"Why is there no Feist playing?" (thanks, Tom)
[Edit, 5 p.m. Friday: Ian beat me to posting this, but I didn't see it until now!]
Yes, the 2008 edition of the RFT's music showcase is Sunday, June 1, 2008.
I suggest you add our MySpace profile, which is linked here.
Between that and this blog, we'll have all of the information. It's just three months away!
For last year's results/details, click here.
So Smog's Bill Callahan -- who's now recording under his own name -- is playing Blueberry Hill's Duck Room on Friday night with Shearwater's Jonathan Meiburg. Christian Schaeffer had this to say in this week's paper:
With an affectless baritone voice and sheaves of poignant, idiosyncratic songs, Bill Callahan cut a dashing figure as the man behind Smog, one of first and best one-man bands in the early-'90s underground. Callahan began an identity shift as Smog became the parenthetical (Smog), and eventually just chucked the whole dirty business and is now flying under his own name. Whatever the spine of the CD says, Callahan's version of lo-fi, low-end indie rock mutates every few records, from mannered orchestration to dirty, dirge-like blues. Folksy lightness even permeates many of the best tracks on last year's Woke on a Whaleheart, the first record under his Christian name. The circular, hypnotic "Sycamore" sounds like Lou Reed's "Satellite of Love" as played at a Devendra Banhart campfire jamboree. Later on the album, a simple piano figure guides "Night" as Callahan turns reflective.
In honor of tomorrow night's gig, a generous benefactor found a soundboard recording of Smog from October 19, 1995 at Cicero's in St. Louis. No tracklisting, and it's one big MP3. But it's still almost an hour of vintage Callahan -- and Smog. Download and enjoy.
I saw someone at the Tap Room last month wearing the following shirt, and it made me laugh. And sure enough, you can buy it online at Busted Tees.
-- Annie Zaleski
Friday, February 29
*Drive-By Truckers/Felice Brothers, Pageant
*Bill Callahan (Smog)/Jonathan Meiburg (Shearwater), Duck Room
*Redwalls/John Henry and the Engine/Marlow Honey, Bluebird
*Mavis Staples, Sheldon
*Humanoids/Dead City Dregs/Bridgeburners, Way Out Club
*The Zydepunks, Gargoyle
*Ravi Coltrane, Jazz at the Bistro (also Saturday)
*Shock Stars/Nothing Still, Off Broadway
*A Death and a Promise (CD release), 2 Cents Plain
Saturday, March 1
*Mucca Pazza/Superfun Yeah Yeah Rocketship, Bluebird
*Jesse Irwin, Feisty Bulldog
*The Octopus Project/Pattern is Movement/Say Panther, Gargoyle
*Haddonfields (CD release)/Kentucky Knife Fight/Sex Robots, Way Out Club
*Robin Trower/Logos, Pageant -- SOLD OUT
*Walkie Talkie U.S.A., Mangia
*Grace Basement/Theodore/Joe Kile, Off Broadway
*Team Tomato/Thankful Tree/Ribbons of Song/Westernland (Stella Mora side project), White Flag Projects
Sunday, March 2
*Pelican/Black Cobra/Unearthly Trance, Gargoyle
*St. Louis Blues Festival, Scottrade Center
*Ludo (CD release), Pageant
-- Annie Zaleski
This week's cover story, "Fist City," was written by Keegan Hamilton, and it focuses on St. Louis hip-hop artist Rockwell Knuckles, who released the album Northside Phenomenon late last year.
Below, please find three MP3s from the album to download and some photo outtakes from the piece. The rest of the shots can be found at the slideshow here; all were taken by Jennifer Silverberg.
MP3: Rockwell Knuckles, "Hello Morning (ft. Phillippe and Seymour Liberty)"
MP3: Rockwell Knuckles, "On My Way (ft. Thunder and Phillippe)"
MP3: Rockwell Knuckles, "Northside Phenomenon"
DeVotchKa is confirmed at the Pageant on Friday, May 23. New album A Mad and Faithful Telling is out March 18 on Anti- Records.
"Till the End of Time":
Last-minute show!
Matt Pond PA is playing Blueberry Hill's Duck Room on Thursday, March 13. Show's at 9 p.m.; tickets are $10 advance and $12 d.o.s. and are on sale Friday at 5 p.m.
I probably should have figured that two hours wasn’t long enough to compellingly cover rap, race, reality and technology, the four subjects of a lecture hosted by Webster University on Monday night. But it didn’t matter at the time, because the lecturer was the lyricist and main vocalist of Public Enemy, Chuck D.
I grew up with Chuck D. It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back was stuffed under my mattress with two other (albeit more innocuous) tapes I later possessed and similarly hid: Salt-n-Pepa’s Blacks’ Magic, and M.C. Hammer’s Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em. My parents’ strong disapproval of this “type” of music was unrelated to lyrical content -- and in spite of their differences, those albums would have had the same destiny if they’d been discovered: the trash.
But even as a tween I was a “pleaser,” and me liking this music was unrelated to my parents’ disapproval. (I hadn’t yet discerned the nature of that particular brand of disapproval.) I liked Public Enemy because they were good. That goodness (at least for Millions) had unbeknownst to me, already been precisely defined by Alternative Press as “revolutionary.” It was true that I liked Millions because it was unlike anything I’d ever heard, but I hadn’t heard much before that. And I had no handle on the content, which isn’t required to appreciate the sound of a raw, angry rhyme. But lyrical content is inextricably tied to the revolution of Millions, and is the most likely reason that it found its way into the Sony Walkmen of an awed small-town white girl at 10:00 p.m. on a school night.
Chuck D, who is now in his late forties, is neither raw nor angry in person. But disappointingly, he didn’t speak with apparent conviction about the broad range of topics he covered that night -- which included the importance of obtaining a college education and "challenging information" (especially media portrayal of black culture); holding hip-hop artists politically accountable; and understanding hip-hop and the word “nigger” from a historical and political perspective.
In terms of today’s political culture, he talked about the insanity of John McCain; the diametric opposition of government to culture; the robbery of Africa; and what he referred to as the “Grand Theft Oil” of Halliburton under the Bush administration. He opined that young people should get a passport (“It’s cheaper than rims”) and expressed growing concern at what he called the state of “prison industrial complexes” in China and the United States -- the occurrence of prisoners who are used for free labor. Related to this, he reminded the audience that our country should have learned from slavery that “just because something is profitable doesn’t make it good.”
While Chuck D held the rapt (and considering the topic matter, not undeserved) attention of the young, mostly black, collegiate audience around me, I had trouble overcoming my sadness at the effect of having so many loosely defined topics so casually delivered. And as the evening progressed, it became clear to me that it was probably rap, more than hip-hop culture, that provided the needed focus for Public Enemy’s revolutionary lyrical content. Chuck D made the distinction in his lecture, “rap is vocal application to music, a voiceover,” while hip-hop is “creativity [derived] from black culture.” I can say that I left this lecture with a deeper appreciation of rap’s ability to bring hip-hop culture, including political activism, to the mainstream. And Chuck D is living what he says other hip-hop artists should be: temporarily taking the bus and taking a vocal stance on the issues that matter to him.
-- Kristy Wendt
(Yes, this feature is back in full effect.)
In honor of Dr. Dre announcing his own line of cognac, tequila and (ewwww) sparkling vodka, this week's '90s Hip-Hop Jam of the Week is, of course, "Gin and Juice," by Dre protege Snoop Dogg (when he was known as Snoop Doggy Dogg).
Here's something cool to do tonight: Rats & People are becoming their alter-ego -- the Rats & People Motion Picture Orchestra (R&P Music Factory, if you're nasty) -- to score Buster Keaton's silent film, Go West. That means the band adds musical flourishes along with the movie. The screening's at Off Broadway tonight. See the flyer below.
-- Annie Zaleski
Riverboat Gamblers vocalist Mike Wiebe wants you to know, he can sing, dammit! And if you don’t believe him, he’ll walk off the beer-soaked stage, climb up on the bar and serenade your ass. Like he did Monday night at 2 Cents Plain.
You’ll wonder if he’s covering an R&B standard (he did call himself a white Luther Vandross earlier), but then, the song sounds so plaintive -- and there he is stamping his foot and emoting, like he’s on American Idol. Is this really happening in the middle of a punk show, full of ass-kicking (okay, mild moshing) and beer spray? (Yes.)
If you’ve ever seen the Riverboat Gamblers, you aren’t surprised to see Wiebe off the stage. His skinny ass never stops moving. He tosses his mic, he climbs the amps, he crowd surfs. All while his band mates crank out fast tunes like “Hey! Hey! Hey!”, “Rattle Me Bones” (Something to Crow About), “True Crime,” “Don’t Bury Me…I’m Still Not Dead” and “The Song We Used To Call ‘Wasting Time’” (To the Confusion of Our Enemies).
The reception we gave the Gamblers Monday night at 2 Cents Plain must have told Wiebe to go for it. The band has been trying out some new material, and the faster songs held our attention.
If nothing else, he had to celebrate the fact that we could hear him in the first place. Last time the Gamblers were in town, they opened for the novelty metal act Valient Thorr at the Creepy Crawl -- and sound for the band's set was non-existent. Two Cents hasn’t exactly mastered sound either, but at least St. Louis can still give the boys from Texas a place to park the ol’ paddle-wheel. (The band’s name, by the way, was intended to set them apart from “silly, flowery” DallasDenton-area emo bands. No connection to our own Mississip.)
In fact, I think redemption was in the smoke-filled air. The Gamblers played a blistering finale. Afterward, an acquaintance of mine, who’d spent the show in a frenzy, looked around the venue and proclaimed, "This is like the new Creepy Crawl."
Please see the below flyer! The band has a record deal with Milwaukee's Beer City Records and is serious about touring. Help 'em out! Head On Collision's MySpace is here.
So, I've had my eye on young rockers Fight! Fight! Fight! for a few months now (and we even reviewed the band's Your Sister's Jeans Ain't As Tight As This EP). And it appears I'm not the only one: The band has landed a string of Warped Tour dates this summer, starting with the July 1 St. Louis date through July 6 in Houston, Texas.
The quintet certainly appeals to the under-21 crowd; its tunes mainly address puppy love and longing, and the importance of friendship and dancing. Jeans recalls the bouncy pogo-pop of Paramore and the tongue-twisting sugar-punk of Fall Out Boy (along with countless other modern rock acts). But vocalist Erica Scott Ross has a clear, sweet voice that's reminiscent of Elizabeth Elmore of the Reputation -- and several of her band's songs feel way more indebted to 1990s indie-rock ("I've Got Five Fingers" especially) than modern emo. Most important, the band immediately stood out from the dyed-and-pierced masses -- and with the sheer amount of groups around these days, that's hard to do.
Whatever the case, Fight! Fight! Fight! has loads of spunk and ambition, and so I expect great things from them in the future.
