Here’s another 70-plus minutes of lowdown & dirty rock’n'roll, absolutely none of it with a holiday theme. Listen for classics from bands like the Penetrators, the Gizmos, We the People, the Real Kids, the Milkshakes, Joe South, the 5.6.7.8’s and more, plus requests for the New Bomb Turks, Esquerita, and an entire set of Dirty Water Records‘ crud. Dig it.
Chew it up and spit it out, tell ‘em what you’re all about, Polish sausage sauerkraut, Polish sausage sauerkraut!
Leave a message on the Savage Kick voicemail line: (641) 715-3900, ext. 42878
In case ya missed it… Here’s the latest episode of the Savage Kick podcast, featuring more hard-boiled rock’n’roll, this time from the likes of such desperate groups as the Gories, the Oblivians, Scat Rag Boosters, Red Beard and the Pirates, the Original Sins, Movie Star Junkies, Pirate Love, The Gruesomes, Thee Headcoats, Thee Fine Lines, Thee Crucials, Andre Williams, the Seger Liberation Army, a request for the Irving Klaws and more!
Leave a message on the Savage Kick voicemail line: (641) 715-3900, ext. 42878
Kaiser Records recording artistes Thee Crucials are coming to Lemmons on Friday December 12! These Altanta cats really know how to throw down so don’t miss out!! They gonna shake it up! They gonna ball it up! Appearing with them on stage will be (you know ‘em, you love ‘em) Thee Fine Lines from Springfield, Mo., and The Nevermores from right here in St. Louis. We’re talking one fun night of wild-ass garage R&B punk mayhem!! And don’t forget Lemmons’ excellent PIZZA and HOT WINGS… and, of course… BEEEEEERRR!!! See you’s there.
The location of Lee Shelton's whorehouse is still standing.
William Lyons, 25, colored, a levee hand, living at 1410 Morgan Street, was shot in the abdomen yesterday evening at 10 o’clock in the saloon of Bill Curtis, at Eleventh and Morgan Streets, by Lee Sheldon, also colored. Both parties, it seems, had been drinking and were feeling in exuberant spirits. Lyons and Sheldon were friends and were talking together. The discussion drifted to politics and an argument was started, the conclusion of which was that Lyons snatched Sheldon’s hat from his head. The latter indignantly demanded its return. Lyons refused, and Sheldon withdrew his revolver and shot Lyons in the abdomen. Lyons was taken to the Dispensary, where his wounds were pronounced serious. He was removed to the City Hospital. At the time of the shooting the saloon was crowded with negroes. Sheldon is a carriage driver and lives at 911 North Twelfth Street. When his victim fell to the floor Sheldon took his hat from the hand of the wounded man and coolly walked away. He was subsequently arrested and locked up at the Chestnut Street Station. Sheldon is also known as ‘Stag’ Lee.
-Saint Louis Globe-Democrat, December 28, 1895
That, in a nutshell, is the story of Lee Shelton (the name had been misspelled in the newspaper), both known as “Stag” and “Stack” Lee. The Bill Curtis Saloon was located in the epicenter of what was then St. Louis’ thriving vice district. The saloon was located at 1101 Morgan Street (now Delmar and at this location, Convention Plaza), at the corner of 13th Street, a few blocks away from a notorious bordello called The Bucket of Blood. Incidentally, this is also just a few blocks from where I work, at 10th and Washington.
Lee Shelton may have earned himself the nickname of “Stag” from his reputation as a pimp and a loner. But there’s also evidence that he called himself “Stack” after the riverboat Stack Lee, part of the Lee Line of riverboats, known as Cecil Brown relates in Stagolee Shot Billy, “…for speed, sumptuous cabins, elaborate cuisine—and prostitution.”
At the bar, Shelton asked “Who’s treating?” Someone pointed to Billy Lyons. Shelton sat at his table, where, according to several witnesses, they drank companionably until the talk turned to politics. They started throwing blows at each other’s hats, Shelton eventually breaking the brim of Lyon’s derby.
In turn, Lyons grabbed Shelton’s Stetson, saying he wouldn’t give it back until Shelton paid him for his damaged hat.
Instead, Shelton pulled a .44 Smith & Wesson revolver, shot Lyons, snatched his hat, and, without a word, walked out of the bar and back to his boarding house on 6th Street. He was arrested early the next morning after police, following a tip, found him asleep in bed.
Billy Lyons died from his wounds, and Stag Lee was put on trial for murder—twice. The first trial ended in a hung jury amidst a lot of political controversy. In the second trial, Shelton was convicted and sentenced to 25 years at the state penitentiary. He was released early, but went right back to a life of crime. He ended up pistol-whipping a thug and was sent right back to prison where he died, at age 46, in 1912.
The story and, subsequently, the song traveled down the Mississippi River from St. Louis to New Orleans, where it took on a life of its own. The scoundrel’s name variously became “Stag” Lee, Stagger Lee, Stag-O-Lee, Stagolee, Stackolee, Stack-A-Lee, and even Stack-O-Dollars, and the song traveled around the country. The words to the song were first published in 1910 by folklorist John Lomax under the title “Stagolee.” In most versions of the song, the dispute involves gambling and the Stetson hat. One of the first recordings was by Frank Hutchison in 1927. Blues singer and guitarist Mississippi John Hurt recorded the song in 1928 under the title “Stack O’Lee Blues.” Stack O’Lee is hanged in Hurt’s version. The tune became well known throughout the South and has been immortalized in song over the last century, performed by the likes of Mississippi John Hurt, Bob Dylan, Jerry Lee Lewis, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Ike and Tina Turner, Wilson Pickett, PJ Proby, Pat Boone, The Grateful Dead, Champion Jack Dupree and Lloyd Price, amongst many others. There are hundreds of different versions of the song, variously called Stagger Lee, Stagolee, Stackerlee, Stack O’Lee, Stack-a-Lee and several other spellings, sung by musicians as far apart in style as W.C. Handy (”Stack O’Lee”) and The Clash (”Wrong ‘Em Boyo”).
The boarding house at 911 N. 12th Street (now known as Tucker Blvd.), where, according to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat story above, “Stag” Lee Shelton lived, is still standing; it’s the only house remaining on the block (directly across from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch building). But, according to Cecil Brown, this was actually the location of Shelton’s “Lid” club (whorehouse), since police arrested him at his residence on 6th Street… but I am not sure if this “Lid” club was the same nightclub as his infamous “Modern Horseshoe Club.” While it once housed a restaurant (the Sommer House) in the early 1990s, it now appears to be a private residence. I snapped the photo above last week.
Lee Shelton is buried in an unmarked grave in Greenwood Cemetery in Hillsdale, Mo., and William Lyons’ grave is also unmarked. He is buried in St. Peter’s Cemetery in Normandy.
Featuring the following songs:
Mississippi John Hurt - Stack O’Lee Blues
Lloyd Price - Stagger Lee
Bob Dylan - Stack a Lee
Don & the Goodtimes - Stagger Lee
PJ Proby - Stagger Lee 1965
Bassholes - Stack O Lee
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Stagger Lee
The Clash - Wrong ‘Em Boyo
Lola van Ella is bringing her fantastic burlesque show to The Wedge tonight for the premier of a fun show with a very South City vibe that will combine punk/rock’n'roll with a grittier, edgier burlesque act. This monthly event will feature guest performers along with a special guest band. Screw U Burly-Q debuts tonight, featuring Siren (glam rock drag queen), Foxy la Feelion (sultry but with a real rock’n'roll edge), Sturdy Gurlesque (a totally hot and awesome fire performer), Gravity Plays Favorites (an amazing pole acrobatic duo), plus the music of TIRC Records’ own LEFT ARM. The Wedge is a new rock n’ roll bar/pizza joint now open at the intersection of Virginia, Compton and Bates in South St. Louis. Admission is $12. Doors open at 8:00 p.m., show is at 9:00. 21 & up only.
LOUD Technologies, the company that purchased St. Louis Music in 2005, has closed this long-time (since 1922) locally based company, a designer and distributor of Ampeg, Crate, Dan Armstrong, and other top brands of musicians gear. In May 2007, Loud closed the Ampeg and Crate engineering department in St. Louis, preferring to have new models designed by their own engineers, as well as an Asian engineering group. This followed Loud ceasing manufacturing of Ampeg and Crate at the Yellville, AR, manufacturing facility, outsourcing the manufacturing to contract manufacturers in Asia, and firing the entire sales staff. As if all of this wasn’t bad enough, Loud has also decided to put the final nail in the SLM coffin by eliminating the distribution facility.
Hence, some of the former employees of St. Louis Music are throwing a funeral/party on Saturday December 13 at the Kat Club, 1440 North Broadway, next to Shady Jack’s. Doors open at 7:00 p.m., the cover is $5 and is restricted to 21 & up. The event will feature bands whose employees are part of the SLM family, featuring The Trip Daddys, Giants in the Sky and TBA. Steve Dachroeden is leading the eulogy as well as putting together some pretty cool shit to give away, rumored to be Ampeg and Dan Armstrong shtuff and maybe some of the platinum records that have been given to the company by sponsored artists. There will be two tattoo artists and a mobile soul food unit and I believe PBR is donating beer. Hopefully I’ll have more details to come.
ANYONE can come to this; this event is for past and (until recently) present employees of St. Louis Music/Loud Technologies, as well as SLME. It is ALSO for anyone who has worked with SLM, used or admired Crate, Ampeg, Dan Armstrong, etc., as well as ANYONE who is sad to see a St. Louis company that started eighty-six years ago die.
I just found out that an old friend of mine from St. Louis (and a contributor to an old punk-rock fanzine called Pipeline that I put out while in college at CMSU), LarryMorrisey, not only works as Heritage Program Director for the Mississippi Arts Commission, but also hosts its weekly podcast occasionally, a program broadcast on Mississippi Public Broadcasting’s digital radio network, as well as on WLEZ (103.7 FM) in Jackson, Mississippi. The show features interviews with Mississippi artists, musicians, craftspeople, and others involved in arts and culture from around the state. Cool!
Click here for an MP3 of Larry’s most recent show (from November 6) where he talks with delta blues musician (he plays a diddley bow), Bill Abel.
A Saint Louis-based band from the early ’80s, The Obvious was among the first bands to play the New Wave/Punk styles of the late ’70s in St. Louis, a city a little behind the times. Drums: Kevin Brueseke, lead guitar: Alex Mutrux, bass: Jim Saltsider, vocals: Tony Patti, synth: Sally Barnes.
This video comes courtesy of Lo-Fi Saint Louis. Bill Streeter wrote:
This is a video sent to me by Tony Patti. In 1981 he and his band, The Obvious, made this video (shot on Super 8mm film) on the banks of the Mississippi River in downtown St. Louis under the famous Eads Bridge. In it you can see many young St. Louis scenesters of the time, including Steve Pick and the famous (or some might say infamous) Beatle Bob. I really love this piece. Thanks, Tony, for submitting this one!
One of the really interesting things about this video is that it was made before the days of MTV, yet is interestingly enough done in true early ’80s MTV style. So in that respect, The Obvious was slightly ahead of the times.
For a lot more info on the early days of the St. Louis punk/new wave scene, please visit Tony Patti’s excellent St. Louis New Wave Nostalgia site.
My wife, Gina, and I had the pleasure of seeing the Symphony this past Saturday night. Apparently I and twenty-three others were e-mailed invitations by Eddie Silva, Publications Manager at the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and the man behind the SLSO Blog. The odd thing about me receiving this invite was that I never really considered myself part of a local bloggers guild, and that, for whatever reasons, either deliberately or unwittingly, I tend to operate slightly outside the mainstream and don’t ask for (nor expect) much in the way of recognition or respect for my meager contributions to the “blogosphere.” I’m just doing it to do it… not because I fancy myself as any kind of “writer” (far from it!), but, ya know, for shits and grins, so to speak. Yet, despite my unashamed “bloglodyte” status, I still got included on what appeared to me to be a pretty short list of local entertainment and/or pop-culture bloggers. Well alrighty, then! I suddenly feel like part of the local crowd! So I checked with my wife to make sure the evening was not already booked and sent my RSVP back to Mr. Silva. “Sounds great! I’d love to take you up on this,” I wrote. And, as it turned out, I was one of just nine (out of two dozen, mind you) to indeed take Eddie up on his offer and actually go. But I have to admit I felt pretty honored and privileged to do so. So even though I’ve already thanked him in person, I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank him again for the opportunity to experience this!
Going into this, I really had no idea what to expect, because, for some reason, I don’t remember ever going to see the symphony—ANY symphony—ever before. Now, I may have gone as a kid and possibly during high school or college for Music Appreciation class, but again, I don’t remember it. And I’m pretty sure I would remember something as spectacular as this. Gina (my wife) had been once, but she, too, had not gone since she was a young girl. So this was a pretty big deal for us… this ain’t no pizza, PBR and trashy rock’n'roll at smoky dive bar, this is a get-all-gussied-up High Society kind of event featured world-class musicians—actual MUSICIANS (not ordinary people pretending to be)—at one of the world’s finest orchestral concert halls. Damn, we’re movin’ on up!
Rock’n'roll (and, specifically, garage rock), by its very nature, champions the musically inept. And it should. It’s the people’s music. Anyone can do it. And anyone DOES do it. Which is why not all of it is that great… in fact, very little of it is by any means great or entirely unique. Most is pretty bland and predictable. The performers that are the most memorable and also most successful are usually those that can come up with a certain shtick… they are those that can totally NAIL either a stage presence, look, swagger, attitude or novelty to their live show or recordings that excites people, causing them to want to buy records, produce podcasts and yell and scream for more. And I fully admit that I’m one of those guilty of screaming, dancing, and championing this stuff. The reason I love rock’n'roll isn’t because it’s the most interesting, complicated, and difficult music to play or appreciate. I love it because it’s fun to listen to and gets me to shake my ass. It’s debauchery and mindless fun set to music. This is obviously not the case with classical music. Not at all. It’s the exact opposite, in fact. (Or, at least, that’s what I thought…)
So did I feel a bit like a fish out of water as I entered the amazing Powell Symphony Hall Saturday night, decked out in my wedding-slash-funeral duds? As Sarah Palin might say, “You betcha!” I felt like I’d entered another world. Huge, beautiful chandeliers dangled in the lobby overhead, ornate fixtures and fancy-schmancy decor, lots of velvet, reds, golds… and lots of important-looking people dressed to the nines. I felt like I’d just strolled onto the set of a movie. The hall itself was even more impressive. Much larger than I imagined it would be, but even more magnificent in detail and design. “This is really something!” I thought to myself as we took our seats—fifth row, mind you—just as the music was starting.
The program that night, “Beat Movement,” featured David Robertson conducting two U.S. Premieres. It started off with jazz bass virtuoso John Patitucci playing a work for electric (standup) bass and electric bass guitar. That’s probably the first time I’ve heard a six-string bass. He performed Mark-Anthony Turnage’s U.S. Premiere of A Prayer Out of Stillness. Fantastico! After that we were delighted by the amazing musicianship of Leila Josefowicz performing another U.S. Premiere, this time it was Steven Mackey’s Beautiful Passing. The program in our hands told us Leila plays a violin that was made in 1724. As if that isn’t impressive enough, the woman was skilled enough to make me believe she’d been playing that instrument for that long a time, yet looked quite young. Was this science fiction? Pinch me.
Now, I won’t bore you with my ill-advised attempt at trying to critique the music beyond that. I couldn’t tell a violin virtuoso from a good amateur if my life depended on it, but I can tell you that I was totally, completely enthralled by what was happening on stage. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. “This,” I said to myself, “is my first REAL concert.” Yes, I’ve seen many “shows”—rock’n'roll and the like—but this was so amazing and different that I honestly felt like I was hearing music for the very first time, or at least I was hearing this level of music performed this exceptionally well and performed by such skilled professionals that I may as well be hearing it for the first time. It was so precise, so delicate, and despite the lack of electronics other than some carefully positioned microphones and a few small speakers, so LOUD (especially during The Rite of Spring) that I was totally blown away. I couldn’t help but stand and applaud after it was over. Magnificent.
Intermission. Time to relax for a few minutes, look around, breathe, run to the john and then down a quick martini at the bar before heading back in for the grande finale, Igor Stravinsky’s powerful and controversial composition that helped to create jazz and other forms of modern music of ALL shapes and sizes, The Rite of Spring. I mean, if there is one symphony that a primitive, big-beat rock’n'roll fiend like me would appreciate, it’s THAT ONE. And one of the first things I did after experiencing this one live was to go online and order it on CD. I felt it was that important to own this music, along with my Sonics, Ramones, Stooges, Mummies, Cramps and Oblivians. Hearing more than a hundred musicians bumping and grinding along to the complex rhythm structures, timbres and dissonance had me literally moving in my seat. And it’s no wonder, the premiere of this ballet in Paris in 1913, with its complex music, violent dance steps and provocative story line, elicited catcalls, whistles and boos from the audience, which escalated into arguments and fistfights before finally degenerating into an all-out riot… Punk rock!!
So, yeah, it may have taken me forty-three years to finally make it out to the symphony, but you can bet your sweet ass I’ll be back. This was an experience I can’t wait to have again and again. And I can’t wait to take our son with us next time, too.
For more info on the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and Powell Hall, visit www.slso.org.
