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It has been a wild few days for freelance photographer Nichole Torpea. The 22-year-old UMSL grad was shooting the My Chemical Romance concert at the Pageant for Riverfront Times this past Saturday night when, she says, she was assaulted by a member of the band's security team.

But she'll be shooting an MCR concert again this Friday at New York City's Madison Square Garden -- as a special guest of the band.

While taking pictures from the balcony of the Pageant during last Saturday's sold-out show, Torpea says, she was approached by a man she believes is a member of MCR's security team. The man, whom she later described to St. Louis police as six-foot-three, 210 to 230 pounds and dressed all in black, grabbed her arm, led her through a door to a stairwell and forced her to the ground. Torpea says the man paid little attention to the photo pass attached to her shirt.

"I was collapsing under his pressure," she says. "I had no idea what was going on. He had no ID and wouldn't tell me who he was. He kept saying, 'You know what you did. Give me the fucking camera.'"

The above interview has footage of the party at Vintage Vinyl and the record store's co-owner, Tom Ray, talking about the state of his record store in the midst of the iTunes and YouTube generation.

When was the last time you bought a record?

Independent record stores like the Vintage Vinyl here in St. Louis celebrated the first National Record Store Day on Saturday to celebrate music, records and the fact that their doors are still open.

See pictures here.

Earlier this year, Dewanzel "Jazz" Singleton, president and CEO of East St. Louis-based Lock 'Em Down Records was the subject of a feature story in the RFT. Singleton was arrested in August and faced felony charges of conspiracy to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine.

The DEA alleged that Lock 'Em Down Records was "financially supported by illegal drug proceeds."

At the time Singleton maintained his innocence.

Here’s an excerpt from that story, published January 9:

"Singleton, who has never been convicted of a crime in his life, has pleaded not guilty. He points out that the DEA has failed to produce any hard evidence: no cash, no drugs or paraphernalia. Despite being under heavy surveillance, he notes, he has never been seen conducting a single narcotics transaction. Though several DEA sources provided circumstantial evidence against him, not one claims to have purchased drugs from him or to have seen him sell drugs.

'If you caught me doing something wrong, then I can understand,' he says during an interview at a downtown St. Louis restaurant. 'OK, take me away, I got to pay my debt to society, that's the way it goes. But [they] haven't caught me with anything: no drugs, no money, no guns. Nothing.'

If the DEA's version of events is true, then Dewanzel Singleton led an improbable double life. And if he's innocent, Singleton is the victim of an equally astonishing string of coincidences, betrayals and poor judgment."

What a weekend. Here's what you missed:

The Alice Rose of Austin, Texas played Friday night at Lemmons in South St. Louis. Click over to A to Z to read more.

On Friday night, the wind was whipping down Washington Avenue, but that didn't stop the club crowd from heading out. Here's a recap from Joseph Olk:

Friday Night and It's Windy

It is 10 p.m. on Washington Ave. and it's colder than it should be. All previous knowledge tells me that this is a cloudy night in mid-October, but my phone tells me it's the eleventh of April. I'll trust my phone.

Stepping into the Dubliner offers a reprieve from the wind. The Cardinals are on every television and the crowd is in a boisterous mood, we must be winning. A pair of Irish-accented gents, known as the Fleadh Brothers, are setting up in a corner; they will shortly be filling the bar with damned catchy Irish folk songs. When the music begins to play, the crowd is still wrapped up in the game, but as the mandolin and guitar start grooving heads begin to bob and feet begin to tap.

Exiting, I walk on down to the Flamingo Bowl; the night is still young for the bowling alley/martini lounge, but I need a drink and a martini sounds amazing. Not to mention, when I drink martinis I feel as though it is 1947 and some rich dame is having me snoop for her dead husbands killer. The bowlers up at the lanes run the gamut, as far as skill is concerned, and more than a couple drunken gutter-balls are thrown. I finish the olive and move on to figure out where the party's at.

Spring weather in St. Louis saw the metro area's residents stretch out in the sun. After dark, there were clubs, concerts and, leather contests to attend.

Here's what you missed...

Cursive, Capgun Coup and So Many Dynamos at were the Gargoyle on the Washington University campus last night, Sunday, April 6.

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Early Sunday morning, thousands made their way to Downtown St. Louis -- even a tired-looking Gov. Matt Blunt -- for the Go! St. Louis Marathon. See pictures here.

Karl Gilpin, Russellville, Mo, finished first in the marathon for the second consecutive year. He finished with a personal best and new course record, 2:24:51.

Matthew Chesang topped the half marathon for the second consecutive year as well, with a new course record, 1:08:36. Last year, Chesang finished 1:09:02.

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On Saturday night, The Safes, The Chapters and The 75s were at the Bluebird. We have video and a review in our A to Z blog.

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Also on Saturday night, the Mr. Midwest Leather contest was held in Midtown. See the pictures here.

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Saturday morning saw the rows of produce, knock-off sunglasses and Cardinals gear being sorted through by shoppers in Soulard Market. Very early Sunday morning, booze was on the menu on South Grand.

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Sunday afternoon, the Loop was an attraction for shoppers and dancers and drummers.

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Here's what you don't want to miss this summer.

You know what I really like? The Eagles. Not the football team. The band.

Now, you have to understand, for me, that was a very difficult thing to admit. Stay with me here, I'm getting to the Cardinals. I have certain indie credential that I have to maintain. I happen to be one of the very few people in the world who have ever debated, in complete earnest, which album was more influential to the post rock movement, Tortoise's "Millions Now Living Will Never Die," or Slint's "Spiderland." If none of what I just said there made any sense to you, congratulations! You clearly have better things to do with your time. For someone like me, though, my love for the Eagles just isn't the sort of thing you bandy about casually.

I tell you all of that to tell you this:

A couple of days ago, as I was considering how best to introduce this little corner of the Internet, an Eagles song, one of my personal favorites, "After the Thrill is Gone," came on the radio. As I was listening, still thinking on the Cardinals and this upcoming season, a particular line of the song reached out, grabbed me by the throat, and shook me.

"You don't care about winning, but you don't want to lose."

It suddenly hit me. That, in a nutshell, is the perfect description of this baseball season for our St. Louis Cardinals.

This is a team that is clearly in transition; the giants of the early 2000s are gone, with the notable exception of Albert Pujols. This is a team that needs desperately to develop new talent, a team that can't afford to hand out long term contracts that would compromise future flexibility.

At the same time, this is a team that publicly refuses to acknowledge a rebuild; instead, we're subjected to the term 'retooling' at nearly every turn. A team that fears how its fan base, long accustomed to playoff runs, would react to an admission that this is probably going to be a down season. They don't care about winning, but they don't want to lose.

This is where the St. Louis Cardinals find themselves, only a year and a half removed from a championship parade down Market Street. The year 2007 was the end of the era; the future begins now. Walt Jocketty, the architect of so much success, is gone, replaced by his former, more player-development friendly, lieutenant, John Mozeliak. New faces abound both on the field and in the front office. Mozeliak has made it his priority to make only moves which maintain the team's flexibility going forward, while still attempting to compete this year. The farm system will play a larger role than it has in a long, long time.

All of the pundits predict doom for this Cardinal team. Personally, I think the pundits are mostly wrong. The wheels aren't falling off this year; they came off last season. Surgery for your ace, Chris Carpenter. Surgery, again, for your No. 2 pitcher, Mark Mulder. The death of Josh Hancock. Surgery, again, for Scott Rolen. Time finally catching up to Jim Edmonds. Last year was the end.

This year is a new beginning. A new, rising star on the pitching mound, in Adam Wainwright. Dynamic offensive talent in the outfield, in the persons of Chris Duncan and Rick Ankiel. On the horizon, the future of Center in St. Louis: Colby Rasmus. A warchest of young relievers stashed away at Memphis, ready to contribute. The future of St. Louis baseball looks bright.

Hot on the heels of a recent Associated Press story comes a whopping three-page profile on Beatle Bob in the April 2008 issue of Blender magazine. The entire article -- penned by David Peisner, who you might remember as the person who recently ticked off the Black Crowes by writing about their album for Maxim despite never hearing it -- is available online here. (Picture in this post courtesy of blender.com.)

The article is nothing we here in St. Louis haven't heard or read about before. (For reference, see C.D. Stelzer's 2000 RFT article, "Something In the Way He Moves.") Peisner follows Beatle Bob as he attends a Garrison Starr concert at Off Broadway and presents his occasional Thursday night shows at Lucas School House, and attempts to find out the real story behind Beatle Bob's life.

Key word being attempts: Like Stelzer's article, Peisner's story takes a neutral, non-accusatory tone when addressing the questions of whether BB has Asperger's syndrome (a form of high-functioning autism), is a social worker or is homeless -- instead preferring to let quotes and facts speak for themselves. A phone call to the Agape Academy debunks Beatle Bob's claim that he works there, while a visit to Beatle Bob's house proves to be false as well; a woman BB says is named "Alisa" and works for his uncle is, in fact, not named Alisa and has lived at the house for 37 years -- and doesn't know Beatle Bob.

What seems to be missing from the article...

Unreal's old buddy Ben "Shirtsoff" Westhoff sent us this link to a recent New York magazine blog blurb that references Ludacris' 2001 song "Area Codes."

Specifically, the post, on the magazine's "Vulture" blog, points to another blog that displays a graphical illustration entitled "Area Codes in Which Ludacris Claims to Have Hoes."

Cool map!

The blog, "Strange Maps," credits the work to one Stefanie Gray, who described herself as a feminist geography major and noted, among other things, that:

• Ludacris heavily favors the East Coast to the West, save for Seattle, San Francisco, Sacramento, and Las Vegas.

• Ludacris travels frequently along the Boswash corridor.

• There is a "ho belt" phenomenon nearly synonymous with the "Bible Belt."

• Ludacris has hoes in the entire state of Maryland.

• Ludacris has a disproportionate ho-zone in rural Nebraska. He might favor white women as much as he does black women, or perhaps, girls who farm.

• Ludacris's ideal "ho-highway" would be I-95.

Presumably the Vultures at New York mag preferred to make a funny of their own rather than quoting one of Gray's. They write:

Finally, Geographers Get Their Act Together: Where has Ludacris committed perpendicular vehicular Ho-micide? Where has he eaten Hos d'oeuvre? One brave geographer has finally mapped it out. Of note: Who would have expected that Ludacris has a ho-zone in East St. Louis, but not in St. Louis proper?

Hi-larious!

And wrong!

As you can plainly see, Ludacris has hoes in St. Louis but not in East St. Louis!

Here's proof via a lyrics site. The relevant couplet:

5-0-4, 9-7-2

7-1-3, whatcha gon' do

You checkin' up the scene, I'm checkin' a ho tonight

With perpendicular vehicular homicide

3-1-4, 2-0-1

Too much green, too much fun

That's 3-1-4, not 6-1-8. What's more, St. Louis even made a cameo in the song's video:

Detail:

-Unreal

The final round of the Koch Madness competition hosted by Hot 104.1 took place last night at the Loft Jazz Club. The winner: Nite Owl, the man who narrowly defeated Riverfront Times cover boy Rockwell Knuckles in the semifinals last month.

Nite Owl has won himself a single released on Koch Records, and, as you can see at right, $1,000.

Nite Owl's Now You Can Boo Me was the readers' choice for "Best Local Release (Self-Released)" in the 2007 RFT Music Awards. A double-disc followup is due in April.

Meantime Nite Owl performs March 4 at the Old Rock House.

-Keegan Hamilton

So, local indie-rockers Finn's Motel aren't doing much these days -- save for a February 23 gig coming up at the Ten Mile House. But in the meantime, drummer Patrick Hawley has been keeping busy -- being a hot husband!

Check out the blurb from Redbook magazine:

And CLICK HERE for the Web site to go vote for Hawley.

Here's an interview with his wife, Marcy, who tells us why we should vote for her man:

How did you hear about the contest? Who entered him in it?
Patrick's stepmom sent me the link, and I thought, "Hey, why not?" I wrote a little essay -- to explain why the man in question is hot "inside and out" -- along with some photos. In one he was wearing a Thomas the Tank Engine party hat and carrying a birthday cake. What is hotter than that?

What was his -- and your -- reaction when you found out he was a finalist?
I thought he'd blush to death when I told him that I entered him, but we thought, "Eh, like we'll make the finals"... then we found out he made the finals. We just laughed and laughed.

What makes him worthy of being the hottest husband in the country?
He is just the most passionate person--about everything--and I love that about him. He is smart, witty, talented, should I go on? Plus, it's all about the hotness, as my friend Sue reminded me.

Patrick's a drummer, a cyclist, a cook AND a stay-at-home dad. Is there anything he DOESN'T do well?
He's still working on getting that whole laundry thing down.

How did you guys meet? And when you did, was he already "hottest husband" material?
We were both in Champaign-Urbana in the early '90s, he was in a couple bands and I was going to see bands, so we knew each other through the scene. Ten years later we both had moved to St Louis, and we ran into each other at the Kaldi's over in Demun. He was lookin' pretty darn cute. And apparently he felt likewise! Although he hasn't entered me in any contests that I know of. ;)

What does the hottest husband win? When does voting end?
If he wins, we get a cruise to Tahiti. The online polls are open until March 15. You only get to vote one time, and we would sure appreciate it if people voted for him! We figure if we can carry the indie-rock vote, we'll have a good chance.

Has he been recognized at all, since becoming the hottest husband? Has he assumed any sort of, I don't know, super-special "hot husband" glow since becoming a finalist?
Not sure if he's been called out by any locals. But he's definitely happy and is somewhat aglow. Although last night he was kind of tired/grumpy and he demoted himself to "tepid husband." But today he's back to hot.

Anything else you want to add?
Please vote Hawley in '08!

-- Annie Zaleski

Only tangentially related to St. Louis, but this is a fascinating site:

Dude's also got a map of New Orleans along the same lines:

OK, normally Unreal doesn't get all verklempt about stuff, but...

Wehrenberg Theatres on the auction block? Say it ain't so!

-Unreal

Music legend Ike Turner died today at the age of 76. For more coverage -- including an obituary and a post discussing his controversial life (and its impact on his legacy) -- please see our music blog, A to Z.

-- Annie Zaleski

Hell hath no fury like an indie rocker whose cred is threatened. But if you’re the proprietor of a small indie label, any advertising is good advertising. Or so says Mark Fischer, the man behind Skin Graft Records, the label that put out local band Yowie’s first record, as well as albums by Dazzling Killmen, US Maple and Japan’s legendary Ruins (more on them in a moment).

Fischer is a St. Louis expatriate currently living in Austria; he’s also a frequent contributor to RFT. One of Skin Graft’s hottest bands is Montreal’s AIDS Wolf, which was recently name-checked in Rolling Stone magazine’s now-infamous Camel cigarette insert that may or may not be legal.

The fold-out section of the November 2007 issue is a “map” of the Indie Rock Universe done up in a cartoony fashion. According to Pitchfork, the insert is an editorial product that just happened to be placed in a long run of ads for Camel cigarettes’ ''The Farm: Free Range Music'' campaign, which is tied into “promoting & supporting independent record labels” (to quote the campaign’s tagline).

The problem, as several state attorney generals have pointed out, is that tobacco advertising intentionally directed at minors -- specifically of a cartoon nature, like the now-retired Joe Camel, or this Indie Rock Map -- is illegal according to the Tobacco Master Settlement Act of 1997. Anti-smoking advocates and the attorney generals are planning class-action lawsuits, and various indie scenesters are whetting their knives for online trench warfare about ethics, street cred and the misappropriation of culture.

Fischer is sanguine about the whole thing. “You know, years ago, getting mentioned in Rolling Stone wasn’t cool. It was the kiss of death for an indie band,” he laughs. “At this point I’m just glad to be mentioned.” Fischer hasn’t heard from any members of AIDS Wolf about their feelings on the matter, positive or negative.

What about that class-action lawsuit? “I’ll probably jump in just for the hell of it,” he says.

Our conversation is cut short by an urgent e-mail from one of Fischer’s friends. It seems Greyhound Lines has a new marketing campaign in XLR8R magazine that asserts you can take a bus to see certain underground bands just about anywhere in America. The ad takes the form of a four-postcard pull-out -- and one of the cards pictures Tatsuya Yoshida, the drummer of the aforementioned Ruins. Fischer paraphrases the e-mail, then howls with delight.

There is no mention on the postcard of Greyhound’s “no smoking” policy, or if it has stations in any corner of the Indie Rock Universe.

-Paul Friswold

You've got to be careful around me. I'm like that guy back in '78 who was "obsessed" with the Grateful Dead, kept insisting they were the Best Band Ever, that a live show would change your life, man. Only it's 2007, and the Dead are dead, and I'm telling you that whatever you do with the rest of your life, go see Bob Schneider this Thursday night at Blueberry Hill's Duck Room.

I thought I'd pick one song that you could click on and listen to that'd convince you to risk the cover. So I'm digging through my CDs of Bob's live shows, wondering which single song will do the trick. (He does about 200 live shows a year and records every one; you can pick up a freshly burned disc on the spot after the show.) The trouble is, Schneider's ever-growing repertoire whipsaws all over the map, from confessional ballads to party anthems to pearly pop tunes that stick in your head to straight funk to metallic gut-blasts to raunch that has you covering the ears of your unborn child. (If I were to draw a comparison, the restless brilliance of Lowell George comes to mind.) Schneider refuses to be pinned down.

Of course, that sort of behavior, especially when coupled with a prolific output, is anathema to the music industry. Which is what drives guys like me to write screeds like this.

So here's a song. It's called "Sugar King," and though it has not yet appeared on an album, it's a staple of Bob's live act. This particular performance is from a show earlier this year (at Harrah's VooDoo Lounge, of all places) that featured Bob and his band. The December 6 show, on the other hand, is a solo gig. But you'll get the idea.

Listen. Then pony up to see Bob Thursday night.

It'll change your life, man.

-Tom Finkel