Photo by Dana Smith

A backyard is as good a place as any to start a movement. That's where, in two separate neighborhoods over roughly nine months, 22 bands outlined the edges of a music collective, filled them in over beer and launched Tower Groove Records. They collected votes and took turns. They staged a carnival at a bar. And this Friday, the collective-slash-label will release its first annual compilation, 21 songs over two LPS that seem to represent 21 different genres. Before the group's weekend of shows to celebrate the release, we talked to all of the bands about the launch, the label and what they hope will be its legacy.

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Doorway's Facebook page

RT-FaQ & WhiteOut - part of the Doorway collective - recently released a video for their song "When the Stars Come Out." The song also features Family Affair.

Rapping tends to be a solitary exercise, a musical journey where an emcee combines poetic dexterity and creative self-expression to captivate an audience. But there's something especially impressive when a group of performers band together, unselfishly sharing the spotlight for the greater good.

Such is the case with RT-FaQ and WhiteOut, two members of the Fairview Heights-based Doorway collective. The two rappers released a video recently for "When the Stars Come Out" aimed at showcasing the group's sound, as well as giving even more visibility to the effervescent Cherokee Street. The song also features an appearance from Family Affair.

RFT Music caught up via e-mail with Nick "WhiteOut" Menn and group manager and engineer Cory Rose to peer behind the scenes of both the collective and the eye-popping video for "When the Stars Come Out." Questions and responses have been edited for clarity and length.

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Adult Fur's RÁN remix album will have its official release at a listening party this Saturday, May 12 at Brennan's. It starts at 9 p.m., admission is free, and you'll be able to buy posters and download codes.

Ryan McNeely gets the tables turned on him for his RÁN remix album. As a producer, McNeely's been responsible for creating tracks for Scripts N Screwz and Rockwell Knuckles, and his solo work as Adult Fur takes blocks of sound and makes borderless collages that dip into psych, electronica and R&B. While McNeely is an apt remixer of others' work, on this one he allows friends from home and abroad to take a swing through his songbook. Like any good remix, most of these tracks tell us something about Adult Fur and something about the artist deconstructing the track.

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Courtesy of Corey Woodruff

Corey Woodruff used St. Louis people and places to pay tribute to Woody Guthrie's "New Years Rulin's."

A local photographer is commemorating Woody Guthrie's 100th birthday by giving a modern twist to a series of resolutions the iconic singer made back in the 1940s. And he's launched a Kickstarter drive so that his work can be showcased to the general public.

Guthrie - an Oklahoma-born folk singer and political activist - created his "New Years Rulin's in 1942, a list of 33 aspirations for the coming year. The Rulin's encompassed everything from professional goals ("Write A Song Every Day") to personal hygiene ("Wash Teeth If Any") to political beliefs ("Help Win War - Beat Facism").

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Parisian

To casual observers, electronic music may be sterile noise created to excite and energize people. That may be major simplification, to be sure. But with so many artists in the genre creating songs aimed at getting people dancing, it's almost jarring to hear electronic music encased with personal experience.

Yet it's clear from a listen of Those Emotions Ran High that St. Louis native Parisian isn't trying to get people moving and grooving. The EP - which can be obtained for free by going Parisian's Tumblr or Facebook page - features songs such as "Heavy Petting," a conspicuously sensual track with foot-slapping drumbeats and atmospheric synthesizers. Even though the song was concocted from personal experience, it billows out a sound that connects to anybody who ever became infatuated with someone else.

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When Drew Gowran of Navigator jumped ship last February he left one of St. Louis's most promising new acts, a project he created with singer/guitarist Curtis Tinsely. Restrained on record and thrash-friendly live, Navigator had one full-length album to its credit and a slew of online releases prior to Gowran's quitting. Gowran has since moved on to grunge-oddballs the Little Big Bangs. Tinsley has kept busy with his artwork, and writing the final chapter for Navigator. Under the moniker "Navigator Solo", Burial @ Sea is Navigator's swan song, and Tinsley's way of finding closure after the demise of Navigator.

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Brothers Lazaroff

Science Won Release Show. 8 p.m. Saturday, April 21. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Boulevard. $10. 314-726-4707

Through fate, musical kinship or blackmail, Jeff and David Lazaroff landed perhaps the most enviable backing band in town for their roots/rock outfit: With Grover Stewart on drums, Teddy Brookins on bass and Mo Egeston on keyboard, the Brothers Lazaroff turned into an amorphous and flexible force, with soul and funk filigrees peeking out from the Lazaroffs' folk- and rock-based songs. 2010's Give 'Em What They Need was the quintet's first recording, and the album never settled in one groove too long. For the just-released Science Won, the band takes an unexpected left turn and reverts back to the acoustic folk that attended the Brothers' earlier releases. Low-key campfire songs are not, perhaps, the most obvious use of players who pretty much live in the pocket. But as consummate sidemen, Stewart, Brookins and Egeston ably fill in the blanks with tasteful piano, sonorous acoustic bass and intuitive percussion. Their restraint on these recordings makes the occasional breaks and flourishes that much sweeter; listen for the rhythm section's bounce on the title track, which melds well with the jazz-flecked guitar solos.

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Syna So Pro's Syrhea Conaway has been undertaking a capella "SMASHups" of local music.

Syna So Pro has been bending St. Louis' collective mind for a while now, taking the concept of the solo act to new heights. Syrhea Conaway - the brainchild behind Syna So Pro - uses an array of foot pedals, instruments and looping technology to create a hypnotic stream of very rad experimental music.

Conaway - a finalist in the Best Solo Project category for the 2012 RFT Music Awards - has also created a series of a capella clips that incorporates songs from one local band at a time. The most recent edition came out earlier this week, when Conaway performed a "SMASHup" of songs from The Blind Eyes. She's also done renditions of songs by Bo and the Locomotive, Ellen the Felon, the Dive Poets and more. In total the series has had eight installments.

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Nate Burrell

Rough Shop Beneath the South Side Bridge Release Show: 9 p.m. Saturday, April 14. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue. $10 to $13.

Rough Shop has always been a band of old souls. Its three principles -- guitarists Andy Ploof and John Wendland and bassist Anne Tkach -- have settled comfortably into middle age, and they write, sing and perform their songs accordingly, drawing from various strains of folk, rock and country. For Beneath the South Side Bridge, this band of old souls actually sounds like a soul band -- Hammond B3 organ drips from the edges, and the acoustic guitars have largely been left in their cases. Of course, Rough Shop's brand of soul still stems from the singer-songwriter intuitions and narrative song-craft that have attended the band's other releases, but the pop and shuffle give these songs a lift. (And anyone doubting the band's soul bona fides can get an education from Wendland's Memphis to Manchester program on KDHX (88.1 FM) -- this is a band of both musicians and music scholars.)

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RFT File Photo

Andrew Elstner, guitarist for Torche and vocalist for the St. Louis-based Tilts, encountered a media frenzy after a bat urinated in his eye at a rustic Wildwood house.

Realistically speaking, bats are more inclined to slurp up bugs than terrorize humanity. But the critters probably aren't getting a lot of love from Andrew Elstner, one of the members of the St. Louis-based Tilts and guitarist for Torche.

Elstner, a St. Louis native who now lives in Atlanta, touched off a frenzy when he revealed to the world that a bat urinated in his eye. In a telephone interview with RFT Music, Elstner says the inexplicable tale unfolded while he was walking around an old Wildwood abode late at night. He was staying there after a recent Tilts show at El Leñador.

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