The newest TIRC Records release is out now and ready for you to download. It’s a 3-song EP by local St. Louis girlie garage-pop sensations The 75s! Please head over to the TIRC Store for more info. And, if you’re looking for the live music hookup this coming weekend, be sure to make plans to attend the 75s’ EP Release Party for Stereo this Saturday night (Feb. 28) at Lemmons. Also appearing will be the Helium Tapes and That’s My Daughter. Plenty of girl-on-girl rock’n'roll action… don’t miss it!
The Flat Duo Jets – Live at Cicero’s Basement Bar, St. Louis, MO (11/12/95)
Enjoy this hot rockin’ set from the Flat Duo Jets from Chapel Hill, NC, featuring Dex Romweber and Crow, presented by Kopper of the Savage Kick podcast. Thanks again to Jim Utz for providing this one!
Since I’m on kind of an ice hockey kick, I thought I’d share with you what is probably my personal favorite hockey fight of all-time, courtesy of the St. Louis Blues and Detroit Red Wings, if nothing else because of the fight between the two goalies (including my favorite Blues goalie ever, Curtis Joseph). Definitely not as ugly as the previously posted Blues/Blackhawks “St. Patrick’s Day Massacre” brawl, but fun nonetheless. This one is from January 23, 1992 (yep, I was still living in Kansas at the time… dammit).
No, this isn’t a fight. It’s a brawl. Probably one of the ugliest you’ll ever see, too. Keep in mind this video is over nine minutes long… and the REAL brawling doesn’t start until about halfway through it, after they flash the score up on the screen, so keep watching for the best part of this. By the way, I don’t remember this one at all, mainly because I wasn’t living in St. Louis in ‘91 (Gina and I were still in Lawrence where we were without Blues hockey on the tube). But later on I heard about this fabled “St. Patrick’s Day Massacre” between the Blues and the Blackhawks and saw some video of it many years later after returning to St. Louis. Now, thanks to YouTube, we can see it again. By the way, I’m willing to wager that this particular brawl was what originated the phrase “I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out.” Enjoy!
…as performed by the Argonauts live at the Ten Mile House this past Saturday night:
As you can probably tell from the video above, the band was great, despite this being their first show in over 12 years! But I’m really looking forward to hearing some originals in the future, as an entire set of covers wore a bit thin on me after a while (despite the fact that they were all pretty choice ’60s garage nuggets that they were covering, I still like to hear what a band can do on their own). Looking forward to their next gig.
This episode features tributes to both Lux Interior and Ron Asheton (RIPx2), plus a set about sickness and medication, including music from The Cramps & Stooges (obviously), the Flamin Groovies, Dwarves, the Weakends, Golden Triangle, Demon’s Claws, Los Hories, The Revelators and more. Stay sick, turn blue.
Damn, what a shitty fuckin’ day this turned out to be. One of my true rock’n'roll heroes is gone. According to news reports that just started surfacing this evening, Lux (lead singer of The Cramps for those of you living in a cave the past 30 years) died at 4:30 at a Glendale, Calif., hospital this morning from a pre-existing heart condition. He was 62 (not 52 or 60 as being reported on some sites). In my humble opinion, this is the biggest rock’n'roll loss since Link Wray and Bo Diddley (and that’s sayin’ something). I was trying to remember the first time I ever heard The Cramps, and I can’t. It’s just been too long ago. It was probably in high school, circa ‘83 or ‘84, and probably on KYMC. But I’m not sure. For all I know it could’ve been later on, in college. I remember the Bad Music for Bad People album being everywhere back then. I also remember falling absolutely head-over-heels in love with their trashy, primitive rock’n'roll sound. Some called it punk. Others called it psychobilly, but I just called it wild-ass primitive rock’n'roll. And their music turned me and so many others on to some of the true greats of the past, like The Trashmen, Link Wray, The Sonics, Andre Williams, Hasil Adkins, Randy Alvey, Johnny Burnette, The Novas, Kip Tyler, Ronnie Dawson, and so many others (check out the amazing “Songs The Cramps Taught Us” series for a good healthy sampling). I feel lucky to have gotten to see The Cramps three times (twice in St. Louis and once in Columbia, Mo.) and they were phenomenal each time. Lux embodied everything that I hold sacred in regard to garage/punk/rock’n'roll music: Humor, sex, sleaze, perversion, trash, fun, B-movies and the primitive big beat. I don’t think I have ever witnessed a better showman in my life. I’m working on the next episode of the Savage Kick podcast tonight, and you can bet there’ll be a short tribute paid to him on this episode (Ron Asheton, too), but in the meantime (the podcast will post on Friday), I wanted to share with y’all a couple of things that I thought you might like to see/hear. First up is Lux taking the mic and hosting a radio show from 1984 called the Purple Knif Show. Click here to download or hit the play button down below.
Second, this fantastic video of The Cramps playing live at the Napa State Mental Hospital, recorded with a black-and-white video camera and a single microphone on June 13, 1978. This is the entire video, by the way, which I found on Vimeo. Enjoy:
Someone just e-mailed me and wanted me to pass along that a band called The B-Sharps will be at Deluxe this Friday night. They’re from Fort Wayne, Indiana. Check out their Myspace page linked below… they sound pretty good. Kinda like ’70s-influenced low-budget punk’n'roll/pub-rock kinda stuff. The Rum Drum Ramblers and The Monads are also on the bill. Should be a fun show.
By the way, I’ve never seen a show at Deluxe, nor have I ever eaten there. Is the food any good? Is it smoky? How’s their live sound, etc.?
Deluxe
2733 Sutton in Maplewood – MAP Cover charge???
