Arts, Entertainment, and Media

Your Weekly St. Louis Bestseller List

Here's your weekly St. Louis bestseller list for the week ending October 14, as compiled by the St. Louis Independent Booksellers Alliance and based on sales at Left Bank Books, Main Street Books, Pudd'nhead Books and Subterranean Books. Sometimes the bestseller list contains random, unexplainabl ... More >>

Meet Kelli Allen, the Poet Who Doesn't Sleep

Kelli Allen, who will be reading from her first collection of poetry, Otherwise, Soft White Ash at 7 p.m. this evening at Left Bank Books, does not consider herself a confessional poet. Though some of her poems concern the final illness and death of her mother, many others come from myths and fairy ... More >>

The Rise of Found-Footage Horror: Why the new scary movies don't look like movies at all

Skatalites

8 p.m. Tuesday, October 23. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue.

Tilly and the Wall

8:30 p.m. Friday, October 19. The Firebird, 2706 Olive Street.

Blood Pressure

Saint Louis Zoo Accused of Racially Insensitive Halloween Decorations

Halloween is approaching quickly and the St. Louis Zoo is decked out for their "Boo at the Zoo" event for kids. They've got pumpkins, hay bales, graveyards, and even ghosts that fly from the trees. "It's beginning to look a little spooky around here!" the zoo's Facebook account said yesterday, acc ... More >>

The First Showcase of the New Look Folk School is Tonight

Don't call it a recital. Recitals hoist reluctant kids on stage with itchy sweaters, clarinets and lame concertos to play...concertos, man. The Folk School of St. Louis Showcase this Wednesday is a concert. The performers just happen to be students. Approximately 125 of them, ranging from uncallouse ... More >>

The Six Best Non-Metal Songs About Heavy Metal

Songwriters love riffing on folklore, be it nursery rhymes or Biblical parables. Over the years, heavy metal has developed its own brand of legend, so much so that stylistically disparate musicians have used it as a springboard for creatively disparate songs. Here are the six best non-metal songs ab ... More >>

The Ten Best Shows In St. Louis This Weekend: October 12 to 14

Nelly's recent run-in with the law is the talk of the town / office / internet today -- if you've been under a rock, check out what I'm referring to here. Anyway, my question is simple: When the hell are touring musicians going to stop trying to drive through Sierra Blanca? They nabbed Nelly, Fiona, ... More >>

The Cover of the October 11 Print Edition

Roland Johnson

10 p.m. Friday, October 12. BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 South Broadway.

Muddy Moves

Love, German Style

Puttin' the Barocci in Baroque

The Six Best Diss Tracks

This month, you won't be able to watch an episode of "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" without seeing a half-dozen attack ads. The music world doesn't have attack ads, it has diss tracks. In honor of the onslaught of negativity in our political process, here are the six best diss tracks of all time. Let us ... More >>

Schtick vs. Substance: The Very Uncomfortable Nardwuar Interview with Ian MacKaye

There's very little middle ground with Nardwuar the Human Serviette. This plaid-clad Canadian DJ, musician and celebrity interviewer has been causing havoc for more than twenty years. His interviewing style is usually to ambush a random musician or celebrity, and begin firing away questions in an ea ... More >>

Meet Indian Blanket, the Quietly Gorgeous St. Louis Folk Band Collaborating with First Aid Kit

Indian Blanket -- playing this Saturday at the Firebird with Swedish folk group First Aid Kit -- is the little-known brain child of St. Louis' Joe Andert. The band has spent much of its existence locked primarily in Andert's self-criticism and careful exploration. To date, the show calendar has been ... More >>

Smoking Popes

8 p.m. Monday, October 8. The Firebird, 2706 Olive Street.

The Bleacher Report Formula for Web Dominance: Garbage In, Money Out

The Cover of the October 3 Print Edition

Six Best Bass Solos In Rock

First, a joke: A man visits an Indian reservation. The tribe's chief leads him on a tour, and the man hears drums in the distance. "What are those drums?" he asks. The chief replies, "When the drums stop, bad things happen." They continue the tour, but the man keeps getting distracted. "Excuse me, w ... More >>

What We've Gained from Twitter: Knowing your Favorite Musician Can't Spell

Miley Cyrus is quitting Twitter, reportedly. She's not unfollowing herself over music -- her tweets were reportedly an affront to Liam Hemsworth, which is reportedly the name of a real person -- and the RFT Music demographic, so far as our ad guys can tell, is probably not very broken up about it. B ... More >>

[VIDEO] Bill O'Reilly: "These St. Louis Post-Dispatch People are Dumb and Corrupt."

In an editorial last Wednesday, the Post-Dispatch lamented public distrust of the media (which is now at a record high, according to Gallup). The daily suggested that both conservative and liberal cable-news hotheads may or may not be totally to blame, but surely don't help the situation. So what do ... More >>

Country Music for People who Hate Country

Cardinal fans and Cub fans. Democrats and Republicans. Those who keep up with the Kardashians and those who should be allowed to vote. Country music fans and country music haters. While no end is in sight to the strife between the first three aforementioned warring factions, there may be hope for t ... More >>

Inspectah Deck

7:30 p.m. Sunday, September 30. Fubar, 3108 Locust Street.

With big-studio millions behind him, Genndy Tartakovsky still goes it alone

The Demonization of Chief Keef and Lil JoJo

Editor: Tef Poe is an artist from St. Louis City. Through powerful imagery and complicated honesty, he has earned a reputation as one of the best rappers telling the story of St. Louis, which is about much more than one place. Poe has been featured in music publications such as XXL and Urb Magazine. ... More >>

East St. Louis rapper Fresco Kane is on the cusp

Matthew Sweet

9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 22. Duck Room at Blueberry Hill, 6504 Delmar Boulevard, University City.

Meet the (Likely) Next St. Louis Hip-Hop Superstar

This week's music feature, written by Daniel Hill, is about Fresco Kane, the East St. Louis rapper formerly known as Gena who recently signed with Jermaine Dupri's So So Def label. Kane (nee Greg Lawary) grew up playing any instrument he could get his hands on. He's been around the scene for some ti ... More >>

Amanda Palmer Didn't Do Anything Wrong

Art and life co-habitate, informing, imitating, and enriching each other constantly. Each week in Better Living Through Music, RFT Music writer Ryan Wasoba explores this symbiotic relationship Amanda Palmer is having a rough week. Her situation (abridged) is as follows: Palmer developed a cult foll ... More >>

Less Than Jake at the Firebird, 9/19/12: Highlights

Less Than Jake The Firebird Sept. 19, 2012 Remember when ska enjoyed that revival in the '90s? And remember when Less Than Jake said, "This ska thing is great, but it could use some pop punk, too?" And remember when it combined those things to such great effect that critics said, "This shit will ne ... More >>

Shakespeare on the Fly

Arrested Development's 20th Anniversary Tour, Tilly and the Wall, White Rabbits and More in This Week's New Show Announcements

Here again: every newly announced show for the week! On page one you'll find a quick list of shows that particularly caught our attention, followed by embedded YouTube videos; there, you can check out some of the artists you may not be familiar with. Page two contains our complete listing of new sho ... More >>

LouFest Joins with Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits Producer: What Will it Mean?

The confetti has barely settled on LouFest year three: Despite some uncooperative weather, this year's incarnation, featuring headliners Girl Talk and the Flaming Lips, was its biggest yet, with some 12,000 in attendance. And today, the festivals organizers have an announcement that will dramaticall ... More >>

The Six Best YEAHs in Rock & Roll

A well placed, well delivered "yeah" can mean so much more than just a lazy "yes." Here are the six best YEAAAHs in rock and roll. Let us know your favorites in our comments, yeah? See also: -Six Most Overused Rhymes -The Six Best Effect-Enhanced Guitar Solos -Nitpick Six Archives

How to Avoid Becoming a Walking Country Song in Five Easy Steps

Like many people, I had a brief but intense relationship with country music in the mid-1990s. College couldn't come quickly enough, and, with it, an appreciation for music that delved a little deeper than, "Way down yonder on the Chattahoochee/It gets hotter than a hoochie cootchie." Of course, tha ... More >>

Em Piro: Fringe Mastermind Already Plotting for 2013

Em Piro has learned her lesson. St. Lou Fringe 2013 has been scheduled for June 20-24. That is not the weekend of Pride. It is the weekend before. 2012 firmly established that if there's going to be a conflict between Pride and Fringe, Pride, older and bigger and more deeply embedded in St. Louis ... More >>

Play 'Til You Puke and a Coal Miner Calls you a Faggot, then Keep Playing: The Hooten Hallers

It doesn't take long with theHooten Hallers to realize that drummer Andy Rehm and guitarist John Randall are straight up rock & rollers, blues junkies, self-proclaimed dirtbags (to be taken in the most endearing way possible) and down right Midwestern folks. But first you have to pin them down bet ... More >>

When Directors Love Their Stars: Frances Ha and Yellow at the Toronto Film Festival

Film critic Karina Longworth is reporting from the Toronto International Film Festival this week. For maybe the first hour of Yellow (written and directed by Nick Cassavetes, the man responsible for the national treasure that is The Notebook), I kept thinking about another film premiering here in T ... More >>

Mizzou Journalism Grads Can Expect Lowest Starting Salary Compared to Their Peers

It's a well-known fact that the University of Missouri-Columbia has one of the finest undergraduate journalism programs in the country. That's news you, apparently, can't take to the bank. A new survey of Mizzou grads from the classes of 2010 and 2011 show that j-school grads are taking home the ... More >>

The Latin Sound of Missouri's David Wax Museum: Jarana Jarochas, Quijadas y Mas

For as stiff and coy as the band's name may be, the David Wax Museum's hybrid of indie pop, folk and folkloric music flares with smart sonic ideas and timeless and in-the-moment images. Born and raised in Columbia, Missouri, Wax (that is his last name) still has family in University City and still h ... More >>

27 Hip-Hop Videos You Should Know from St. Louis and Beyond

Editor: Tef Poe is an artist from St. Louis City. Through powerful imagery and complicated honesty, he has earned a reputation as one of the best rappers telling the story of St. Louis, which is about much more than one place. Poe has been featured in music publications such as XXL and Urb Magazine. ... More >>

The Ten Black Pop Stars Who Should Go Country

[Editor's note: Country Time is a new biweekly column for our sister music blog in Seattle, celebrating that city's favorite musical genre: mainstream country.] By Mike Seely With the nation's major-party political conventions drawing to a close recently with a rousing reelection appeal from the n ... More >>

Out Every Night: The Best Shows From September 10 to 16

Under normal circumstances I despise inane small talk and "how's the weather" chatter, but for the purposes of filling these show-pick-posts' opening paragraphs with content, its a consistent fallback. That said, I wore a jacket outside this weekend! WHOA HOLY SHIT. Sometimes I think I could write ... More >>

The Ten Best Shows In St. Louis This Weekend: September 7 to 9

This weekend is a good one for local artists, as it includes two album release shows and a music video release party. Friday night will see the release of Old Capital Square Dance Club's new CD at Off Broadway, as well as Spelling Bee's latest offering at the Schlafly Tap Room. The former is ten dol ... More >>

Dance Out Loud

Poetry In Motion

Abstract Indulgence