St. Louis Music Blog

Wow. Not unlike what these dudes will be doing after lunch : http://images.channeladvisor.com/Sell/SSProfiles/73000107/Images/15/Lunch-On-Skyscraper-Poster-484.jpg

RIVETING.

Contrary to what folks stuck in at local institutions (mostly afraid of losing what little bits they've gained for themselves) of your pubished, political, retailin' and wireless'transmissioned institutions would have you and every denizen of this glorious Dowager of the Roman Empire (that is to say, the always-a-bridesmaid-who-wants-to-be-a-bride-anyway-it's-for-chumps! that is St. Louis, MO), our best days are NOT in ANY way BEHIND us or NON-existant or COULDA-SHOULDA-WOULDA'd into a flaggin' moebius strip of nothing.

Your folks at the Firebird and Big Muddy Records and on and on and on certainly get that.

This systemic infection (oooo if only some random thing out of our control 100 years ago would have happened then SOUTH BY (a pointless circle-jerk to be sure (renderred even less pointed by folks referring to it as SOUTH BY)) would have been OURS!!!

*NO.*

and also--

*WHO GIVES A DAMN*.

Any y'all at the Alley Ghost release last night? 100+ peeps? Great music? Folks getting down?

I walked in to a packed house, outside to a buncha kids eating barbeque, Doormat from RumDrum's frippin' Dart with trunk and doors open rocking some King Khan, dashboard a'glow and dice swinging in the direct middle of it's glorious honeyed windshield. Then the Hooten Hollers brought it Flat Duo Jets-styley, there was poetry *and* poultry and *pouting*. Bob Reuter got onstage with a dirt-folk wrecking crew featuring the once-and-future-rocker Chris Powers on upright, Chris (Monsieur Big Muddy his'self!) on a snare, Ryan "Harpin' to the Angels" on harmonica and th'Devil'Knows'What'Else and ol' Doormat, Holly and Holy spec's 3/4's way down his sweaty nose, griming out a groove for Bob's words on. which. to. float.

Any jerk that wasn't there is a jerk. Unless they were making their own particular flavor of good stuffs happen (running a club? Rock. Writing words? Rock. Silkscreening shirts? Rock. Wandering down the Seine-like Mississip away down Carondelet? Rock. And on and on and on).

I love Missouri history as much as, yes, ANYBODY (wanna jabber with me? read the first chapter of An Empire Wilderness and we can talk), but this post is without teeth, without fangs, is the State-Sanctioned'n'Sanitized utter waste.

I want to guzzle thick milk words direct from the udders.

There's no protein here. GIVE ME PROTEIN.

Yeesh muhgooguhluh!

and, oh yeah!

WTF is the INJUSTICE tagged in this post?

That folks didn't set up your deflated circle to be 'important' and filled with a festival that would then validate you?

Oh! Injustice! Injustice! Injustice!

Injustice is this:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=377

Holy helllllll.

Haterade? Soft play, boss.

I think the point of what I wrote is easily parsed even through the jibber-jabber.

Flippant and dismissive responses utilizing FiveMinutesAgo.com slang serve no one and no thing. The hip terms don't even increase a cache of magical "cred," man.

Ultimately, who gives a screw, yeah, it was just some dumb thing someone heard on a local community pledge drive broadcast.

But!

Much like the "Take Back the City!" rhetoric that permeates most attempts to develop our downtown, casual remarks such as "South by Southwest would take place a mere hour from here. Sigh." only reinforce the myth that nothing worthwhile happens here.

I get that, yes, we're fly-over country, that as far the west- and east- urban centers of "important culture and thought and entertainment" we're a second thought, that the Third or Middle or Forgotten (whichever, take your pick) Coast is somehow devoid of engaging discourse and art or fun that reflects new takes on what is to be a human in a town in a county in a state in a country in a global community, but as long as folks that have the megaphone say "South by Southwest would take place a mere hour from here" and punctuate it with a "Sigh," we're only digging our own tapped-out mine in which to slave away.

Chip-on-shoulder Midwest-like? That's fine.

A superficial understanding of our region's growth and development leads me to shout through my megaphone, to use one of the few and dwindling significant voices our city has to imply that, O, Snap (see, how Midwestern to use facile and misappropriated lingo to protect against any possible retort, see, man, I don't even really mean what I'm saying), we could have had something great if a dude in the past in a culture completely foreign and unrelatable to 21st Century blogospherical blathering and back-slapping had *just* *stayed* *put* we'd be preaching "Keep St. Louis Weird!"

It's off-the-cuff and dangerous and breeds the unhealthy combination of complacency and dissatisfaction. As if "Once again, stuff was out of our control and we got screwed but man it woulda been great but I'm not going to do anything to try and remedy it."

This is not your battle, indeed. It is an innocuous li'l post, kinda cutesy, but it's one of many buttresses beneath the crumbling I-Think-This-Town-Is-Lame-But-I'll-Only-Hint-At-That cathedral. It's only going to hold so long.

So apologies are not in order, and I'm not sorry if Aimee's feelings got hurt (or Darren Snow's for that matter). I'll apolgize to those folks that have made it this far into the comments. My writing style has a tendency to obfsucate my points.

And, really, above all else, this post's biggest crime is the same as the Rock Math (tm)...

IT WAS BORING.

AMUSE ME, AT THE LEAST, WHILE YOU FIDDLE ATOP THE OLD CATHEDRAL AND WATCH THE DOWAGER OF ROME BURN TO THE GROUND. YOU ALL OWE ME THAT AT LEAST.

Plus, I'm probably drunk.

Ahh, the shallow satisfaction of avoiding a close textual response, repeated even, to end discourse.

Another internet fracas hard-won for the folks that trace with papa's old drafting table.

Arguing is *hard*!

Thank the Piasa that I am a notorious dilettante and that my ADHD has led me to chase after this strange red dot shone upon the living room floor!

"Generally a waste of time/energy/space."

And the festering continues.

RFT = Post Dispatch = STL Sound = on and on and on but != meat & hardball & rock'n'soul.

There's some Rock Math(tm) for ya!

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and jest for les record, *I* didn't bring up city rivalries. That was *your* gut reaction.

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also: I shouldn't *have* to be reporting on the Alley Ghost bizness. It ain't my job. I understand the economics of advertising in a world where print is dying probably dictates the need to cover events with mostly "Previews" and such, but when digital media presents y'all such a killer forum with nothing but blank pages to writ large on, no limit to the amount of 'blog posts' one can throw up, why don't you have a legion of folks out seeing all the music they can sop up with their filthy li'l earholes and then reporting on it?

I'd think this would generate far more interest and viwership and click-throughs and wotever other matrices the wizards behind the RFT's web-curtain would measure.

I know for one that *I'd* be more inclined to check it daily instead of bi-weekly.

A la, "Hey what the hell happened around town? I'ma scope that A to Z, mang!"

But. Then I get there and see only a post saying, "Anyone know what happened around town? Please fill my comment field with your doing's." I promise you in every way this is not mean-spirited, but that often comes off, to me at least, as a "I couldn't be assed into doing much of anything, much less trying to colate what my cronies said happened, so...uh...everyone else provide my content!"

That's definitely not the impetus, I'm sure, but perception is everything, espeecially in this 1's and 0's social media tweet tweet fweep fweep a'lay'lay small world, and that's the perception.

And now I will depart this fair playground, as you'll probably need to have the last word. Which is cool, baby. Don't sweat it. It's the least I owe ya for putting up with my rambles.

Sadly, or not so, I'm just high on Stag, Parliaments and Rock'n'Roll, holmes.

WTF else is there? Watching sunny CA drift into the Pacific? Throwing rocks at barges from Eads bridge?

Since I feel that I am at least partially responsible for this thread, I should probably take a moment to mention that I was participating in the KDHX membership drive because I love St. Louis and many of its musical amenities, and I was providing small-town trivia because I also love small towns and I appreciate the KDHX listeners who live in those small towns. Also: It was a joke, son.

My gifts as a "hype man," I realize, are sadly limited. Since Lester Bangs and P.T. Barnum are otherwise occupied, maybe someone should try to recruit James to help "pitch" on the next KDHX membership drive--unless, of course, he's too busy listening to "This American Life."