Riverfront Times - February 8, 2017

FEBRUARY 8–14, 2017 I VOLUME 41 I NUMBER 6

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THE

OZARK FAIL

The trail that could make Missouri a hiking destination has languished for decades. Could that finally change?

BY NICHOLAS PHILLIPS

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THE LEDE

“To come out in my cultural traditional garb in the middle of the Midwest and to be embraced by people was an incredible thing to see. As a Middle-Eastern Christian, a lot of people just don’t believe that we exist. But I think it’s paramount to be able to stand with my Abrahamic brethren. I also saw many other Christian and Jewish people doing the same thing.”

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PHOTO BY THEO WELLING

—Ian Edward TEnnIson, a CopTIC ChrIsTIan, phoTographEd aT ThE MarCh on ThE arCh agaInsT ThE MuslIM Ban on FEBruary 4, 2017.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS FEATURE

14.

The Ozark Fail

The trail that could make Missouri a hiking destination has languished for decades.

Could that finally chage?

Written by

NICHOLAS PHILLIPS Cover by

KELLY GLUECK

NEWS

CULTURE

DINING

MUSIC

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23

31

39

The Lede

Calendar

Your friend or neighbor, captured on camera

Seven days worth of great stuff to see and do

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26

An Independent Woman

Film

Kacey Cordes aims to do the impossible: Break the Democratic Party’s stranglehold by running, and winning, as an independent in St. Louis

The Lego Batman Movie is the tops, while the Oscar-nominated shorts offer a mixed bag

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Paul Friswold has a rave for A Doll’s House, the Ibsen classic now at Stray Dog

Questions in Berkeley

28

Monica Sykes has been missing for months. Her family is now questioning a Berkeley police officer’s ties to her case

10

Stage

29

Galleries

Art on display in St. Louis this week

The N-Word on the Air A shock jock spews hate speech in Metro East

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Sea Change

Cheryl Baehr gives a standing ovation to Mariscos el Gato, the Nayarit-style seafood temple now open on Cherokee Street

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Side Dish

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Out Every Night

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

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This week’s new concert announcements

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NEWS

9

An Independent Bid to End Politics as Usual Written by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI

T

he conventional wisdom about St. Louis politics holds that voters in the March 7 Democratic primary get to decide the city’s next mayor.

That’s because St. Louis operates as a single-party game in which elections are mostly hashed out in shades of blue. Currently, out of seven Democratic mayoral candidates, five front-runners are waging increasingly competitive campaigns under the presumption that the election season will end with the primary.

Kacey Cordes wants throw a wrench into that age-old presumption.

Cordes is the 38-year-old vice president and assistant project manager at US Bancorp Community Development Corporation, whose work involves financing Low-Income Housing Tax Credit projects in St. Louis and across the country. This week, her campaign filed a statement of committee organization with the Missouri Ethics Commission, and she plans on filing a formal declaration of candidacy — as an independent — with the St. Louis election board smack-dab on the February 13 deadline.

“I’m interested in having a real election in this city, where the outcome of the election is not determined in the primary,” Cordes tells Riverfront Times.

A resident of Lafayette Square, the Cor Jesu graduate says she decided to run in the April 4 general election in order to provide voters a chance to confront the substantial policy challenges facing the Continued on pg 12

Monica Sykes was close to her young nephews, who were the last to see her before she disappeared. | COURTESY OF THE SYKES FAMILY

A BERKELEY COP, AND A WOMAN VANISHED

E

arly on the morning of October 28, Monica Sykes told her nephews she was running out and would be back soon with some candy.

And then she vanished.

When she didn’t return later that day, her family knew immediately that something was wrong — Sykes lived with her sister, who was also her best friend. And she hadn’t even taken her wallet.

In the three months that have passed since Sykes, 25, went missing, her family has frantically pleaded for clues — and they’ve been joined in that request by Captain Art Jackson, the interim police chief in Berkeley, Missouri, where Sykes lived with her sister and her three nephews.

But as the Sykes family has retraced Monica’s steps, they say, the trail has taken them to one of Berkeley’s own. In fact, the last adult that they can confirm

saw Monica before her disappearance was a Berkeley police officer.

The two apparently spent the night together — the officer dropped Monica off just fifteen minutes before she left her sister’s home, never to be seen again. At the time of the drop-off, it was 6:48 a.m., according to a time stamp on the home’s security system.

She left again at 7:01 a.m. after having only a brief chat with her nephews.

(Monica’s sister, who was in the basement, heard her enter the house but didn’t see her or speak to her.)

Robert Howard, the Berkeley police officer, is married, although an application his wife made for an order of protection in September 2016 states that they separated that May. In the request, filed with the St. Louis city circuit court, Howard’s wife wrote that she is afraid of her husband. She alleges that he showed up to her parents’ home at all hours, hacked into her phone and harassed her friends and family. “I fear for my life and my children’s,” she wrote.

Reached by phone, Howard denies riverfronttimes.com

that his wife got an order of protection against him. “That’s not true,” he says. While a temporary order appears to have been granted, records on the victims’ notification site VINELink show that Howard was never served with it.

The order expired on October 13, records show, two weeks before Monica went missing.

The Sykes family is now questioning the nature of their daughter’s relationship with Howard, 39.

Monica’s mother, Regina Sykes, says that Monica told her sister everything — which makes it odd she never mentioned the police officer she was hanging out with. Phone records show that Monica and Howard were in “constant contact,” Regina Sykes says, in the month before Monica’s disappearance.

Howard declines to state what he and Monica were doing that night until 6:48 a.m. or where they were. He says they were not romantically involved.

Howard says he met Monica because he frequented the restaurant where

FEBRUARY 8-14, 2017

Continued on pg 11

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The N-Word, on the Airwaves Written by

DANIEL HILL

B

ob Romanik, the self-proclaimed “Grim Reaper of St. Louis Radio,” is apparently outright saying the N-word on his KQQZ (1190 AM) radio show.

In a YouTube video of his broadcast uploaded January 22, Romanik can be heard using the racial slur twice in reference to Atlanta rapper Waka Flocka Flame.

The recording was uploaded by a user named “Romanik Watch,” and according to his or her description it aired on January 19. The user claims Romanik had also used the slur earlier in the show “repeatedly” before he or she started recording.

In the recording, Romanik references a January 17 performance at the Georgia Theatre, in which the 30-year-old Waka Flocka demanded a student attending the show hand over his Donald Trump jersey. The rapper then used the shirt to wipe his bare ass while onstage. (The student later raved on Twitter that it was “100% a concert I won’t forget.”)

Says Romanik: Don’t you feel like you just took a good crap? Don’t you feel constipated and you just took a good crap? Cause that’s what we did, we took a good crap today just like Waka Flocka Flame did. Waka Flocka. He took a good crap on our president-elect’s shirt. Our white president. Now if it had been another black man — you think, you think that Trump has done anything to this man? Trump will probably do more for this black n*gger than Obama’s ever done for the proud black community. In my opinion of course.

Think about it! We’re talking about Waka Flocka, that greasy black n*gger son of a bitch. Not a proud white pers- uh, not a proud black person. Definitely not a proud white person. But it says “You should not flaunt your support for Donald Trump at a Waka Flocka show.” Why not? That’s anybody’s right! I tell you what you black bas-

Bob Romanik, shock jock. | YOUTUBE tard: Let me wear a Trump shirt then you grab it off me! You’ll be the deadest son of a bitch walking around. What the hell is wrong with people? What the hell’s wrong?

Romanik then launches immediately — immediately — into a story about a four-year-old fan/listener that he met in Grafton, Illinois, the day before. He says, “I hope to hell I don’t screw him up too bad. But people, you gotta be realist. Not racist! You gotta be realist.”

A two-time felon profiled by the RFT in August 2012, Romanik has made something of a career out of inciting outrage. In February 2016 he made headlines for calling Alderwoman Megan Ellyia Green a “skanky bitch,” an “alderbitch” and a “skanky-ass bitch” while the president of the Board of Aldermen, Lewis Reed, laughed nervously in the studio. Romanik was one of the top donors for Reed’s mayoral run in 2012, giving $10,000. (Filings from this cycle show no donations from Romanik to Reed this time around.)

In November, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s editorial board condemned Romanik’s show as “hate speech” and encouraged people to contact the FCC over a homophobic attack ad Romanik recorded against St. Clair County Board Chairman Mark Kern.

“Listeners must not allow this abuse of the public airwaves to stand,” the P-D opined. “The Federal Communications Commission needs to hear from anyone who believes Romanik’s hate speech deserves sanction. Romanik makes GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump seem like a model of good n manners and decorum.”

Sykes was a server at Ol Henry Restaurant on Airport Road. | COURTESY OF THE SYKES FAMILY

MONICA SYKES Continued from pg 9 she was a waitress (the restaurant has previously been identified as Ol Henry, on Airport Road). “We were not even close,” he says.

He adds, “I have absolutely nothing to do with it, and the police department already knows who does. ... She was dropped off at home, and what she did after that was her business.”

Indeed, Howard and Captain Jackson say that police believe they know who picked Monica up at 7:01 a.m.

Her six-year-old nephew has said he saw a white car. And the man Monica had been seeing — a different guy, one whom her sister had met — drove a white car.

That young man is “a person of interest” in the case, says Captain Jackson. The interim chief says that Berkeley Police picked him up on an outstanding warrant for a probation violation; he remains in custody.

But Regina Sykes says she’s talked to the young man in jail, and he denies picking up Monica that morning. He says they’d discussed meeting up, but her phone went straight to voice mail.

The Sykes family isn’t sure whether to believe him — but they believe strongly that all leads need to be investigated. And in light of Monica’s connection to the Berkeley officer, they wonder if they should have been more assertive in the initial stages of the investigation. “If we knew what we know now, it would have made more sense to get our own private investigator,” Regina Sykes says.

Interim Chief Jackson, however, defends his department.

“I don’t feel that’s a conflict of interest,” he says. “We can investigate anybody. Even one of our own officers — they would be treated just like anyone else.”

And while the Sykes family feels that Howard was the last adult to see Monica before her disappearance, Jackson says that’s not true: “There’s the person she got in the car with.” He believes that is the man they have in custody.

Asked about Howard, Jackson says he’s only been with the department “a few months.” Last October, a video of Howard interacting in a friendly way with residents went viral, praised as a model for a new kind of community policing. At the time, the media reported that Howard had been with the department for three months.

A recent episode of Crime Watch Daily delved into Monica’s disappearance. The show reports that the white car driven by the man Monica was seeing was later found “engulfed in flames.” Jackson says the burned car was discovered in unincorporated St. Louis County a few weeks after Monica went missing.

And Howard, for his part, says media stories should focus on the car’s driver, not him. “I am not a person of interest, and not a suspect,” he says.

“If people are going to continue to call me that, I will have to do something about that.”

Soon after the RFT published a story online last week about Howard’s interaction with Sykes, the department placed him on leave. Chief Jackson did not respond to a follow-up message seeking comment, nor did Berkeley’s mayor.

—Sarah Fenske

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Kacey Cordes wants to shake up the St. Louis mayoral race. | COURTESY OF NICHOLAS MAHRT

KASEY CORDES Continued from pg 9 city — without all the personal drama of the primary.

“It’s exciting for me to think about a new wave of energy coming into City Hall,” she says.

At present, Cordes’ campaign has made no visible moves besides filing paperwork. That means she’ll have less than three months to introduce herself to voters and convince them that they should choose a political neophyte over whoever emerges from the field of established politicians battling for the primary win. And she’ll need a serious amount of money to do that. Nicholas Mahrt, Cordes’ husband and spokesman, says the campaign has not accepted any donations to date.

But while hers will definitely be an uphill battle, there’s reason to believe she could impact the race.

For one thing, Cordes has potential backing from her father, Dan Cordes, a former Express Scripts executive who made headlines late last year with a plan to build a pro-soccer stadium in midtown St. Louis — a plan which the MLS rejected in favor of a different ownership group. For another, her knowledge of real estate and financing (in addition to her decade of high-level work in affordable housing, she’s got a master’s in real estate development from Columbia) could uniquely position her for an effective challenge of the status quo.

Cordes says she’s not comfortable using public funds for “massive

stadiums,” as she believes those resources could be better spent on fighting concentrated poverty and addressing other city needs.

As mayor, she says she would work to implement the sorts of “racial equity” reforms advocated by the Ferguson Commission, and her approach to crime would apparently bridge the gap between “Black Lives Matter” and “Blue Lives Matter.” She also wants to expand the police department’s staff for community engagement.

“We need to get the police department in a healthier space,” she says.

Cordes’ progressive bent could create an interesting showdown in the general election, especially if Lyda Krewson wins the primary. Krewson, a moderate, far outpaces her rivals in fundraising and has notched an endorsement from current mayor Francis Slay. But Krewson’s campaign, which has earned backing from the union representing police officers and some of the city’s big developers, is likely to leave some progressives disaffected — opening the way to a challenge from the left.

Still, if history serves as precedent, it won’t be an easy path.

Slay himself was challenged by a third-party candidate during his last general election, and Cordes has to be hoping that her attempt goes better than that of the Green Party’s James McNeely in 2013.

That year, the general election ended with Slay winning more than 80 percent of the vote. n

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13

The trail that could make Missouri a hiking destination has languished for decades. Could that finally change?

BY NICHOLAS PHILLIPS

F

THE

OZARK FAIL

14

RIVERFRONT TIMES

FEBRUARY 8-14, 2017

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orty years ago this week, state and federal officials in Missouri issued a dry document to announce a grand ambition.

In a 43-page proposal dated February 7, 1977, they stated their aim to blaze a footpath through the Ozarks, the rugged highlands that roll across southern Missouri. It wouldn’t be easy. The native flora, fauna, terrain and certain human occupants made that area, for hiking purposes, hostile territory.

The planners envisioned an “Ozark Trail” that could start near St. Louis and snake its way south over the region’s hills and hollers toward Arkansas, using as much public land as possible. An eastern spur would swing across Johnson Shut-Ins and Missouri’s highest point, Taum Sauk Mountain.

The state felt pressure to deliver such a corridor. In places like St. Louis, hiking was booming. Folks now enjoyed the requisite free time (thanks to labor reforms) and mobility (thanks to automobiles and interstates) to wheel out to the countryside, tramp around and breathe the forest air.

The only problem? There wasn’t enough trail. In 1975, the state’s Department of Natural Resources found that Missouri had 655 miles, but needed twice that to meet demand. That same year, the DNR hired Fred Lafser, an avid hiker and map-hoarder in his mid-twenties, to help solve the problem.

Sitting in the Jefferson City office building where he worked as a recreation planner, Lafser began to pore over official maps. He quickly discerned a viable route through the Ozarks.

“It evolved over a few hours,” he recalls.

In the year that followed, he pitched his idea to federal and state agencies. They liked it, and collaborated on the February 1977 proposal, an open-ended blueprint for what Lafser called “an immensely complicated coordination project.”

“The trail is crystallizing,” Lafser wrote in a letter at the time.

“Considering how rare it is for two agencies to agree on anything, agreement of eight agencies for a cooperative effort was a landmark achievement!” Private groups such as the Sierra Club allied with the government to form a coalition: the Ozark Trail Council.

Had their momentum continued, the Midwest would now have an answer to the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Crest Trail, made famous by Cheryl Strayed in the bestselling Wild. Like those “through-trails” — meaning endto-end paths, not loops — the Ozark version could have served as a magnet for tourists, and their money.

That’s not quite what happened, though it looked promising at first.

Volunteers started clearing brush and adding miles. In the spring of 1980, Missouri officials met with counterparts from Arkansas, where an Ozark Highlands Trail was already under construction in the state’s scenic northern half.

Together they dreamed of joining the two paths for an epic 700-mile track.

“There’s no question that this trail will draw people from Chicago, from Texas and from all over the Midwest,” Al Schneider, the DNR’s trail coordinator, told a reporter in 1980.

The DNR held a dedication ceremony in October 1982 at Owl’s Bend, a spot on the Current River near a new trailhead. The incipient Ozark Trail, Lafser told attendees, could offer “long vistas atop gladelaced mountains, delicate spring wildflowers, gold and red hillsides during fall’s colorful display, placid streams nestled between the hills and winter’s fairyland of ice-glazed trees and snow-covered earth.”

The “ultimate objective,” Lafser continued, was to develop “350 miles of the most beautiful trail in the country.” Ninety miles had already been built in only five years.

At that rate, the trail should’ve been finished by 1997.

But the Ozark Trail remains unfinished today.

It’s not that demand for hiking trails has flagged. According to the DNR’s most recent citizen survey, “trails are the most popular type of outdoor recreation facility in Missouri and the one that residents most want to see increased.”

And it’s not that nobody’s working on it. Distracted by tight budgets and other priorities, the government stepped back, but a core of dedicated volunteers has filled the vacuum. They maintain

The view from Taum Sauk Mountain shows the Ozarks’ bucolic beauty. | KELLY GLUECK

the thirteen sections built so far, which add up to 338 miles of the roughly 500 now envisioned.

No, the Ozark Trail isn’t finished, and perhaps never will be, because the last third is the most daunting: The trail must somehow traverse seven gaps of mostly private property — a combined 162 miles through eight different counties — and in a region that has historically cast a suspicious eye toward government, outsiders and recreation projects.

Not all Ozarkers are hostile.

Some small towns are even clamoring to link the trail to their borders.

Rather than see it as a threat, these regional leaders see the Ozark Trail as an opportunity.

“It’s a gradual process of changing attitudes,” says Roger Allison, board member of the Ozark Trail Association, a volunteer group that extols the economic virtues of connecting to the trail. “But it’s the Show Me State. You’ve really got to show people sometimes for them to come around to it.”

The so-called “Ozark mountains” of southern Missouri aren’t mountains, and never were. Between one and four million years ago, this plateau rose and wrinkled.

As streams carved out canyon-like valleys, rain and snowmelt seeped into the dolomite and limestone, crafting thousands of caves, sinkholes and springs.

In 1818, a 25-year-old New Yorker named Henry Rowe Schoolcraft walked these hills and took notes. He beheld much the same region that the Osage tribe and their predecessors had roamed for at least 9,000 years.

“Deer bounded on frequently before us,” he wrote, noting how black bears hid in trees, elk wielded “enormous” antlers and wolves howled after dark. He climbed up to “stony precipices” and looked out on miles of pine, hickory and oak. Resting in caverns where his campfire light flickered on the rock walls, he pondered “the mysterious connection between the Creator of these stupendous works and ourselves.”

This reverence for nature, soon to infuse romantics such as Henry David Thoreau and John Muir, would inspire the U.S. government to cordon off enclaves, such as Yellowstone and Yosemite, as national treasures.

But when the feds looked to the Ozarks a century later, it wasn’t to preserve beauty. Quite the opposite: It was to heal a wound.

The first white settlers had come to the Ozarks from southern Appalachia in the early 1800s. Mostly of Scots-Irish stock, they initially claimed the fertile valleys. At mid-century, though, more folks came and settled on the slopes and ridges. The soil was rocky, but they found that if they just torched the riverfronttimes.com

forest and underbrush, they could let cattle and hogs range free. Fires roared regularly, denuding the earth.

The woodland absorbed another blow a few decades later, when logging firms harvested trees in massive numbers. By 1900, the Ozarks’ virgin forests were gutted; by the Great Depression, the situation was bleak. Bankrupt families squatted on ground abandoned by lumber companies.

President Roosevelt’s Forest Service concluded that almost eight million acres had fallen into waste, but if bought and managed scientifically, it could regrow. Missourians were suspicious of a government land grab, but also desperate. The state legislature enabled the purchases.

The handover was tense. Historian Will Sarvis wrote that hardy and self-reliant Ozarkers showed not only “low rates of formal education and literacy” but also “a warrior mentality that manifested itself in a tendency toward combativeness.”

According to a Forest Service account, the squatters viewed the land purchases of the 1930s as “unwarranted government interference.”

“It was not unheard of for a squatter or tenant to meet the threat of eviction with a rifle in his hand,” the agency wrote. “Even

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Continued on pg 16

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OZARK TRAIL Continued from pg 15 a visit by Forest Service personnel could evoke a violent response.”

And the Ozarkers clung to their custom of woods-burning. Seeking to set an example, the government prosecuted fire-starter Lynn Crocker in 1936. He got a six-month sentence, but not for starting the blaze; rather, he was convicted of breaking two of the federal officer’s ribs during his arrest.

Within six years, Washington amassed 3.3 million acres into giant blocks. Four of them were christened the Mark Twain National Forest in 1939. (Other names floated: “Mozark,” “Ne-ong-wah” and “Hill Billy.”) The Civilian Conservation Corps planted trees, and the woods did grow back. Decades later, these wooded tracts would provide the islands of public land through which volunteers ran sections of the Ozark Trail.

But as the Forest Service gradually gained acceptance, a different federal agency landed with a jolt.

In the late 1950s, activists grew worried for the future of America’s free-flowing rivers. So in 1964, Congress and President Johnson created the first federally protected riverine park: the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, a picturesque 134-mile stretch of the Current and its tributary, the Jack’s Fork.

The legislation tasked the National Park Service with managing not just the water, but also 300 feet on each side — including 64,000 acres of private land. “Scenic easements” allowed private citizens to keep ownership near the riverbank, so long as they agreed not to develop it. Many landowners took the deal.

For those who resisted, the park service had a mandate to acquire.

Early on, certain dishonest federal agents bullied landowners into accepting low-ball offers, Sarvis found. When holdouts wouldn’t budge, the government used eminent domain, seizing more than 200 parcels.

The government’s small budget and shortage of experts meant that appraisals came in low. Federal courts often remedied that by awarding Ozarkers higher amounts, but that was cold comfort. Resentment festered. Some residents responded with vandalism and arson.

“Native landowners,” Sarvis wrote, “rather generally disparage the government as their enemy.”

While this drama was still play16

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ing out, activists at the state level tried to push further: In 1969, they announced a petition drive for a ballot initiative to protect an additional 850 miles of 20 different Ozark streams. They proposed no

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land acquisition, just scenic easements.

The reaction was explosive. One opponent told a Post-Dispatch reporter that it was “not altogether impossible” that float-tripping ca-

noeists might take a bullet in the head.

J.C. Yocum, a member of an opposition group in Crawford County, was quoted as acknowledging a possible compromise, but added,

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“It just seems to us that a bunch of outsiders, city people, have come down here in our backyards and tried to tell us how to run our land. We aren’t going to let that happen.”

An unnamed cattle rancher was more blunt. Referring to the chairman of the ballot initiative, Roger Taylor, he told the reporter: “If this thing passes, Taylor’ll be the first one shot.”

At 11:30 p.m. on April 27, 1980, a stick of dynamite exploded under Taylor’s car, which was parked outside his St. Charles home. No one was injured, but the bomb destroyed the car’s interior and shattered windows in his house. Another scenic rivers campaigner reportedly received a phone call soon promising, “You’re next.”

Two weeks later, the activists shut down their petition drive.

From the outset, the publicprivate Ozark Trail Council proceeded gingerly. They forswore eminent domain. Any landowner willing to participate, they felt, should himself dictate permissible use of his section — be it solely hiking or bicycling

and horseback-riding as well.

The council didn’t lobby small Ozark municipalities at all. They preferred direct chats with landowners — and a low profile.

“I’m nervous about user groups getting too publicly excited too soon about the Ozark Trail,” Fred Lafser wrote in a February 1977 letter. “The last thing the landowners need to see is a proposal in the newspaper for a long trail for city recreationists.”

Lafser wished to include Ozarkers in any decision-making. “It is essential that these people have a chance for input and a chance to hear the facts before they begin to hear rumors,” he wrote.

The council showed no such hesitation when it came to public land. In fact, to push the trail closer to St. Louis, they tried to piggyback onto an unrelated federal project — but their plan backfired.

In the late 1970s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was planning to dam the Meramec River near Sullivan, about 65 miles southwest of St. Louis. The corps’ primary goal was flood control, Continued on pg 18

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OZARK TRAIL Continued from pg 17 though the resulting 12,600-acre lake would have also been open for fishing, swimming and boating.

The Ozark Trail Council sought to insert the trail into the corps’ master plan. The logic was laid out by Gerald Stokes of the federal Bureau of Outdoor Recreation in a letter he wrote to a fellow trail supporter.

If the dam gets built, he explained, the trail gets a green light along the Meramec. But even if the dam project collapses, perhaps the trail aspect could survive with the next owner. The Ozark Trail, he wrote, “should be completely compatible with the ‘alternative,’ no matter what that ends up being.”

That was a miscalculation.

A zealous coalition of wilderness protectionists and property holders inside the footprint turned public opinion against the dam.

They doubted its benefits and decried its costs: Not only would the lake inundate a scenic river valley and Onondaga Cave, but it had already displaced families in the flood zone, some via eminent domain.

In August 1978, a majority of voters rejected it.

That left the feds with 28,000 acres to unload. Most went to auction, but Congress conveyed more than 5,000 acres to the state of Missouri, along with two easements.

One was a scenic easement along the Meramec of 300 feet on either side. The other — encouraged by the Ozark Trail Council — would in essence grant permission to run trail inside those ribbons of land.

In 1982, Missouri’s General Assembly accepted the scenic easement, but barred the state from blazing the trail inside it. As former state parks director John Karel recalls it, area legislators had to placate constituents still resentful of the government seizures.

Fairly or not, the state’s attempt to leverage the dam debacle to establish a trail, Karel says, “was seen as a very sneaky thing to do.”

As it stands today, the 1982 law does not ban the Ozark Trail along the Meramec River. It appears to only bar the state from involving itself in such an effort there. Trail volunteers could make it happen, but they would have to obtain their own separate agreements with landholders.

Says Karel: “I think that’s been a crippling blow to the completion of the Ozark Trail.”

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By the late 1990s, the Ozark Trail had broken the 200-mile mark, but some parts languished — including the corner of Mark Twain National Forest near Potosi, where Paul Nazarenko labored as a recreation technician.

“It was pretty much a brush patch,” Nazarenko recalls. The trail council occasionally held meetings, he recalls, but didn’t do much else.

So Nazarenko wasn’t surprised in the summer of 1997 when a thirty-something St. Louisan named John Roth called. Roth complained that the Trace Creek section was overgrown. Nazarenko suggested he come in person to help him clean it up.

That Saturday, Roth showed up — in loafers, out of shape, an awkward city-slicker. But the two quickly became friends, and Roth kept returning. Within a few years, Roth had sold his computer consulting firm and began commuting daily to trail-build — just for fun.

“Building a trail is not brain surgery,” Nazarenko recalls fondly, “but John used to treat it like that.

He wanted it to pass the prettiest locations it could. We spent a lot of time arguing out there.”

And then Roth dove deeper.

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Even the nation’s most prestigious through-trails — including the Pacific Crest and Appalachian — rely heavily on volunteer groups.

Roth realized the Ozark Trail at the time had no such support.

So he linked up with John Donjoian, founder of the Gateway OffRoad Cyclists, a 501c3 in St. Louis that knew how to build trail and get grants. In March 2002, Roth and Donjoian met with the Ozark Trail Council to propose using that same model to set up an all-volunteer Ozark Trail Association.

“The land managers were thrilled,” Donjoian recalls, “because they didn’t have a budget to build trail. They barely had budget to take out the trash.”

In short order, John Roth recruited an army.

“He’d get you to do work that your spouse never could,” says Kathie Brennan, the association’s president. Roth was convinced that a steady trickle of helpers was ineffective. Better to lure a locust swarm of volunteers for a work weekend by promising free meals and camping. Charming and gregarious, Roth reveled in these events, called “megas,” which sometimes drew more than 100 people from several states.

But tragedy struck on July 3, 2009. Roth was operating a tractor on his Crawford County farm when a tree fell, killing him.

After the initial outpouring of grief, the volunteers realized how much they’d depended on their founder. “We went into crisis mode,” recalls Brennan. “We thought, ‘Are we going to be able to get through this?’”

And yet they did. While the Appalachian Trail Association boasts 50 full-time staffers and a budget exceeding $8 million, the Ozarks version has only one such employee, and $133,000 annually to work with — most coming from government grants and private donors such as REI and the volunteers themselves.

Still, every year the Ozark Trail Association adds miles and raises funds with a 100-mile mountain bike race. Nearly the entire trail has been “adopted” by caretakers who clear their sections.

To understand why these people devote so much free time to a rocky footpath, one need look no further than the association’s online forum, where hikers swap stories. They record encounters with hog-nosed snakes, feral hogs, baby raccoons, gangs of turkeys “explod-

Far left, private property cuts through the proposed trail in many spots.

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Above and left, parts of the trail follow the Current River. Just off the trail you can see beautiful springs and other natural landmarks, such as Rocky Falls and Stegall Moutain. | PHOTOS BY KELLY GLUECK

ing into the air” and moonlight serenades by an “owl choir.”

They speak of strange sights: “Approaching each stand of pines gave an almost ominous feeling,” wrote one contributor, “as if the trees were absorbing light instead of reflecting it.”

The place names they mention, such as Devil’s Run or Gunstock Hollow, suggest hidden histories.

An entire section is named after the “karkaghne,” an elusive cryptid said to prowl only the deepest woods, eating limestone and causing havoc.

Many hikers note on the forum how unexpectedly grueling the Ozark Trail can be. The highest peak is only 1,772 feet, but the constant up-and-down taxes legs, while the rocky terrain slows the pace. The association knows of fewer than 100 hikers who have conquered the “backbone,” the continuous stretch of 230 miles from Crawford County to Oregon County.

Chiggers, ticks and spiderwebs terrorize summer hikers, who must also avoid poison ivy and bramble. The winter has its own perils: In January 2013, a father and two sons got lost on the

Ozark Trail during a rainstorm in Reynolds County and died of hypothermia.

“A big part of why the Ozark Trail is important is that remoteness,” says Donjoian. “You’re out in the backcountry.”

Of course, one man’s backcountry can be another man’s backyard. One forum contributor recalled a New Year’s Eve along the trail: “We had long since settled into our tents and gone to sleep when the new year came in, but several shotgun blasts and the unmistakable sound of automatic weapons fire from the ridge above our camp reminded us that Missouri is home to all kinds of interesting culture.”

If the Ozark Trail ever becomes whole, it must bridge seven gaps of mostly private land. One such gap — about 25 miles as the crow flies — spans the hills between the hamlets of Thomasville in Oregon County and Pomona in Howell County.

The most scenic route would hug the Eleven Point River.

But that might require passing through properties like Eleven Continued on pg 20

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OZARK TRAIL Continued from pg 19 Point Ranch, an 11,000-acre cattle and timber farm.

“I’m not dead-set one way or the other,” says Nancy Shaw, whose family owns the farm. She fears that welcoming the trail would necessitate altering their fencing system, as well as interfere with how they rent out the property to hunters, which helps to pay the bills. “We live a quiet life, and to think you have all these people running around on your land. Are they going to be good stewards or not? We’ve had stuff stolen as it is.”

Ken Kurtz, an Ozarks Trail Association board member, says fear of marauding hikers is common in the region — but misplaced.

“The truth is that hikers are more likely to pick up trash and haul it out than to leave it,” Kurtz says.

This conception of hikers as ecofriendly tourists eager to plunk down dollars in small towns is one that the trail association actively promotes. It has resonated in south-central Ozark counties, which show some of the lowest median household incomes and highest unemployment rates in Missouri.

A finalized through-trail, backers believe, would lift the local economies it beads together. Perhaps the best analogy, they say, is the Katy Trail, the railroad-turned-bike-path that runs 237 miles across Missouri’s midsection. According to a 2012 state study, the Katy Trail generates $18 million in revenue annually.

It has boosted several towns in its path, including Augusta, Hermann and Rocheport.

There is no study that gauges the Ozark Trail’s current impact.

But the Ice Age Trail, a proposed 1,200-mile footpath across Minnesota and Wisconsin, is only partly complete, just like the Ozark Trail.

A 2012 analysis concluded its combined 600 miles draw 1.2 million visitors each year, who inject about $113 million into statewide and local economies. A completed trail would surely have an even bigger impact.

Says Stuart Macdonald of the non-profit American Trails Association, “I think the most interest is in the ‘brand name’ trails that enable a multi-day journey.”

In January 2016, the Ozark Trail Association presented its case at a workshop in the Arcadia Valley, where the towns of Ironton, Pilot Knob and Arcadia cluster among 20

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“A lot of the reason people like living here is that you can be left alone. So the idea of inviting a bunch of strangers to walk across your property probably doesn’t sit well.” the hills of Iron County. The chamber of commerce was so impressed, it created a business owners’ group to explore trail options.

Ironton mayor Robert Lourwood says he has personally lobbied landowners to sign off on a connector path to the Ozark Trail.

He reports verbal commitments from four. “Even if hikers stay for just one night, buy two meals, go to the grocery store to buy provisions, it’s worth it,” Lourwood says. “I’m not looking for a grand solution; I’m looking for pieces of a puzzle.”

Further southwest in Carter County, the Van Buren Chamber of Commerce has tried for years

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to lay a network of local trails.

They want a path connecting their town center to Big Spring, one of the nation’s largest springs, a tourist draw about five miles south of town. The chamber’s hope was to get this path incorporated into the Ozark Trail.

Some stakeholders in that gap, however, don’t want their land used as a conduit. Cattle farmer Gary Norris fears (among other things) that an easement would crater his property values.

“I can’t think of a farmer around who’d be for this,” Norris says.

“Farming’s hard enough if everything’s going as well as it can be, but you put up other obstacles, it’s even harder.”

Adds merchant Mitch Terry, “We’re not opposed to trails, we’re opposed to them going through our front yard.” After all, he says, the river has attracted “the party crowd” to Van Buren. “Makes you think maybe the trail will be like the river.”

And for some locals, a rise in income is beside the point. Rebecca Landewe, a project manager in Van Buren with the non-profit Nature Conservancy, says that Ozark residents share a profound identification with the land.

“A lot of the reason people like living here is that you can be left alone,” observes Landewe. “So the idea of inviting a bunch of strangers to walk across your property probably doesn’t sit well.”

Growing up in Pacific, at the southwestern tip of St. Louis County, Steve Myers loved visiting Jensen’s Point, a stone pavilion perched on a bluff with a panoramic view of the Meramec Valley. As a boy, Myers ate cheeseburgers there with his mom. Now he’s an alderman who envisions his town below as a hiker’s hub, offering access to both the polished network of St. Louisarea trails called the Great Rivers Greenway and the more rustic Ozark Trail.

Out of the seven gaps left to fill, this 39-mile stretch between Pacific and the Ozark Trail’s northern terminus at Onondaga Cave State Park is the largest. But Myers insists on its feasibility — and believes a full through-trail will hold an allure that disjointed sections won’t.

“There’s a lot of pride in hiking the Appalachian Trail, for example,” Myers says. “People may not hike the whole thing, but they can say they were on it.”

If Myers is to fulfill his dream,

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Far left, even as the Ozark Trail passes through several private drives, it remains well-marked to keep hikers on track. | KELLY GLUECK Above and left, the Ozark Trail Association hosts four “mega events” every year, as well as smaller events to keep the trail maintained. | COURTESY THE OZARK TRAIL ASSOCIATION

he’ll need allies. A year ago, he met with J.T. Hardy, city administrator of Sullivan, which lies in the gap. Hardy studied a map and discovered a way to bring the trail’s northern terminus eleven miles northeast to his town’s boundaries. He would just need to win over a half-dozen landowners, and establish a spur to Sullivan.

He would also have to rely on gravel roads as connectors. They are less scenic, so not ideal. But the Ozark Trail wouldn’t be alone in resorting to this measure. The Ice Age Trail uses them too.

The result, Hardy believes, could benefit Sullivan. “To me it’s totally conceivable to have it done, if someone wanted to spearhead it,” Hardy says.

That “someone” has failed to surface in government for decades. Since the 1980s, no state agency or official has led the charge to completion — perhaps because so much of the trail winds through federal land. Or maybe they have more pressing problems. True, former Governor Jay Nixon did steer federal grants toward the Ozark Trail, and one of his last acts in office was to cre-

ate three new state parks, including a namesake park in Reynolds County, accessible by the trail.

But Nixon apparently spent no political capital trying to extend it. And Governor Eric Greitens’ office didn’t respond to questions about whether he would prioritize it. It’s likely not even on his radar. So today, in the trail’s fortieth year, “there’s a dearth of statutory authority,” says former association president Roger Allison. No legislation protects or authorizes it.

And for the volunteers, completion is a long-range effort.

They’re still feeling their way forward.

“As trail guys, we’re a little shy,” Allison adds. “We don’t usually go around asking people for easements. But who knows, we may be pleasantly surprised.”

Fred Lafser, the trail’s original visionary, believes the right messenger with the right message could break the 40-year logjam.

“At some point somebody will come along — a DNR director or a governor — and it will happen quickly,” Lafser says. “But if nobody’s supporting it, it will take n a while.”

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CALENDAR

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WEEK OF FEBURARY 8-14

FRIDAY 02/10 The Way We Get By The morning after is always a pain, and the person you wake up with can make it better or worse.

That premise is the jumping-off point for Neil LaBute’s The Way We Get By. This two-person play follows Beth and Doug, who wake up in the same bed after a crazy party and one-night stand. They aren’t strangers, but they also aren’t certain if their fling could, or should, continue past the morning.

St. Louis Actors’ Studio continues its season with The Way We Get By. Performances take place at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday (February 10 to 26) at the Gaslight Theater (358 North Boyle Avenue; www.stlas. org). Tickets are $30 to $35.

— Bill Loellke

The Ice Fishing Play In Minnesota, ice fishing is more than a sport. It’s a way of life. If everything goes perfectly, you get your shack out on the lake as soon as the ice is thick enough to support it, and youll be there every weekend until your feet start getting wet. Ron Huber made it to his shack, but he’s deriving very little enjoyment from it this year.

Instead of enjoying some solitude he ends up entertaining a steady stream of visitors. There are his wife Irene, his brother Duffer, a pair of preachers who just sorta show up, another ice fisher — he’s caught quite a crowd, but no fish.

Kevin Kling’s The Ice Fishing Play is a comedy about a man with everyday dreams who never seems to attain them, but is still doing all right. West End Players Guild presents The Ice Fishing Play at 8 p.m. Thursday to Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday (February 10 to 19) at Union Avenue Christian Church (733 North Union Boulevard; www. westendplayer.org). Tickets are $20 to $25.

— Paul Friswold

Saint Louis Ballet dances to George Gershwin. | COURTESY SAINT LOUIS BALLET/PHOTO BY PRATT KREIDICH

SATURDAY 02/11 Mardi Gras Cajun Cook-Off The tempting tastes of Louisiana take center stage at the Mardi Gras Cajun Cook-Off. Professional chefs from across the area demonstrate how to prepare authentic Cajun cuisine throughout the day. In the amateur division, ten local chefs compete with each other to prove they rule the region (and for cash prizes). Attendees receive a complimentary Cajun dish cooked to perfection by some extraordinary St. Louis chefs, and Cruzan Rum hurricanes and Bud Light will be available to get you

moving on the dance floor. The 2017 Mardi Gras Cajun Cook-Off takes place from noon to 4 p.m. today at the Bud Light Party Centre in Soulard Market Park (Lafayette Avenue and South Ninth Street; www.stlmardigras.org). Tickets are $35 to $45.

— Bill Loellke

It’s Only Love George Gershwin and George Balanchine intended to collaborate on the 1937 film Follies, but Gershwin died before he was able to complete the music. In 1970 Balanchine resumed the project by setting his choreography to seventeen of Gershwin’s bestloved songs, including “Strike Up the Band,” My One and Only” and “Fascinatin’ Rhythm,” with riverfronttimes.com

orchestrations by Hershy Kay. The finished piece, Who Cares?, channels the very American exuberance of Gershwin’s songs and their inherent “Manhattan” energy. The Saint Louis Ballet presents the joyous Who Cares? as part of its Valentine’s Day program, It’s Only Love. Work by Francis Patrelle and a contemporary dance piece choreographed by artistic director Gen Horiuchi round out the performance. It’s Only Love is presented at 8 p.m.

Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday (February 11 and 12) at the University of Missouri-St. Louis’ Touhill Performing Arts Center (1 University Drive at Natural Bridge Road; www.touhill.org). Tickets are $24 to $59. — Paul Friswold

FEBRUARY 8-14, 2017

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CALENDAR Continued from pg 23 Cupid’s Undie Run “No shoes, no shirt, no service” is not in play at Cupid’s Undie Run, which encourages you to wear your unmentionables for a onemile jog preceded and followed by a party. What may sound insane in concept is matched by an insanely good outcome, as the nationwide party/race raises money for the Children’s Tumor Foundation, an organization committed to ending neurofibromatosis (NF), a disease that causes tumors to grow on nerves throughout the body. In all, the pantsless parties raised $3.5 million last year; organizers hope to raise $4 million this year. You can be a part of a great cause while showcasing your banging body in the process. Cupid’s Undie Run takes place from noon to 4 p.m. today at St. Louis Ballpark Village (601 Clark Avenue; www.stlballparkvillage. com). Admission starts at $35.

— Bill Loellke

Scout Finch is back in action in To Kill A Mockingbird at the Rep. | COURTESY REPERTORY ST. LOUIS great Stooges shorts projected from 16mm film and free admission, with beer and food available for purchase. You can catch them from 7 to 9 p.m. on the second Monday of the month.

— Paul Friswold

SUNDAY 02/12 An Affair to Remember Noted playboy Nickie Ferrante first meets Terry McKay on board a ship when they’re both returning from Europe to New York. There is an almost immediate attraction, but both are already romantically involved.

The more time they spend together, though, the more Nickie and Terry realize they would be happier together. They hatch a plan to meet again in six months atop the Empire State Building, giving them time to break up with their current partners and get their lives in order. At the appointed time Nickie is there, but Terry never shows. What happened? Leo McCarey’s An Affair to Remember is widely regarded as one of the most romantic films ever, with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr playing the starcrossed lovers. Fathom Events and TCM celebrate the 60th anniversary of An Affair to Remember with nationwide screenings, just in time for Valentine’s Day. You can see it locally at 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday and Wednesday (February 12 and 15) at Wehrenberg Ronnies 20 Cine (5320 South Lindbergh Boulevard; www. fathomevents.com). Tickets are $10 to $12.50.

— Paul Friswold 24

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Party and run in Cupid’s Undie Run. | JON GITCHOFF

MONDAY 02/13 Three Stooges Night Comedy styles change with time, but one thing remains constant: T h e t i g h t l y c h o r e o g ra p h e d mayhem of the Three Stooges will forever be popular with a select group of people. (They’re called “men.”) Larry, Curly, Moe (and occasionally Shemp) never fail; all they need are a simple set-up (they’re plumbers, they’re actors, they’re spies) and they’re off.

Although the trio is famous for their violence, they also display verbal dexterity and musical talent they had it all. Three Stooges Night at Schlafly Bottleworks (7260 Southwest Boulevard, Maplewood; www.schlafly.com) features five

FEBRUARY 8-14, 2017

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TUESDAY 02/14 To Kill a Mockingbird Jean Louise Finch (better known as Scout) lives the charmed life of a happy child in Maycomb, Alabama. Her father is respected lawyer Atticus Finch, and with her brother and her best friend for companions, her days are filled with fun and games (and occasional scoldings from family housekeeper, Calpurnia). But when Atticus is given the task of defending Tom Robinson, a black man accused of assaulting a white woman, young Scout discovers that the adult world is full of injustice, disappointment and shiftless people. Christopher Sergel’s adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird continues the Repertory Theatre St. Louis’ celebratory 50th season. To Kill a Mockingbird is performed Tuesday through Sunday (February 10 to March 5) at the Loretto-Hilton Center (130 Edgar Road; www. repstl.org). Tickets are $18 to $81.50.

— Paul Friswold

WEDNESDAY 02/15 Adam Devine’s Weird Life Tour You might know Adam Devine as one-third of the Comedy Central show Workaholics, as the prick a capella performer in Pitch Perfect or as Haley’s too-nice-for-his-owngood boyfriend on Modern Family.

Devine has become a fixture in the world of comedy, and with Workaholics finished he’s back on the road with his Weird Life Tour 2017. There will be no shortage of funny stories and comedic possibilities when he takes the stage at 7:30 p.m. tonight at the Pageant (6161 Delmar Boulevard; www.thepageant.com). It’ll be a divine night for Devine fans.

Tickets are $35 to $40.

— Bill Loellke

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

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26

FILM SHORT STUFF

[REVIEW]

What If Superheroes Were Fun?

Oscar-nominated animated shorts are coming to the Tivoli 2017 Oscar Nominated Short Films: Animated. Opens February 10.

A

The Lego Batman Movie is among the best superhero movies ever Written by

MARYANN JOHANSON The Lego Batman Movie

Directed by Chris McKay. Written by Seth Grahame-Smith, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Jared Stern and John Whittington. Starring Will Arnett, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson and Zach Galifianakis. Opens Friday, February 10, everywhere.

H

e’s Batman. (Say it in a low growl for best effect.)

The little Lego mini-fig in black actually works as a superhero. Of course he appeared in The Lego Movie a couple years back, but he was a joke. Would spinning him off into his own movie work as anything other than a caricature? Wouldn’t the few things that made The Lego Movie stand apart from all the many movies it was aping (The Matrix, etcetera) get lost if it full-on embraced an already well-known story? Wouldn’t its plastic-brick-based metaphysical take on the precariousness of our understanding of the nature of reality get lost in the snarking?

Well. All of that could have happened, I suppose, but it didn’t. The Lego Batman Movie might be the best Batman movie yet. It’s definitely among the best superhero movies ever. And that’s not in spite of the fact that, yes, it is a parody of Batman, but because of that.

Making fun of all the ridiculous clichés and motifs of superhero stories allows Lego Batman to transcend them even as it celebrates them. This is the most gloriously bonkers expression ever of the sublimeness and the silliness of

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Batman (voice of Will Arnett) is a Lego dude on a mission. | © 2017 WARNER BROS. ENT. INC. / RATPAC-DUNE ENT. crime fighters in capes and tights, and our worship of tales of their exploits.

Look: Lego Batman opens with fifteen minutes of all-in, all-out action smash-up spectacular, the sort of thing that’s considered suitable these days to serve as the climax of a superhero flick. But this opening sequence goes beyond even that: It brings together every bad guy Batman has ever battled — well, the Joker (the voice of Zach Galifianakis) brings them together — in a mad plot to bring an ultimate destruction to Gotham City. Of course Batman (the voice of Will Arnett) stops them. It’s all done in Lego bricks and mini-figs, and it hilariously sends up every trope of the dramatic and critical superhero battle. I was breathless with laughter and nerd joy by the end of it. But where the heck can a movie possibly go from there?

Yet Lego Batman keeps finding an ante to up, in ways I never could have expected. There is awareness among the characters here that they are living in a world of interchangeable bricks: Batman is a master builder who can make new Bat vehicles on the fly, which is a clever way to deal with the urban destruction left behind when metahumans fight; the bricks can get reused right away. And if Lego Batman doesn’t quite get into metaphysics of awareness like its progenitor did, it does get into the metaphysics of pop culture. I’d never spoil, but I can say that Lego Batman is one of the most beautiful

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and outrageously funny instances yet of the mash-up, fan-fiction fan culture that has developed around the merry playfulness of geeks.

Lego Batman’s kiddie-level but still very insightful comic psychoanalysis of Bruce Wayne iChs barely the beginning of it.

Its spot-on snarky confrontations with superhero rivalry and the bromance between heroes and villains isn’t quite yet the beginning of it either. Its references to every other Batman movie (and the TV show!) are still barely the beginning of it. Reaching out across the fourth wall to deal a smack to Marvel superheroes is starting to be the beginning of it. But it still has a very long way to go before it is done.

I laughed out loud so hard at this movie because I saw my own geeky inclinations reflected in it. In Michael Cera’s voice performance as Batman’s new sidekick Robin as a sunny, exuberant nerd. In the whipsmart references to so many things that I, as fairly ecumenical fantasy and science fiction fan, love — and which I never expected to see turning up in a Batman cartoon — that kept whizzing by at fasterthan-dork speed.

He didn’t have a hand in the script, but first-time feature director Chris McKay is a veteran of Robot Chicken, the bizarre stop-motion TV cartoon for grownups that is little more than stream-of-consciousness geek mash-ups. And Lego Batman owes at least as much to that show as it does to The Lego Movie.

Everything is awesome here. n

susual,thisyear’sOscar-nominated animated shorts are a wildly diverse bunch. They’ve been collected i n a 90-minute program with three additional films included. The longest, “Pear Cider and Cigarettes,” has been placed at the very end so concerned parents have time to scurry their children out before it starts.

An ambitious story about a comic book artist helping a friend through a liver transplant, “Pear Cider” Is visually striking, but the script is lifeless, suffocated under the weight of post-Tarantino affectations. Yes, it looks great, but flashy production values can’t make up for the overall banality of the adolescent story.

The CGI film “Borrowed Time” is another curious misfire, a well-animated Western episode with a cartoonish character design that is at odds with its brief but relentlessly grim tone.

And just to get the weakest entries out of the way... You know those TV commercials that try to sell you insurance by showing a lifetime of sentimental/cute home-movie incidents over a laid-back ukulele track? Did you ever watch one of those 30-second spots and wish it was twelve times longer? If so, the six-minute “Pearl” is the film for you.

As for the high points, “Blind Vaysha,” produced by the National Film Board of Canada, is a throwback to what used to be considered “artistic” animation.

Spare sketches tell the story of a girl with a vision disorder: Her left eye shows her the past, while her right eye sees only the future. It’s a sly allegory that makes its point unpretentiously, with a modest visual style to match.

And then there’s Pixar’s offering, “Piper,” which has probably been seen by more viewers than the other four nominees, having accompanied Finding Dory in theaters last summer. It’s simple — just a few brief gags to establish a character, introduce a dramatic obstacle and wrap it up in six minutes. It’s light on story but a major advance in animation technique, with a realistic visual texture that is remarkable even for the studio that brought us previous Oscar winners such as “Geri’s Game.” —Robert Hunt

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THE ARTS

[ S TA G E ]

What a Doll Stray Dog brilliantly breathes new life into Ibsen with A Doll’s House Written by

PAUL FRISWOLD A Doll’s House

Written by Henrik Ibsen. Adapted by Frank McGuinness. Directed by Gary F. Bell Presented by Stray Dog Theatre through February 18 at the Tower Grove Abbey (2336 Tennessee Avenue; www.straydogtheatre. org). Tickets are $20 to $25.

H

enrik Ibsen’s drama A Doll’s House has been decried as an abomination, hailed as a feminist critique of marriage and elevated to the unassailable position of “a classic.” The problem is, once a play is understood to be a classic, it’s codified as just one thing: classic. And a codified work can become stultified and unchanging.

Stray Dog Theatre’s production of A Doll’s House, envisioned by the company’s artistic director Gary F. Bell, is thankfully a living, breathing drama about flawed people stunted by the expectations of their society. There is never a moment during the three hours of the show that doesn’t feel fresh, and there is never a moment in which the trajectory of Nora and Torvald’s marriage feels like a known quantity.

Every secret revealed is shocking, every reaction a surprise.

Nora (Nicole Angeli) is a woman whose life is lived at the behest of Torvald (Ben Ritchie), a lawyer turned bank manager who is as stern and grave as his wife is flighty and gay. Their relationship is sharply divided along gender lines: He earns the money and makes all decisions, and she raises their three children and flits about the house singing and spending Torvald’s money on beautiful things. She calls him Torvald, and he calls her Skylark or Squirrel; her actual name may as well be forgotten.

But Nora has a secret, which she reveals to her old friend Kristine (Rachel Hanks). When Torvald was

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RIVERFRONT TIMES

Kristine (Rachel Hanks, left) and Nora (Nicole Angeli, right) meet again undethe disinterested gaze of Torvald (Ben Ritchie). | JOHN LAMB

She calls him Torvald, and he calls her Skylark or Squirrel; her actual name may as well be forgotten. deathly ill, Nora illegally arranged a loan (a woman isn’t allowed to conduct business on her own behalf ) that allowed the family to move from frigid Norway to sunny Italy. It saved Torvald’s life, but he is unaware of her outstanding loan and her steady efforts to chip away at the balance.

Nora got the loan from Krogstad (Jason Peirick), a shady bank employee Torvald wishes to fire.

Krogstad blackmails Nora, saying

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he’ll tell Torvald about her illegal loan unless she persuades Torvald to keep him on staff. Now Nora is desperate to conceive of a way to forestall Torvald discovering what she did.

Angeli is a treat, adopting a chirping tone and flashing her big eyes as happy Nora contemplates all the things Torvald’s new job will afford. When time begins running out on her big deceit, though, that joy becomes a mania that threatens to incinerate her from the inside out.

Hanks is excellent as the dour Kristine, a widow whose sorrow is caused not by the death of her husband but by the loss of her purpose. She has no one to care for now, and society fairly shouts at her that she’s useless if she’s not mothering children or a man.

Quiet, reserved and self-possessed, Hanks conveys with her uplifted chin Kristine’s solid sense of selfworth, which she earned by making her own way in the male world.

And then there’s Torvald. Poor, dumb Torvald. Ritchie plays him as a man at best 50 percent present

in his own life. He never interacts with his sons, and his wife is but a beautiful distraction to enjoy in short bursts, but his commitment to work — the male world — is such that after midnight on Christmas day he goes to check the postbox to see if any more paperwork has been dropped off. “When a real crisis comes, I will have strength and courage for the both of us,” Torvald condescendingly reassures his wife.

When that crisis arrives, only to be resolved with no effort on his part, Ritchie gives a relieved shout of “I’m saved!” Angeli’s frigid response, “And me?” is the sledgehammer that finally puts a crack in his happy world. Everything that comes after is the nub of Ibsen’s classic, and in this production it thrills with the vitality of Angeli and Ritchie’s performances.

Inside Bell’s doll house, there are no innocent people. Nora enslaved herself as surely as Torvald did himself, and Krogstad and Kristine as well. But the only condemned inmates are the ones who don’t n make an effort to break free.

ART GALLERIES

29 presents

8BMM #BMM

Saturday, .BSDI 7-11 pm Rosalyn Drexler (American, b. 1926), Sorry About That, 1966. Acrylic, paper on canvas, 48 x 72 1/4”. Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Gift of the T.B. Walker Foundation, 1966. © 2017 Rosalyn Drexler / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Jason Rohlf: Ancient Astronauts Hoffman LaChance Contemporary 2713 Sutton Boulevard | www.hoffmanlachancefineart.com Opening 6-10 p.m. Fri., Feb. 10. Continues through Mar. 4.

Jason Rohlf envisions his layered painting as a form of time travel. What begins as lines and planes of color are then partially submerged under layers of collage and mediums. As each layer rises from the canvas, geometric shapes begin to emerge, along with raised layers of media. Elements deep in the painting may be still be visible, a visual reminder of each piece’s distant origins. As work continues, these elements may be covered by a succeeding layer, only to somehow reappear further down the line. The overall effect is one of past and present vying for prominence within the overall picture plane. Black pyramids intermittently ring a circular palimpsest of hot pink and muted gray, recalling an aerial photograph of an archeological dig in progress, while the intersecting lattices of blue lines marked by faded red dots evoke images of partially obliterated Nazca lines.

Rosalyn Drexler: Who Does She Think She Is? Kemper Art Museum 1 Brookings Dr. | kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu Opening 7-9 p.m. Fri., Feb. 10. Continues through Apr. 17.

This full-career survey of playwright, novelist and visual artist Rosalyn Drexler offers a rare opportunity to see the breadth of the self-taught artist’s work. Her paintings feature bright colors and figures appropriated from films and print media,

which she cropped, enlarged and printed on her canvases and then painted over them.

The effect is somewhere between photorealism, pop art and the visual language of a dream. Chubby Checker depicts a large Chubby mid-twist against squared fields of scarlet and blue and yellow, with couples dancing in 45-sized circles to the left; a smaller Checker echoes the larger one to the right. Love And Violence is far more sharp, a suited man looming over a crumpled blonde woman, grabbing her chin. A triptych of blue windows beneath the tableau show the same man helping to assault a fellow in a trench coat.

Degas, Impressionism, and the Paris Millinery Trade Saint Louis Art Museum 1 Fine Arts Dr | www.slam.org Opens Sun., Feb. 12. Continues through May 7.

Edgar Degas may be best known for his paintings and sculptures of dancers, but he was also fascinated by high-fashion hats and the young women who made them in the fashion capital of the world.

This multimedia exhibition includes 60 paintings and pastels that depict highfashion millinery, some by Degas and others by his contemporaries Manet, Renoir, Cassatt and Toulouse-Lautrec, who were all influenced by Degas’ work.

More than 40 period hats will be on display as well, many of them by the acknowledged masters of Belle Epoque millinery, including Madame Georgette and Caroline Reboux. The exhibit is free on Fridays; admission is otherwise $6 to $15.

—Paul Friswold

40 Artists

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At Mariscos el Gato, they don’t just give you a few langostinos. They serve up a veritable pile. | MABEL SUEN [REVIEW]

Sea Change Mariscos el Gato is a new kind of Mexican restaurant for Cherokee Street — a temple devoted to the bounty of the oceans Written by

CHERYL BAEHR Mariscos el Gato

2818 Cherokee Street; 314-449-1220. Mon.Sat. 10 a.m.-10 p.m.; Sun. 10 a.m.-9 p.m.

N

ever, in my four decades of going out to eat, have I seen a dish receive a standing ovation.

Effusive praise and misty-eyed adulation, yes, but a standing ovation even before one bite touches the lips? That’s a new one.

Yet that is exactly what happened at Mariscos el Gato, the Nayaritstyle seafood temple that opened on Cherokee Street last August. Our server had tried to prepare us for what was to come, noting that the sampler platter we ordered was massive and would surely feed all six people at our table. What he failed to mention, however, was that Neptune himself was in the kitchen preparing our feast.

And so there was a four-pound lobster stuffed with every bit of the sea’s bounty, two different whole fried fish, shrimp diavalo, a crock of mixed seafood, another whole fish that had been filleted and fried, some stuffed shrimp, whitefish ceviche and an octopus cocktail, all surrounded by various accoutrements. The feast was so large, it required a roughly threefoot-long plate to contain it; seeing our server carry it in, we were genuinely concerned he might throw out his back making the trek

from kitchen to table. The sheer scale and beauty of what was laid out before us was so incredible that every last one of us gasped — then leapt to our feet and cheered.

It may have been my first time witnessing such a reception, but I suspect that Mariscos el Gato’s owner Carlos Dominguez and chef Pedro Diaz get a similar one every day. Not only is the restaurant unlike anything else in town, it’s completely unexpected.

Set up in the storefront that has housed (in rapid succession) Mexcla, Tarahumara and Siete Luminarias, Mariscos el Gato initially appears to blend in with the other Mexican restaurants that dot Cherokee Street. The entrance is recessed, the name is not easily apparent, and a passing glance at the canoe set up on sawhorses out front might make you think you are passing a construction site.

Inside, the scene is no fancier.

The owners have knocked down riverfronttimes.com

the wall of the adjacent storefront and expanded the space, but the gussying up has been minimal.

Outfitted to look like a casual seafood shack, the walls are painted the color of seafoam, with nautical décor spread throughout. A mermaid statue keeps watch over the large dining room, which features the same simple booths and basic tables of the location’s previous iterations.

The menu, however, provides the first clue that this is no casual, everyday sort of place. It’s entirely in Spanish, so you might assume that the prices listed are in pesos. They’re not. Entrees can run anywhere from $20 to $75 and $140 for the aforementioned seafood feast — a fact that would make your eyes pop out if your server doesn’t explain that most dishes feed multiple people. Still, it’s a bit shocking to find Clayton-level prices on Cherokee Street, especially at a place that

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MARISCOS EL GATO Continued from pg 31 looks like a spot to grab a Corona and a fish taco.

That sticker shock dissipates when you realize the value. That’s not just in quantity; far more important is the quality on offer, which begins with the first thing to hit the table. In place of standard chips and salsa, all diners are treated to a complimentary ceviche appetizer. On both visits, the day’s selection was mild whitefish dressed with diced onions, fresh herbs and a mouth-puckering punch of citrus. Crispy tostadas and saltine crackers are meant for dipping, evoking that beach shack vibe.

Why buy the octopus cocktail when you can get the ceviche for free? Because it’s positively outstanding. In a massive chalice, a whole octopus swims in piquant cocktail sauce. The meat is so tender, if you closed your eyes, you might think you were eating a scallop. Hunks of creamy avocado cover the top of a dish large enough to feed four people.

A basket of vibrant orange-hued empanadas doesn’t look like much — until you break one open, and a creamy concoction of shrimp and scallops spills out over your plate. The filling has just a whisper of sweetness from the shellfish; combined with the subtle chili heat from the crispy dough, it’s ethereal.

There is nothing subtle about what our server says is Mariscos el Gato’s signature dish: a shrimpstuffed whole red snapper. The fish is humongous — about a foot and a half long — and its center has been carved out and filled with jumbo shrimp, smothered in a fiery pepper sauce. The shrimp filling may make your nose run, but the snapper’s delicate meat is a mild

A complimentary ceviche begins each meal. | MABEL SUEN counter that balances the dish.

The restaurant’s other must-try, according to our server, is a pineapple half that’s been carved out, grilled, overstuffed with a creamy mix of seafood and topped with molten mozzarella cheese. As someone who raises an eyebrow at cheese on fish (much less cheese on fish on fruit), I was a skeptic who was proven wrong. The seafood — clams, octopus, scallops shrimp and crab — is mixed with slivers of pineapple and tossed in a blend of

cream and pineapple juice. It’s not overly sweet, but the hint of fruit cuts right through the decadence.

A seafood stew, brimming with crab legs, mussels and shrimp, was as delicate as the finest seafood consommé you’d find in an elegant restaurant. The taste is light with just a hint of tomato, but a generous sprinkle of fresh cilantro gave it a fresh pop without overtaking the broth’s flavor.

Mariscos el Gato’s version of paella is positively outstanding.

Tender, shockingly fresh fish of just about every variety fills the bowl, but the real treat is the rice. It almost evokes risotto, as it soaks up a mix of the seafood’s cooking liquid. We balked at the $68 price tag, but the portion was large enough that six of us were able to eat our fill and even have some left over.

But I cannot forget that most impressive of seafood platters.

Succulent tilapia and red snapper, simply roasted, could have been plucked straight out of the ocean.

The filleted whole tilapia had just enough of a seasoned breadcrumb coating to give it a touch of spice and crunch without covering up the fish. Shrimp diavolo was smothered in a fiery red chili sauce with an addictive, tangy heat, while a seafood misto impressed with a richness that tiptoed right up to — but not over — the edge of overindulgence.

That overindulgence came in the form of the four-pound lobster, such a treat it makes the classic thermidor seem about as decadent as spinach salad. The lobster’s cavity is overstuffed with possibly every last edible thing in the restaurant’s kitchen — seafood, vegetables, herbs, even some hunks of pineapple. We were so overwhelmed by the bounty, we almost forgot to eat the lobster tail — something that by itself might run $40 at any other seafood restaurant.

By the end of the meal, though, we weren’t worried about the cost.

We were too far in an ecstatic stupor to do much of anything. It’s a good thing we gave our much-deserved compliments to the chef at the beginning of the meal — by the time we had finished, we were too n dazzled to speak.

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SHORT ORDERS

[SIDE DISH]

A 75-Year Legacy in Dogtown Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

E

verything in Joe Jovanovich’s life pointed to him one day taking over the Pat Connolly Tavern (6400 Oakland Avenue; 314-647-7287). His maternal grandfather founded the iconic Dogtown establishment 75 years ago, his mom and dad eventually took over the business, and he grew up in the place — which is precisely why, when he came of age, he wanted nothing to do with it.

“The whole experience of being raised there, your whole life revolves around the place,” Jovanovich explains. “It just seemed so parochial to me. I was born in Dogtown, raised in the bar, went to St. James. I just wanted something different.”

Jovanovich says he loved growing up at the popular tavern. He spent his days getting razzed by the regulars about how tall he’d gotten or how grown-up he was starting to look.

“In elementary school, it was like having this mini-celebrity status,” Jovanovich laughs. “The school basketball team would have its post-game meals at the bar, and everyone knew my dad and was always coming in to see him. At the time, the Arena was right down the street, and my dad had a great relationship with some of the Blues players. I’d get to go to games, and my dad would take me into the locker room. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world.”

Jovanovich’s world came crashing down at the age of eleven when his dad passed away suddenly from an aneurysm. The community rallied to support him and his mom, but things still weren’t the 34

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Joe Jovanovich was something of a mascot for the Pat Connolly Tavern as a kid. Now he’s back, and running the show. | KELLY GLUECK same. Then, not even a year later, the Blues moved from the Arena to their new downtown digs. The business struggled, and though his mom was able to hang on for six years, she decided to sell it to a longtime employee so that she could begin a new chapter.

Jovanovich began a new chapter too. In the same year the bar sold, he started college, pursuing studies in social work and nonprofit management. “I wanted to do something different and f ulfilling, so nonprofit work fit that,” Jovanovich explains.

Thought it would occasionally come up in conversation with his mom, Jovanovich never considered buying back the bar.

“No way,” he says. “I was adamant that wasn’t going to happen.” However, as he and his mother witnessed the property, then called Pat’s, struggle and decline, he felt a responsibility to step in. One day, during a conversation with is mom, he just threw the idea out there. “I think I wanted to do something that I knew would confuse everyone,” Jovanovich laughs.

Last year, Jovanovich and his mom bought back the bar and re-

FEBRUARY 8-14, 2017

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stored its original name, the Pat Connolly Tavern. They gave the place a facelift, updated the menu and recaptured the spirit of the space as it was when his grandfather first opened its doors — and while Jovanovich had to give up his job in nonprofit management to do it, he still scratches that itch by hosting fundraisers and nonprofit meetings in the upstairs event space. On Tuesdays, he even gives a discount to anyone involved in public service.

“There’s this misconception about Dogtown that it’s not the most progressive or inclusive place,” Jovanovich explains. “I don’t think that’s accurate, but we don’t want to be perceived as that sort of old-school bar where people feel unwelcome. That’s not us. We want to be an approachable and inclusive place.”

Jovanovich took a break from the bar to share his thoughts on the St. Louis restaurant scene, his dream of never-ending oysters and the talent he’d most love to have.

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

I’m a social worker.

What daily ritual is non-negotiable for you?

Reading the news.

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

Ear-splitting falsetto.

What is something missing in the local food, wine or cocktail scene that you’d like to see?

Bottomless manhattans.

Who is your St. Louis food crush?

I am a disciple of Steven Fitzpatrick Smith.

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

Definitely not me.

Which ingredient is most representative of your personality?

Angostura bitters.

Name an ingredient never allowed in your kitchen.

Anything pre-breaded.

What is your after-work hangout?

Home with the family, usually.

What’s your food or beverage guilty pleasure?

French 75, always cognac.

What would be your last meal on earth? n Unlimited oysters.

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VALENTINE’S DAY

Beyond Hearts and Flowers Dinner and a movie? Bah humbug. These Valentine’s Day-related events are much more interesting. Events begin this Friday, a full four days before the holiday itself, so start planning now.

Untamed Hearts: A Valentine’s Day Mystery Dinner Enjoy Valentine’s Day in a memorable way at the Saint Louis Zoo. Treat your valentine to an evening of mystery dinner theatre with a threecourse meal and wine. Stay after dinner and the show for live music and dancing. Fri., Feb. 10, 6-10 p.m.; Sat., Feb. 11, 6-10 p.m., $150/ couple, call 314-646-4897 for reservations.

Saint Louis Zoo, 1 Government Dr Forest Park, St. Louis.

Valentine’s Day Nightcap Join us for a Valentine’s Day nightcap of bottomless champagne and desserts while enjoying a sneak peek at the newly revamped Das Bevo, ripe for lovers and events of all kinds. $35/couple, $20/ single, Tickets must be purchased in advance at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ valentines-night-cap-desserts-at-das-bevotickets-30940037485 Sat., Feb. 11, 7-11 p.m., $20 - $35, https://www.facebook.com/ events/1869687349985003/. Bevo Mill, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-832-6776.

Run for the Chocolate This fun 5K run/walk returns to the historic streets of St. Louis to spice up Valentine’s weekend for couples and singles alike. The race will be a chocolate extravaganza, complete with customized chocolate finisher medals, chocolate goody bags and water stops, and more than 125 gallons of hot cocoa from St. Louis’ premier chocolatier, Bissinger’s. This race is its own little Valentine’s Day getaway for runners and walkers. Sat., Feb. 11, 9 a.m., $35-$120.

Bissinger’s Chocolate Shoppe, 1600 N. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-615-2400.

ner starts at 7 p.m. Price includes dinner, open premium bar, parking and gratuity. The menu includes a farfalle tetrazzini, Kemoll’s house salad and cheese bread, a grilled filet mignon au poivre and grilled swordfish in a pineapple teriyaki sauce served with garlic roasted haricot vert and tiramisu with chocolate ganache. Sat., Feb. 11, 6:30 p.m., 110, 314-421-0555, info@ kemolls.com, https://www.facebook.com/ events/369888326720564/. Kemoll’s Italian Restaurant, 211 N. Broadway, St. Louis.

Valentine’s Soiree

Valentine’s Port Class and Dinner

Treat yourself and your special someone to an evening they won’t forget as Innsbrook’s Clubhouse Bar & Grille sets the mood of the holiday with a special menu, music and limited-time wine selections. Reservations required. Price does not include tax and gratuity.

Call 636-928-3366 x-9207 for reservations or more information. A “Valentine’s Soiree Overnight Package” is on offer for those who want to make a night of it. Sat., Feb. 11, 5-9 p.m., 636-928-3366 x9207, information@ innsbrook-resort.com, www.innsbrook-resort. com/dining/events/. Innsbrook Resort, 1 Aspen Lake Dr, Wright City.

Winemaker Colin Pennington will lead a port tasting, which will include samples of five different vintages of vintage port, as well as two different volumes of tawny port and a white port. The three-course plated dinner includes a salad, surf and turf, and a chocolate waterfall buffet. Class is from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., dinner at 6 p.m. The class only is $40 for VC members and $45 per guest; the class and dinner are $75 for VC members and $80 per guest.

Dinner only is $40 for members and $45 per guest. Tax and gratuity not included. Sat., Feb. 11, 4-10 p.m., $40 for class or dinner, $75 for both, 636-482-9463 Ext. 231, mountpleasant.com/valentines-port-class-dinner/. Mount Pleasant Estates, 5634 High St., Augusta.

Valentine’s Dinner and Dance Grab your sweetheart and join Top of the Met and Everyday People for a night of gourmet dining and dancing among the stars on the 42nd floor of Metropolitan Square building in downtown St. Louis. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.; din-

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RIVERFRONT TIMES

Be Mine Burlesque Valentine’s Dinner and Show Looking for the most romantic Valentine’s

FEBRUARY 8-14, 2017

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date ever? Look no further than the Boom Boom Room. Start your evening with a threecourse menu, then sit back and enjoy the titillating tease of the Boom Boom Bombshells Be Mine Burlesque Revue. Join host LuLu La Toosh, the Boom Boom Bombshells and the fabulous specialty performers, for “the most sizzling, sexy, seductive show in St. Louis.”

Sat., Feb. 11, 7-9 p.m.; Tue., Feb. 14, 7-9 p.m., $75-$80 for dinner and show, 314-436-7000, theboomboomroomstl.com. The Boom Boom Room, 500 N. 14th St., St. Louis.

Hearts for Art Visit the St. Louis Art Museum from February 10 to 12, as well as February 14, and pick up a free paper heart at the Museum Information Centers when you arrive. Then show your love for your favorite work of art by placing your heart on the floor beneath it. Snap a photo of your heart near your artwork, share it on social media with hashtags #HeartsforArt or #SLAMheart, and tag us in your photo. Feb. 10-12; Tue., Feb. 14, free admission. Saint Louis Art Museum, 1 Fine Arts Drive, Forest Park, St. Louis, 314-721-0072.

Love Stinks, Let’s Drink Compete in the Lover’s Olympics, a series of Valentine’s Day-inspired games, dance-offs and sing-a-longs to win prizes (open to couples & non-couples). The revelries will feature love song trivia, “it’s not you it’s me” trivia about bad relationships and break-ups, and for the

lonely, Heartbroken Honky Tonk — nothing but sad country songs perfect for cryin’ in your beer. Feb. 10-14. Big Daddy’s-The Landing, 118 Morgan St., St. Louis, 314-621-6700.

Valentine’s Date Night at the Museum Visit the galleries at the Missouri History Museum to leave a love note for your favorite object, kick the romance up a notch with chocolate in the Grand Hall, or cozy up in the back row as you watch some vintage classroom films about dating and love. And don’t forget dinner — Bixby’s, the restaurant located on the museum’s second floor, will be hosting a special prix fixe Love Letter Dinner, during which Dr. Fran Levine and Library and Collections Director Chris Gordon will treat you to readings of selected love letters from the museum’s archival collections.

Tue., Feb. 14, 5-8 p.m., free admission to the museum. See www.bixbys-mohistory.com for restaurant information. Missouri History Museum, Lindell Blvd. & DeBaliviere Ave., St. Louis, 314-746-4599.

Pheromones: The Science of Love Dr. Tim Holly, recipient of the Academy’s 2009 Outstanding Scientist Innovation Award, discusses the neural mechanisms of detecting and recognizing pheromones, the chemicals our bodies produce to get our motors started.

Wed., Feb. 15, 7 p.m., free. Missouri History Museum, Lindell Blvd. & DeBaliviere Ave., St. Louis, 314-746-4599. n

Valentine’s Day at Kitchen 4 COURSE DINNER

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Go to evangelinesSTL.com for full music schedule. riverfronttimes.com

FEBRUARY 8-14, 2017

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®

SUNDAY 2/12

WEDNESDAY 2/15

THURSDAY 2/16

FRI. 2/24 & SAT. 2/25

WEDNESDAY 3/1

SATURDAY 3/4

SUNDAY 3/5

WEDNESDAY 3/8

WEDNESDAY 3/15

THURSDAY 3/16

FRIDAY 3/17

SATURDAY 3/18

UPCOMING SHOWS 2/11 NORTH PATROL POLICE & BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP TRIVIA NIGHT

4/19 WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE AT THE SHELDON CONCERT HALL

3/23 SOUTHERN SOUL ASSEMBLY

4/21 HIGHLY SUSPECT

3/24 GARY OWEN

4/23 THE FLAMING LIPS

3/25 CONOR OBERST

4/25 NF

3/27 BRING ME THE HORIZON

4/27 MASTODON W/EAGLES OF DEATH METAL

3/31 KRIS KRISTOFFERSON

4/28 EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY

4/1 DARK STAR ORCHESTRA

5/1 ANTHRAX & KILLSWITCH ENGAGE

4/7 SIMPLE PLAN

5/3 TREY ANASTASIO BAND

4/15 GRAFFITI BRIDGE - A TRIBUTE TO PRINCE

5/6 THE MAVERICKS

4/19&20 JAY & SILENT BOB

5/13 BIANCA DEL RIO

visit us online for complete show information facebook.com/ThePageantSTL

@ThePageantSTL

thepageantstl.tumblr.com

thepageant.com // 6161 delmar blvd. / St. Louis, MO 63112 // 314.726.6161

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MUSIC [PEOPLE]

All the Way Live For decades, Chan Evans has been a go-to player for a variety of St. Louis acts. Now he’s fronting his own Written by

THOMAS CRONE

A

s a performer, Chan Maurice Evans is best known around town as a guitarist, though he’s also played live on bass and, most recently, his “first rock instrument,” drums. Now 42, Evans has logged time as a member of original acts dating back to the ‘90s — Fragile Porcelain Mice, LP Outsiders, Geishamen, the Tennis Lesson, Railers of Kiev, Republic of Sound, Dibiase, Ghost in Light. While some had short or unrecorded histories, others were critical darlings or, as importantly, acts beloved by other musicians.

Not one to rest on his laurels, Evans is still at it. Talented and versatile, he was busy in three groups in 2016 alone: one an original act (CaveofswordS), another performing covers (Hella Snaps) and a third blending both originals and covers (Steve Ewing Band).

Outside of playing gigs, he’s worked restaurant jobs and as a music instructor. But performing live is his real passion.

“I get an itch if I’m not involved in it,” Evans says. “There are times you don’t even want to look at an instrument; sometimes, for a while, I won’t go see a show. But once you do see a show, it goads you back. You think about what you can do to be performing. You can write and put stuff on a hard drive all you want.

But you’ll start missing being on the stage.

“That why I’ve started writing,” he adds. “I’ve never really fronted a band.”

His new act, called You People, is tied in several ways to the group he

Chan Evans’ new act, formed with Brandon Mason, is called You People. | AMY VANDONSEL left in late 2016, CaveofswordS. After the band pared back to a drummer-less trio, Evans found himself plunging into “the echo chamber of Facebook,” as he puts it. Brandon Mason, formerly a player with the same band, struck up an online conversation relating to, Evans recalls, “Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, the election. There was so much being said. It really felt like a good time to make some new music.”

The two are now trading tapes in a band that has Evans playing around with more electronic elements than in previous efforts. When he played with CaveofswordS’ Kevin McDermott and Mark Cange of the recently disbanded Tennis Lesson, Evans worked with, and observed, perfectionists in the art of crafting sounds from all manner of physical and digital sources.

“I’m kinda wanting to know Kev-

in’s perspective, Mark’s perspective,” he admits. “They’re the structure builders. I’ve always been sort of the interior designer, the guy to fill in the colors.” Now Evans is the one doing that building. He sketches out the basics as “electronic, so far. There’re programmed beats, guitars, effects, vocals, harmonies.”

While neither member of You People is opposed to the idea of adding others, Evans says there’s no rush, either — no plan, really, other than crafting exactly what they want on their own timeline. Working together seems to give Evans visceral pleasure. He describes trading tracks via Ableton and waiting to hear what Mason’s contribution to one. The tune began, and Mason’s part didn’t start right away ... “And then… what?!?... it just hits. There was another dynamic I didn’t know; there was another gear to the song. I riverfronttimes.com

39

was laughing, laughing my ass off,” he enthuses.

He adds, “We’ve only chatted about other members one time.

We’ll see how it flows from here.

When it’s time to put together an album or a full set for a show, then we might pull in someone interested. I do sorta want a full band, with organics mixed with electronics, like Nine Inch Nails or what I was doing in Cave. We just don’t know when that time will be.”

And to keep his live-play needs satisfied, there’s still that Hella Snaps gig. Born as a ‘90s tribute group, the band has extended its playlist a decade in each direction to score more gigs. Though able to play anything from weddings to corporate gigs to mainstream clubs, the band is on a tight schedule thanks to the time needs of six players. Rehearsals only happen when there’s a new track to work into the group’s three sets.

“They have a long history with it,” he says of the act. “It really is a different world. There’s some competitive aspect in the original music scene. But, really, we’re all supporting each other and when someone’s doing well, you try to keep up. The cover scene’s kinda cutthroat.

There’s so much money there, but only so many gigs. Everyone wants a residency and everyone’s got their favorite gig. Tomorrow we’ll be filming a new promo video. You gotta have your commercial! And our first one didn’t have the formula that everyone’s used. So we’ll keep up with the Joneses. There’s definitely a business side to it that the originals guys don’t see.”

Despite his busy music schedule, deep history of local performance and high musicianship, Evans at first resists talking to a reporter about his work, wondering why anyone would care and asking if we had the right guy. Told that his history (and future) merits the attention and that his personality is well-regarded, he beams. And then he offers up an amusing summary of why folks might think that, from his star sign to his Myers-Briggs Type Indicator results.

“That’s cool to hear,” he says.

“That’s great! I dunno. But I’m a Scorpio. And an ENFJ. And even though everybody gets their moods, I surround myself with great people n and act the best I can.”

FEBRUARY 8-14, 2017

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HOMESPUN

THE MIGHTY PINES Blissful Visions soundcloud.com/themightypines

W

hen the roots-music quartet Acoustics Anonymous rechristened itself as the Mighty Pines in 2016, it signaled more than just a step away from a slightly hokey band name. The rebranding gave the group a chance to position itself as a serious touring outfit, according to mandolin player Gerard Erker, who also shares singing and songwriting duties with his band mates.

“When we started we were a four-piece without a drummer, playing in bars and having fun, joking around,” says Erker. “All of a sudden we were getting traction — we added a drummer and went on tour.”

The band’s ascendency through the city’s often-fluid roots-and-groove scene led to more frequent trips out of town – and suddenly Acoustics Anonymous was being asked to live up to its name. “From a business standpoint we weren’t a 100 percent acoustic band,” Erker continues, “and when we reach out to markets across the country we wanted a more solid, professional name. And it actually has proven to do exactly that; we’ve gotten better response on cold calls.”

Acoustics Anonymous put out a full-length called Honest & Wild three years ago, complete with fourpart harmonies, bluegrass-inspired riffs and an easy-going comfort within broad folk, roots and rock traditions. As the Mighty Pines, the band members continue to burrow in a few different directions while circling around deft musicianship and the bonhomie of shared vocals. The five-song EP Blissful Visions was released in the middle of last year, and it serves as a succinct re-introduction to the group (which, on this recording, includes bassist John Hussung, guitarists Neil Salsich and Drew Jameson and drummer Mike Murano alongside Erker).

Blissful Visions lives up to its peaceful, easy title often enough, but each songwriter finds a distinct foothold into the band’s collective sound. Erker’s “Snow Falls Down” tells of a bloody love triangle in a turgid, murder-ballad shuffle, striking a balance somewhere between the Fleet Foxes and the Devil Makes Three.

Jameson’s title track is a mellow slice of strummy beach-folk with lyrics of wanderlust; Salsich’s “Eastern Heart, Western Soul” takes some of that same existential grist but turns out an affecting soul-ballad, albeit one wrapped in the plucks of a banjo. The song serves as the centerpiece of this brief set and the best evidence of the depth of feeling the Mighty Pines are able to conjure.

The EP opens with the syncopated grooves of “Drivin’,” a tune that could easily be reworked as a Southern funk workout if you swapped the mandolin for a Clavinet. Erker composed the song after one of the band’s interstate trips. “That song, ‘Drivin’,’ I wrote that and that’s pretty much explicitly about tour life,” Erker says. “It’s kind of about the paranoia of driving — one of the lines is ‘if you look down you

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might wind up dead.’ You spend a lot of hard hours driving at night to get to a gig. You’ve got precious cargo — all of your bandmates and all of your gear.”

The roster of states that get name-checked in the lyrics — Colorado, Massachusetts, Vermont — aren’t purely aspirational destinations; since quitting their jobs to focus on the Mighty Pines full-time, the members regularly pack up the van and head out for a few weeks at a time.

Different regions yield different fan reactions. “In Colorado there are a lot of hippies and they seem to dig the jam-band side of it,” says Erker. “In the Northeast they like that we’re almost a boutique bluegrass band from the Midwest. In the Southern area they like a lot of mountain music, and there is a genuine appreciation for those good harmonies and mandolins and banjos. Every spot we’ve been to appreciates it for different reasons; they even dance differently to it.”

While the winter months are a traditional touring break for most bands, the Mighty Pines has spent the past few weeks honing its craft in a weekly residency at Venice Café on Wednesday nights. The gigs (which end on Wednesday, February 15) have also given the band a chance to recalibrate after a lineup change: Drew Jameson and the rest of the band had what Erker calls “a mutual parting of ways” a few months back (Erker still contributes to Jameson’s main project, Grass Fed Mule).

Those Venice Café gigs have also served as a public woodshed as the Mighty Pines prepare to record another album at the end of this month, a full-length at Wil Reeves’ Centro Cellar Studio in Columbia, Missouri.

“It was a good way to reconnect with our local community and almost rebuild your fan base or community,” he says. “It gives us a chance to tighten the screws on these new songs before we go into the studio. We just want to become as tight a band as possible, and one of the only ways to do that is to play together all the time.”

–Christian Schaeffer

Bowling the way it is now – FUN!

A St. Louis Landmark

Popcorn Shrimp Nachos

FPO

wonton chips topped with popcorn shrimp, cheese, shredded lettuce, salsa, sour cream and sriracha

SNOW BALL PARTY at the Moonrise Hotel

Friday, Jan 13

24/7

ICE CARNIVAL Have a hot bowl of our homemade chili!

Saturday, Jan 14 BlueberryHill.com BlueberryHill.com 6191 Delmar · 314-727-5555 PinUpBowl.com

BlueberryHill.StL BlueberryHill.StL DuckRoomSTL DuckRoomSTL

@BlueberryHillMO @BlueberryHillMO @DuckRoom @DuckRoom

JUST ON SALE NOW ON SALE NOW JUST JUST7:00 JUST 12PM JUST 12PM DOORS ON SALE FRIDAY ON SALE FRIDAY ADDED! ADDED! ADDED! ADDED! ADDED! SHOW 7:30

TUES. 2/28 SAT. 2/11

JUST DOORS 8:00 ADDED! SHOW 9:00

FRI. SAT.3/17 3/4

JUST

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ADDED! SHOW 8:00

ON SALE NOW

SUN. 4/23 THU. 1/12

JUST ADDED!

PeacockLoopDiner.com

SAT. FRI. 3/25 1/6

6261 Delmar in The Loop

ON SALE NOW

THU. 5/11 FRI. 1/13

fri. feb. 10 10PM Funky Butt Brass Band

“St. Louis pioneers of craft beer and live music”

sat. feb. 11 10PM

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9 TH

Lightrider, Oddsoul & The Sound, Casper Webs Rock - 7pm - $7

Marquise Knox Birthday Bash

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10 TH

Carpe Diem featuring; Peerless, The New Romans, OTGR and more - Hip Hop - 8pm - $10

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11 TH

SAM St Louis presents: An Evening of Magic, Comedy, and Cocktails - Variety - 6pm - $7children & seniors/$12 GM *BAR STAGE - Geeks Who Drink Pub Trivia - Trivia - 8:30pm - FREE

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 12 TH

Open Mic Night hosted by Music Mark Variety - 8pm - FREE

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15

TH

Geeks Who Drink - Pub Trivia - 8:30pm - FREE

UPCOMING SHOWS 2/17 Shapes, Tre Serpenti, The Right Hooks 2/18 WAU Showcase 2/24 The Raskins and Mad Libby 2/25 Captains Courageous and Fly Method

6691 Delmar

In the University City Loop

314.862.0009 • www.ciceros-stl.com

fri. feb. 17 9PM SAT. 2/11 1/14

WED. 2/15 TUE. 1/17

THU. 2/16

1/22 1/24 2/1 2/6 2/6

TALKING DREADS MONSTER TRUCK LUKE WADE thePOUR CHAIN GANG OF 1974 2/15 COLONY HOUSE

2/17 SCRAMBLED 2/18 VALERIE JUNE 2/21 YOU BLEW IT! 2/23 COMMON KINGS

3/1 TIFT MERRITT Hill 3/3(no BOOMTOWN UNITED 3/5 THE MENZINGERS Tickets available at Blueberry service fees with cash) & all Ticketmaster outlets.

3/6 VOODOO GLOW SKULLS 3/7 THE·WILD REEDS 3/10 NICK HAKIM Charge by phone 800-745-3000 Online at ticketmaster.com are at General Admission doors 7 pmcash) unless otherwise noted.outlets.

TicketsShows available Blueberry Hill (nowith service feesatwith & all Ticketmaster Charge by phone 800-745-3000 · Online at ticketmaster.com

Open 7 days from 11 am 6504 6504 Delmar in The Loop H 314-727-4444 riverfronttimes.com

NOLA Funk Blowout with Naughty Professor and Gravy

sat. feb. 18 10PM Jakes Leg

Thurs. feb. 23 7PM Andy Frasco and the UN with special guest Lawrence

feb. 25 grand parade 3PM Aaron Kamm and the One Drops 8PM Aquaducks Nashville Funk 736 S Broadway St. Louis, MO 63102

FEBRUARY 8-14, 2017

(314) 621-8811 RIVERFRONT TIMES

41

42

OUT EVERY NIGHT

THURSDAY 9

Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-

SUNDAY 12

Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-

AN EVENING WITH DAVY KNOWLES: 8 p.m., $15.

436-5222.

CAROLINE COTTER: 7 p.m., free. Evangeline’s,

621-8811.

Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-

MARLEYFEST 10: 9 p.m., $12. Blueberry Hill -

512 N Euclid Ave, St. Louis, 314-367-3644.

MUSIC UNLIMITED: 8 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues

773-3363.

The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University

K-CI & JOJO: 8 p.m., $35-$55. The Pageant, 6161

& Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-

CHERUB: w/ The Floozies, ProbCause 8 p.m.,

City, 314-727-4444.

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

5222.

$20-$22. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St.

MEAT WAVE: 7 p.m., $13. Fubar, 3108 Locust St,

KEITH MOYERS “GENESIS JAZZ PROJECT”: 5 p.m.,

SOULARD BLUES BAND: 9 p.m., $5. Broadway

Louis, 314-726-6161.

St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

$10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway,

Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-

KIM MASSIE: 10:30 p.m., $10. Beale on Broad-

OPTIMUS REX: w/ The Stars Go Out, Second

St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

621-8811.

way, 701 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-7880.

To All, Ben Diesel 7 p.m., $8-$10. Fubar, 3108

LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: 8:30 p.m., $10. BB’s

THIRD SIGHT BAND: 8 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues

LIGHTRIDER: w/ Oddsoul and the Sound, Casper

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

Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis,

& Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-

Webs 7 p.m., $7. Cicero’s, 6691 Delmar Blvd.,

RONNIE MILSAP: 8 p.m., $29-$39.50. River City

314-436-5222.

5222.

University City, 314-862-0009.

Casino & Hotel, 777 River City Casino Blvd., St.

SOUL REUNION: 10:30 p.m., $7. Beale on Broad-

MAYORAL FORUM ST. LOUIS: w/ Jeffery Boyd,

Louis, 314-388-7777.

way, 701 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-7880.

TUESDAY 14

Antonio French, Lyda Krewson, Lewis Reed 7

WAYNE HANCOCK: 8 p.m., $12. Off Broadway,

SUSTO: 7 p.m., free. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp

JAMAICA LIVE TUESDAYS: w/ Ital K, Mr. Roots, DJ

p.m., free. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester

3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363.

Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363.

Witz, $5/$10. Elmo’s Love Lounge, 7828 Olive

Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

WAYSIDE: w/ Codework, Tyler Samuels 7 p.m.,

PROLOGUE VI LISTENING PARTY: 6 p.m., free. Tick

$12. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis,

MONDAY 13

Tock Tavern, 3459 Magnolia Ave, St. Louis.

314-535-0353.

THE BOTTLESNAKES: 6 p.m., $7. Broadway

Blvd, University City, 314-282-5561.

KIM MASSIE: 10:30 p.m., $10. Beale on Broad-

Continued on pg 44

RED CITY RADIO: 8 p.m., $10-$12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

VIBE STREET: w/ Evanoff 9 p.m., $10-$12. Old

[CRITIC’S PICK]

Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-5880505.

FRIDAY 10 CARPE DIEM: w/ Peerless, The New Romans, OTG 8 p.m., $10. Cicero’s, 6691 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-862-0009.

DENNIS DEYOUNG: 8 p.m., $45-$65. River City Casino & Hotel, 777 River City Casino Blvd., St. Louis, 314-388-7777.

ERK ESCOBAR: 9 p.m., $10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

JUDY COLLINS: 8 p.m., $40-$45. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900.

MOM’S KITCHEN (A TRIBUTE TO WIDESPREAD PANIC): 9 p.m., $10. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

PHUTUREPRIMITIVE: 8 p.m., $12-$15. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314833-3929.

RIVERBEND: w/ Greg Silsby 8 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-7733363.

SAFETYSUIT: 8 p.m., $15. Old Rock House, 1200

Harm’s Way. | PRESS PHOTO VIA DEATHWISH INC.

S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

TAYLOR SCOTT BAND: 10:30 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-

Harm’s Way

436-5222.

7 p.m. Saturday, February 11.

TRACY NELSON & THE BEL AIRS: 7 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

SATURDAY 11 EVERY TIME I DIE: w/ Knocked Loose, Harm’s Way, Eternal Sleep 7 p.m., $20-$23. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314833-3929.

K.FLAY: 8 p.m., $15-$18. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

LARRY GRIFFIN & ERIC MCSPADDEN: 7 p.m., $5.

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

The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Avenue. $20 to $23. 314-833-3929.

Harm’s Way has come pretty far since its humble beginnings. The Chicago act was founded as a side project to the straight-edge punk band the Few and the Proud, and in its early days served mostly as an excuse for its members to play short, fast powerviolence songs while enormously muscle-bound singer James Pligge wore a mask and scared the shit out of everyone. (The band’s performance at Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center for Hardcore Halloween, roughly a decade ago, featured multiple Infest covers and a

LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz,

42

RIVERFRONT TIMES

FEBRUARY 8-14, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

jack-o-lantern pulled over Pligge’s head.) Since signing with Deathwish Inc. in 2013, Harm’s Way has matured past those early antics, slowing its sound and incorporating elements of death metal and even industrial music into its heavier-than-uranium songs. One thing remains the same, though: Pligge is a giant monster who will crush you and eat your bones.

Heavy Hitters: Harm’s Way comes to town as support for Epitath metalcore act Every Time I Die, along with Knocked Loose and Eternal Sleep.

— Daniel Hill

MARDI GRAS FEB 25

Produced in association with

RED BULL

FEB. 25TH

SOULARD GRAND PARADE EPICENTER

Big_Once

Red Bull Thre3style National Champion

WITH ST. LOUIS LEGENDS

DJ VThom | DJ Mahf | Nappy DJ Needles

ALL INCLUSIVE DRINKS - HEATED TENT - PRIVATE TOILETS

12 HOURS OF OPEN BAR GET YOUR TICKETS NOW E N T E R TA I N M E N T , F OO D & M O R E

Tickets now on sale on eventbrite.com Duke’s Tent 2017 Like us on Facebook @ dukesinsoulard

MOLLYSINSOULARD.COM riverfronttimes.com

FEBRUARY 8-14, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

43

THE HAUNT FE B1 2th

5000 Alaska Ave

G ET in The Grove FO R EXC I T I N G D R I N K I N G, D I N I N G, DA N C I N G, & S H O P P I N G!

AQUARIUS PARTY Free Haunt glass for the first 10 Aquarians

T H EG ROV EST L.C O M

March 17TH Diamond Cut Blues Band March 18TH Live, Nude, Rude and Unplugged

SANDWICHKINGZ

OPEN POOL TABLE EVERY MONDAY AND TUESDAY KARAOKE MADNESS EVERY THURSDAY AT 9PM

February Burger of the Month: “The Full Monte”

Happy Hour 3-7 Every Day $2 domestics & Rails

Grilled turkey burger, sliced ham & melted swiss on sourdough french toast with powdered sugar and pure maple syrup Hummus of the Month: Edamame Cilantro

4317 Manchester Rd in the Grove 314.553.9252 | laylastl.com

HOME TO THE MUSIC SHOWCASE e v e r y j u n e i n t h e g r ov e

44

RIVERFRONT TIMES

FEBRUARY 8-14, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

FULL SANDWICH AND SOUP MENU UNTIL 2:30 AM 2 0 B E E R S O N TA P, R O TAT I N G S E L E C T I O N O F B O T T L E S A N D C A N S POOL, DARTS, PINBALL, VIDEO GAMES D J S T H U R S D AY- S U N D AY • L I V E M U S I C 1 P M F R I D AY, S AT U R D AY & S U N D AY

4243 MANCHESTER AVE. | 314-531-5700 | GRAMOPHONESTL.COM

OUT EVERY NIGHT Continued from pg 42 [CRITIC’S PICK]

DANCE PARTY EVERY FRIDAY DUKE’S BALCONY BAR

Susto. | PHOTO BY PAUL CHELMIS

Susto 8:30 p.m. Sunday, February 12.

Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue. Free. 314-7733363.

A literal translation of the Spanish term “susto” would be something like “soul-crushing panic” — and that’s about as far as the allusion goes when it comes to the mellow and melodic country-rock band Susto. Led by songwriter Justin Osborne, the South Carolina-based band specializes in the kind of cosmic American music made by Gram Parsons, only with zero aversion to grandly mixed piano

chords and strings and no fear of dicey, existential themes — as represented by the wonderful character sketch “Gay in the South” and the equally salutary “Wasted Mind,” a dusty hymn to getting high just because a good trip brings people together. If that’s not cosmic, nothing is.

Why so Cereus? Knoxville, Tennessee band Cereus Bright kicks off the night with thoughtful, charging Lumineers-style folk-rock (minus the cloying “ho”s and “hey”s).

way, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

ROBERT ELLIS AND JENNY O: 8 p.m., $15. Off

BOB “BUMBLE BEE” KAMOSKE: 8 p.m. Beale on

Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-

Broadway, 701 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-

3363.

7880.

ST. LOUIS SOCIAL CLUB: 8 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz,

COLONY HOUSE: 8 p.m., $14-$16. Blueberry Hill -

Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-

The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University

436-5222.

City, 314-727-4444.

ST. LOUIS-LAUGH-A-THON: w/ Earthquake,

ERIN SCHREIBER & LINDSAY GARRITSON: 8 p.m.,

Don “DC” Curry, Michael Blackson, Huggy

$15-$30. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd.,

Lowdown, Damon Williams 8 p.m., $42.50-

St. Louis, 314-533-9900.

$99. Peabody Opera House, 1400 Market St, St.

JOSH GARRETT BAND: 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz,

Louis, 314-241-1888.

Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-

WILL DOWNING: w/ The Coleman-Hughes Project

436-5222.

7 p.m., $67.50. Harris-Stowe State University,

WILLIAM PAULEY BENEFIT SHOW: w/ The Poor-

3026 Laclede Ave., St. Louis, 314-340-3366.

house Says, Zach’s Wraith 8 p.m., $10. The

ADAM DEVINE: 7 p.m., $35-$40. The Pageant,

9:00 pm

— Roy Kasten

way, 701 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-7880.

WEDNESDAY 15

Featuring DJ Dan C

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

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

THIS JUST IN

ANGELICA GARCIA: 8 p.m., $10. Off Broadway,

ALCOA: W/ Spill, Jake Clarke, Cash Basket, Thu.,

3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363.

May 25, 7 p.m., $10. The Firebird, 2706 Olive

BAND OF HEATHENS: 8 p.m., $13-$15. Old Rock

St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

ANGEL PRESENTS SOUL SEARCHING: Mon., Feb.

BIG RICH MCDONOUGH & RHYTHM RENEGADES: 7

27, 8 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S.

p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broad-

Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

Duke’s Crab Cakes Benedict Bottomless Mimosas & Bloodys 10:00 am - 2:00 pm

BRUNCH

EVERY SATURDAY & SUNDAY 2001 Menard (Corner of Menard & Allen) in the Heart of Soulard Tel: (314) 833-6686

Continued on pg 46

riverfronttimes.com

FEBRUARY 8-14, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

45

THIS JUST IN Continued from pg 44

[CRITIC’S PICK]

St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

MIRAH: Tue., Feb. 28, 8 p.m., $12. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd.,

BARNS COURTNEY: W/ Tom Grennan, Sat., June

University City, 314-727-4444.

24, 8 p.m., $16-$19. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St.,

MORGAN JAMES: Thu., May 25, 8 p.m., $20-

St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

$35. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave,

THE BEL AIRS: Sat., Feb. 25, 9 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz,

St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-

MOUNTAIN SPROUT: Fri., May 5, 9 p.m., $10-

436-5222.

$12. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis,

BIG JESUS: Thu., March 30, 8 p.m., $10-$12.

314-773-3363.

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

MUSE: W/ Thirty Seconds to Mars, Tue., June

BILLY JOEL: Thu., Sept. 21, 8 p.m., $49.50-

13, 6 p.m., $30-$99.50. Hollywood Casino

$139.50. Busch Stadium, Broadway & Poplar

Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy.,

St., St. Louis, 314-345-9600.

Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

THE BLACK ANGELS: W/ A Place To Bury Strang-

MUSIC UNLIMITED: Mon., Feb. 20, 8 p.m., $5.

ers, Mon., May 15, 9 p.m., $25. Delmar Hall,

BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St.

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

Louis, 314-436-5222.

BLIND SHEPHERD: W/ Sozorox, Frago, The Right

PETER BRADLEY ADAMS: Sun., April 23, 8 p.m.,

Hooks, Escape Theory, Sat., Feb. 25, 7 p.m., $10.

$15. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504

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

Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

BLIND WILLIE & THE BROADWAY COLLECTIVE:

Robert Ellis. | PRESS PHOTO VIA THE BILLIONS CORPORATION

Tue., Feb. 28, 9:30 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-4365222.

Robert Ellis

REGGIE AND THE FULL EFFECT: Sat., April 15, 8 p.m., $15-$18. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

SAMANTHA CRAIN: Tue., May 9, 8 p.m., free.

Robert Ellis’ self-titled record, his fourth overall, didn’t make nearly as big a splash in 2016 as it should have.

The Houston native works with classic country tones and twang, as well as flashes of pop and the litheness of jazz; he’s hard to pin down musically.

Lyrically, too, Ellis offers an intentionally thorny path through the elations and degradations of romance. But it all makes sense on the record, from

the booming sparkle of “How I Love You” to the slow-burn heartache of “California.” Who better to spend Valentine’s Day with than someone who can offer a grand tour of the human heart?

Famous Friends: On his last trip through town in June, Ellis was joined by fellow Texan Leon Bridges, who was playing a sold-out show the next night at the Pageant. This time he’ll be joined by Jenny O., who will open the show and likely join Ellis for a few songs.

— Christian Schaeffer

DALTON DOMINO: Tue., May 2, 8 p.m., $10. Off

April 15, 8 p.m., $20-$22.50. The Pageant, 6161

GADES: Wed., Feb. 22, 7 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz,

TODRICK HALL: Sun., April 9, 8 p.m., $30-$100.

Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-

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

Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis,

The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St.

3363.

GREEN MCDONOUGH BAND: Fri., Feb. 24, 10 p.m.,

314-436-5222.

Louis, 314-533-9900.

DANNY GATTON TRIBUTE: Sun., Feb. 26, 5 p.m.,

$10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway,

LADY GAGA: Thu., Nov. 16, 6 p.m., $45-$225.

TOM HALL: Sat., Feb. 25, 6 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz,

$10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway,

St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

Scottrade Center, 1401 Clark Ave., St. Louis,

Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis,

St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

GREENLEAF: W/ Yawning Man, The Judge,

314-241-1888.

314-436-5222.

DAVID BEEMAN / THE DEATH DUAL CASSETTE RE-

Spacetrucker, Sat., March 11, 8 p.m., $12-$14.

LEELA JAMES & DALEY: Thu., April 20, 8 p.m.,

TOMMY CASTRO & MIKE ZITO: W/ Six Strings

LEASE: Fri., Feb. 24, 9 p.m., $10. Off Broadway,

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

$25-$30. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester

Down, Thu., May 11, 8 p.m., $20-$22. Old

3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363.

JAMES TAYLOR: Sat., April 29, 8 p.m., $65. Pea-

Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-

DAY WAVE: Tue., June 20, 8 p.m., $16-$18. Off

body Opera House, 1400 Market St, St. Louis,

LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: Sun., Feb. 26, 8:30

588-0505.

Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-

314-241-1888.

p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S.

VOTE WOKE: W/ Fire Dog, Prospect, AndroBe-

3363.

JOE & VICKI PRICE: Thu., Feb. 23, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s

Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

at, Centipede, Devon Cahill, DJ Whiz, Obvi-

DOPAPOD: W/ The Werks, Wed., April 19, 9 p.m.,

Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis,

MAGIC CITY RECORD RELEASE: W/ Redmouth,

ously Offbeat, Fri., Feb. 24, 7:30 p.m., free.

$15-$18. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester

314-436-5222.

Bug Chaser, Fri., March 31, 8 p.m., $10. Off

Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St.

Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

JOE HERTLER & THE RAINBOW SEEKERS: Thu.,

Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-

Louis, 314-772-2100.

ERIC GALES: Thu., March 9, 8 p.m., $15. Old

May 11, 8 p.m., $15. Blueberry Hill - The Duck

773-3363.

WEEDEATER: W/ Beitthemeans, Sun., March

Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-

Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-

MARTY SPIKENER & THE ON CALL BAND: Wed.,

19, 7 p.m., $15-$18. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St.

0505.

727-4444.

Feb. 22, 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups,

Louis, 314-289-9050.

FLUX PAVILION: W/ KAYZO, Wilkinson, Thu.,

JOE PASTOR LEGACY JAZZ BAND: Tue., Feb. 21,

700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

WILLIAM PAULEY BENEFIT SHOW: W/ The Poor-

May 18, 8 p.m., $20-$25. The Pageant, 6161

6 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S.

MEMPHIS MAY FIRE: W/ blessthefall, The Color

house Says, Zach’s Wraith, Wed., Feb. 15, 8

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

Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

Morale, Sylar, Bad Seed Rising, Fri., March

p.m., $10. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester

FUTURE ISLANDS: Mon., June 5, 8 p.m., $22-$25.

JOHN LEGEND: Thu., June 15, 7:30 p.m., $58-

10, 6 p.m., $20-$23. The Ready Room, 4195

Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis,

$128. The Fox Theatre, 527 N. Grand Blvd.,

Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

XENIA RUBINOS: Wed., March 29, 8 p.m.,

314-726-6161.

St. Louis, 314-534-1111.

MICHAEL MCDERMOTT: Fri., March 17, 8 p.m.,

$10-$12. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St.

GENE DOBBS BRADFORD CONCERT: Sun., Feb.

JULIAN LAGE AND CHRIS ELDRIDGE: Wed., Feb.

$15. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504

Louis, 314-588-0505.

19, 2 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S.

22, 8 p.m., $25. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp

Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

ZAKK SABBATH: W/ Beastmaker, Sun., May 28,

Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

Ave., St. Louis, 314-773-3363.

MIDWEST AVENGERS: W/ Mr. I, Red Zero, Fri.,

9 p.m., $27.50-$30. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St.

GRAFFITI BRIDGE: A TRIBUTE TO PRINCE: Sat.,

KENNY “BLUES BOSS” WAYNE & RHYTHM RENE-

April 28, 7 p.m., $10. The Firebird, 2706 Olive

Louis, 314-289-9050.

BOB CASE & THE WILD ACCUSATIONS: Sat., Feb.

8 p.m. Tuesday, February 14.

25, 2 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S.

Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue. $15. 314-7733363.

Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

THE BOTTLESNAKES: Mon., Feb. 13, 6 p.m., $7.

Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

BROTHER JEFFERSON: Fri., Feb. 24, 7 p.m., $5.

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

CAROLINE COTTER: Sun., Feb. 12, 7 p.m., free.

Evangeline’s, 512 N Euclid Ave, St. Louis, 314367-3644.

CHRIS ROBINSON BROTHERHOOD: Sun., April 2, 8 p.m., $20-$23. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

THE CLAUDETTES: Thu., March 16, 8 p.m., $10.

Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-

RIVERFRONT TIMES

314-773-3363.

SHUT THE FOLK UP AND LISTEN: W/ Keller Williams and Leo Kottke, Thu., March 9, 9 p.m., $42-$46. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900.

ST. LOUIS SOCIAL CLUB: Tue., Feb. 21, 8:30 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

SWEETIE & THE TOOTHACHES: Tue., Feb. 28, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

THE BUMP & HUSTLE NO. 55: W/ Mophono, DJ Makossa, Sat., Feb. 18, 9 p.m., $5. Blank Space, 2847 Cherokee St., St. Louis.

THIRD SIGHT BAND: Mon., Feb. 13, 8 p.m., $5.

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

773-3363.

46

Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis,

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FEBRUARY 28, 2017 48

SPACE RESERVATION 02.21.17 FOR ADVERTISING CALL 314.754.5914

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SAVAGE LOVE WILBUR & RENSSELAER

BY DAN SAVAGE Last week, I spoke at the Wilbur Theater in Boston and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. Audience members submitted their questions on tiny cards before the show, allowing them to remain anonymous while forcing them to be succinct. Here are some of the questions I didn’t have time to get to at both events…

My girlfriend wants to explore her sexuality with another woman but be “heterosexually exclusive” with me. She wants me to have equal freedom but doesn’t think it’s fair for me to be with another woman.

I am a heterosexual man. How can we achieve sexual equality?

An open relationship for her but a closed-on-a-technicality relationship for you? Yeah, no. Want to achieve sexual equality? Explore your sexuality with other women — as a single man.

I am a 50-year-old queer man who never really came out — except to people I’m cruising or fucking. Oh, and to my wife. Is there any social or political value to coming out now, in the shadow of a Trump presidency?

There’s tremendous social and political value to being out, whoever the president is. There’s also social and political risk, whoever the president is. If you’re in a position to come out — and you must be, otherwise you wouldn’t be asking — not coming out is a moral failing.

When I’ve tried to do the fuck buddy thing, I’ve gotten attached. Any way to avoid that?

Only do the fuck buddy thing with Republicans.

I’m a 31-year-old straight female.

I have an intermittent sexual relationship with a married polyamorous friend. Each time we hook up, he says he regrets it. But several months later, he will contact me and we will hook up again. Should I say no? What do you think is up?

Your friend’s head is what’s up — up his own ass. Stop letting him stick his dick up yours. (P.S. His regret has me wondering if his marriage is actually open or if he’s cheating on his wife. If you’ve never discussed their polyamorous arrangement with her, that probably what’s up.)

Why are liberals OK with people self-identifying their gender but not their race? Aren’t both considered social constructs?

“If race and gender are both social constructs,” Evan Urquhart writes at Slate, “and if both have been built around observable biological traits, then what is the crucial difference that makes a felt gender identity a true one, but a felt racial identity fraudulent? The short answer is that most trans people and their allies suspect that transgender people are born that way.” (Google “Evan Urquhart,” “trans” and “race” to read the rest of his essay.)

How do you get over the guilt of being a straight guy? I used to feel a lot of sexual shame from hearing that

men are pigs all the time. I got over most of it, but I still have leftover shame. I want to be respectful of women without having to take responsibility for the actions of every asshole straight man out there.

As a gay man, I’m not responsible for the actions of Roy Cohn, Jeffrey Dahmer and Peter Thiel. Likewise, I deserve no credit for the accomplishments of Michelangelo, Alan Turing and Stephen Sondheim.

When you feel the shame and guilt welling up, all you can do is remind yourself that you’re not responsible for the piggishness of Donald Trump or the awesomeness of Chris Kluwe. (And just to complicate things: While most straight women hate straight male pigs, most straight women want their men to be pigs — but only now and then, and only for them. A dash of controlled/vestigial piggishness is a desirable trait, not a disqualifying one.)

Fuck, marry, kill: Donald Trump, Rick Santorum, Mike Pence.

Fuck everything, call off the wedding, kill myself.

I see you’ve resurrected your ITMFA campaign. (Bragging rights: I got the Mass license plate ITMFA. The DMV tried to take it back when someone complained, and the ACLU won the case for me! I removed the plate, of course, after Obama won.)

My question: If Trump is removed from office — if we “impeach the motherfucker already” — we’ll have Mike Pence. Do you really think he’d be any better?

We already have Mike Pence.

49

And Pence, as awful as he is, oscillates within a predictable band of Republican awfulness. With a President Pence, we’ll get shitty Supreme Court nominees, attacks on queers and people of color, and fiscal mismanagement. With President Trump, we get all that plus war with Mexico and Australia. And you don’t have to remove your ITMFA buttons once Trump is removed from office — keep ’em on until Pence is impeached, too.

Speaking of impeachment: Four in ten Americans support impeaching Trump. Nixon didn’t hit that number until eighteen months into the Watergate scandal. And speaking of my ITMFA campaign: We’ve already raised $100,000 at ITMFA.org, with all proceeds going to the ACLU, Planned Parenthood and the International Refugee Assistance Project. Get your ITMFA hats, buttons and T-shirts at ITMFA. org! (Coming soon: coffee mugs and stickers!)

DEAR READERS: Valentine’s Day is coming up. This is your annual reminder to #FuckFirst — have sex and then go out to dinner. Don’t have a heavy meal, drink, eat some chocolate gut bomb of a dessert and then write to me on the 15th whining about how you didn’t get laid on the 14th. Fuck first! Or better yet, stay home and fuck all night on the 14th and go out to dinner on the 15th. You’re welcome.

Listen to Dan’s podcast at savagelovecast.com. mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage on Twitter

STREAK’S CORNER • by Bob Stretch

riverfronttimes.com

FEBRUARY 8-14, 2017

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Professional Valet Attendants 4 full & part time 4 proficient in Englis 4 professional appearance 4 18 years of age 4 valid drivers license 4 able to drive stick shift 4 pass background check 4 clean DMV driving record

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Mail to Mercy Clinic East Communities, JH, 645 Maryville Centre Dr. #100 STL, MO 63141-5846.

Physician-Internal Medicine (Festus, MO): In hospital setting, treat in-patients throughout & incl those in CCU and outpatient pulmonology clinic. Reqs Med degree/foreign equiv, 3 years Internal Med residency, immed eligibility to get perm MO license. Full Time.

Mail to Mercy Clinic East Communities, JH, 645 Maryville Centre Dr. #100 STL, MO 63141-5846.

167 Restaurants/Hotels/Clubs

120 Drivers/Delivery/Courier

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HAZELWOOD 233 Village Square Cntr • (314) 731-1212 FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS 10900 Lincoln Tr. • (618) 394-9479

Unless otherwise limited, prices are good through Tuesday following publication date. Installed price offers are for product purchased from Audio Express installed in factory-ready locations. Custom work at added cost. Kits, antennas and cables additional. Added charges for shop supplies and environmental disposal where mandated. Illustrations similar. Video pictures may be simulated. Not responsible for typographic errors. Savings off MSRP or our original sales price, may include install savings. Intermediate markdowns may have been taken. Details, conditions and restrictions of manufacturer promotional offers at respective websites. Price match applies to new, non-promotional items from authorized sellers; excludes “shopping cart” or other hidden specials. © 2017, Audio Express.

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RIVERFRONT TIMES

FEBRUARY 8-14, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

AUDIO EXPRESS!

Lowest Installed Price In Town — Every Time!