Yesterday, out for a warm afternoon walk, we run into Beth Bombara unloading gear from the trunk of her car, just as Regan from Junque drives by on Lemp. He pulls over, covered in grime from work, and tells us about some free wood he'd just put out along the Broadway side of the brewery. We have nowhere to be, so we head over that way and find a big stash of good old wood—not that we need any, but there are some long, beautiful planks that had been painted blue and teal a hundred years ago and are gonna be great for something. So we pick those up and start walking back to the studio. The Lemp Brewery is monstrous, overgrown, dilapidated, irreplaceable, a giant historic hulk atop an ancient cave, and walking along its shadowed edge over uneven bricks, St. Louis feels old and unbeatable.
I'm looking across the street at the DeMenil Mansion, all tall columns and green leaves and southern elegance, trying not to accidentally clonk Paige with my planks, when she stops, staring down at the bricks. "What is THAT?" she says, and points. I'm a few steps ahead, so all I see is a dead black...beetle? Frog? What IS that? I get closer and we kneel down and the thing only gets less familiar. It looks like we've found a crashlanded, tiny alien. There's a snout, some teeth, some tiny clawed toes, and skin like Golum, darkly humanish. Suddenly it's obvious: this is a bat, a bat dead on its back on the concrete. We step back and see another little crumpled black shape between some bricks, and beneath a chained-up black iron door in the wall another one. What happened? We look up at the wall, the door, the loose bricks. Rat poison? We've been hearing for a couple of years now about how bat populations have plummeted, and how crucial they are to our ecosystems, and how there are people working full time just to keep bats alive so they can help control the mosquito hordes and keep the whole natural food pyramid balanced...and here are three, oh now four, there's another one, dead bats on this little corner of St. Louis. We get pretty close, just to see one of these creatures up close—I was always fascinated by bats as a kid, but I focused on their wings primarily, and maybe their giant ears, but hadn't ever really thought about their bellies, or their chins. And then the one under the door shudders, grips weakly at the concrete, chirps a quick blast of high-end notes, and collapses.
Oh. My. Suddenly these aren't just artifacts from a mysterious nature drama that just ended: that little guy is alive, probably just barely. Now the question: do we walk away, and let nature do whatever it was in the middle of doing before we got there, or do we intercede? I finally put the planks down and rub my dirty hands on my jeans. Paige fishes her phone out of her pocket while we try to remember what we've been half-hearing on the radio about bats, fungus, rabies, marsupials, mosquitoes, animal rescue... The things are so tiny, and so WEIRD. They really truly look like baby gargoyles, part newt and part dog and part monkey and part spider, and the guy gives another little struggle and Paige sees him pull himself up and yawn with his tiny little jaw and sees his teeth and his tongue and it's pretty much decided we're going to figure something out. She finds the number for the Missouri Wildlife Rescue Center (http://www.mowildlife.org), who are improbably manning the desks on a beautiful Sunday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend, and we tell them about these bats on the ground, and the one still alive. Can we send a picture to them? We can. Include something in the photo for scale, and under no circumstance touch the animal. Got it. Paige puts her key ring down by the little bat—her studio key and the bat are about the same size—and we take a photo and text it to them. Here we stand beside a century old, mostly abandoned brewery made of brick and steel and rotting wood, and we're pulling devices out of our pockets that let us find phone numbers, take photographs, make calls, send our location... We spend a moment amazed on behalf of every human who came before us, and my phone rings.
"It's a baby bat," says the woman. "Very young, probably orphaned. Bats need to drop from something in order to fly, so if they're young and unprotected, they may have not been able to get back up to somewhere to try again." Fascinating. As she's talking the bat gives another heave and for a split second its wings are extended, we hadn't even really seen its wings yet, and now it makes sense as a creature. It still looks mainly like a baby gargoyle, somehow especially the back of its tiny head looks like a stone gargoyle from the heavy eaves an old church, but the wings are definitely recognizable: this is indeed a little bat. They're gone again in a flash and it's still helpless on the concrete beneath the door. "Can you bring it in to our center in Ballwin?" asks the woman. We look at each other. We haven't got a thing to carry it in, we're supposed to be going to a barbecue right this minute, we don't even know if it's got a chance... Oh man. The woman says she'll try to find a volunteer who can get out to us.
We're still talking it out as we walk briskly toward our studio. What else is there to do? We grab a cardboard box that once held an external drive, pop some holes in it, grab a couple of scrap tshirts, and jump in the van. When we get there the little guy looks like he might be all done—but when I get the tshirt around him, he grabs ahold of it with his half-grotesque, half-adorable weird arms and clambers into its folds. There's a little confusion as we try to stuff the shirt in the box, but we manage and pretty quickly we're back at the studio awaiting the volunteer animal retriever. His name is Stan, and he's dropped whatever he's doing on this beautiful afternoon in North St. Louis to come find us and our little bat. We wait out on the loading dock, periodically getting up to lift the lid and sneak peeks at the little guy. Now that he's got something to hang onto he looks a little less deathly, and a lot cuter—more monkey, less spider. He appears to prefer to back his way around the cloth when crawling, which I guess makes sense if you're an animal oriented toward hanging upside down. Even though he's only going to be in our care for another moment or two, he gets a name: Bruce Wayne, which morphs into Brucilla as well. We can't stop looking. There's an occasional burst of sonics. I know I'm not supposed to, but I really want the little guy to wrap himself around my finger. He would, if I let him. I don't, but man do I want to.
Stan shows up, and we hand him the box with Brucilla inside. Seems like a very nice guy, says he's 74 and retired but he'll never retire from helping animals. "I still climb trees and scale fences," he says, and I wonder if he's disappointed that this particular rescue is just a hand off. Probably not: there's a lot that's going to happen after he gets back to the shelter. I wonder if the bat's going to cling to Stan's finger while they're eye-droppering him some water. I wonder what other animals are getting fixed up there—what exactly has Stan been climbing trees to retrieve? He gives us a form and I fill it out, and we shake hands and he takes the box and jumps in his car to get the bat to safety. The form was simple and reassuring, and if there's a form there's a record now attached to the bat, and I can already tell that means I'm going to be calling in a week and see if he made it through OK. It was just a couple hours out of one Sunday in our lives, but both Paige and I now feel a sense of connection to this strange little beast—probably to the whole species, really—and we're going to be wondering a long time at the bizarre beauty of this formerly invisible neighbor, this baby gargoyle of St. Louis.
In the bright light of post-rain sunshine, Kansas City sparkles like it was just unwrapped. We drove up to the Beaumont Club and found a long line of hip folk waiting good-naturedly to get in to the Sleeper Agent set there. Once sorted, we scored a lucky parking spot and went to check out the Casket Lottery, a band whose music my friend Brad introduced me to a decade ago. The three songs he sent me were so killer in their drumming and organization that they were a major influence on Bound Stems when we first started. I had no idea they were from KC. They played to a packed Riot Room (so far, one of my favorite clubs in the Midwest), mixing old and new songs and pulling major fast ones with the time signature. Loved it loved it. We got a chance to talk with Nathan, the drummer from the Casket Lottery (also due to go on with Coalesce later in the evening), to give him his propers.
From there we found Marty from tourmates Cowboy Indian Bear straight off. That guy is a one-man welcome wagon, friend to every soul in KC, and he took us on a quick tour of the whole scene. Gusto's is a foxy spot, with wide-open windows and a great sound system, and we got there just as DJ Mahf was doing something stunning to an Adele song I'm otherwise sick to death of. Man's got skills. Sleeper Agent was rocking the Beaumont, and now we have to go find their record, because the little bit we saw of their set was totally invigorating. We split off to get some good food at the Beer Kitchen, then started the load-in at McCoy's, where Beau Jennings & the Tigers were playing before us. I must admit that, besides enjoying the song with the lyrics about "four drink tickets," I was mainly aware of how much louder we were going to be than them. But one hectic set-up later, we were strapped in for the set and looking out at a surprising crowded house. We had a blast throughout, and tried a couple of new songs out for the first time. It's tricky playing a restaurant bar, especially one with TVs around, but somehow the space transformed itself into a club for the duration of our set, and we made the most.
So many great bands playing! Just on our night, Saturday, some highlights were La Guerre (Katlyn from Cowboy Indian Bear's other project), El Ten Eleven, the Casket Lottery, the Appleseed Cast, Coalesce, Neon Indian, Mr. Gnome, Broncho, and Acid Mother's Temple. Also fun., the surprise breakout band of the moment, but I can't say I've actually heard their single, and I definitely wasn't going to take a spot in their crowd away from someone who wanted to be there. Thursday and Friday the hot shit in my opinion included Capybara, Soft Reeds (recently recommended), Life and Times, Mission of Burma (!), Owen, White Denim, Cowboy Indian Bear, Mates of State, Murder by Death, Season to Risk, and Schwervon... Also a band called Cher UK—though why would you call your band that? The lineup was unreal, and Kansas City really felt lit up with great music in every direction.
After our set we caught up with Nan and Matt from Schwervon!, new friends recently arrived to KC from NYC. They generously offered their new place for us to crash, which is how we discovered the charms of nearby Shawnee. Both Nan and Matt are total sweethearts, and the beer and conversation went late into the night. Morning was home-made eggs, pancakes and hashbrowns in a kitchen that seemed almost like a theatrical interpretation of '70s American Homestyle Interior...which I mean in the best way. I recognized several details—illustrated wallpaper, blond wood cabinets with beaten brass handles, colorful shag carpet—from the house I grew up in. KC's lucky to have 'em, and we look forward to hosting them when they play El Lenador May 9 with Warm Jets USA and Jumpstarts. Stag party on the way from Kansas City!
-Evan
These photos by Michael Forester and more from the fest can be found here.
The lineup for LouFest 2012 just got released, and it turns out Sleepy Kitty's on it. Which is righteous! Especially because this year's lineup in particular resonates with us.
Some personal notes on some of those bands:
- I used to go see THE FLAMING LIPS way way back with the Harvey Dangers, when they draped the old Moe in millions of Christmas lights and the old guitarist with the crazy dark hair stood next to his seven foot tall wall of effects calmly destroying all the soundwaves in the room. I also saw one of their parking lot experiments which totally changed my life. They have made the world a better place.
- In my last band, Bound Stems, we found out about Park the Van Records, and their bands Teeth and DR. DOG. I was determined to play with Dr. Dog, who were then a mostly Pennsylvania band and just out of our van's driving range. Later I saw them in the corner of a bar at SXSW in the broad daylight, and they were every bit as arresting as I thought they must be.
- It may be that no one I know is familiar with COTTON MATHER, but not for lack of my trying. By pure chance I came across an album of theirs, called "Kon-Tiki," shortly before it was released in the late '90s. It was my roommate's advance copy for review, on a stack of other advance copies for review. The cover was really beautiful, and I put it in... and it's been in my player at least a few times a year ever since. There's something about Robert Harrison's voice that picks up on an angle of John Lennon I've ever seen anyone else explore, while cherrypicking some of the best details of Big Star compositions. Kon-Tiki is one of those under-appreciated classics that I've been proselytizing forever, and I'm going to be working overtime to make sure my musical friends know how important it is to be in the crowd when Cotton Mather gets onstage at LouFest. This is a mighty booking.
- HACIENDA opened for the Greenhornes at the Firebird not too terribly long ago (there's a great poster by Jason Potter from that show), and they have that psych-rock sky-filling reverby guitar that opens the night right up. It sounded like deserts, vultures, peyote, and medicine from the medicine man.
...That's as far as I can write tonight, though there will be more. This LouFest lineup is deep.
The freeways leading to New Orleans are mostly suspended over gator-breeding swamps and rivers, and it makes the van feel like a time machine headed as far backwards as sideways. Arriving to the Bywater neighborhood in New Orleans by night only confirms that feeling: narrow streets, foreign architecture, gigantic fragrant flowers, curving boulevards, tiled lettering set in the corners of the sidewalks with streetnames like Desire, Piety, Galliard... Where ARE we? When are we?
Euclid Records expanded down here recently, but they seem to have pulled the same trick as the city itself: in a little more than a year, they've created a store that looks like it's been there for decades. Credit James Weber, a guy who was moving out of St. Louis as we were moving in. We met him at the door of the shop and he loaded us in, then took us on a tour of the neighborhood bars. Nothing like a dark street on a warm night in the South with a (perfectly legal) drink in my hand to make me reconsider my life decisions: where has New Orleans been all my life?
We came to New Orleans ostensibly to check out the Southern Graphics Conference meeting that weekend. The SGC event last year happened in St. Louis, and the after-party on Cherokee Street was our neighborhood's shining moment to date. We also had an in-store at Euclid NOLA on Saturday, just a couple blocks from the Ironworks where SGC was headquartered. And: it was St. Patrick's Day, with a parade due to pass practically right outside the door of the store. So basically we were there to check out the scene and see what happened.
The Bywater is a completely different beast than the French Quarter—grimy, overgrown, and in a state of abundantly elegant decay. It's painfully beautiful. We stopped in at Frady's to get a potato po' boy, then wandered the neighborhood and poked into the thrift shops, on the hunt for something green to wear since we'd forgotten to pack for the holiday.
After our set at Euclid James introduced us to Jayson Knox, a guitarist around town who took us over to see the new instrument shop, Bywater Music, where half the gear was calling our name. The parade was starting to roll by outside, starting with a giant phalanx of fancy dune buggies with merry old men gunning the engines. A band played across the street from the crowd at Markey's, who spilled way past the sidewalk into the narrow street and made conversation with the motorcycle cops lining the way. There was just barely room for each truck or float to crawl past without crushing toes; beads abounded. Paige and I had managed to divide a green scarf we found into a hair ribbon and some wristbands, which was good because everyone was wearing some green or other. Matty and Eric Firecracker showed up to toast, and an hour or so after the final float of the proper parade drifted away the SGC procession went by in a blur of majorly detailed, hand-printed traincars. They looked dirty and really happy.
The night gets blurry. There was a looong dinner and a clothing-optional swimming pool, then another bar, then somehow the walking drinks led us to a venue in which a band of veteran punks backed an alternating pair of wizened, sharp-dressed black bluesmen. Then we were in the street with Jayson making our way toward a place that promised Hubig's, the locally made pie (!), and then to another bar, and then we were at last back on Desire, letting ourselves into the pad. The night smelled like all the hanging flowers we'd been walking under.
Good call on Euclid NOLA, Joe.
