St. Louis Music Blog

Big Star/Box Tops legend Alex Chilton's sad, unexpected death continues to reverberate throughout the music industry. Tributes are pouring in, from the LA Times and Rolling Stone to the NY Times and basically the entire SXSW music festival.

Jason Harper

The cover of the Austin Chronicle's SXSW supplement today

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Big Star's last St. Louis show was in October 2006, at Taste of St. Louis, of all places. This morning, a friend reminded me that Big Star's first reunion show after a two-decades-plus hiatus took place in Columbia, Missouri. The 1993 show is immortalized on the album Columbia: Live At Missouri University, and showcases a Big Star line-up featuring Chilton, drummer Jody Stephens and Posies members Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow on guitar and bass, respectively.

On the album's Amazon.com listing, a fan named S. Clayton Moore -- who says he was a student at Mizzou at the time-- gave some more background about the concert:

Fact: '80s hellraisers The Dead Milkmen are awesome. The snot-nosed-punk yin to They Might Be Giants' goofy-pop yang, DM skewered pop culture like no other band (cf. "Instant Club Hit," the timeless "Punk Rock Girl"). Guitarist Joe Jack Talcum is constantly on tour -- no St. Louis date this time around, unfortunately -- although DM's official website notes that the band is working on new material and "hope to have a release later this year." ! In the meantime, here's 1987 video evidence of one of its cheekier ditties, "Notorious/Kill Duran Duran" -- a mash-up of the DD hit and other, saltier barbs toward the English pop sensation. DM had been through town before this, though: As its totally entertaining vintage tour blog notes, it played in "East St. Louis" on February 3, 1986. (Where? What club?)

One of my coolest recent finds on Google books is a searchable archive of Spin magazine's entire collection -- from the magazine's very first issue (Madonna was the cover star, May 1985) through last fall's Pearl Jam interview. I happened to click randomly on the May 1986 issue (R.E.M. on the cover, natch) and stumbled upon a write-up on the Lou's own Evening Whirl. Even 22 years ago, things were pretty much the same for the East St. Louis paper. Scroll below to the article with the headline "Man Caught Making Love to Dog" to read what the magazine had to say about the Whirl.

The Knack's "My Sharona" spent over a month at the No. 1 spot on the Billboard singles chart in late summer 1979 -- from August 25 to September 29. In that period, the band apparently performed to 900 people at Kirkwood High School, at least according to the book So, Where'd You Go to High School? This Google books link has one line about the concert, but no other details. Were you there? Do you have photos? Stories? I'd love to hear them. Knack singer Doug Fieger, as we reported earlier, died yesterday.

The great piano man Johnnie Johnson passed away in 2005. However, thanks to YouTube, his effortless playing lives on. Here's footage of an encore from a Sheldon concert. Johnson is performing with David Krull. The fluidity of Johnson's performance and the dulcet tones he's coaxing from the piano are really awe-inspiring, even on a medium-quality video.

Now this is a fine way to end the week: After my post about Animal Collective playing the Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center, Raglani -- who uploaded the video -- clued me in that he just uploaded another awesome vintage clip: Interpol at the Rocket Bar in 2002, performing "Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down." This is about a month after the band released Turn on the Bright Lights. When comparing this to the band's Pageant show a few years back, it's like night and day -- the energy and angst are electric.

Interpol "Stella..." live in Saint Louis @ the Rocket Bar 2002 from joseph raglani on Vimeo.

Electronic musician Raglani has been keeping busy in non-performance ways lately: He's been uploading video after video of vintage St. Louis performance videos to a Vimeo account. The result is a treasure trove of experimental, noise, punk and indie videos: The collection features acts such as Hair Police, Darin Gray (as part of Brain Transplant), Magik Markers and Yellow Swans. Check back often, as Raglani appears to be adding more clips daily.

Here's amazing footage of Animal Collective taken in 2003, when the group played the Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center. This is the band whose album Merriweather Post Pavilion just topped the Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critic's poll, a band that's probably Pageant-sized at this point. (Last time in town, in support of Strawberry Jam, AC played the Gargoyle.)

Animal Collective live in Saint Louis from joseph raglani on Vimeo.

Yesterday, a video of local thrash-metal legends Conquest surfaced on YouTube. The clip features the band performing "Evil Times Two" (in Forest Park, perhaps?), as seen on the now-defunct local music program Midcoast Mania. The special effects -- flames! haunted houses! more fire! -- fit the song, which is full of squealing riffs and chugging solos. Conquest will be performing a rare show with Canadian documentary subjects/long-running metal band Anvil at the Pageant on Friday, January 29. (Gold Tooth is also on the bill; the Anvil documentary is no longer being shown before the performances.) The pairing is appropriate; Conquest has been around for almost as long as Anvil has, and like the Canadians, the locals perform timeless metal that never seems to age -- or grow stale. "Evil Times Two" below; after the jump, "911 No Mercy," another Conquest video.

​And now what you've all been waiting for: The second and final installment in RFT's carefully curated hastily thrown together assemblage of YouTubery that reflects the KSHE Klassics of our (or someone's, anyway) youth.

In case you missed Part 1, in this week's issue, Annie Zaleski heralds the arrival of In Concert: KSHE and 40+ Years of Rock in St. Louis, a scrapbook of the area's latter-day music history. Reading "Raised on Radio" inspired a few of us around the office to revisit the KSHE Klassics of our formative years.

Before we knew it, we'd accumulated a list of more than three dozen songs, and it seemed a shame not to share 'em.

The sole criterion for inclusion: A song must have garnered airplay in St. Louis that outstripped its popularity in other corners of the planet.

So...on with Part 2! By the way, the author of the book profiled, John Neiman, will be at Vintage Vinyl tomorrow from 1 to 3 p.m. signing copies of the book.

Mason Proffit, "Two Hangmen" Here's the thing: We said these are in no particular order, but clearly it was no accident that we opened Part 1 with "Movin' On," by the band Missouri. Trouble is, there's so many possibilities for how to lead off and only two spots, given our two-part format. So we're going with "Two Hangmen" to open the anchor leg. Some of you will understand. The rest of you didn't listen to enough KSHE.

In this week's issue, Annie Zaleski heralds the arrival of In Concert: KSHE and 40+ Years of Rock in St. Louis, a scrapbook of the area's latter-day music history. Reading "Raised on Radio" put a few of us locals in a nostalgic state of mind, inspiring an e-mail frenzy of the KSHE Klassics of our formative years.

Before we knew it, we'd traded links to several dozen YouTube videos and figured it'd be selfish of us not to share them with RFT readers. The list got so long that this here is the first of two installments.

The sole criterion for inclusion: A song must have garnered airplay in St. Louis that outstripped its popularity in other corners of the planet. That's it.

Now, without further ado, and in no particular order, we'll get started...

(View Part 2, with 17 more Klassics, here.)

Missouri, "Movin' On" If your band is called Missouri, everything you do is a KSHE classic by definition.

ozarkmusicfestivalexhibit.com

The Ozark Music Festival kicked off 35 years ago last Saturday, July 18, at the Missouri State Fairgrounds in Sedalia. Concert promoters had assured Sedalians that they would be hosting a "soft rock" festival with 50,000 spectators.

Instead, 160,000 people (and that's a conservative estimate) showed up to watch Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ted Nugent, Bachman Turner Overdrive, the Eagles, Jefferson Starship, Aerosmith and, at the very bottom of the bill, in small letters, Bob Seger and Bruce Springsteen. They were lured by a full-page ad in Rolling Stone and a plug from Wolfman Jack's radio show that promised "No hassles, guaranteed."

On Tuesday, July 7, the recording and Internet radio industries finally agreed on how the latter will compensate the former for streaming music via the web.

The resolution was a long time coming. Former RFT writer Randall Roberts (now music editor for our sister paper, LA Weekly) wrote about the conflict two and a half years ago when he profiled Jim and Wanda Atkinson, Internet radio pioneers and proud proprietors of south St. Louis-based 3WK Internet Radio (est. 1997).

Here's a New York Times story about the newly established rules for royalty payments, aptly headlined "Music Labels Reach Online Royalty Deal." Be warned, though -- the Times piece is rough sledding. You might, after reading it six times through, s-l-o-w-l-y, have a notion about what was at stake in this tussle, and how things now stand. Probably not, though.

So here's some background:

Since the dawn of the radio age, U.S. broadcasters have paid royalties to songwriters. Unlike the rest of the industrialized world, however, American AM and FM stations do not compensate record labels or the performers themselves. That fact has been a bone of contention for decades and a topic of recent debate as Congress mulls it over. (For more, visit the website of musicFIRST, a coalition of artists intent upon making terrestrial radio pony up.) 

Though the U.S. government hasn't yet settled the AM/FM question, when Congress passed the landmark Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA), it stipulated that web streamers and satellite stations must pay songwriters and artists and their labels. When the dust cleared, a preliminary setup was established. The price was steep, and especially so for comparative bit players like 3WK with annual revenues of less than $1.25 million -- "small webcasters" in Congressional parlance -- who feared the required payments would force them out of business.

(For a detailed explanation, click through to Randy Roberts' 2006 story, "You Play, They Pay," and search for "DMCA," and, if you still want more, read "Small Webcasters Dealt Death Blow," the 2007 follow-up he wrote, on Daily RFT.)

Now, after much rancorous debate, last week's settlement nails down a structure, with new stipulations for mega-streamers like Pandora and small fry like 3WK.

Click to the jump to read an e-mail Q&A with 3WK's Wanda Atkinson about the settlement and the future of Internet radio...

What I'm assuming is band member Eric Netherland uploaded this video of his '80s local cover band Sceptre, taking Yes' "Owner of a Lonely Heart" to the next level with an ARSENAL OF SYNTHESIZERS. The other video he posted is a Fixx cover, so we're going to stick with the Yes video below, recorded on New Year's Eve 1984 at Bogart's. Bitching keytar!

Here's the Minneapolis band Soul Asylum at Mississippi Nights in 1987, tearing through some songs like the scorching punk band it once was. Fun fact: Guess who opened for 'em? Why, the Flaming Lips!

"Whoa/Passing Sad Daydream"

Back in 1983, a young St. Louisian named Amy Hardin needed a liver transplant. Friends, family and even President Reagan expressed support for the child -- although perhaps the biggest donor to the cause was KISS, who apparently gave money from a 1983 Kiel Auditorium show to Amy's cause. Here's a video about the situation, posted by an eBay user called EliteWorks who's selling off vintage KISS memorabilia. Incidentally -- anyone know what happened to Amy? [Edit: An anonymous commenter left a link to a newspaper article that reports that Amy died in 1988.]

Here's a YouTube clip of Alejandro Escovedo headlining Twangfest last week at the Pageant. Escovedo prefaces the song "Sensitive Boys" with a recollection of a wild night (or two) he spent playing the old Cicero's club back when he was with the band The True Believers.

Kudos to Jaime for finding this awesome 1994 news segment about "the world of rave" and children going to "so-called rave parties," which are "all the rage." Alexis Tucci is mentioned, as is the record store Deep Grooves. Randy Roberts wrote a great piece about this era a few years ago, right here.

This is one of my favorite YouTube finds, one I didn't get a chance to post before the Springsteen show in August. It's a 1988 local TV clip about the time Bruce Springsteen was in town in 1981, and was spotted at a movie theater. A local family recognized him -- and well, the rest is history. And pretty cool.

Sinister Dane playing "Absence of Angels" at the old Fire House in 1994. Tony Hawk is there skateboarding on a half-pipe. What?

Why has no one ever alerted me to the presence of this band before? A bunch of 1982 clips from an all-girl band called the Remaindrz just surfaced on YouTube. Think the Go-Go's meets Joan Jett, minus the perky enthusiasm and badass snarls. Or the Runaways, minus the spunky naivete. The interview is also priceless -- who's conducting that? And who are these ladies?

"Little Luv"

(Piece by Dean C. Minderman)

Blues enthusiasts know that the music is best experienced live, but when you can't get to one of St. Louis' blues clubs in person, you can still take in some of the sights and sounds online by visiting Lady Di's Blues Corner. The site features dozens of pages of photos and performance videos of St. Louis blues musicians past and present, representing more than a decade of effort by Dianna "Lady Di" Trombino Mestman.

Mestman, a St. Louis native and retired legal secretary, first became a blues fan as a teenager after seeing B.B. King and Bobby "Blue" Bland in concert. Her interest in the music was rekindled years later when she began going to BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups to hear local bands. "I actually found it by accident," she said. "I'd been by there many times, but never knew what it was. Then one day, we were watching the Food Network, and BB's was featured on a travel show."

So, the video isn't embeddable, but last week's indie-rock swap meet brought up so many memories, check out this Boorays video for "Band of Gold" on YouTube. What's the story with this band, scene vets?

Hey, it's Southgang performing "Fire In Your Body" here in 1993. Who's Southgang? Why, rocker Butch Walker's hair metal act. What a hesher.

(Words by Andrew Scavotto; photos by Annie Zaleski)

After devoting a significant amount of time to exploring local music in 2008, moreso than in years past, I've decided to end the year by blogging about my favorite moments. This isn't necessarily a list of my favorite shows -- rather, it's a list of the moments during which I enjoyed music the most during 2008.

(Shame Club, August 2008)

It should be noted that this is the perspective of a fan, not a critic, meaning that this blog is not a critical summary or "best of" analysis. In fact, there are several great local bands that I didn't even see this year, so this list is not even close to being comprehensive or authoritative. I also missed some key shows (the Riddle of Steel finale, So Many Dynamos doing Weezer, reunion shows that I haven't been around long enough to understand), so I'm simply listing the moments that I happened to enjoy the most. Let me know what I missed and tell me about your favorite moments from 2008.

Full disclosure: I have worked professionally with a few of the artists listed below and I planned this year's Lot festival. Regardless, you can trust that everything on this list was included simply because I thought it rocked and was awesome, not because of any self and/or company interest. [Editor's note: I can vouch for that.]

My favorite moments of 2008....

With all of the old-school St. Louis band reunion shows happening in the coming weeks, figured this week was a good time to unroll another installment of local old-school videos. Up first is a clip from Judge Nothing, the much-beloved Alton punk/pop/whatever act. The band played gigs with anybody who's anybody -- Fugazi, Descendents, Uncle Tupelo, Hum, Smoking Popes, Jesus Lizard, Poster Children, Skin Yard, Bad Brains, Pegboy, Trenchmouth and Tar, All, Green Day, Shiner, Joan Jett, Blue Meanies, etc. etc. -- which sort of sums up their broad appeal and influences. FYI: The band has a DVD available of old music videos and performance clips for sale (info here).

Since everyone's enjoying the vintage Lou indie-rock thread, take a look at this...

In this week's paper, we published some awesome photos by Mark Gilliland, a long-time RFT freelance photographer who also documented major rock stars displaying their love of gear crafted by St. Louis Music. (Brand names include major players such as Ampeg, Crate and Alvarez.) Check back here tomorrow afternoon for more about St. Louis Music and its funeral show, which takes place on Saturday, December 13. Click on the photo of Bo Diddley, Johnnie Johnson and Billy Gibbons below for a larger slideshow of Gilliland's work.

Slideshow here.

Slideshow here.

It's always awesome to get new music from Murphy Lee. Here's the video for "My Shoes," which was totally filmed in the Loop! His new album is apparently called You See Me; I first heard tracks from this nearly three years ago.

This popped up on YouTube a few weeks ago: The Beatles playing live in St. Louis, circa 1966. The video is rather dark and spotty, but the sound is pretty good. It's rather haunting watching this clip, in a very hard-to-define way. For some reason it reminds me of flipping through old family photo albums After the jump, compare with a video from the band's 1966 Cleveland show, which shows the hysteria at these shows. (My parents were at that one, I believe, although I can't see them in the clip. I don't think. Mom? Dad?)

Coincidentally enough, I posted this right before I saw that Wired's music blog is reporting that "A Beatles-branded interactive music game along the lines of Rock Band and Guitar Hero will give gamers and music lovers a chance to play songs from every stage of the Beatles' storied career, from the sweet simplicity of "Please, Please Me" to more sophisticated fare like the songs on Abbey Road."