by - 2 Comments

Three DJ’s plus a DJ TBA – Saturday

So, this Saturday night, June 16, I’ll be taking part in the Royale’s first tag-team DJ event, alongside So. Kingshighway faves Mark Early and Barbara Cliffe. (Along with a possible DJ TBA, as the estimable Jim Utz has had to bow out to other commitments.) Each of us are bringing 40 albums. Should be a gas, gas, gas.

by

Music and film this weekend

Yikes. I’m sleeping in on Monday. Things just got complicated for the weekend, but in a good way:

On Friday night, I’ll be spinning at the Royale from 10 p.m.-close. (SCRATCH THAT, in part: spin’s from 6-10 p.m., ye olde happy hour.)

From there, I’ll shoot over to begin some proofreading and late-night scripting for the 48 Hour Film Project team I’m involved with, headed up by MayorSlay.com videoblogger and 48 Hour vet Carson Minow.

After wrapping up shooting on Saturday night, I’ll be filling in for Cricket O’Neill on KDHX‘s “Etiquette of Violence,” from midnight-2 a.m.

I’ll spare you the youth soccer details for Sunday…

by

Joe Christ

A relatively new acquaintance sent me a note, saying that I’d been name-checked on the video trailer of a Joe Christ DVD release. It took me a minute to sort out the connection, since I hadn’t written on (or thought of) Joe Christ for the better part of a decade. But when Christ was a regular visitor to St. Louis, sometimes screening his low-budget films at the old Way Out Club, I reviewed a couple pieces of his work for the Riverfront Times. Again, this is a good chunk of a lifetime back, so the current trailer reference is both amusing and a tad dusty.

Nonetheless, I think the guy’s work is absolute garbage, so it’s nice to be remembered for something.

I’m tempted to not hotlink, as I don’t think Mr. Christ’s work deserves more eyes and ears, but… if you have no taste or soul, click through:

http://www.consumptionjunction.com/content/detail.asp?ID=69676&type=1&page=1

Life’s rich pageant… I tell ya.

by

Earthworms on Tuesday

In a bit of filling-in-ery, I’ll be at the controls for “Earthworms” on KDHX, this Tuesday, June 7, from 7-8 p.m. With regular host Jean Ponzi at a conference in KC, I’ll be talking to Karen Heet, Rick Hunter and Maren Englemohr about green building trends in St. Louis, a topic which also happens to be the cover story of the current issue of Healthy Planet. During the last few minutes of the show, I’ll be talking to a performance duo known as the Composters, who’ll be performing in Belleville this weekend.

Any clips on green building trends… well, I wouldn’t not read them, if you sent them along. You know?

by

Fatoush Sessions @ Gateway Community Hospital, East St. Louis

Over the summer, I’ve picked up the hobby of finding and exploring abandoned and new (to me) spaces around town, inc., so far, the Powell Square Building, Times Beach, Carondelet Coke and, on the opposite end of the spectrum, New Town St. Charles. It’s not a particularly unknown hobby, generally; plenty of folks around STL engage in it, writing and photographing about abandonment well.

Yesterday, Steve Smith and I accessed the old Gateway Community Hospital in East St. Louis, located at 16th and MLK, south of downtown ESL. We combed the four-story structure, finding everything from records rooms – teeming with moldy paperwork – to the maternity ward and its whimsical wall-paintings. Never quite located the elusive operating rooms, but did come across the physical plant, plenty of nurses’ stations and, best of all, the rooftop, with its abundant view of nearby ESL and the hazy STL skyline.

Joining us a bit later – delayed by an MIA band member and my own badly-given directions – were Eric Hall and Jeremy Brantlinger, who perform and record as the duo Fatoush; originally, it was to be Peanuts, the two along with the missing Sadeeq Holmes. Armed with a boombox, small MP3 player, digital recorder, some night-sticks and not much else, the three of us bid farewall to busy businessman Smith and headed back up to the fourth floor of the hospital, where Hall and Brantlinger set up a recording lab amidst the rubble. Percussive beats rang through the halls and out into the courtyard; if I’d lived nearby, I’m sure I would’ve assumed a round of demolition was underway, or a particularly vibrant ghost attack was taking place.

Shooting some video and taking pics, I eventually put down cameras and began to clang on pipes and tile walls. It was fun and somehow very freeing.

Despite the fact that dozens, if not hundreds, of people surely died in this facility, there was a strange sense of calm in the place, though I confess that the fourth floor seemed to come alive during the recording session. Doors began to slam, wind was whipping scraps of torn wallpaper, a tootin’ train passed and birds (and one tough-as-nails, yellow cat) began to take flight.
As creative Wednesday afternoons go, this one was a keeper.

Video uploaded soon. Pics at flickr now. Clicky-click, at your leisure.
by

Summer/Youth Writing Workshops – MoKaBe’s

Monday, June 18 – Friday, June 22
Monday, July 23 – Friday, July 27

The writing workshops will be broken into two age groups: 8-11 and 12-15; the younger group will meet from 9 a.m.-10:30 a.m.; the older group from 10:35 a.m.-12:05 p.m. Discounts are available for multiple children from the same household and students from St. Francis Cabrini Academy, as well as students signing on for both weeks. Select amount of individual day slots are also available. Parents are welcomed and encouraged to view sessions.

Like last year’s workshops, these sessions will emphasize: small class sizes, various writing games and activities that students can use for the remainder of summer; and an open, progressive environment. This year, we’ll able to take advantage of the walkable neighborhood around the home base of MoKaBe’s, including the South Grand business district and Tower Grove Park. Parents, meanwhile, can enjoy the Wi-fi, coffee and other comforts of MoKaBe’s.

Parents interested in discussing rates, reservations and other bits of information should contact the instructor, not the coffeehouse. The contact info would be: thomascrone@yahoo.com, or 314-776-6929.

by

Tonight: Suffragette City

Got the last minute word of an opening on Suffragette City tonight, 10 p.m.-midnight. Thanks to Rene Saller for the opportunity. If listening, give me a holler at 314-664-3688. Compiling a setlist currently and it should be interesting.

by - 1 Comment

Marti Frumhoff

Got a phonecall around 8:50 this morning asking if I’d heard the news about Marti Frumhoff. I had not. “She’d passed, yesterday evening, news was going around.” Wow.

Since getting home late in the day, I thought about this situation, read the other blogs and their comments about her, thought a bit. Here’re two things I’ve not seen written about her, specifically:

At some point in the early ’90s, Marti was a print publisher. I remember it well, meeting her for the first time, in a small, brick-walled office above the old Sunshine Inn on Euclid. She was putting together a new, monthly magazine, called “Steppin’ Out.” She sensed that the RFT wasn’t getting to all the news it could, so why not have publications that would complement, if not compete with the established weekly, then still in the advocacy journalism phase of the Hartmann years. I was impressed by her pitch. Though money was tight for freelancers, she had me write one story, on not-yet-famous The Urge, which I still have in a clipbook somewhere. I wish I kept a few copies of “Steppin’ Out,” just for days like today. Magazines like that take up space, in a box, in your basement. One day, you just have to move them out, then wish you hadn’t.

Also, a couple years back, there was a several-week-long, intense, hell, remarkably-intense conversation about the future of Metropolis. A group, of which I was a member, was talking of running a slate to disband the group. Marti was invited into a large meeting, of about 20-25 people, held in my backyard. Out of everyone there, Marti was the one person to wind up not signing off on the plan. See saw something we didn’t. The election went down, a curious, somewhat fractured one, but one that left Metropolis intact. Marti was a passionate, very vocal critic of any desire to discuss the matter further. It was over, she seemed to argue, there was an election, it was done. Situations like that can sometimes strain relations between folks. Marti was always the same thereafter, though. A pleasant, passing “hello,” a “hey, Thomas, what’s new?” In fact, I got that line just last week from Marti at Hartford Coffee.

In fact, I’ll probably look for her there, or at MoKaBe’s some afternoon in the near future. And she won’t be there. And I’m sorry that’ll be the case.

by - 1 Comment

The spins

Two, for sure, this month, several more in June:

Saturday, May 19, 10 p.m.-close (circus music, Tuvan throat singing, no-wave).

Friday, May 25, 10 p.m.-close (showtunes, barbershop, jazz fusion).

It’d be delightful to see you at The Royale those evenings, but I’m not going to pander by, say, baking chocolate chip cookies. That’s not going to happen.