Peck of Dirt Is Heard from Again
While watching Peck of Dirt, I was thinking about the inscrutable, somewhat self-defeating, but ultimately lovable and inspiring character of the St. Louis rock music scene.
By Chris King
Sleeping on the Moon
I felt transported and in a kind of dream long before I found a place where I thought I might rest my head long enough to fall asleep, until I was shifted again by what seemed to be the constantly drifting bags of laundry. Sleep would not come right away, a defining experience of life at sea. Added to the queasy motion of the ocean, the heat, and the noise, was a fearsome apparition that Walt had warned me about.
Remembering R.E.M. Explored by SLSO on Its One-Year Anniversary
Though St. Louis cannot claim the April 5 debut of “R.E.M. Explored” as the church in Athens can for the band itself, this performance featured a new sequence of the program that has become standard in subsequent concerts, not to mention the only time Mills’s compositions have been re-imagined by Marsh and Mallamud’s orchestrations and performed by a symphony orchestra on the iconic date of R.E.M.’s nativity.
Looking Hip in the Gaza Strip? My Useless Act of Indie-Rock Prophecy
Before the president of the United States publicly imagined the Gaza Strip as a hip Middle Eastern Riviera, I only ever told this story to mock myself at parties. It was one of my bits. It turns out I am a prophet, I would declare.
Music Not Missiles: Memories of a Reluctant Cold Warrior
The guys in Gaza must be nearing 60 like my bandmates and I. I wonder if they stayed in our country after they were free to return to theirs without booking a steady gig in a gulag. I wonder what they make of Vladimir Putin having an ally in the White House or a short-timer like Pete Hegseth having oversight of the mightiest military on Earth.
Prisons, El Salvador and Us: The Way We Were
I have taken a vow of silence about the new presidential administration, but I wanted to record this memory for others who might want to think about the distance we have come in forty years and what it might mean.
Sasquatch and Holthouse
Given David Holthouse’s quest in ‘Sasquatch,’ he himself is the subject of one of my old, scarcely believable memories. This memory is not potent enough to send me on an investigation worthy of a documentary series, but the coincidence spurs me at least to commit it to writing.
If I Buy Your Groceries
I wrote this little memoir in the spirit of a Cupid, hoping someone out there hears me and tries this out and buys some lonely person who looks like they can really cook their groceries and they cook you dinner and in fact they can really cook well. Dinner together is delicious, and you take it from there, hopefully, expectantly, both of you taking your chances on love and food.
When the Wheel Came Off
The truck’s left rear wheel came entirely off the vehicle, which then scraped to a stop on its naked rotor. My passenger noticed this phenomenon at the same moment, then we watched what followed in silent but shared wonder.
Requiem for a Punster: Leonard Slatkin Pays Tribute to P.D.Q. Bach (and Peter Schickele)
On Monday, November 25, Leonard Slatkin and the Chamber Music Society of St. Louis will present D.BachL, presumably pronounced “debacle,” a tribute to the composer Peter Schickele.
“You can be an outlaw and be anything you want”: A Memory of Lester Bowie
I knew Lester Bowie had been dead for a long time, and I think I know that dead people do not get up and dance at the funerals of people they have loved. But I never could escape an eerie feeling. I felt that Lester would twirl into the sanctuary behind the Bosman Twins, his signature white coat flowing open, waving his shining trumpet and finally blowing it with the voices of edgy angels.
Flea of Judge Nothing Is Gone: Farewell to a Punk Rock Bass Player
Flea was always moving. True to his name, he never stood still for long. Indeed, you could say he flitted. He was smiling at you and slapping your back or hugging you, he connected with you, but, it always seemed, briefly.