Luminary Center for the Arts

The Luminary Returns with the Post Performance Series This Summer, Featuring Local Art and Music Collaborations

Luminary Center for the Arts makes a comeback on the show scene this summer -- well, not at its pending new physical space on Cherokee Street, but with the return of the Post Performance Series, featuring live music and one-day-only art installations at the Old Post Office Plaza (Ninth and Locust s ... More >>

Sound and Vision: Jeremy Kannapell on the New Music Circle's 54th Year

Stemming back to its foundation in 1959, the St. Louis-based New Music Circle has moved forward as torchbearer in the curation of both regional and international innovators of avant-garde music. Embracing everything from modular synthesis and experimental turntablism to free improvisation and tape m ... More >>

Out Every Night: The Best Shows From November 5 to 11

It's Monday, it's shitty outside, and I'm tired. My brain is mush, creativity is lacking, and there's an unknown chirp occurring somewhere in the vicinity of my desk (seemingly overhead somehow, but it is not a smoke detector) that is driving me to distraction. I've played out the coming hours in my ... More >>

The Ten Best Shows In St. Louis This Weekend: October 26 to 28

This weekend is Halloween weekend (Halloween-kend???? Nah, that sucks....) and as such there are plenty of sweet shows for you to attend in clothing that is not your own. Lucky for you -- and more work intensive for me, (you are welcome) -- we already wrote up a post regarding the best Halloween sho ... More >>

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 >>

High Notes: Witness jazz masters in the flesh with a season heavy on the horns

Cloud Nothings at the Luminary Center for the Arts, 7/16/12: Review, Photos and Setlist

Cloud Nothings | 1, 2, 3 | Volcanoes July 16, 2012 Luminary Center for the Arts Local Band Volcanoes described the evening's sound before it ever happened. "We get together in my basement to practice and piss my parents off. Seriously, this is what pisses my parents off," says Eric Peters. Cloud No ... More >>

Out Every Night: The Best Shows From July 9 to 15

The Monday after Independence Day weekend is one most brutal. After a full weekend of barbecue and beer and illegal fireworks, going to work seems all the more objectionable. I'm too damned hungover on Freedom to be productive, personally. My "word of the day" today is "aliquant," which even my spel ... More >>

Luminary's Move to 2700 Cherokee Looks Unlikely

Since December, the Luminary Center for the Arts has been raising tens of thousands -- from both big benefactors and regular Joes on Kickstarter -- to move into larger quarters at 2700 Cherokee St., which is currently the home of Pig Slop studios.  But after all the hub-bub surrounding the move ... More >>

VIDEO: James McAnally Discusses the Gospel's Role at The Luminary

For months, rumors have swirled in St. Louis' arts & music scene that the Luminary Center for the Arts, a secular 501(c)(3) nonprofit, harbors secret plans to convert artists to Christianity. (See our current feature). Part of this suspicion has arisen from the video below, which was recorded in ... More >>

Van Dyke Parks on His Invisible Career, Surviving the '60s and the Role of the Beta Male

Van Dyke Parks doesn't give interviews; he speaks in pull-quotes and aphorisms. If Mark Twain and Dorothy Parker had spent their formative years among rock & roll royalty, as Parks did as an arranger, songwriter and singer, they might have viewed that world with the same big-hearted verbosity that P ... More >>

Sharon Van Etten's Evocative Sound Arrives in St. Louis

​ Sharon Van Etten's journey through the music world included relentless touring, respites on friends' couches and kinship with indie-rock royalty. And now, the Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter's journey is making a stop in St. Louis. Fresh off the release of her third studio album Tramp, Van Et ... More >>

The Hive Dwellers at Luminary Art Center, 3/27/12: Review, Photos and Setlist

The Hive Dwellers | Woodsman | Sleep In Sundays Luminary Arts Center, 3/27/12 It is hard to underestimate just how influential Calvin Johnson has been over the past three decades. Since 1982, he has been the proprietor of K Records, a label that has been involved with some big names (Beck, Jon Spe ... More >>

Van Dyke Parks is Coming to the Luminary

Van Dyke Parks is coming to the Luminary Center for the Arts (4900 Reber Place, 314-807-5984)! It's part of the venue's Elevator Music Series, where the audience is seated in the gallery space, and there are only 250 tickets. They're $22 each and on sale now. We can find a record of when the legen ... More >>

Mac Miller and Van Halen Lead This Week's Show Announcements

Nothing raises the hackles of the music-hating snark machines over at Pitchfork like a lil rap album that defies the odds by sticking to formula. Mac Miller's Blue Slide Park was slapped with a 1.0 rating, despite the the fact that it managed to move nearly 200,000 copies it's first week. Miller's a ... More >>

Luminary Center for the Arts Headed to Cherokee Street

Jennifer SilverbergLuminary Center for the Arts Directors Brea and James McAnally​​So many things have been heading south lately -- the temperature, the economy -- and so is the Luminary Center for the Arts. But for the four-year-old gallery, performance space and arts incubator, south is on ... More >>

Deerhoof At The Luminary: Review And Q&A With Drummer Greg Saunier

Photo by Corey Woodruff​On September 26th, Deerhoof made tracks through St. Louis for the first time in its nearly twenty years of existence. The Luminary Center for the Arts held the loud but intimate sounds of the seminal experimental pop group, catering to a nearly sold out crowd on a chill ... More >>

The Joy Formidable At The Firebird, 9/21/11: Review and Setlist

Photos by Diana Benanti ​The Joy Formidable | US Royalty September 21, 2011 The Firebird This is the time to see a band. The Joy Formidable is still pie-eyed and loving it, and there's a new single around every bend. The band is still in love with its luck, and there is no way to not fall in ... More >>

Spelling Bee Returns From A Tour That Included A Break-In And Several Great Bands

Photo by Mabel Suen​Noise-rock duo Spelling Bee recently embarked on a tour that took members Joseph Hess and Mabel Suen to Washington D.C., Baltimore, Bost and more. We explored the band's approach to D.I.Y. in a feature as the tour was kicking off. Now that they've returned, we asked drumme ... More >>

St. Louis Art Capsules

Jessica Baran encapsulates the St. Louis art scene

Kanrocksas Music Festival 2011: What to Expect, What to See and More

Courtesy of Kanrocksas​Finally, Eminem has collided with NASCAR -- with nary a cowboy hat in sight. This isn't a gone-country Darius Rucker-style conversion, but Missouri-born Marshall Mathers, not to mention 23 other popular and indie acts that normally wouldn't be caught within sight distanc ... More >>

Hanging by Threads

St. Louis Art Capsules

Jessica Baran encapsulates the St. Louis art scene

40 Tickets Remain for Of Montreal's Improbable Full-Fledged Set at the Luminary

Of Montreal's last show in St. Louis, at the Pageant. Photo by Todd Owyoung​Of Montreal is playing the Luminary Center for the Arts on July 4th. That's right: A band that sold 1,300 tickets to its last show here, at the Pageant, is playing what amounts to an exceptionally well-equipped baseme ... More >>

Michael Hoffman's Bearing Headlines this Weekend's Art Openings

Michael Hoffman's latest exhibit of colorful, abstract paintings will open this Friday evening at the Hoffman Lachance Contemporary. More information on this event and others after the jump.Michael HoffmanStripes, from Bearing at Hoffman LaChance Contemporary.​

St. Louis Art Capsules

Jessica Baran encapsulates the St. Louis art scene

St. Louis Art Capsules

Jessica Baran encapsulates the St. Louis art scene

Phaseone is Moving to Brooklyn, But Rages Tonight at Sol Lounge -- and Reveals His Future Label Plans

Brea McAnallyPhaseone at the Old Post Office Plaza in June 2010. ​Phaseone has long been a source of pride for the St. Louis music scene and its adherents, but in two weeks' time, we can no longer claim him as our own: It is with great displeasure that we bid farewell to Andrew Jernigan, bett ... More >>

Show Announcements: Week of February 10

image viaThe novelty of chillwave subsided long ago, but Neon Indian's hypnagogic ennui is still compelling two years after the nascent rise and fall of the much-maligned genre. Catch their St. Louis debut on June 8 at The Firebird. ​ Apop Records *Taboo, February 23 2720 Cherokee *Bawn in th ... More >>

Congrats to the RFT's Music-Related Web Award Winners for 2011!

Wikimedia Commons​Late yesterday, the winners of the RFT's first-annual web awards went live on our website. Included in that bunch is a bunch of music-related winners. The best music blog award went to I Went To a Show -- because, according to judges, "It's great to see the local-centric cont ... More >>

Artists' Resource Library at the Luminary

​Making great art often requires more than just inspiration -- sometimes you need power tools, or expensive video equipment, or someone to show you where the "on" button is.Brea and James McAnally, the folks behind the Luminary Center for the Arts, are working to create an environment where St. Lo ... More >>

Destroyer, The War on Drugs Open the Luminary Center for the Arts' 2011 Season

In the past two years, the Luminary Center for the Arts' Elevator Music Series has brought tons of up-and-coming bands to town -- including (but not limited to) Javelin, Warpaint, Abe Vigoda and Menomena. The 2011 edition of this occasional music series is upholding tradition: The first show of the ... More >>

Review Setlist: Menomena, The Globes and Tu Fawning Wake Up The Work-Week at the Luminary Center for the Arts, Monday, October 11

Menomena packed the house last night at the Luminary Center for the Arts, with a three-act bill that was damned close to perfect. It's rare that two relatively unknown opening acts are treated with more than casual disinterest, especially when opening for a band that commands repeated listens like M ... More >>

Tom Tom Club Show Canceled

Tom Tom Club's Monday, September 27, show at Old Rock House has been canceled. Here's a statement from the band, via the venue: We have decided to postpone parts of our tour until next year so that we can pack the biggest punch possible, and deliver TTC fans the best experience simultaneously. You ... More >>

Warpaint's Stella Mozgawa Talks Gaga, Van Smells, Hip-Hop and the Band's New Album

LA's Warpaint play tonight at the Luminary Center for the Arts. From left, Theresa Wayman, Jenny Lee Lindberg, Stella Mogzawa, Emily Kokal(front).​The Los Angeles four-piece Warpaint crafts haunting dreampsych with iridescent harmonies and filmy reverb, but don't label them as an all-girl band ... More >>

St. Louis Art Capsules

Jessica Baran encapsulates the St. Louis art scene

St. Louis Art Capsules

Jessica Baran encapsulates the St. Louis art scene

The Old Post Office Plaza Springs to Life With the Post Performances, A Series of Art and Music Collisions,

Wikimedia Commons/flickr​In this week's RFT Summer Guide, we highlighted some of many outdoor concert series taking place around town in the next few months. One of the more intriguing events is the Post Performances, a monthly marriage of art and music to be held at the Old Post Office Plaza ... More >>

Recap: "The State of the Music Scene" Discussion at the Luminary Center for the Arts

Diana BenantiMike Cracchiolo, Annie Zaleski, Ryan Wasoba and Matt Strom were the panelists at last night's State of the Music Scene discussionvThursday at the Luminary Center for the Arts.​ Some admitted music nerds talked shop, St. Louis and "the scene" last Thursday at The Luminary Center f ... More >>

St. Louis Art Capsules

Jessica Baran encapsulates the St. Louis art scene

St. Louis Art Capsules

Jessica Baran encapsulates the St. Louis art scene

St. Louis Art Caps

Jessica Baran encapsulates the St. Louis art scene

10 Things to Do Under $10 in St. Louis This Weekend, November 13-15

Remain non-broke all the way through Monday with the following suggestions for having fun on a budget this weekend. Looking for live music? We have that for you too, with our weekend concert calendar. It's also one of the best weekends all year long to see a movie in St. Louis.​Everything is Terri ... More >>

Homespun: Syna So Pro, make two people happy

In this week's paper, Christian Schaeffer reviews Syna So Pro's make two people happy (i.e. the solo project of Stella Mora bassist/vocalist Syrhea Conaway). He had this to say: ...she takes on a variety of instruments herself -- resulting in classical-inspired violin passages, skyscraping guitar c ... More >>

St. Louis Art Capsules

Jessica Baran encapsulates the St. Louis arts scene

St. Louis Art Capsules

Jessica Baran encapsulates the St. Louis arts scene

St. Louis Art Capsules

Jessica Baran encapsulates the St Louis arts scene

St. Louis Weekend Concert Calendar: Friday, August 21 to Sunday, August 23

Friday, August 21 *Emily Wells, Luminary Center for the Arts *STL Showcase, Mad Art Gallery *The Jovian Chorus (CD release)/Making Movies/Humdrum/Hope and Therapy, Firebird *Dread Zeppelin, Duck Room *Leroy Pierson, BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups *Madahoochi, Old Rock House *Bunnygrunt/Used Kids/Teneme ... More >>

St. Louis Art Capsules

Jessica Baran encapsulates the St Louis arts scene

St. Louis Weekend Concert Calendar, May 15 to 17

Friday, May 15 *Paper Dolls/Heather Perry, Off Broadway *Cracker, Blueberry Hill's Duck Room (also appearing at Vintage Vinyl at 5 p.m., free beer & BBQ!) *Left Arm, Vintage Vinyl, 8 p.m. *The Linemen, Atomic Cowboy *Messy Jiverson (CD release as Blown Speakers), Old Rock House *The Syn (members of ... More >>