Best Of

Once upon a demo, Kevin Buckley planned to release his twangy power-pop solo recordings under the moniker the Harmony Band. But with the summer 2007 release of New Sense , the 27-year-old stepped out in town as Grace Basement — and in the process established himself as one of the most... More >>

All right — he ain't exactly a band, and he ain't terribly old, neither. But Tom Hall has made the rounds at enough local bars and as the featured guitarist in enough bands to make him an ambassador of acoustic blues music (we'll wait a few years to give Hall the "living legend" tag). And... More >>

Even though relations are the best they've been in many years, the different factions of the local music scene can still be like oil and water, hesitating to mix unless forcibly thrown together. But at new-kid-on-the-venue-block the Bluebird, none of this cliquey baggage applies. South-city... More >>

Tedium, tunelessness, embarrassment — even the best open mics in town can't avoid valleys of musical despair. Blame it on the form or on out-sourced, mass-produced acoustic guitars. But Café Soul, the once-a-month throwdown at the Lucas School House, offers more peaks than pits, more... More >>

Although So Many Dynamos recently recorded their third album with Death Cab for Cutie guitarist/keyboardist Chris Walla, the well-respected studio producer/engineer had almost-embarrassingly glowing praise for the quartet's 2006 sophomore effort, Flashlights . "It's an album in the way that... More >>

The first single from Nelly's upcoming CD, Brass Knuckles , is called "Wadsyaname." Using a repetitive piano line nicked from K-Ci and Jojo's "All My Life" as its base — think the soundtrack to a music-box-ballerina — along with a simplistic hip-hop beat, Nelly tells of establishing... More >>

In addition to running his own studio, touring with national bands and recording with crap-tons of local musicians, Jason Hutto is one of St. Louis' most gifted and prolific songwriters. These skills took center stage in the bands he fronted over the years (most notably Sexicolor and the... More >>

When not fronting the Falling Martins (www.fallingmartins.com), Pierce Crask strums his guitar around town unaccompanied, weaving his original material in among rock standards from Van Morrison to Led Zeppelin. Between songs he spouts off stories and one-liners that almost always elicit a groan... More >>

Women deserve a place in the hip-hop culture — and that place sure as hell isn't leaning against an Impala, cooing insipidly in a hot tub or gyrating on the lap of a male rapper. All that's good about hip-hop — its inventiveness, its passion, its intelligence — owes a debt to... More >>

Calling DJ Trackstar (né Gabe Moskoff) the city's best hip-hop DJ is spot-on but woefully inadequate. Spot-on because the 26-year-old slays on the turntables (and distributes astoundingly tight mixtapes at the rate of about one every ten minutes). Woefully inadequate because DJ-ing is just... More >>

"There's a dude from the Midwest, made some dope beats, but his name's not Kanye West. It's Tech," raps the opening verse of "It's a Shame," a track featured on DJ Trackstar's Boogie Bang 7 mixtape. "Tech" is Tech Supreme, a producer whose catalog includes collaborations with Ebony Eyez and... More >>

Scotty Mac has to be one of the busiest DJs in town. The man is everywhere. Xes, Mercury, the Speakeasy at Lucas School House, Atomic Cowboy, the Feisty Bulldog — he seems to get gigs at every club, event and opening in the city, and not for nothin'. Scotty Mac spins smooth, ultra-dancable... More >>

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The members of 7 Shot Screamers are so unassuming — yes, even with their outlandish hair, punk-for-life tats and Lou-pride patches — it's easy to forget they're one of the more in-demand live acts in certain (a.k.a. punk and rockabilly) circles. After a 2006 stint as Exene Cervenka's... More >>

[Script treatment for Again, This Is Spinal Tap: Gettin' the Band Back Together . The following exchange takes place between Nigel Tufnel and David St. Hubbins, again played by Christopher Guest and Michael McKean, respectively.] Tufnel: So, right, I was at Stonehenge the other day, gettin’... More >>

Joe Thebeau's no stranger to the local music community, seeing as he's been playing and constructing music as a member of various bands for many years. But he's struck pure-pop gold with his current project, Finn's Motel, a rotating cast of musicians and personalities that proves just how smart... More >>

The Humanoids are barely a year old, but the group's distillation of old-school punk, pop-punk and hardcore already feels timeless. Shaun Morrissey is a spark plug behind the drums, ably pounding out thrashing tempos to drive the riffs hammered out by dual guitarists Greg Stinson and Bryan... More >>

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Though it's only been around a short while, Head On Collision is the kind of band audiences remember. Far from existing as one of those ho-hum sludgy Creepy Crawl favorites, the band is tight and interesting. Soon after forming, HOC caught the attention of Beer City Records, a hard-core punk-rock... More >>

In a few short years, the Vultures have grown from three scrappy, underage rock & roll acolytes into one of the leading lights of this city's garage-band community. The trio's sets have moved from charmingly shambolic to drum-tight, plying audiences with primal screams, twangy guitar runs and a... More >>

Nearing a decade on the bluegrass scene, Raven Moon frontwoman Christine Peick is a veteran with Dolly Parton's fashion flair and enough of Parton's sweet soprano twang to bring both classic bluegrass and gospel covers to life, and to get her own songs, as well as a few Celtic and folk numbers,... More >>

Yeah, it's a funny band name. Hysterical. At this point in their career, it's more than likely that the Well Hungarians have succeeded in spite of their moniker than because of it. The five-piece plays straight-ahead, radio-friendly country music with three-part vocal harmonies. Jim Ed Hodges... More >>

His Ryan Adams jones shows, but so do his good nature, ambition and talent. Travers is pushing all of 25 and his band, including veteran pedal-steel whiz Scott Swartz of the Linemen, is pushing this son of south city toward more than just Telecaster strumming and dirt-road divining. His band can... More >>

For more than 30 years, Jake's Leg has performed the music of the Grateful Dead across St. Louis. That's longer than the Dead themselves were together, which says something about the longevity of their music and the dedication of the fellows in Jake's Leg. The five-piece purposefully avoids being... More >>

The Kevin Spacey-led noir film The Usual Suspects is built upon a layer cake of deception, intrigue and obfuscation, where every seemingly innocuous statement belies an intricate web of lies. The local five-piece known as the Usual Suspects pulls no such punches in their live performances,... More >>

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Uptown without being gentrified, swinging without being loungy, wide-ranging without being gimmicky, Denise Thimes is the classiest of the living St. Louis jazz greats — and she is one of the greats. Legendary trumpeter Clark Terry ranks her with Carmen McRae, Nancy Wilson and Lady Day... More >>

For Pat Liston, next year will mark a quarter-century after the founding of Mama's Pride, St. Louis' answer to Little Feat, though only their die-hard fans know that. The band's two classic albums have been locked in Atlantic vaults for years and still haven't seen proper reissue. Liston's band... More >>

Harmonica player and singer George Brock is noteworthy simply because he's one of the few remaining members of his generation of St. Louis area bluesmen still actively performing and recording. But Brock is much, much more than just one of the last men standing: He's a superb showman and a gritty... More >>

The minute Roland Johnson walks onstage for his semi-regular gig at Beale on Broadway, you know you're seeing a performer . The man drips charisma — all the way through his white leisure suit and down to his polished shoes. He can do the James Brown, the Sam & Dave, the Bobby "Blue" Bland,... More >>

The St. Louis area has produced many fine jazz musicians in the past century, but there are two who stand out for having shattered the dominant paradigms of their time. One is the late Miles Davis, whose spare yet lyrical trumpet sound provided a unifying element through a series of conceptual... More >>

Since 2000, Pastor Charles Hilton has been leading a family quartet, the Consolators, back to the future of gospel music. Recently he has expanded the band to include his father on vocals and added organ and drums, while keeping the sound rooted in the classic close ensembles of the Golden Gate... More >>

At 29 years old, Colin Blair has established himself as one of the most skilled fiddle players in St. Louis. Though he started on the devil's box at a relatively old age (nineteen), he learned deep in the Ozarks, in the lamp-lit shack of Banjo Billy Mathews, one of the legends of Arkansas... More >>

Roadhouse Tunes formed "out of necessity" in 2001 when playful punk-rock aficionados Mario Viele and Maysam Attaran of the Pubes (and subsequently, then simultaneously, the Sex Robots) decided they needed a record deal. "Nobody wanted to touch anything called the Pubes, so we just started it as a... More >>

Back in the day, the old Cicero's — y'know, the one that became Blueberry Hill's Duck Room — was a haven for up-and-coming bands. In 2007 the new Cicero's assumed a similar role for scads of young indie-rockers in town, thanks to the monthly "New Music Thursdays" event. On the first... More >>

All music festivals are certainly not created equal; nor are all music festival locations . On Wednesday evenings during the summertime, the Whitaker Music Festival allows St. Louisans to picnic on the beautiful grounds of the Missouri Botanical Garden while listening to live music. The free... More >>

The Circuit is only a few months old and already it's the best local resource for musicians and concert seekers. St. Louis vlogger and man-about-town Bill Streeter designed this sister site to his Lo-Fi Saint Louis (www.lofistl.com) to cater to your rock & roll heart's desire. The Circuit's a... More >>

A mouthful of blues, a string bass slap-in-the-face sandwich and a fruit-cup-size helping of country — all these things come standard in The Greaser's Lunchbox , the rock & roll food pyramid served up by three parts suave and one part snarky host Al Swacker. Since 1999 Swacker has prepared... More >>

The Monday-through-Friday grind can be enough to give anyone the blues, so St. Louis is lucky to have Art Dwyer sitting in the Friday drive-time DJ seat at KDHX (88.1 FM), spinning the soul platters that matter and stacks of hot blues wax to unwind your mind and rethread your head. Dwyer's... More >>

Jazz Unlimited host Dennis Owsley wrote the book on St. Louis jazz. No, really: Owsley's 2006 tome City of Gabriels: The History of Jazz in St. Louis, 1895-1973 is the first comprehensive, book-length history of jazz music in St. Louis. Owsley's erudition on musical matters local, national... More >>

The Hideaway Restaurant & Lounge (5900 Arsenal Street, St. Louis; 314-645-8822) is a lounge in the truest sense of the word. The south-side institution is bedecked in a warm red (right down to the hand-knit placemats on the bar), and the mood invites you to grab a drink, sit back and, well,... More >>

Bands containing many members — we're talking enough to populate a football team here — are still in vogue in the indie-rock world. And while the seven-member collective Gentleman Auction House is only large enough to populate a smallish basketball squad, its orchestral indie-rock is... More >>

Morrissey's first show in St. Louis in a decade or so was special for many reasons. For starters, Affton native Kristeen Young opened the night with a PJ Harvey-meets-Diamanda Galas art-rock bang. Second, this gig coincided with the crooner's 48th birthday — and as any rabid Moz fan will... More >>

July 21, 2007, was one of those Saturday nights in St. Louis where there was almost too much going on, too many good shows to attend. Pete Yorn downtown at Live on the Levee, Junior Brown at Beale on Broadway. Venerable rappers Midwest Avengers in one club, venerable indie-rockers Bunnygrunt in... More >>

Los Angeles buzz-band Silversun Pickups had a good reason to cancel their November 2006 appearances in St. Louis: Instead of opening for Aussie rockers Wolfmother at Mississippi Nights — or playing its Vintage Vinyl in-store — the quartet was taping an appearance on The Late Show with... More >>

You could've called the late Corbeta Corbata a punk band, or a hardcore band, but that would have left out most of the truth. They warped the loud-fast-dumb tenets of hardcore into a serrated instrument of absurdist torture. Any chump can get on your nerves with a couple of amps and a drum kit,... More >>