Cassie Morgan and the Lonely Pine performs their song Wake Up at Foam Coffee and Beer. First let me apologize for the audio quality on this one. Our audio engineer Stephen Oppenheim (who, by the way, was total a champ and did a great job for us all day–as all the engineers did) got the wrong address for Foam and was running late so we had very little time to set up for this and this was the best take we got. And, while it’s not terrible, we almost considered not posting this because the vocal level was very low. In the end we decided to go ahead and share it anyway. We hope you can still enjoy it. Honestly this is one of the few serious technical errors we had on this epic day of shooting fourteen live music videos in one day, so we’re thankful for that.

Cassey Morgan and the Lonely Pine is an acclaimed folk duo consisting of Cassie Morgan accompanied by the versatile Beth Bombara. They were named “Best Folk Band” in the 2011 Riverfront Times Music Awards and Cassie was named “Best Female Vocalist” in the same survey in 2009 and 2010. This song: Wake Up is a new unreleased composition.

Foam has become a favorite hangout on the corner of Cherokee and Jefferson serving a ecclective mix of coffee and beer. They regularly feature live music and host open mic performances hosted by Ellen the Felon.

This is number nine of fourteen music videos we shot on April 7th in St. Louis on Cherokee street. We’ll be posting them every Tuesday and Thursday for the next few weeks. Full project credits here.

Ransom Note performing their song “Taken For Granted” at Art Monster on Cherokee. These guys blew us away at the Tower Groove Carnival last summer. We were taken off guard, we sort of half expected a band named Ransom Note to be a punk band or something and not the soulful music these guys make, and make well. They’re all veterans of the St. Louis music scene in various styles.

Chris Sabatino’s Art Monster has become a staple on Cherokee as purveyors of art in the form of Tattoos and air brushed … well anything from t-shirts to motorcycles. Check them out some time if you’re in the market for something like that.

This is number eight of fourteen music videos we shot on April 7th in St. Louis on Cherokee street. We’ll be posting them every Tuesday and Thursday for the next few weeks. Full project credits here.

Demonlover performing “Tequila Rockingbird” at El Torito Market on Cherokee St. As we understand it, Demon Lover is a project that came from the ashes of the band Theodore. These guys are multi-instrumentalists and you can tell they enjoy experimenting with non-traditional musical instruments often switching them up in the middle of the song. I think everyone who was at this shoot was taken with this band and the setting in the middle of Cherokees largest market.

El Torito (2753 Cherokee Street) is a Mexican supermarket that carries almost any kind of ingredient you might need to make your own Mexican feast as well as dry goods, clothing, and cookware.

This is number seven of fourteen (half way!) music videos we shot on April 7th in St. Louis on Cherokee street. We’ll be posting them every Tuesday and Thursday for the next few weeks. Full project credits here.

Jason Hutto’s latest project Warm Jets USA performing “Anesthesia” from their forthcoming album (maybe this summer?) at Apop records. Jason is one of the organizers of Tower Groove Records and a stable of the St. Louis Music scene for somewhere around fifteen years now. He not only has had a number of projects of his own he’s also recorded and/or produced a number of bands around town. And on top of all this he’s just a nice dude. We’ve covered his work in the past here and here and here. (and here and here too). He’s even made some of his music available for free download here too.

Apop records is a great spot on Cherokee and (sadly) a rare thing to see in any neighborhood anymore; an honest to god record store. It’s worth a trip to the neighborhood to check it out.

This is number six of fourteen music videos we shot on April 7th in St. Louis on Cherokee street. We’ll be posting them every Tuesday and Thursday for the next few weeks. Full project credits here.

The Skekses performing Lonely Cowgirl at Cherokee Street Bikes. The Skekses were one of the bands that we knew very little about but were very pleasantly surprised by their performance. We’re looking forward to hearing more from them in the future. They have an EP expected out in June entitled “Curse My Name”. Learn more about them here.

We shot this in Cherokee Street Bikes where I’m sure you can find a deal on a nice ride or get yers fixed.

Audio recorded and mixed by Matt Giant.

This is number five of fourteen music videos we shot on April 7th in St. Louis on Cherokee street. We’ll be posting them every Tuesday and Thursday for the next few weeks. Full project credits here.

This weekends curated video is from Jarred Gastreich’s local one take video series the Show-Me Shows. In this video he presents the folk group Dots Not Feathers.

This is the band Catholic Guilt playing their song “Ol’ Man Gold” at Firecracker Press. Not sure how to describe this band … maybe the video does the best job of that. If you dig them you can hear their full length record entitled Beyond Pleasuredome from their bandcamp page here.

We’ve featured Firecracker Press on Lo-Fi Saint Louis a long time ago, before they moved to their current location. They print cool stuff will old technology.

This is number four of fourteen music videos we shot on April 7th in St. Louis on Cherokee street. We’ll be posting them every Tuesday and Thursday for the next few weeks. Full project credits here.

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This is number three of fourteen music videos we shot on April 7th in St. Louis on Cherokee street. We’ll be posting them every Tuesday and Thursday for the next few weeks. Full project credits here.

Black James is normally a solo act but on this particular occasion Jennifer McDaniel had invited a organist, a zither player and a Thereminist to acompany her on this performance of this country murder ballad. Murder ballads aren’t really something you hear much of anymore. Most music about killing people is done in rap music these days, but there is a long tradition of murder songs in both classical and folk traditions.

You can find Black James here and here and hear more of her music here.

Audio for this video was produced by Steven Oppenheim.

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New music video from Kentucky Knife Fight produced by First Punch Film . Awesome. Thank you.

This is a video produced by Johnny Andrews for Listen at STLToday.com. We’re posting it here because it’s awesome!

Magic City performs “Good Times Ride” in St. Louis, Missouri.

Band members include Larry Bulawsky, JJ Hamon, Adam Hesed, Sam Meyer and Anne Tkach.

Special thanks to Matty Coonfield, Kate Eddens, Taylor J. Huff, Kevin Insinna, Jacob Jones, Chris Keith, Ophelia Meyer, Duane Perry, Jeff White, Zeng and members of the band Bug Chaser.

Audio engineered by Tazu Marshall

Video produced by Johnny Andrews

For more Magic City go here.

For more videos of local artists from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch LISTEN series, please visit either one of our homes on the internet:

stltoday.com/listen
youtube.com/listenstl
facebook.com/listenpd

Pretty Little Empire performing their song “The Way You Say It” at Fort Gondo Compound for the Arts. This is part of our Lo-Fi Cherokee collaboration with Tower Groove Records which you can read about here.

Pretty Little Empire (band Facebook page) have generated a lot of buzz and critical acclaim in town since the formed in 2008. Christian Schaeffer of the River Front Times sez: ”Pretty Little Empire trades in sweet acoustic melancholy, a kind of slow-drip dream-folk that skirts the edges of twang and pop.”

You can catch them live at Off Broadway on May 5th which is a fundraiser (to raise money to finish their forthcoming album) sponsored by our fellow local music blog I Went To A Show.

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This is something new for us. A new series of fourteen videos shot on Cherokee St. in a single day featuring bands from Tower Groove Records. We’ll be posting two of these a week (on Tuesdays and Thursdays) for the next seven weeks.

This first band was shot at STL-Style a great local T-shirt shop run by Jeff and Randy Vines. We made a video about them a few years ago which you can see here. They make locally (St. Louis) themed t-shirts and sell other locally themed goods.

The band is Humdrum playing their song I’ll Find You from their second full-length release The Arrangement. They’re currently working on a third to be produced by Steve Albini. (Official band website, Official Facebook Page)

Thanks to everyone who helped out with this project. Audio for this performance was recorded by Aaron Ruby see this page for the full credits for this project.

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This is a sponsored video. These videos are made for a fee and help suport this site. If you would like a video made to promote your business/project/event feel free to contact me via our contact page. 

EVIL PRINTS is proud to present a new suite of 14, 16″x 16″ linoleum cuts by Tom Huck entitled, “The Hillbilly Kama Sutra”. Having taken over 2 years to complete, “The Hillbilly Kama Sutra” is Huck’s first portfolio of prints since 1998′s seminal, “2 Weeks in August: 14 Rural Absurdities”. Housed in a black velvet lined portfolio made of paneling and duct tape, this signed and numbered limited edition set of 20 will be an essential addition to any collection of contemporary prints. As an added bonus, collectors who purchase the complete set will get a 15th “mystery print”. The mystery print will only be available in the portfolio set.

“The Hillbilly Kama Sutra” is part of a long tradition of thematically unified suites in the history of printmaking. Inspired by artists such as Hogarth, Holbein, and Goya, Huck has chosen the timeless theme of sex, albeit with a slight “hillbilly” twist. “The Hillbilly Kama Sutra” is now available from Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art in Kansas City, MO. info@sherryleedy.com

The 15 print portfolio is available for $11,500.

View the whole set here: evilprints.com/site/?page_id=158

Visit EvilPrints.com for more info

Video produced by Bill Streeter (billstreeter.net)

Music: Dirty South by Bob Reuter and Alley Ghost (facebook.com/alleyghost)

We’ve been trying to get Ellen Cook (AKA Ellen the Felon) to come do a session for a while and as you can see she finally relented to our requests. She’s one of the newer musicians that’s been making waves in St. Louis in the last year.

It took us awhile to finally decide to shoot this session on the lovely roof of City Museum with Mattronome‘s drum kit set up at the bottom of the giant slide there.

Here Ellen performs two songs, ‘Where the Heart is’ and ‘Oh Timmothy’ and you can keep up with her via her website here.

You might recognize the Paper Dolls keyboardist here as Jenn Malzone from our session with Tight Pants Syndrome. Well this is her other band, one of two other bands actually. So she keeps busy. She told me about the Paper Dolls at the TPS session so when we got a chance we booked this one too. They play three songs here ‘Sparks’, ‘I Was Too Obvious’ and ‘Trash & Suicide’ and you can listen and buy their album ‘Sparks’ here.

Some nice folks from Nebraska came through town last weekend, they’re traveling cross country making these videos of local bands. The videos are similar to the videos I’ve been making for my Lo-Fi Sessions project and their project is part of an effort to promote Nebraska music via a website called Hear Nebraska. This video was produced by Lovedrunk Studios. My son Travis can be seen at the beginning of this video performing duties with a clapboard. .Cassie Morgan can be found here.

Our intern Trent Hover went out and produced this piece on the anual celebration of record stores in St. Louis. We’re blessed for a city of our size to still have as many options as we do for buying vinyl or any kind of physical media. We visited Euclid Records, Vintage Vinyl and Apop Records for this piece but there are even more options than those in the St. Louis area. And remember you don’t have to wait for Record Store Day to go and check out your local record store. Music for this video: Stellar Day by the Phonocaptors.

Here is one of our favorite local acts trying out some new material at the Firebird last month. The Blind Eyes are due to have a new album out in June so we look forward to that. This video was entirely produced by our intern Trent Hover. We think he did a nice job. Let him know what you think of his work in the comments!

So a few months ago we got an email from a young musician named André with a link to some videos that he had posted on Youtube. Normally we ignore unsolicited contacts like this but there was something about this guys video that really made us take a second look–he had great energy and enthusiasm if not some musical chops. So we sent him a message to see if he was interested in doing a session for Lo-Fi Saint Louis.

After a bit of back and forth for a few months working out some scheduling bugs we finally got together on a really nice warm evening at City Museum. We were mistakenly under the impression that this was a solo act but André brought a four piece band with him–a project he calls Dear Genre. Since the weather was so nice we made our way up to the very top of the roof near the giant praying mantis sculpture.

This really is a first for us, bringing a relatively unknown and very new band in for a session, and that’s not a bad thing. We love to discover new talent when we can–which is not something that’s so easily done believe it or not. And if André keeps up his work ethic and enthusiasm he should have a bright career ahead of him. Dear Genre on Facebook and on MySpace.

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I caught this act at Stag Night last month at El Leñador on Cherokee St. I didn’t know anything about this band before this performance. It’s just random luck that I was able to capture this performance by two members of what is normally a four piece group. Loved them I hope they make it back to St. Louis. They’re from San Francisco and they just happened to be passing through on their way to the True False Film Festival in Columbia Missouri. Sour Mash Hug Band on MySpace.

For this session we returned to the Architecture Hall at City Museum with the power pop collective known as Tight Pants Syndrome who have been on my short list for a while for a session. And finally after several scheduling snafu’s we finally got it together to shoot this session.

If you are familiar with Tight Pants Syndrome you know that they make wonderfully slick poppy rock-n-roll that’s not quite sweet enough to fall into the bubble gum category but really fun and lively none the less. Their music has been featured in the soundtrack of A. (Anonymous) by Daniel Bowers and they have garnered several awards and accolades over the year for their delivery of tight pop hooks.

This was one of the quickest sessions we have shot yet, the band set up and started cranking out song after song we mostly had to just pick a moment and start recording. They perform acoustic versions of three original songs in this video: Calling Panther Lake, Your Buzz is Safe with Me Tonight, and Telephone. If you like these tracks be sure to check out their most recent release Fully Active (itunes link) or one of their earlier releases. Also thanks to our intern Trent Hover for doing the booking on this session.

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Kid Congo Powers has been doing this rock’n'roll thing for quite some time. He started out as the president of The Ramones Fan Club and eventually formed a band that was to become The Gun Club. That led to a stint as guitarist for The Cramps. The Pink Monkey Birds is his latest project and they’re touring like crazy. This is their second stop in St. Louis in the last year (the first being an impromptu show at CBGB’s last spring). This show at Off Broadway was a blast, we hope we captured a little of the fun on video for you.

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About four years ago we had a chance to interview the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Since then you probably have heard them on NPR’s Fresh Air, or from one of their return visits to St. Louis in the last four years. I was able to see them at B.B.’s Jazz Blues and Soups in mid 2007 which was only a about a year after they first met each other at the First Annual Black Banjo Festival. They’ve since gone on to make a nice career for themselves and to win a Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album this year. So I gotta say that this is a first in the history of this site, that we were one of the first to cover an act that has gone on to win a Grammy. So in honor of this we thought we would reprise the Carolina Chocolate Drops interview we did way back when in a slightly new format, and that is as a single episode instead of the episodic two parter we did originally and has always been available in the site archives since it was first published (I don’t know what we were thinking with two part thing to be honest). It’s about thirteen minutes long and it includes performances and interviews with CCD. Be sure to catch Rhiannon Giddens performance of Another Man Done Gone somewhere in the middle of this video … it’s just stunning.

One program note: Rhiannon was present in the interview but she was off camera nursing a cold and a sore throat so that’s why you only see Justin Robinson and Dom Flemmons in the interview. portion.

We’re a little late getting this one up. But it’s our favorite Philly band Mondo Topless performing at the Beat ‘N Soul fest from last fall. Great show, great band, good times ‘nuf said.

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Our good friends at Mad Art Gallery (our favorite art gallery in an 1930′s art deco Police Station) threw a huge party to celebrate 10 Years of being in business (see the video we made about the place a couple of years ago here). And because hosting wedding receptions have played a large part in keeping them in business they decided to throw a wedding themed party. Guests were encouraged to dress in their favorite wedding attire. It was certainly one of the best wedding bashes we’ve ever attended! Here’s to at least another 10 years! (we have video of this party coming soon too–stay tuned)

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If you didn’t already know about the Fleshtones you are in for a treat. This band was founded in the mid 1970′s by Keith Streng who was later joined by current member Peter Zaremba. The Fleshtones came up in the legendary NYC punk scene of that era. Unlike many of their contemporaries like the Cramps or the Ramones they never really acheived broad notoriety. But they have cultivated a loyal underground following none the less.

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I wasn’t expecting the Brothers Lazaroff to play jazz infused rock on this session, I thought they would play more of the alt country flavored stuff you’d hear on their MySpace page. They pushed some boundaries with their amps and electric bass, but it all came together and sounded fantastic gathered around the vintage Wulitzer Pipe Organ at City Museum.

These are songs you can hear on the Brothers Lazaroff’s new self released CD Give ‘Em What They Need. Which is available both online and in stores around town. Or you can come to their CD release party at Lola this Friday and buy a copy directly from the band themselves.

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Here are some photos from the night two of the Beat’n'Soul fest at Off Broadway last night. Unfortunately we weren’t able to attend night one. Videos to come within the next week or so …

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Here are some photos we took at the big Halloween Show at Off Broadway last night with The Monads, Strawfoot and Kentucky Knife Fight. This also happened to be The Monads very last show. The place was packed, fun was had, costumes were worn. This was a blast!

Enjoy the photos below this video I slapped together:

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Theodore is a band that I’ve been wanting to get for a session for a long time now. I had them in mind since the first batch I put together a couple of years ago. For some reason it never worked out.

This one was recorded later than most of the other sessions. We met at the museum around nine pm and we didn’t leave until after midnight. And in case you can’t tell, this video was recorded in City Museum’s Enchanted Caves. The first time we’ve shot there since the Irene Allen session.

Theodore is definately a ‘Lo-Fi’ band in the most literal sense. They rolled in with a bunch of toy instruments and some circuit bent gadgets. I’m not even sure they got to play them all. I’m not sure how much they even plan which instruments they’re going to play. I got the feeling from the short time we were together that they kind of thrive on playing right at the edge of chaos.

This video is long, over 15 minutes. I hope you can stay and watch the whole thing. I think it’s worth it. They play three songs here, Butcherbird and a combo of Daisies Never Tell/Death’s Head.

Also we have been getting a lot of questions about the sound on these sessions. For that all credit goes to Matt Giant for the great job he does on the sound. This particular video is exceptional in that regard.

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When we met Sleepy Kitty at City Museum last week we were surprised to find out that they had already sort of choreographed their Lo-Fi Session performance the day before when they scouted out the museum for locations. The choreography eventually required some modification due to the way we record audio but they’re still the first band that actually planned how they would perform their session.

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This is the first performance we’ve recorded on the roof of City Museum. Though this isn’t the first time we’ve shot anything on the roof. We did shoot Doc Pop performing Yo-Yo tricks there when the roof space was still under construction back in 2007. The roof is mostly complete now and it’s a marvel to behold, with fountains and a slide (of course –after all, this is City Museum) and a giant praying mantis sculpture atop a dome.

Beth Bombara is fairly new to the St. Louis music scene (she’s been here just three years) but has had some success making a name for herself.

She performs two songs here, You Don’t Know and Can’t Win here with her husband Kit on violin. You can catch her playing out fairly often around town playing with her full band. She just raised enough money on Kickstarter to press a full length vinyl record due out in November.

Here’s a little behind the scenes video we live streamed at the time of shooting on Justin.tv:

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I think it’s time to bring back the Lo-Fi Sessions, don’t you? The Blind Eyes have been kicking around St. Louis in one form or another for about five or six years now.

Well … that’s not exactly true.

The Blind Eyes are a distinctly different project from these three guys previous band The Gentleman Callers which shared the same members but played a distinctly different kind of music. The Gentleman callers were more of a 1960′s style garage band. The Blind Eyes follow a later tradition of music, starting out with heavy influence of the late 1970′s English Mod revival bands like the Jam but has matured into a sound of their own.

We spent a little time scoping out the museum to find an ideal spot to record this and somehow ended up inside the skeletal remains of one of the Lear jets that sit atop the Mad Max like jungle gym entitled MonstroCity. I managed to stream some of this exploration live to Justin.tv and later moved it over to YouTube for posterity and editing. I’m including it here for your enjoyment (or not as the case may be).

The songs here are “Pages” and “into the Breach.” Both songs are from their regular set but are the first time they’ve been played acoustically, since, normally The Blind Eyes are all electric.

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Last Friday Evil Prints opened up it’s doors to the public to see what kind of debauchery goes on in their large space above Vandeventer Ave. Beer, chili and cookies were served. Print making was demonstrated and prints were sold. Also showing (and selling work) was photographer in residenceBob Reuter who’s dark room and photo archives reside in the space. The space it’s self is a sight to behold. Huck’s trademark red dominates (of course). This is our first visit to the new studio. When we first interviewed Huck it was in his Washington Ave studio nearly 5 years ago. My how time flies.

Also, thanks so much to Left Arm for their awesome music. You can buy their Electric Babies EP from iTunes here or download their album from TIRC records (name your price).

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Here are some photos of the opening night of Sci-Fi Lounge and it’s new home, Artspace at Crestwood Court. We think it’s a great use of a dead mall space.

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Scion Garage Fest 2010 Trailer from Scion A/V on Vimeo.

UPDATE:

We have winners! Congratulations to Kevin Schneider and Jodie Whitworth who each won two pairs of tickets! You will get your tickets in the mail soon.

Wanna got to the Scion Garage Fest in Lawrence KS next month? Are you too much of a lazy bum to go pick up some FREE tickets for it? We’ll send some too your lazy ass for free!! Yes that’s right we have dug deep into our pockets and scrounged up enough cash to buy two pairs of FREE tickets to a FREE event! Aren’t we generous?

Seriously it might be a pain to get these tickets at this point so we’re giving some away. So go here and fill out this form (or click the poster art) (sorry contest is over) and we will pick two random people to each get one pair of tickets in the mail courtesy of LO-FI SAINT LOUIS. Do it fast because entries close on September 10th.

The band roster includes:

Fine print:

Winners will be chosen at random and notified by email. They will have 72 hours to claim their tickets. Tickets will then be mailed to the address provided for the winner. Tickets do not guarantee entry to the Scion Garage Fest.

We visited Coyote and his Sci-Fi Lounge back in 2007 in Lofistl Episode #139. We heard recently that he was moving the lounge to a new location; a dead suburban mall that is now being used as space for artists.

The mall is now known as Crestwood Court and artists can get space at low cost in the mall to peruse their endeavors. It seems a few independent galleries, theatre companies and dance studios have taken the mall up on their offer. See our photo gallery of the mall (t0 be posted here on Lo-Fi Saint Louis tomorrow) to see more views of this space.

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Ok so this site has been dead for a while. But it’s not been without good cause. Most of my free time over the past year has been spent working on a feature length documentary about brick in St. Louis. It’s a topic that might seem obvious to some and not so obvious to others, I won’t spend a lot of space explaining it here when I’ve already done so here and you can read what St. Louis Magazine wrote about it here. But we’re nearing completion of the film which should (hope!) be done sometime this fall. So I thought I would put the trailer up here to let you see it (in case you didn’t know what I have been doing.)

As far as this site goes, I have some great things planned for it to start very soon. But that’s another post. Until then enjoy this trailer for my new film Brick By Chance and Fortune.

Lo-Fi Saint Louis will be back in full force this fall but until then I thought I’d share this wonderful trailer for what promises to be an excellent documentary about Bob Reuter. Bob’s been featured here on Lo-fi Saint Louis several times (check the sidebar of this post) and I’m very pleased to see this project by Josh Rolens near completion. The movie should be complete by the fall. An eleven minute excerpt screened at the St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase last week.

Live music produced exclusively for us at City Museum. Three rules apply; one camera, no editing, and all sound is recorded live.