Country music, love it or leave it, is a open book of human emotion turned to the chapter on love. Unabashed love, unrequited love, unattainable love, undesired love, unfinished love, under-the-rearview-mirror love — it’s all there, masked within shuffles and waltzes, boogies and ballads, two-steps and swing. The king (and queen, in this scenario) of […]
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Paying for bass playing
How do you get a bass player off your porch? Pay him for the pizza, silly. John Sauter picked up the bass guitar when he was 14 years old. Over the next few years, he scored backing gigs with such Chicago blues greats as Otis Spann and Sam Lay and rock & roll legends Bo […]
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The Lady Lou bounce
Ebony Eyez 7 Day Cycle (Capitol) The first female rapper from St. Louis to score a major-label deal, Ebony Eyez seems fully aware of her precedent-setting achievement — and maybe a bit defensive about it, too. “Nelly, Chingy, and ’Kwon put us on the map,” she notes. “But niggaz actin’ like a b**h out of […]
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Hog heaven for Halloweeners
Kick off the Halloween weekend at Andiamo’s Cellar, 206 S. Sixth St., with a spooky presentation of “Frank’s Funky Filmstrips.” Area musician Frank Trompeter will show his eclectic collection of odd bits of old films for children of all ages, 6-8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 27. The granddaddy of all local Halloween bashes is Hobgoblinspookadelic, the […]
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Not your typical narcissist
Some geniuses are prolific; others take their sweet slowpoke time. Count Marc Anthony Thompson in the latter category. Over a career spanning more than two decades, the iconoclastic singer/songwriter has made exactly five albums: two LPs in 1984 and 1989, which he released under his own name, and three CDs as Chocolate Genius — Black […]
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Resident Zinn
When local indie-rock band Resident Genius formed more than three years ago, its members put working with social activist/historian Howard Zinn on their wish list of band projects. Jason Perry, the band’s singer/songwriter/guitarist, originally contacted Zinn for words of wisdom for a master’s-degree project, then pitched his idea of a spoken-word/music recording. “We traveled eight […]
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Hard to label this Apple
Like Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine comes with a juicy backstory about the big, bad recording industry. Wilco, as everyone knows, pleaded artistic integrity when its label charged that the band’s recordings weren’t sufficiently commercial; bolstered by tons of press, Internet buzz, and a big-screen documentary-cum-hagiography, Wilco prevailed. When YHF was eventually released […]
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A triumph of soul over style
A jazz tribute to Pavement sounds like a bad idea — at best a willfully silly experiment conceived by a gaggle of giggling stoners, at worst a transparent attempt to make aging hipsters feel more sophisticated, the Generation X equivalent of the Moody Blues’ gigging with a symphony orchestra. With a few exceptions, these high-art/low-art […]
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Return of the honky-tonk hero
Since his last appearance at the Underground City Tavern, in December 2004, Texas singer/songwriter Billy Joe Shaver has published an autobiography, been the subject of a live tribute CD, had his life story produced on a DVD, been cast in a major motion picture, released a solo CD of new original material, appeared on CBS’s […]
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No setting Suns
The Suns of Circumstance got their start more than 18 years ago, when Mike Burnett and John Walter, two Springfield High School music chums, teamed up to play songs for a party. Burnett, a friendly sort, held large parties with many attendees, and the duo soon found it necessary to add fellow Springfield High grad […]
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Sandpaper dipped in sorghum
As everyone from Homer to Oprah can attest, people love comeback stories, the heartwarming testimonials of odds-beaters and fate-cheaters, the inspirational tales of prodigal sons and hard-luck daughters. To call I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise a comeback album might make for a better story, but it wouldn’t be accurate. Bettye LaVette, the 59-year-old singer […]
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Thank heaven for little girls
Gary Puckett and the Union Gap were almost unfathomably popular in the late 1960s. Wearing Civil War regalia (complete with fake military ranks) and pounding out lush, almost bizarrely orchestrated pop, they had a series of enormous hits, beginning with the No. 1 single “Woman, Woman” in 1967. They reportedly sold more records than any […]
