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best friends

Seen here watching a performance at John D. McGurk’s in Soulard, Robert Adams and Barret Ottenberg are celebrating Rob’s 21st birthday over drinks and live music. When asked why he chose to celebrate his Decomber 7th birthday in the back of the Soulard establishment, Rob said he was in it for the cider. Upon further interogationn, Rob had no idea (or interest) in the performance of The Irish Brigade, seen performing here in the background.

McGurk’s is also a favorite fixture of mine in town, albiet one I infrequently visit. When my friend Robert, who I had written about in an article about underage drinking during Mardi Gras, brought up going to McGurk’s for that cider, my eyes must’ve lit up the whole room. With their multiple rooms, literally connected by knocking down the walls between at least 6 previously adjacent homes, McGurk’s is a unique part of the neighborhood in Soulard. You’d think an Irish Pub wouldn’t fit in this district, but by offering it’s own flavor, and by serving some of the finest cuts faire in the pub scene, McGurk’s really becomes a fixture of the area. To say nothing of the music performances.

From the opening of Fishbone’s Performance at the City Museum on November 21st, lead singer Angelo Moore is seen here beginingg the set with some spoken word poetry. For this packed house, hungry for the 2+ hour performance to begin to begin, this would be the most this man was seen dressed.

It would seem that I have misplaced one of my flash memory cards full of that night’s ongoings, including a couple videos. But thanks to our old friends in the blogosphere, you’ll feel like you had personally been there all night (especially if you actually were). I’ve already detailed where you can find many of the night’s snapshots with FlickR, and now you watch not just a single performance, but two songs on LoFiSTL.com. And since they sort of had exclusive permission to videotape that night, I would probably check out what they put together.

Rock.  and Roll.  Sure, Detroit might be rock city, but St. Louis is a baseball town (and two time world champions over Detroit). This guitar seems to be the intersection between the two.  Go ahead and click to picture to get a larger view; no mistake, that’s Fredbird alright.

Seen here from a crowd perspective is the guitarist of local punks The Humanoids, who had the courtesy to open for Fishbone on Wednesday November 21st at the City Museum. It was a special night, which you can now relive with the online instant karma known as Flickr.  Tag your photos accordingly please!

Next on our concert calendar - Fishbone will have a special performance at the City Museum this Wednesday, November 21st at 8pm.  With limited seating the tickets might already be sold out, but we’ll try to stick out the $15 tickets to see these notable forerunners of Ska.  See you there!

You can keep up with the latest concerts, plays, events, and eronious ongoings in Saint Louis with the Highway 61 Upcoming events page, where you can keep track of your own events by adding them to your own calendar or just via RSS.  (There’s even things to do on Thanksgiving)

Normally when I review a concert I try to include a few photos, or even a short video clip I managed to snag (without having my camera confiscated), but for a show last Monday night I found myself too engrossed dancing along to a band playing for visual documentation.  I was trapped in the aural bliss of celebrated pop act Of Montreal at The Pageant, a show I had meant to write about but was merely left included among our Upcoming events page.  So far, I’m sad to say, visual accompanyment hasn’t shown up there, although it’s easily at the behest of my fellow Flickrites and citizen journalists to fill this void.  Aural accompaniment was the real draw, the one luring us out on a school night of the 1st degree to bask in the radient bliss of “The Sunlandic Twins”, and more recently the irrational exuberence of “Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?”

The audience seemed unnaturally enthusiatic in comparison to a more typically subdued crowd for what could be commonly charecterized as an indie pop gathering, frequently jumping for joy and even cheering jubilantly for the sound check guy. The audience seemed dense around the bar and pit, although not quite a sell out.  As for any sell outs besides at the box office, let’s pretend they don’t exist.

So you’ve heard about the Show-me Blowout and…wait, you haven’t?  Alright we’ve put off mentioning one of the most important music festivals of the year, featuring some of the best rock’n'roll in the region.  I kind of thought you’d have heard about it by now.

But that doesn’t mean we’re not excited by it; Gabe and I will be there both nights helping Bill Streeter to document the best garage, punk, and surf rock on video that this state has perfected from its rockabilly and blues roots.  So as this side of the river is known to suggest, we’ll just have to show you.  The shows will take place this Friday and Saturday night October 12-13th around 8pm and onward at Off Broadway.

One part of the blowout you might not be as familiar with is the FREE barbeque at Apop Records on Saturday afternoon between 1-5pm.  That rock’n'roll tailgate of sorts will feature performances from some of St. Louis’ heroes of rock, including The Vultures, The 65s, The Vickroids, and The Mad Titans; it’s also The Place You Want To Be.  We’ll see you there too.

When the Bluebird opened this summer, we knew one of Saint Louis’ newest venues had something special but unidentifyable going for it.  Sure we saw an ever expanding list of Saint Louis’ best connected bands and some national acts worth merit, but the large space seemed to merit other uses.  You could see the band posters on the walls from shows exisiting before the venue, proud framed in the back espousing their prestigeous ambitions from local artists.

This week those framed pieces will be joined; the concert space will become in part on art gallery during Silia Silias.  Featuring original artwork by 40 artists themed around the bluebird (the creature, not just the venue’s namesake), including one from Highway 61 reader Amy Van Donsel.  Even if you’re not interested in attending the art premier there will be a show starting at 10pm featuring local musicians, like birds of feather Nite Owl.

 It all starts this Wednesday night, Octopber 3rd around 8pm (with the show starting at 10), for a mere cover of $7.  That’s a bottle of beer at most art galleries, though you won’t pay nearly as much at their bar.  And while the flyer (see right) might look like a bookmark, we don’t anticipate a book reading so soon.  Then again, we never knew this little venue would grow up so fast.

We’re getting pretty excited about tomorrow night’s performance of the Flaming Lips at the Pageant.  Considering their reputation for quasi-evangelistic, almost religious experience induced by their performances, we’re not surprised others are getting excited too.  So in anticipation of their sermon we thought it’d be nice to share this performance in 2003 covering the Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” in duet with Cat Power.

Although the performance is already sold out, we won’t be surprised when scalpers show up outside the Tivoli, where we suspect ticket prices will rise exponentially approaching the start of the show.  We were surprised that changes to Missouri state law effecting scalping earlier this last month actually don’t effect entertainment scalping, which will remain legal and (for those of us who couldn’t get tickets) probably desirable.  Oh lord yes!

As a special follow-up on a review written by our own Gabe Bullard, here’s a short clip from last Saturday’s They Might Be Giants performance at the Pageant to show you just how much fun was had at said rock concert. 

Seen here performing “The Guitar,” the band had a little fun with the enthusiastic audience seen here. You might like to check out a clip of “Particle Man” with a Buddy Ebsen reference.

Instead of sharing our own photos of the show, we thought it’d be fun to pass along some properly tagged pictures we found on Flickr.  Using the machine tags from Last.FM and Upcoming is a fun way to organize the events you’ve attended and share public pictures, not to mention making a much better slideshow on FlickR than just using our photos.  And if you were there too, please feel free to pass along your photos through that channel or at least share with us here in the comments.

That’s right, rock and roll is fun. Or, at least it’s supposed to be. Decades ago, the rock senate of prog bands and balladeers passed a bill banning fun in rock music. Try as they might, the punk delegation couldn’t lobby a veto and all of a sudden, having fun on stage was a musical faux pas.

They Might Be Giants don’t care for manners, though. In case you didn’t hear about it on the radio, TMBG were in town last night to play at the Pageant.

They started out great with a few songs from the wonderful new album, “The Else.” After showing the new material could hold up on the road, they band cranked up the energy and started in on the old classics. The band kept the energy high and the between song banter was hilarious and nerdy. At one point, they declared they were “Taking calls from beyond the grave.” John Flansburgh left the stage and “called in” as Buddy Ebsen’s TV detective Barnaby Jones. “I’m trying to solve the mystery of the missing night club…I can’t find Mississippi Nights.” (Serious TMBG geeks - 99% of the audience - know about the band’s love-hate relationship with that venue.)

“That club is dead” said John Linnell. “And so were most of the bands playing in it.”

After some uproarious laughter, the band returned to rocking, playing more old favorites like “Istanbul” and “Particle Man.” When John Linnell misread his setlist and started playing “Mesopotamians” instead of “Memo to Human Resources,” Flansburgh called him out on it, and referenced locally-born tennis star Jimmy Connors in the process.

Two encores of b-sides and foreign singles later, the band called it a night. What a night it was. I always love the crowds at TMBG shows. It’s a great mix of nerdy people like me and kids who like punk rock but who are too dorky to feel comfortable at the Creepy Crawl (like I used to be.) But no matter who came to the show and how they fit into society, the fact remains that the show was fun. Flat out, fun rock and roll.