I’m no punk. I don’t understand what makes a person think, “This performance is so good, I have to slam into a stranger to properly convey how excited I am right now.” But I’ve been to some crazy shows where I’ve gotten hit, punched, kicked, and pushed. I’ve had beer spilled on me, beer poured on me, entire cans of beer tossed at me (not on purpose, but still). I’ve been to a few shows where I’ve feared for my personal safety, and at least one of them, I left a few songs in to keep from winding up a casualty of the pit. Last night, however. Last night was the first time I’ve ever feared for my life with a smile on my face.

If you weren’t standing near the center of the wooden part of the floor at Off Broadway, you just don’t know how close you were to ending up on the news. Yes, Frank Turner and his entire band, with their coordinated collared button down shirts translucent with sweat, gasped for breath in the thick heat of the room. Everyone in the room and even up in the balcony heard the British folk punk band plow through seventeen gorgeous songs of protest, pride, agony and angst, and they all heard Turner serve up a steady stream of faultless witty banter between his bad ass bar songs. But what you couldn’t know if you weren’t on that floor near center stage, was that every single time a song got loud, the fucking floorboards bowed like they were made of rubber. At least eight times, I fully prepared myself for the inevitable chaos that would ensue when my sober ass crashed into the basement with all these drunken bastards.

And yet, I never considered leaving. As everyone around me shouted lyrics, punched the air (and my head, by accident) and waved their cans of PBR in the air, I absorbed the pushes and shoves with glee. When the encore was over and the band left the stage, my socks were soaked with spilled beer and I had a buzz from the leftover adrenaline rush you only get when you think for a few minutes you might die. No, it wasn’t the first time I’ve gotten beat up at a show, but it was indeed the first time, and probably the only time, I’ve ever enjoyed it. It was Mardi Gras, in a city named after a French saint, in the middle of middle America. It was the night before Christians have to admit their mortality and start the soul cleansing Lenten season, and Frank Turner got a hundred plus people to clap and sing THERE IS NO GOD.

Yeah, 2012. Top That Shit.

Credit: Rachel Sleeman/Misra Records

Tell me a little about how you and Andrew came to be Water Liars. What’s it like to be living and working together in separate states?

Andrew and I became Water Liars sort of by accident. He and I have been friends for a long time, and about a year ago I asked him if I could come down for a weekend to visit and have him record some songs I’d been working on. Andrew’s always recorded all of his own songs in his house in Pittsboro, MS, and I’ve always loved the way his songs and records sound. I wanted to see what would happen if he worked on my songs. As it turned out, he and I basically share a brain and as soon as we started recording, it was clear that we were onto something that at least the two of us though was pretty alright.

When Andrew had some rough mixes, I sent those to Leo DeLuca over at Misra and he was as excited about them as Andrew and I were and wanted to release them properly, at which point Andrew and I decided that we ought to be a band.

Are you trying to create a sound that’s different than [now defunct] Theodore? What, if any, elements of the old band do you plan to maintain?

I’m not trying to do anything with Water Liars other than just be simple. Not overthink anything. Just do the best I can to follow my instincts without making myself or anyone else insane. To let the work stand for itself and either live or die by the songs and our voices.

I think the songs will sound similar [to Theodore] to most people, just because that’s the way I tend to write and I’m not really interested anymore in trying to force songs into any shape other than what they seem to ask for.

Do you have a favorite track off the record? Why is it close to your heart? 

This whole record is close to my heart in that it’s the one and only time in my life so far that I have felt such an unrestrained and simple and unpremeditated joy in making music with my friend, and it came at a time when I really needed to find out if that was possible.

After the release show, what’s next for Water Liars? 

After the record release, we’re playing at Vintage Vinyl on 2/28 – the official release date – and then hitting the road on March 1st through the 31st, making our way down to SXSW and around the Midwest and mid-South, with stops at Daytrotter and a couple other festivals in there as well. Then more touring, etc. Trying to make it work and pay the dues, if not the rent.

Photo Courtesy of Misra Records.

Notes:

– KDHX recently a debuted a new pre-release streaming feature on their website, Hear and Now. The first spotlight is on none other than Water Liars and their Phantom Limb. Check it.

– The Riverfront Times just reviewed the album for its Homespun series.

– More information on Friday’s show at Off Broadway can be found here.

www.blackjoelewis.com

Touring in support of their 2011 release, Scandalous, the band shows glimmers of so many different styles of music that critics have been hard pressed to shove them into a single category; listeners are all the better for it.

Opening the night is our own Warms Jets USA, fronted by musician/producer/all-around STL booster Jason Hutto. An unassuming hero of local music, you’ve heard Hutto’s contributions all over - the show will be a chance to experience his talent in person.

Warm Jets crafts sturdy, loud songs, so if you’re expecting b.s. or weirdness for weirdness’ sake, you’ll be sorely disappointed. But if you’re one who likes standing in the middle of a rock club, feeling the pulse of a song in the center of your chest, Warm Jets USA is a band just for you.

Off Broadway’s been kind enough to gift IWTAS with a pair of tickets to Wednesday’s show. All you have to do is leave us a comment below or on Facebook. Don’t delay – this is gonna be a big one. Deadline entry is Tuesday, February 14th at noon. Remember to include a real life email address.

For more info to the show, and to RSVP, go to here.

Those who know singer and songwriter Justin Johnson (a movie buff, lover of film, and documentary director in his own right) shouldn’t be surprised that PLE has spent so much time, energy, and resources on the creation of their music videos. Awash in black and white and shot with intentional choppiness, the “All I Know” video might be the closest one can get to understanding what a Pretty Little Empire show is really like (my comment is directed, of course, at the dozen or so St. Louisans who’ve yet to see them play live).

PLE performing at I Went To A Showcase. Photo by Nate Burrell.

As far as updates go, PLE has been recording at Native Sound (preview a new one, “Gold on the Radio”, on RFT Music) and laying a bit low as drummer Evan O’Neal has been recovering from ACL surgery. Expect to see their faces out in public as a band again real soon.

And as you don’t know, unless you’re the one of IT guys at my office (HI MARK AND MIKE!), I’m the person singularly responsible for a large percentage of bandwidth consumption due to my near-constant streaming of the Skekses debut EP from late 2010. They, too, have been writing and recording new material for an EP due out this year. I’m Jessie Spano excited about it.

Has anyone reading this heard of Spoken Nerd, outta Nashville? I hadn’t, but Jesus Christ, this guy is weird and beardy and wordy and hilarious and smart. Case in point: The song for video below starts off with, “All this time that you thought I was gay/ I was looking for a girl like Rachael Ray…” I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen on Friday, but with the HUMDRUM/Skekses/Nerd triple threat, I imagine there will be panties and/or boxer briefs dropped. Oh, and it’s free. See ya there.

Details for the show here.

Jason Potter and Morgan Nusbaum of Bruiser Queen. Photo by Kimberly Enloe.

If you’re interested in shows happening around town, then you’ve seen Jason’s show posters, and they most likely caused you to pause, turn, and do a double take. The artist and musician answered a few of my questions about inspiration, influence, and how to thrive in an “empty city”.

When did you start producing show posters? How have you seen your business expand over the past year or so?

I’ve been designing posters/flyers/handbills for shows since I played in my first band in 1995, but it wasn’t until 2006 or so that I finally got a grasp on the technical ability to produce screen printed posters. Things were slow at first, but lucky for me the climate in St. Louis has really turned toward an appreciation of hand-printed pieces. In many ways this preference over slick digital printouts parallels the preference of vinyl records over the mp3, and with supportive venues like the Firebird, it’s really granted me an exciting and productive couple of years.

Do you stick to St. Louis shows and/or a certain type of music when creating posters?

Not at all! I love designing and printing posters for all types of shows that happen all over the country. Creatively, the range is invigorating and has really served as a conduit to meeting people, musicians, and their fans that I would never have had the privilege of interacting with otherwise.

Your style is very distinct, especially when it exists in a show poster sea of naturescapes and bears riding bicycles. What’s the inspiration for your style of design, and how do adapt it to particular bands/concerts?

Thanks, I’d like to think so. It’s not that I set out to be different really, but I just can’t comprehend how so many other creative people end up making so many pieces that look the same. Music is so fantastic in the way that it sparks our imagination, and I believe it has to stir people in different ways. So most times I’ll start out by gathering some of the band’s music and researching some of their album covers or band photos to get an idea of where they’re coming from visually. From there, the collaboration begins – sometimes direct, sometimes indirect – and I get lost in my library of source images until something locks in that I’m not only pleased with, but I think the band and their fans will enjoy. That’s not to say I don’t tend toward the odd, the underground, the playful, the humorous aspects of art – I guess that’s the heart of my aesthetic.

Explain the origin of the term Empty City.

Empty City is a concept I’ve personally been connected to for some time now. St. Louis is such a big city, with quite a large population, but much of it sits empty. Not only literally in terms of brick buildings, but in terms of participation in the arts. It’s much better than it was even a few years ago, but much of that population is so focused on career, family, and sports. So Empty City isn’t a comment on the negative aspects of that, rather the positive. The infrastructure is there – if you have an idea, go for it! There’s no one there to stop you. Go see your favorite band and stand right in front. It doesn’t matter if you’re the only one there – and some times you will be. Don’t be afraid to start something. Start a radio show, a blog, or pick up a squeegee and print a poster. If your heart is in it, you’ll find your audience and St. Louis will be a better place for it.

More info about Jason and the chance to buy his awesome stuff are right here.

Photo: www.facebook.com/Samanthacrainmusic

To that end, IWTAS and Off Broadway is giving away a pair of tickets to the show. Here are a few ways you can win:

1) Track down your favorite Samantha Crain OR Old Lights lyric, and leave it in the comment section below. Don’t be afraid to move us, okay?

2) Track down your favorite Samantha Crain OR Old Lights lyric, and leave it as a comment on the Facebook page post for this contest. Again, MOVE. US. WITH. WORDS.

3) Tweet this: “I entered to win tickets from @iwtas to Samantha Crain in #STL: http://iwtas.me/AB0Szw”

You could win this album. It could be yours.

Bonus Treats:

Don’t despair if you aren’t chosen as the ticket winner. We’ll ALSO be giving away 3 other prizes to 3 IWTAS readers just for coming to the show on the 25th. The following is up for grabs:

1) “Like Strangers” (2011) by Old Lights on either CD or vinyl (winner’s choice).

2) An Off Broadway t-shirt.

3) An IWTAS logo t-shirt.

Entry deadline is Monday, the 23rd at noon. Winners will be notified via email (or Facebook message, #whathaveyou) soon thereafter.

Now isn’t this all very exciting? Let’s go have some fun together.

And so my obsession with Western Teleport escalated, with alarming speed. I even creeped on Chad Matheny’s Facebook to see if we had any friends in common. We did, and I texted our mutual friend, “Are you friends with Chad Matheny, or are you ‘Facebook Friends’ with Chad Matheny?” She assured me not only was she actually his friend, but she also confirmed my suspicions that he was/is kind, smart *and* earnest. The Real Deal. A rare bird, indeed.

Far be it from me to make sweeping generalizations with no hard evidence to back it up. Behold! Beneath the tour dates listed on Emperor X’s Tumblr:

IMPORTANT!
If any event listed above is not all ages and that lame fact makes you unable to attend, please send an e-mail and I’ll play any three songs you’d like outside the venue for you and anyone else you bring along. Then we can all go ride local public transport or get fish tacos or something. 

Who does that? Chad Matheny does that. So when I saw Emperor X appear on The Firebird’s concert calendar less than two weeks before the show, I kinda lost my shit.

I’ve promoted other shows for obscure acts I feared wouldn’t draw a healthy crowd, but this was so much different. I knew that no matter how many people showed up, we’d all be a family by the time it was over. My glad begging never faltered, and I didn’t really care how unsuccessful I was. I spread the good word, the rest was up to fate.

The boy with the sweater, sneakers, and messy hair (that I totally watched him blow dry with a bus station hand dryer that morning, CREEPER)  pulled his microphone onto the floor instead of leaving it on stage. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, so he requested the wide arc of listeners to close in on him until he had to tell them to back up again. He stayed about a foot from his microphone most of the time, so we heard his voice naturally, and also with an echoey, layered effect through the amps behind him. With minimal adjustment, he recreated the album’s sound, but in an intimate, entirely present manner. There was no fussy hitch between the music and its creator, and no glitchy filter between the sound and its recipients. He barrelled through his material with gusto, and he gave no indication that he was in any way tired of touring the country by bus to get to us.

Did we smile until our faces ached? Oh yes. Did we sing “Allahu ackbar” with joyful abandon, even though most of us didn’t really mean it? We certainly did. Did I awkwardly hug everyone in the room when it was over? Guilty. Did we just become best friends? I really hope so.

And so I’m breaking this silly silence. I want everyone to listen to Western Teleport, but I also want everyone to listen to Chad Matheny. Watch his little videos, preorder the new record he’s working on, pay attention to everything he does, for the rest of his life. Listen to him, and learn about being human, about being vulnerable, about trying and failing, about trying and succeeding, and about always wearing your own skin because it’s always the only one that isn’t already taken.

—–

When St. Louis’ quirky art rock outfit Britches confirmed as opener, I admit, I did a little dance. I realize it isn’t immediately obvious that these two acts would go together in any way. Emperor X is a one-man lo-fi folk pop dynamo. Britches performs while wearing the severed heads of giant stuffed animals and they replace the batteries in their Speak ‘n Spell before they go on. [tomato/tomato]. But when I saw Britches open for Marnie Stern, I was impressed by their professionalism, their intensity, and their sincerity. There is no artifice to Britches. They are extremely serious about what they do, and they do it with precision and sharpness that, by way of comparison, made Marnie Stern’s backing band’s sloppiness annoying enough for me to leave after three songs. It is a huge brag on St. Louis that about half of the audience Sunday night showed up just to see Britches, but I was sad to see a big chunk of them left after their set, before they could see that both bands had the same foundation of pride and dignity, the same high standards, the same confidence in their ability to to be the undisputed best at being themselves, and the same steady fierceness about the art of live music. Next time Emperor X comes to town, stick around for the whole show, kids.

Brad, Jenn, and Brian of Middle Class Fashion.

So this is Middle Class Fashion’s first album, correct? Where was it recorded?

This is MCF’s first full-length album. We put out a four song EP in late 2010. [The EP] was very lo-fi and used the original piano and drum tracks that were recorded very primitively by Brad and myself at our practice space. Those tracks were meant to be demos, but when Brian joined the band, he suggested keeping them and just re-recording the vocals. It ended up sounding really cool.

We decided to record Girl Talk a bit differently so we would have more control, and so it more accurately depicted our new three-piece sound. We recorded the basic drum and piano tracks at Brewhouse Studios, and everything else was recorded with Brian on his laptop (usually at one of our houses). It was a really enjoyable way to make an album. We’d have strings players recording in my living room, or we’d do vocals in the bathroom, and at the same time we’d often have friends over, hanging out and listening, drinking beer or having dinner.

So what’s it sound like?

I like to call it minor key piano pop. A lot of the songs are fun and upbeat, but most of them have a slightly more serious theme.

Did you do most of the songwriting?

“Jamie” is the only song not written solely by me. Brian brought that amazingly catchy “Jamie won’t call” melody, and I had some lyrics that weren’t really fitting anywhere else. Once we got the ball rolling, we co-wrote the rest of the song and it was a pretty amazing experience. Brad kept everything moving with just the right drum parts, then he ended up adding a guitar solo toward the end on the recording that just completes it.

I wrote the other thirteen songs over the course of 2010 (and a few in early 2011). Most of them reflect the weirdness of my life at that point. I was still recovering from the Paper Dolls lineup shifting, which started in April 2009 and didn’t really steady out until fall of that year. To top it off, the “fun fixer-upper” house I purchased in the midst of all this turned into a complete gut rehab project. So I was staying with different friends, sleeping on couches, etc. This went on for well over a year. It was really disorienting to be without a solid band and a home all at once. Songwriting is what kept me sane.

How do you manage to create different bodies of work for each project? [Ed: Jenn is also a member of Paper Dolls (w/ Brad) and Tights Pants Syndrome (w/ Brian).]

Playing in MCF is just another great opportunity to sing with Brian, and from the beginning I felt that the simple structure of MCF was taken to a new level with his amazing bass playing. And Brad, who has only been drumming for a few years now, always seems to know exactly what each song needs, without over-drumming. All three of us are songwriters and have fronted a band at some point, so that also creates a unique energy.

To me, it’s easier to keep things fresh with three bands than with one. There’s not all this pressure on one band to be everything, and in turn there’s less pressure on each individual musician. I’ve learned not to be afraid to take on a big project with a deadline, and also not to be afraid to take a break.

Notes:

Event details for Saturday’s release show at Foam can be found here.
This week’s Riverfront Times features a review of Girl Talk.
Listen to Middle Class Fashion’s EP or listen to and purchase Girl Talk (starting on 1/16) on their Bandcamp site.