At Off Broadway on July 31st, Fattback premieres its second official CD, Canary, at a release party. The group from the wrong side of the tracks has put together a collection of tight, powerful, growling rock songs that will take you by surprise. This is not your mother’s Fattback. This version is mature and polished — if you dare to associate those words with these Saint Louis rockers. Known primarily as a party band, given to silly lyrics and dance anthems of a southern grunge nature, the members of Fattback have begun to stretch out and show their chops.

From the opener “No Account,” you are immediately awash in swirling guitars that make you hold your breath. “Sorry” has a vibe that will make you remember the days of lying in your room with headphones on, hiding out as you wait to sneak off to a show. The musicianship on this recording is worth noting. Dave Haggerty and Sean Dalmeyer create the sonic bed of guitars. Mike Apperson’s in-the-pocket bass lines compliment the rock-steady thunder of John Joern on drums. Grady Briedenbachs keys weave a texture that fills the spaces with pure power. No longer are there any glitches in sound: This is serious music. Having followed this band from its earliest stages, I find Canary to be one of the finest locally released discs I have ever put in my player. The production quality is near perfection. Their first release (Briefly a Zombie, 2007) had high expectations and had many great tunes, but missed the mark sonically. The boys have a real winner with this issue; the album will stand up against anything dropping nationally right now. The music business has lost sight (or hearing) of this kind of recording. What Fattback has done is harness soul and emotion in a harder rock model and made that soul accessible through a variety of genres. After hearing this recording I am already waiting for the next one. Canary was definitely worth the wait.

Collateral Damage, 7:00 p.m., Monday, July 13: Shane Cohn, the newly elected 29-year-old alderman from the 25th ward representing Dutchtown and Carondelet, stops by Collateral Damage to talk about the incoming new energy on the city’s board of aldermen. Cohn became the city’s first openly gay alderman by winning 46 percent of the vote in a four-way election to replace City Hall veteran Dorothy Kirner who decided not to run for re-election. Dorothy Kirner had replaced her late husband Dan as 25th Ward alderman in 2004. Cohn is the city’s second-youngest alderman, less than a year older than Kacie Starr Triplett, the alderwoman of the 6th Ward. He has stated his priorities are neighborhood safety, youth engagement and development.

Topic A, 7:30 p.m., Monday, July 13: July’s theme continues on Topic A: “The Life Creative”; folks of all stripes are getting down with DIY, whether knitting scarves for charity, planting victory gardens to avoid corporate food conglomerates or self-publishing conspiracy theories while wearing the tinfoil hats. What’s behind our impulse to make stuff, to do stuff, to get more self-reliant and creative? We’ll talk about it all month with a variety of voices.

Monday, July 13, we’re joined by Washington University professor Dr. R. Keith Sawyer, whose work in the fields of creativity and collaboration are informed, in part, by his own backgrounds in improv theater and jazz piano. He’s made some scientific studies of the seemingly unscientific nature of creativity, and has plenty of myths to explode. Think you’re not creative? Or think you are? Tune in and find out if you’re right!

Literature for the Halibut, 7:00 p.m., Thursday, July 16: tune into literature for the halibut for 2 thursdays in july when our featured writer is Flannery O’Connor. on july 2, you’ll hear Janie Ibur & Ann Haubrich read one of the celebrated southern writer’s mordantly funny short stories. and on july 16, tune into an interview with Brad Gooch, author of the first full length biography of our dear Flann. Gooch’s book “Flannery: A LIfe of Flannery O’Connor” recounts plenty of anecdotes from Flann’s life, as Gooch followed the trajectory of O’Connor’s life from Savannah, Georgia, to the Iowa Writers Workshop, Yaddo Artists Colony in upstate NY, Lourdes, and Andalusia. It’s a Flannery Fest! with violence & humor, sin & god, language both spare & vivid.

Chalk this one up to Grace and Nomadic Reverie. I never would have heard of Angel Olsen were it not for the in-studio session at KDHX set up by Grace (a session you can hear in its entirety tonight at 9:00 pm CST on 88.1, streaming live at KDHX.org and also streaming thereafter). Olsen is young, all of 22, a Saint Louis native, recently moved to Chicago. She has a record but you’ll never find it, unless you Myspace her. Her songs are confessional and communal, getting the balance just right. She sings with a high, rich, jazz-estranged voice, distant from the grade-school affectation that is the fashion of too many young female (and male) indie folk troubadours. My only regret is that she didn’t bring her accordion.

Here’s an mp3 and a Flip video from the session.

Monday, July 6 on Topic A, 7:30 p.m.: Tonight we kick off a month of conversations on “The Life Creative” — folks of all stripes are getting down with DIY, whether knitting scarves for charity, planting victory gardens to avoid corporate food conglomerates or self-publishing conspiracy theories while wearing the tinfoil hats. What’s behind our impulse to make stuff, to do stuff, to get more self-reliant and creative? We’ll talk about it all month with a variety of voices. Tonight’s guest is Faythe Levine, author and film director of the book/documentary movie project “Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft and Design.” We’ll talk about her 19,000-mile journey to document the resurgence of indie craft and its implications for sustainability and subverting traditional capitalism… and the movement’s limitations.

Photo courtesy of flickr.com/photos/ella_marie

Next Wednesday, July 8, the Loop Trolley Company will be displaying proposed routes and plans for the public to view during an open house at the Regional Arts Commission. Joe Edwards (the dude responsible for Blueberry Hill, the Pageant, the Moonrise Hotel and more) sat in on a forum this past Thursday morning at the St. Louis History Museum, alongside Catherine Powers (Planning Director at the City of Clayton) Joe Adams (Mayor of U City( and John Carroll (Chairman of Portland Streetcar, Inc. in Portland, Oregon). Each of them expressed their support and interest in seeing a new transportation mode up and down Delmar Boulevard in St. Louis, Missouri.

This forum continued a 10-year long conversation about laying streetcar tracks that run from the Lions Gate at the east end of the Loop, down Delmar to DeBaliviere, then running south to circle around the History Museum. John Carroll told a story about Portland’s experience during his 14 years working in the downtown transportation program, which started similarly to the idea we have for St. Louis. Some of the interesting points he noted included lots of new business and residential development, an increase in foot traffic on the street, safer neighborhoods, and a great deal of pride. John Carroll said that they were able to complete the tracks in Portland at a rate of three blocks every two weeks. He also noted that although the Portland streetcars run in the same streets as cars and many bicyclists, they’ve only had one accident in seven years when a car ran a red light in front of a streetcar.

The public information open house is where the public can learn more, ask questions, and talk about the proposed route, trolley vehicles, impact on the neighborhood, and issues like accessibility, parking, and taxes.

RAC is located at 6128 Delmar Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63112. The open house runs from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm, on, Wednesday, July 8. A 15 minute slide presentation can be caught at 4:30 pm or 6:00 pm. If you’d like to know more, or if you would like to request special assistance or accommodations, email info at looptrolley dot org or call Citizens for Modern Transit at (314) 231-7272.

To read more about the project, check out looptrolley.org or read Steve Patterson’s post at UrbanReviewSTL.

Shots ring out on Wednesday July 1, 2009 from 10am-Noon (that’s tomorrow morning). Tune in or log on for the annual Uncontrollable Urge Independence Day Shootacular Songs About Guns.

Check out past years play lists: 2006, 2007, 2008

Uncontrollable Urge, 88.1fm KDHX, Wednesdays From 10am-High Noon, that’s when I reach for my revolver.

Between 1970 and 1982, whether with his brothers in the Jackson 5 (later the Jacksons), or as a solo artist, Michael Jackson made some incredible music. Not the only incredible music in those years, but between the ubiquity of it all – the J5 dominated soul and pop charts for a couple years, and they were on TV both live and animated; there were hits and then there was the mega-hit to beat all mega-hits, the album “Thriller” – and the frequent high quality of the records, Michael Jackson managed to affect a greater segment of the world’s population than any other pop artist in that time.

At this point, if you are between the ages of say 30 and 55, it’s virtually impossible that you didn’t fall in love with at least one record by Michael Jackson during his prime years, and if you didn’t fall in love, you probably had at least one that you liked. And the music you love during your adolescence, you love with an intensity and a conviction which is rarely matched in adulthood – there’s too much nuance in your listening, too much awareness that there are other good records out there.

So, the death of Michael Jackson pushed some other stories off the news cycle. This bothers some people, the type of people who want to believe that human beings should only concentrate on “important” things. The revolution in Iran, the political arguments over health care, the problem of global warming. These are all important, and we need to pay attention to them. But, two things come to mind: First, we cannot directly affect any of these issues in the way that Michael Jackson at some point directly affected virtually all of us. And secondly, I personally don’t want to live a life which doesn’t have room for pleasure in it, and the loss of someone responsible for that pleasure is going to make me want to share my feelings and those of others similarly coping.

I don’t care which it is – the bubble gum soul of “ABC,” the passionate yearning beyond any possibility of comprehension of “I Want You Back,” the baroque funk of “Heartbreak Hotel,” the slick seduction of “Rock With You,” the joyful dance of “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough,” the rock/funk collision of “Beat It,” on and on and on – but Michael Jackson brought enjoyment to our lives. It was and is music which gets straight to the heart of the matter – in the zen mantra of American Bandstand Rate-A-Record contestants, these songs had good beats and you could dance to them.

And, these songs brought people together. In grade school, I bonded with African-American students over Jackson 5 records. One of the first gifts I remember receiving from a non-family member was a Jacksons album. And, it is impossible to tell those who weren’t there how overwhelmingly ubiquitous “Thriller” was – punk rockers, funk fans, pop fans, virtually everybody who listened to music at all found something to like in that record. (For me, it was his last gasp, his weakest good album; perhaps there was something a little too controlled, too studied in all that shattering of the market divisions. I don’t know, but I do know it was a damn sight better than “Bad,” which was a damn sight better than “Dangerous” which was the last Michael Jackson record I listened to all the way through.)

When any celebrity dies, there is an outpouring of affection and mourning which seems far beyond common sense, considering that we don’t actually know these famous people personally. But, the work of artists – musicians, actors, writers, painters, directors, whatever – gets inside us in ways different than common sense might dictate. Obviously, when we hear a song or read a book or watch a movie, at that moment, we have an emotional response which can be extremely powerful. But layers of that response stay with us – who doesn’t know how to recall quite viscerally some thrill, some passion, some intense feeling simply by saying the name of an old record or movie? These responses come tumbling out overwhelmingly when we hear of the death of the person who created them in the first place.

We know there was no way that Michael Jackson would ever make a record as great as “Off the Wall” again. Only the most fanatical followers of Jackson have bothered to listen to anything he’s done in the last 15 years. His personal life has been full of horrific accusations and unconscionable public actions (though I continue to remind those who have convicted him in the court of opinion that there has never been any actual proof he’s been as demonic as people think he has, and even if he has, this makes him as much a person to be pitied as those who he has possibly sent on the path to repeating the cycle which made him do it in the first place).

But we are sad because we are reminded of why he mattered in the first place. We are reminded of our youth, when some of his songs meant more to us than anything else, even if for a short time. We remember where we were, what we were doing, who we were with when we heard certain songs. We remember the emotions, and we realize what we had is gone. We want to hear these songs again, feel the emotions as best we can, recreate what we once had in a more naïve state. I think it’s that naivete we mourn, that ability to be thrilled with the sense of a discovery which overwhelmed us in some way.

This is the connection we have to our pop stars, to our artists, to those who may not have been much in our thoughts for a long time, but who, upon leaving this mortal coil, bring all these feelings rushing back to us at the same time we become more aware that we will never be the same again. Listening to Michael Jackson a month ago was a return to the pleasures I’d had before; listening to him now still makes my heart dance, but at the same time, it reminds me that time is marching on. As when you lose a friend or a family member, the death of an artist who touched you deeply has the power to make you feel a little bit older and a little bit less immortal.

Recently, I was chatting with valis who brings 40 years of psychedelia to the airwaves every Tuesday morning from 5 -7am on Trip Inside This House. We had already expressed our mutual appreciation for each others’ shows and had said that if either needed a sub we’d call the other first. So, I’m not saying we’re like the Cal Ripkens of radio or anything, but neither one of us has ever missed a shift – I’ve got streak of 45 going and valis is right behind me with right around 40 or so. I know, I know that’s less than a year of shows each. So valis suggests we not wait for one of us to need a sub, that maybe we should just switch for one week – in fact we had each already begun putting together playlists so we’d be prepared when called upon. He’d do Pop! The Beat Bubble Burst and I’d do his Trip Inside This House. So, we ran it by the Management who agreed to let us do it this once.

I tend to like those occurrences when I hear a well-prepared, enthusiastic sub on one of my favorite shows – especially if it’s someone from another show I like. I really dig the blending of the two shows – keep the core from the show you’re subbing for, but try and mix in something of yourself that still falls within the parameters of that show. And that is what I will attempt to do on Trip Inside This House on Tuesday July 7th, and being familiar with valis’ show I know he has the knowledge and appreciation for what I do to keep listeners of Pop! The Beat Bubble Burst more than happy on Thursday, July 9th.

So tune in between 5 and 7am on July 7th and 9th to hear…Trip Inside This Beat Bubble House or…Pop! The Bubble House Tripped or…just tune in please.

After about 30 minutes or so (a little after 10PM), Thunderkid cleared out and Crocodiles began to set up. At 10:15, they donned their sunglasses, picked up their guitars, and kicked up a nice little drone. At 10:17, they told the crowd of about 30 that the sound was awful, killed their lights, and started packing up. At this point, it was unclear what was happening. The crowd stood around awkwardly, while the sound guy came up and tried to reason with the band. They (truthfully) claimed that it was impossible to hear the drum-machine (I was standing up front, stage-center, and couldn’t hear it either). The crowd slowly dispersed toward the bar and seating area, and the lights on stage came up.

No one really seemed to know what to do next - one of the band members (Brandon) stood near the back of the club, chatting with a few of the concert-goers, while Firebird staff spoke with the other (Charles) outside. About a half hour later, Spelling Bee got the green light for their set, and blasted through 25 minutes of noisy, sludgy punk, which redeemed the night, at least in my eyes. Unfortunately, by that point, most of the venue had cleared out.

A lot of people seemed pretty pissed about the Crocodiles set (or lack thereof) - I understand that the Firebird is offering refunds to those concert-goers who felt cheated - but I’m more disappointed than anything. I really enjoy “Summer of Hate,” and I was looking forward seeing it played out live, and to sacrifice the show over a sound glitch seems a bit… silly to me. The situation begs a comparison to the Wavves’ Primavera Festival meltdown (both are signed to Fat Possum, coincidentally), but Wavves have only been around for a couple of years (if that), and are far less experienced than Crocodiles. These guys have been playing in bands for years (Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel Tower, among others), and should know how to deal with sound issues. Both parties (Firebird and Crocodiles) were apologetic to those in attendance, but couldn’t seem to reach an agreement with each other. I don’t think it would be appropriate to blame either, but all the same, I went to the Firebird last night to see Crocodiles play, and left disappointed that I did not.

Written by: Kenny Hofmeister