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

If you’ve followed me on any of the social media networks I participate in you’ve no doubt been aware that I am a big advocate of Pokey LaFarge. I’m not getting compensated for it, though it might seem like it. I just see him as this musician that is exceptionally talented and rare, who has a unique sound that’s willing to work hard to get somewhere in this world. He’s on almost a non-stop tour schedule now with his band, The South City Three. I won’t go into detail describing his sound you can hear it for yourself in the video, but I have gotten to know Pokey personally and I can tell you that his slight frame is packed with southern charm, the relentless drive of a wallstreet tycoon, the mischevious spirit of every class clown you’ve ever known, and, what seems like, one very old soul.

I know It’s been way too long since I posted one of these. I haven’t lost interest in this project, it’s just that life gets in the way of these things you know?

Chris Grabau is one of these people that I’ve heard about over the years that I’ve lived in St. Louis, but hadn’t had the chance to meet until about a year ago. Aparently he’s heard and known about me too so it was probably just a matter of time before we met. Anyway I knew early on that his band Magnolia Summer was one of the many bands around town that I definitely wanted to do a session with. Chris was certainly interested in doing one too, but it just took us a few months to get it together. And unfortunately due to all of these little issues popping up here and there this video is only now getting published nearly a full 2 months since we produced it on one wet but sunny afternoon in July.

Honestly I don’t think we could have picked better weather for this shoot. It had only just stopped raining when we started shooting so everything was wet and the sun came out only to begin it’s decent in the west behind them. It sure made for some pretty imaging to go along with some pretty music. And the little left over raindrops you see in the video made for some nice accidental metaphors here and there.

We recorded this in a timber structure on the giant out door jungle gym/junk sculpture that is called Monstrocity at City Museum. It would be hard to describe this amazingly beautiful mish-mash of scrap iron and other things, so hopefully someday you will be able to see it for yourself.

I hadn’t heard much about this band before they started to make a big splash both locally and nationally recently. Don, my main contact at City Museum called me and said that they were interested in doing a video after they had seen Lo-Fi Sessions, and of course, being St. Louisians they were fans of City Museum.

City Museum recently installed an enormous antique pipe organ in the part of the museum just above the caves. It’s a tall chamber with spiral slides that reach the top of the building. When the building was home to shoe factory these slides were used to get product from the top of the building to the bottom to be packed for shipping. Now these slides have a more nobel purpose–for humans to have fun. Anxious to show off this new installation, City Museum suggested that Ludo play on it to show it off.

Ludo is busy doing what up and coming pop bands do these days, touring, playing national television shows, and recording. You can keep up with them on their site or their myspace page (of course). I found them to be very nice people, down to earth yet professional. I have to thank Tim Convey especially, my main contact with the band whom I found to be very friendly, warm and generous.

Fred Friction is one person that everyone in St. Louis seems to know. He’s known mostly because of his long time proprietorship of Frederick’s Music Lounge on the South Side of the city, which had a reputation much larger than the little room it occupied. A room that will live on in the memories of all the musicians, artists, raconteurs and misfits who called it their home away from home. The man himself also made a name for himself as a musician and as a member of several bands through the years. He’s definitely “good people,” as they say. A character that adds color and warmth to any room he occupies.

I had this idea to do one of these sessions on the tiny little electric kiddy train at City Museum for a while. I wasn’t sure who would be right for it but I knew it was something I wanted to do. And when I was looking for other people for sessions and I thought of Fred, I knew that he would be prefect for this. Here he plays a parody of the Johnny Cash song, “Folsom Prison Blues,”  Freds version is called “Ice Cream Truck Blues,” Written from the point of view of a kid who always hears the ice cream truck in his neighborhood but it never comes down his street.  He also did a second song for me “Everybody Gotta Get They Dime” performed, appropriately, in front of the bank vault door on the second floor of the museum.

You know, I really have no idea when I first met Sunyatta. That line of when I knew of her and when I actually knew her is kind of blurred for me for some reason. I do know that I have admired her from the first time that I saw her perform. And in getting to know her personally over the years I have always found her to be as sweet and charming as her face and voice suggest she might be.

Sunyatta is a member of the Helium Tapes, a band that is on the cusp of releasing their first recording. But the logistics of bringing in the entire band at this very moment wasn’t particularly easy. So we settled on a solo performance of songs she wrote that don’t fit particularly well in the Helium Tapes repertoire. I knew she had done some solo performances in the past. One that particularly comes to mind is an occasion that she played a country set on the patio of the Royale (a popular southside tavern). The thing that stands out in her solo performances is that you can hear the nuances of her voice and phrasing that you might not appreciate so much when she is leading a rock band.  And while I really love the Helium Tapes as a band. I really would like to hear her more often in a low key environment like this. By the way I should mention that Sunyatta is accompanied here by Brandon Mason the keyboardist for the Helium Tapes.

She had a bit of trouble getting through this song on this particular night. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was the camera, as sometimes cameras make people nervous–they make me nervous. In the end we finished recording these songs, and while they aren’t perfect, I think you too will appreciate what a gem Sunyatta is.

If you ran into the Rum Drum Ramblers on the street you might mistake them for typical hipster kids looking for a good time. Well you would have the looking for a good time part about right, but these hipster kids are anything but typical. They’re a group of very talented musicians who play old time blues with just a touch of ragtime–most certainly NOT hipster music.

It seems like Monday nights have been the time most convenient for all involved to record these sessions. So here we were on yet another Monday night at City Museum looking for a room to shoot in. I originally had the idea that they ride on the miniature train on the 3rd floor, but one look at the tunnel it went through and comparing it to the upright bass they brought made it apparent that that wasn’t going to happen. So finally we settled on the vintage hardwood bar in the great room leading into the architecture hall.

These guys are certainly dynamic performers, so if you happen to get the opportunity to see them live, do. You won’t be sorry.

I have a guilty pleasure. It’s called Bluegrass. Something about it just gets me right about there and won’t let go. Maybe it’s the break neck speed that it’s played or the singing fiddles or I just don’t know. I really really dig it.

The Monads arrived at City Museum just after I did. It was raining and really quite nasty out. Once inside they decided that they wanted to perform around the grand staircase that is at the heart of the museum. This particular staircase is indicative of the ascetic of the museum. Whimsical almost to the point of absurd. It’s a good example of how the entire building has been made into a work of art.

I haven’t recorded a band in this series yet so this particular shoot had it’s own challenges mostly in the audio department which I must say that Matt Giant the audio help on this project overcame splendidly.

Oh, and I should mention that the Monads have a new CD out. I’m sure you could purchase one if you were so inclined (and asked nicely).

On the 4th level of City Museum is a exhibit of building ornamentation; terra cota, marble, concrete decorations the kinds you never see on new buildings. The stuff that normally ends up in a dump somewhere when an old relic of the past is cast carelessly aside in favor of something new and modern, and more often than not, of inferior character. City Museum has managed to salvage a few of these bits and put them on display so people can see how buildings were once built and how much care was put into even the facades. This is the space that Jason Hutto chose to perform for my camera.

Jason is a veteran of more bands than I know. If the universe were fair and just he would be rich and famous. But he’s not. He bangs away with his bands at night and makes a living doing something else. For most artists thats just as well. Wealth and fame aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. What is important to a true artist is the work, if the work is good thats all that matters in the end–that we’ve made our mark on the world in even a small way.

While Jason is a talented song writer in his own right, the song he chose to perform here is a song written for him and about him, by someone else. We should all be so lucky.

I first heard Irene Allen when I went to see a production of a play about Zombie clowns. It was a play done in silence with only a musical sound track produced by Irene. She performed the music herself with a band of other musicians that she directed. Before the performance she sang some blues and old time music to get the audience warmed up. That when I knew that she was an incredible performer. She has one of those resonant female voices that can seem to express a whole range of emotion at once. When I asked her to do this project she got all excited. She said she wanted to perform in labyrinth of hand hewn concrete caves that are at the gut of City Museum. I had no problem with that, except that, well, caves are dark, and we were shooting video. We looked around a bit for a place that might have enough light and settled on a large room with a crystal formation in the center of it. There is a colored light that changes gradually over time. I thought it was a nice effect.She sang two songs for me. “One My Country …” is a song about St. Louis –living in the city specifically. About how it’s sort of a wilderness unto itself. The other song, a blues number, is one of those knock you dead pieces that can rattle around in your skull for days if you let it.

The first thing you notice about Jesse Irwin when you meet him, is his contagious smile. The day I met him for the first time he shook my hand and said, “Glad to meet you!” and really seemed to mean it–like few people ever do. He has a kind of infectious charm that leaves an impression on you.A few months after this first meeting, I saw his band, The Doc Ellis Band, play somewhere and discovered that Jesse is more than a carpenter, and that his charm works as well for him on stage as it does off. The Doc Ellis Band plays classic Country & Western covers, the kind I heard and loved when I was a kid growing up in the 70′s and 80′s. The kind of Country music that’s so far removed from the stuff they play on “Country” radio these days that it could be another genre all together. It must have been a good year later that I had a chance to see Jesse perform solo, playing his own music, and thats when I realized that he was more than just a charming guy who probably grew up listening to the same music I did. He could write great simple, well crafted songs too. Songs that were simple, funny and told the truth at the same time. I was an instant fan.So when I started this project Jesse Irwin was definitely on my mind. It wasn’t hard to get him to do this. He seemed particularly honored that I would ask him. But seriously, Jesse, the honor is all mine.

Bob Reuter met me at City Museum on Martin Luther King day, after hours. He had a rental car for the day so I didn’t need to pick him up like we originally planned when we arranged this impromptu show on a phone call before the weekend. We made a little small talk as we walked around to find an appropriate place to shoot. He decided on the nautical themed room on the main level. There are fish tanks there with actual fish that are native to Missouri, some big Carp and Gar—which I’ve only seen dead before washed up on the shores of the Merrimac while camping in the summer time.Bob, is a main-stay of the current music scene in St. Louis. I’ve heard third hand that he played in some of the cities first punk bands back in the late 70′s. I’ve also heard whispers that he was somewhat of an early musical mentor to some performers who’ve gone on to become rock stars on the national stage.  He’s also known for his photography which was a subject of an earlier video I made about him several years ago. He’s a punk rock troubadour, and a raconteur. I love to read his stories on his myspace blog–he could be a serious writer if he wanted to be.  Once we determined the performance space, he took off his hat, tuned up his guitar and we rolled. We walked around each other like fighters before the first blows of a prize fight. He played a song about South St. Louis called Dirty South. The southside of St. Louis being at the bottom of the city that is a gateway not just to the west, but also the Northern border of the southern part of the US–the “dirty” south as Bob calls it here. The title of this song also shares it’s title with one of his bands. Then, almost as soon as he started, he donned his hat, packed up his guitar and we were done.  He had a rental car to return.