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2 months ago | 
stlmag.com | Joseph Hess |Steve Leftridge |Max Havey |Anne McCarthy
SIR EDDIE CAlthough Sir Eddie C identifies as a rapper, his approach to rolling out new music incorporates performance art, alternative marketing, and community activism. In 2020, the St. Louis–based artist released “lil Black boy,” a single that snowballed into a fundraising effort of the same name in collaboration with the Village PATH.
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Nov 27, 2024 | 
stlmag.com | Steve Leftridge
St. Louis indie-rock band Blond Guru nicked their name from a quote by the woman who shot Andy Warhol. Valerie Solanas, a would-be playwright, was furious at Warhol for refusing to produce her play when she shot and nearly killed him in 1968, afterward referring to the famous artist as a “blond guru of a nightmare world.”
Blond Guru guitarist Josh Hezel tells me this story over a Zoom call that features all five members of the band from four different locations, pandemic-style.
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Nov 27, 2024 | 
stlmag.com | Steve Leftridge
It’s 5 p.m. in St. Louis, but it’s midnight in Berlin. That’s where Ha Ha Tonka lead singer and de facto spokesman Brian Roberts talks to me via Zoom. Despite the late hour, Brian says he doesn’t mind the late-night chat, as he’s used to burning the midnight oil in Germany, where he’s lived for the past seven years.
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Oct 31, 2024 | 
stlmag.com | Steve Leftridge
The three members of St. Louis yachternative band Starwolf are in their 70s, shown in the photograph as three gray, aged men taking in a St. Louis CITY SC soccer game, sitting in the stadium seats and staring at the camera as their synth-disco track “Get Down Tonight” plays over the photo. The caption: “Hi, we were in a disco band in the 1970s. We recorded a few songs, but didn’t get any interest from the record labels.
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Oct 17, 2024 | 
stlmag.com | Steve Leftridge
Michael D’Addario, one half of rock band The Lemon Twigs, is talking to me on the phone from outside his Brooklyn recording space, which is an hour commute from his Upper West Side apartment, a half hour from where his brother and bandmate, Brian D’Addario, lives in Brooklyn’s Windsor Terrace neighborhood, and about a 40-minute drive from where the brothers grew up in Hicksville out on Long Island, where their parents still live.
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Oct 3, 2024 | 
stlmag.com | Steve Leftridge
Everyone knows the parable of the five blind men who stumbled across a large beast. The first blind man grabbed a fiddle bow and declared it a tail. The second pulled on a trombone and mistook it for a trunk. The third ran his hand across a washboard and thought it was a ribcage. A fourth got ahold of a banjo neck and uttered the word “tusk.” The last man patted a round djembe drumhead and confused it for a large ear.
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Oct 1, 2024 | 
riverfronttimes.com | JD Davis |Steve Leftridge
The world has lost another bright star in the celebrity sky, and Willie Nelson has lost another dear friend. Kris Kristofferson has passed away at the age of 88 over the weekend at his home in Maui, Hawaii. The singer was reportedly surrounded by family at the time of his passing. So much more than just a crooner of tunes, his loss leaves the music world aching for its beloved renaissance man. He was a musician, a writer, an activist, and a star in film and television.
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Sep 30, 2024 | 
stlmag.com | Steve Leftridge
The second annual Evolution Festival drew 25,000 people to Forest Park this weekend for two big days of music across three stages in Langenberg Field. Heavy rain from Helene on Friday had turned much of the festival grounds into a mudpit, but the rain held off for a pleasant weather weekend as attendees drank craft beer, dined on local culinary fare, strolled through a Chuck Berry exhibit (that included the legend’s Cadillac), and shopped at the fest’s marketplace.
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Sep 19, 2024 | 
stlmag.com | Steve Leftridge
By all accounts, the inaugural Evolution Festival, held last August in Forest Park and featuring headline performances from Brandi Carlile, the Black Keys, Ice Cube, and the Black Crowes, was a huge success. The festival was well-attended, the weather cooperated, artists raved about the urban-oasis setting from the stage, bourbon makers and vendors moved lots of food and beverages, and crowds were treated to excellent and unique performances throughout the two-day festival.
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Sep 17, 2024 | 
stlmag.com | Steve Leftridge
The fourth annual Music at the Intersection took place in Grand Center over the weekend, featuring a two-day music festival, a day of industry conferences, the new MATI Places retail event, and all kinds of pre-parties and post-fest bashes. MATI has grown into a premiere festival unique to St. Louis that celebrates our musical footprint, steeped in jazz, blues, soul, funk, gospel, and rock ‘n’ roll for a two-day multi-stage party in the city. Here now are my annual MATI Best of the Fest Awards.
