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THE LEDE
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“ I’m here for Michael Brown. I still believe that we can get justice for him and that’s what I’m here for. They got Bob McCulloch out of office, and even if they didn’t I would have been down here. Because I do believe that there is a way. They’re still out here and they don’t give up. So I’m out here with them.” Garrick rawls, photoGraphed protestinG durinG the shutdown of ferGuson Market and liquor on auGust 9
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TABLE OF CONTENTS FEATURE
16.
Schooled
Virtual education is increasingly a big profit center. But at what price to kids? Written by
ERIC BERGER
Cover illustration by
TOM CARLSON
NEWS
ARTS
DINING
CULTURE
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30
35
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The Lede
Calendar
Your friend or neighbor, captured on camera
Seven days’ worth of great stuff to see and do
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Stage
Criminal Justice
Paul Friswold swoons for The Light in the Piazza
Sentenced to eight years in prison, Josh Williams dreams of returning to the protest community
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Politics
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Film
BlacKkKlansman is a masterpiece, writes Robert Hunt
St. Louis County says “bye, Bob” and the only people not surprised are the ones who worked for Wesley Bell’s campaign
Cafe
Homespun
Cheryl Baehr surveys the bold offerings at Firecracker Pizza & Beer
St. Louis native Ian Fisher is gaining national press for Idle Hands
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Expert Opinion
Ron Buechele offers his picks for the city’s best barbecue
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First Look
Preview
Jimmy Tebeau is heading home to the land the government seized from him
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Metal
Sarah Fenske visits BLT’s, while Lexie Miller checks out the fun and food at TBD Bar + Social
Black Fast celebrates its new album’s release
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Food News
Balkan Treat Box prepares to open a new brick-and-mortar restaurant in Webster Groves
Out Every Night
The best concerts in St. Louis every night of the week
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This Just In
This week’s new concert announcements
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Savage Love 6
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Publisher Chris Keating Editor in Chief Sarah Fenske E D I T O R I A L Arts & Culture Editor Paul Friswold Music Editor Daniel Hill Digital Editor Jaime Lees Staff Writers Doyle Murphy, Danny Wicentowski Restaurant Critic Cheryl Baehr Film Critic Robert Hunt Editorial Interns Alison Gold, Mario Miles-Turnage, Lexie Miller, Camille Respess, Ian Scott Contributing Writers Mike Appelstein, Allison Babka, Sara Graham, Roy Kasten, Jaime Lees, Joseph Hess, Kevin Korinek, Bob McMahon, Nicholas Phillips, Tef Poe, Christian Schaeffer, Lauren Milford, Thomas Crone, MaryAnn Johanson, Jenn DeRose, Mike Fitzgerald Proofreader Evie Hemphill Cartoonist Bob Stretch
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NEWS
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Supporters made Josh Williams’ case the center of an August 3 protest and press conference at the Clayton Justice Center. | LEXIE MILLER
From Prison, He Dreams of Protest Written by
DANNY WICENTOWSKI
F
our years ago, on a Saturday in August, Josh Williams took a bus from his home in Bellefontaine Neighbors to Ferguson. What he saw there changed his life, yet the next four months would see him go from protester to prison inmate. At the time, Williams was an eighteen-year-old north-county kid, the same age as Michael Brown when he was shot and killed by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson on August 9, 2014. Overnight, Williams found himself in a protest movement that no one saw coming — and, as the country would soon discover, one
that refused to be ignored. Williams seemed to be everywhere. He was facing picket lines of officers at the Ferguson Police Department. He was speaking at community meetings and walking arm-in-arm with Cornel West. He was flying across the country, turning up in Chicago, Ohio and Washington, D.C., where he joined with other activists and comforted families reeling from the deaths of sons shot dead by police officers. During protests around Ferguson and St. Louis, Williams was unmissable — his favored outfits featured an American flag bandana, chunky green sunglasses and a bright red sweatshirt. He frequently carried a megaphone, though he certainly didn’t need it to make his voice heard. To those close to him, Williams was a goofball, indelibly friendly, passionate about his newfound mission and eager to learn. Yet he could be intense. During a December 2014 meeting of the Ferguson Commission, he and other protesters confronted St. Louis
Police Chief Sam Dotson, shouting down the chief’s platitudes about planned reforms. Williams managed to get within a couple feet of Dotson, and, with just a wooden podium separating him from the city’s top police official, called him a liar — or, more precisely, a “lying fucking ho.” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch led its coverage with a photo of Williams. By the winter of 2014, the Ferguson movement was growing beyond street protests. Groups of activists were planting seeds of political change that would reshape the region, and eventually culminate in Wesley Bell’s electoral victory last week against 27year incumbent St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch — the very official responsible for the non-indictment of Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson (see page 11). Yet Williams’ life took a sudden turn that December. And even as so much has changed in St. Louis in the four years since, Williams, now 22, has found himself stuck. “Being in prison, it’s like time stands still,” he says, his voice car-
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rying over the phone line from a maximum security prison in Jefferson City. “You’re frozen. Everything in the world is going on without you.”
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illiams is in prison on an eight-year sentence for arson and burglary. The charges stem from a night of protest that erupted at a north-county Mobil station on December 23, 2014. It was almost Christmas Eve, and that night Williams had been on his way to a hotel party with other protesters. Then the texts started coming in. “At the time, everyone in the movement had news alerts,” Williams remembers, “and we got the text that Antonio Martin got shot down. We dropped everything and went out there.” The protest that night quickly filled the gas station’s parking lot, and, as another participant later recalled, the atmosphere grew “rowdy.” The parallels to Brown’s death were immediately striking: Martin, too, was just eighteen,
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JOSH WILLIAMS Continued from pg 9
and he’d been shot by a Berkeley police officer responding to a 911 call about a burglary. The details weren’t clear yet, other than that a black teen was dead. Protesters stormed the parking lot. They were furious. “The feeling that night, it was high energy,” Williams says. “I really wasn’t thinking that night. After all we been through, it happened again. That’s the reason I had an attitude, like, forget everything. Because the government is not hearing us until we do something — until we make them hear us.” As December 24 dawned, hundreds of protesters packed the parking lot. They crowded around police cars, challenging the officers. The scene quickly unraveled. Someone broke the back window of a police cruiser; officers deployed mace and threw people to the ground. Then someone threw a firework that exploded next to a gas pump. The detonation sent sparks and smoke arching over the panicked crowd. The scene continued to splinter. Police arrested several protesters, but others scattered. One group of protesters rushed to shut down a nearby stretch of Interstate 70. But others had plans that went beyond civil disobedience. With their faces covered by hoods and baseball caps, they moved toward a QuikTrip across the street. Activist Tory Russell was with Williams that night. “He was hella mad, I was mad too,” he recalls. “He ran off to the gas station, I actually picked him up. I actually walked him back into the street.” But in the chaos, it was hard to keep track of the teenager. Russell adds, “I wish I would have just took him away.” Williams managed to wrestle away from the older activist. When people began looting the Quiktrip, Williams joined in. From a vantage point across the street, a Fox-2 cameraman filmed more than a dozen people entering the store. In the footage, you can see some emerging carrying cases of beer and other items. Then a familiar figure in a red sweatshirt enters the frame. The camera records as Williams douses a pile of wood with lighter fluid, and then, as the blue flame builds higher, he uses one of the logs to ignite a magazine rack inside the store. Asked about it today, Williams says he’s embarrassed by what he
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Josh Williams rallies protesters in 2014. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI
did. At the time, he had no criminal record, and he was identified with a protest movement that was under constant criticism — much of it unfair — for violence that often broke out at the fringes of demonstrations. And Williams acknowledges that the QuikTrip had nothing to with the police shooting of Martin. “I have regret for what I did to the building,” he says. “But not what I went out there for that night. I went out there to show support for the family.” The fire was extinguished in minutes — in fact, the footage appears to show it being doused and stomped out by other figures entering the store — but the Fox-2 cameraman had already notified the police, and the footage made the news. Fox-2 would eventually provide fourteen minutes of raw tape to the St. Louis County prosecutor. Two days later, Williams was arrested by St. Louis County police. The protest community was shocked, and a group immediately showed up outside the Justice Center in Clayton. At first, they didn’t believe the police statement claiming that Williams had confessed on video. But he had. According to a transcript of the interrogation, Williams initially claimed he’d given his distinctive red sweatshirt to different man, but detectives pressed him. They had video and photographs of the scene, they told him. One detective, Rob Keithley, played the good cop. “Everybody does something stu-
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“I have regret for what I did to the building, but not what I went out there for that night. I went out there to show support for the family.” pid, OK?” Keithley told Williams. “You seem like a good kid to me. I see no reason why we can’t get this resolved, OK?” Under Keithley’s gentle pressure, Williams confessed. Eleven months later, he pleaded guilty to felony charges of arson and burglary connected to items he’d taken from inside the gas station — a lighter, a pack of gum and some money from the cash register. His sentencing hearing, however, didn’t follow the conciliatory tone of the interrogation room. Supporters left the room on December 10, 2015, outraged and heartbroken. Ferguson activist Kayla Reed tweeted after the hearing that the prosecutor had asked the judge “to make an example of him so others know we won’t tolerate
this behavior.” Williams’ lawyer, too, claimed that his client had been unfairly branded as representative of all the violence that had broken out in the past year of demonstrations and protests. “I think Josh wound up paying a price for a lot of things going on in Ferguson that he was not responsible for,” the attorney, Nick Zotos, told RFT shortly after the sentencing hearing. “He did attempt to light a fire, but his sentence is completely disproportionate to the conduct.” While Williams wasn’t the only front-line protester to face criminal charges, his was the longest sentence by far. As the years have passed, his supporters tried to bolster his spirits with postcards, letters and phone calls. On TV, he watched the images of subsequent protests and additional police shootings. He watched people filling the streets in St. Louis last summer, as a collection of new and veteran activists called for justice after the acquittal of former St. Louis cop Jason Stockley. Williams hasn’t been forgotten. Even as protesters who’d risen in Ferguson turned to political activism, they have repeatedly raised Williams’ name, calling attention to the outspoken youth they’d known and cared for. They peppered protest chants with “Free Josh!” and “Justice for Josh Williams!” In the last month, those calls have grown louder still.
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n August 3, protesters returned to the Justice Center in Clayton. They came with demands. “Joshua Williams is a community activist whose life was snatched after one bad decision,” Ebony Williams (no relation) said during a press conference. “We’re asking Governor Mike Parson to pardon Joshua and to release him to the many supporters and family who love and care about him as a civilian and dedicated community member.” A representative from the ACLU of Missouri told the crowd that the civil rights organization stood with the effort, and that Williams “is a young man who should be heading for college, not prison.” Heather Taylor, the president of the Ethical Society for Police, noted that Williams was part of a long trend of “examples.” “The truth is that black, brown and poor people are always the examples,” she said. “It’s ridiculous.” Next to speak was state RepContinued on pg 11
Bell Had County Saying ‘Bye Bob’ Written by
DANNY WICENTOWSKI
I
n a strip mall parking lot in St. Ann, two campaign volunteers for Wesley Bell toss a Frisbee back and forth across the dark asphalt. It is 9 p.m. on August 7, roughly two hours before St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch will concede his firstever election loss to Bell. Instead of cruising to an eighth term, the pro-police prosecutor, who generated national controversy for his handling of the Michael Brown shooting, will be headed to defeat. At this point of the night, though, most of Bell’s supporters are posted up at a nearby Mexican restaurant. They’re watching laptop screens, refreshing their smartphone’s browsers and studying the TVs tuned to local and national news. Many have that election-night look, simultaneously intense and hesitant. It’s a gambler’s look. A dreamer’s. Bell’s campaign manager Josi Nielsen, one of the Frisbee throwers, does not have that look. She’s remarkably calm. She says she already knows how the election will end. “I’ve been saying for it two
JOSH WILLIAMS Continued from pg 10
resentative Bruce Franks (D-St. Louis). He’d known Williams personally — both were protesters in Ferguson, and Franks was at the December 23, 2014, protest in Berkeley. Franks was among those arrested that night. Franks said he’d already had preliminary meetings with Governor Parson, and that he was “cautiously optimistic” about efforts to seek clemency or pardon for Williams. “This kid should not be in jail,” Franks said. “Josh was amazing, bubbly, a goofy kid that had a lot of energy who was angry at the things that he saw.” Franks added, “He’ll be a Ferguson protester forever, so will all of us.”
months,” she remarks. “We won.” We won? With so few votes counted, it sounds like a bit of campaign bluster, something to tell the volunteers to get them to knock of a couple more doors on a weekend. It’s a bold stance for election night, especially considering Bell is an underdog’s underdog — McCulloch won seven previous elections on a law-and-order platform, and this time around again took the endorsements of local unions and both the county and city police officers’ associations. Beyond that, just 24.7 percent of county voters are black. Bell, a Ferguson city council member and municipal prosecutor who has never prosecuted a criminal case, was an easy target for McCulloch’s criticism. He wasn’t experienced enough for the job of running a 60-prosecutor office, McCulloch told interviewers, dismissing Bell as a prop being used by meddling activist groups that didn’t really understand the justice system. Bell challenged that critique at every turn. He promised to reform the county’s use of cash bail and increase diversion programs. His campaign also sought to make the election a referendum on the events of Ferguson four years ago, when McCulloch gained national prominence — and infamy — for his handling of grand jury investigation into the fatal police shooting of Ferguson teenager Michael Brown, which ended in a no-bill against the officer. It was a potentially risky strategy. A generation of St. Louis Coun-
ty voters had returned McCulloch to office again and again, and some observers speculated that Bell’s campaign would turn those voters off with talk of bail reform and respect for protesters. In reality, though, Bell didn’t need McCulloch’s voter base. He had his own. Inside the campaign office, Bell looks somewhat shell-shocked. The absentee ballot numbers have just come in, and Bell is currently in the lead.
“Myself, my staff, our volunteers, we’ve been working our tails off. We’ll see how it turns out,” he says, leaning his shoulder against a nearby pillar. “Hopefully it was enough.” The previous Sunday, Bell visited ten area churches. In the past several months, he attended panels and debates — and often, he was the only candidate to show up. For Bell, the campaign has been a marathon grind of door-
The state rep concluded his remarks, and then led the crowd in a call-and-response chant that Williams would have found familiar: I — Believe — That We Will Win! Four days later, voters in St. Louis County stunned conventional wisdom by delivering defeat to Bob McCulloch. In an interview days after the election, Williams is elated. After all, McCulloch wasn’t just the prosecutor behind Darren Wilson’s non-indictment; he also presided over the office that made Williams an “example.” “It feels like a great victory,” Williams says of the election. “It’s gives a chance for other people that go through the court system.” Indeed, the incoming prosecutor, Wesley Bell, has vowed to shake up an office that’s been portrayed as combining the worst
elements of the criminal justice system. Bell is already fielding requests to reopen the investigation into Michael Brown’s death. Some activists are hoping Bell could also intervene on Williams’ behalf. As things currently stand, however, Williams is likely facing at least three more years in prison before parole becomes a possibility, and he knows that a Ferguson protester convicted of arson isn’t going to look sympathetic to a parole board. “I did what I did, and it’s wrong what I did,” he says. Still, he argues that he’s tried to better himself. He’s attended anger management classes and tried to stay out of trouble with the guards. By now, he’s seen what prison is really like, that it can break “even the strongest people.” He’s trying not to be broken by it.
On the fourth anniversary of Michael Brown’s death, Williams watched TV coverage of the memorial service on Canfield Drive. The old emotions of protest, the energy, the anger, came rushing back. “It felt like I was there too, replaying my life again,” he says. This year, the memorial built to honor Brown included a framed picture of Williams. The photo was placed in a line of roses and stuffed animals marking the spot where Brown died — and a movement took flight. In the top-right corner of Williams’ photo is a hashtag: #FreeJosh. “I will be back on the street, regardless of what happens,” he promises. “I’ll be back in the movement. There’s more I can do out there.” n
The only people not surprised by Wesley Bell’s victory? His own campaign. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI
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WESLEY BELL
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knocking, speeches and phone calls. Now, for better or worse, the finish line is at hand. So, how is he feeling? “Well, we’re ahead,” Bell answers, though he quickly adds, “but there’s a long way to go. It’s a little stomach-turning, but, you know, we’ve been fighting for six months. So a few more hours, I’ll be alright.” On the other end of the strip mall, at the Acapulco Restaurant & Lounge, supporters are crammed into seats and clumping beneath the available TVs. Several are ringing golden bells — a campaign gimmick (Bell = bell, get it?) — and roaring in unison every time an update comes up on screen. The updates are good. More than 35 percent of voters turned out, a high percentage, and hopes begin to soar. Supporters still have that election-night look in their eyes, but they’re smiling at each other, passing around phones showing the latest numbers, their expressions saying, This might actually happen. We might pull this off. Because there is no Republican challenger, the winner of the Democratic primary is virtually guaranteed the seat. Indeed, while McCulloch had his unions and police officers, Bell’s campaign marshaled a coalition of groups. The ACLU, which didn’t formally endorse a candidate, still poured $244,000 into radio ads, phone calls, digital ads and doorto-door canvassing — a first for the civil rights organization. Last month, through a collaboration with Justice Collective, the ACLU also released a trove of jail data that clashed with McCulloch’s
oft-repeated claim that, “There’s nobody in St. Louis County in jail being held on a misdemeanor because they can’t make bond.” It turns out there are hundreds. Local activist groups took up Bell’s mission, too, among them the Organization for Black Struggle, Action STL, Ferguson 1000, Mobilize Missouri and Indivisible St. Louis. National groups, including Democracy For America, MoveOn, Color of Change and Real Justice, threw their weight behind Bell as part of their push to reform prosecutor’s offices across the county Still, as the clock ticked past 10 p.m., there was still a feeling of unease at the watch party. In 2017, many of these same activists had backed St. Louis Treasurer Tishaura Jones’ mayoral campaign, and had felt the surge of confidence as early returns showed promise — only to get beaten by fewer than 1,000 votes. Jones is at Acapulco, chatting with ActionSTL leader Kayla Reed. On that 2017 election night, the two embraced in defeat. At the time, both said that the dream wasn’t dead, just deferred. “I’m excited, but I’m always nervous until the last vote is counted,” Jones says now, nearly shouting to be heard above the crowd and DJ. But even she can’t contain her optimism. “People are waking up,” she says. “They always try to say that the ‘Ferguson Effect’ is a bad thing. This is the good part of the Ferguson Effect, this is what it’s all about. Making sure that we elect people that represent people’s interests, the people’s morals. Young people running for office, changing the guard in these officers that have been held by the same person for decades.” By 11 p.m., the noise in the res-
STREAK’S CORNER • by Bob Stretch
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“They always try to say that the ‘Ferguson Effect’ is a bad thing. This is the good part of the Ferguson Effect, this is what it’s all about. Making sure we elect people that represent people’s interests, the people’s morals.” taurant is near-deafening. With 89 percent of precincts reporting, Bell has a commanding lead of around 55 percent of the vote. When Bell finally walks in, the sound of ringing bells erupts like a choir. Bell doesn’t join the crowd, not yet. He’s on the phone, intently listening and pacing. At one point, the crowd roars again, and Bell whips around to stare at the TV — but it’s just another recap of the existing numbers. Ninety percent of precincts are reporting, with Bell on top. He takes another call, his face drawn and serious. It’s still not final. And then it is. Suddenly, Bell is wrapped in a bear hug with adviser Mark Kustelski. Off to the side, Bell’s campaign manager, Nielsen, looks
dazed and exhausted. She closes her eyes and silently leans against a volunteer’s shoulder. From the other side of the restaurant, the chants of “Bell! Bell! Bell” come thundering through the wall. So he goes to them. He squirms through the crowd, mounts the stage and begins to deliver a victory speech that few, if any, conventional political observers predicted. He thanks the numerous groups represented before him. He says his campaign promises are going to be reality — expanded diversion programs and an end to cashbail for nonviolent offenders. “If we’re going to push these changes,” he tells the crowd, “I need you to be a part of that too. When people say, ‘Oh, he just wants to let all the criminals go free,’ man, have my back and tell them what we’re doing.” The crowd shouts with approval — “We got you!” “Ring that bell!” “Bye Bob!” “Lets keep this momentum going,” Bell says, after rattling off a few more thank-yous. “So we can bring change to this county; so that we can be change that’s not only going to make people safer, but help people, help families. This is too important, this matters too much, so let’s keep moving and pushing St. Louis county, the region, the country, forward. Thank you so much.” As the applause crashes down, Bell pauses and smiles. He raises his hand to calm the crowd one last time, and raises the mic to his lips. “And,” he says, speaking slowly. “I will say, that... it is an honor to be your next St. Louis County prosecutor.” His smiles again, and drops the mic. The only sound now is the sound of cheering, and the ringing of bells. n
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.W. had just begun his freshman year at Roosevelt High School in September 2014 when he got into a fight with a group of seniors in the cafeteria. Police were called, and when officials with the St. Louis Public Schools reviewed the incident, they labeled it a “group fight.” They also determined that L.W. should be placed in an alternative education program at Beaumont High School. But his mother objected, and so the assistant superintendent decided instead to place him in Roosevelt’s virtual education program. In the program, students spent three hours each school day moving through online course material at their own pace under the supervision of a “credit recovery facilitator.” But the placement did not last long. On the second day, L.W.’s mother received a call from the school instructing her to take him home because he had allegedly stolen bus tickets from a cabinet in the room. The district recommended expulsion, but after additional back and forth between district officials and the student’s mother, who now had an attorney, the district informed the parent that he would be “physically suspended” from school. With that, L.W. began participation in a remote vir-
children,” says NEPC’s Michael K. Barbour. “But the evidence is overwhelming that these programs are not working.”
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t wasn’t teachers who dreamed up K12, which generally employs a much higher student-to-teacher ratio than traditional brick-and-mortar schools. Ronald J. Packard, a former Goldman Sachs banker, started the company in 2000 with $10 million from Larry Ellison, the chief executive of Oracle Corp., a maker of computer software and hardware, and Michael Milken, a junk-bond financier who famously pleaded guilty to securities fraud in 1990 before becoming an education philanthropist. The company’s cofounder, former U.S. Secretary of Education William J. Bennett, resigned from the board in 2005 after saying on a radio show that aborting black babies would result in a lower crime rate. (In the same segment, he called that idea “morally reprehensible” and later described it as a “thought experiment.”) As the company has grown, performance data has raised questions about whether virtual schools are actually an effective use of public money.
Schooled tual-education program. The district told his mother that he could take classes via a home computer using curriculum provided by K12 Inc., one of the largest virtual-education companies in the United States. Nevermind that the family didn’t have internet access: He could go to the public library. The number of virtual programs for high school students has increased significantly in recent years. During the 2011-12 school year, there were 311 full-time virtual schools across the U.S. and about 200,000 students enrolled; four years later, 278,000 students are enrolled in 528 full-time virtual schools, the majority of them run by for-profit companies like K12, according to the National Education Policy Center, or NEPC, a research center at the University of Colorado- Boulder. The growth of virtual schools, promoted as a way to make public education more efficient, has occurred despite the fact that many of their pupils, like L.W., often have difficulty learning when the classes are taught entirely online. “They assign this kid to this online program as their way to rid themselves of this obligation to teach
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For example, a 2017 NEPC report states that only 37.4 percent of full-time virtual schools received acceptable performance ratings, according to data from eighteen state agencies that provided such ratings. (Missouri was not included in that study.) That compares with a 72 percent acceptable performance rating among “blended” schools, meaning places that combined virtual education and face-to-face activity. And the on-time graduation rate for students in virtual schools was 43 percent, compared with a national average of 82 percent for public schools. “These for-profit entities go up to 200 students per teacher because [the courses] are all self-guided and students go at their own pace, and what happens is these kids aren’t disciplined,” says Gary Miron, a professor at Western Michigan University who studies education policy and was an author of the 2017 report. Despite those figures, officials like U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos have continued to promote virtual schools. In response to a written question from Senator Patty Murray (D-Washington), about the poor performance of virtual schools, DeVos countered with seven such schools around the country that boasted graduation rates over 90 percent. Those numbers Continued on pg 18
Virtual education is increasingly a big profit center. But at what cost to students?
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now in prison.) The district’s elementary school is now using textbooks that are ten years old or curriculum that is strictly digital; they have not been able to buy new books because of the stolen money, Zoph says. Teachers’ salaries also have had to be adjusted because the manager had paid some teachers too much money, others too little. “You have some upset employees,” says Zoph. “As a whole, I think the community is pretty supportive; I think they are watching us more, which isn’t a bad thing.” Brown, the former superintendent, was the supervisor for the business manager during seven of the ten years during which she embezzled the money. He declined to comment on the theft.
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proved to be significantly inflated over actual state data and lifted from a report published by K12, which ran those schools, National Public Radio reported. “High quality virtual charter schools provide valuable options to families, particularly those who live in rural areas where brickand-mortar schools might not have the capacity to provide the range of courses or other educational experiences for students,” DeVos wrote to Murray. “Because of this, we must be careful not to brand an entire category of schools as failing students.”
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issouri’s Grandview R-2 School District is one of the rural districts that has promoted virtual education as a way to provide students with classes they otherwise would not be able to access. The online programs have also been a source of money for a poor district — and for a retired superintendent. Located about 45 miles southwest of St. Louis, the district spent about $9,700 per pupil in 2017, according to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Compare that with, say, Ladue School District, located in a wealthy suburb, which spent $13,900 per pupil. The majority of that funding came from local tax revenue, something Grandview has little of. There are just two businesses within its borders. “You can’t buy a gallon of gas or a gallon of milk in this district,” says current Superintendent Matt Zoph. In addition to virtual course offerings during the year, the district in 2013 launched a virtual summer-school program, now called the Missouri Online Summer Institute, using K12 curriculum. Students from anywhere in the state can take free K12 virtual classes through the institute. The state then pays the district for that course as though its pupils were enrolled in Grandview, which based on the state funding formula receives more state money than Ladue. In short, Grandview acts as a middleman for K12. The superintendent who launched the program, Michael Brown, retired after the 2012-13 school year. That August he filed paperwork with the state to form Show Me State Virtual Education, a for-profit company with a mission “to promote online education to students and professional development for educators.”
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Michael Brown retired as superintendent of the Grandview R-2 School District in 2013, then immediately launched the for-profit company Show Me State Virtual Education. | SCREENSHOT VIA YOUTUBE Brown then attended a meeting in October 2013 to “discuss the 2013 virtual summer program results,” according to meeting minutes. Brown is not described in the meeting as affiliated with any company, but rather just “former superintendent Michael Brown.” Board member Pam Tisher says she had “a big problem with” Brown retiring from the district and then starting the company, which also has a consulting agreement with K12. “I think it was a major conflict of interest.” At the 2013 board meeting, she suggested that the district table the decision to sign a contract with Show Me State Virtual Education until it got data on the results of the summer school, ac-
K12 co-founder William Bennett, who never had a shortage of bad ideas, was secretary of education in the Reagan administration. | GAGE SKIDMORE/CREATIVE COMMONS
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cording to the minutes. The board agreed, but at the next meeting, it unanimously approved the contract, even though Tisher says they failed to get the data. “We were never provided any of that information,” Tisher says. “Dr. Brown could have sold them oceanfront property in Arizona and the school board at that time would have bought it.”
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espite Tisher’s uneasiness with the arrangement between the district and Brown, she continued to vote to renew the contract. And ultimately, she believes that the virtual course offerings “have absolutely been a success” for students. “It gives kids an opportunity to earn credits and make up classes that they might not otherwise have,” she says. (Other former and current board members did not respond to requests for comment.) The summer program generated more than $524,000 in revenue for Grandview in 2017, which amounted to $106,000 in “net profit,” according to an estimate provided by the district. (In response to an open-records request, the district stated that it did not have estimates for previous years or reports on revenue.) The summer-school money became crucial to Grandview following a scandal. In 2016, Zoph noticed a financial irregularity concerning the business manager’s salary and alerted board members. An auditing firm discovered that she had embezzled $1.6 million over a decade. (The manager pleaded guilty and is
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fter St. Louis Public Schools placed the Roosevelt student in the virtual-education program, his mother would drop him off at the southeast corner of Tower Grove Park, near where she took her younger daughter to a Head Start public preschool. Then he would walk about ten minutes south to a public-library branch. But though the district had prescribed the library as the solution for the family’s lack of internet access, library policy limited L.W.’s computer use to two hours each day. Even beyond that, without anyone to supervise him, L.W. flailed. During the fall semester, he only logged on to the computer six times for a total of six hours of coursework, according to court documents. The student’s mother told a district administrator at the end of the semester that she felt the courses were too difficult for her son. The district reduced his course load and moved him to an easier English class for the spring semester. The mother again reached out to the district the next month with concerns about the virtual school program, but did not receive a response. At that point, an attorney with Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, a nonprofit that aims to help low-income people and the elderly, sent an email to a district administrator requesting that the district transfer the student to a more “appropriate environment.” “The barriers [the student] faced — poverty and academic difficulties — made the Home Virtual School Program an unworkable option for him,” the attorney explained, according to court records. The student’s mother, S.W., is 35 years old and has five children. She has not been employed since 2006,
according to court records. The student’s father was found shot dead in 2012 in a 1989 Cadillac in an industrial part of north city. “I was still suffering, dealing with a lot of stuff after his daddy died because he was in my life for seventeen years,” S.W. says of the period surrounding her son’s suspension. That spring semester, L.W. continued to log in to the computer at the library occasionally. An officer once questioned him about why he was there during school hours, according to court records. In April 2015, Legal Services of Eastern Missouri filed a lawsuit on the family’s behalf, alleging that the district had violated the student’s rights to due process and an “adequate and quality education.” The student’s attorneys argued that the placement in the virtual-education program amounted to a suspension, and as such, he should have had the right to appeal the placement. “I think the point that we were trying to raise is that even if you call it something else, it’s still a suspension,” says Luz Maria Henriquez, an attorney who represented L.W. and heads the education justice program at Legal Services of Eastern Missouri. After that, the district started sending a facilitator to the library on Mondays to work with the student for one to two hours. “Her responsibility was to make sure plaintiff logged in, and once he logged in, to go over the lessons with him and to provide any support he needed while she was there,” court records state. L.W. started logging in more consistently but by the end of the year, he had not earned any credits towards graduation.
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he Grandview district also had a virtual-education program for students with behavioral issues. At its Management School, there were usually between seven and eleven students using K12 curriculum. “They seemed to like it,” says Sean Wiley, a Grandview teacher who supervised the students and was also the head basketball coach. “It helped with grading; it made keeping track of information a lot easier, because high school students aren’t the best at keeping track of notes, paperwork.” But Wiley says it was difficult to supervise the virtual education students: “Instead of teaching one lesson, they could all be doing different lessons in different subjects. That is where it became difficult and challenging — to help them all at the same time.” Many of the students in the pro-
“They assign this kid to this online program as their way to rid themselves of this obligation to teach children. But the evidence is overwhelming that these programs are not working.” gram “didn’t have a home life,” Wiley says. “All the stories are different but some of the stuff I heard” — which included homes with no running water, no electricity — “some of the situations we encountered together, some of the stuff they say to you, is really stuff you never want to hear. It just breaks your heart.” Students often realized that outside of traditional classroom, they wouldn’t be able to see their friends anymore. Those students, Wiley says, “would shape up. I would never hear anything bad about them again.” Others “needed that close oneon-one environment, where they got a lot of focus” — teachers from other classrooms would come to the room during prep periods to tutor them. Those students remained in the Management School until they graduated, Wiley says. And then there was a third group, he says: students “who were going to have problems no matter what.” Mostly, he thought the program was “very effective.” The district cut the Management School, however, at the end of the 2016 school year because of the embezzlement and lost funding, says superintendent Zoph. “When you are in there every day with them and trying to help them get on the right path and get them straightened out — that’s the part that bothered me,” says Wiley, who lost his job with the district and now works as an insurance agent.
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he district’s virtual summerschool program, however, has grown significantly. After all, this one brings in new revenue from outside its Continued on pg 20
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borders, not simply the per-pupil money it already has. In 2013, there were 351 students in the program; in 2017, there were 1,464, according to the district. “The kids were working from home all across the state,” says Wiley, who also worked summer school and sometimes supervised 90 to 100 students in social studies. “They would have set units, and each week there were goal sets on what they needed to do to stay on track. It’s got all the lessons loaded — where I came in is I was the facilitator.” Students would ask him questions on a discussion board and he provided answers, Wiley recalls. “There was a lot of interaction even though we were not actually face to face in class,” he says. “When they go to college, they are going to have a lot of assignments they have to do online, and I think that’s the beneficial part,” he adds. Some of the most popular summer-school courses are health, personal finance and physical education. Virtual physical education attracted 300 students last summer, according to Elaine Schlett, a Grandview employee who now oversees the summer school program. “They do readings, graded assignments, brochures, book work, but they also have physical fitness logs,” says Schlett. For example, a student’s parent would be the one to verify that they have run a mile. It’s not a traditional P.E. class, where students learn to work together and compete in sports, but Brown defends it: “It’s like cross training or getting on the bike in your house and riding or working out on your own. But it is P.E.” For Grandview, the program makes sense — and brings in dollars. “We’re never going to have what a district with a lot of businesses has,” says its superintendent, Zoph. “I’m going to go out on a limb — and I don’t know that this is true — but you’re not going to see many schools, percentage-wise, with more students taking virtual classes. It truly is how we try to compete with the surrounding districts.” He says that his own son took five virtual classes last fall, though those were college level to get ahead for his upcoming graduation. Not everyone is so motivated. In 2017, the completion rate for Grandview’s summer-school courses was 54 percent. “We are working through Ms. Schlett to ensure my students are
Attorney Luz Maria Henriquez argues that students must be able to appeal placement in the K12 program. | COURTESY OF LUZ MARIA HENRIQUEZ
“The point that we were trying to raise is that even if you call it something else, it’s still a suspension.” ‘completers’ rather than dropping the virtual program after enrollment,” Zoph said at a 2016 schoolboard meeting, according to the minutes. If a student completes half the course, Grandview receives 47 percent of the state funding that they would receive for a traditional course. If a course is followed to completion, the district gets 94 percent.
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ince Brown retired from Grandview, his Show Me State Virtual Education company has received $60,000 each year from the district. The contracts also include incentives. For example, the 2015 contract states that if the district earns more than $200,000 in net profit, Show Me State Virtual Education will receive 25 percent of the profits above that threshhold. In 2017, the contract states that if there are any net profits that year, Brown’s company receives ten percent. The use of the word “profits” on the contracts, which are one-page documents with typos and parts scratched out in pen, is “ridiculous,” Miron argues. “Virtual schools can bring in extra money for public schools, but you can’t call it ‘profit’ because they are nonprofit entities,” he Continued on pg 23
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says. Luis Huerta, a professor of education policy at Columbia University adds, “If there is ‘profit,’ it should be returned to the district for students’ services.” Brown is also a paid consultant for K12, according to the Virginia-based corporation. Zoph says the district pays Brown to promote the virtual school program around Missouri. Brown now lives in Tennessee, but Zoph says he drives to Missouri each month. “From Grandview, I get paid for expenses and that’s all you need to know,” Brown says when asked about compensation from the district. “What my personal company does and how I get money is not of your concern.” In promoting Grandview’s Missouri Online Summer Institute in various publications, Brown is usually not identified as the owner of Show Me State Virtual Education or as a paid consultant for K12; he has variously been described as the “former school superintendent” or the “summer school director.” In a 2017 column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “Why Missourians need to know about this summer school,” Brown is described as the “coordinator of the Missouri Online Summer Institute” and his district email is listed. That’s even though he is no longer a Grandview employee. In the op-ed, Brown writes that his passion for virtual education is what keeps him from just retiring and fishing. “I will eventually retire from education and spend more time down by the river,” he writes. “But right now I’m just not ready. I remain in the field because I’m passionate about online learning and the ways it’s transforming learning for students. With every fiber of my being, I feel that the online model is the future of education.”
vidualized education program assistance. Prior to that, court documents state, he was reading at a fourth-grade level. Working with a teacher “one on one instead of a room full of people” is better, his mother says, “because it’s easy for [L.W.] to get distracted.” In February, attorneys for Legal Services of Eastern Missouri and the St. Louis Public Schools reached a settlement in L.W.’s case. In the settlement, the district admits no wrongdoing but agrees to provide $30,000 to L.W. and his mother. The settlement also
requires the district to provide students who have been placed in the virtual-education program for disciplinary reasons the right to appeal and requires that the district provide an instructor to monitor the students’ performance in the program. “It concerns me that virtual education is used as a form of discipline,” says the family’s attorney, Henriquez. “Assuming that a student did” commit an offense, “virtual education might not be the appropriate way to help address those discipline issues.” At SLPS, enrollment in virtual-
school programs has also increased in the last few years. In 2014, 201 students were enrolled; this school year, more than 600 were projected, according to a presentation by Carey Cunningham, the district’s virtual service-learning coordinator. That’s even though the district does not have any reports evaluating the success of the program, as he acknowledges. “Virtual school is one of the options,” said Cunningham, who has worked for the district for 23 years. “Parents in this district have many options — send them Continued on pg 24
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.W. sits in her living room in south St. Louis on a Saturday morning in March. Her son L.W. is still sleeping, but a younger child walks in wearing a pair of headphones with cat ears attached. A year ago, after their rental home was condemned, S.W. and her family moved into a different house, which she likes better because it is one floor. Things are looking up: L.W. returned to the classroom in fall 2015 at Vashon High School as a sophomore and later started again receiving indi-
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to charter schools, public schools, [desegregation programs] and the virtual — so it is just one of the options that is available to students.” And while virtual programs may be failing some students, brickand-mortar options aren’t always successful either. According to data from the state education department, Roosevelt and Vashon — the two high schools that L.W. attended — had 2017 graduation rates of 47 and 50 percent. Still, it’s better than the graduation rates for K12 virtual schools evaluated in the NEPC’s 2017 study: 37 percent. Virtual education’s main benefit might be that it lowers both physical costs and labor costs — with average student-to-teacher ratios of 34 to 1, compared to 16 to 1 in brick-and-mortar schools, according to the NEPC study. But Brown pushes back on the idea that online education is more consumed with making money off kids, not educating them. Sure, it’s not for everyone, he acknowledges, but neither are old-school classrooms. “It’s also not as effective for some kids to learn in the traditional classroom as they do in virtual,” says Brown. “You know, it’s an option. Virtual is not for everybody. It takes a lot of self-discipline, and a lot of kids can’t handle that.”
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n his last day as Missouri governor, Eric Greitens, who resigned June 1 after multiple scandals, signed into law legislation that would allow students anywhere in the state to take free virtual courses. The school district in which the student lives would pay for the course. Previously, students were allowed to take classes in any district — including, yes, Grandview — during the summer, but had to be either “medically fragile” or in an unaccredited or provisionally accredited district to take virtual courses outside their own district during the school year. Under the new law, a student must only have been enrolled in a public school for one semester to begin taking virtual classes. They must be approved by the student’s district, but if it determines that a course is not acceptable, the student now has the right to appeal to the state. Proponents of the legislation describe it as a way for students in rural areas to take courses that their district does not offer. “Grandview is exploring their options and hopes to be able to of-
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fer something after the governor signs the bill,” Brown stated in a news release from the Children’s Education Alliance of Missouri, a school-choice advocacy organization. “What we do know is that this is a great thing for the students of Missouri.” Not everyone is certain of that. “Our concern is that this is not going to actually focus on providing good education for kids, but that this might be an opportunity for for-profit companies to come in and receive state aid to educate students or that this is the beginning of creating a virtual charter school in Missouri,” says Susan Goldammer, an attorney and associate executive director with the Missouri School Boards’ Association. “The bottom line is that we want to make sure that all courses, all education provided to students using taxpayer dollars, is rigorous and aligned with a school district’s curriculum.” The association thinks virtual education “has a lot of potential,” Goldammer says. But the success of the new law, she suggests, will depend on how much the state regulates the quality of virtual courses. She adds, “We are very weary of any sort of scheme that would allow people to profit off of students.”
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n May, L.W. graduated from Vashon High School. His final year in school, at long last, brought relief, and he’s been offered a management position at an Arby’s. “I’m happy with how everything is going,” his mom reported in April. Still, that May graduation date meant that L.W. made it through high school in three years, despite being diagnosed with a language impairment and struggling for so many years. His mother explains that L.W. ended up again taking K12 virtual classes, only this time he took them at Vashon, in addition to traditional classes. Henriquez, the attorney who represented L.W., says the first step for students in circumstances like her client is to “get kids in school, but then looking at the quality of the education is also crucial.” “I think there is a difference between earning credits and actually learning,” she says. “That’s always been a concern with these programs where you can advance but you’re not necessarily learning.” L.W.’s family also now has internet at home. But his mother remains skeptical of virtual education. “I’m OK with it because [L.W.] is graduating,” his mother says. “But I feel like every child needs to be placed with a teacher.” n
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BY PAUL FRISWOLD directing Lost in the Stars in 2018 St. Louis — something that was impossible in 1949 America — Tubbs still sees the opera as being about hope. He is crystal-clear on what he hopes audiences take away from the show. “I want people to leave with a question in their mind; I don’t want them to leave with an answer. I want people to question what they’re doing in this. I don’t want to lose hope for the future, but I want us to think what can we learn to give the next generation a future?” Lost in the Stars is presented by Union Avenue Opera at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday (August 17 to 25) at the Union Avenue Christian Church (733 North Union Boulevard; www.unionavenueopera. org). Tickets are $30 to $55.
Kenneth Overton and Tim Schall star in Union Avenue Opera’s production of Lost in the Stars. | JOHN LAMB
FRIDAY 08/17 Lost in the Stars Shaun Patrick Tubbs has only been in St. Louis a few weeks, and already he’s weary of hearing the same response when he talks about directing Union Avenue Opera’s forthcoming production of the Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson musical Lost in the Stars, which is based on Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Paton’s novel of Apartheid-era South Africa. “People keep saying to me this show is ‘so relevant’ to St. Louis. And I keep asking them, ‘Isn’t that a shame?’” Tubbs says. He offers a disingenuous smile, but he means it. “This is a show that’s relevant to all of America, and it is a shame. But we keep getting better. I know that because I’m here directing this piece.” “This piece” is the story of a black father and son, Stephen and Absalom Kumalo, living in South Africa. Stephen is an Anglican priest, and he raised his son to be a moral person. But when Stephen goes to Johannesburg to find his son, he learns that Absalom has
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committed serious crimes. During a robbery, Absalom kills a white man and faces the death penalty. This shakes Stephen’s faith and also brings him into close contact with the murder victim’s grieving father. Tubbs grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and now travels the world directing and performing. He’s a fellow of the Kurt Weill Foundation, which directed him to Union Avenue Opera. The company had contacted the foundation in search of a director with a strong background in Weill’s work. That was Tubbs, even though he freely admits this particular show wasn’t even on his radar. “When the foundation reached out to me about directing this, I had to do my research because I wasn’t familiar with it,” he recalls. Tubbs immersed himself in both the musical and the source novel. During the course of an hour-long interview, he never looks at his phone or casts about for an answer; he’s focused completely on the matter at hand. His vision for Lost in the Stars is clearly defined and inspiring. Tubbs acknowledges that this a show written by two white men, for a white audience,
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in 1949. For him, that’s a feature, not a bug. “I don’t want to point out all the things wrong with the show. I want to embrace them,” Tubbs says. “It’s too simple to say this is white-and-black story. The story is in the gray. Once you make them all come together, that’s when you get in the gray, that’s when things happen.” That togetherness is bound to Tubbs’ frequent refrain, “It’s a show about people. The stage will be littered with bodies.” For Tubbs, it comes down to what’s been lost and the choices that have been made. Stephen drilled Absalom in the Ten Commandments and the word of God, but Absalom kills a man. How could he go so far astray? “Absalom has learned how to be moral, but he hasn’t been taught how to live in the real world with that code,” Tubbs explains. “His village has been over-milled and over-plowed, and so there’s nothing left for the next generation. The future is in Johannesburg, but the city is full of rules and restrictions for a black man. The future isn’t for them.” Yet just as Shaun Tubbs is here
FRIDAY 08/17 World’s Fare If you’re a parent trying to survive these last moments of summer break and looking for a lowcost family activity, the St. Louis World’s Fare is here to save you. This celebration of history, food and local arts features dozens of bands and performing artists, numerous crafters, a kid’s island with bounce houses and creative station, and, of course, food trucks galore. Urban Chestnut will have an outpost of its beloved beer garden up and running, there’s an artists village, and STL Axe Throwing will let you chuck axes at targets to burn off some of that late-summer stress. The World’s Fare is open from 5 to 10 p.m. Friday and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday and Sunday (August 17 to 19) at the World’s Fair Pavilion in Forest Park (www.stlworldsfare.com). Admission is free.
SATURDAY 08/18 Now Playing Third Base The Midnight Company is well known for presenting unusual plays filled with unusual ideas, but its contribution to the St.
WEEK OF OF AUGUST AUGUST 16-22 16-22 WEEK Lou Fringe festival may be one of its most outré endeavors. Joe Hanrahan’s Now Playing Third Base for the St. Louis Cardinals ... Bond, James Bond is about theater itself, as well as baseball in St. Louis. As the title hints, James Bond is involved, but so are the Beatles, and there’s a plot to kill the president. Because this all takes place in St. Louis, race is also a big part of the play. It sounds ambitious, but that’s Midnight Company. Now Playing Third Base is performed at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday (August 18 and 19), and 9:30 p.m. Thursday, 7:30 p.m. Friday and 6 p.m. Saturday (August 23 to 25) at the Kranzberg Black Box Theatre (501 North Grand Boulevard; www.midnightcompany.com). Tickets are $15.
SATURDAY 08/18 Tattoo Flash Revival Trader Bob’s Tattoo (2529 South Jefferson Avenue; www.tbobstattoos.com) celebrates the old school every year with its Tattoo Flash
only bicycles are on the track at Gateway Motorsports Park (700 Raceway Boulevard, Madison, Illinois; www.bigshark.com). It’s a 1.6-mile, mostly flat course that uses both the NASCAR oval and the roadway portions of the track. Races start at 8 a.m. Sunday, August 19, with the juniors and wrap up with the 5 p.m. Fixed Gear Criterium.
WEDNESDAY 08/22 Jammin’ at the Zoo
That right hand is mostly classic flash tattoos. | THEO WELLING Revival. Flash tattoos are essentially clip art for your body: Think daggers through hearts, li’l birds, stars and winged skulls. They’re generally simple to ink and feature minimal color work; they’re also classics of the form. The Tattoo Flash Revival is a fundraiser for CHADS Coalition for Mental Health. The staff has dug out vintage flash sheets from Trader Bob’s vaults, and from noon to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday (August 17 and 18) they’ll ink them on for $50 to $300 (as always, size matters). One hundred percent of the fee goes to CHADS. The shop is simultaneously hosting its first-ever Trader Bob’s Charity Art Auction this weekend, and Piehard Pizza and Custard will be on-site.
SATURDAY 08/18 King Charles III
Joseph Hanrahan wrote and stars in Now Playing Third Base for the St. Louis Cardinals ... Bond, James Bond at St. Lou Fringe. | TODD DAVIS
The current prince of Wales is heir to the throne of England, still, at age 69. If he ever does become king, what sort of monarch would he be? Playwright Mike Bartlett imagines Charles’ reign in his controversial play King Charles III. Told in Shakespearean blank verse, the play imagines a Charles who isn’t afraid to take a more active leadership role than his
mother — or really any modern English monarch. Faced with giving his assent to a law he doesn’t approve of, Charles refuses to give his permission, which just isn’t done. Suddenly the figurehead king is an active participant in the governing of England, and the people are outraged. Charles has his own problems as well — the ghost of his first wife haunts him in private moments. St. Louis Shakespeare opens its new season with the tendentious King Charles III. Performances are at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday (August 17 to 26) at the Ivory Theatre (7620 Michigan Avenue; www.stlshakespeare.org). There is an additional performance at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, August 23. Tickets are $15 to $20.
SUNDAY 08/19 Gateway Motorsports Criterium If you think riding your bike on the streets of St. Louis is dicey, where does a NASCAR Superspeedway rank on the terror factor? Not to worry, because during the Gateway Motorsports Criterium
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We’re roaring right at the last weekend of summer, so it behooves us all to get out and enjoy it while it lasts. If you’re the sort of young professional who lives for al fresco sippin’ and dancin’ on a mid-week evening, head over to Jammin’ at the Zoo. This celebration of beer, wine, food, live music and summer takes place from 6 to 10 p.m. Wednesday, August 22, at the Saint Louis Zoo (1 Government Drive; www.stlzoo. org). The party starts with a complimentary wine and beer tasting from 6 to 8 p.m., after which you pay for your drinks. Several local food trucks and zoo restaurants will sell comestibles throughout the evening. Check out the stingrays in Caribbean Cove and then dance under the stars to the highly choreographed spectacle of entertainment sensations Dirty Muggs with Johnny Henry. The party is sponsored by the Zoo Young Professionals, and if you officially join the group before the day of the event, you’ll get free admission. Otherwise, you pay $12.95 to $22.95. Planning an event, exhibiting your art or putting on a play? Let us know and we’ll include it in the calendar 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 (308 N. 21st Street, St. Louis, MO 63103, 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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THIS WEEK THE GROVE SELECTED HAPPENINGS
IN
Day or night, there’s always something going on in The Grove: live bands, great food, beer tastings, shopping events, and so much more. Visit thegrovestl.com for a whole lot more of what makes this neighborhood great.
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FRIDAY, AUG 17
SATURDAY, AUG 18
FIELD DAY
NIGHTCHASER SILENT DISCO
STUART JOHNSON LIVE
CONCERT FOR KIDS: THE SNEAKER BOMBS, BAZZELL
$8, 8PM AT THE IMPROV SHOP 6PM AT HANDLEBAR
$12, 7PM AT ATOMIC COWBOY
COLE SWINDELL, ALL OF IT TOUR
$10, 7:30PM AT THE READY ROOM
KARL DENSON'S TINY UNIVERSE
$8, 8PM AT THE IMPROV SHOP
KACIE SARGENT, LB KOOL, A'SNJ
7PM AT JUST JOHN
$42, 7PM AT THE READY ROOM 8PM AT ATOMIC COWBOY 8PM AT THE MONOCLE
THIS DAY IN HISTORY CIRCUS KAPUT
HAPPY HOUR 3–5pm Mon–Thu 9-Close Everyday
SCHLAFLY DRAFT............................ $3 SIX MILE BRIDGE DRAFT ............... $3 WELLS ................................................... $3 HOUSE RED/WHITE ......................... $3
SLIDERS (BEEF OR JANE) ...... 3 FOR $5 FRENCH FRY BASKET..................... $4 TRADITIONAL HUMMUS ................ $3 KRISPY KALE ...................................... $3
4130 MANCHESTER AVE. IN THE GROVE FIRECRACKERPIZZA.COM
SOUTHSIDE NACHOS ..................... $4 SPICY OR EDAMAME HUMMUS ........... $4
SUNDAY, AUG 19 AMASA HINES
THURSDAY, AUG 23 YUNO
$10-12, 7PM AT THE READY ROOM
$12-15, 7PM AT THE READY ROOM
MONDAY, AUG 20
SEOUL TACO, BYRD & BARRELL COLLAB DINNER
IS SUMMER JAM
8PM AT THE IMPROV SHOP
WEDNESDAY, AUG 22 CULTS, THE SHACKS
$15, 7PM AT THE READY ROOM
$12-15, 7PM AT PARLORSTL
HAVEN TOUR
8PM AT THE MONOCLE
HAROLD NIGHT
CLASSES. SHOWS. FOOD. BAR.
$6, 8PM AT THE IMPROV SHOP
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[REVIEW]
Ain’t That a Kick in the Head? A new production of The Light in the Piazza lushly illustrates the joys of falling in love in Florence Written by
PAUL FRISWOLD The Light in the Piazza Written by Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel. Directed by Christina Rios. Presented by R-S Theatrics through August 26 at the Marcelle Theater (3310 Samuel Shepard Drive; www.rstheatrics.com). Tickets are $20 to $25.
T
rue romance has been almost entirely supplanted by shallower variations of the form. There are chick flicks, weepies, bromances, feel-good films, melodrama and even absolute woman-hating filth disguised as romantic comedy (Love, Actually being the main offender), but old-school, honest romances of the sort that make your heart sing are thin on the ground these days. Personally, I don’t miss them, but many, many people do. If you miss tenderness, genuine emotion and the exultant strength of two hearts beating as one, you dare not miss R-S Theatrics current production of The Light in the Piazza, which continues through the end of August. Director Christina Rios masterminds this sweet and moving musical, which offers genuine, unabashed and intimate love set to an impossibly lush score. The Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel musical is based on the 1962 film of the same name, which was in turn inspired by Elizabeth Spencer’s novella. The musical is set in 1950s Italy, which grants the proceedings a gauzy, old-fashioned charm. Europe has only just begun to live again after World War II, and a new generation of lovers will change the world in ways their parents would never imagine. Mother-and-daughter American
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Clara and Fabrizio (Macia Noorman and Tiélere Cheatem) have a love that transcends all obstacles. | MICHAEL YOUNG tourists Margaret and Clara Johnson keep to themselves while seeing the sights of Florence, which are crowded with people. Margaret (Kay Love) struggles both to engage with Clara (Macia Noorman) and keep her interested; Clara keeps wandering off to talk with strangers. Rios crowds the small stage with people to-ing and fro-ing, and a few of them perform silent scenes that give life to the city. People drink at cafes and a man and woman quarrel, even as one young man stands transfixed by beauty: Fabrizio (Tiélere Cheatem) watches Clara as if watching a miracle unfold before him. He approaches her and speaks, and love begins for the two of them. Margaret tries to squelch it, but nothing can stop them: not the language barrier, their residency on different continents, Clara’s disapproving father back home in America — not even a dark secret about Clara’s past. Fabrizio’s father Signor Nacca-
AUGUST 15 - 21, 2018
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relli (Kent Coffel) helps smooth things over with Margaret, and before you know it she’s grudgingly extended their stay. Coffel and Love make as engaging a pairing as their offspring. He’s open to change, to young love and life itself, while Margaret has closed herself off from these ideas. This being a musical, of course, she comes around. The first act is a rush of new love growing stronger by the moment. It peaks with the lovely “Say It Somehow,” as Clara and Fabrizio use glossolalia to communicate their feelings instead of physical methods, though not for lack of trying. The second act is all conflict and the winter of discontent, and is less satisfying, until suddenly it’s very satisfying indeed. That’s the familiar arc for any romance, but Noorman and Cheatem make it feel new and inspiring. They’re aided by the parallel love story of Fabrizio’s brother and sister-inlaw. Giuseppe (Micheal Lowe) is a philanderer and Franca (Stepha-
nie Merritt) knows it. Everybody knows, because they fight about it constantly. But Fabrizio and Clara make Franca and Giuseppe remember their own lost romance, and they try to rekindle it. Performed by piano, cello, harp, violin and bass, the score is more classical than standard musical. Musical director Sarah Nelson and her small ensemble do excellent work, but the magic is in Terri Langerak’s harp. I’m pretty simple; if you play a harp, I’m transported. Unexpectedly, The Light in the Piazza has a down-tempo ending. Margaret sings “Fable,” a song about the illusion of love created by the fairytale-romance industry. Alone and soon to return home to mundane America and her loveless marriage, she instead sings a song of warning to the daughters of the world to embrace the lover who knows you truly, and to not tolerate familiarity or comfort without love. It’s good advice, which means it’s rarely heeded. n
FILM [REVIEW]
Undercover Brother Spike Lee’s masterful BlacKkKlansman revisits an all-too-true story from the 1970s Written by
ROBERT HUNT BlacKkKlansman Directed by Spike Lee. Written by Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott and Spike Lee. Based on the book by Ron Stallworth. Starring John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier and Topher Grace. Now playing at multiple theaters.
I
n the many years since he first appeared on movie screens hawking tube socks in the trailer for She’s Gotta Have It, Spike Lee has been an agitator, a park-bench philosopher, an archivist of pop culture and a voice of outrage, sometimes — no, usually — all at once. Lee’s latest film BlacKkKlansman shows every aspect of the director at his best. It’s a thoughtful meditation on race and a forceful history lesson. It’s also a cop movie, a love story and a fiercely sly comedy. It’s an ambitious film from a master provocateur, a great, unsettling experience that entertains, informs, enlightens and then punches you right in the gut in its final minutes just to make sure you were paying attention. BlacKkKlansman is the mostly true story of Ron Stallworth, a black police officer who was “the Jackie Robinson of the Colorado Springs Police Department.” Stallworth managed to infiltrate a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in 1972 and develop a relationship via telephone with Klan leader, future presidential candidate and unrepentant racist slime David Duke. The film’s Stallworth (John David Washington) teams up with partner Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver), essentially sharing a joint identity: One courts the Klansmen over the phone while the other attends their meetings and wit-
Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) pretends to be a KKK fan while also courting Black Power activist Patrice (Laura Harrier). | DAVID LEE/FOCUS FEATURES nesses their hatred and paranoia first-hand. Although Lee and his writers take a few dramatic liberties, adding a romantic interest and a few cop-movie twists even while upping the ante by making Driver’s character Jewish, many of the film’s wildest turns come directly from real life, as when Duke pays a visit to Colorado Springs and Stallworth is assigned to his security detail. Lee opens the movie, surprisingly, with a scene from Gone With the Wind — Scarlett O’Hara watching wounded soldiers under an enormous Technicolor Confederate flag — then segues into a brief film-within-a-film in which learned scholar Dr. Kennebrew Beauregard (Alec Baldwin in fine histrionic form) lectures about the threat of integration while D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation is projected behind him. These references to the cinematic past aren’t accidental. Lee lets us know from the first frame that this isn’t an ordinary police story. It’s also a film about how race is depicted and projected, and how cinematic history has played a role in creating those images, from Griffith’s troubling epic to the black exploitation films of the ‘70s. The period setting — and Washington’s mighty Afro — give Lee a
Lee clearly intends his film as a crucial initial step in comprehending the hateful and dangerous force still among us. chance to revisit ‘70s radicalism and black identity, from the music to the political rhetoric. BlacKkKlansman is designed to look like a genre film, but it’s also a series of sophisticated set-pieces that move the plot along while offering a distanced commentary on the film itself. A lecture by Kwame Ture (the activist formerly known as Stokely Carmichael) dissolves into a study of black faces. A powerful scene shows a raucous Klan audience watching The Birth of a Nation while Harry Belafonte gives a black audience an horrific account of a lynching; Lee neatly splices the two to show how the once-loved silent film made heroes of the Klan and inspired a hate-mob mentality.
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Lee isn’t just telling a story about a racist group; he wants to show how racism can spread from stumbling rednecks to the higher circles of pseudo-scientists and political hopefuls like Duke until, as a character offers, “One day you get somebody in the White House who embodies it.” This is also, perhaps most significantly, a film about language, both as a plot device — because the undercover cops are frequently wired, the things people say to them often outrank their actions — and as a sometimes shocking study of its use as a weapon. From Baldwin’s opening monologue to Stallworth’s final, liberating conversation with Duke, from the angry threats of the Klan to the carefully nuanced diatribes of radio commentators heard throughout, BlacKkKlansman may contain the most extreme and extensive examples of racist language ever recorded. It’s powerful and horrible, sometimes because we sense the desperation behind it (as when Zimmerman and Stallworth sometimes have to fall into racist personae to convince others) but often because it’s uttered by people who really mean it. Though the film sometimes seems to keep a light distance from the more extreme statements, it also lets some genuinely ugly comments hit the viewer with full force. This isn’t just hate speech. Lee shows that this kind of language is part of the racist toolkit, the oil that keeps the machinery of hate running. BlacKkKlansman is consistently stimulating, visually and intellectually exhilarating and often very funny, but don’t mistake this story of Black Power rallies and White Power terrorism as a nostalgic look at the bell-bottomed past. Lee clearly intends his film as a crucial initial step in comprehending the hateful and dangerous force still among us. Even as originally written, BlacKkKlansman would have been one of the year’s best films, but as a final parting shot, Lee has added a coda that uses last year’s events in Charlottesville, Virginia, to remind us that the themes here are still very much in the air. Some may try to dismiss KKK-style racism as old news, but with this small addition, an already powerful and provocative film becomes a devastating one. n
AUGUST 15 - 21, 2018
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AUGUST 15 - 21, 2018
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CAFE
33
[REVIEW]
Man on Fire One of the Grove’s nightlife pioneers is back with a pizzeria that eschews tradition for fusion flavor Written by
CHERYL BAEHR Firecracker Pizza & Beer 4130 Manchester Avenue, 314-534-2666; Mon.-Sun. 11-12:30 a.m.
W
hen Chip Schloss opened the current iteration of Atomic Cowboy thirteen years ago, the Grove neighborhood had a sparsely populated commercial strip, its only light coming from the LGBTQ bars that pioneered Manchester Avenue as a nightlife district. Then came the other bars, the craft breweries, the music venues, the comedy spots, the yoga studio and the restaurants, turning the slice of St. Louis between Kingshighway and Vandeventer into one of the city’s most thriving destinations. If one glaring hole remained in the Grove’s full-entertainment smorgasbord, however, it was a pizzeria. Schloss knew pizza was a no-brainer in an area filled with hungry bargoers, so he kept expecting to see one open. When that didn’t happen, he actively courted a few concepts in an effort to fill the gap, yet none of them worked out. Finally, he decided to take matters into his own hands. Seeing the need for a pizzeria was the easy part — figuring out what it would look like took a couple years’ worth of research, development and late-night back-of-thenapkin spit-balling. Schloss had been working with restaurant consultants, and one day, while trying to nail down a crust recipe, inspiration struck. One of his longtime cooks had made chile rellenos for Schloss’ lunch and presented them just as he was getting ready to try out a simple cheese-pizza recipe. Schloss looked at the relleño, looked at the pizza, and promptly placed the two together, smash-
Firecracker’s goofily named menu items include the “Pepperonius Monster,” “Cherry Bombs,” “Screaming Mimis” and “Zippity Do Das.” | MABEL SUEN ing the cheese-baked chile with his fork into the already-cheese-covered crust. At that moment, Firecracker was born. Schloss was not alone in recognizing the culinary possibilities for what he’s referred to as “pizza without borders.” After that initial relleno-induced “aha!” moment, he began looking at what was going on in cities like Portland and Austin. He noticed that pizza trends had moved away from traditional notions of “authenticity” in favor of globally influenced flavors. Seeing his crust as a blank canvas with endless possibilities gave Schloss the freedom to play around with all of his favorite foods — Mexican, Mediterranean, Indian. He was so inspired, he couldn’t sleep one night and ended up writing the majority of Firecracker’s specialty pizza offerings at 4 a.m. In the time since Schloss began dreaming up a pizzeria, his concept has seen other partners come and go even as the U.R.B.
Urban Research Brewery popped up down the road, offering whole and by-the-slice wood-fired pies to enjoy while sipping Urban Chestnut’s experimental, not-yet-tomarket beers. (If you haven’t yet visited, do. It’s excellent.) Theoretically, this might make Schloss’ point about the lack of pizza in the Grove moot, except that Firecracker is so different from a traditional pizzeria that there is more than enough room on Manchester for both. For starters, Firecracker’s crust is entirely different than the New York-meets-Neapolitan triangles down the road. Here, the dough is formed into a rectangle and sliced into squares that are evocative of St. Louis-style pizza in geometry only. Unlike the flimsy cracker squares that heave under the weight of a single sausage crumble, these slices are sturdy enough to withstand even the most generous toppings and bake up like a fried pita chip around the edges.
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Yet the similarity between Firecracker’s crust and, say, Imo’s, is intentional. Schloss wanted to pay homage to St. Louis pizza without being literal, a factor that also went into his choice of cheese. Instead of Provel, he’s chosen a blend of three white Mexican cheeses that gives the rich, gooey satisfaction of processed cheese without that gloppy, stick-to-theroof-of-the-mouth problem with Provel. Naysayers beware: This is St. Louis-style pizza for people who hate St. Louis-style pizza. If crust and cheese differentiate Firecracker’s offerings from other area pies, its toppings place them in a category all their own. Though a few have the ingredients you’d find at a traditional pizzeria, most are completely different, such as the “No Sleep ’til Brooklyn,” which successfully plays off the idea of a Reuben sandwich with a smoky, white-sauce base called “FPB sauce,” sauerkraut, tangy Swiss
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FIRECRACKER
Continued from pg 33
cheese, a drizzle of Thousand Island dressing and a caraway-seed sprinkle. On this version, Firecracker substitutes turkey pastrami for corned beef; the meat is surprisingly tender and succulent with just a whisper of salty brine. The same sauce is slathered over the dough and dressed with thick round slices of roasted potatoes, bacon crumbles, corn, caramelized onion and strips of poblano peppers for the “Spuds Rodriguez.” The pepper’s heat, the corn’s sweetness and the salty smoke from the bacon infuse into the cheese and potatoes, making this a shockingly well-executed pizza version of a potato skin. Who would’ve thought? Though I love Indian food, I’m on the fence about the “Shiva’s Revenge,” a sub-continental firepot of flavor. Curried hummus stands in place of sauce, which is then covered with eggplant, potatoes, pickled cauliflower, mint and tamarind chutney. The flavors were so intense that they became muddied, never taking the dish from “interesting” to “enjoyable.” Schloss offers monthly specials,
and for August he collaborated with Dave and Meggan Sandusky of BEAST Craft BBQ for a barbecue pork-steak pie. This is a hefty, oneslice-will-do-you behemoth of a pizza — exactly what you’d expect from the folks serving the world’s biggest and best pork steak. Goat cheese, jalapeños and BEAST’s signature Brussels sprouts adorn the dish, but the standout, of course, is the pork. Pulled apart into thick chunks, it makes you wait with bated breath for the moment these barbecue masters move into the neighborhood. Though Firecracker trades in quirky, unexpected pizzas, its best offering is also its most conventional — if you can call the “Pepperonius Monster” conventional. In place of traditional greasy rounds, Firecracker’s pepperoni is cut into thick strips that cover every inch of the pizza. The preparation is akin to really good gyro meat: tender, slightly crumbly and glistening with fat that beads up on the gooey cheese. A dusting of lavender-infused oregano coats this meaty beauty, giving a vibrant perfume to the garlicky, paprika-flavored pepperoni. It’s a masterpiece. Aside from pizza, Firecracker is serving a handful of appetizers,
most of which fail to make the case for blowing your appetite before the main course. The “Screamin’ Mimis,” a riff on boneless Buffalo wings, is a platter of sliced smoked chicken thighs, basted in a Nashville-hot-chicken-style chile oil. The meat was dry, which was fortunately mitigated by the accompanying FPB white sauce and a sticky sweet “ninja” sauce that tastes like a spicy version of sweet and sour. “Cherry Bombs” sounded delicious: Beef and pork meatballs stuffed with blue cheese and cherry-pepper relish. In reality, there was no stuffing anywhere to be seen. Instead, they were just basic meatballs covered in an oregano-heavy tomato sauce. Fine enough, but the failure to live up to the billing was disappointing. More enjoyable were the “Sizzlin’ Whisker Biscuits,” an excellent version of potato skins with zesty FBP sauce, bleu cheese, bacon and cherry-pepper relish. These did not just hit the mark of a good bar appetizer; they far exceeded it. However, if you opt to instead save room for dessert, you will not be disappointed. A habanero, honey-and-orange-zest-infused chocolate-chip cookie is a beautiful balance of heat and sweetness, and the chile-spiced cinnamon
AUGUST
TO CELEBRATE OUR 10-YEAR ANNIVERSARY WE’RE HOLDING A RAFFLE EVERY MONTH THROUGH NOVEMBER ENDING WITH A GRAND PRIZE WINNER! RAFFLE TICKETS ARE $5 EACH OR 5 FOR $20. Tickets available at Pappy’s, Bogart’s, Southern, Dalie’s and Adam’s. Winners receive a complimentary meal at Pappy’s for four with a bonus SpeedPass (no waiting in line) and tickets to one of our city’s notable attractions.
Firecracker Pizza & Beer “Sizzlin’ Whisker Biscuits” ........................ $7 ”Pepperonius Monster” (regular) ............ $12 ”No Sleep ‘til Brooklyn” (large) ............... $24
Monthly RafFLe Prizes OCTOBER
Year-Long Family Membership to The City Museum
10th Anniversary
brownie is so fudgey it’s like halfcooled chocolate lava. You’ll want to linger over the desserts — and drinks, of course — which was Schloss’ intention for Firecracker. Originally, he toyed around with the idea of fast casual but was so put off by the idea of having his customers wait in line for their food to be cooked that he opted instead for a full-service model. The room is the sort of place you’d want to crush pizza and drink beer: Loud, lively and outfitted in an inviting exposed-brick aesthetic with front and back windows that look out over bustling Manchester and the back patio, respectively. Not all that long ago, had you looked out those windows and onto the streetscape out front, you’d see the gay bars and empty storefronts that formed the structure upon which today’s Grove was built. But for years, you wouldn’t have seen a pizzeria, even as the area began to explode. Firecracker is a concept that was a long time coming, but thankfully, it has finally arrived.
SEPTEMBER 4 Tickets to The Gateway Arch and the VIP Brewmaster Tour at Anheuser Busch
Year-Long Festival Membership to the Missouri Botanical Garden which includes The Butterfly House & Shaw Nature Reserve
NOVEMBER $300 Gift Card for the Peabody Opera House
★GRAND PRIZE WINNER★
WHOLE HOG EVENT + SIDES FOR 100 PEOPLE* *AGREED UPON TIME AND PLACE. CERTAIN RESTRICTIONS APPLY.
ALL PROCEEDS WILL BE DISTRIBUTED BETWEEN SHRINER’S HOSPITAL, CARDINAL GLENNON HOSPITAL, CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL AND THE RONALD McDONALD HOUSE.
3106 Olive Street (314) 535-4340 pappyssmokehouse.com
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1627 South 9th Street (314) 621-3107 bogartssmokehouse.com
AUGUST 15 - 21, 2018
2951 Dougherty Ferry Rd (636) 529-1898 daliessmokehouse.com
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2819 Watson Road (314) 875-9890 adamssmokehouse.com
3108 Olive Street (314) 531-4668 stlsouthern.com
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4 ST. LOUIS LOCATIONS VISIT WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION
314.968.0061 34 S. OLD ORCHARD AVE. ST. LOUIS, MO 63119
With aims of being the best sandwich shop in the city, Snarf’s award-winning sandwich shops has carved out quite a delicious niche in St. Louis. Owners Jodi and Maty Aronson opened Snarf’s first successful St. Louis location after Jodi’s brother Jimmy Seidel founded the concept in Colorado. Currently at four locations, Snarf’s is readily feeding the Gateway City’s appetite for fast, flavorful, toasted sandwiches using only the finest ingredients. Choosing a favorite from more than 20 classic and specialty sandwich options is difficult, but try the New York Steak & Provolone, with juicy bits of premium meat cooked to perfection and accented with cheese and Snarf’s signature giardiniera pepper blend for a kick. All sandwiches are made with Fazio’s locally made fresh-baked bread and can be customized with a variety of fresh toppings. Don’t forget to check out the salads served with homemade dressings, rotating soups, sides such as Zapp’s gourmet potato chips, and desserts. Snarf’s also offers vegetarian options, a gluten-free menu, a full catering menu and delivery.
“Laissez les bons temps rouler” typically is what you’d hear in New Orleans, but thanks to the southerncomfort cooking at Highway 61 Roadhouse & Kitchen, there are plenty of good times rolling in St. Louis, too. The Webster Grove hotspot blends the voodoo of the bayou with hearty fare and drinks for a spicy experience. In a charming, funky space with colorful blues paraphernalia lining the walls and live music throughout the week, kick off the night with deep-fried wontons stuffed with shrimp, Cajun grits, bacon and a blend of pepperjack and ghost cheese. For a real taste of Louisiana, order the D.D.D. Sampler; named for the “Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives” episode that visited Hwy 61, the sampler includes the restaurant’s signature red beans and rice, BBQ Spaghetti and CajAsian potstickers. If you’re really hungry, opt for platters that feature the smothered catfish, stuffed chicken or blackened meat medallions served with a variety of kickin’ sides. Wash it all down with plenty of beers, wines and specialty cocktails.
COPIA
J. SMUGS GASTROPIT
3 ST. LOUIS LOCATIONS VISIT WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION
314.499.7488 2130 MACKLIND AVE, ST. LOUIS, MO 63110
For a transcendent wine experience in St. Louis, Copia is the place to be. Named for the Roman goddess of abundance, wealth, pleasure and harvest, Copia pours plenty of vino alongside its classic New American fare. Experience the world through dozens of wines, available by the bottle or by the glass; for the adventurous, there are wine or spirit flights that offer tastes of Copia favorites. The wine doesn’t stand alone, though – at Copia, the food is as thoughtful as the drink. For dinner, feast on slow-roasted prime rib or slow-braised lamb shank, each succulent and served with delectable sides. From the sea, try jumbo jalapno and cilantro shrimp jambalaya, served with cajun-spiced andouille sausage and creole rice. And now there’s even more Copia to go around – 14 years after opening the flagship location downtown, Copia recently has added a location in Clayton and also soon will be in West County.
Housed in a retro service station, J. Smugs GastroPit serves up barbecue that can fuel anyone’s fire. Married teams of Joe and Kerri Smugala and John and Linda Smugala have brought charred goodness to the Hill neighborhood, nestled among the traditional Italian restaurants, sandwich shops and bakeries. Part of St. Louis’ ongoing barbecue boom, the J. Smugs’ pit menu is compact but done right. Ribs are the main attraction, made with a spicy dry rub and smoked to perfection. Pulled pork, brisket, turkey and chicken are also in the pit holding up well on their own, but squeeze bottles of six tasty sauces of varying style are nearby for extra punch. Delicious standard sides and salads are available, but plan on ordering an appetizer or two J. Smugs gives this course a twist with street corn and pulled-pork poutine. Several desserts are available, including cannoli – a tasty nod to the neighborhood. Happy hour from 4 to 7pm on weekdays showcases half-dollar BBQ tastes, discount drinks, and $6 craft beer flights to soothe any beer aficionado.
BLOOD & SAND
BLOOM CAFE
BLOODANDSANDSTL.COM
THEBLOOM.CAFE
314.241.7263 1500 SAINT CHARLES ST. ST. LOUIS, MO 63103
314.652.5666 5200 OAKLAND AVE, ST. LOUIS, MO 63110
Everyone needs a hideaway – a place that’s “yours,” where you can find good food, good drink and good friends. In St. Louis, Blood & Sand is such a special spot. The acclaimed downtown parlour has become known for excellent cocktails like its namesake, a tribute to the Rudolph Valentino silent movie; other favorites are named for popular songs, such as the Wannabe (Spice Girls) and The Harder They Come (Jimmy Cliff). Blood & Sand has an carefully crafted New American menu to complement those drinks, as well. Kick off dinner with the ceviche, featuring king diver scallop, aguachile and avocado before moving on to main courses like wild boar loin or roasted quail. At the end of the meal, don’t miss the Candy Bar, a decadent log of coffee, chocolate, dulce de leche, coconut and almond. Previously available for its membership only, Blood & Sand now has opened its doors to the public, though members will continue to receive extra touches like preferential pricing and special tastings.
A new restaurant with a meaningful cause has sprouted up near the Saint Louis Science Center. Bloom Café is a breakfast and lunch spot with a mission – empower people with disabilities through job training while providing a tasty menu full of sandwiches and sweets. An endeavor from Paraquad, a disability resources nonproft, Bloom Cafe makes good on its promises. Trainees work under culinary director Joe Wilson to prepare a variety of fresh dishes (including plenty of vegetarian and gluten-free options) that are perfect for a lunch date, a business meeting or a family meal before fun in Forest Park. For a morning jolt, try the breakfast burrito, stuffed with sausage, egg and pepperjack cheese and topped with tomato salsa. At lunch, the reuben stands out, making mouths water with a smoky, juicy corned beef brisket, sauerkraut, melted Swiss cheese and tangy Thousand Island sandwiched between swirl rye bread and toasted. A rotating array of pastries is available daily, but you’ll definitely want to pick up the cinnamon roll – cinnamon and sweet glaze make their way into every nook of the light dough for a delight in every bite.
COPIABRAND.COM
JSMUGSGASTROPIT.COM
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SUNDAY BRUNCH For Reservations Call (314) 932-1034
3212 SOUTH GRAND BLVD WWW.BRASILIASTL.COM 314-932-1034
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PATIO DINING • HAPPY HOUR LUNCH BOX – 2 COURSES FOR $15.5 CHEF’S TRILOGY – 3 COURSES FOR $20.5 1820 Market St. • St. Louis, MO 63103 • 314.231.4040 • LandrysSeafood.com @LandrysSeafoodHouse
SHORT ORDERS
Ron Buechele. | COURTESY OF RON BUECHELE
[EXPERT OPINION]
Ron Buechele’s Guide to STL Barbecue Written by
CHERYL BAEHR
R
on Buechele knows the exact moment he decided to close Capitalist Pig (2727 South 12th Street, 314-7721180) and rejoin the St. Louis County Police Department after a twelve-year hiatus. He had gone down to headquarters to take care of some personal business, but the second he walked through the door, he felt like he had come home. “I went down there, and the place was filled with people I knew from when I worked for the department,” Buechele recalls. “It was right at that moment that I realized I wanted to apply to come back.” Buechele hadn’t necessarily planned on leaving the police force; he was simply looking for a creative outlet when he found himself being led to art school. There, he heard from friends that the old Third District Police Station in Soulard was for sale. He bought it, sensing an opportunity even though he didn’t have a clear idea of what he would do with the space. Buechele would go on to convert
the spot into Mad Art Gallery, a unique events space he ran even while still working as a police officer. Necessity forced him to expand the concept. After discovering that a longtime employee had been stealing from him, he was left in dire financial straits and needed an additional revenue stream. Witnessing the city’s exploding barbecue scene, he decided to jump into the fire with his own restaurant, teaching himself everything he needed to know about smoking meat. It was a trade that appealed to him instantly. (Eventually, when he realized he could no longer maintain both jobs, he left the department to focus on his restaurant dreams.) “There is a lot of science involved in barbecue, and I took to that quickly,” Buechele explains. “There are also myths and a lot of b.s. out there about barbecue. I took it upon myself to unearth the truth by applying scientific techniques to smoking meat.” Buechele opened Capitalist Pig in 2012 and had a good run, garnering a stellar reputation for his use of locally sourced proteins and thoughtful side dishes. However, after thinking about his future and realizing how much police work was a part of him, he decided to hang up his apron; he’ll be closing Capitalist Pig by the end of September. Though he will continue to handle events at Mad Art Gallery and do private dinners and catering events, police work will again become his full-time gig. Getting out of the barbecue business has Buechele giving some serious thought to the city’s barbecue scene, a community that he has been proud to be a part of for the past six years. One of the things that eases his transition away from the smoker is knowing that the area is filled with some wonderful smokehouses that meet his exacting standards. In the short list below, he’s sharing a few of his favorites and the essential dishes to eat — if we can no longer eat at Capitalist Pig, at least we can still eat good. Brisket at Big Baby Q 11658 Dorsett Road, Maryland Heights; 314-801-8888 “It’s just done right at Big Baby Q, and it’s consistently good,” Buechele says about Ben Welch’s acclaimed Maryland Heights
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Salt + Smoke’s ‘White Cheddar Cracker Mac’ complements its ribs. | JENNIFER SILVERBERG
David Sandusky serves up St. Louis’s best pork belly at BEAST Craft BBQ. | MABEL SUEN smokehouse. “It’s so easy to abuse protein or put so much crap in rubs that you can’t even taste the meat. This is just a well-done piece of protein that has all you want — flavor, tenderness, cooked well and properly smoked. I like the balance of it all.” Snoots at Smoki O’s 1545 North Broadway, 314-6218180
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“There aren’t a lot of people that do snoots, and I always wonder what the industry is doing with them because there sure have to be a lot of them,” says Buechele. “I like that someone is using an often discarded part of the hog. They aren’t at all gristly; they are tender and soft. If you haven’t had a snoot before, this would be the place to go give it a try.”
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BUECHELE’S BBQ Continued from pg 37
Beef Ribs at Nubby’s 11133 Lindbergh Industrial Court, 314-200-9123 “You don’t see beef ribs that often in St. Louis, which usually means that when you do see them, the person making them doesn’t have any idea how to cook them,” Buechele explains. “You can’t think of them like a pork rib; they are more like a short rib. You can’t do a slow braise on pork or it will turn to mush, but that’s what a beef rib needs. That two-step process is work, and the fact that [Matt Hines] is doing that is commendable.” Texas Pork Belly at BEAST Craft BBQ 20 South Belt West, Belleville, Illinois; 618-257-9000 “Dave [Sandusky] does a lot of things well, but I am a huge fan of his Texas pork belly,” says Buechele. “A lot of people aren’t playing around with it the way he does, and I think that is because most barbecue guys don’t know how to. Dave has a fine-dining background, and it shows in what he does.”
Smoked Duck Breast at the Shaved Duck 2900 Virginia Avenue, 314-776-1407 “I’m one of those people that, if I see duck on a menu, I will order it and just hope they cook it right,” says Buechele. “In the barbecue world, you don’t see it done a lot because it is easy to ruin since it doesn’t have the durability of turkey or chicken. You have to be very attentive with duck, and they do it well.” Pulled Chicken at Gobble Stop Smokehouse 1227 Castillon Arcade Plaza, Creve Coeur; 314-878-5586 “Chicken is one of those things that you see everywhere, but it’s not hard to make it really good if you just take a little extra time with it,” says Buechele. “I don’t know why people think they have to push it up to 180 degrees. It’s not as forgiving as people think. Here, they don’t abuse it and treat it delicately, and it shows.” Mac and Cheese at Salt + Smoke Two locations including 6525 Delmar Boulevard, University City; 314-727-0200 “At the RFT’s Mac & Cheese Throwdown, I made the best mac and cheese I have ever made in my
Big Baby Q’s ‘properly smoked’ brisket sandwich. | MABEL SUEN life and we still came in second to them,” Buechele laughs. “They really embody the fact that barbecue restaurants are finally taking
care with their sides and not just opening up cans. They’re thinking about how they can do things differently and better.” n
HUNGRY? RIVERFRONTTIMES.COM
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[FIRST LOOK]
Tacos, and Much More, Downtown Written by
SARAH FENSKE
I
f hearing the acronym BLT makes you think of those killer bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwiches at Crown Candy Kitchen, hold onto your hats and wigs — there’s a new BLT in town, and it’s got a whole different meaning. BLT’s (626 North Sixth Street, 314-925-8505), the new eatery that opened just one block from the Convention Center downtown, takes its name from what it’s serving: breakfast, lunch and tacos. Simple. But even though tacos is the one food that gets namechecked, you don’t have to order them while you’re here. The fastcasual restaurant has a full roster of foodstuffs, from a riff on avocado toast to the more traditional egg-bacon-pancake platters. Next week, they plan to add happy hour and some evening appetizers from 4 to 9 p.m. as well. The space, which was previously home to Kitchen Sink’s second
Among the breakfast offerings at BLT’s are the “Chorizo N Egg” taco. | SARAH FENSKE permutation, is massive — about 9,000 square feet. That gives the restaurant a certain luxuriousness. You don’t feel bad setting up with a laptop here or taking up a table for four if you’re in a party of two. For now, at least, there’s plenty of room for all, including even a small lounge-like area with two couches. The setup is simple. Order at
the counter, and they’ll give you one of those numbers on a stick to take back to your table. A runner will bring your food out — and, if you’re like us, it will come with good speed. Until that liquor license gets issued, there are Excel fountain drinks, juices and Kaldi’s coffee. As for those tacos, at breakfast, you’ve got four options, including
[FOOD NEWS]
Beloved Food Truck Prepares to Park
B
Balkan Treat Box has earned fans across the St. Louis area for items like its döner. | MABEL SUEN
alkan Treat Box is getting a brickand-mortar home in Webster Groves. The acclaimed food truck, which has been named to numerous “best restaurant” lists despite not actually being a restaurant, says it will open this fall at 8103 Big Bend Boulevard, the former home of Stratton’s Cafe. It will serve lunch Monday through Saturday with plans to eventually add dinner service as well as breakfast. Chef/owner Loryn Nalic and her husband Edo first hit the streets in March 2017, serving food inspired by Edo’s Bosnian heritage. Their pides and doner kebabs have since developed a huge following — and earned plaudits from Food & Wine, the Food Network and Travel & Leisure, in addition to reams of positive press in St. Louis. RFT food critic Cheryl Baehr gave Bal-
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the “Chorizo N Egg” ($4), which includes potatoes on a flour tortilla, and the “Sunrise Taco” ($3.50), which offers bacon, eggs and avocado on a corn tortilla. Owners James Heredia and Joshua Powlishta have said they plan to do “St. Louis food with Southwestern flair,” but Midwesterners need not worry about the spice level on offer: You’ll be just fine with the salsas and chorizo coming out of the kitchen. Those who’ve spent time in the Southwest and want to kick things up a notch will want to avail themselves of the Chohula on offer. Powlishta says the partners are excited about adding evening service next week, with a few new menu items and a full liquor license at that time. Still, they’re going for a casual vibe even into the evenings. You can still order a bite at the counter, although the bar will be full service (bartenders will serve the couch area as well). “I anticipate most people being at the bar,” he says. And expect locally made Pearl Vodka to make an appearance, along with premium liquors like Jack Daniel’s. “We’re trying to do as much St. Louis as we can,” Powlishta says. For now, BLT’s is open 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, with brunch from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the weekends. Expect to see BLT’s staying open until 9 p.m. beginning sometime next week. n
kan Treat Box a rave last fall and named it “one of twenty must-visit spots for St. Louis food lovers” in our 2018 Best of St. Louis Food & Drink issue. She wrote, “[Edo’s] concept, Balkan Treat Box, has not only jumped to the top of the city’s food-truck scene in less than two years of existence, but has shone a light on a style of cuisine that, for the most part, had not fully integrated into St. Louis’ culinary landscape. Why it took so long to do so is a mystery, especially after you taste one of Balkan Treat Box’s glorious pides, a boat-shaped piece of pita, speckled with char from the wood fire and filled with rich Bosnian cheese and toppings like traditional spicy red-pepper relish, cabbage and brisket. And you can’t visit Balkan Treat Box without trying the cevapi, a grilled beef sausage that is synonymous with Bosnian cuisine.” “We’ve been pretty overwhelmed by the response,” says Loryn Nalic in a prepared release. “We never expected our food to resonate so profoundly with our local community. It still feels surreal that there will now be a permanent home for Balkan Treat Box.”
AUGUST 15 - 21, 2018
—Sarah Fenske
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Bulk Orders For Any Occasion!
DINE IN • CARRY OUT • CATERING 3628 S. BIG BEND 314-781-2097
www.porterschicken.com
The restaurant’s motto hangs above the kitchen: “damn good food.” | LEXIE MILLER
OPE 7 DAYNS
[BARS]
New Metro East Bar Supersizes the Fun Written by
LEXIE MILLER
T Authentic Hong Kong Style Cuisine
Voted Best Chinese Restaurant 3 Years In A Row! -2016-2018 RFT Readers Poll
OPEN DAILY 11AM-10PM DIM SUM 11AM-3PM
HOMEMADE POT STICKERS
8116 OLIVE BLVD. • (314) 567-9997 • WONTONKINGSTL.COM • WIFI AVAILABLE 40
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BD Bar + Social (15 Ludwig Drive, Fairview Heights, Illinois; 618-397-9242), the colorful new bar and eatery that opened earlier this month in the Metro East, has a little bit of everything: an interior that makes you feel like you’re in an outdoor patio, a host of games (giant Jenga or Connect 4, anyone?), and even an actual camper once owned by the band America. The bar is the second location for a concept that originated in San Antonio, Texas. TBD decided to expand to Illinois because it fits the people, marketing team member Evelyn Schardan says. “The people work hard and play hard,” adds Schardan’s colleague Amy Freshwater. And this is the perfect spot to play. There are board games available to play at your table, beer pong, corn hole and the aforementioned super-sized party games. TBD is even getting a jumbo version of Battleship. Among the biggest hits on the menu since TBD’s August 1 open-
ing has been the pork-tenderloin sandwich ($12), which Executive Chef Kyra Cole calls “an event” due to its massive size. (Noticing a theme here?) Customers have also been enjoying the TBD Nachos ($9) appetizer, which is piled high with chicken or steak chili, queso, cheese, black-bean pico, jalapeños, sour cream and lettuce. For vegetarians, Cole is excited to offer the famous “Impossible Burger,” designed by scientists so that plant protein looks, tastes and feels like meat. (It even bleeds!) At TBD, which is one of only a handful of places to offer it in the St. Louis metro area, the burger is served on a brioche bun with special sauce, cheddar, lettuce and tomato. It costs $12 and comes with fries. Since TBD aims to be all about adult fun, it has three mixed drinks on tap: spiked lemonade, a Long Island iced tea and a margarita. Each can then be customized with other flavors. TBD also offers an over-the-top “Ridiculous Bloody Mary” ($9.50) complete with both tequila and vodka. It’s topped with a chicken wing and fried mushroom, says Mitchie Kanda, a member of the bar team. Daily specials run throughout the week including Recovery Sunday, with $8 bloody marys; Taco Tuesday, with $2 and $3 tacos, $6 nachos and $15 margarita pitchers; and Saturday, which offers $5 Long Island iced tea pitchers. The bar will also host live music throughout the month. An events calendar can be found on its website. TBD Bar + Social is open Sunday through Wednesday from 11:30 a.m. to midnight and Thursday through Saturday from 11:30 to 2 a.m. It is 21 and up after 9 p.m. n
Thanks For Voting Us
St. Louis’
1
#
Steakhouse for 20 years in a row!
1998-2018 RFT Readers Poll
Patio Open West & South County Locations
HISTORIC SOULARD 1/2 Blk. South of Russell 2117 S. 12th St. • 772-5977
WEST COUNTY
1 Blk. East of Hwy. 141 14282 Manchester Road • 636.227.8062
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EST. 1982 www.tuckersplacestl.com
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MUSIC AND CULTURE am not so in-your-face about it as I once was. Now, instead of saying blatantly that modern corporate consumer capitalism is the root of most of our problems, I dig that idea out of songs of self-reflection. I say that because I don’t point fingers so much at the world around me anymore. I don’t do that because I see those problems in myself and realize that if I want the world to change, then I have to be that change first.” He’s beginning to garner attention for his work, with a prominent publication already weighing in on the album’s title track. Just last week, Rolling Stone included it in its list of ten best country and Americana songs of the week. “Written and recorded overseas by an American-born expat,” Robert Crawford writes, “‘Idle Hands’ is a slow-moving,
[HOMESPUN]
Idle They Are Not St. Louis native and Vienna resident Ian Fisher releases his thirteenth album on American soil Written by
THOMAS CRONE
F
or the past few years, Ian Fisher’s had something of a routine when returning home to Missouri from his European base. In addition to whatever tour stops he may have in the U.S., there’s typically a weekend in St. Louis, with one show in the city proper and another in his hometown of Ste. Genevieve. That was true of his most recent return trip, with a stop at the Watertower Winery in Ste. Gen on Friday and a next-night gig at Off Broadway. The latter was celebrating a pair of album releases, with Fisher’s Idle Hands and St. Louis stalwart David Beeman’s Music Epiphora both making their official debuts, complete with shared band members bringing the songs to life. Fisher’s connection to Beeman came via the latter’s Native Sound Studios, which was involved in the construction of Idle Hands. Really, though, it was just one of many locations that the album was tracked; it was actually a transatlantic affair. “We recorded the lead vocals, drums, keys and bass live together at Wolves in Sound Studio in East Berlin last May,” Fisher says. “We then recorded backing vocals, guitars, pedal steel, horns and strings through the summer and fall of 2017 all over Germany, from Munich to Hamburg and Leipzig to Wuppertal. It was mixed on Cherokee Street at Native Sound Studios by my old friend Ben Majchrzak and mastered across the river by Dan Mehrmann.” The end result mixes Americana and folk traditions with bright pop sensibilities, often driven by piano and incorporating plenty of string arrangements and pedal steel in
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“I’ve written over 1,500 songs, so I would love if I could release an album every month.” Idle Hands, Fisher’s latest, was recorded in part in St. Louis’ Native Sound Studios. | DAVID JOHNSON the mix. Fisher’s clear and direct vocals are deployed with a tastefully soft touch, making the whole affair seem to float freely from your speakers and out into space. The ease with which the music flows belies the amount of work Fisher put into its creation. In addition to an active touring schedule throughout Europe, in particular Germany and Austria, Fisher’s never far away from writing a new song. “Prolific” almost doesn’t do justice to the amount of tunes Fisher creates, at a pace that well outstrips his ability to release all of them. “This is my lucky thirteenth album,” Fisher says of Idle Hands. “I’ve written over 1,500 songs, so I would love if I could release an album every month. However, I don’t have enough money for that, and I think it would be more
AUGUST 15 - 21, 2018
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annoying for my fans than enjoyable. I don’t think there is such a thing as a ‘good pace’ to release anymore. No one really knows what to do with the music business since streaming came along. I guess the best rule of thumb is to release a lot when people are interested and only release strategically when people aren’t.” On different days, Fisher was very direct, if not strident, in his lyrical concerns, which often touch on the problems in contemporary society. Though Fisher is removed from day-to-day life in the U.S., this country’s unique qualities still provide him material. Well-read and well-traveled, he says he continues to grapple with politics — only now he’s presenting his ideas in a new light. “More than ever,” he says. “I, however,
soul-streaked pop song about the troubled times that always seem to find the broken-hearted. ‘I’ve been moving earth to get down to hell, to find some work to do,’ sings the song’s desperate narrator, while a piano pulses in the background. When a string section swirls into the picture during the song’s final stretch, the effect is half Americana and half Abbey Road-worthy pop.” It’s a response that Fisher says is “an honor, to have such respectful things written about your art by a source that you respect.” With his star ever rising, it certainly won’t be the last time that happens. Examples of Fisher’s work, including videos, merchandise and background info on Idle Hands can be found at ianfishersongs.com. Meanwhile, his entire digital catalog can be purchased at ianfisher. bandcamp.com.
[PREVIEW]
Jimmy Tebeau Heads Home to Camp Zoe Written by
THOMAS CRONE
I
t was in March 2004, as Jimmy Tebeau recalls it, that he and his family moved to Shannon County, Missouri, taking over a “failing church camp” that would soon become the base of operations for his Grateful Dead cover band, the Schwag. By May of that same year, the group’s Schwagstock festival had moved to the camp, and for the next seven seasons, tens of thousands of concertgoers attended shows on the wooded grounds of Camp Zoe. From the Deadhead weekends to raves to Marshall Tucker-headlined biker rallies, the place drew a crowd, many crowds — and, eventually, the notice of authorities. In November 2010 federal charges were leveled against Tebeau, with prosecutors alleging rampant drug sales taking place during events at the campground. He and his family would move from their converted schoolhouse home at Camp Zoe in 2012, and by early 2013, the Schwag would be put on hiatus while Tebeau served a prison sentence (originally sentenced to three years, the feds let him out early, in 2014, for good behavior). Since his release, the group’s played a steady diet of shows, with a heavy emphasis on weekend tours around the Midwest as well as festival dates on various campgrounds around Missouri, Illinois and Arkansas. In June, Tebeau even visited the Camp Zoe site for the first time since his incarceration. After being seized by authorities, the site is now Echo Bluff State Park, a 430-acre park run by the state of Missouri. The visit came on a whim. He surprised even some of his closest friends and associates,
Though much has changed in the six years since he left Camp Zoe, Jimmy Tebeau believes he knows the way to take you home. | SCREENSHOT
who assumed he’d never return. Tebeau, who now operates out of an expansive office/studio in a south-city storage warehouse, is philosophical about his return to the site. “What am I going to do? Spend my whole life being pissed off?” he asks. “It is what it is, and you make the best of what time you’ve got.” Maybe that’s why Tebeau, 50, believes that the best way to spend his time this summer is to give a show at the state park he once owned. A $52 million overhaul has added numerous amenities. And yet, on his visit, Tebeau found himself drawn to a creek that looked just as it did when he lived there. With a camera in tow, he recorded a solo version of the Dead chestnut “Ripple.” Posted online, his video received thousands of views. On Tebeau’s second visit to the site, he simply walked into the park’s offices and asked about playing a gig at the new amphitheater. As it turns out, folks within the park system had independently considered the same idea. And so, on August 18, Tebeau will play a show at his former home, in
a structure he couldn’t have envisioned when pulling up stakes six years ago. In actuality, he’s impressed by what he’s found there. “The people running it now had nothing to do with my prosecution,” he says. “They’re ambassadors of the land, saying, ‘Here it is, come and enjoy it.’ There are 27 cabins and private rooms, space for 50 RVs. Every weekend they fill the park, so you still have a couple hundred people on the grounds every weekend throughout the summer. By the time I booked this show, I couldn’t get a room for myself. They’ve built a huge lodge, with a big back porch that looks out over the bluff. It’s got a restaurant and general store that’s busy even during the winter. They’ve put in a bridge that goes over the creek; that must have cost a million just by itself. Even if you don’t stay, it’s free; you can just go through and enjoy yourself.” For his gig on the 18th, Tebeau figures he’ll be doing some of that himself, “doing some swimming with the kids” before taking the stage for what he says will
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be a three-hour show. The Dead’s catalog, of course, will provide a big chunk of the material, but he also plans on adding a storytelling component, during which he’ll pause to reflect on different memories of the place, of which he’s got a few. Among those getting a history lesson will be Tebeau’s youngest kids, who haven’t been on site since 2012 and don’t remember much of it. “It’s cool that they’ve been so receptive to having us down there, since there are a lot of people who loved that land, with all of our experiences there,” Tebeau says of the new stewards. “We generated so much solid musical energy in that valley for seven seasons. We rocked out to about 5,000 people every six weeks. The people running the land now want anyone to feel welcome there and think that my playing will help bridge the gap” to the old visitors. Ever the concert promoter, Tebeau’s found out that the venue holds 150, but figures that he can shoehorn in around 300 for the performance. That said, he has no idea whether a small crowd or a large one will show up for the gig. “There’s been a lot of support to the idea and only a little bit of negative, from the people who say they’ll never go down there again,” he explains. Tebeau himself was “on the fence” about that kind of boycott for a good, long while. But the response generated by the spontaneous “Ripple” video gave him a better vibe, which was then augmented by the enthusiasm he felt from the state parks system. He says that even folks in Jefferson City were advocating for such a show once the video began to circulate, so the idea quickly came to fruition. In a funny twist, Tebeau, who as the booking agent and promoter of his own act is well known for counting the nickels and dimes of his business, might be looking at a $100 stage fee for the day’s performance. Considering the costs already associated with the property in his lifetime, it’s not something that’s causing stress. “They’re definitely not paying me to play,” he says. “And I’ll pay them if that’s what it takes. I think it’ll be neat to play there and maybe some friends will wanna come down, too.” n
AUGUST 15 - 21, 2018
RIVERFRONT TIMES
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[PREVIEW]
Black Fast Celebrates Spectre of Ruin Release Written By
DANIEL HILL
I
t’s mid-afternoon on a recent Friday — Friday the 13th, in fact — and things are already getting pretty spooky as Black Fast guitarist/vocalist Aaron Akin steps into a “mean-looking alley” in Buffalo, New York, for a telephone interview with a reporter. “There’s a rusted-out machine with teeth on the front of it, and I don’t know what it does,” Akin, 29, says, surveying his surroundings. “And there’s also an empty wheelchair, which is disconcerting. There’s a few things happening here, old TV sets. We should make this quick.” Akin and his bandmates — guitarist Trevor Johanson, bassist Ryan Thompson and drummer Ross Burnett — are in Buffalo to perform with the venerated Cleveland metallic-hardcore act Ringworm for the first of several shows the two bands will play on tour together. In the weeks prior the St. Louis-based band has been criss-crossing the country with likeminded thrash-metal acts Exmortus and Hatchet. Since signing to eOne Music (home of top-tier metal bands including High on Fire, Overkill and Crowbar), the group has gotten used to living on the road. All that work is paying dividends. Black Fast has by now amassed a dedicated following of metalheads across the U.S. Recent nods from international outlets such as the UK-based rock magazine Kerrang! and Canada’s Exclaim! make clear that there’s hunger for the group’s music outside the States as well. “When we did the last record we were on tour pretty much for a year, almost,” Akin says. “And then that’s what’s gonna happen this time too. The next year and a half will probably be like 60/40 or maybe even more on the road.” When he says “this time,” Akin is referring to the release of the band’s latest album, Spectre of Ruin.
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It’s the local act’s second release since signing to eOne Music in 2014. | RKNPHOTO This year, Friday the 13th isn’t just special because it is the favored day for hockey-mask-wearing murderers to chop up summer-camp attendees with machetes — the July date also marks the official release of the new album. Much like the band’s first album for eOne, 2015’s Terms of Surrender, this one was recorded at the Florida-based Mana Recording Studios with respected metal producer Erik Rutan. Known as the guitarist and vocalist for Hate Eternal, Rutan has credentials that even include playing with Morbid Angel. The album itself is a cacophonous affair forged out of thunder and sharpened by lightning, an offering of blackened, technical thrash metal served up in as evil a manner as humanly possible. It’s kind of funny, then, that such a badass piece of malevolent darkness was recorded in bucolic St. Petersburg, Florida. Band members stayed in a motel on the beach for twenty days in December during its production. “We’re literally across the street from one of the nicest beaches in America, and it’s paradise,” Akin says. “And so externally everything is beautiful, and internally you’re just raging with stress and anticipation and fear and all of the things that go through your mind when you’re making a record for three weeks.” Their neighbors were mostly older folks from colder climates wintering in Florida.
AUGUST 15 - 21, 2018
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“It’s on the beach and it’s full of snowbirds,” he explains with a laugh. “So we hang out with old Canadian people, and they’re all very sweet and make fun of us when we leave — we’d leave every day at noon to go record, and we’d get home at one or two in the morning. They’re long days. And they’re just sitting out there sunbathing, drinking beers, like, ‘Have a good day at work, boys.’ And we’re like, ‘Fuck you guys.’” The album had been in the works for some time. Akin says the band started writing more or less right after Terms of Surrender was released, accumulating riffs until they got a deadline to record. “You know, you get about 50 percent of it written and then you’re just like, ‘Alright, we just need to book the studio and we’ll just finish it,’” he says. “And that’s pretty much what happened. Maybe a couple of weeks before we went there we were just like, ‘Here’s the last two songs.’ And those two songs turned out to be two of my favorite, which is kinda funny.” Akin, who writes all the lyrics, says the album looks at the superstitions and supernatural beliefs of different cultures from around the globe — the omens and entities used to ascribe meaning to the random chaos of life and death — and ties them all together into one grand, unifying evil entity, the titular “spectre of ruin.” It’s heavy stuff, befitting Akin’s thoroughly evil, scorched-earth vocal approach.
Yet even those lyrics and themes were written near the beach. “The lyrics to the songs, the song titles, even the album title, none of it’s really done,” he says of the band’s initial arrival to the studio. “So there’s just one more layer of ‘holy shit I’m freaking out.’ And that’s why I sound like I do, probably, because I’m actually terrified the whole time. “That’s my process, I guess,” he adds, “is to kinda fuck myself over.” Black Fast’s touring schedule will see the band return to its hometown for a show celebrating Spectre of Ruin’s release at Fubar on Friday, August 17, with locals Dracla and Thor Axe, after which the band will get a short breather before heading back on the road. Not every city may boast alleys as creepy as the one in Buffalo, but when asked to tell his favorite tour story, Akin relays a tale that is as terrifying as any mysteriously empty wheelchair could ever be. “Best tour story? Maybe Ryan breaking his foot and then Trevor peeing into his cast, and then the cast being too tight, and then the soggy moisture of the urine and the sweat from us traveling around the country nearly making him lose his foot,” he says. “Maybe that. That’s up there for sure.” Eat your heart out, Jason Voorhees.
Black Fast Record Release 7 p.m. Friday, August 17. Fubar, 3108 Locust Street. $7 to $10. 314-289-9050.
OUT EVERY NIGHT
45
[CRITIC’S PICK]
Natalie Prass. | TONJE THILESEN
NATALIE PRASS
steamiest of dance floors: Get down but
8 p.m. Friday, August 17.
get woke while you’re at it. “Seems like
Blueberry Hill Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Boulevard, University City. $15 to $18. 314-727-4444.
every day we’re losing when we choose
To Natalie Prass, dance pop is a many-
opening track. But choose to she does,
splendored thing, and in no way more
tackling patriarchal traps, our current
glorious than in the sensual politics she
Liar-in-Chief, bee colony collapse disor-
injects into every track on this year’s
der and more. Heavy? Yeah, but Prass’
The Future and the Past. Across all the
dance party can revive any spirit weary
BPM-matched grooves, meticulous sam-
from the weight of the fucked-up world.
ples, deconstructed echoes of Janet
Stage Left: Prass’ latest work is pure
Jackson and Tropicalia, and Prass’ own
studio sublimity, but in concert her
bittersweet, kittenish falsetto, her sultry
band brings out the fun in even her
declarations become desiderata for the
fiercest songs.
THURSDAY 16
$7-$10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. COFRESI: 8 p.m., $12-$15. The Monocle, 4510 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-935-7003. COLE SWINDELL: 8 p.m., $42-$47. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. CUCUMBER & THE SUNTANS: w/ Earslips, MFG, Andy Basler 9 p.m., $5. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. DAVID DEE & THE HOT TRACKS: 8 p.m., $3. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565. IVAS JOHN BAND: 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. JOSHUA POWELL: w/ Brawsh, Grace Basement, Kid Scientist 9 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. KARL DENSON’S TINY UNIVERSE: 6 p.m., $25-$30. Atomic Cowboy Pavilion, 4140 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-775-0775. MAGGIE ROSE: 8 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. NATALIE PRASS: 8 p.m., $15-$18. Blueberry Hill The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. R. KELLY: 7:30 p.m., $48-$98. Family Arena, 2002 Arena Parkway, St Charles, 636-896-4200.
BOY HITS CAR: w/ Tone Wolf 7 p.m., $12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. BROTHER JEFFERSON BLUES BAND: 9 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. GO HARD OR GO HOME: w/ Jmoney the Great, Lt Johnson, Yyung tay, Drique B Swaqqn, Mizzery, June Bug and Lil Murder, Keepsake 8 p.m., $12. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353. KALU & THE ELECTRIC JOINT: 8 p.m., $10. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-5880505. NATE LOWERY: 4 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565. SLIDERS: 8 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565. TOO BAD: w/ DaggerHead, Murder Person for Hire, Fit Thrower 9 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-7722100. WOOD CHICKENS: w/ Leche, Tit for Tat, Maximum Effort 9 p.m., $5. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.
FRIDAY 17
BLACK FAST RECORD RELEASE PARTY: 7 p.m.,
to read the news,” she purrs on the
–Roy Kasten
Continued on pg 47
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AUGUST 15 - 21, 2018
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RIVERFRONT TIMES
AUGUST 15 - 21, 2018
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It’s Always a Party!
[CRITIC’S PICK]
Black Joe Lewis. | CONNOR BEITEL
BLACK JOE LEWIS & THE HONEYBEARS
broke nationally with a full horn section and a songbook full of dirty soul, Lewis
8 p.m. Sunday, August 19.
and company have kept the groove alive
Blueberry Hill’s Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Boulevard, University City. $22. 314-727-4444.
while refusing to conform to the expecta-
You don’t necessarily want to pin down a
gle “Culture Vulture” is an anxious slab
band based on its first single, but when
of cow-punk, with just enough swivel in
that single is the inimitable, unforgetta-
the hips to keep the crowd moving.
ble “Bitch I Love You,” you’d be forgiven
Arrive On Time: Amasa Hines, a soul-
tions of a throwback soul band. New sin-
for measuring Black Joe Lewis & the Hon-
driven rock combo from Little Rock, Ar-
eybears against that standard. But in the
kansas, opens the show. –Christian Schaeffer
ten years since the Austin-based band
OUT EVERY NIGHT Continued from pg 45 RADKEY: w/ the Slow Boys 8 p.m., $8-$10. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353. SHARON BEAR & DOUG FOEHNER: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.
SATURDAY 18
BAD HABIT: 9 p.m., free. Nightshift Bar & Grill, 3979 Mexico Road, St. Peters, 636-441-8300. BEWITCHER: 8 p.m., $12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. BLACKBERRY SMOKE: w/ JJ Grey & Mofro 6 p.m., $25-$69. Chesterfield Amphitheater, 631 Veterans Place Drive, Chesterfield. BOO DAVIS & THE RHYTHM RENEGADES: 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. CAMEO, DOUG E. FRESH: 7 p.m., $25-$125. The Fox Theatre, 527 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-534-1111. DIESEL ISLAND: 7 p.m., free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521. FALLING FENCES: w/ Meramec Valley Girl 8 p.m., $15-$20. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. FAMILY BUSINESS TOUR COMPETITION: 9 p.m., $15. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353. HEARTLAND MUSIC: 3 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565. KEITH ROBINSON ALL STARS: 9 p.m., $3. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565. LYDIA: w/ Jared & The Mill, Cherry Pools 8 p.m., $15-$18. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. LYNYRD SKYNYRD: w/ Hank Williams Jr., .38 Special 6 p.m., $29.50-$199.50. Hollywood
duke’s VOTED ST. LOUIS’ FAVORITE BAR & BEST SPORTS BAR AT THE CORNER OF MENARD & ALLEN IN THE HEART OF HISTORIC SOULARD
Duke’s Photos by Big Stu Media Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944. MATT LASHOFF: 2 p.m., free. Molly’s in Soulard, 816 Geyer Ave., St. Louis, 314-241-6200. THE NEIL SALSICH DUO: 1 p.m., free. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. NEIV: w/ Kudzu, Hands and Feet 10 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. NIGHTCHASER SILENT DISCO: 7 p.m., $12. Atomic Cowboy Pavilion, 4140 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-775-0775. ST. LOUIS LADY ARM WRESTLERS PRESENT: SLLAW XVII: BEACH PLEASE: 8 p.m., $10. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. TOM HALL: 7 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. TORN AT THE SEAMS: w/ Silence the Witness, We Are Descendents, Summits, Unimagined 7 p.m., $10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.
Duke’s Sports Bar Where the Games Begin
SUNDAY 19
ALLEY GHOST: w/ Ace of Spit, the Banana Clips 6 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. AMASA HINES: 8 p.m., $10-$12. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. BLACK JOE LEWIS & THE HONEYBEARS: 8 p.m., $22-$25. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. CHAMBER OF MALICE: w/ Short Fuse 59 7 p.m., $12-$15. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. GENESIS JAZZ PROJECT: 5 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. HERB ALPERT & LANI HALL: 7 p.m., $28. Grandel
FIND OUT ALL THAT’S GOING ON @DUKESINSOULARD
Continued on pg 48
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AUGUST 15 - 21, 2018
RIVERFRONT TIMES
47
OUT EVERY NIGHT
[WEEKEND]
Five sure-fire shows to close out the week
FRIDAY, AUGUST 17 Radkey w/ the Slow Boys 8 p.m. The Firebird, 2706 Olive Street. $8 to $10. 314-535-0353.
The three home-schooled brothers who comprise Radkey wear their Danzig influence on their sleeves — that much is evident from the bellowed vocals — yet spending more than a minute with the trio will reveal more than their punk rock influences. This KC-area crew was primed to take the torch from the onset, starting off their careers with an opening slot for Fishbone in 2011. And where did the band take its clean-cut concoction of punk from there? To SXSW, Coachella, Riot Fest and many more festivals around the world. Fresh off a tour with Jack White earlier this summer, Radkey hits St. Louis with just about every seal of approval to be found in the music circuit.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 18 Momma’s Boy w/ Only Sound, Fangs 2100 Locust Street. Free. 314-241-2337.
Not to be confused with Mama’s Boys, the Irish-born metal band of the ‘80s, Momma’s Boy offers up an overdriven brand of singular surf rock. Its sing-songy choruses sit firmly in pop territory: “Can I tell you things will stay the same? I know you like it that way, yeah yeah. Cuz I don’t really wanna talk about it. Cuz I got nothing to say, yeah yeah.” Dressed up in all the static and hum of garage rock, Momma’s Boy doesn’t come across as a commodity — this is a genuine group of dudes who clearly just wants to play songs for you.
Neiv w/ Hands and Feet, Kudzu 10 p.m. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 South Jefferson Avenue. $7. 314-772-2100.
The mountain-dwelling shoegazers of Neiv put forth a soundscape of riffs and sharp, percussive beats. Continued on pg 51
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HERB ALPERT & LANI HALL
copies of the album. All kidding aside,
7 p.m. Sunday, August 19.
Alpert is a jazz-trumpet powerhouse
Grandel Theatre, 3610 Grandel Square. $28. 314-533-0367.
with more than 72 million record sales
Here’s a fun fact you may not have
to his name, and his show in St. Louis
known: On the cover of Herb Alpert &
should be a smooth-riding good time.
the Tijuana Brass Bands’ ubiquitous re-
A Family Affair: Alpert will be joined at
cord Whipped Cream & Other Delights,
this show by his wife Lani Hall, an ac-
which depicts model Dolores Erickson
complished musician in her own right
wearing an outfit, of sorts, made entirely
who served as the lead vocalist for Sér-
ROCKY MANTIA & THE KILLER COMBO: 7 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. SOULARD BLUES BAND: 9 p.m., $7. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811. TERMINATOR 2: w/ Path of Might, Kodiac, Alex Cunningham 8 p.m., $8. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.
out of white foam, there is actually very
gio Mendes & Brasil ’66 in the ’60s.
TUESDAY 21
that the foam on Erickson’s finger is the
Continued from pg 47
BEST BETS
[CRITIC’S PICK]
Theatre, 3610 Grandel Square, St. Louis, 314-533-0367. LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: 8 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. ROD STEWART, CYNDI LAUPER: 7 p.m., $30-$500. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944. SCHOOL OF ROCK: 5:30 p.m., $5. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.
MONDAY 20
CHUCK PROPHET AND THE MISSION EXPRESS: 8 p.m., $20. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. EARTH GROANS: 7 p.m., $10-$12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. THE GOOD DEEDS: 7:30 p.m., $10. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900. ST. LOUIS SOCIAL CLUB: 8 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. TWRP: 8 p.m., $12-$15. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.
little whipped cream involved. Instead, the
three-months-pregnant
–Daniel Hill
Erickson
was slathered in shaving cream, which melts much less quickly under the hot lights of the photo shoot — it’s been said only whipped cream on site. The record, which was pressed in massive quantities, has become something of a joke among record-store employees, with one Michigan-based purveyor of vinyl pulling a stunt back in October wherein he replaced all of his store’s stock with
WEDNESDAY 22
BIG RICH MCDONOUGH & RHYTHM RENEGADES: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. BODEANS: 8 p.m., $22-$25. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. CULTS: w/ The Shacks 8 p.m., $15-$18. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. FAROUT: w/ Allen Gates, Brief, Bo Dean, Baytron, James Forbes 8 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. KYLE LACEY & HARLEM RIVER NOISE: 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. LIL BABY: w/ YK Osiris, City Girls, Kollision, B La B, 24 Heavy 8 p.m., $27.50-$30. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. OLD CITY: w/ Suicide Dive, Brasky 9 p.m., $5. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. RIVER WHYLESS: 8 p.m., $15. Blueberry Hill The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. SONGBIRD CAFE: 7 p.m., $15-$20. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778.
THIS JUST IN (SANDY) ALEX G: W/ Half Waif, Tue., Nov. 6, 8 p.m., $15-$18. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. AFTER HOURS: W/ Bruiser Queen, Midwest Avengers, Sat., Sept. 15, 9 p.m., $10-$12. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353. AFTER MIDNIGHT: Sat., Sept. 22, 9 p.m., free. Nightshift Bar & Grill, 3979 Mexico Road, St. Peters, 636-441-8300. ALLAN RAYMAN: Mon., Oct. 8, 8 p.m., $22-$25. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. ALLEY GHOST: W/ Ace of Spit, the Banana Clips, Sun., Aug. 19, 6 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. ARIANNA STRING QUARTET: Fri., Sept. 7, 8 p.m., $29. Fri., Nov. 2, 8 p.m., $29. Fri., March 8, 8 p.m., $29. Fri., May 3, 8 p.m., $29. Blanche M Touhill Performing Arts Center, 1 University Dr at Natural Bridge Road, Normandy, 314-516-4949. THE AUGHT NAUGHTS: W/ Desire Lines, Ryan Koenig, Sat., Sept. 1, 8 p.m., $5. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. BACH SOCIETY OF SAINT LOUIS: Sun., March 3,
AUGUST 15 - 21, 2018
riverfronttimes.com
7:30 p.m., $19-$42. Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, 4431 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, 314-373-8200. BADFLOWER: W/ Bleach, Mon., Sept. 10, 8 p.m., $10-$13. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. THE BAND THAT FELL TO EARTH: W/ School of Rock, Sat., Oct. 6, 8 p.m., $8-$10. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353. BIG EASY: Sat., Sept. 15, 9 p.m., free. Nightshift Bar & Grill, 3979 Mexico Road, St. Peters, 636-441-8300. BILLY F. GIBBONS: W/ Matt Sorum & Austin Hanks, Thu., Oct. 18, 8 p.m., $30-$42.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. BIT BRIGADE PLAYS MEGA MAN II: W/ Thor Axe, Sun., Nov. 4, 8 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. THE BLACK LILLIES: Sun., Nov. 11, 8 p.m., $15. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. BREWTOPIA: Sat., Sept. 8, 9 p.m., free. Nightshift Bar & Grill, 3979 Mexico Road, St. Peters, 636-441-8300. BROTHER LEE AND THE LEATHER JACKALS: W/ Apex Shrine, Sat., Sept. 1, 9 p.m., $10. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. CAPSIZE: W/ Ghost Key, Bardock, Wed., Sept. 12, 7 p.m., $10-$12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. CARRIE UNDERWOOD: W/ Maddie & Tae, Runaway June, Tue., June 18, 7 p.m., $43-$93. Enterprise Center, 1401 Clark Ave., St. Louis, 314-241-1888. CHOIR OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD: $19-$42. Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, 4431 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, 314-373-8200. CLOUD NOTHINGS: W/ Nap Eyes, Wed., Nov. 14, 8 p.m., $15. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. CUCUMBER & THE SUNTANS: W/ Earslips, MFG, Andy Basler, Fri., Aug. 17, 9 p.m., $5. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. CURSIVE: W/ Meat Wave, Campdoggz, Fri., Oct. 19, 8 p.m., $18-$20. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. DEVON CAHILL EP RELEASE PARTY: W/ Tonina, Mt. Thelonious, Fri., Oct. 12, 8 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. EMILY KINNEY: W/ Paul McDonald, Wed., Oct. 24, 7 p.m., $20-$25. W/ Paul McDonald, Wed., Oct. 24, 7 p.m., $20-$25. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.
EMPIRE: A TRIBUTE TO RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE: W/ Undertow: A Tribute to Tool, Fri., Sept. 21, 8 p.m., $10. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. EVERY TIME I DIE: W/ Turnstile, Angel Du$t, Vein, Tue., Nov. 13, 7 p.m., $20-$25. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. FAROUT: W/ Allen Gates, Brief, Bo Dean, Baytron, James Forbes, Wed., Aug. 22, 8 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. FOUND FOOTAGE FESTIVAL: Sun., Sept. 16, 8 p.m., $12-$15. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. THE GOOD DEEDS: Tue., Aug. 21, 7:30 p.m., $10. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900. GUSTER: Sun., Nov. 11, 8 p.m., $30-$35. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. JEANETTE HARRIS: Sat., Nov. 17, 7 p.m., $25-$30. .Zack, 3224 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-533-0367. JON MCLAUGHLIN: W/ Matt Wertz, Scott Mulvahill, Sat., Nov. 17, 8 p.m., $25. Blueberry Hill The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. JOSHUA POWELL: W/ Brawsh, Grace Basement, Kid Scientist, Fri., Aug. 17, 9 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. LABOR OF LOVE 2018: Sat., Sept. 1, 7:30 p.m., $22-$150. Grandel Theatre, 3610 Grandel Square, St. Louis, 314-533-0367. LINDSAY LOU: Thu., Oct. 11, 9 p.m., $12-$15. The Bootleg, 4140 Manchester Ave., St. Louis, 314-775-0775. LOUFEST LOCAL SHOWCASE: W/ Dracla, Scrub, Grace Basement, Wed., Aug. 29, 8 p.m., $5. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. MATT LASHOFF: Sat., Aug. 18, 2 p.m., free. Molly’s in Soulard, 816 Geyer Ave., St. Louis, 314-241-6200. METROPOLITAN ORCHESTRA: Sun., March 31, 7 p.m., $10-$20. First Presbyterian Church of Kirkwood, 100 E. Adams, St. Louis, 314-965-0326. MONEYBAGG YO: Sat., Sept. 15, 9 p.m., $45-$55. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. MY CHILDREN MY BRIDE: W/ Secrets, Capture, Kingdom of Giants, Half Hearted, Anima/Animus, Sun., Oct. 21, 6:30 p.m., $15-$20. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. NEIV: W/ Kudzu, Hands and Feet, Sat., Aug. 18,
10 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. NEW COUNTRY 92.3 JINGLEFEST: W/ Kane Brown, Luke Combs, Lanco, Jordan Davis, Sat., Dec. 8, 7 p.m., $48-$78. Family Arena, 2002 Arena Parkway, St Charles, 636-896-4200. NICKI BLUHM: W/ Gill Landry, Sat., Nov. 10, 8 p.m., $15-$18. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. NIGHTCHASER SILENT DISCO: Sat., Aug. 18, 7 p.m., $12. Atomic Cowboy Pavilion, 4140 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-775-0775. ODDS LANE: Sat., Sept. 1, 2 p.m., free. Molly’s in Soulard, 816 Geyer Ave., St. Louis, 314-241-6200. OLD CITY: W/ Suicide Dive, Brasky, Wed., Aug. 22, 9 p.m., $5. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. OXYMORRONS: W/ Bonelang, Sun., Oct. 28, 8 p.m., $5. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. POLYPHIA: W/ Hail the Sun, Covet, Sun., Oct. 21, 8 p.m., $18-$22. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. PVMNTS: W/ WSTR, Hold Close, Fri., Nov. 9, 7 p.m., $15. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. RENEE DION: Fri., Aug. 24, 8 p.m., $10-$15. Ozark Theatre, 103 E. Lockwood Ave., St. Louis, 314-962-7000. ROCK WITH YOU: A SOULITION MJ TRIBUTE PARTY: W/ James Biko, Sat., Aug. 25, 8 p.m., $6-$10. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. RUMPKE MOUNTAIN BOYS: Sat., Oct. 13, 11 p.m., $12-$15. The Bootleg, 4140 Manchester Ave., St. Louis, 314-775-0775. SCHOOL OF ROCK: Sun., Aug. 19, 5:30 p.m., $5. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. SHIVER: Sat., Sept. 29, 9 p.m., free. Nightshift Bar & Grill, 3979 Mexico Road, St. Peters, 636-441-8300. THE SUFFERS: Thu., Nov. 8, 7 p.m., $15-$18. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. THE TALLIS SCHOLARS: Thu., March 28, 8 p.m., $19-$42. Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, 4431 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, 314-373-8200. TERMINATOR 2: W/ Path of Might, Kodiac, Alex Cunningham, Mon., Aug. 20, 8 p.m., $8. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. THE ART & SOUL LIVE EXHIBIT: Sun., Sept. 2, 7 p.m., $20-$40. .Zack, 3224 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-533-0367. THOM YORKE: W/ Nigel Godrich, Tarik Barri, Oliver Coates, Sat., Dec. 8, 8 p.m., $52. Stifel Theatre, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-499-7600. TOO BAD: W/ DaggerHead, Murder Person for Hire, Fit Thrower, Thu., Aug. 16, 9 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. A TRIBE CALLED RED: Sat., Nov. 3, 8 p.m., $12$15. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. VOODOO TOM PETTY: Fri., Sept. 7, 6 p.m., free. Atomic Cowboy Pavilion, 4140 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-775-0775. WHAT’S NEXT: Sat., Sept. 1, 9 p.m., free. Nightshift Bar & Grill, 3979 Mexico Road, St. Peters, 636-441-8300. WHITECHAPEL: W/ Chelsea Grin, Oceano, Slaughter To Prevail, Tue., Nov. 20, 7 p.m., $20$24. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. WOOD CHICKENS: W/ Leche, Tit for Tat, Maximum Effort, Thu., Aug. 16, 9 p.m., $5. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.
THIS WEEK
ALLEY GHOST: W/ Ace of Spit, the Banana Clips, Sun., Aug. 19, 6 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. AMASA HINES: Sun., Aug. 19, 8 p.m., $10-$12. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. BAD HABIT: Sat., Aug. 18, 9 p.m., free. Nightshift Bar & Grill, 3979 Mexico Road, St. Peters, 636-441-8300. BEWITCHER: Sat., Aug. 18, 8 p.m., $12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. BIG RICH MCDONOUGH & RHYTHM RENEGADES: Wed., Aug. 22, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.
BLACK FAST RECORD RELEASE PARTY: Fri., Aug. 17, 7 p.m., $7-$10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. BLACK JOE LEWIS & THE HONEYBEARS: Sun., Aug. 19, 8 p.m., $22-$25. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. BLACKBERRY SMOKE: W/ JJ Grey & Mofro, Sat., Aug. 18, 6 p.m., $25-$69. Chesterfield Amphitheater, 631 Veterans Place Drive, Chesterfield. BODEANS: Wed., Aug. 22, 8 p.m., $22-$25. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. BOO DAVIS & THE RHYTHM RENEGADES: Sat., Aug. 18, 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. BOY HITS CAR: W/ Tone Wolf, Thu., Aug. 16, 7 p.m., $12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. BROTHER JEFFERSON BLUES BAND: Thu., Aug. 16, 9 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. CAMEO, DOUG E. FRESH: Sat., Aug. 18, 7 p.m., $25-$125. The Fox Theatre, 527 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-534-1111. CHUCK PROPHET AND THE MISSION EXPRESS: Tue., Aug. 21, 8 p.m., $20. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. COFRESI: Fri., Aug. 17, 8 p.m., $12-$15. The Monocle, 4510 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-935-7003. COLE SWINDELL: Fri., Aug. 17, 8 p.m., $42-$47. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. CUCUMBER & THE SUNTANS: W/ Earslips, MFG, Andy Basler, Fri., Aug. 17, 9 p.m., $5. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. CULTS: W/ The Shacks, Wed., Aug. 22, 8 p.m., $15-$18. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. DAVID DEE & THE HOT TRACKS: Fri., Aug. 17, 8 p.m., $3. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565. DIESEL ISLAND: Sat., Aug. 18, 7 p.m., free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521. EARTH GROANS: Tue., Aug. 21, 7 p.m., $10-$12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. FALLING FENCES: W/ Meramec Valley Girl, Sat., Aug. 18, 8 p.m., $15-$20. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. FAMILY BUSINESS TOUR COMPETITION: Sat., Aug. 18, 9 p.m., $15. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353. FAROUT: W/ Allen Gates, Brief, Bo Dean, Baytron, James Forbes, Wed., Aug. 22, 8 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. GENESIS JAZZ PROJECT: Sun., Aug. 19, 5 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. GO HARD OR GO HOME: W/ Jmoney the Great, Lt Johnson, Yyung tay, Drique B Swaqqn, Mizzery, June Bug and Lil Murder, Keepsake, Thu., Aug. 16, 8 p.m., $12. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353. THE GOOD DEEDS: Tue., Aug. 21, 7:30 p.m., $10. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900. HEARTLAND MUSIC: Sat., Aug. 18, 3 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565. HERB ALPERT & LANI HALL: Sun., Aug. 19, 7 p.m., $28. Grandel Theatre, 3610 Grandel Square, St. Louis, 314-533-0367. IVAS JOHN BAND: Fri., Aug. 17, 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. JOSHUA POWELL: W/ Brawsh, Grace Basement, Kid Scientist, Fri., Aug. 17, 9 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. KALU & THE ELECTRIC JOINT: Thu., Aug. 16, 8 p.m., $10. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. KEITH ROBINSON ALL STARS: Sat., Aug. 18, 9 p.m., $3. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565. KYLE LACEY & HARLEM RIVER NOISE: Wed., Aug. 22, 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. LIL BABY: W/ YK Osiris, City Girls, Kollision, B La B, 24 Heavy, Wed., Aug. 22, 8 p.m., $27.50$30. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis,
STL’s Hottest DJ Dance Party! THURS - FRIDAY - SATURDAY
Duke’s Photos by Big Stu Media
Always Fun and Games on the Patio
AT THE CORNER OF MENARD & ALLEN IN THE HEART OF HISTORIC SOULARD FIND OUT ALL THAT’S GOING ON @DUKESINSOULARD
Continued on pg 51
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FREE LABOR DAY WEEKEND SHOW featuring music by...
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FREE SHOW! ALL AGES WELCOME 6 PM TO 10:30 PM
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Wednesday August 15 9:30PM Urban Chestnut Presents
The Voodoo Players Tribute To The Blues Brothers Thursday August 16 9PM
JD Hughes and the Fuze
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Friday August 17
10PM
Bottoms Up Blue Gang 17th Anniversary Show with Special Guests
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AUGUST 15 - 21, 2018
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THIS JUST IN Continued from pg 49 314-726-6161. LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: Sun., Aug. 19, 8 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. LYDIA: W/ Jared & The Mill, Cherry Pools, Sat., Aug. 18, 8 p.m., $15-$18. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. LYNYRD SKYNYRD: W/ Hank Williams Jr., .38 Special, Sat., Aug. 18, 6 p.m., $29.50-$199.50. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944. MAGGIE ROSE: Fri., Aug. 17, 8 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. MATT LASHOFF: Sat., Aug. 18, 2 p.m., free. Molly’s in Soulard, 816 Geyer Ave., St. Louis, 314-241-6200. NATALIE PRASS: Fri., Aug. 17, 8 p.m., $15-$18. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. NATE LOWERY: Thu., Aug. 16, 4 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565. NEIV: W/ Kudzu, Hands and Feet, Sat., Aug. 18, 10 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. NIGHTCHASER SILENT DISCO: Sat., Aug. 18, 7 p.m., $12. Atomic Cowboy Pavilion, 4140 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-775-0775. OLD CITY: W/ Suicide Dive, Brasky, Wed., Aug. 22, 9 p.m., $5. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. R. KELLY: Fri., Aug. 17, 7:30 p.m., $48-$98. Family Arena, 2002 Arena Parkway, St Charles, 636-896-4200. RADKEY: W/ the Slow Boys, Fri., Aug. 17, 8 p.m., $8-$10. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353. RIVER WHYLESS: Wed., Aug. 22, 8 p.m., $15.
BEST BETS
Continued from pg 48
Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. ROCKY MANTIA & THE KILLER COMBO: Mon., Aug. 20, 7 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. ROD STEWART, CYNDI LAUPER: Sun., Aug. 19, 7 p.m., $30-$500. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944. SCHOOL OF ROCK: Sun., Aug. 19, 5:30 p.m., $5. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. SHARON BEAR & DOUG FOEHNER: Fri., Aug. 17, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. SLIDERS: Thu., Aug. 16, 8 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565. SONGBIRD CAFE: Wed., Aug. 22, 7 p.m., $15-$20. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778. ST. LOUIS SOCIAL CLUB: Tue., Aug. 21, 8 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. TERMINATOR 2: W/ Path of Might, Kodiac, Alex Cunningham, Mon., Aug. 20, 8 p.m., $8. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. TOM HALL: Sat., Aug. 18, 7 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. TOO BAD: W/ DaggerHead, Murder Person for Hire, Fit Thrower, Thu., Aug. 16, 9 p.m., $5. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. TORN AT THE SEAMS: W/ Silence the Witness, We Are Descendents, Summits, Unimagined, Sat., Aug. 18, 7 p.m., $10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. TWRP: Tue., Aug. 21, 8 p.m., $12-$15. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. WOOD CHICKENS: W/ Leche, Tit for Tat, Maximum Effort, Thu., Aug. 16, 9 p.m., $5. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.
WEEKENDS ARE FOR GOOD TIMES
cranny. Seven years on and Whiskey War is still running strong, which is no small feat for a fest that started off as
Released this past March, Canyon
a big party of close-knit friends. And
Dreams is an audacious name for an
that much, at least, hasn’t changed
album by a Swiss band whose mem-
— it’s just that more members have
bers literally live in the Alps. Yet the
joined the extended musical family.
songs deliver a sense of elevation, bringing dreamy pop with the prom-
Rock the Hops Music Festival
ise of a heavy sound that often walks
2 p.m. Downtown Alton, 200 Piasa Street, Alton, Illinois. $30. No phone.
on air. To its credit, Neiv makes keen use of space so that every snap of the
Between the 40 different craft beers
snare drum cracks like a whip. This
and nearly 30 musical acts sourced
pastoral blend of noise and melody
from throughout the greater St. Louis
coalesces with guitar leading every
region, Rock the Hops is a firm “must
supercharged song.
attend” for those who looking to sample either bands or brew. The combi-
Whiskey War Festival 2018
nation of the two isn’t anything new, of
12 p.m. South Broadway Athletic Club, 2301 South Seventh Street. $15. 314-776-4833.
course, but this street crawl with live
While it’s hard to mention the Whis-
your senses might end up a bit side-
key War Festival without bringing up
ways from all the drafts being poured.
the Maness Brothers, the event has
CaveofswordS, Blank Generation and
grown much bigger than its jet-fueled,
Hope & Therapy lead this six-hour pow-
blues-rocking forefathers. With head-
errun, which goes down in six venues
lining acts James Leg and White Mys-
in close proximity. For more info and
tery, this is basically a rock-and-roll
a full list of performers, see www.face-
summer camp with a ton of sonic
book.com/RockTheHops.
oddities hidden within every nook and
music offers sensory overload, even if
–Joseph Hess
Voted St. Louis’ Favorite Wings & Favorite Appetizers
DJ DANCE PARTY FRIDAY NIGHT LIVE MUSIC SATURDAY AFTERNOON & NIGHT LIVE MUSIC SUNDAY-FUNDAY AFTERNOON
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SAVAGE LOVE SECRET PERVING BY DAN SAVAGE Hey, Dan: I’ve been enjoying consensual nonmonogamy for the past two years, in part thanks to your column and podcast. I have a delightful young lover, and our connection has evolved into a kind of Master/slave relationship. I “allow” her to fuck other men and women, and she delights in asking my permission and recounting the details of her other trysts to me. We are curious how much of this she needs to disclose to her other lovers. They know she isn’t monogamous and they are aware of her relationship with me, but so far she has chosen not to tell them the extent to which I “own” her and have jurisdiction over her body and actions. Of course, it’s just an elaborate role-playing game — but is it wrong to be using these people as pawns in our game without their knowledge and consent? If so, when should she tell them? Before she sleeps with them even once? Or after she’s developed a more intimate rapport with them? There’s a perverse thrill in her other lovers being totally oblivious to it, but we want to be ethical in our polyamorous ways. Making And Sadists Tackling Ethical Relations This falls under the header of permissible secret perving (PSP), MASTER, and I will allow it — with one caveat. My go-to example of PSP is the foot fetishist who works in a shoe store. So long as he’s good at his job and his secret perving is undetectable — no bulges, no heavy breathing, no creepy comments — no harm done. And if he goes home and jacks off about all the sexy, sexy feet he saw and, yes, handled during his shift, he’s not hurting anyone or doing anything unethical. It’s important, however, to note that the foot fetishist salesclerk’s perceptions aren’t the ones that matter. If he thinks he’s playing it cool — he thinks his perving is secret — but his customers or coworkers are creeped out by his behavior, demeanor, heavy breathing, etc., then his perving isn’t secret and is there-
fore impermissible. The secret perving you’re doing — the girlfriend has to beg for your permission to fuck other people and report back to you afterward — is small and it’s a bank shot. The other people she’s fucking provide mental fodder for your D/s role-playing games, MASTER, you aren’t directly involving them. Your role-playing games take place before she fucks someone else (when she asks your permission) and after she fucks someone else (when she recounts her experience). And what turns you on about your girlfriend sleeping with other people — and how you and your girlfriend talk to each other about it — is no one’s business but yours. Now for the caveat: If one of your girlfriend’s lovers strongly objects to Dom/sub sex, relationships or role-playing games, and your girlfriend is aware they object, and you two want to be exquisitely ethical, MASTER, then either your girlfriend shouldn’t fuck that person or she should disclose your Master/slave dynamics to that person and allow them to decide whether they want to fuck her anyway. Zooming out for a second: Some people in open relationships don’t want to know what their partners get up to, and these couples usually have “don’t ask, don’t tell” agreements about sex outside the relationship. But many more people in open relationships do want to hear about their partners’ adventures because it turns them on. Someone who doesn’t want to risk being fodder for a couple’s dirty talk or even their D/s role-playing games shouldn’t be sleeping with people who are partnered and in open relationships. There are things we have a right to ask the people with whom we have casual sex—like whether they’re practicing ethical nonmonogamy, if they have an STI, what kind of birth control they’re using, whether they’re on PrEP, etc. — but a casual fuck isn’t entitled to details about your relationship. Hey, Dan: My boyfriend of one year has refused to delete photos from his Instagram account that show him with his ex-girlfriend. They were together for three years and briefly engaged, and they broke up two years before we met.
There are things we have a right to ask the people with whom we have casual sex, but a casual fuck isn’t entitled to details about your relationship. They aren’t in contact in any way, so I don’t have any worries there, but I think making photos of him with someone else available to his friends and family — and now my friends, too, as many are now following him — is incredibly disrespectful. We’ve had numerous arguments about this, and his “solution” is for me to “stop thinking about it.” He also insists that no one is looking at five-year-old pictures on his Instagram account. If that’s true, why not delete them? He refuses to discuss this issue, even as I lose sleep over it. I’ve tried calmly discussing this with him, I’ve tried crying, I’ve tried screaming my head off — nothing works. Personal Insult Causing Stress There’s definitely something your boyfriend should delete, PICS, but it’s not old photos of his ex. Hey, Dan: The man I’m going to marry has a huge boot fetish. He has about 200 pairs of boots in his size. His size also happens to be my size — and I’m half convinced he wouldn’t have proposed if we didn’t have the same size feet and I couldn’t wear his boots. I want to surprise him with a very special bachelor party (that we’ll both attend): It would be all guys with the same size feet as us, and everyone will be wearing different pairs of boots from his collection. I’m picturing a big group of guys doing for him what I do for him: stand on him, let him lick my (actually, his) boots, make him crawl and grovel. His feet aren’t an uncommon size (11.5), and I’m guessing enough of
riverfronttimes.com
53
our mutual friends would fit into his boots that I could actually make this happen. He’s the only fetishist I’ve ever been with — all my other boyfriends were vanilla — and I’m wondering how he would react if he walked into a room and found a bunch of his friends wearing his boots and then I ordered him to start licking. I think it would be way better than going to a strip club or a drag show. Boyfriend Obsesses Over Tall Shoes P.S. He’s not really “out” about his kink. Wow, BOOTS, you saved the most salient detail for that postscript: Your boyfriend isn’t out to his friends about his kink. So unless you’re talking about a small subset of his friends — only old friends that once had benefits — do not out your boyfriend as a boot fetishist to all his friends with size11.5 feet. If your fiancé has fantasized about some sort of group boot-worshipping session, and he’s shared that fantasy with you, and you want to help him realize it, that’s great. But he needs to be involved in determining where, when, how, and with whom he’d like to make this fantasy a reality. Hey, Dan: My bi girlfriend and I are getting married in a month. We’re in a cuckold relationship — she sleeps with other men and women, while I am completely monogamous to her — and “my” best man is one of her regular male sex partners and her maid of honor is one her girlfriends-with-benefits. No one else at our big traditional church wedding (that her mother is paying for) will know. But I wanted to let you know, Dan, since reading your column is what inspired me to be open about my kinks, and our relationship — the best I’ve ever been in — wouldn’t exist without you. The Happy Couple Permissible secret perving at its finest/hottest, THC. Thanks for sharing, and be sure to send me a photo of the wedding party for my records. Listen to Dan’s podcast at savagelovecast.com. mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage on Twitter ITMFA.org
AUGUST 15 - 21, 2018
RIVERFRONT TIMES
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RIVERFRONT TIMES
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HAPPY HOUR SPECIALS CLEARING THE BAR BIG DADDY’S HIGHLIGHTS HAPPY HOUR SPONSORED CONTENT
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Looking for a full meal? Big Daddy’s has you covered with a huge menu that appeals to everyone. For lunch, try a buffalo chicken wrap or southwestern salad, with both offering a little kick. For something a little more hearty, the fish ‘n’ chips entree is a winner, with crispy fries and coleslaw accompanying the fried cod. For those who are ready to load up before partying the evening away, the Big Daddy’s Classic Burger can’t be beat; a ½ lb. of certified Angus beef is charbroiled to perfection and can be customized with a huge array of toppings and sides. But no matter if you’re visiting during happy hour, for meals or late at night, the atmosphere at Big Daddy’s can be summed up with one word: FUN. Visit bigdaddystl.com for the neverending schedule of specials, parties, bands, fundraisers and game nights, and get ready to understand why so many insist that Big Daddy’s is the best.
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