Oh the memories. I was looking for my old sketch pad, for I have been commissioned to make another drawing this year for Art Attack so I dug through some old things in a box underneath my bed. And look what I found. How timely.

You see I saved papers. I know it is corny, but I collect all sorts of paper, especially newspapers. I used to be a paperboy for many years. That was my first good money jobs that I started in the sixth grade. I sold the Post-Dispatch year round for about four years on various Saint Louis street corners selling the Sunday three star edition on Saturday night and also the five star final in front of the Catholic Church my family belonged to on Sunday morning. It was great work, and eventually worked up in the game and worked overnights in the distribution at convenience stores, supermarkets and newspaper stands.

So this particular find brings up all sorts of fond memories. It has been interesting looking at them. I remember this vividly at the time. I was just into my freshman year of high school. There are all sorts of things that could be observed about this market crash. I am not sure where to start, or if I even should comment.

After keeping these on my meeting table for a day just to sort of absorb news of this old paper. I glanced at the headlines and looked at the other headlines of the day. The other thing that popped up is that the US shelled an oil platform in the Persian Gulf. That seems odd. I didn’t remember that at all. I guess that stock market crash distracted me at that tender age. That story did remind me of when our country shot down a normal passenger Iranian airliner over the gulf. And then that reminded me of the Korean airliner that was shot down in Soviet airspace.

That was really effed up. But that is all history now. Sad history.

The woman agreed as she stepped back to her delivery minivan.

I picked up the paper and it indeed was light. It made me a little sad. I used to haul these papers and it felt good tossing around bundles. I would read every inch of the papers. I would read the full team baseball stats in the Sunday paper, the editorial page, Ann Landers and Mark Trail. I would read the whole thing.

So I looked at the Post. I am embarrassed to say, but I haven’t been reading the paper. I guess it stopped about three or so years ago but I still get a subscription and also a few other dailies. I have had a subscription to the paper ever since I moved out of my folks house at 18. My apartments used to be littered with the daily paper. I still read magazines, but I don’t read the paper. It makes me rather sad.

But the daily paper is not the same. It feels different. And it looks different. These are superficial, sure, but for certain things I am a sucker for regardless. I like Chevys and shined shoes. I like newspapers that look and feel like newspapers.

I think over the course of the week I will peruse the old Post and the new Post to see what actually makes them different. Hmmm.

I really do have some more videos in the works, in fact one about Mark Vickroid and his fabulously, lo-fi, handmade cigarbox guitars will be up before the end of the week. So just hold yer horses …

Anyway I’d like to welcome Steven Fitzpatrick Smith to Lo-Fi Saint Louis, as the first person to ever post anything here besides myself. I should have written the introductory post myself but he beat me too it. He has an obligation to MTV until the end of the election season so you won’t see a ton of postings from him until later in November.

And speaking of elections, our favorite Microbrewery, Schlafly has released some special brews in honor of our major party candidates. Actually this ties in with Steve too, because he serves these at his pub as well. They’ve released 4 beers (probably just labels actually) one for each candidate and his running mate (it should be obvious whose who) Baracktoberfest, Palin Ale, HefeBiden, and McCains Maverick APA Ale.

And they also have t-shirts for sale with these designs.

Anyway did I ever mention that Schlafly is my favorite microbrewery ever?

You can get the shirts here.

Also STLhops (great St. Louis based beer blog) has some photos of some of the related posters Schlafly had made as well [link].

My name is Steven Smith. Steven Fitzpatrick Smith is how I usually sign for the name is rather forgettable. I have a blog of my own, STLstreets.com for about four or so years now. I have also been blogging for MTV for the past year covering politics in the state of Missouri. I have done many other projects over the years from training fighters and staging boxing matches to writing to production various of video and film projects. I also own a tavern called the Royale located on the southside of Saint Louis. Becoming a tavernkeeper has changed my life dramatically for now I live above a public business in which hundreds of people tromp through every day. It is great really, but I do not have any privacy at all, but well, it could be far worse.  There is more to tell sure, but this site about the content, not my bio.

Bill Streeter, the man behind the mighty force of LofiSTL asked me to hook up on this project. I am honored to be associated with such a high quality content site, but I cannot promise to deliver anything of the same caliber. I plan on this site being my first and main outlet for my independent content. I will post up some interesting observations, stories, rough video and information all around.

I am still writing for MTV through the election, so my posting will be sparse at best. I plan on taking it easy on the writing and video editing for a few weeks afterwards, but then I will be going full throttle again on some new independent video and writing work around the holidays.

So for the time being I will post up some interesting links that I have found.

This is an amazing video of koyaanisqatsi of Pruitt Igoe. I hope at some point to do video that is at least a shadow of this scope. I am not sure I am quite skilled or artistic enough, but I will enjoy trying to do it.

Here is another video of Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO speaking to Union members on race and the Presidential election.  I am not sure this is enough, for I have had a ton of experience with Union guys, but it is a powerful speech.

I’ve been kind of fascinated with the St. Louis Flyer Project on Flickr. Of course, looking at these old flyers doesn’t really bring back many memories for me since I wasn’t living in St. Louis at the time. But they are curious since they are clues as to what the Rock’n'Roll Scene was like here back in the ’80s. Most of the clubs and halls listed on these flyers don’t exist anymore, and one in particular caught my eye; Turner’s Nite Club. It was this flyer of their February 1986 calendar that piqued my interest, mainly because of the map that showed its location, namely on Salisbury near Hyde Park on city’s north side:

Here is another flyer for the place, probably from the same period:

Now to know why this is interesting to me one might need to understand that St. Louis has a long history of being pretty segregated–not unlike a lot of cities. Where different parts of town are known as the domain of different races. The north side in St. Louis is known as the “black” part of town. So knowing the racist attitudes of some white people in St. Louis, I found it curious that back in the ’80s there was a Rock’n'Roll venue frequented by mostly white kids on the north side. So recently I thought I’d go see if this place was still standing, and discovered (not surprisingly) ruble. Apparently Turner’s Hall suffered a fire in recent years and burned down–but not all the way. From what I hear it was a fairly large venue, and when I saw it I could tell that it was. It seems to have been a repurposed gymnasium building of some sort. Anyway I took these photos on my visit.

About a block away I met this guy who was selling his home made cookies on a nearby corner. He was very personable but too young to remember Turners. His name is Sim and I included a couple of photos of him here, his cookies are awesome, BTW.

If you have any memories of this place please post them in the comments. I really know little more than what I’ve related here.

The Helium Tapes [myspace page link] have finally released their first CD that they, as near as I can tell, have been working on since they formed. It’s not that they’ve been working on it for 3 years it’s just that several unexpected calamitous events prevented them from getting it out before now. And according to the band they are nearly ready to go in to the studio and record again, so maybe we’ll see something new from them in the next few months too. But for now their self-titled debut is ready to be purchased from multiple vendors–just search for it at your favorite online music emporium and it should be available. Better yet go see them this weekend and buy a copy from the band themselves [follow this link for show details].

Anyway as a bonus here is one of my favorite songs on the record, a bouncy reggae flavored number called early days, enjoy!

You can preview and purchase mp3’s or buy the entire album from Amazon here:

Just some photos I took at a really fun event back in July. A BBQ sponsored by PBR at Off Broadway in honor of Big Muddy Records and Pokey LaFarge

You may have noticed that there are big changes afoot here at Lo-Fi Saint Louis and I figured that it was high time to let you in on some of the details of what to expect from this space in the coming months. I’ve redesigned the site in such a way that it can now funciton as a forum for a lot more than video content. Of course the video episodes of Lo-Fi Saint Louis will always be front and center, but I’ve been itching to expand into some other forms of content as well, like photography, audio and just good old text. So you’ll notice that this new layout will serve this purpose well. With all the video front and center and a nice cozy blog that will sit right beside it all. The main inspiration of this has been my recent foray into still photography, and my growing interest in how photographs can be a compelling way to tell a story. I know that photojournalism is a fairly old and well established profession, but my interest in it is new and I toyed with the idea of starting a separate photo blog, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought it would just make sense to expand lofistl.com. And then I thought, as long as I was at it, why not just start blogging in a more regular way too? So that’s what you will start to see in this space on a more frequent basis. So, that, in a nutshell (albeit a rambling nutshell) is what you should start to see here in the coming weeks.

I also have another thing to tell you about what I’m doing here. I’ve recruited a couple of other people from around town to also blog here from time to time. I don’t want to say exactly who these people are yet. But you’ll find out in good time. So at some point Lo-Fi Saint Louis will cease to be (pretty much) a one man operation.

So thats it. Thats the big news. I wanted to throw a big party again this fall to launch the fall season of videos here, but time just got away from me. But watch for some kind of bug shin-dig next spring to celebrate four years of this mess … such as it is.

Season 4 of regular episodes of Lo-Fi Saint Louis will start this week, and continue until the end of November, and regular photo, audio and text posts will commence shortly. So subscribe via email or rss if you haven’t yet to keep up with all this crap.

Thank you and good night,
Bill Streeter

I’m getting ready to roll out a new version of Lo-Fi Saint Louis. It will be new, big, bad-ass, and cool and um did I say new? So things might turn up missing and seem kinda sloppy from time to time while I work on it. Anyway here is a photo of some demolition to enjoy while I work on the back end of this thing. Sorry for the inconvenience. The new site should be up and rolling in about a week or so.

LO-FI SAINT LOUIS RESET PARTY
Saturday March 8 at the Mad Art Gallery
2727 S. 12th St. STL, MO
Doors at 8pm
RSVP here (upcoming) or here (myspace) or here (facebook).
Featuring live performances from The Helium Tapes and The 75s
Plus video and more!
$6 at the Door, Cash Bar

Hey I just wanted to let you know what is going on with LO-FI SAINT LOUIS. You might have noticed I have only posted once video since Christmas. Well there is a reason for that … I’m taking a break. I’m not quitting. I just need a break to recharge and rethink what I’m doing here. Lo-Fi Saint Louis will relaunch on March 3rd and we’re gonna have a big kick off party on March 1 March 8 at Mad Art Gallery (details to come).

I really want to take this time to make Lo-Fi Saint Louis the best it can be. To advance the production values and make it even more fun to watch. From now on Lo-Fi will appear 2 times a year in 10 week seasons. A spring season and a fall season. Each season will be 10 weeks and consist of 20 episodes. In the mean time I will be working on some other projects so stay tuned to see what those are.

Of course the best way to be notified when there is new content available on LOFISTL or when and where our big relaunch party will be on March 1 March 8 at Mad Art Gallery, is to subscribe to the RSS Feed here or subscribe to updates via email. And of course there is the Circuit. Any way you do it you will be the first to know when LOFISTL is back.

Again the important links are:

Subscribe to Lo-Fi Saint Louis by Email
RSS
The Circuit

Thanks for watching. And I’m more excited about LO-FI SAINT LOUIS than ever now, because I already have some great stuff lined up for the spring season.

Bill Streeter

Photo courtesy Scott Beale / Laughing Squid.

… for “favorite entertainment vlog (non-fiction)” at the first annual Vloggie awards at The Swedish American Hall in San Francisco. You can read about it here. (Or just search: Vloggies)

I put some photos up from the event here.

UPDATE: There are some other stories about the Vloggies, here and here and here.