Riverfront Times 11.25.15 by Riverfront Times

1 NOVEMBER 24– DECEMBER 1, 2015 I VOLUME 39 I NUMBER 47

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YOU REALLY DON’T WANT TO DO THIS When a mastermind of horror set his sights on a small Illinois town, things got scary — for him BY DANNY WICENTOWSKI

NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

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THE LEDE

“It’s a moral obligation that we’re here. Because we know that we shouldn’t be selective in who we’re supposed to help. These people are in need. It’s very heartbreaking that this is happening — and then knowing that these politicians are being selective and they are trying to make things harder for them to come. I’m an immigrant myself. I was on a student visa when I came here, and it was not easy to get a visa. I try to put myself in their shoes, and actually I have my family at home and they’re not in trouble. And it’s still hard to get here. What about those people who lost everything in their country? And then they come here and they try to get help because they are really desperate. Then some people are being so selfish and they want to turn them away. You know? It’s just not right.”

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–WAN ISA WITH HER CHILDREN, SAFIYYAH DOERR AND SUFYAN DOERR, OUTSIDE THE REFUGEES ARE WELCOME HERE: RALLY & VIGIL ON NOVEMBER 22.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS FEATURE

12.

You Really Don’t Want to Do This When a mastermind of horror set his sights on a small Illinois town, things got scary — for him Written by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI Cover by

MAX TEMESCU

NEWS

CULTURE

DINING

MUSIC

The Lede

Calendar

Food News

Young Blood

Your friend or neighbor, captured on camera

Seven days worth of great stuff to see and do

An organic garden takes root in north St. Louis

St. Louis’ Baby Blues Showcase turns fourteen

Alee Alderie is a Syrian in St Louis

Water. Water. brings sculpture to an old shoe factory

John Nash is a sommelier of sorts for Starr’s

The Wombats’ latest is the band’s most refined effort to date

A Refugee’s Story

Art

Stage

Animals Out of Paper explores origami and loss at the Chapel

Wine Guru Chat

Dining Guide

Where to eat right now in the Gateway City

All That Glitters

Homespun

Al Holliday & the East Side Rhythm Band Natural Remedies

Out Every Night

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

This Just In

This week’s new concert announcements

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Publisher Chris Keating Editor in Chief Sarah Fenske E D I T O R I A L Associate Editor Kristie McClanahan Arts & Culture Editor Paul Friswold Music Editor Daniel Hill Staff Writers Doyle Murphy, Danny Wicentowski Restaurant Critic Cheryl Baehr Editorial Interns Joshua Connelly, Aaron Davidoff Contributing Writers Drew Ailes, Mike Appelstein, Allison Babka, Nicole Beckert, Mark Fischer, Sara Graham, Joseph Hess, Patrick J. Hurley, Roy Kasten, Dan LeRoy, Jaime Lees, Todd McKenzie, Bob McMahon, Nicholas Phillips, Tef Poe, Christian Schaeffer, Alison Sieloff, Mabel Suen, Ryan Wasoba, Alex Weir

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M U LT I M E D I A A D V E R T I S I N G Associate Publisher Terry O’Neill Marketing Director Lucas Pate Promotions Manager Erin Deterding Sales Director Colin Bell Senior Account Executive Cathleen Criswell Multimedia Account Executives Matt Bartosz, Mikala Cannon, Christopher Guilbault, Erica Kenney, Kanita Pisutewongse, Nicole Starzyk Account Managers Emily Fear, Jennifer Samuel

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NEWS

A Syrian Refugee, Making a Life in St. Louis

here was once a country called Syria. Today, we know this place for its cities devastated by civil war, its charging armies and a president turned dictator. The name also conjures images of hooded ISIS fighters, a black flag and rivers of blood. For those who escaped the horrors of war and ISIS, Syria is a memory. Alaa Alderie remembers. Once a banker, he grew up in Damascus, a progressive city where he says you could walk the streets with your girlfriend or grab a beer without a second thought. Perched on a low chair inside Cham Bakery, which his family founded last year in a warehouse on the edge of Dogtown on Manchester Avenue, the 31-year-old says the Syria of his youth became unrecognizable after it plunged into civil war in 2011. “I went to the streets, I demonstrated. Once the government held weapons against the people, the people took weapons and fought back,” he says in halting English. “I could not sit there doing nothing. I tried volunteering, getting clothes for people that lost their homes, medicine, stuff like that.” But Alderie did not take up arms himself. He had already seen friends and acquaintances tortured and imprisoned. So he fled Syria with his family in 2012 to join a brother who had moved to St. Louis in 2010. The family was given asylum status, and they set about rebuilding their lives. That includes a growing business — Cham is the city’s first wholesale pita company, providing restaurants and groceries across

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Alaa Alderie and his family fled Syria in 2012 and settled in St. Louis. | Danny Wicentowski the city with neatly stacked bags of flatbread. Alderie wishes more Syrian lives could be rebuilt. He is thankful for St. Louis organizations such as the International Institute, which provided business loans and marketing advice. But the November 13 ISIS-linked terrorist attack in Paris has sparked a wave of anti-refugee sentiment, fueled by an age-old paranoia that accepting outsiders would put the safety of Americans at risk. To date, more than half of all U.S. governors have said they won’t allow Syrian refugees to resettle in their state. Missouri governor Jay Nixon has stated that the matter isn’t up to the states and should be handled by the federal government. But with polls showing that a clear majority of Missouri voters oppose allowing Syrians to enter the country, local politicians are now demanding Nixon halt what one lawmaker called “the potential Islamization of Missouri.” “It’s crazy,” Alderie says of the sudden opposition to aiding refugees. Before the Paris attacks,

NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

Alderie thought that American sentiment toward Syrians had softened as images of mass deaths and orphaned children filled TV screens. Maybe, he had hoped, Americans were finally moving on from the anti-Muslim sentiments that ran rampant after 9/11. Events of the past two weeks have dashed those hopes. “People are afraid of the Syrians, that if they came, maybe ISIS will come in,” he says. But Alderie knows first-hand the rigors of entering America as a refugee. He endured an eight-hour background check and interrogation process at the airport. Even now, he says, he is careful not to text or email about certain subjects (like American military actions in the Middle East) because he assumes he and other Muslims are being closely watched by the government. In fact, Alderie thinks the current standards for accepting refugees are too harsh, especially when it comes to aiding children in need of medical attention or young mothers. It’s not an opinion he sees reflected in recent headlines.

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Citing concerns about ISIS agents posing as refugees, the Republican-dominated United States House of Representatives passed legislation last Thursday seeking to halt President Barack Obama’s plan to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees in the next year. Obama has vowed to veto the bill, but the message sent to resettled Syrian refugees like Alderie is a harsh one. “It’s really sad,” he says — and odd to be associated with the same people who destroyed his family’s life. “I’m a Muslim, I lived in a Muslim country. All the people I was raised with, everyone, they were just like me. I never seen anyone like ISIS, I never met anyone like them.” Days after the Paris attack, someone shouted, “Go back, Arab,” as Alderie passed a stop sign. It was only the second time he has encountered face-to-face bigotry St. Louis, he says. It hasn’t changed his feelings about the city or its people. “I don’t like to think about it,” he adds. “Maybe some people just had a bad day.” — Danny Wicentowski

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NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

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YOU REALLY DON’T WANT TO DO THIS When a mastermind of horror set his sights on a small Illinois town, things got scary — for him

BY DANNY WICENTOWSKI

wo weeks before Halloween, Russ McKamey fired off an email to the police department and district attorney in McLeansboro, Illinois. “No offense, but with all the crazy things that have happened, and how the people have responded...it’s actually a little scary,” he wrote. Coming from McKamey, even that lukewarm admission is startling. This is the same man who has achieved infamy as creator of McKamey Manor, “the most extreme haunt in the world.” From a handful of Southern Californian homes converted to abattoirs, McKamey has spent the last fourteen years preying on adrenaline seekers from every walk of life. No matter if the entrants have been office drones or U.S. Marines — McKamey breaks them all. After more than a decade of fine-tuning, what started as a DIY haunted house has become an hours-long test of mental and emotional endurance, a nightmarish marathon featuring everything from kidnapping to forced bug-eating. Everyone who enters McKamey Manor is warned: “You really don’t want to do this.” After their ordeal is over, McKamey uploads the suffering

to YouTube. The waiting list to get in is now more than 27,000 names long. Halloween is big business, but McKamey would prefer to keep the production running all year long. He’s got ambitious plans, including several documentaries and a TV show for a major network. Yet on October 15, the day he composed the message from his cluttered home office in San Diego, the 56-year-old former Navy man with a carnival barker’s baritone was about as far from his comfort zone as he’d ever been. This summer, McKamey made plans to move his operation to McLeansboro, a southern Illinois town of just 3,000 souls. In July, during his only trip to the hamlet, McKamey shook hands with residents and a local business partner; together, they finalized plans to transplant the manor from its West Coast birthplace to the American heartland. McKamey got as far as delivering one van-load of equipment and props before the deal fell apart. Threats were made. Bricks were thrown through windows. Then rumors of theft reached McKamey’s ears. Messages sent from anonymous Facebook accounts warned that his business partner was selling off equipment in his absence. McKamey decided he needed to return to Illinois to get his stuff. And, as he wrote to the police and D.A., he feared what would happen upon on his return. “I would like some reassurance that I’m not being set up in any way once I get there,” he wrote. “I have never been involved with anything like this and I’m not going to lie...I’m worried about what might take place there.” McKamey is not the kind of man who pleads with authorities. He is the kind of man who breaks people. But now it feels like this tiny town — located smack dab in the middle of nowhere — may have bested him.

ctober 22 was the kind of 80 degree autumn day that calendar photographers spend their whole lives dreaming about. Driving along Interstate 64 to McLeansboro, the tree-lined roadway blurs into a tunnel of orange and red before bursting into the flat expanse of farmland, the endless blue dome of Illinois sky. Named for the settler who founded the town in 1821, McLeansboro features several blocks of quaint historic architecture, a few manufacturing

plants, a paint factory and little else to draw attention from the outside world (that is, besides being the birthplace of NBA Hall of Famer Jerry Sloan). The prospect of bringing a high-profile haunted attraction to the town sounded good to Patricia Irvin, a local businesswoman whose holdings include a squat brick storefront tucked between a rusting garage, several large residential homes and the Hamilton County Preschool. Long before Irvin was born, the 10,000-square-foot building had housed a grocery store. “The reason Russ was so in love with it was because the old owner had put in a meat locker, where he did the slaughtering and stuff in the basement,” Irvin says, squinting in the 11 a.m. sun. “Big, thick brick walls and real big, thick doors.” Wearing a black patterned blouse, jeans and sandals, Irvin paces along the sides and front of the building, waiting for McKamey to arrive. She points to a piece of plywood covering a small corner of one of the large, front-facing windows. “That’s where the brick went through,” she says. Five other windows were dented by a spray of airsoft pellets, and a few days later someone slashed her van’s tires and shot at the windshield. The trouble began in July when KFVS, the local TV news station, picked up the story of McKamey Manor’s impending move to McLeansboro. It wasn’t just the reporter’s breathless delivery from outside Irvin’s building that set tongues wagging. It was also the clips from McKamey’s YouTube channel. “A controversial thrill house is set to open in McLeansboro later this year,” an anchor told the camera dramatically before cutting to images of gagged man being tackled to the ground, another man with his head locked in a cage and, later, a woman begging an unseen assailant, “Let me out, let me out!” … followed by more screaming. To the audience at home, it looked like a snapshot of Hell itself. The videos, in fact, form the bedrock of McKamey’s national profile. With more than 80,000 subscribers and millions of views, the gruesome clips reveal what McKamey really means when he says the manor offers the opportunity to “live your own horror movie.” Because what makes the videos so unnerving isn’t gallons of fake blood or animatronic zombies —

What makes his videos so unnerving is the faces of the participants, the men and women with bulging, empty eyes, asking him for mercy that will not come. it is the faces of the participants, the men and women with bulging, empty eyes who plead with McKamey, asking him for mercy that will not come. Not yet. There is no safe word in McKamey Manor. Barring a medical emergency, you’re done when McKamey decides you’ve had enough. The local news spot informed viewers that participants in McKamey Manor must get notes from a doctor and psychiatrist attesting to their physical and mental fortitude. Once inside, McKamey and his stable of volunteer actors put groups of two through simulated drowning, imprisonment and forced feeding. Women leave McKamey Manor without hair. Bearded men fair no better. No one has ever made it through the complete eight-hour course. Irvin, born just across the border in Evansville, Indiana, describes herself as a “small town, God-fearing, country girl.” After moving to McLeansboro at ten, she grew up to become a woman whose worldview is rooted in church and family, which now includes a husband and two kids in middle school. She’s an odd choice to go into business with an alleged torturer, and indeed, she says, it wasn’t like she’d been familiar with McKamey’s work. Her involvement started when a childhood friend learned that the manor was in need of a new home. The friend pitched McLeansboro

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to McKamey. After introductions were made, McKamey and Irvin traded phone calls and emails, and by early July the two had come to an agreement. “He said he did a lot of things,” Irvin says, recalling those conversations. “He said he was a DJ, a wedding singer, that he liked to play music, that he’s loved Halloween his whole life.” Irvin was sold on the idea, and McKamey marshalled his fans in the area to help him unpack his van when he arrived in town on July 10. That night, McKamey, Irvin and the others dined together as partners. He then turned around and drove back to California. No formal contract was signed, but Irvin considered the deal as good as done. “I shook this man’s hand. I said yes, I could not tell him no after that,” Irvin says now. “That’s just how I felt. Your word is your bond, that’s what you’ve got. I didn’t pull away, he did.” Less than a week after McKamey and Irvin shook hands on the deal, the news hit the rest of McLeansboro. “CAN WE SAY SICK, SICK, SICK, THESE ARE A BUNCH OF SICK PEOPLE, MY GOD HAVE MERCY ON YOUR SOULS,” wrote one woman in the online comment section of the local news report. “This isn’t kid friendly. It’s sickening,” someone else wrote on a Continued on pg 14 Facebook

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MCKAMEY MANOR Continued from pg 13

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Russ McKamey returned to McLeansboro for the props and equipment left in his ex-partner’s storeroom. | Danny Wicentowski page tracking McLeansboro news. “I say burn the building down.” The comment concluded, confusingly, with a winky-face emoticon. The vandalism started a week later. Pious objectors showed up to pray in front of Irvin’s building. These days, Irvin keeps the building under 24/7 surveillance. On this morning, she unlocks the front door and carefully picks her way toward a darkened hallway in the rear. She had the lights and utilities shut off in August. Irvin comes to a door that she says leads to the storage area with McKamey’s things. The door has been blocked by a low dresser covered in dolls, the kind with fluttering eyelashes and big, creepy eyes. A collapsible wheelchair, also left behind by McKamey, rests against a wall. “Nobody’s been in there,” Irvin says. She gestures to the twisted length of chain that seals the only back door leading outside. “Nobody’s touched that room. You can tell, there’s dust on everything. Come on.” That would be news to McKamey. In September, he called the McLeansboro Police Department claiming that Irvin was selling items from the storeroom. It’s an allegation he has repeated in media interviews and on his Facebook page. Rumors swirled that nearby haunted houses were buying the items. On Facebook, McKamey fumed that Irvin was refusing to return $35,000 worth of his stuff. Irvin denies it all. “I don’t even have a key to the

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NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

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room,” she says. She also has a private Facebook messages McKamey sent her in July, after the vandalism struck. In one message, he begs her to secure the room, which he claims contained more than $15,000 worth of stuff — much less than what he’s now claiming is missing. “So that’s a lie right there,” Irvin says. Irvin checks the clock on her phone. It’s getting close to noon, and there no sign of McKamey or the police officers she has requested to oversee his arrival. It’s been difficult watching the plans fall apart, she says. She’s witnessed the prospect of additional jobs and fame, of a sort, for McLeansboro disintegrate to small-town bickering and old-time shunning. Her reputation around town hasn’t fully recovered. When she remembers how she defended McKamey to her friends and neighbors — even appearing on TV — she can’t help but feel like a victim of some cruel trick. “I had to go to the mayor, I had to go to the city, I had to talk to the news, I had to talk to the cops, I had to smooth things over for people in town. That was never what I was supposed to do,” she says. “But still, I shook that man’s hand, and I couldn’t…” Irvin’s next thought is interrupted by a growling engine and the sound of tires crunching over gravel. “There he is,” she says. “That’s Russ McKamey.” Continued on pg 16

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lance footage to prove it. (Minutes later, McKamey announces that several DVD players containing costly special-effects footage are also missing.) McKamey and his comrade begin hauling the bins out to the van, which is outfitted with a lift in the rear. This is just a smidgen of the $500,000 worth of props, sets and various equipment that McKamey says he has either built or purchased in the last fourteen years. Up until last summer, the rest of the stuff was spread among McKamey Manor’s five “zones” — houses and back yards — located at four undisclosed sites in San Diego, plus one more across the border in Tijuana. The zones have been disassembled, meaning that current guests are treated to what McKamey calls “improvisational” tours, much shorter and less elaborate than the full production. McKamey spent 23 years in the Navy before landing a position as a veteran’s advocate with the VFW, but he recently lost his job. The Hamilton County police kept an eye on McKamey while he loaded boxes and mannequin parts into his van. | Danny Wicentowski haunt started as a hobby, a seasonal project that employed neighborhood kids and didn’t generate any pearl-clutching headlines. Over of Darkness” written in jagged time, the production grew darker green script. McKamey hands him Continued from pg 14 and more aggressive, pushing a a camcorder just as an SUV from boundary that existed only at the the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Delimits of McKamey’s imagination. y the time McKamey arrives partment pulls up to the building. in McLeansboro, he has For years, the only admission fee The county sheriff, a red-faced been driving for three days man in wraparound sunglasses, has been one bag or four cans of straight. Somehow, he seems to be approaches the van. dog food, which McKamey donated in good spirits. He cracks open the to a San Diego-based greyhound “Are you Mr. McKamey?” he door to the van and calls his lawyer asks. rescue society. to makes sure he’s still on his way. But now he wants to start McKamey nods and says yes. (He is.) charging entry fees for McKamey “I have a paper to serve on you. From the driver’s seat, McKamey Do you want me to take it to your Manor, and that’s not going to hapstudies an inventory list balanced attorney or to you?” pen in San Diego. Aside from the on his lap. zoning and ordinance challenges “My attorney,” McKamey says. “I’m hoping it’s all there,” he that would come with running a The document, handed to the says. “I’m hoping they were just lawyer, is a lawsuit from Patricia for-profit business out of his house, yanking my chain about selling all Irvin. She’s seeking $10,000 for four the cost of living in San Diego is just the stuff. I hope that wasn’t really months of unpaid rent and repairs too damn high for an unemployed true.” for the property damage, as well as latch breaks and the door creaks haunter. The lawyer arrives. McKamey defamation of character. “I can’t afford to live there anymournfully open. There’s a smell peels himself out of the seat and more,” he says as he heaves a plasBut McKamey doesn’t even give like latex and paint thinner. stretches his six-foot-four frame the paper a glance. He follows Irvin McKamey takes a look around tic bin into the van. “I can’t really in the blazing heat of the unsea- and two deputies into the building. the room. Mannequin heads, torsos run the haunt the way it needs to sonable October day. His blue eyes “I don’t have a key for it,” McK- and arms are piled in a corner next be run in the middle of San Diego. squint behind from a bulbous nose amey says when they reach the to chunks of what look like flesh I need to get on the outskirts someand a face that might place third in door. skewered on pikes and threaded place, not in the city limits.” a Gary Busey look-alike pageant. Irvin bristles. She tells the sheriff with chains. One wall is taken up But if McKamey thought he But anyone expecting the lord that she gave McKamey the only entirely with large speakers and would be welcomed into smallof darkness would surely be dis- key to the door. Then she lets out plastic bins labeled with things like town America, he was showing an appointed: The maven of horror an exasperated sigh. “Bust it open, “Costumes” and “Fabric” in black appalling lack of historical knowlis outfitted in a pink T-shirt, blue I don’t care.” edge — or at least ignorance of marker. shorts that end above the knee and She retreats to another part of “One of the big speakers is gone, the horror cannon. The history of a pair of ragged Sketcher Shape the building and returns with two there should be two of them here,” rural communities is layered with Ups. flathead screwdrivers. Dropping McKamey says, in earshot of Irvin. legends of distrust of the outside From the van’s passenger side to her haunches, she works the She huffs and again tells the sheriff world, and a kind of wariness that emerges a portly man in a black screwdrivers into the edges of the that no one has been in the room. every so often explodes in violence. T-shirt with the words “Dungeon doorknob. After a few seconds, the She offers to show him the surveil- Salem, Massachusetts, was a small

“I’m hoping they were just yanking my chain about selling all the stuff.”

MCKAMEY MANOR

RIVERFRONT TIMES

NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

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town, and its residents burned, crushed and drowned “witches” to death. Small towns were also the last holdovers of the old “sundown laws” that not-too-subtlety enforced curfews against African Americans. And in the world of cinema, from The Twilight Zone to Children of the Corn, a small town is where otherwise normal people succumb to madness and hideous death. It’s no wonder McKamey’s imagined Midwestern idyll quickly collapsed into bitter acrimony. Irvin insists that she thought her deal with McKamey would only bring a traditional haunted house to town, a “boo haunt” geared toward kids and families during the Halloween season. Sure, he would be allowed to do this “torture stuff,” she acknowledges, but she thought it was a side project — that he’d only do it on the weekends and only for two people at a time. McKamey, on the other hand, says he expected to have free reign to construct his “survival horror boot camp experience” in whatever manner he wished. In return, he would bring some 60 acting jobs to the town and an influx of outside business. (Irvin’s husband, Dan, suggests that McKamey planned on buying another parcel of land that would house McKamey Manor, leaving Irvin’s property to the family-friendly boo haunt. McKamey, however, scoffs at this.) The big disagreement soon led to many smaller ones. Irvin claims McKamey flaked on his responsibilities as a business owner, culminating in his refusal to pay for a sprinkler system mandated by the town’s fire marshal. McKamey retorts that the building’s upkeep was never supposed to be his problem — and that it’s not his fault that town’s residents are intolerant “haters.” Shifting stories, accusations of theft and a business partnership founded on little more than a handshake — by now, McKamey and Irvin’s interactions have degraded to a toxic mix of self-righteousness and paranoia. For instance, both McKamey and Irvin accuse the other of fabricating the same Facebook account — for some guy named Shawn Foster, who appears to be trolling all sides of the McKamey Manor/McLeansboro debate. As Irvin scrutinizes McKamey from across the parking lot, the paranoia seems to get the better of her once again. “What do you think of Russ’ law-

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McKamey says it has taken $500,000 of his own money to build and maintain McKamey Manor. | Danny Wicentowski yer?” she whispers. “He looks so young. I think he’s a fake.” (While baby-faced, the lawyer is indeed licensed in Illinois.) Conspiracy theories are nothing new to McKamey’s operation. Rumors buzz about what really goes on in McKamey Manor, and McKamey’s highly theatrical sense of secrecy has built a mystique like no other. The most potent theories involve a cabal of sadistic Las Vegas gamblers who, according to the conspiracists, are actually pulling the strings in McKamey Manor. As it turns out, the source of this rumor is McKamey himself. In fact, he casually mentions it in McLeansboro while describing how he and his masked crew members blindfold participants before transporting them to the five zones. “We took the guests to different places based on what the viewing audience wanted to see. Las Vegas is watching this thing,” he says, loading another mannequin leg into the van. And who, precisely, comprises this mysterious Las Vegas audience? McKamey plays it coy. “They’re bigwigs that want to pay money to watch it. Although,” he quickly adds, “we don’t get anything out of it. They donate money to the greyhound rescue society. I’m pretty sure they’re gambling on the outcome, that sort of thing. We talk with them on the live feed, they tell us what they want, what stunt, what zone to put the guests in.” Pressed further, he brings the back veil Continued on pg 18

7750 Carondelet Ave • Clayton, MO 63105 • 314-726.5400

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g over the loop for ov un shinin er 2 0 s e h ye a gt The O ri gi nal Suns hi ne D aydre am (e st. 1994) n i p rs e e

6608 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63130 (314) 727-9043 | sunshinedaydreamloop.com G T EA

R IC

After his falling out with McLeansboro, McKamey says he found a new location in a “ghost town.” | Danny Wicentowski

MCKAMEY MANOR Continued from pg 17 Locally Owned Since 1979

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down. “I don’t know them all that much,” he says. “Do I know they’re real? Um, yeah, for the most part. You know, unless they’re BSing me. They make it interesting, though, that’s for sure. Very real, you know what I mean? It’s crazy. And there’s 27,000 people trying to get in.”

cKamey and his buddy finish loading the van in under two hours, a feat that leaves both men sweat-stained and hungry. Rather than stay and eat in McLeansboro, which feels distinctly unwelcoming by this point, they drive twenty miles south to Eldorado. The van passes front yards featuring grinning Draculas and cartoon Frankensteins, the trees adorned with cobwebs and toilet paper. Over one lonely farmstead, a Confederate battle flag flutters in the wind. The van finally pulls in to a Chinese restaurant. After putting in his order (sweet and sour chicken), McKamey tries bantering with the shop’s owner, telling her that he’d driven all the way from San Diego just to sample the food. The woman stammers back in broken English, utterly confused. It can be difficult to tell when McKamey is on the level. Yet he’s the first to admit that he enjoys playing the enigma — even when that means outright lying. For example: In a video uploaded to YouTube in October 2014, a stone-faced McKamey haltingly explained to his Web audience that things needed to change.

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“From this point on we’re going to go ahead and tone things back quite a bit,” he told the webcam over a soundtrack of melancholy piano chords. “It’s still going to be edgy, it’s going to be different, but we’re going to take it way, way back, so most folks can actually get through the haunt in one piece. It’s just what we’ve got to do. This was an experiment, we tried...but for the sake of everybody, I think this is what we have to do.” When asked about the video now, McKamey just laughs. The seemingly emotional intro was a sham, he says. Just part of the game. “It’s all smoke and mirrors. I spin everything. Whatever anybody feels, I made them feel that way.” He adds, “Everything I do is BS, that’s why I love what I do.” In fact, he says, the structure of the manor has actually gotten more extreme, more devious and more shocking in the past year, and the only thing slowing the escalation is the need for a new location. But McKamey also rejects claims that he is merely a torturer in entertainer’s clothing. His critics are letting themselves be tricked by the magic of filmmaking, he argues. They don’t realize that the hourlong clips are selectively edited to remove downtime and moments that don’t conform to whatever narrative McKamey has in mind. “When I do a tour, the guests are like my actors and I’m the director. So I am looking, editing in my head, what shots I want, what expressions I want. You don’t see the part where I cut and talk to them and make sure they’re OK and ask them if they should they go on. This is real, but it’s safe,” he says.

At the same time, McKamey insists he wields all the power inside his manor. He’ll let guests know when they’re done. Until then — and not a moment before — they are his to play with. “Like, literally, you are in a straightjacket hanging upside down, swimming with six-foot, California moray eels, and all you got on your head is a light and goggles. No one can stand that, you see? The toughest guy in the world can’t go, ‘Huh, I’m OK with that.’ It doesn’t work that way. They all break. And so nobody has ever made it, and nobody ever will.” There is the circular quality to conversations with McKamey. He tells you that McKamey Manor is safe. He tells you that the horrible things shown on the YouTube videos are real. He will tell you that he is lying to you. And he will tell you to believe him. “There’s no cussing, no sexual innuendos, no religion. It’s safer than any other haunt you can think of,” he says later, before launching into a story about how he had to fire one of his actors. The actor had forced a female guest to suck food off his finger, and that crossed McKamey’s “no sexual innuendo” line. “I’m still clean-cut,” he says proudly. “I don’t swear, I’ve never been intoxicated in my life, I’ve never smoked a cigarette, never had a cup of coffee.” But just minutes later, when McKamey lets a “bullshit” slip from his lips, he grins and catches himself. “Oops, no cussing,” he says. And McKamey the Boy Scout is nowhere to be seen when it comes to the haters, the trolls and disgruntled former actors and participants who have launched petitions calling for his arrest and the shuttering of McKamey Manor. Irvin and McLeansboro are just the latest addition to that list. “It was really kind of a hateful little town, you know? And this Patricia thing, she’s a freakin’ liar, You can believe what you want,” he says. “She’s a lowlife — excuse me, just white trash. I’m saying she’s just trash.” It’s getting late, past 4 p.m., and McKamey has a lot of ground to cover. He says he’s first got to drive to South Dakota, where he’ll deposit the equipment in a partner’s garage, and after that he’s heading to what he hopes will be McKamey Manor’s new location. He won’t say where, exactly, only that it’s in a state closer to the West Coast, on 29 acres hugging the edge of civilization. This time, he has chosen a de-

serted town with no gas station and no grocery store. He’s learned his lesson — no amenities mean no nosy neighbors. If he’s worried about the future, McKamey doesn’t show it. “McKamey Manor is going strong. It’s like nothing can stop it,” he says. “The only that can stop it is if there’s a really serious injury that happens. Heaven forbid.” McKamey, boxed leftovers in hand, bids farewell to the owner of the Chinese restaurant and trudges out the door and across parking lot. He looks tired. The red van, laden with the stuff of nightmares, thunders onto the highway.

The road west is long. It takes McKamey past small towns and cities, farmland and trailer parks. He passes millions of Americans, many of them as religious and family-oriented as the residents of McLeansboro. But there are also the outliers, the freaks, the thrill seekers, those people who watch McKamey’s videos and think, “Yeah, I’d like to do that.” Those people will find McKamey. They always have. They will drive across the country. They will fly in from Europe, the Middle East and Australia. And the reporters and filmmakers will keep knocking on his door.

All McKamey Manor has to do is exist, and the people will come. It sits on the fringe of human experience, balanced between truth and lie, entertainment and torture. At McKamey Manor, the essential mystery remains. Only its creator, his actors and the participants know the truth. For the rest of us, and for the good people of McLeansboro, all we know is what McKamey shows us in his videos. All we know is that at the end of each clip, the victims stare into McKamey’s camera, their faces wet with snot and tears. In cracked, insistent voices they plead: “You really don’t want to do this.”n

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NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

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CALENDAR

WEEK OF NOVEMBER 26-DECEMBER 2

PRO PHOTO STL

The 2014 cast of All Is Calm.

THURSDAY 11/26 [FOOD & DRINK]

Pere Marquette Lodge Thanksgiving Feast If you’re stuck with a sour Thanksgiving Day — no immediate family in the vicinity, not enough time off work, no desire to sit alone at home and stare down the walls — fear not. Truck up the Great River Road in the direction of the beautiful Pere Marquette State Park and its exceptionally lovely lodge (Illinois Route 100, 13653 Lodge Boulevard, Grafton, Illinois; 618-786-2331 or www.pmlodge.net ). From 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. today you can dine on a full-course, traditional Thanksgiving feast within the rustic and restorative confines of this old characterful lodge. The meal costs $10.95 to $28.95. — Alex Weir

[FOOD & DRINK]

[THANKSGIVING]

Innsbrook Grand Thanksgiving Buffet

Thanksgiving Day Parade

If your Thanksgiving dinner isn’t really all it’s cracked up to be, or if you just want to give Mom a break from the annual grind of preparing the bird and all the trimmings, Innsbrook Resort has got you covered. The resort’s Aspen Center (1 Aspen Circle Drive, Innsbrook; 636-928-3366; www.innsbrookresort.com ) hosts the Grand Thanksgiving buffet featuring a raft of chef-carved oven-roasted turkeys, peach bourbon barbecue-glazed hams and a mammoth mashed potato bar. There is also a cornucopia of vegetables and salads, and a pumpkin patch of palate-pleasing pies and desserts. The buffet costs $14 to $28, and reservations are required. — Mark Fischer

The Ameren Missouri Thanksgiving Day Parade, a St. Louis holiday tradition, returns after taking last year off. The early-morning procession starts 8:45 a.m. today at Seventh and Market streets (www. christmasinstlouis.org) and then heads west, and comprises more than 130 units. You’ll see floats, vintage cars, fire trucks, gargantuan helium balloon figures and a dozen high school marching bands. The Bellville East High School band has taken the top prize in five of the past six parades — can they do it again, or will a new band march to victory? As always, the parade ends with a visit from Santa Claus. — Rob Levy

FRIDAY 11/27 [ T H E AT E R ]

All Is Calm You have many entertainment options for the Christmas season, but limited time. Make time to see Peter Rothstein’s All Is Calm. This acappella musical is inspired by the soldiers on both sides of World War I who laid down their guns and embraced their fellow men rather than fight on Christmas Day. It’s a moving story beautifully presented by Mustard Seed Theatre, which brings it back for a third year in a row. The play is performed at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, and at 2 and 5 p.m. Sunday (November 27 through December 20) at Fontbonne Fine Arts Theatre (6800 Wydown Boulevard; 314-719-8060 or www.mustardseedtheatre.com). Tickets are $25 to $30. — Paul Friswold Continued on pg 22

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RIVERFRONT TIMES

Florissant Fine Arts Council

CALENDAR Continued from pg 21

PRESENTS:

CITY OF FLORISSANT’S

Thanksgiving Holiday Special FLY GUY & OTHER STORIES

FROM THEATREWORKSUSA NY, NY

Friday November 27 Saturday November 28 BOTH SHOWS AT

2PM

CALL

FOR SPECIAL HOLIDAY SHOW PRICING

RYAN & RYAN: MUSIC FOR MAVERICKS

FATHER/SON PIANO DUO RETURNS TO THE FCC THEATRE FOR A SPECIAL HOLIDAY CONCERT FROM TULSA, OK Saturday December 12 at 8PM

A CHRISTMAS CAROL FULL STAGE MUSICAL COMEDY VERSION OF CHARLES DICKENS’ CLASSIC STORY FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE

SAINT LOUIS

Sunday December 20 at 2PM

ORCHESTRA

Holiday Pops

Florissant Civic Center Theatre | Parker Road at Waterford Drive For information and to purchase tickets call 314-921-5678 or go to www.florissantmo.com

Robert Hart Baker, Conductor Friday, December 4, 2015, at 8pm

William D. Purser Auditorium Logan College of Chiropractic 1851 Schoettler Rd. Chesterfield, MO 63017

PROGRAM Come join us in ringing in the Holiday Season at our annual Holiday Pops concert. You will hear many of your favorites such as “Sleigh Ride”, “Greensleeves”, “Festive Sounds of Hanukah”, Concert Suite from “Polar Express”, Songs from “Frozen”, “Silent Night” (Robin Weatherall version), “Winter Wonderland”, musical arrangements by The Trans-Siberian Orchestra and many, many more. We have also included an old-fashioned sing-a-long. The Philharmonic is partnering with the United States Marine Corps in a TOYS FOR TOTS drive. Please bring a new, packaged, and unwrapped toy to help make Christmas special for kids in need.

TICKET PRICES Tickets are $20.

All seats are general admission. For Tickets & Further Information

(314) 421-3600

www.stlphilharmonic.org

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NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

Rock N Roll Craft Show will lure you in. [THANKSGIVING]

SATURDAY 11/28 St. Charles Christmas Traditions When it comes to capturing the Rock N Roll sweet, nostalgic essence of Christmastime in America, few places Craft Show do it better than St. Charles’ His[CRAFT SHOW]

toric Main Street (100 North Main Street, St. Charles; 800-366-2427 or www.stcharleschristmas.com). Experience the magic for yourself at St. Charles Christmas Traditions, a month-long celebration of holiday cheer. Shop and dine along the red-brick streets, say hello to the strolling characters, and allow the festive carolers to lift your spirits. This is the perfect place to begin your own holiday tradition with your family, complete with a gingerbread village, chestnut-roasting and a host of Santas from around the world. Go on — get merry! St. Charles Christmas Traditions opens with a visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus on Friday, November 27. Regular hours are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, noon to 5 p.m. Sunday, 6:30 to 9 p.m. Wednesday and Friday (November 27 to December 23), and from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursday, December 24. Admission is free. — Brooke Foster riverfronttimes.com

Eleven years in, the Rock N Roll Craft Show remains one of the tip-top best places to delight everyone on your holiday list and have a wonderful time yourself. You’ll find beautiful items — including glassware, clothing, jewelry, furniture and fine art — from local and national artisans. As you peruse the goods (set up like a luxe department store, not confined to booths!), enjoy live music and cocktails from the cash-orcredit bar. Kiddos get in free, and they’ll love saying hello to the person-size sock monkey who roams the show throughout the day. This year’s event takes place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday (November 27 to 29) at the Luminary (2701 Cherokee Street; www.rocknrollcraftshow. com). Admission is $10 on Friday and $4 Saturday and Sunday. — Brooke Foster

[ F E S T I VA L ]

Loop in Motion Do you yearn to finish your holiday shopping in one fell swoop while also supporting locally owned businesses? You can do both at the Loop in Motion festival this Friday and Saturday (November 27 and 28) in the Delmar Loop (6200 block of Delmar Boulevard, University City; bazaarboy.com/loopinmotion). Whether you’re looking for jewelry (the Silver Dame Judy Dench in The Winter’s Tale. | Kenneth Branagh Lady offers 20 percent off Theatre Company a chain with any pendant purchase) or a musical instrument (GoMusicSTL knocks 40 percent off select new acoustic guitars), you can find it on the Loop. There will also be entertainment [ T H E A T E R ] in the form of live art displays and performances by 25 dance groups and several DJs. — Paul Friswold What can divide two friends faster than jealousy? In Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, King Leontes and King Polixenes are life-long pals enjoying a nine-month-long visit. But when Polixenes wants to [ H O L I D AY ] return home, Leontes asks his own pregnant wife to convince him to stay. Hermione succeeds, and a suspicious Leontes decides his wife is having an affair with Polixenes — how else could she sway him? Leontes swiftly hires an assassin to kill his friend and throws his wife When the holidays come a-callin’ in prison. The Kenneth Branagh so too appears the ardent desire Theatre Company presents this to purchase every present imme- story of madness and paranoia diately, allowing you to spend the from England via live simulcast. rest of the season sitting back, re- Branagh plays Leontes, with Dame laxing and eating all the cookies. Judi Dench in the role of Paulina, But just because you want to shop Hermione’s wise and loyal friend. quickly doesn’t mean you should You can see it locally at 7:30 p.m. head to the mall. We should be at the AMC Chesterfield 14 (3000 supporting local artists and busi- Chesterfield Mall, Chesterfield; nesses, ensuring that their holi- www.fathomevents.com). Tickets days are merry, green and bright, are $15. — Paul Friswold too. The Craft Alliance Student/ Faculty Sale makes doing the [ B A L L E T ] right thing pretty easy. Held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday (November 28 and 29) at the Delmar Loop location (6640 Delmar Boulevard, University City; 314-725-1177 or Fun fact: If a toy soldier can be a www.craftalliance.org), this shop- nutcracker, you can make almost portunity features cool handmade anything into a nutcracker. A Santa crafts from students and teachers Claus sculpture? Sure. A Darth alike. Items for purchase include Vader action figure? Of course. jewelry, pottery, textiles and more Heck, even your shoe can be a — basically, there’s something to nutcracker, if you’re hungry and make each of our gift recipients you don’t want to get too technifeel thought about and loved. cal. But at this time of year, there — Alison Sieloff is only one Continued on pg 24

MONDAY 11/30

The Winter’s Tale

SUNDAY 11/29

Craft Alliance Student/Faculty Sale

Great Russian Nutcracker

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Victor Goines Quartet

with The Sheldon’s North County Big Band, Harvey Lockhart, Band Director

December 6 at 7 p.m.

Sponsored by a generous anonymous donor, World Wide Technology, Inc., The Steward Family Foundation and Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Siler

David Halen, Peter Martin & Friends “Celebrate the Holidays”

December 9 at 8 p.m. Sponsored by RubinBrown

Welcomed by RAF-STL

Jay Farrar

Performing the music of Son Volt’s TRACE

December 19 at 8 p.m.

Presented in partnership with KDHX Sponsored by the Engelhardt Family Foundation

Call MetroTix at 314.534.1111 or visit THESHELDON.ORG Visit the Sheldon Art Galleries one hour before each concert!

The Moscow Ballet brings its Great Russian Nutcracker to the Fox.

CALENDAR Continued from pg 23 Angular forms, rounded to a refined softness, create a formal yet casual, playfully sophisticated style.

The plush Oslo Sectional features down blend cushions, clean lines, and tall tapered legs. 16966 MANCHESTER ROAD WILDWOOD, MO 63040 (636) 405-2400 M ON- WED : 1 0 A M -5 : 3 0 P M T HU RS: 1 0 A M -7 P M F R I- S AT: 1 0 A M -5 : 3 0 P M CL O SED SUN D AY

SEE MORE AT WWW.DAUNEU.COM 24

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NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

nutcracker that counts, and that’s the staged ballet with the memorable Tchaikovsky score. Moscow Ballet answers the call, bringing the Great Russian Nutcracker to the Fox Theatre (527 North Grand Boulevard; www.fabulousfox. com) for your viewing pleasure. Magical sets, talented dancers and even puppets help tell the beloved, dreamy story, transporting the audience along with Masha on her journey through the “Land of Peace and Harmony,” where all humans and animals live sweetly together. This enchanting holiday cheer takes the stage at 7 p.m. tonight; tickets cost $31 to $125. — Alison Sieloff

TUESDAY 12/01 [BEER BENEFIT]

Home Brew Release Party If you want to feel better about your drinking, you’ll get a nice warm glow from the Home Brew

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Release Party. Dr. Jeff Michalski crafted the winning entry in the home-brew category at this year’s BrewFest, and tonight his beer is released to the world. Michalski went for the under-appreciated Extra Special Bitter, a dark, well-balanced beer that traditionally has a maltier profile than the air-freshener-flavored IPAs that litter the shelves of America. It’s an oldworld style, balanced, drinkable and delightful with company. Even better, the party is a fundraiser for the Siteman Cancer Center, which is where Michalski has his day job. The event starts at 6 p.m. at the Budweiser Brew House in Ballpark Village (601 Clark Avenue; 314-2415575 or www.ticketfly.com). Admission is $15 to $20. — Paul Friswold Planning an event, exhibiting your art or putting on a play? Let us know and we’ll include it in the Night & Day section or publish a listing in the online calendar — for free! Send details via e-mail (calendar@ riverfronttimes.com), fax (314-754-6416) or mail (6358 Delmar Boulevard, Suite 200, St. Louis, MO 63130, attn: Calendar). Include the date, time, price, contact information and location (including ZIP code). Please submit information three weeks prior to the date of your event. No telephone submissions will be accepted. Find more events online at www.riverfronttimes.com.

THE ARTS [VISUAL]

[ S TA G E }

A Mirage in an Old Shoe Factory

KNOW WHEN TO FOLD A play about origami, now at the Chapel, features strong performances Written by

Museum Blue’s second season kicks off with a smart exhibition of sculpture from two Illinois artists

PAUL FRISWOLD Animals Out of Paper Written by Rajiv Joseph Directed by Todd Schaefer

Presented by R-S Theatrics through December 6 at the Chapel (6238 Alexander Drive; 314-252-8812 or www.r-stheatrics.com). Tickets are $18 to $20.

Written by

ANGELA MALCHIONNO Water. Water.

Fri., Nov. 13, through Fri, Dec. 11 Museum Blue 750 North 16th Street, Suite 414 Open by appointment only. Contact museumblue@gmail.com

ainter David Reed, in his 2006 catalog essay “Streets and Studios,” describes Lower Manhattan in the early 1970s as “a city in a science-fiction movie — post disaster, after an atomic bomb or alien invasion.” This urban wasteland attracted artists who took up residence in the neighborhood’s former factories and sweatshops, some of which still had machinery intact. It was a particular moment in time for art, made possible by the opportunity provided by an urban environment abandoned. In these vast interiors, paint was poured free-form and alternative art spaces flourished. It is hard to imagine New York as shuttered and lonely, home only to pioneering creatives. Even more difficult is feeling that there was a rarity to that particular time, that it vanished and can never be re-created. Museum Blue, a downtown St. Louis project space housed in the same former shoe factory that holds the City Museum, has an uncanny similarity to those fabled, abandoned lofts. Manhattan’s past becomes vividly conflated with the current built environment of St. Louis: Here, we have the same industrial setting, the vacant space. In the spirit of those early ’70s makers, artist/educators Gina Grafos, Lau-

Allison Lacher and Jeff Robinson, Water. Water., 2015

ren Cardenas, Michael Behle and Carlie Trosclair began Museum Blue a year ago. The museum occupies part of their shared studio space on the fourth floor, a wide entryway demarcated by a coat of high-gloss, cobalt-blue floor paint leading to the artists’ work space in the rear. Water. Water. is the first exhibition of Museum Blue’s second season, a collaborative project by artists Allison Lacher and Jeff Robinson, who co-direct the Demo art space in Springfield, Illinois. The project marks a change in the curatorial approach Museum Blue’s founders usually take; here, they simply accepted the duo’s proposal and let them do their thing. This hands-off approach allows for deci-

The first exhibition of Museum Blue’s second season is a collaborative project by Allison Lacher and Jeff Robinson. sions about the show — from layout to edits — to fall almost exclusively to the artists, bypassing the curator Continued on pg 26 as tastemaker

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NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

RIVERFRONT TIMES

[ S TA G E }

KNOW WHEN TO FOLD A play about origami, now at the Chapel, features strong performances Written by

PAUL FRISWOLD Animals Out of Paper Written by Rajiv Joseph Directed by Todd Schaefer

Presented by R-S Theatrics through December 6 at the Chapel (6238 Alexander Drive; 314-252-8812 or www.r-stheatrics.com). Tickets are $18 to $20.

ajiv Joseph’s drama about a trio of people who create origami often feels as if something is missing. That’s appropriate, because loss is a recurring theme in Animals Out of Paper. Ilana, an origami artist, has recently been divorced and, worse, has lost her dog. Andy is a calculus teacher and origami hobbyist who’s documented his lifetime total of blessings in a notebook, only to lose it. Suresh, Andy’s calculus student, is an origami prodigy who has lost his mother in the past year. Origami may link them,SATURDAY, but their DECEMBER losses separate 12TH 6-9PM ARTISTRYtheir | 2701connection 14TH STREET them. Whether PERSON becan overpower $40 thePER distance tween them is the tension that powTICKET PRICE INCLUDES 1 HR COACHING ers this engaging, frustrating play. SESSION FOR $25 VIA CONFERENCE CALL Wallowing in OR herSKYPE misery, Ilana $100 VALUE (Teresa Doggett) hasn’t left her $25 T-SHIRTSstudio in two months when Andy (An•RETIRED AFTER 22 YEARS AT UPS AS AN INDUSTRIAL drew Kuhlman) pops by on official ENGINEER, PROJECT MANAGE AND TRAINER business for the arts organization •TEACHES AT WEBSTER UNIVERSITY, TOP TEN MISTAKES BUSINESSES Origami America. Her studio (suit- MAKE PARK UNIVERSITY AND DONNELLY COLLEGE. TRAINING PEOPLE ably lived-in, courtesy of designer SUBJECTS INCLUDE LEADERSHIP, HUMAN RESOURCES, ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR, ENTREPRENEURSHIP, & PERSONAL FINANCE TEAMS ANDofTEAM BUILDING Keller Ryan) has drifts Chinese THE BASICS OF BUSINESS PLANNING •CONSULTING INDIVIDUALS AND BUSINESSES take-out cartons and sheaves of paFOR 4 YEARS. per covering the floor.EFFICIENCY He’s chipper CLIENTS INCLUDE CPA’S, REAL ESTATE AGENTS, FINANCIAL PLANNERS, TIME MANAGEMENT and INSURANCE AGENTS, FINANCIAL ADVISORS, ARTISTS, AND MANYand SMALL loud; she’s disconnected BUSINESSES. EMPLOYEE increasingly frustrated byEVALUATIONS his presence. Doggett has an open-eyed FOR TICKETSstare VISIT OUR WEBSITE that conveys perfect befudWWW.MODRCINCONSULTING.COM dlement, while Kuhlman keeps a CALL OR EMAIL steady grin as he barks out Andy’s MENONCA JOHNSON: excitement at standing in the studio of the Ilana Andrews, the artist who MENONCAJ@YAHOO.COM | 636.219.8116 wrote his favorite book, Folding the ADDITIONAL SEMINARS Things I Lost. TOP TEN MISTAKES BUSINESSES MAKE • TRAINING PEOPLE • TEAMS AND TEAM BUILDING Continued on pg 27 Af ter

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NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

More works on display as part of Water, Water.

WATER. WATER. Continued from pg 25

and critic. In the case of Lacher and Robinson’s sparkling, material-driven sculptures on display, it’s clear that everyone has done well by this model. Hearing the show’s title prompts viewers to finish the “water, water” line with the customary “everywhere, and not a drop to drink.” The implied phrase suggests the isolation of the castaway, adrift, without aid in sight. Ocean views and seagoing vessels are constructed from plywood, foam and highly reflective vinyl. Taking full advantage of Museum Blue’s cerulean floor, Lacher and Robinson extend this color field by painting the wall, encouraging the viewer to submerge, go under, get lost. While there are moments in the work where that slippage occurs, it is the craft and surface of the objects that are truly the most pleasurable. Using materials readily available at most big-box home improvement stores, the pair somehow manages to avoid the dreaded “Home Depot Esthetic” characterizing similar contemporary sculpture. Carefully sanded and polished stays made from simple two-by-fours articulate the mast and frame of a life raft that dominates the modest ex-

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hibition space. At a certain point it becomes clear that what Lacher and Robinson would really like to talk about: not just the physical state of being adrift, but the existential implications of a self-imposed daydream. The word “rarity” again comes to mind, and the worlds we all build in the pursuit of vision. Water, Water brings one such vision to life, all dazzle and glamor. For a moment, we almost believe it’s real. n

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Teresa Doggett and Ethan Isaac. | Michael Young

PAPER Continued from pg 25 Andy whips her into a rage with his ebullient presence, he drops his bomb: A brilliant student of his has withdrawn after the death of his mother, and Andy would very much like Ilana to mentor him. Once she sees Suresh’s complex and innovative work, she eventually agrees, and Andy leaves, happier than when he arrived. But his book of blessings, which he has meticulously tallied since boyhood, is inadvertently left behind. It includes more than 9,000 wonders — his health; a really great rake he bought; a class he took, taught by Ilana. Ilana reads it all. Suresh (Ethan Isaac) also antagonizes Ilana, but in his case because of his laid-back style. Isaac is a charismatic actor, commanding attention with a slouch or a sudden outburst of anger. By fits and starts he and Ilana connect, primarily because she’s fascinated by his ability to improvise elaborate paper structures — but when he applies himself, he can work miracles such as making an anatomically correct human heart. Of course, you don’t see any member of the trio actually make anything. Origami is difficult, and requires practice and skill to pull off, so that’s an understandable choice. (The members of Origami STL provide the show’s sculptures.) Still, it is strange to hear so much talk about the art form without seeing anyone at work on it. In time, Andy and Ilana become romantically entwined, and Suresh continues to nettle Ilana even as he charms her. There’s a seemingly steady progression toward resolution on all fronts, but of course it all comes undone. Without giving away the ending, there

Whether their paper-folding connection can overpower the distance between them is the tension that powers this engaging, frustrating play. is a never-seen project involving the human heart that Ilana has been commissioned to solve. Can she devise a series of folds that will allow medical mesh to pass through an artery and then unfold and surround a human heart in order to heal a weakened or — dare I say it? — broken heart. Rajiv Joseph hammers on this theme with decreasing subtlety throughout the play, stopping just short of dropping a neon heart from the sky to shatter between the trio. At its most restrained, Animals Out of Paper is enchanting, and the actors all do very good work under director Todd Schaefer. Doggett and Kuhlman share a first kiss that is chaste and tender, while Isaac has several phone calls with his father that reveal the older man is in dire straits without his wife, information conveyed solely through the actor’s expression. The playwright may be heavy-handed, but the three performances successfully make Animals Out n of Paper.

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Good Life Growing partners James Forbes, Phillip Hearn, Matt Stoyanov and Bobby Forbes. | Mabel Suen

[FOOD NEWS]

North of Delmar, an Organic Farm Takes Root The young partners behind Good Life Growing see a great future in aquaponics Written by

JOSHUA K. CONNELLY

hat the hell are y’all doing?” James Forbes has gotten used to being greeted this way by his north St. Louis neighbors — they’ll shout it from their car windows as they drive by Good Life Growing, the organic farm that Forbes and his business partners have planted. As dreamed up by Forbes, his long-time friend, Phillip Hearn; his brother Bobby; and his one-time protégé Matt Stoyanov, Good Life Growing LLC (4057 Evans Avenue, facebook.com/goodlifegrowing) is an urban farming company that specializes in hydroponics, aquaponics and aeroponics. Located on a plot of land in north St. Louis that previously held a gas station, a cab company hub and an orchard, it relies on a closed-loop aquaponics system that can cut the maturation time of the crops in half. Bluegills kept in large tanks fertilize the plants as water is pumped into the grow area, filtered through a sponge. Once the table fills to a certain point, a siphon breaks,

sending the water back into the fish tank. As a result, nutrients are flowing constantly. All three forms of organic farming allow plants to grow indoors, without the use of soil. Instead, the company uses rock wool cups, which stabilize seedlings and allow for growth. The farm is not completely soilfree, however; large outdoor beds constructed mostly from untreated wood are home to numerous St. Louis favorites — lettuces that retail as “premier kale,” “bright lights Swiss chard” and “Flash F1 collard greens,” to name a few. The Forbes brothers, Hearn and Stoyanov began transforming the vacant property in October 2014, after a months-long process of securing a lease, which required jumping through various hoops at St. Louis City Hall. “If I had one piece of advice to offer people who are interested in starting their own business, it’d be to start at the Business Assistance Center [at city hall],” James Forbes

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notes. “They have a checklist template of everything you need to get done. If we’d known about that, it probably could’ve saved us about five, six months of running around.” After weeks of pulling four-foottall weeds across the property, construction on the farm’s two greenhouse enclosures — a small misting hub and a large aquaponic hub — began in November 2014. The farm’s first growing season began the next spring. Good Life Growing grows fresh produce year round, though certain crops vary by season. A 30-year-old graduate of DeSmet Jesuit High School and the University of Missouri, James Forbes had previously dabbled in aquaponics. But it took an unusual confluence of events to plant the seeds of this undertaking. In fact, Forbes was working in insurance when he met Alderman Samuel Moore. The alderman saw Forbes’ sketch of an aquaponics system and Continued on pg 32

NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

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od Life Growing partners James Forbes, Phillip Hearn, Matt Stoyanov and Bobby Forbes. | Mabel Suen

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GOOD LIFE GROWING Continued from pg 31 asked Forbes if he could put that structure on the plot of land in north St. Louis. From that inquiry, Good Life Growing was born. The farm is located in a mid-level food desert, meaning that a large portion of residents live more than a half-mile away from the nearest supermarket. The lack of nutrition found in these areas is one factor the feds blame for increasing obesity rates in the U.S. “Our goal is to make St. Louis a better place, and we feel that working with blighted and food-desert communities would be our way to make a positive impact,” Hearn, also 30, explains. “The communities that we serve have community pride, and they just need something to believe in. We hope that we can give that to them and lead the charge to making St. Louis a great place to live.” Good Life Growing offers Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes as part of a weekly, monthly or annual subscription service. Subscribers can select the produce they want, or ask Forbes, Hearn and Stoyanov to choose a selection for them. “With the CSA boxes, a lot of people ask us to just give them something they’ve never had before, or something that everyone else really likes,” Hearn says. “The surprise is part of the fun for them.” For those who cannot afford a subscription model, the farm also

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“The communities that we serve have community pride, and they just need something to believe in. We hope we can give that to them.” rents out garden beds to members of the community for $10 per year. Good Life Growing provides the soil, water and weed barrier. Tenants provide the seeds and take care of the plants after planting them. People can use the beds as little or as often as they like. Forbes once worked for the Community Action Partnership of St. Louis (Stoyanov was his intern), so he was familiar with the reality of urban decay and was interested in tackling it. The four partners hope that their farm can positively impact the area. They have gotten support from the St. Louis community, which they see as a great sign. “If you get community support behind you, you’re going to be able to do whatever you want to help improve the community,” Hearn says. “And that’s exactly what we’re looking to do.” n

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NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

CHERYL BAEHR

ohn Nash, the resident wine guru at Starr’s (1135 S. Big Bend Boulevard, Richmond Heights; 314-781-2345) was an undeclared major at Southwest Missouri State University (now simply Missouri State University) in the late 1980s when he took a part-time job at the wine, beer and spirits chain Brown Derby. “I didn’t have plans for what I wanted to do,” Nash recalls. “Really, I wanted to be a rock

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star, but I realized I couldn’t sing well or play the guitar.” Nash was only a week into the gig, however, when his life path suddenly became clear. “They had a really liberal tasting policy, and a wealthy customer came in and asked if he could open a bottle of wine while he shopped,” recounts Nash. “It was a bottle of 1959 Chateau Latour — a legend. Here I was, some punk kid stocking the beer cooler. I felt like I had crawled out from under a rock.” He was hooked. Going forward, he took advantage of the store’s liberal tasting policy and impressive collection of wines to build his knowledge. “Back then there wasn’t a lot of wine education, so I taught myself,” says Nash. “I learned a lot by being able to taste — we tasted every day there — and I read Windows on the World (Complete Wine Course) cover to cover, backward and forward.” Armed with his newfound knowledge, Nash, then 27, moved to St. Louis Continued on pg 36

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WINE GURU CHAT Continued from pg 34 and opened the Wine Merchant in 1992. It was his labor of love for roughly twenty years until a falling out with his partner resulted in him having to step away. A non-compete agreement kept him from the wine business for a year. “I did a lot of fishing during that time,” Nash laughs. Then legendary grocer Bud Starr approached him with an offer. “Bud told me he was thinking about retiring in the next few years or so, and he wanted me to come on board,” Nash explains. “When I started the Wine Merchant, Starr’s was the place to beat, so I wanted to bring it back to that level.” Nash has injected new life into the specialty foods and liquor institution by doing many of the same things he did at the Wine Merchant. “I put in the original cheese department there, and I am increasing what we do at Starr’s now,” says Nash. “I’m biased, but I think we have the best cheese counter in town.” He’s also doing wine education classes and weekend tastings and even convinced Starr to start smoking salmon and bringing in a large selection of fresh fish again. “I’ve been doing this for 28 years now, and I still never get bored,” says Nash. “It’s always changing and evolving.” Nash took a break from the wine shop to share his thoughts on the St. Louis food and beverage scene, his favorite chocolate and why stores like Starr’s are the soul of St. Louis. What is one thing people don’t know about you that you wish they did? I’m originally from St. Louis. When I was one month shy of my ninth birthday, my parents moved to a tiny town in the Missouri Ozarks — Urbana, Missouri, with a population of 319. It was very Andy Griffith and my retired father eventually got involved in local politics and held the mayor’s office for over a decade. My formative years were spent there and, looking back, it was a great place to grow up. What daily ritual is non-negotiable for you? Morning coffee…from Starr’s, of course! If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

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Flying. What is the most positive thing in food, wine or cocktails that you’ve noticed in St. Louis over the past year? I think that it’s the success of locally owned restaurants and independent shops like Starr’s. We represent the soul and culture of St. Louis, and without them it would be a sad and sorry place here. Who is your St. Louis food crush? Mary Sly from Spencer’s Grill in Kirkwood. Best breakfast in town. Who’s the one person to watch right now in the St. Louis dining scene? Not trying to jump on the bandwagon here — I’ve been a fan for a long time. For me it’s Qui Tran from Mai Lee. Which ingredient is most representative of your personality? Vinegar. Ha! I love great vinegar. I keep a wide variety at home and make my own vinegar too. Great vinegar is complex, versatile and essential to any kitchen pantry. If you weren’t working in the restaurant business, what would you be doing? I’d love to have a dairy farm and make artisan cheese. Name an ingredient never allowed in your kitchen. That’s easy: curry powder. My wife can’t stand it! What is your after-work hangout? I’m a homebody, so I’d have to say my kitchen at home. We have a great kitchen — it’s the main reason we purchased the house. It’s large, open and free flowing. My wife and three kids spend a lot of time in our kitchen. What’s your food or beverage guilty pleasure? Chocolate, in particular Francois Pralus’ Chuao. It’s amazing chocolate sourced from a mythical village in Venezuela that’s accessible only by boat. Very rare and very delicious. What would be your last meal on earth? It would have to be at L’Amis Louis in Paris. I’d start with their legendary foie gras and then move on to their sea scallops and amazing roast chicken — basted with duck and goose fat — and crispy potato cake smothered in fresh garlic and parsley. – Cheryl Baehr

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DINING GUIDE

The Dining Guide lists only restaurants recommended by RFT food critics. The print listings below rotate regularly, as space allows. Our complete Dining Guide is available online; view menus and search local restaurants by name or neighborhood.

Price Guide (based on a three-course meal for one, excluding tax, tip and beverages): $ up to $15 per person $$ $15 - $25 $$$ $25 - $40 $$$$ more than $40

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Tonkotsu ramen from Death in the Afternoon. | Jennifer Silverberg [DOWNTOWN]

Maurizio’s Pizza & Pasta Bowl 220 S. Tucker Boulevard | 314-621-1997

Death in the Afternoon 808 Chestnut Street | 314-621-3236

Death in the Afternoon is a culinary oasis set in downtown’s idyllic Citygarden. The weekday lunch spot is the brainchild of Adam Frager and TJ Vytlacil of the members-only restaurant and bar Blood & Sand. Death in the Afternoon features impeccably presented soups, salads, sandwiches and snacks. From kimchi and pickled vegetables to housemade pastrami served on a pretzel, the menu offers something for everyone’s palate. The mahi mahi sandwich is spectacular: The fresh grilled fish is so moist it’s as if it were poached. Served with Meyer lemon and dill aioli, pickles and fennel salad, it’s an excellent lunchtime treat. The restaurant’s signature entrée is the tonkotsu ramen, a bowl of mouthwatering pork broth teeming with housemade noodles, mushrooms, pork loin and belly, a soft-boiled egg and garnished with black garlic oil. It’s comfort in a bowl. And lest the kids romping in Citygardens’ fountains have all the fun, Death in the Afternoon serves a rotating selection of cotton candy for dessert. It’s a whimsical end to a perfect meal — a great way to kill an afternoon. $$-$$$

Eat-Rite Diner

622 Chouteau Avenue | 314-621-9621. “Eat Rite or Don’t Eat At All.” So it says on the coffee cups (and the souvenir T-shirts) at this no-frills 24-hour greasy spoon amid the industrial wasteland between downtown and Soulard. Folks come from miles around to fill up on the breakfast-and-burgers menu: bar-hoppers and club kids finally coming down from their late-night-into-earlymorning highs; factory workers and blue-collars getting off graveyard shifts; curious newcomers who’ve heard about the bizarro vibe that pervades these cramped counter-only environs. To call the food at Eat-Rite cheap is an understatement — six burgers (real-size, not White Castle-size) run $4.50. And many swear by the Eat-Rite’s redoubtable slinger (for the uninitiated, that’d be fried eggs, hash browns and a burger patty, avec chili). $

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NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

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Dives usually aren’t this spacious; there are enough tables and chairs set up in Maurizio’s to make it look like a cross between a sports bar and a corporate cafeteria. Dives also never boast menus this expansive: New Yorkstyle pizzas, strombolis, lasagna, manicotti, rib-eye steak, lemon chicken, pork steak, subs, burgers, salads and — the icing on the cake — tiramisu. And while getting tons of food at cheap prices is great and all, what makes Maurizio’s a don’t-miss is the late-night people-watching. Open till 3 a.m. seven days a week, Maurizio’s is the place to cap off a night of downtown debauchery — and to witness all walks of Lou life in their after-hours glory. $

Tony’s

410 Market Street | 314-231-7007. In St. Louis, many restaurant discussions begin and end with Tony’s, for very good reason. The Bommarito clan, which owns the restaurant, is positively fanatical about perfection in every aspect of the meal. Entrées are not particularly elaborate but are perfectly balanced. Lobster Albanello is considered something of a signature dish, but nowhere will you find a better veal chop. There is generally something available either on or off the menu to please any mood, including a layering of roasted fresh vegetables for the non-carnivore. Throughout the meal, patriarch Vince Bommarito wanders and schmoozes. $$$$

Rooster

1104 Locust Street | 314-241-8118 This charming crêperie brings a little bit of Paris to downtown. Savory crêpes feature both the hearty (“German-style” sausages, bacon, roasted sirloin) and the delicate (brie with roasted apples, egg with Gruyère). Fans of owner Dave Bailey’s Lafayette Square hot spot Baileys’ Chocolate Bar won’t be surprised by the excellent sweet crêpes, from a simple lemon one dusted with sugar to the indulgent “Peanut Butter Cup,” which is even richer than its namesake. The menu also features soups, salads and sandwiches, as well as Serendipity ice cream and Kaldi’s coffee. $

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NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

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MUSIC

Delta Sol Revival. | Sarah Rusnak

[PREVIEW]

Young Blood Now in its Fourteenth year, St. Louis’ Baby Blues Showcase proves kids get the blues, too Written by

ROY KASTEN Baby Blues Showcase 6 p.m. Sunday, November 29. BB’s Jazz, Blues and Soups, 700 South Broadway. $15. 314-436-5222.

he blues, it is often said, takes a lifetime. One may be born a musical prodigy or may soak up influences with the first breath, but a bluesman or blueswoman must live the music, and live it a hard, long time. This romantic view may have a kernel of truth, but don’t tell it to your record collection. The icons

of the music — from B.B. King to Robert Johnson, Etta James to Eric Clapton — all began their careers, on the road and in the studio, in their youth. St. Louis’ own Henry Townsend cut his first record in 1929, when he was just twenty. The vitality and power of the blues, and its kindred genres, admit no ageism. Oliver Sain remained a dominant, inspiring presence on the scene until his passing at age 71. The image of the wise and weathered bluesman isn’t just a cliché; it’s a reminder that hard-working, regular-gigging musicians are the ones who pass the tradition along with every show. In its fourteenth year, the Baby Blues Showcase continues to shine a welcome light on younger generations — musicians 30 and under — of St. Louisans who have been mentored by their elders and who, in turn, sustain the circle of mentorship. This year’s event will take place at BB’s Jazz Blues and Soups on the afternoon of November 29. Artists will include Mar-

quise Knox, Paul Niehaus IV, Greg Hommert, Aaron Griffin, Delta Sol Revival, Katie Schleicher and Sasha Chiecsek, as well as a set from youngsters in the School of Rock, who have been woodshedding with blues maestros such as Eric McSpadden and Rich McDonough. Organizer Jeremy Segel-Moss, guitarist and songwriter for the well-established Bottoms Up Blues Gang, remembers how it all started. “At that time, the Bottoms Up Blues Gang had done maybe a year’s worth of gigs. BB’s was our Fox. It was a gem. All the old guys were still alive. Tommy Bankhead was there, Oliver Sain, Bennie Smith and Johnnie Johnson. We were new, not very good, and we were young white kids. We were never going to get a gig at BB’s. So the organizer in me said, ‘Let’s all get together,’ and we picked a day when there wasn’t anything going on. We got all the young musicians together, and that kicked it off. And then within five years we aged ourselves out of the show! But it’s not

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“BB’s was our Fox. It was a gem. All the old guys were still alive. Tommy Bankhead was there, Oliver Sain, Bennie Smith and Johnnie Johnson. We were new, not very good, kids.” about me; it’s not about my band.” Since 2002, the Baby Blues Showcase has featured some 60 acts, including national artists Sean Costello and Jason Ricci, and many of the marquee roots musicians of St. Louis who were once up-and-comContinued on pg 42

NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

RIVERFRONT TIMES

BABY BLUES SHOWCASE Continued from pg 41

Delta Sol Revival. | Sarah Rusnak

“BB’s was our Fox. It was a gem. All27 10PM fri. nov. the old guys were Mom’s Kitchen still alive. Tommy sat. nov. 28 Bankhead Aaron wasKamm 10PM and the One Drops there, Oliver Sain, wed. dec. Bennie Smith and2 9:30PM Voodoo Players Johnnie Johnson. Tribute to The Allman Brothers We were new, not fri. dec. 4 10PM very good, The kids.” Aquaducks Funk from Nashville

about me; it’s not about my band.” Since 2002, the Baby Blues Showcase has featured some 60 Kris Lager Band acts, including national artists Sean Costello and Jason Ricci, and 736 Sroots Broadway many of the marquee musiLouis, MO once 63102 cians of St. LouisSt.who were up-and-comContinued on pg 42 (314) 621-8811

sat. dec. 5

RIVERFRONT TIMES

NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

10PM

ing and unknown. Pokey LaFarge, Aaron Griffin, Marquise Knox and young jazz players from University City and East St. Louis have all gotten a career boost and a chance to test their mettle at one of the most storied venues in town. “What’s amazing is how the community has come out,” Segel-Moss says. “It’s so great for the artists to play for those kinds of crowds. When high school kids come, it’s so cool for them. They see the pictures on the wall at BB’s and they experience the tradition. And if there’s any timidness or nervousness that someone like a young Aaron Griffin might have had, it’s overwhelmed by the positivity of the crowd. But if a young musician is not ready, I don’t ask them to play, or maybe they’ll just play one song.” In the blues world, the flow of influence and knowledge runs both ways. Young musicians have everything to learn from those who laid the foundation, but the blues journeymen also draw on their apprentices. “These young kids play with the old guys,” explains Segel-Moss, “but they can teach them how to make a CD, make a Facebook page or create an electronic press kit. Paul Niehaus, for example, has a studio in his basement and is part of the Blues Society. Paul has now hosted fifteen bands in his studio — all the heavy hitters — and he’s worked closely with them and helped teach them industry standards.” One of the young bands taking the stage at BB’s for this year’s event is Delta Sol Revival. Still in his early twenties, singer, guitarist and songwriter Tyler Stokes has begun to get a taste of what a full-blown career is like. The band formed in January 2013 in Springfield, Missouri, where Stokes (a native of St. Charles) was studying music therapy. Delta Sol Revival’s earliest recordings show a bewildering array of influences — ska, Latin, blues rock and party-band styles — but Stokes’ current direction is more in the soul and blues revival pocket, with plenty of echoes of hard-driving St. Louis

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Paul Niehaus IV. | Courtesy of Paul Niehaus IV R&B and bar-tested rock & roll. “I went to see Devon Allman play, and I hadn’t been writing songs for years,” Stokes says. “I went home and wrote like five songs. Devon said, ‘These are really great. We should do a record.’ So that really inspired me. And then a year or so later we were opening for Robert Cray. It started with Springfield musicians, a rotating lineup, and now it’s all St. Louis musicians. I try to surround myself with people who are better than me.” Stokes (who played Baby Blues once before as a teenager) and Delta Sol Revival have just released a five-song EP called Witness, produced by Allman and recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, with engineer Peter Matthews, who has worked with the likes of George Thorogood and the North Mississippi Allstars. The EP focuses on Stokes’ gospel and soul-based songwriting, with the drive of dirty, electric blues. “I think my writing has changed and then there’s just playing with St. Louis musicians,” says Stokes. “We’ve gotten tighter, with more of a groove. We don’t really jam, but there’s more energy. It moves up and down, and we feed off each other. But writing-wise, I was originally influenced by Latin stuff, and I still am. But now getting to see Kim Massie and Roland Johnson play live, that is so important. I’ve also been learning about pre-war blues music, but the soul music of St. Louis has definitely changed our sound. For me, it’s all about those artists that make you feel good when you hear them.” n

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B-SIDES

The Wombats’ latest retains its signature lyrical catchiness and infectious hooks. | Courtesy Paradigm Talent Agency [PREVIEW]

All that Glitters The Wombats’ Glitterbug is the group’s most refined effort to date Written by

ROB LEVY The Wombats 8 p.m. Tuesday, December 1. Blueberry Hill, 6504 Delmar Boulevard, University City. $12. 314-727-4444.

att Murphy, Dan Haggis and Tord Øverland Knudsen formed the Wombats in 2003 while attending the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts. After releasing a series of EPs, the band’s debut record, A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation, was released in 2007. Its lead single, “Let’s Dance to Joy Division,” soon attracted the attention of the oftentimes fickle UK music press, putting the band on the map. 2011’s This Modern Glitch followed along the same lines as its prede-

RIVERFRONT TIMES

cessor, but with greater emphasis on synths and stronger basslines. The angst of the original was still there, though, as evident in the singles “Techno Fair” and the rompy “Tokyo (Vampires & Wolves).” After two albums of get-down madness, the band took a different approach for its third effort. Released after a four-year break, April’s Glitterbug offers a collection of shimmering pop melodies draped in Murphy’s autobiographical lyrics, replacing the indie-disco party grooves with more nurtured harmonies. This synthesis is evident from the onset of the LP’s first track, “Emoticons,” which restrains the keyboard-heavy din of the band’s second effort in favor of more percussion and guitars. Despite the shift in sound, the Wombats’ penchant for lyrical catchiness and infectious hooks remains a dominant force in its songs. Speaking by phone from Germany, percussionist and multi-instrumentalist Haggis explains that the record’s inspiration came from Murphy’s intensely personal experiences. “All of the lyrics always come from a very honest place about what’s been going on with his life and times,” he says. “He was in Los Angeles and broke up with a

NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

girl, and then got together with a new girl.” The trio scored a coup when Bastille’s producer, Mark Crew, agreed to work on the new album. Although his involvement enhanced the Wombats aesthetically, it also meant taking a more precise route in reaching its destination. “We finished writing it in June of 2014, and then we spent three and a half months recording on and off,” Haggis says. “The producer was busy with other projects so we’d go and record something, and then we’d have a few weeks where he was doing something else, and then we’d do another week.” The stop/start method of production was new to the band. “It was a bit of a process with recording, to be honest, which was a shame. But we really wanted to work with Mark Crew,” Haggis explains. “So we just ended up having to fit into his schedule. It wasn’t the quickest of processes, but we made sure we did it properly, the way we wanted to do it, so that we were happy with the results rather than just rush something out quickly.” The members of the Wombats are currently in the throes of an American tour, which concludes in December. After this round of

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shows the group plans to start working on new material. Haggis is not sure what to expect with the next release. “We’re all influenced by a lot of different music, so until we start working on the next album we don’t have any ideas of where we want to go or what we want to do with it. We approach each album as it comes,” he says. “I think as a band we’ve always really admired bands like Radiohead that have evolved from album to album and are always pushing forward, trying to challenge themselves.” But for now, Haggis is just happy to be on the road. “It’s amazing,” he says. “Of course, it gets tiring sometimes. We’ve been touring since January. There are moments when you’re on a tour bus and you haven’t slept properly for a few nights, and you just want to lie in your own bed. But the positives outweigh the negatives by a thousand times. You get up onstage every night, no matter how tired you’re feeling, or missing home and friends and family, girlfriends and the rest of it, and you see people having a great time and singing along and smiling. And any negative thoughts you have go straight out the window. I couldn’t have wished for anything more.”n

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RIVERFRONT TIMES

HOMESPUN

A L H O L L I D AY & T H E E A S T SIDE RHYTHM BAND Natural Remedies alhollidaymusic.com

Al Holliday & the East Side Rhythm Band Record Release 8 p.m. Friday, November 27. Old Rock House, 1200 South Seventh Street. $10. 314-588-0505.

he recent passing of Allen Toussaint at age 77 brought into focus not only the man’s many gifts — his combined talents as a songwriter, pianist, arranger, producer and vocalist are without peer — but also his ability to bring the essentially regional music of New Orleans R&B to a worldwide audience without losing its boogie and stride. His songs became the clearest conduit for the in-thepocket pulse of that city, and their proliferation made the world a better, funkier place. In a few weeks local pianist and singer Al Holliday will take part in a multi-band tribute to the life and work of Toussaint (on December 11 at the Old Rock House), and there are few artists in St. Louis who show such clear traces of the songwriter’s style. On his second LP, Natural Remedies, Holliday, along with the East Side Rhythm Band, doesn’t offer a simulacrum of New Orleans music — the “East Side” in the name harkens to Holliday’s Collinsville, Illinois, roots, and the group proudly reps St. Louis in its repertoire. But Holliday’s easy shuffle on the piano completes the circuit that begins in the Crescent City and takes root here in St. Louis. Those local roots are celebrated on the cut “Oliver Sain’s 3 a.m. Soul Serenade.” “The inspiration of that song is that a KDHX DJ, usually without fail, will play Oliver Sain’s version of ‘Soul Serenade’ at 3 a.m. late Friday night/early Saturday morning,” says Holliday. “Over the past few years, when I’d play gigs on Friday nights in St. Louis, I’d really look forward to hearing that on the radio. I mean, it is one serious piece of music.” In Holliday’s tribute the band channels much of that energy, both from Sain’s legacy and the beer- and sweat-soaked

nights on South Broadway. Holliday and Co. have proven that they can make rollicking, party-starting music; 2013’s Made It Through the Mill, Again, was a startling debut from a 25-year old white guy singing like a sanctified soul shouter. He’s a few years older now and well-traveled on local funk and soul stages; the resulting songs on Natural Remedies show both a tightening of the band’s chops and a certain expansiveness to Holliday’s approach to Delta-bred R&B music. His voice is still big and brusque, and at times his approach can threaten to overwhelm these songs, but he always approaches his performances from a soulful place. He and the band are more patient this time out, less inclined to barrel through a song and more comfortable in letting the mood marinate through your speakers. Holliday credits the band’s live-to-analogtape recording technique for helping capture the natural verve of the band. “This approach is like conjuring some kind of spirit and then taking a picture of it,” says Holliday. “For instance, virtually every word that I sing on this record was sung with the band live. The whole crew was putting down some serious energy. I knew thirty seconds into cutting ‘There Ain’t But the One Way’ that it was the cut.” His band has grown a bit since his last outing, and here he’s bolstered by two apt backing vocalists in Molly Simms and Emily Wallace, both strong singers who perform on their own. On the album, the back-up singers give range to songs like the soulful, stewing “Ain’t But the One Way” — at least until the tempo shifts to double-time and turns into a proving ground for the horn players’ soloing skills. Those horns come alive on “Turnin’ Around,” with Derick Tramel’s baritone saxophone propping up the low end with resonant honks and smoother licks. Natural Remedies is equally compelling when the band moves into slow blues and ballads; Holliday in particular shows deft, emotive feel on “The Times,” both on the acoustic piano’s dynamic range and through the Hammond

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organ’s far-away gospel cries. He digs deeper on the tender “Right Thru Me,” as the dirty tremble of his Fender Rhodes electric piano casts a tinge of emotional angst to the mellow mood. Holliday’s music undeniably shows traces of the South’s deep heritage, and his album can be seen as our river city’s ability to absorb influences and mold them to our own devices. In conversation, Holliday — the Illinois native who now resides on the Hill and used to work for the city — doubles down on his attachment to the area and how it reveals itself in his work. “One thing I know is that when I am playing music down on South Broadway, when I was driving a tractor for the city of St. Louis — in every part of the city — when I was playing music at New Shining Light Church in Venice, Illinois, or I am getting a sandwich in my neighborhood, I meet the people face to face,” he says. “And we have a great community here.” –Christian Schaeffer Want your CD to be considered for a review in this space? Send music c/o Riverfront Times, Attn: Homespun, 6358 Delmar Boulevard, Suite 200, St. Louis, Missouri, 63130. Email music @riverfronttimes.com for more information.

OUT EVERY NIGHT T H U R S D AY BIG RICH & THE RHYTHM RENEGADES: 9 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. TRICOUNTY TERROR: 8 p.m., $8-$10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

F R I D AY AL HOLLIDAY & THE EAST SIDE RHYTHM BAND ALBUM RELEASE SHOW: w/ Big Mike & the Blu City All Stars 8 p.m., $10. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. BRUTALLY FRANK: w/ Scene Of Irony 8 p.m., $8-$10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314289-9050. CAFÉ SOUL 9TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION: w/ Eric Roberson, Lamar Harris, Rollyn Moore, Joaquin 9 p.m., $20-$25. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314833-3929. DR. ZHIVEGAS 20TH ANNIVERSARY SHOW: w/ Queens Blvd 8 p.m., $15. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. FRESCO KANE: 8 p.m., $12-$15. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. HA HA TONKA: w/ the Yawpers 8 p.m., $15. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363. HELL NIGHT: w/ Valley, Path of Might, Blight Future 8 p.m., $10. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353. INIMICAL DRIVE: w/ Monster Eats Manhattan, Apollo’s Daughter, City of Parks 8 p.m., $7. The Demo, 4191 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-5532. JEREMY DAVENPORT: 7:30 & 9:30 p.m.; Nov. 28, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m., $40. Ferring Jazz Bistro, 3536 Washington Ave, St. Louis, 314-5716000. JIM STEVENS GROUP: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. KING LOUIS’ REVENGE: w/ Javier Mendoza, the Monolithic 8 p.m., $10. Cicero’s, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009. LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. RADRADRIOT: w/ Headcold, Nos Bos 8 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. STRAIGHT NO CHASER: 7 p.m., $44.50-$59.50. The Fox Theatre, 527 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-534-1111. THE TENNIS LESSON: w/ the Vigilettes, Dulad 9 p.m., free. Schlafly Tap Room, 2100 Locust St., St. Louis, 314-241-2337.

JJEREMY DAVENPORT: Nov. 27, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m.; 7:30 & 9:30 p.m., $40. Ferring Jazz Bistro, 3536 Washington Ave, St. Louis, 314571-6000. JOHN KING: 8 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-4365222. MICHAEL MCDONALD: 8 p.m., $35-$125. The Fox Theatre, 527 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-534-1111. SILENT HOLLOW: w/ Troy, (skyburntwhite) 8 p.m., $8-$10. Cicero’s, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009. STEVIE RAY VAUGHN TRIBUTE: 8 p.m., TBA. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. TOM HALL: 6 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-

5222. WELCOME HOME: w/ Sidelined, Secondary, Which Way, Fairway 7 p.m., free. The Demo, 4191 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-8335532.

S U N D AY BABY BLUES SHOWCASE: 6 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. BILL KIRCHEN: 6 p.m., $20-$25. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363. THE FESTIVAL OF PRAISE TOUR: w/ Fred Hammond, Donnie McClurkin, Kim Burrell, Israel Houghton 7 p.m., $48-$98. The Fox Theatre, 527 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-534-1111. JOHNNY YOUNG: w/ Jaded Evil Lambs, Amer-

[CRITIC’S PICK]

ican Merlin, Hess/Cunningham Duo 8 p.m., $5. Kismet Creative Center, 3409 Iowa Ave., St. Louis, 314-696-8177. KEVIN GATES: 7 p.m., $25-$30. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. MIKE ZITO: 3 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-4365222. SOZOROX: w/ Ascension of Akari, Pure October, Awaiting the Gallows, Skyline In Ruins, Struck Down By Sound, the Fallen 6 p.m., $10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

M O N D AY BLIND WILLIE & THE BROADWAY COLLECTIVE: 8 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. SOULARD BLUES BAND: 9 p.m., $5. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314621-8811. THE WIND & THE WAVE: 8 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314773-3363.

T U E S D AY BARONESS: 8 p.m., $20-$25. The Demo, 4191 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-5532. BLANK GENERATION: w/ River Kittens, Search Parties, .e 7 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363. HEART: 7:30 p.m., $35-$125. The Fox Theatre, 527 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-534-1111. JAMAICA LIVE TUESDAYS: w/ Ital K, Mr. Roots, DJ Witz, $5/$10. Elmo’s Love Lounge, 7828 Olive Blvd, University City, 314-282-5561. MUSHROOMHEAD: w/ 9 Electric, Unsaid Fate, Article III, Our Transfixion 6 p.m., $20. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-2899050. ST. LOUIS SOCIAL CLUB: 8 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. THE WOMBATS: w/ Tidal Volume 8 p.m., $10.57-$12. Blueberry Hill, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. X AMBASSADORS: w/ Saint Motel 8 p.m., $20-$25. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. BEAUTY PAGEANT: w/ Mussy Cluves, Johnnie in Jeans, Full Clips Emptied, David Bell + Joe Hess 9 p.m., $5. Way Out Club, 2525 S. Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-664-7638. BIG RICH & THE RHYTHM RENEGADES: 7 p.m.,

Jeremy Davenport.

S AT U R D AY THE BOTTLE ROCKETS: 8 p.m., $20. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-7733363. BRUXISM #12: 8 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-7722100. DALTON CYR: 3 p.m., $8. Blueberry Hill, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. DYNAMO PRO WRESTLING: 8 p.m., $10. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. FOREVER AT LAST: w/ Hail Your Highness 6 p.m., $10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. GIVE HER A LIZARD: w/ Whoa Thunder, Town Cars 8 p.m., $10. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353. HANDS AND FEET: w/ Golden Curls, Inko 9 p.m., free. Schlafly Tap Room, 2100 Locust St., St. Louis, 314-241-2337. INDIANA ROME: 10 p.m., $10. The Bootleg, 4140 Manchester Ave., St. Louis, 314-7750775.

JEREMY DAVENPORT 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Friday, November 27, and Saturday, November 28. Jazz at the Bistro, 3536 Washington Avenue. $40. 314-571-6000

With Thanksgiving upon us and Christmas encroaching at a furious pace, we’re solidly in the season for annual concerts — some holiday themed, others not — by familiar faces. Trumpeter and balladeer Jeremy Davenport makes his annual trek back to his hometown to play Jazz at the Bistro this week, taking a reprieve from his

enviable residency at the Ritz-Carlton in New Orleans. His tutelage with various members of the Marsalis dynasty — along with a stint in Harry Connick Jr.’s big band — taught him the finer points of New Orleans’ jazz heritage, and he remains a dependable purveyor of the craft as he pulls from well-loved tunes and his own songbook. Wishful Thinking: Davenport’s last album, We’ll Dance ’Til Dawn, came out in 2009, but his 1995 debut Puttin’ on the Ritz seems to have predicted his eventual residency at the famed hotel.

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–Christian Schaeffer

W E D N E S D AY $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. BOB “BUMBLE BEE” KAMOSKE: 8 p.m. Beale on Broadway, 701 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-7880. CODY CANADA & THE DEPARTED: 8 p.m., $14-$16. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363. DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE: w/ Wolf Alice 8 p.m., $40-$45. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. MODERN CONVENIENCE: w/ Black Monuments, Shitstorm, Cave Lizards 9 p.m., $5$7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. SEAN JONES LIVE CD RECORDING: 7:30 & 9:30 p.m.; Dec. 3, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m.; Dec. 4, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m.; Dec. 5, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m., $30. Ferring Jazz Bistro, 3536 Washington Ave, St. Louis, 314-571-6000. THIRD SIGHT BAND: 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. TORY LANEZ: 8 p.m., $15-$18. Blueberry Hill, 6504 Delmar Continued on pg 50 Blvd., Universi-

NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

RIVERFRONT TIMES

Bowling the way it is now – FUN!

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RIVERFRONT TIMES

NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

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King Louis Revenge, Javier Mendoza, The Monolithic Rock - Doors at 8pm - $10

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 28 TH

Troy, Skyburntwhite, Silent Hollow, Strikes Back Doors at 8pm - $10

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UPCOMING SHOWS 12.7 GREEK FIRE

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12.10 THE NEIGHBOURHOOD

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12.11 FRANK TURNER & THE SLEEPING SOULS

2.12 STS9

12.12 CHARLES KELLEY

2.13 MIKE STUD

12.15 STEEL PANTHER

2.17 GAELIC STORM

12.18,23,25,26,27 EL MONSTERO

2.21 BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE

12.31 POKEY LAFARGE

2.24 HOODIE ALLEN

1.8 PATTON OSWALT

2.25 DARK STAR ORCHESTRA

1.9 MEMORIES OF ELVIS

2.28 GARY CLARK JR.

1.16 STORY OF THE YEAR

3.4 METRIC

1.26 CITY AND COLOUR

3.24 EXCISION

1.28 CARNAGE

4.10 UNDEROATH

1.30 RAILROAD EARTH

6.8 LEON BRIDGES

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NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

RIVERFRONT TIMES

TNT Glass

CONCERT CALENDAR Continued from pg 47

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Smoke Shop Pipes • Vaporizers • Detox ican Merlin, Hess/Cunningham Duo 8 p.m., Locally Crafted Jewelry $5. Kismet Creative Center, 3409 Iowa Ave., Locally Blown Glass Pipes St. Louis, 314-696-8177. New PAX 2 Herbal Vaporizer Gift Sets KEVIN GATES: 7USA p.m., $25-$30. Pop’sShaman Night- CBD Hemp Oil made American club, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, Custom Wraps by Cody 618-274-6720. WE SUPPORT LOCAL ARTISTS MIKE ZITO: 3 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-4365222. SOZOROX: w/ Ascension of Akari, Pure October, Awaiting the Gallows, Skyline In Ruins, Struck Down By Sound, the Fallen 6 p.m., $10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

[CRITIC’S PICK]

M O N D AY BLIND WILLIE & THE BROADWAY COLLECTIVE: 8 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. 2015 READERS CHOICE 2015 SOULARD BLUES BAND: 9 p.m., $5. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314621-8811. THE WIND & THE WAVE: 8 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314773-3363.

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Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-5532. BLANK GENERATION: w/ River Kittens, Search Parties, .e 7 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363. HEART: 7:30 p.m., $35-$125. The Fox Theatre, 527 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-534-1111. JAMAICA LIVE TUESDAYS: w/ Ital K, Mr. Roots, DJ Witz, $5/$10. Elmo’s Love Lounge, 7828 Olive Blvd, University City, 314-282-5561. MUSHROOMHEAD: w/ 9 Electric, Unsaid Fate, Article III, Our Transfixion 6 p.m., $20. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-2899050. ST. LOUIS SOCIAL CLUB: 8 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. THE WOMBATS: w/ Tidal Volume 8 p.m., $10.57-$12. Blueberry Hill, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. HILE S X AMBASSADORS: w/ Saint Motel 8 p.m.,W LIE P $20-$25. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., SU St.PST! LAYAWAYS AT THESE LOW PRICES! LA Louis, 314-726-6161. BEAUTY PAGEANT: w/ Mussy Cluves, Johnnie in Jeans, Full Clips Emptied, David Bell + Joe Hess 9 p.m., $5. Way Out Club, 2525 S. Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-664-7638. BIG RICH & THE RHYTHM RENEGADES: 7 p.m.,

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$5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. BOB “BUMBLE BEE” KAMOSKE: 8 p.m. Beale on Broadway, 701 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-7880. CODY CANADA & THE DEPARTED: 8 p.m., REG. $199 $14-$16. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363. DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE: w/ Wolf Alice 8 p.m., $40-$45. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. MODERN CONVENIENCE: w/ Black Monuments, Shitstorm, Cave Lizards 9 p.m., $5$7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. SEAN JONES LIVE CD RECORDING: 7:30 & 9:30 p.m.; Dec. 3, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m.; Dec. 4, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m.; Dec. 5, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m., $30. Ferring Jazz Bistro, 3536 Washington Ave, St. Louis, 314-571-6000. THIRD SIGHT BAND: 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. HAZELWOOD SOUTH TORY LANEZ: 8 p.m., $15-$18. Blueberry Hill, 233 Village Square Cntr • (314) 731-1212 5616 S. Lindbergh • (314) 842-1242 6504 Delmar FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS on pg 50 WEST Continued Blvd., Universi10900 Lincoln Tr. • (618) 394-9479 14633 Manchester • (636) 527-26811

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RIVERFRONT TIMES

NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

The Bottle Rockets

themes; making them rock or shuffle, lilt or sting with an ever-more classic 8 p.m. Saturday, November 29. feel is what Bottle Rockets underOff Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue. $15. stand. The lean, uncompromising 314-773-3363. South Broadway Athletic Club sounds ”Day to day,” sings Brian Henneman like the hard-fought but knowing work on the closing track to the Bottle of a band that still, against the odds, Rockets’ latest album, “I find a way to has more than a few well-timed, popgive a new angle a spin.” It’s a mission ulist punches to land. statement for a great American band, Opening Round: Jesse Charles Hama declaration of interdependence for mock, II, lead singer and songwriter Henneman, who leads the way on for Van Buren, Missouri band Powder SL Riverfront Times — 11/26/2015 every song on the St. Louis rockers’ Mill, launches the night with hardcore, twelfth release. Work, love, dogs and Ozark-bred country rock. doing nothing at all are Henneman’s –Roy Kasten

THE BOTTLE ROCKETS

THIS JUST IN AMERICA: Sun., June 26, 8 p.m., $39.50-$59.50. River City Casino & Hotel, 777 River City Casino Blvd., St. Louis, 314-388-7777. AMERICAN AQUARIUM: Sat., Jan. 30, 8 p.m., $15. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363. BEAUTY PAGEANT: W/ Mussy Cluves, Johnnie in Jeans, Full Clips Emptied, David Bell + Joe Hess, Wed., Dec. 2, 9 p.m., $5. Way Out Club, 2525 S. Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-664-7638. BIG RICH & THE RHYTHM RENEGADES: Wed., Dec. 16, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. BILLY BARNETT BAND: Thu., Dec. 17, 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. BLANK GENERATION: W/ River Kittens, Search Parties, .e, Tue., Dec. 1, 7 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363. BLUES SOCIETY IBC FUNDRAISER: W/ Kingdom Brothers Band, Sun., Dec. 13, 3 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. CARDINAL GLENNON CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL TOY DRIVE: W/ Doomed to Burn, Through the Scope, Danny Greene, Hallow Point, In My Silence, Fri., Dec. 18, 7 p.m., $10. The Demo, 4191 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-5532. CHUCKIE CAMPBELL & THE PHACTION: W/ Repatalleon, Mon., Dec. 21, 8 p.m., $10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. DAN HUBBARD CD RELEASE SHOW: Fri., Feb. 12, 8 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363. DAVID DEE & THE HOT TRACKS BAND: Sat., Dec.

riverfronttimes.com

12, 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. DEFEATED SANITY: W/ Iniquitous Deeds, Iniquitous Savagery, Hemorrhaging Elysium, Wed., Jan. 27, 7 p.m., $10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. ETERNAL SUMMERS: W/ Lazy Eyes, Wed., Jan. 13, 8 p.m., $10-$12. The Demo, 4191 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-5532. FIGHT FOR MIDNIGHT: W/ Jeske Park, Phi, Ghost, the Public, Fri., Jan. 15, 7 p.m., $10. Cicero’s, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009. FISTER: W/ Beneath Oblivion, Grand Inquisitor, Railhazer, Tue., Dec. 8, 7 p.m., $5. The Demo, 4191 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314833-5532. I SET MY FRIENDS ON FIRE: W/ Arcane Haven, the Greater Good, Ascension of Akari, Our Last Words, Tue., Dec. 29, 6 p.m., $12-$15. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. JOE METZKA BAND: Thu., Dec. 17, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. JOHN D HALE BAND: Sat., Feb. 20, 8 p.m., $10$12. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363. JOHNNY YOUNG: W/ Jaded Evil Lambs, American Merlin, Hess/Cunningham Duo, Sun., Nov. 29, 8 p.m., $5. Kismet Creative Center, 3409 Iowa Ave., St. Louis, 314-696-8177. JUNIOR BROWN: Wed., Dec. 16, 8 p.m., $20-$25. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314588-0505. KARATE BIKINI: W/ Search Parties, Brotherfather, Fri., Jan. 1, 8 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363. KEITH MOYER BAND: Mon., Dec. 14, 8 p.m., $5.

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COLLEGE NIGHTS

For students currently attending: Baroness. | Doug Seymour

BARONESS 8 p.m. Tuesday, December 1. The Demo, 4191 Manchester Avenue. $20 to $25. 314-833-5532.

Savannah, Georgia’s Baroness has charted a consistent upward trajectory in underground metal circles since getting its start in 2003, and could at this point easily be considered a “critical darling” thanks to its sprawling and inventive songwriting. The band’s upcoming Purple LP — following in name the color-coded precedent set by previous efforts Red Album, Blue Record and Yellow & Green — is its BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. LEROY JODIE PIERSON: Fri., Dec. 18, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: Sun., Dec. 13, 8 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. MAC SABBATH: Tue., March 29, 8 p.m., $15. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. MAG JACKSON: Sat., Feb. 13, 8 p.m., $10-$15. Cicero’s, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009. MODERN CONVENIENCE: W/ Black Monuments, Shitstorm, Cave Lizards, Wed., Dec. 2, 9 p.m., $5-$7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. THE MOTET: Thu., Feb. 25, 9 p.m., $15. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314588-0505. NICK CARTER: Thu., March 24, 8 p.m., $35-$40. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. OH, SLEEPER: W/ Rival Choir, In My Silence, Sat., Feb. 6, 6 p.m., $13-$15. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. PAUL MARCELLUS: W/ JonesBoy, Ooze, Man

first since a horrific tour bus accident in England injured nine passengers, including members of the band. In the wake of the crash, drummer Allen Blickle and bassist Matt Maggioni, who each suffered fractured vertebrae, left Baroness to be replaced by Sebastion Thomson and Nick Jost, respectively. Preview tracks for the record indicate that, despite the lineup shift, its songcraft remains as sharp as ever.

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Hometown Hero: Jost is a St. Louis boy, known well for his prior work as bassist of the Gorge. Show him some homegrown love. –Daniel Hill of Destiny, Drewzy, Tue., Dec. 8, 8 p.m., $10. Cicero’s, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009. PURE OCTOBER: W/ This Is Our Dance, the Great Expectations, Gaff and Pulley, Mon., Dec. 21, 7 p.m., $10-$12. Cicero’s, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009. RADRADRIOT: W/ Headcold, Nos Bos, Fri., Nov. 27, 8 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. RAYLAND BAXTER: Wed., Feb. 24, 8 p.m., $10-$12. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. SCHOOL OF ROCK: ALL TOGETHER NOW: W/ Valley, Spatula, We Are Like Computers, Kenshiro’s, Waves, Sonder, Digby Very Scared, the Miles, Sat., Dec. 5, 6 p.m., $8. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353. SOULARD BLUES BAND: Fri., Dec. 18, 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. STEDDY P & DJ MAHF: W/ Gypsy Chldrn, Farout, Apollo, Altayzie, Fri., Dec. 18, 9 p.m., $8$10. Cicero’s, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009. THIRD SIGHT BAND: Wed., Dec. 16, 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

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NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

RIVERFRONT TIMES

FIND ANY SHOW IN TOWN...

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With our new and improved concert calendar! RFT’s online music listings are now sortable by artist, venue and price. You can even buy tickets directly from our website—with more options on the way! www.riverfronttimes.com/concerts/

RIVERFRONT TIMES

NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

riverfronttimes.com

SAVAGE LOVE Fresh Air Hey Dan: A couple of months ago, I got candida (a fungal infection) under my foreskin. I went to the doctor, picked up some cream and used the cream as directed. The infection went away for about a week and then returned. I got this idea that maybe the cream didn’t work the first time because it’s so naturally moist under the foreskin. So I used the cream a second time — but this time, after each application I would “air out” my penis, i.e., pull back the foreskin and leave the head exposed to the open air for a little while. The candida cleared up, apparently for good. What surprised me, though, was that I really enjoyed this twice-aday airing out. I’ve continued doing it. I have no idea why I find this enjoyable. I’m not masturbating while I’m doing it. I just use that flap on the front of my underwear to help keep the foreskin back and leave my glans exposed for about fifteen to twenty minutes. (This is likely the first time in history that anyone has actually used that flap on the front of men’s underwear.) I’m wondering if, by airing out my cock in this way, there’s any risk of causing damage. From reading the all-knowing Internet, it seems

that this amount shouldn’t cause any problems, but I’d like to get an expert opinion. I have noticed a slight decrease in sensitivity, but that has been a positive thing, as I’ve always been quite sensitive. This airing out of my penis seems to accomplish a slight desensitizing that I find beneficial. Can I continue to do it? Apparently Into Retraction “This shouldn’t be a problem,” said Dr. Stephen King, a urologist and one of my go-to guys on all things dick. “It sounds like he found a unique solution to a couple of issues: infections and sensitivity.” So you can continue airing out your cock with Dr. King’s blessing — and congratulations on coming up with a successful foreskin hack, AIR. But Dr. King wouldn’t recommend your foreskin hack to uncircumcised/intact dudes with a very particular medical condition. (I’m using “hack” here in the “life hack” sense — perhaps a poor choice of slang, considering that humanity has been needlessly hacking away at foreskins for millennia.) “The only time keeping a foreskin pulled back for a prolonged period of time becomes a problem is when someone has phimosis,” said Dr. King. An adult with phimosis either can’t retract their foreskin over the head of their penis or has a very difficult time doing

so — a condition an adult may develop as the result of an infection or some other trauma that scarred the foreskin. “In patients who are elderly or demented, the foreskin can get stuck in the retracted position,” said Dr. King, “trapping blood in the head of the penis like a tourniquet, causing severe pain — we call this ‘paraphimosis.’” Paraphimosis is some serious shit — gangrene can set in, and the head of the penis might have to come off. “I don’t think this is an issue for AIR,” said Dr. King, “so he can continue as desired. Just tell him to be careful with that zipper!” Hey Dan: I would like some clarification. Does my situation fall into the “when it’s OK to have an affair” category or am I just looking for you to absolve me of guilt? I got divorced a year ago, and I’m 100 percent focused on being a mom during the time my son is with me and helping him through the divorce transition. I met a man who has been married for twenty-plus years, and I’m having an affair with him. He and his wife spend all of their time taking care of their adult disabled son. He said they have nothing in common but caretaking. He’s never said anything bad about the wife except they’ve grown apart and he can’t (or won’t) leave because of their son. It works for me because he’s the most incredible

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lover I’ve ever had, and he doesn’t bother me or demand attention when I’m busy being a mom. I do have strong feelings for him but no expectation of him leaving his wife to be with me. Does this meet your “OK to cheat” criteria? Loving Isn’t Always Really Simple Indeed it does, LIARS. Your situation, in fact, is a good example of the kind of affair people rarely hear about and advice professionals pretend don’t exist, i.e., the affair that saves a marriage and improves the lives and lots of everyone involved, whether directly or indirectly. Your marriage is over, of course, but you’re getting your sexual needs met by someone who doesn’t distract you from your son’s needs. And the time your lover spends with you — the intimacy, affirmation, and release you provide him — has doubtless helped to make him a kinder and less resentful companion/partner and a better father/caretaker. Here’s hoping your lover’s wife is getting the kind of sanity-preserving intimacy, affirmation, and release she needs, too — whether sexual or in some other form. On the Lovecast, it’s the families show, with 74-time Jeopardy! winner Ken Jennings: savagelovecast.com. mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage on Twitter

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320 Houses for Rent

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365 Comm Rentals DOGTOWN $1200 314-346-6893 Small, ugly warehouse for lease, 2300 sq ft near 40 and Hampton. bathroom, office, heat, small loading dock, plenty of parking. Not suitable for auto, good for business, studio or just plain storage

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ST. JOHN $495-$595 314-423-3106 Special! 1BR.$495 & 2BR.$595. Near 170 & St.Charles Rock Rd

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NOVEMBER 25-DECEMBER 1, 2015

RIVERFRONT TIMES

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