St. Louis Rock and Roll Action

Thomas Crone published a Q&A with me yesterday on his 52nd City blog. Click here to read it. Thanks, Tom!

Hanging out at Blood Wall. The Cripplers will be headlining the first night of the upcoming Show-Me Blowout garage/rock’n'roll fest (Friday Oct. 12th at Off Broadway). It’ll be their first live show in over two and a half years. Click here to download their 2nd LP, Death of the Cripplers.

Great show at the Way Out Club this coming Monday night. Too bad I’ll be out of town…

CoCoComa (from Chicago)
The Hipshakes (Sheffield, U.K.)
Left Arm (St. Louis)

21 & up, $5. 9pm doors.

We were able to get the Crowne Plaza Hotel downtown to give us a special rate of $89/room for the nights of October 12th and 13th. This is a savings of $20 off their regular room rate, so it’s a good deal, if not still a bit pricey (but hey, it’s a really nice hotel, too). But the big advantages of staying here is A) you’re downtown (lots to see), and B) you’re only 3.5 miles (less than 10 minutes) from Off Broadway. Just make sure you mention the Show-Me Blowout when calling in your reservation: (314) 621-8200

Now, if $89/night is still too much, we can also recommend the nearest Motel 6 at 6500 S. Lindbergh Blvd. in South St. Louis County, but that’s considerably further (9.4 miles to the venue) and isn’t really close to anything interesting, other than maybe Grant’s Farm. The normal single room rate here is just $51.99/night. They weren’t able to give us any sort of special room rate for this event, sorry. (314) 892-3664

Another thing you can do is to go to www.priceline.com and for a zip code type in St. Louis and then, after you search for hotels, look for the “name your price” link under “More Ways to Save” on the right side. Click that link, then on the next screen choose Downtown St. Louis, then either 3-Star or 2 1/2-Star Moderate-Plus. Then just put in $50 or $60 in the “Name Your Own Price” box and see what happens. You may end up at the Raddison, Ballpark Hilton, or the Sheraton. All nice hotels and downtown, which is cool, and within a few miles of the venue. Good luck.

I decided to dedicate the newest episode of my Savage Kick podcast to the 2-day all-Missouri garage/rock’n'roll fest that I’m putting on here in St. Louis next month. I wasn’t sure if anyone has ever thought to promote a festival with a podcast before, but I thought it couldn’t hurt… Click here to listen, and click here for the RSS feed.

Playlist:
The Cripplers - Feel I’m Gonna Explode!
The Cripplers - Boone County
Pink Socks - Everybody Wants To…
Pink Socks - Sit Down
Rich Boys - L.I.V.I.N.
Rich Boys - Toxic Wind
Modern Primitives - I May Be Your French Bread, But Not the Croissant
Modern Primitives - What’s Left to Say, But I Don’t
Left Arm - As Seen on TV
Left Arm - Human Bomb
The Geargrinders - Weather
The Geargrinders - She Shakes Too Much
Thee Fine Lines - I Wanna Feel Fine
Thee Fine Lines - Corrine
The Vultures - Obsolete
The Vickroids - Friday Night
The 75s - Finders Keepers
The Mad Titans - Overture in E Minor
The Von Hodads - Diamond Head
The Von Hodads - Shindig
Monte Carlos - Domino
Monte Carlos - Vampire
The Nevermores - Everyday
The Nevermores - I Lost Lenore

Thanks for listening. See you at the Blowout!
kopper

Ded Bugs - “Your Daddy Was a Nazi Clone,” recorded live at City Diner at the South Side Rocks Off 3 fest.

Big news! If you haven’t already heard, taking The Honkeys’ spot headlining the second night of the Show-Me Blowout will be the return of THE GEARGRINDERS featuring Jeff Hess with a new lineup, which just so happens to include three members of said surf/instro band (Jason Edge, Exene Cervenka’s hubby and also guitarist in The Original Sinners; Micah Edge on organ; and Cullen McGrane on bass) as well as Ben Wah, St. Louis native now living in L.A., who’ll be flying in to play. Ben Wah was also in Hippies in Flames (St. Louis/Seattle) and is the current drummer for the Feederz (currently on hiatus) and played with them on their 2002 reunion LP and 2003 tour.

Anyway, it’s gonna be huge. If you don’t have your tickets yet, you should get them now, because all bets are on that this thing will sell out.

The Geargrinders on MySpace:
http://www.myspace.com/thegeargrinders

The Geargrinders on The Circuit:
http://lofistl.ning.com/profile/geargrinders

Click here to buy your 2-day pass for just $15 (includes BBQ party at Apop on Saturday afternoon).

If that link doesn’t work, just go to TicketWeb.com and search for “Show-Me Blowout”…

Thanks!

Great band from Omaha. They’ve played here a couple of times so I think it’s relevant. Here’s hoping they come back before they get too huge…

Befriend ‘em on Myspace.

Brimstone Howl at Alive Records.

Got a new camera last week, so I took it to the show Friday night at Lemmons and shot some video. Here’s a good one by The Vickroids. You should be aware that this was the first time Dennis Williams (Ded Bugs/Trip Daddys) had played with Mark Vickroid. They hadn’t even practiced before this show. Not bad!

There’s certainly going to be TROUBLE in River City if Mayor Slay messes with our flag!

Our esteemed mayor has a flag poll up his butt, er, I mean, on his website this week, as he does every week, but this week’s happens to deal with flags. Now, normally, I’m not much of a flag waver (the only American flag we have hanging in our house is one of those hippy kinds with the stars in the shape of a peace sign), but I’ve always loved the St. Louis City flag and have one at home and also have it as a patch on my jacket. It rocks! And it appears from reading over the mayor’s new poll that the City is considering a redesign of this classic flag, which (according to a recent survey) just so happens to be one of the top five city flags in the entire USA. It’s perfect as it is! Why change it? Besides, shouldn’t the mayor have more important issues to deal with than changing the city flag? There are a lot of problems with our city, the least of which would be the design of our flag. That’s just my two cents, of course.

Anyway, here’s the direct link to the poll. Please vote!

http://www.mayorslay.com/polls/20070809Flags.asp

Leave the city flag alone!

The 75s make their debut this Friday night at Lemmons, opening for The Nevermores. The Vickroids are also on the bill. And speaking of BILL, this just happens to be Bill Streeter’s 40th birthday… so get there a little early (oh, let’s say 8-ish) and join Bill and some of his closest Lo-Fi Saint Louis cronies for a little pizza and beer action. Bill’s buying. No shit. See ya there!

I don’t think I even knew who Pete Parisi was until my wife and I moved back to St. Louis in early 1994 after spending a few years in Lawrence, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri. Since we found an apartment on the south side of the City, and got a cable TV subscription, we soon stumbled upon World Wide Magazine and quickly became hooked. This odd but extremely wonderful program helped inspire a new perspective on our old hometown, and we have Pete Parisi to thank for that. So I was a bit surprised to see that there is still no entry for Pete over on the St. Louis Wiki. What kinda crap is that? Someone needs to add him there, pronto! Then maybe once that’s done he can get his own star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame! YEAH!! Go, Diabetoboy, go!!

TIRC - We just want you to sign the petition.Well, hey… we can dream, can’t we?