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City Nights at City Museum
7 p.m. Thursday, August 15. City Museum, 750 North 16th Street. $8 to $10.
It’s no secret that City Museum is one of the absolute best attractions St. Louis has to offer, so when the beloved art-project-turned-adult-playground throws an event, you can bet it’s equally exciting. Enter City Nights at City Museum, a four-night-only affair that takes over the building’s rooftop with live music, a light show, art by a variety of vendors and more. This week’s party will feature music by locals Bloom, Sister Wizzard, Mammoth Piano, LS XPRSS, Mother Meat and StlLegend. Ever wanted to catch some of the city’s finest musicians while perched in a lit-up Ferris Wheel more than ten stories off the ground? Here’s your chance.
Early Birds Get Worms: This is the last of the City Nights events this summer, and the previous nights have sold out easily. Make sure to get your tickets in advance.
—Daniel Hill
Jenny Lewis
8 p.m. Saturday, August 17. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Boulevard. $30 to $40.
314-726-6161.
Amid the tie-dyed pantsuits and rhinestone revelries that color her Americana-pop songs, there has been a steady stream of melancholy and spiritual realignment on Jenny Lewis’ last two records. This year’s On the Line opens with “Heads Gonna Roll,” as good a song as she’s written and a study in romantic dissolution that shows her knack for scene-specific detail and holistic heartbreak. The rest of the new record collects what makes Lewis so compelling — some SoCal loucheness, a little languid sensuality and a whole lot of twangy and glossy hooks.
A Little Help From Her Friends: On the Line features contributions from the likes of Beck, Ringo Starr, Don Was, Jason Falkner and — before he was summarily canceled — Ryan Adams.
—Christian Schaeffer
Tonina
8 p.m. Saturday, August 17. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Boulevard. $15 to $20.
314-726-6161.
To say that no musician working in St. Louis, absolutely no one, sounds like Tonina is no slight to the community that continues to nurture her impossible-to-categorize art. But Tonina Saputo, a Berklee College of Music-trained bassist, singer and songwriter, also challenges that community and its counterproductive divisions of genre and audience. She calls her music “folk” not because she hues to such stereotypes but because she absorbs and transforms all manner of tradition for personal and social purposes. On her new, extraordinary song-cycle St. Lost, you’ll recognize jazz-fusion, Latin balladry — she often and gorgeously sings in Spanish — contemporary and classic R&B, but what you won’t be able to deny is the utter originality and pure, lyrical beauty of her music.
Local Horizons, Expanded: Opening the show are hip-hop duo the Knuckles (Corey Barnett and Aloha Mischeaux) from St. Louis and experimental urban-soul band Loose Loose from Columbia, Missouri. All told, this will be a mind- and genre-bending night of regional music.
—Roy Kasten
