would look like.

After graduating, however, he found himself back in St. Louis, making bar food at the Village Bar in Des Peres. Little did he know, that experience would set him up for his future career.

“I was cooking burgers and ham and cheese sandwiches, but

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Jim Fiala worked for top restaurants in Chicago and New York and then opened two of his own in Clayton and Maplewood. | COURTESY OF JIM FIALA

I would ask myself, “How do I do this right,” Fiala explains. “It was about grilling the onions and getting them done perfectly, then having that perfect balance of onions and mustard and cheese and ham and rye bread. It was about slow-grilling it so that it got perfectly melted or cooking the best burger I could. I put love into cooking those burgers and made them the best I knew how to at the time.”

Fiala traveled to and from Dallas during that time in his life, interviewing for jobs in finance. As he sat in interviews, all suited up, he recalls staring at the clock and wondering how soon he could get out of the room. He knew a job behind a desk wasn’t a good fit, but he didn’t know what the right one was.

After a brief gig promoting wrestling in Dallas, Fiala got a job on a cruise line as a deck hand. He was bored and unchallenged, so he asked if they would train him for a job in the galley. It was his “aha” moment.

“I was making avocado dressing and bacon dressing and learning

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

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how to cut cantaloupe and make a soup from raw ingredients,” Fiala recalls. “I learned there was a process of putting flavors together and had chefs who would teach me how to draw them out.

I thought, ‘Oh my god, I love this and can’t wait to get up in the morning to do it again.’”

Fiala worked on the cruise ship for about a year before returning to St. Louis and getting jobs in some of the kitchens around town. After that, he moved to San Francisco for culinary school.

There, one of his chef instructors gave him some advice that has stuck with him and set him on a course that would take him to some of the best restaurants in the country.

“He said to me, ‘Jimmy, you have a lot of talent, but if you leave here and work for a mediocre chef, the best you will ever be is a mediocre chef. But if you work for the best chef you can find, you may not be as good as him, but you will be the best you can possibly be,’” Fiala recalls. “I really took that to heart.”

Fiala applied to the top five res-

taurants in Chicago before landing in the kitchen of famed chef Paul Bartolotta of Spiaggia working for $6.50 an hour. He worked there for a few years before leaving the Midwest for the legendary Daniel Boulud of Restaurant Daniel in New York City. It was a highpressure environment, and Fiala would wake up in the morning grinding his teeth and worrying about how to not make the same mistake twice. And he loved it.

After a few years working in New York, Fiala left the mainland to work for a resort on Puerto Rico, then returned to his native St. Louis with the dream of opening his own restaurant. In 1998, his parents cosigned on a line of credit to allow him to open the Crossing. By that July, he had already paid off his loan.

He admits it wasn’t always smooth sailing. In the midst of positive reception, there were weeks he didn’t know if he would make payroll. However, still going strong twenty years later — and with Acero (7266 Manchester Road, Maplewood; 314-644-1790) thriving as well — he is confident

that there is nothing else he would rather be doing.

“I’m very content taking care of our guests,” Fiala says. “When they come in, I want to give them the best experience they can have for their money. We build one guest at a time and earn their trust so they will come back by making them happy. That’s how we’ve built it.”

Fiala took a break from the kitchen to share who he has his eye on in the local restaurant scene and why what he eats for his last meal doesn’t even matter.

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

My second job out of college was promoting professional wrestling; first job was cooking burgers at

the Village Bar in Des Peres while I searched for the second.

What daily ritual is non-negotiable for you?

My morning coffee with Melissa before the kids come downstairs for school.

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

To be a Jason Bourne.

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

Chefs taking risks, trying new concepts, signing leases, building out concepts, taking jobs in existing restaurants with all of the tough hours and workload. These are the reasons we all can have fun going out eat.

What is something missing in the local food, wine or cocktail scene

that you’d like to see?

I would like to see a Missouri version of inexpensive Vinho Verde. With the hot summers in our area, this is how everyone in St. Louis should begin our meals.

Light, refreshing and low in alcohol.

Who is your St. Louis food crush?

Whoever is cooking Chengdu spicy chicken.

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

Chris Bork of Vista Ramen is creative, fresh, fun, and, he knows how to season every dish.

Which ingredient is most representative of your personality?

Parmigiano Reggiano.

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

[FIRST LOOK]

Now in the Landing: Tacos and Tequila Written by

SARAH FENSKE

Y

ou can get a chimichanga or a quesadilla at Mas Tequila Cantina (708 N. 2nd Street, 314-8771700), the restaurant that opened May 1 in Laclede’s Landing. And you can also do shots of Patron. This is the Landing; they welcome that here.

But if you’re looking for something a little different — different than the same old margarita-fueled party scene, different than the Landing — Mas Tequila has that too. In fact, the brand-new eatery has 50 different types of tequila and a roster of authentic Mexican dishes that aren’t always easy to find in St. Louis.

“We don’t want people to confuse us with another Tex-Mex place,” says coowner Javier Geminiano. “What we’re doing is totally different.”

By different, he means actual Mexican dishes, not just their Americanized cousins. He means tapas-style portions for those who want to sample something new. And he means tequila that’s good enough to sip, not just slam.

Indeed, while Mas Tequila proudly specializes in tacos and tequila, there’s a whole lot more here than that. You can get a michelada, that classic Mexican twist on a bloody mary. You can get

Mas Tequila Cantina plans to offer huaraches as an occasional special. | SARAH FENSKE

street tacos and sopes, the Mexican corn cakes that are almost like an open-faced cornbread taco. You may even be able to get a huarache, the oblong Mexican dish named for its resemblance to a sandal, which the kitchen plans to offer as an occasional special.

What makes Mas Tequila Cantina significant, though, is its determination to take its offerings seriously without losing the fun vibe. It’s not just that Geminiano and his wife Michelle have chosen to open in Laclede’s Landing, long known as a place to drink rather than a finedining destination. It’s also the way their restaurant pays tribute to Geminiano’s roots without resorting to kitsch.

Formerly the burlesque club Seven Zero Eight and before that Jake’s Steak, Mas Tequila is a stunner, with a mezzanine level overlooking a newly refurbished bar area. Framed movie posters from the golden age of Mexican cinemas hang on

some walls; others are painted brightly.

Vinyl “wallpaper,” created by a friend in Belleville, reproduces a famous mural by Diego Rivera, while Day of the Dead-style figurines grin from an interior balcony. In the back room, where a stage previously hosted burlesque shows and dance parties, they plan to host bands and DJs. Javier Geminiano left his native Mexico for St. Louis in 2011, following his brother Jesus Jaimes, who’d settled here years earlier. Ever since, he says, he’s been on the hunt for a tequila bar. “Six years, I never found one,” he says.

He began to pursue ways to open one himself. He’d run a michelada bar in Mexico, so he knew the business. Jaimes, who’s signed on as general manager, has eighteen years of restaurant management experience. It was just a matter of finding the right location.

“As long as I’ve known Javier, he’s been looking for spaces,” says Michelle

riverfronttimes.com

Writing reviews of music or live shows.

Name an ingredient never allowed in your restaurant.

Simple: green bell peppers.

What is your after-work hangout?

My back deck.

What’s your food or beverage guilty pleasure?

Stinky cheese from France or Italy.

What would be your last meal on earth?

A family meal with my grandparents, parents, siblings’ families and my family at one big table enjoying the blessings of laughter, joy and the gifts of this life. It’s how I fell in love with dining, and that is what I try to model my restaurants to offer to our guests. n

Geminiano.

He liked the Landing. His wife, who graduated high school in O’Fallon, Illinois, was skeptical. “The Landing? I don’t know,” she recalls thinking. “But when we saw this space, we were overwhelmed by how awesome it was.”

And they’ve been pleasantly surprised by all the foot traffic they’re getting. They discarded their original plans to be open only in the evening once they realized what a sizable lunch crowd they could draw. Now they offer eight lunch plates, including chilaquiles and various taco/ enchilada combos, each for $8.95. “Our lunches are so busy, this whole floor fills up,” he says.

At night, they get plenty of customers from Busch Stadium — including, the other night, a bunch of sad Cubs fans cheering themselves up with top-shelf tequila.

They plan to be there for those customers just like they’ll be there for the late-night crowd. But they hope to also begin a conversation about more than just Patron, more than just enchiladas.

Javier Geminiano recalls a visitor the other day who put in her regular order, and then trusted herself to the bartender for a recommendation on the next round.

After tasting it, she admitted, “I can taste the difference!”

“That is the really cool thing,” Geminiano says. “People have been really receptive to what we’re doing.”

Mas Tequila Cantina plans to be open daily at 11 a.m., with hours until 1:30 a.m. Sunday through Thursday and 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday. Once they get established, they may add hours until 3 a.m. n

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37

[FOOD NEWS]

Middle Eastern Eatery Eyes the Grove

COOL OFF YOUR RIDE WITH THE HOTTEST CAR WASH IN TOWN!

Written by

SARAH FENSKE

S

SUN, MAY 27 1:00-3:00P

2351 MAPLEWOOD COMMONS DRIVE

314-644-7757

PROCEEDS BENEFIT

ultan Mediterranean Cuisine (4200 Manchester Avenue), a new full-service restaurant, plans to open in the heart of the Grove as early as June 1.

Media Saeed tells the RFT that her parents Jenar Mohammed and Akram Saeed are the owners and that this will be their first eatery. “My mother lives to cook,” Saeed says. “She decided to turn her passion into a career.”

The restaurant will be located in the former home of Erney’s 32 Degrees, which closed in 2016.

[FIRST LOOK]

From Oysters to Burritos in De Mun Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

M

ike Warhover, the manager at brand-new Barrio (740 De Mun Avenue, Clayton; 314-7250332), laughs when he talks about how folks in the De Mun neighborhood have responded to the De Mun Oyster Bar being retooled into a Mexican restaurant.

“People are happy, and they are loving it,” Warhover says. “But we’ve had several people ask if we are going to be serving oyster tacos. The answer is no.”

Ceviche is about as close as you’ll get to the raw seafood served at Barrio’s predecessor — in fact, the high cost of flying in fresh seafood had a lot to do with why owners Alan Richman and Rachel Jones decided to rebrand the restaurant in the first place. They refused to sacrifice the quality that diners had come to expect, but the business model became increasingly difficult as prices went up.

Mexican cuisine seemed like a natural fit. Not only do the pair regularly travel to Mexico and have an affinity for the cuisine, but they have also experienced

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The Saeeds were refugees who were resettled in the U.S. from the Iraqi region of Kurdistan in the mid-1980s. “My dad and uncle worked for the American army back in 1991 to 1996, which was during the time Saddam Hussein was in charge,” Saeed explains. “Since my dad worked with the Americans, Saddam threatened our family, which prompted us to be granted refugee asylum.” They were first relocated to Guam and then eventually St. Louis. “We’ve been here ever since,” Saeed says.

Her father got work at a valet service and then a taxi one before landing a job as a local truck driver. But all the while, the elder Saeeds dreamed of opening a restaurant. Her mother is a talented home cook. “Everything she knows how to make has either been passed down from family generations or she’s learned to make improvements on her own,” Saeed explains.

Sultan Mediterranean Cuisine will offer both dine-in and carryout. The owners aren’t planning to obtain a liquor license, but Saeed says customers will be welcome to bring a bottle of their

success serving Mexican food, even in an unofficial capacity. Before De Mun Oyster Bar closed, chef Dan Sammons would serve “backdoor burritos” to hungry guests at the restaurant’s Saturday morning farmers markets. The burritos became so popular, they were an even bigger attraction than the vendors.

Another reason for the Mexicaninflected rebrand has to do with the convivial nature of the cuisine. As Sammons explains, the word “barrio” means “neighborhood” in Spanish, and that is exactly what the new concept is trying to convey with its sharable menu and lively atmosphere.

“We want to have that feel of commingling where the food and drinks are free-flowing,” Sammons explains. “We’re changing from being the kind of place where you sit down and have a fourcourse meal to somewhere that the food comes out as soon as it is ready, maybe not all at once. The dishes are built like that — to share. Even our larger plates are meant for sharing.”

Sammons, who spent time in northern California, is drawn to the combination of Mexican and California styles of cooking that results in dishes that are fresh and not heavy. In that spirit, look for jicama and cucumber salad, ceviche and escabeche de verduras, or pickled vegetables.

However, Barrio’s menu also contains dishes that are much heartier, including street corn covered in fresh corn chips,

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Serving Hot, Fresh, Local Food Wed-Sun Til 2 Pm

Yes It’s Local.

Yes It’s Made In House. riverfronttimes.com

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

RIVERFRONT TIMES

39

dining NOW OPEN

SUNDAYS 10AM-8PM

SERVING BRUNCH 10AM-1PM

The Saeeds plan to offer the same food they serve at family functions and feasts. | COURTESY OF MEDIA SAEED

618-307-4830 www.clevelandhealth.com 106 N. Main | Edwardsville, IL

read more at

RIVERFRONTTIMES.COM

own, no corkage fee.

Media Saeed is currently working at Sameem Afghan Restaurant in the Grove and has seen how much the neighborhood is bus-

tling. “So what better place than this one?” she asks. “My parents were driving by and saw the property and completely fell in love with it.” n

The

MadCrab FRESH SEAFOOD

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Shared plates and cocktails make for a relaxed, convivial atmosphere. | CHERYL BAEHR

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RIVERFRONT TIMES

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

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cilantro-lime pork wings, chile rellenos and enchiladas.

Barrio also serves a variety of traditional-style tacos, filled with such ingredients as housemade chorizo or carne asada. All are served with minimal garnishes to let the flavor of the meat shine through.

For guests who might miss a more formal style of dining, Barrio also serves a few larger, composed plates like a bonein ribeye with roasted sweet potatoes; lamb chops with a cilantro, mint and

pine-nut crust; or a split roast chicken.

Despite some cosmetic changes, Barrio’s layout remains exactly the same as its predecessor, with a central, semicircular bar area and a small dining room that flows out of French doors into patio seating. With a gentle breeze blowing through the space, the scent of flowering trees filling the air and margaritas flowing, it’s just what the neighborhood ordered.

Barrio is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week. n

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

Photography by JENNIFER SILVERBERG

YOUR MUSIC HAS A HISTORY

Photography by JENNIFER SILVERBERG

Tuesdays, MAY

1–29

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

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MAY 16 - 22, 2018

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CULTURE

41

[HOMESPUN]

Friends with Instruments With EGO, Middle Class Fashion’s Jenn Malzone confronts just that — and gets by with a little help from her bandmates Written by

CHRISTIAN SCHAEFFER

F

ew local bands have shown such rapid evolution of sound — while releasing varied but routinely excellent albums — as Middle Class Fashion. The group began as a piano-led pop trio and has, over four albums, added steely synths, hip-hop beats and crunchy guitar leads to the mix.

The constant amid all that change has been the voice and lyrics of pianist Jenn Malzone. In Malzone’s songs, the trials of love and lust never sounded so toxic, or so intoxicating. Every kiss is followed by a kiss-off; every comehither stare turns into an icy glare.

It’s a dichotomy that fits Malzone’s personality, which can be charmingly reserved in person and fearlessly expressive on stage.

“Sometimes it’s hard for me to be open as a person and directly say how I’m feeling to people, so to write how I’m feeling in a song and then scream the words onstage at Off Broadway — that’s definitely therapeutic,” Malzone says. “It’s so much easier than just telling the person that I’m feeling that way — that’s a lot scarier than performing it.”

Malzone and drummer Brad Vaughn founded the trio with bassist and singer Brian McClelland as a way for the two vocalists to play off of each other, but the volume of Malzone’s output and the breadth of her vision for the band made her a natural focal point. McClelland departed on friendly terms after 2013’s Jungle, and the next few years saw the addition of Katie Lindhorst on synth and Lindsay McDanel on guitar.

Jenn Malzone, center-left, is owning her season of self-absorption on EGO. | COURTESY OF MIDDLE CLASS FASHION But even as Middle Class Fashion grew, the songs Malzone was writing for the band’s fourth album, EGO, were getting smaller and smaller. Her demos, usually comprised of little more than keyboards, vocals and some light electronic beats, felt self-contained and complete on their own. In its final form, EGO mixes both these stripped-down compositions and full-blown, band-centric songs.

Over Sunday afternoon coffee at the Royale, Malzone and McDanel talked over the composing and recording of the new album.

“I made a bunch of demos and I thought they were kind of charming, so I had the idea to go into the studio with [producer] Tom Burns,” Malzone says. “I talked with him and said, ‘What if we go into your basement studio and take the files and try to start from there and build songs from those?’”

She half-jokingly calls that time period her “winter of solitude,” a time for taking stock of some personal drama and chaos, which ultimately found its way into the band’s smartly composed songs.

“I had gotten sober and was going through a lot, and stuff was sort of falling apart and I just wanted

to put my head down and work,” Malzone recalls. “But I wasn’t drinking, I was going to therapy, I just wanted to work and not do anything else and figure out why things were falling apart.”

Gradually, however, she began to let the band add its instrumentation and personality to many of the songs. For Malzone, that process proved a different kind of therapy.

“I started to wonder why I was micromanaging and hyper-controlling this recording process, and so I started to open the door back again,” Malzone says.

Malzone recalls taking McDanel to the studio to put a guitar track down. It was like “opening a window and letting light in,” she says. Indeed, some of the album’s most arresting moments, on songs like “Searching” and “Turquoise Heart,” feature the band working at full tilt.

“I loved all the stuff that she and Tom were doing,” McDanel says.

“It clicked for Tom when he saw us live — ‘We need to redo the song “Bad Dream” and add this energy to it.’ I really liked the first version of the songs,” she tells Malzone.

“You could just master your demos and it would be great.”

riverfronttimes.com

In calling the new record EGO, in all caps, no less, Malzone isn’t hiding how her sense of identity influenced the writing of the album.

“Everything had sort of fallen apart, and I had made these other albums where I had been romanticizing heartbreak and all this drama and that I realized I was just creating myself,” Malzone says. “It was finally calling out that part of myself and looking myself in the face. It wasn’t about missing some ex or having some longing feelings — it was about calling myself out on my own bullshit.”

Amid that self-reckoning and turmoil, Malzone continued to do what she has always done: write through the pain, or doubt, or elation, and rely on her bandmates to turn those words and melodies into something grand, full-bodied and emotive.

“I think it’s always been a steady force,” Malzone says of Middle Class Fashion. “When everything else is a mess, it’s definitely something that has always been there for me. It’s been a direction in life: When I didn’t know if I wanted to do anything else, I knew I wanted to be writing for this band and doing this.” n

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

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43

[PREVIEW]

Spoon Returns to St. Louis Written by

BOB MCMAHON

I

t’s easy to take Spoon for granted.

Numerous bands and trends have come and gone since singer/ guitarist Britt Daniel and drummer Jim Eno formed the band in Austin 25 years ago, but Spoon has remained a constant, steadily growing presence. As such, there have been no scandalous headlines about intra-band drama nor ostentatious album-rollout PR campaigns — just an excellent band churning out enough great albums to be dubbed the “overall top artist” of the 2000s by reviewaggregator website Metacritic.

That decade-defining run began in earnest with 2001’s Girls Can Tell, which showcased the modern Spoon sound through sparse arrangements of warm keyboard chords, Daniel’s trademark raspy howl and strutting guitar often spiked with liberal amounts of tremolo. The result was a profileraising album that exuded a detached, classy sense of cool while still packing an emotional punch.

And while that full-length established the template for the band’s new sound, it was merely a starting point, says Daniel. “Ever since we put out our third record Girls Can Tell we’ve been trying to … go in a different direction with it, or at least add some tricks,” he says.

Indeed, while Spoon has carved out a sound too distinct to resemble anyone but itself, successive records added genre flirtations (the funk of “I Turn My Camera On” from 2005’s Gimme Fiction), varying styles of production (the intentional lo-fi sound found in 2010’s Transference) and the occasional left-field instrumentation (everything from vibraphone to beat-boxing to kotos have been employed).

But the band’s newest album, Hot Thoughts, might be the furthest departure yet. Even with as many experiments as the band has tried, it’s still a shock to hear a Spoon album end with the drums-and-saxophone centered instrumental soundscape of “Us.” Elsewhere the group almost approaches jazz in the jammy sec-

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RIVERFRONT TIMES

The band’s last stop in town, at LouFest, also saw members participating in the fest’s huge Hail! Hail! Chuck Berry tribute. | ZACHARY MICHAEL tions of the slow-burning “Pink Up.” But even on more traditionally pop numbers the LP features more synthesizers and electronic drum kits than usual, which lend themselves well to the record’s greater emphasis on danceable, near-disco rhythms.

The electro trappings of these songs are a new look for the band, but they aren’t a radical reinvention. “We’re not fans of EDM,” Daniel says. “It’s organic electronics, you know what I mean?”

Spoon got an additional push down this path from producer Dave Fridmann. Best known for his work behind the boards for the Flaming Lips, Fridmann lent his psychedelic more-is-more touch to Hot Thoughts. His influence is apparent in the blown-out drum sound of “Do I Have To Talk You Into It” and the dirtied up keyboards. Spoon had wanted Fridmann for its previous release, They Want My Soul, but scheduling only let him work on half of that album.

Even with that setback, the sessions were enough to kickstart a productive relationship that led to Fridmann tackling all of Hot Thoughts.

“He really is one of the greatest musicians I’ve ever worked with,” Daniel says. “He not only does the work that a producer should do in terms of the sounds and the overall plan, but also just sort of keeps everybody on track mentally, and that’s a big part of it.”

Fridmann wasn’t the only outside collaborator to assist in the

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

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construction of Hot Thoughts.

While Daniel still handles the majority of the songwriting on his own, the album features the largest number of co-writes from nonband members in Spoon’s history.

Help came from wildly different sources. “Tear it Down” was cowritten by Daniel and Laura Pergolizzi, a singer who has writing credits on songs by Christina Aguilera and Joe Walsh.

Noting that mutual friends introduced the two, Daniel says the process was straightforward.

“We got together and we came up with something really fast,” he says. “It was more of a thing where ‘I heard about you. Let’s see what happens.’”

Conversely, Sean Dineen got his first songwriting credits by contributing lyrics to “Hot Thoughts” and “Shotgun.”

“I guess you could call him my best friend,” Daniel says of Dineen, whom he met right before he started college. Part of their friendship involves Dineen sending Daniel lyrics over texts. “Often they were just like dumb sort of hip-hop style rhymes. It was mostly just done for fun, but then sometimes they started getting more and more sort of surreal and poetic and less jokey.” Impressed, Daniel encouraged his friend to send more and soon incorporated Dineen’s words into songs he had only partially finished lyrically. Finally, guest saxophonist Ted Taforo’s contributions to what became “Us” were considered important enough to

earn him a songwriting credit.

As invaluable as these auxiliary players were, they don’t account for Spoon’s practically spotless track record. In fact, the one area in which the band has been unreliable is their St. Louis booking.

Daniel recalls playing Cicero’s in the ’90s, but after the group played the Duck Room in 2004, it didn’t perform again in St. Louis until its 2014 concert at the Pageant.

Even so, Daniel made the trek here to see Chuck Berry play twice.

“It’s pretty phenomenal for an 80 year old guy to be so spirited,” Daniel says of the performances.

“He’s just written some of the classics, the foundation of what rock & roll became.”

Daniel got to pay tribute to his hero after Spoon’s set at last year’s LouFest when he joined the allstar tribute to Chuck Berry to sing “Come On.” “It was one of the coolest festivals we played all summer,” he says. “Just the fact that we were all out there celebrating Chuck Berry at a headlining event with Huey Lewis playing.”

With that Loufest appearance and the band’s upcoming Pageant show, Spoon seems to have rediscovered St. Louis. Daniel at least talks the talk.

“It’s a phenomenal city,” he says, “with a lot of music in it.”

Spoon 8 p.m. Wednesday, May 16. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Boulevard. 314-726-6161. $35 to $37.50.

[RADIO]

A Cure for What Ails You Written by

THOMAS CRONE

S

ince January 2015, KDHX has been delightfully weirder with the addition of DJ Nathaniel Farrell’s program, Cure for Pain. A schizophrenic blend of Krautrock and freak folk, doom metal and early industrial, no wave and psych of all stripes, the show got the OK after Farrell served as a frequent fill-in on a 3 to 5 a.m. show with a punk focus called Non-Alignment Pact. Granted his own show, Farrell moved up the clock, if further away from the daylight. His show feels natural in the 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. slot, as the genial host moves

his show regularly, with Coil most frequently heard, an every-fewshows playlist representative.

Asked if the show was pitched with total freedom in mind, the answer is a qualified “yes.” But Farrell is a team player, a nice neighbor, and thus he wants his program to segue from show to show as seamlessly as possible.

“I did think about the range that I would want, but I’d also thought about the connection that I would have to make to the other shows,” Farrell says. “I do think behind your question is, ‘How crazy was the pitch?’ I think that the show is more comfortable in playing experimental music the more that I’ve been on the air.

“Being on Tuesdays at 11 gives me permission to explore, as James Mullins used to say, ‘the sonic weirdness,’” Farrell continues.

“His show, Stumble in the Dark, was what I first followed, and I started getting into guitar-forward psych music, which I thought would make a good segue from him.”

Now he follows Mark Hyken’s

Nathanial Farrell’s KDHX show, airing Tuesday night, features a wide mix of genres. | JESSICA BARAN

through an eclectic playlist that’s meticulously timed to fit within its two-hour confines.

And that’s probably the only boundary that applies to his show’s curation. One recent edition of Cure for Pain featured long cuts in the show’s first hour from Grails, Marbelbog, Coil, Colossloth, Lofthaus, Prurient, Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement and Hanchi. If these aren’t exactly household names, they’re the type of acts that slot themselves into

progressive rock-themed Time Warp Radio. Farrell says the advice he’s been given is to not stray too far outside of his programming, for the sake of continuity.

“But I will aim for more African Head Charge and Adrian Sherwood to make the change into The Night Shift,” he says. “Being between Stumble and The Night Shift did inform the template for the show, starting with more traditional guitar arrangements, keeping the weirdest stuff for the mid-

dle and then transitioning into the beat-oriented stuff nearest the end of the show. I always say that if you listen to Cure for Pain long enough, it’s a dance show by the end.”

An instructor at Washington University by day, Farrell describes himself not once but twice as “not a musician, not a musician.” That said, he does own some guitars, but he recognizes that ownership of an instrument does not a musician make. Instead, he notes that he’s foremost “a lover of music.”

What comprises his favorite music is an oft-changing thing.

When he was living in New York, he says, he mostly listened to punk and country. Since making the move to St. Louis, it’s been more noise and synth-based music.

“I do notice that I am more likely to play harsh noise in the middle of winter than in the spring,” he says. “And in the summer, too, that comes back. I do think that the weather and the seasons help determine my mood and the mood of the show, in some regards.”

Above all, he says, his mission is to discover new music in the deep stack of new releases that come out each week. Which reinforces something told to him early on, the one bit of advice that stuck.

“You’re going to run out of the music you love within the first six months,” he recalls. “And that was true.”

In the spirit of disclosure: As a frequent fill-in host on KDHX, I was recently tapped by Farrell to host his program twice over the period of a couple of months. It was stressful to approximate his show, even in part, let alone in whole. When I tell Farrell that I had to ban myself from possible future duties on Cure for Pain, due to the extreme feeling of inadequacy those gigs brought on (more cause for pain than cure), the comment appears to register as the compliment intended. Because when Farrell’s on a roll he’s just got this way, curating the station’s twenty-minute mini-segments into a masterful, cascading set of moods and emotions.

“I’ve been proud, sometimes,” Farrell admits. “There’ve been moments where you can feel it, where I understand how I’ve faded one song into another and really why I put those tracks next to one another.

“I used to be very hard on myself for missing those opportunities, these stellar moments that I tried to plan. Now, I just let it happen.”

Cure for Pain airs on 88.1 FM every Tuesday night at 11 p.m.

riverfronttimes.com

Friday May 18 10PM

Wild Adriatic

with Special Guests Brother Lee & The Leather Jackals Saturday May 19 10PM

Funky Butt Brass Band Sunday May 20 4PM FREE SHOW

JD Hughes and the Fuze Wednesday May 23 9:30PM Urban Chestnut Presents

The Voodoo Players Tribute To Phish

Thursday May 24 9:30PM Urban Chestnut Presents

Alligator Wine’s

Tribute To Dylan Via The Dead Friday May 25 10PM

Jeremiah Johnson Band Saturday May 26 10PM

Kim Massie Band

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

RIVERFRONT TIMES

45

46

OUT EVERY NIGHT

WEDNESDAY 16

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

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

MUSIC CITY HIT-MAKERS: 8 p.m., $36. Blanche M Touhill Performing Arts Center, 1 University Dr at Natural Bridge Road, Normandy, 314516-4949.

SPOON: 8 p.m., $35-$37.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

THURSDAY 17

BIG BOI: 8 p.m., $20-$25. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

BLACKTOP MOJO: w/ Joyous Wolf, Of Limbo 7 p.m., $13-$14. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

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

CHRIS KNIGHT: 8 p.m., $17. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

HOUR CLOUD: w/ The Lindberg Babies 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

JASON ALDEAN: w/ Luke Combs, Lauren Alaina 7 p.m., TBA. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

OLD TIME ASSAULT: 9 p.m., $3. Venice Café, 1903 Pestalozzi St., St. Louis, 314-772-5994.

FRIDAY 18

BLOSSOM’S BELATED BIRTHDAY BASH: w/ DJ Jmoney 8 p.m., free. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

BORN RUFFIANS: 8 p.m., $12-$14. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

THE FORMER ME: w/ Pure October, postal modern, Free Parking 7 p.m., $8-$10. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

HI-POINTE SOUL REVUE: 9 p.m., free. Element, 1419 Carroll St., St. Louis, 314-241-1674.

JOSH HOYER & SOUL COLOSSAL: 10 p.m., $10.

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

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

ONLY SOUND: w/ Bastard And The Crows, Body Found 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

REVEREND PEYTON’S BIG DAMN BAND: 7 p.m., $17-$20. Atomic Cowboy Pavilion, 4140 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-775-0775.

RISK! TRUE TALES, BOLDLY TOLD: 8 p.m., $20.

Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

THE GODDAMN JAMBOREE: w/ The Dock Ellis Band, Tortuga, The Fighting Side 8 p.m., $10.

Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314498-6989.

SATURDAY 19

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

THE BOBBY DAZZLERS LAST SHOW: w/ Thee Fine Lines 8 p.m., free. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

THE BONBON PLOT: 7 p.m., free. Evangeline’s, 512 N Euclid Ave, St. Louis, 314-367-3644.

CASPA: w/ iLL.Gates, Spankalicous, Lusid 8 p.m., $30. 2720 Cherokee Performing Arts Center, 2720 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314-276-2700.

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

LAKE STREET DIVE: w/ Liz Vice 8 p.m., $34.25$39.25. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

MARQUISE KNOX BLUES BAND: 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis,

46

RIVERFRONT TIMES

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

riverfronttimes.com

314-436-5222.

MY CITY MY MUSIC RADIO 4 YEAR ANNIVERSARY SHOW: w/ Inner Outlines, Thieves To Kings, The Cinema Story, Stringz, Oddity, Slick Nicky, Hippy 7 p.m., $10-$12. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

MY POSSE IN EFFECT: 8 p.m., $15-$20. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

THE NATIVE HOWL: 7 p.m., $12-$15. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

OZARK MOUNTAIN DAREDEVILS: 8 p.m., $37.50$47.50. River City Casino & Hotel, 777 River City Casino Blvd., St. Louis, 314-388-7777.

ST. LOUIS HIP-HOP & R&B SHARK TANK: 6 p.m., $15. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

SWEETIE AND THE TOOTHACHES: 7 p.m., free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521.

T.A.S.K. AT HAND BENEFIT SHOW: w/ Joe Tillman, Adam Thacker, Chad Wallace 8 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

TOAD ROAD MUSIC & ARTS FESTIVAL: w/ Brother Lee & The Leather Jackals, The Judge, Mother Meat, Backwash, Glued, Topple, The Defeated County, A Leaf In The Street, Ursï, Mr. Magenta 1:30 p.m., $12-$15. Granite City Elks Lodge, 4801 Maryville Road, Granite City.

TOMORROWS BAD SEEDS: w/ Sun-Dried Vibes, Thicker Than Thieves 8 p.m., $13-$15. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

SUNDAY 20

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

BONE THUGS-N-HARMONY: 8 p.m., $35-$55. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-7266161.

LIGHTRIDER: 7 p.m., $7-$10. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

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

A NIGHT OF MUSIC AND ACTION: 7 p.m., $25. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

TERENCE BLANCHARD AND THE E-COLLECTIVE: 7 p.m., $30-$60. Grandel Theatre, 3610 Grandel Square, St. Louis, 314-533-0367.

TEXAS HIPPIE COALITION: w/ Kobra And The Lotus, Brand of Julez, Granny 4 Barrel 6 p.m., $18-$20. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314289-9050.

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

MONDAY 21

DIRTY PROJECTORS: 8 p.m., $20-$23. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314833-3929.

JAMES TAYLOR: 7 p.m., $66-$100. Scottrade Center, 1401 Clark Ave., St. Louis, 314-241-1888.

ROCKY MANTIA & KILLER COMBO: 7 p.m., $10.

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

TUESDAY 22

A KILLER’S CONFESSION: 7 p.m., $12-$15. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

SORRY PLEASE CONTINUE: 8 p.m., $5. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-3525226.

STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW: 8 p.m., $25-$30. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-7266161.

TRAPT ACOUSTIC SHOW: w/ Easyfriend 7 p.m., $15-$18. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

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

It’s Always a Party!

The Bobby Dazzlers, in the act of redefining “Critic’s Pick.” | DANIEL GARTNER

THE BOBBY DAZZLERS

York, but not before one final show with

8 p.m. Saturday, May 19. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue. 314-773-3363. Free.

the Dazzlers and its riff-heavy, fuzzed-

Chad Rogers may be too smart for rock

serves as a CD release show: The band’s

& roll. The wild-eyed, bearded and be-

first full-length will also be its last, but it

draggled front man for the Bobby Daz-

leaves a lasting document to the band’s

zlers may approach the mic with a de-

brief but fiery tenure.

meanor closer to Bobby Manson, but in

Brevity Is…Wit: This release show

his day job he’s a mild-mannered Ph.D

serves as a fond farewell to Rogers while

in psychology with degrees from Wash-

setting the table for his bandmates to

ington and Brandeis universities. Rog-

continue on as abbr, a postrock-inspired

ers is about to depart St. Louis for a job

instrumental band.

at Union College in Schenectady, New

THIS JUST IN 4U: A SYMPHONIC CELEBRATION OF PRINCE: Sun., Oct. 14, 7 p.m., $35-$125. The Fox Theatre, 527 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-534-1111.

ADORATION DESTROYED: W/ FIRES, Xentrifuge, Mon., June 11, 9 p.m., $10. The Crack Fox, 1114 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-621-6900.

ALGIERS: W/ Bambara, Cult Season, Sat., June 23, 9 p.m., $7. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

ANDREW BRYANT: W/ Andrew Ryan & The Travelers, Fri., June 1, 7 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-7722100.

ASTRAGAL: W/ Sad Cops, Holy Posers, Yuppy, Wed., June 13, 9 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

A BENEFIT SHOW FOR LYMPHOMA: W/ CaveofswordS, The Vigilettes, Mammoth Piano, Pat Sajak Assassins, Emcee Chris Ward, DJ Anita, Sat., Aug. 11, 8 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

BLACK PRIVILEGE TOUR: W/ Oren Major, DON40, Sat., May 26, 8 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

BLUE OCTOBER: Fri., Oct. 12, 8 p.m., $30-$35.

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

BODY VOID: W/ Coffin Fit, Alder, Wed., June 20, 8 p.m., $8. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

THE BONBON PLOT: W/ The Main Street Remnants, Sat., Aug. 4, 8 p.m., $10. The Monocle, 4510 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-935-7003.

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

out take on garage rock. This show also

—Christian Schaeffer BREWER & SHIPLEY: W/ Gavin M., Sat., Aug. 11, 8 p.m., $30-$35. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

BURDENED: W/ Better Days, Chalked Up, Sat., June 9, 8 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

CHRISTINA AGUILERA: W/ Big Boi, Tue., Nov. 6, 8 p.m., TBA. Peabody Opera House, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-499-7600.

CLEAR FOCUS: W/ Better Days, Sat., June 23, 8 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

CLOSET WITCH: W/ Euth, Life in Vacuum, Ankou, Man the Manipulator, Mon., June 4, 8 p.m., $8. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

CODY JOHNSON: Thu., July 19, 8 p.m., $20-$25.

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

CRUZ DE NAVAJAS: W/ Sea Priestess, False Figure, Thu., May 31, 9 p.m., $7. CBGB, 3163 S. Grand Blvd., St. Louis.

A DARK ORBIT: W/ Dischordia, The Summoned, As Earth Shatters, Fri., June 15, 8 p.m., $8. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314328-2309.

DEVON ALLMAN PROJECT: Fri., Aug. 10, 8 p.m., $25-$30. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

DIERKS BENTLEY: Sat., June 2, 7 p.m., $24-$99.

Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

DIRTY WORK: Tue., July 3, 8 p.m., $5. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314328-2309.

DRAMA MOTH: W/ Party Dress, Mon., June 11, 7:30 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

DREADNOUGHT: W/ Ashes and Iron, Tue., July 24, 8 p.m., $8.

duke’s VOTED ST. LOUIS’ FAVORITE BAR & BEST SPORTS BAR 2001 MENARD (AT ALLEN) IN HISTORIC SOULARD

Soulard’s Hottest Weekend Dance Party

Photos by Big Stu Media riverfronttimes.com

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

RIVERFRONT TIMES

47

[WEEKEND]

BEST BETS

Five sure-fire shows to close out the week

FRIDAY, MAY 18 Born Ruffians w/ Little Junior 8 p.m. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th Street. $12-$14.

314-588-0505.

Bands that start in high school rarely make it to graduation day, yet Born Ruffians have forged what looks to be a lifelong career out of ninth-grade jam sessions. The title of this crew’s latest record, Uncle, Duke and the Chief, is a reference to the founding members’ fathers — a callback to the camaraderie and familiarity that has been made audible throughout a discography spanning nearly fifteen years. From covering the likes of Grizzly Bear and Aphex Twin (a testament to the flexible sound) to touring with Franz Ferdinand and Caribou, these propagators of the poppy post-punk revival continue to age with grace.

SATURDAY, MAY 19 Toad Road Music & Arts Festival Granite City Elks Lodge #1063, 4801 Maryville Road, Granite City, Ill. $12-$15. 618-931-3557.

Brother Lee & the Leather Jackals top off an overflow of rock that veers in all directions from the creeping folk of the Defeated County to the Zappa-esque rippers in Mother Meat. The common thread throughout this festival is quality that pairs well with quantity — ten bands are stretched over roughly ten hours with art and food vendors on hand to sweeten the day. It should be sensory overload in the confines of the otherwise quiet Elks Lodge and its surrounding compound. Consider this a palate cleanser for the full summer of festivals to come.

Wake the Nation Tour w/ Caspa and many more 7 p.m. 2720 Cherokee. $20-$30. 314-8017.

All kinds of promoters and peddlers of quality art have their fingers in this two-stage juggernaut Continued on pg 50

48

RIVERFRONT TIMES

DREKKA: W/ Zach Rowden, Alex Cunningham/ Alberto Patino Duo, Wed., June 6, 9 p.m., $7.

Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

DRUIDS: W/ Quaere Verum, Railhazer, Fri., June 1, 8 p.m., $7. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

FISTER ALBUM RELEASE SHOW: W/ Daybringer, Shitstorm, Sat., May 26, 8 p.m., $10-$12. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314328-2309.

FOZZY: W/ Adelita’s Way, Stone Broken, The Stir, Wed., Sept. 12, 7 p.m., $20-$22.50. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-7266161.

FUTURE CRIB: W/ Cricketfish, Change Your Hair, Change Your Life, Mon., June 4, 8 p.m., free.

CBGB, 3163 S. Grand Blvd., St. Louis.

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

GEN POP: W/ MKii, Miss Lady, Pineapple RnR, Mom, Wed., June 6, 9 p.m., $7. RKDE, 2847 Cherokee Street, Saint Louis.

GHOST TOWN REMEDY: W/ Half Gallen and the Milk Jugs, Angelhead, Pirate Signal, Reaver, Thu., May 24, 7 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

GLACIAL TOMB: W/ Immortal Bird, Bastard, Grand Inquisitor, Thu., June 7, 8 p.m., $7. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314328-2309.

GO OUTSIDE: W/ Little Cowboy, Seabed, Thu., May 31, 9 p.m., $5. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

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

THE HOLIFIELDS: W/ Dryads, Fri., June 8, 9:30 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

HURT RUSSELL: W/ MA HOLOS, Boreal Hills, Fri., June 8, 9 p.m., $5. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

HUSHGUSH: W/ Aiko Tsuchida, Grocer, JoAnn McNeil, Fri., May 25, 9 p.m., $5. El Lenador, 3124 Cherokee St., St. Louis, 314-771-2222.

INCHES FROM GLORY: W/ The Slow Boys, Fri., June 15, 7 p.m., free. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

IRON & WINE: Wed., Oct. 3, 8 p.m., $30. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-7266161.

IYA TERRA: Sun., July 1, 8 p.m., $15. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

JESSE MCCARTNEY: Tue., July 10, 8 p.m., $25.

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

JIMMY GRIFFIN’S 50TH BIRTHDAY SHOW: W/ Pettycash Junction – A Tribute to Tom Petty & Johnny Cash, The Incurables, Street Fighting Band – A Rolling Stones Tribute, Celebration Day – A Tribute to Led Zeppelin, Sat., July 7, 7:30 p.m., $15. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

KEY GRIP: W/ Bagheera, The Potomac Accord, Sat., June 9, 9 p.m., free. Urban Chestnut Brewing Company, 4465 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-222-0143.

LA SANTA CECILIA: Wed., July 11, 8 p.m., $20$22.50. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

LEA MICHELE AND DARREN CRISS: Wed., June 27, 7:30 p.m., $26-$92. Peabody Opera House, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-499-7600.

LITHICS: W/ Natural Man, Complainer, Sun., June 24, 8 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

THE LONELY BISCUITS: W/ Pono AM, Sun., June 10, 7 p.m., $12-$15. The Monocle, 4510 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-935-7003.

LUNG: W/ Francis, PaperKite, The Vigilettes, Fri., June 29, 9 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

MAMMOTH PIANO VIDEO PREMIERE: W/ DJ Moses, Fri., May 25, 9:30 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-7722100.

MOUTON: W/ The Death, Boreal Hills, Fri., June 15, 10 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

NATALIE PRASS: Fri., Aug. 17, 8 p.m., $15-$18.

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

riverfronttimes.com

[CRITIC’S PICK]

Lake Street Dive. | SHERVYN LAINEZ

LAKE STREET DIVE

smoldering delivery, but mostly from

8 p.m. Saturday, May 19. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Boulevard. 314-726-6161. All ages. $25-$39.25.

a band that swings even when testing

If American roots music isn’t American

sound may have found a brighter gloss,

pop music, nobody told Lake Street Dive.

but its sprawling roots have never dug

The Boston-based band made a splash

deeper into the soul of pop.

with its street-corner symphonies in the

Gospel Guts: Liz Vice’s career (and life)

mid-2000s and has gone on to polish

was nearly cut short before receiving a

its edges without losing any of its grit

kidney transplant in 2005. Since then,

and sex appeal. From Motown hooks to

she’s become a dominant force in gos-

Nashville twang, Memphis blues to Kan-

pel music. Don’t even think about miss-

sas City jazz, the band’s range derives

ing her opening set.

in part from lead singer Rachael Price’s Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

NEIL YOUNG: Thu., June 28, 8 p.m., $65-$275.

The Fox Theatre, 527 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-534-1111.

OH WONDER: W/ Sasha Sloan, Mon., July 16, 8 p.m., $25. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

ORPHAN WELLES: W/ Mene Mene, Party Dress, Sat., June 9, 9 p.m., $5. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

PARKWAY DRIVE: W/ August Burns Red, The Devil Wears Prada, Polaris, Tue., Sept. 4, 8 p.m., $28.50-$30. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

PEARL EARL: W/ Babe Lords, Thu., July 5, 9 p.m., $5. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

PETER MAYER: Fri., July 20, 8 p.m., $23. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

A PLACE BOTH WONDERFUL & STRANGE: W/ CaveofswordS, Seashine, Powder River, Thu., June 14, 8 p.m., $10. The Crack Fox, 1114 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-621-6900.

THE PRESCRIPTIONS: W/ Little Cowboy, Tue., June 19, 9 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

PROPHETS OF RAGE: Mon., Aug. 13, 8 p.m., $40$50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

RAINÉ RAINÉ: W/ EW, Ra Child, Aiko Tsuchida, Beauty Pageant, Fri., June 22, 8 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

RAINBOW KITTEN SURPRISE: Fri., Oct. 19, 8 p.m., $25-$27.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

RAYLAND BAXTER: Fri., Aug. 3, 8 p.m., $15.

out radio-friendly rock styles, as with this year’s Free Yourself Up. The band’s

—Roy Kasten Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

RED SCARVES: W/ Pyramids, Hanna Holladay, Fri., June 1, 9 p.m., free. CBGB, 3163 S. Grand Blvd., St. Louis.

ROMASA: W/ Chalked Up, Coffin Fit, Sun., July 29, 7 p.m., $5. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

SAMA DAMS: Mon., June 18, 9 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

SEAKWENSE: W/ LoveBaker, LexxiiiBeatz, IkeZero, Sun., June 17, 9 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-7722100.

SHANIA TWAIN: Wed., June 13, 8 p.m., $28-$496.

Scottrade Center, 1401 Clark Ave., St. Louis, 314-241-1888.

THE SLOW POISONER: W/ Bassamp and Dano, Googolplexia, Tue., June 12, 9 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

SMUT: W/ Ronnie Rogers, Frankie Valet, Mon., May 28, 8:45 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

THE SQUARSHERS: Sun., July 15, 11 p.m., free.

Halo Bar, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314726-1414.

ST. LOUIS AMERICANA FESTIVAL II: W/ Beth Bombara, Ryan Koenig, Erica Blinn, Cara Louise Band, Hillary Fitz Band, Rum Drum Ramblers, The Maness Brothers, Roland Johnson, The Fighting Side, Elliott Pearson & the Passing Lane, Sat., July 7, 5 p.m., $15. Atomic Cowboy Pavilion, 4140 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-775-0775.

STLHC SUMMER KICKOFF BBQ: W/ Push Off, Lowered AD, Life Sucks, Kill Their Past, Chalked Up, Brute Force, Time and Pressure,

Sat., June 16, 6 p.m., free. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

SWEET KNIVES: W/ Maximum Effort, Mom, Sun., June 24, 9 p.m., $7. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

TONINA: W/ The Vincent Scandal, Motherbear, Wed., June 27, 9 p.m., free. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

TREE ONE FOUR: W/ Remedy, Rota, Fri., July 20, 8 p.m., $10-$15. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

TRIFE DIESEL: W/ Rec Riddles, M80, Brief, Subtle Aggression Monopoly, Tue., June 5, 9 p.m., $5.

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

TROUBLE BOYS: W/ The Uppers, Slish, Fri., June 29, 9 p.m., $5. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

TUNIC: W/ Complainer, Blessed, Blight Future, Sat., June 2, 8:30 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

THE VENUS FLYTRAPS: W/ The Mindframes, Thu., June 21, 9 p.m., $5. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

THE WELL: W/ Scuzz, Mon., May 28, 8 p.m., $10.

The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

WONKY TONK AND THE HIGHLIFE: W/ Allie Vogler & the Dirty Details, Bobby Stevens, Thu., June 7, 8 p.m., $6. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

YO LA TENGO: Mon., Sept. 17, 8 p.m., $25-$28.

Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

ZACH & MAGGIE: W/ Marc Torlina, Sun., May 27, 6:30 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

UPCOMING 106.5 THE ARCH PRESENTS THE BOY BAND NIGHT: Sat., July 28, 7 p.m., $12-$15. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

3 DOORS DOWN, COLLECTIVE SOUL: W/ Soul Asylum, Sat., July 21, 7 p.m., $20-$79.50. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

3RD ANNUAL ST. LOUIS PIANO FESTIVAL: Mon., June 4, 6 p.m., $15-$20. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-4365222.

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.

4U: A SYMPHONIC CELEBRATION OF PRINCE: Sun., Oct. 14, 7 p.m., $35-$125. The Fox Theatre, 527 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-534-1111.

‘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.

AARON KAMM & THE ONE DROPS: W/ Monophonics, Crate2Crate, Fri., May 25, 7 p.m., $15$18. Atomic Cowboy Pavilion, 4140 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-775-0775.

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

ADORATION DESTROYED: W/ FIRES, Xentrifuge, Mon., June 11, 9 p.m., $10. The Crack Fox, 1114 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-621-6900.

THE ADVENTURES OF KESHA AND MACKLEMORE: Tue., July 10, 6 p.m., $30.50-$100.50. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

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

AGENT ORANGE: W/ Fea, Lysergik, Wed., Aug. 1, 8 p.m., $15. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

AGITATE THE AIRWAVES BIRTHDAY DEBAUCHERY: W/ The Former Me, Pure October, Dead Planet, Eurydice, Anima Animus, Frost Money, Sat., June 2, 7 p.m., $10-$12. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

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

ALGIERS: W/ Bambara, Cult Season, Sat., June 23, 9 p.m., $7. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

ALICE COOPER: Sat., Oct. 20, 8 p.m., $29.75$179.50. Peabody Opera House, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-499-7600.

ALLEN STONE: W/ Nick Waterhouse, Tue., Dec. 4, 8 p.m., $25-$30. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

ALT-J: Wed., June 6, 7 p.m., $53.50-$73.50. Peabody Opera House, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-499-7600.

AMERICAN AQUARIUM: W/ Cory Branan, Sat., June 2, 8 p.m., $17-$20. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

AMERICAN IDOL LIVE! 2018: W/ Cade Foehner, Caleb Lee Hutchinson, Catie Turner,Gabby Barrett, Jurnee, Maddie Poppe, Michael J. Woodard, Fri., Aug. 10, 7 p.m., $29.50-$99.50.

The Fox Theatre, 527 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-534-1111.

AMOS LEE WITH THE SLSO: Fri., June 22, 7:30 p.m., $49-$90. Powell Hall, 718 N. Grand Blvd, St. Louis, 314-534-1700.

AN UNDER COVER WEEKEND 12: NIGHT 1: Thu., Aug. 23, 7 p.m., $15. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

AN UNDER COVER WEEKEND 12: NIGHT 2: Fri., Aug. 24, 7 p.m., $15. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

AN UNDER COVER WEEKEND 12: NIGHT 3: Sat., Aug. 25, 7 p.m., $15. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

ANARBOR: W/ Alvarez Kings, Sat., June 23, 6 p.m., $15. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

THE ANCHOR: W/ Vrsty, Bridges, The Underground Lemon Experience, Thu., June 14, 7 p.m., $10-$13. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

ANDREW BRYANT: W/ Andrew Ryan & The Travelers, Fri., June 1, 7 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-7722100.

ANDREW W.K.: Thu., May 24, 8 p.m., $20-$25.

Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

ANI DIFRANCO: W/ Haley Heynderickx, Sat., June 9, 8 p.m., $35-$40. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

ANIMAL YEARS: Sat., June 9, 8 p.m., $10-$13.

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

ANITA JACKSON: Sat., Feb. 2, 11 a.m., $12. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900.

ANOUSHKA SHANKAR: Thu., March 14, 8 p.m., $30-$45. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900.

ANTIGAMA: W/ Violent Opposition, Sat., Oct. 20, 8 p.m., $12-$14. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

APEX SHRINE: Sat., July 28, 7 p.m., free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521.

AS CITIES BURN: W/ Tigerwine, Angelhead, Mariner, Thu., July 5, 7 p.m., $16-$20. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

ASHANTI: Sat., June 23, 8 p.m., $35-$55. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-7266161.

ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL: Sun., June 24, 8 p.m., $30-$40. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

ASTRAGAL: W/ Sad Cops, Holy Posers, Yuppy, Wed., June 13, 9 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

AWOLNATION: W/ Lovely the Band, Irontom, Wed., June 27, 8 p.m., $29.50-$35. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

AYO & TEO: Sun., May 27, 7 p.m., $28-$48. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-7266161.

THE BACON BROTHERS: Tue., June 19, 8 p.m., $35-$40. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

BAD BAD HATS: Thu., June 28, 8 p.m., $12-$15.

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

BATTLE OF THE DADS: Sat., Aug. 11, 8 p.m., $5.

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

BELMONT: W/ Young Culture, Scuzz, Cloy, Sat., June 2, 6 p.m., $10-$12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

Always a Great Time in the Neighborhood

! u o y hank

T

VOTED ST. LOUIS’ FAVORITE OUTDOOR/PATIO DINING!

#patiolife 1818 Sidney (at Lemp) @truemansinsoulard riverfronttimes.com

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

RIVERFRONT TIMES

49

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

DECEMBER MIXTAPE live music08 every week

JUNE01 JUNE02 JUNE08 JUNE09 JUNE15

C A R PE NOCTEM

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

THE LONE RANGERS

JUNE 16

VIEW MORE AT

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

9 1 0 w e s t pM AoY r1 6t- P2 2 L, 2A0 Z1 8A r di v err fir vo n et t i m •e s . cso ma i n t l o u i s , m i s s o u r i 6 3 1 4 6 • 6 3 6 .7 5 1 . 5 7 6 o

RIVERFRONT TIMES

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

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

BEN NORDSTROM & STEVE NEALE: Sat., May 11, 11 a.m., $12. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900.

BEN-WAH-BOB: Sat., June 23, 9 p.m., free. Nightshift Bar & Grill, 3979 Mexico Road, St. Peters, 636-441-8300.

A BENEFIT SHOW FOR LYMPHOMA: W/ CaveofswordS, The Vigilettes, Mammoth Piano, Pat Sajak Assassins, Emcee Chris Ward, DJ Anita, Sat., Aug. 11, 8 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

BENIGHTED: Sat., July 28, 8 p.m., $14-$16. Sat., July 28, 8 p.m., $14-$16. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

BIG EASY: Sat., June 16, 9 p.m., free. Nightshift Bar & Grill, 3979 Mexico Road, St. Peters, 636441-8300.

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 RICH MCDONOUGH & RHYTHM RENEGADES: Wed., May 23, 7 p.m., $5. Wed., May 30, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

BIG SAM’S FUNKY NATION: Fri., Sept. 14, 8 p.m., $15. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

THE BIG WU: Fri., June 15, 7 p.m., $15-$18.

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

BILL MAHER: Sat., Aug. 25, 8 p.m., $45-$125.

The Fox Theatre, 527 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-534-1111.

BILLY CURRINGTON: W/ Jordan Davis, Thu., June 21, 7 p.m., $35-$85. Chesterfield Amphitheater, 631 Veterans Place Drive, Chesterfield.

BISHOP BRIGGS: Sun., July 1, 8 p.m., $25-$28.

Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

BLACK PRIVILEGE TOUR: W/ Oren Major, DON40, Sat., May 26, 8 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer,

3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

BLACK PUSSY: W/ Spark Thugs, Custom Black, Rover, Sat., June 9, 9 p.m., $12-$14. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

BLACKBERRY SMOKE: W/ JJ Grey & Mofro, Sat., Aug. 18, 6 p.m., $25-$69. Chesterfield Amphitheater, 631 Veterans Place Drive, Chesterfield.

THE BLASTERS: W/ Clownvis Presley, Sun., June 17, 8 p.m., $15-$18. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

BLIND WILLIE & BROADWAY COLLECTIVE: Tue., May 29, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

BLUE DIXIE: Sat., Aug. 4, 8 p.m., $19.88-$25.

Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

BLUE OCTOBER: Fri., Oct. 12, 8 p.m., $30-$35.

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

BODY VOID: W/ Coffin Fit, Alder, Wed., June 20, 8 p.m., $8. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

BOMBA ESTEREO: Mon., Aug. 6, 8 p.m., $25-$30.

Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

THE BONBON PLOT: W/ The Main Street Remnants, Sat., Aug. 4, 8 p.m., $10. The Monocle, 4510 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-935-7003.

BOONDOGGLE: A TWO-MAN COMEDY SHOW: Wed., June 13, 9 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

BOX OF NERVES: Sat., Oct. 27, 7 p.m., free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521.

BOY GEORGE & CULTURE CLUB: W/ The B-52’s, Tom Bailey, Thu., Sept. 6, 8 p.m., $49.50$129.50. The Fox Theatre, 527 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-534-1111.

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

BRANDI CARLILE: W/ Shovels and Rope, Fri., June 22, 7 p.m., $27-$83. Peabody Opera House, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-499-7600.

WEEKEND

That’s not to say the troupe won’t

Continued from pg 48

let loose when necessary, but the 442s take an attentive approach that

of a show taking place on both floors

can totally alter the mood of a room.

of 2720 Cherokee. DownRight Enter-

Maness’ chops couldn’t be sharper

tainment, Unknown Frequency, the

thanks to his weekly residency at

Untz and ThazDope Records have

Evangeline’s and a regular schedule

all combined, Voltron-style, to deliver

of gigs throughout St. Louis. This is

the Wake the Nation Tour, headed off

River City jazz at its finest, all in sup-

by London-based dubstep deviant

port of Cori Bush, a progressive activ-

Caspa. The fourteen acts on the bill

ist running in the first congressional

give the impression of a festival, and

district.

that’s not inaccurate: This roaming party is a precursor to the Untz Fes-

Y La Bamba w/ Fatal Flaws

tival taking place in Mariposa, Califor-

8 p.m. Foam, 3359 S. Jefferson Avenue. $10. 314-7722100.

nia, on June 2 and 3 with several of the same acts in tow.

SUNDAY, MAY 20

Portland songsmith Luz Elena Mendoza sits in the driver’s seat of Y La Bamba, an art-rock vehicle for ampli-

A Night of Music and Action with the 442s

fied folk that draws from traditional

7 p.m. Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Avenue. $25.

314-833-3929.

balance, moving with nuance through

With composer and multi-instrumen-

tle ways. Though the music is deeply

talist Adam Maness at the fore, the

personal — the themes include heri-

442s take time to explore the middle

tage, hardship and faith — Mendoza

ground between jazz and classical

speaks in a universal language that

music, running over every contour

is altogether accessible.

with attention to texture and tone.

Mexican music. Songs here strike a pop while subverting structure in sub-

—Joseph Hess

Make Good Times Your Weekend Destination

Voted St Louis’ Favorite Wings Favorite Appetizers RUNNER-UP

St Louis’ Favorite Bar RIVERFRONT TIMES 2018 BEST OF ST LOUIS FOOD & DRINK

BIKES WELCOME ALL-WEATHER PATIO-PAVILION VIDEO SLOTS-POKER LIVE MUSIC

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200 N. MAIN, DUPO, IL @GOODTIMES.PATIO.BAR riverfronttimes.com

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

RIVERFRONT TIMES

51

52

RIVERFRONT TIMES

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

riverfronttimes.com

SAVAGE LOVE DENVER’S ORIENTAL THEATER

BY DAN SAVAGE

S

avage Love Live at Denver’s Oriental Theater last week was epic. I fielded sex questions in front of a sold-out crowd, singer-songwriter Rachel Lark performed amazing new songs, comedian Elise Kerns absolutely killed it, and Tye — a token straight guy plucked at random from the audience — joined us onstage and gave some pretty great sex advice! We couldn’t get to all the audience questions during the show, so I’m going to race through as many unanswered questions as I can in this week’s column…

You’ve famously said, “Oral comes standard.” How long before anal comes standard?

How does a week from next Tuesday grab you?

I enjoyed a great sex life with many kinky adventures until my husband died suddenly two years ago. I have insurance $$$ and a house to sell and a dream of using the proceeds to become a sex-positive therapist. Crazy idea? Or something the world needs more of?

Judging by how many people tell me they’re having a hard time finding sex-positive, kink-positive, open-positive and poly-positive therapists, I would definitely file “sex-positive therapist” under “world needs more of.” Chase that dream!

How do you introduce your inexperienced-but-willing-to-try partner to BDSM? By starting a two-person book club. Order Playing Well with Others: Your Field Guide to Discovering, Exploring, and Navigating the Kink, Leather, and BDSM Communities by Lee Harington and Mollena Williams, The Ultimate Guide to Kink: BDSM, Role Play, and the Erotic Edge edited by Tristan Taormino, and SM 101: A Realistic Introduction by Jay Wiseman. Read and discuss, and discuss some more — and when you’re ready to start playing, take it slow!

What resources are available

— which do you recommend — to share with my male partner so he can improve (learn) oral sex? (Girl oral sex!)

Two more book recommendations: The Ultimate Guide to Cunnilingus: How to Go Down on a Woman and Give Her Exquisite Pleasure

by Violet Blue and She Comes First: The Thinking Man’s Guide to Pleasuring a Woman by Ian Kerner.

My boyfriend told me that women orgasm only 60 percent of the time compared to men. I said I want orgasm equity. How do I navigate his pansy-assed male ego to find a solution?

The orgasm gap — 91 percent of men reported climaxing in their last opposite-sex sexual encounter compared to 64 percent of women (National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior) — doesn’t exist for lesbians and bi women in samesex relationships. So the problem isn’t women and their elusive orgasms, it’s men and their lazy-ass bullshit. A contributing factor is that women often have a hard time advocating for their own pleasure because they’ve been socialized to defer to men. There’s evidence of that in your question: You want to navigate this problem — the problem being a selfish boyfriend who doesn’t care enough about you to prioritize your pleasure and has taken cover behind the orgasm gap — but you want to spare his ego in the process. Fuck his precious ego.

Tell him what you want and show him what it takes to get you off. If he refuses to do his part to close the orgasm gap in your apartment, show him the door.

How do you prioritize sex with your partner when life gets so busy and masturbation is so much easier? My fiancé is down for quickies sometimes but not always.

Forgive my tautology, but you prioritize sex by prioritizing sex.

Scheduled sex can be awesome sex — and when you’re truly pressed for time, you can always masturbate together.

How do I come out to my family as a stripper? I’ve been dancing for more than two years and don’t plan to stop. Some of my family members are biased against sex workers, but I’m tired of keeping up the facade (I told them I’m a bartender).

It’s a catch-22: People are afraid to come out to their closed-minded families as queer or poly or sex workers or atheists, but closedminded families typically don’t open their minds until after their queer or poly or sex working or nonbelieving kids come out to them. To open their minds, you’ll have to risk blowing them first.

Tell them your truth and stand your ground.

I keep having sex dreams about Kanye West. What does that mean?

You’re Mike Pence.

Am I doing society a disservice by dating an international drug dealer?

A sexually frustrated international drug dealer is arguably more dangerous than a sexually satisfied international drug dealer — so you may be doing society a service.

Can I want to be monogamous without any reasoning? My boyfriend would probs be in an open relationship, but I’m not interested for no reason in particular.

Speaking with a low-information voter is frustrating because they can’t tell you why they voted for someone; speaking with a lowinformation fucker — someone who can’t tell you why they’re doing/screwing what they’re doing/ screwing — is just as frustrating.

It’s even more frustrating when the low-information/low-self-awareness fucker happens to be the person you’re fucking. It’s fine to want what you want — because of course it is — but unless you’re interested only in solo sex, you need to be able to share your reasons.

I dated a guy who said he was in an open relationship. We started working together on a podcast.

I got irritated because after two months he never did any preliminary research. When I pointed that out, he deleted all our work and blocked me on FB. Now he’s asking for some stuff he left at my place.

Do I give it back?

Yep. As tempting as it might be to hold on to his stuff or trash it, that just keeps this drama alive. If you keep his stuff, he’ll keep after you for it. If you trash his stuff, you’ll have to worry about the situation escalating. If you want him out of your life and out of your head, put his crap in a bag, set it

riverfronttimes.com

53

Women often have a hard time advocating for their own pleasure because they’ve been socialized to defer to men. on your porch or leave it with a neutral third party, and tell him when he can swing by and get it.

How clean should a bottom be?

A little bit of shit is kinda expected, isn’t it? I mean, you are fucking an ass, right?

My expectations for sterling silver, crystal stemware and fuckable ass are the same: I want it sparkling.

Zooming out: One doesn’t have anal sex with an ass full of shit for the same reason one doesn’t have oral sex with a mouth full of food — it’s going to make a mess. Making sure your mouth is empty is easy, of course, but it’s not that difficult to empty or clean out an ass.

Also, a good, fiber-rich diet empties and cleans out the ass naturally.

Yes, you are fucking an ass, that’s true, and shit sometimes happens.

The top shouldn’t poop-shame the bottom when it does happen, and the bottom doesn’t need to have a meltdown. It just means you need to pivot to some other sexual activity — after a quick cleanup restores the sparkle.

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

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

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

RIVERFRONT TIMES

53

HALF HOUR FREE

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54

RIVERFRONT TIMES

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

riverfronttimes.com

100 Employment

300 Rentals

Data Warehouse Developer (St. Louis, MO)

Analyze, document, design, develop, and maintain DB Biz solutions. Min Reqs: Master’s degree/foreign equiv in CSci., IS, Math, IT, or closely related engg. field + 3 yrs exper; OR Bachelor’s + 5 yrs exper. Resume to SSM

Health Businesses, Attn T Battle; 7980 Clayton Rd, Ste 101; St. Louis MO 63117. No Calls.

Immediate Openings Work every Home Cardinals Game!

Concession Workers • Event Staff Cooks • $9.00

Email or call for interview stlouis@lgcassociates.com stlouis@lgcassociates.com 314314- 863863- 7400

JENNINGS

$600

6040 Goodfellow 2BR, C/A & Heat, All Appliances, Off Street Parking, On Bus Route.

A Wonderfully Relaxing Intuitive Massage 314-706-4076 Licensed practitioner #2002030286

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ULTIMATE MASSAGE

$585/$625

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

10 minutes to Clayton.

CLEAN, SAFE QUIET!

Swedish Deep Tissue Daily 10am-5pm

South County 314-620-6386 Ls # 2006003746

ONE MONTH FREE!

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#1 Ebony Magic Moves

STRONG HANDS To Soothe & Relax Jeffrey

314-865-4695 Open 9am-9pm

(314)853-2561 blackladystrippers.com 2pam.vividproviders.com

MASSAGE

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

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Health Therapy Massage Relax Rejuvenate & Refresh

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314-972-9998

THERAPEUTIC

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

Or

314-258-2860 Appointments Mon thru Sun (walk-ins welcome) 320 Brook’s Drive 63042 LMT 200101083

SWEDISH MASSAGE FOR MEN

PERSONALIZE YOUR MASSAGE

Jamieson & Nottingham 1 BR, hardwood floors, gas & electric, C/A.

SOUTH CITY

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

MUSICIANS AVAILABLE

Mon-Fri 10-4:30

m4mmassagexxx.com

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$795

2 BR apt, new kitchen, bath & carpet.

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314-727-1444

UNIVERSITY CITY 6515 Bartmer

A MUST SEE!

$595/$635

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We have

314-995-1912

ONE MONTH FREE!

CLEAN, SAFE QUIET!

Bookings

Call For Information

314-781-6612

500 Services PREGNANT AND Choosing Adoption?

1-800-972-9225 Talk confidentially to a trusted counselor today.

Help with every step of adoption process is a phone call away. Help with pregnancy related expenses.

Mon-Fri 10-4:30

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

Covered by most insurance.

Free & confidential assessments.

Outpatient Services.

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1-800-972-9225 contact.adoptionconnection.org contact@ado

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

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AT&T Mobility, LLC is proposing to install an Outdoor Distributed Antenna System at the below locations in St. Louis, St. Louis County, Missouri.

Project Name

Address

Lattitude

Longitude

CRAN_RKSL_1015G_3_3C 3054 S GRAND BLVD SAINT LOUIS, MO 63118

38° 36’ 11.1” N

90° 14’ 30.8” W Metal Po

32-feet 8-inches

CRAN_RKSL_1015G_2_2C

2334-2384 TOWER GROVE AVE

38° 36’ 60” N

90° 15’ 27.4” W

Metal Pole

32-feet 8-inches

4475 CASTLEMAN AVE SAINT LOUIS, MO 63110

38° 36’ 59.74” N 90° 15’ 42.5” W

Metal Pole

32-feet 8-inches

SAINT LOUIS, MO 63110

Structure Type

Overall Height

Public comments regarding the potential effects from this site on historic properties may be submitted within 30-days from the date of this publication to: Laura Mancuso – CBRE, 4 West Red Oak Lane, White Plains, NY 10604, whiteplainsculturalresources@cbre.com or (914) 694-9600.

Above & Below The Belt Manscaping For Men

ARE YOU MOVING?

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407-494-7425

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618-363-2379

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314-236-7060

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

CRAN_RKSL_1015G_1_1E

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

$550

WESTPORT/ LINDBERGH/PAGE

600 Music

(NO TEXTS)

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National Board Certified

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SOUTH CITY

riverfronttimes.com

NOW HIRING! Part-time Evening & Weekends Apply in Person 10210 Page Avenue St. Louis, MO 63132

MAY 16 - 22, 2018

RIVERFRONT TIMES

55

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

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

WONTON KING

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

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Dine-In~Carry-out 8116 Olive Blvd~University City 314-567-9997~wontonkingstl.com

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patriciasgiftshop.com

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FFF For more info call

VOTED FAVORITE INDIAN RESTAURANT!

314-236-7060 EVANGELINE’S

-2018 RFT Best of St. Louis Readers Poll

lllllllll

9720 Page Ave ~ (314) 423-7300 havelistl.com

Bistro & Music House

Sunday Swing Jazz Brunch!

Features performances from local Swing Jazz artists, such as, Miss Jubilee and Dr. Bob’s “Be Nice or Leave” Bloody Mary Bar.

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evangelinesstl.com

File Bankruptcy Now! Call Angela Jansen ~314-645-5900~ Bankruptcyshopstl.com The choice of a lawyer is an important decision

SL Riverfront Tim

DAILY SPECIAL!

and should not be based solely on advertising.

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BY APPOINTMENT ONLY

Ultimate Massage by

Summer!

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

South County/ Lemay Area

314-620-6386 # 2006003746

ASPORTSDEEPTISSUEMASSAGE.COM

Music From Any Device On Your Radio!

Wired interface to FM antenna for best possible sound quality.

59

$

99

FMM100A, V10RCA. Phones shown for illustration, not included.

11.2” Boss Flip-Down Video!

DVD player with A/V, USB, SD input. IR and FM output with 2 $

Radar/Laser Protection!

129

$

99

229

headsets. Changeable skins.

CALL 314-643-7309 (NO TEXTS) 11115 NEW HALLS FERRY ROAD SUITE 200 FLORISSANT, MO 63033

99

SOUTH: 5616 S. Lindbergh • (314) 842-1242 WEST: 14633 Manchester • (636) 527-26811 HAZELWOOD: 233 Village Square Center • (314) 731-1212

Above & Below g capin The Belt Mans Grooming For Men Call For Appointment 407-494-7425

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 16 - 22, 2018

riverfronttimes.com

Theshavemster.com