Point blank: the St. Louis music scene is struggling. In the past two years, three venues that support local, semi-national and even national bands have closed their doors.
Karma was first. Formerly known as the Other World, Karma was located one block north of Washington Ave. on Delmar. The area that surrounded Karma is still being developed by the city as part of the downtown revitalization effort. Washington University bought warehouses and property adjacent to Karma to build resident lofts and more living space for students. Residents, although few in number at the time, complained to owners and police of the constant noise. Karma eventually succumbed and closed their doors in 1999.
The Side Door was next to walk the plank when the club closed last summer. This was the biggest blow that the music scene had experienced in a long time. There was little warning about its closing. The Side Door was a refuge for local, indie rock bands and the occasional semi-national act. Sammy Hagar even played there once. The Side Door offered a small, intimate setting where bands could play to their crowds and others who wandered in from the adjoining Hot Locust Cafe. The prime location near 20th and Locust was only two blocks from Highway 40 and only a half-mile from Union Station. The Side Door has since reopened as Club Z and now caters to cover bands.
The next and most talked about club closing is the Firehouse, scheduled to go up in smoke on March 4.
According to former-Side Door booking manager and SLU-grad Steven Smith, the Firehouse’s closing is “by no means the nail in the coffin for the live music scene in St. Louis.” Smith booked the Side Door in its brightest hour, promoting shows and maintaining a professional working relationship with local bands.
The Firehouse closing has shown bands, supporters of live music and St. Louis itself that there is something stagnant about the scene.
Donald Williams, formerly of Sinister Dane and Sugardaddy and current lead vocalist and bassist of the Getaway Car, thought the Firehouse was a nice place, but said that “some of the staff and management were complete [incompetents], very non-professional. So while it was my favorite stage to play on (good soundmen and lots of room), the attitudes that my band encountered ruined it for us; I could care less on a personal level.”
Bouncers at the Firehouse are known for occasionally bullying the patrons frequent the establishment and most some bands that have played there. The Firehouse has also had its problems drawing good crowds. It has a decent location-a few blocks from the heart of Midtown and Highway 40-not to mention its close proximity to SLU (across from the Olive-Compton Garage). One of the Firehouse’s fatal flaws may have been its failure to promote to SLU’s campus of 11,000 students, 3,000 of whom reside on campus nine months a year. Most students never made it over to the Firehouse-much less even heard of it-unless there was a KSLU-sponsored show there, where KSLU did all of the promoting. Poor attendance was the main reason the Firehouse gave for closing.
The Firehouse is a big blow to the scene, though I was never certain of the exact audience that they were catering to,” said Thomas Crone, former Music editor of The Riverfront Times, one-time president of Metropolis and current host of KDHX’s The Wire. “Although it’s a loss of a nice, mid-sized room, the bouncers there were known for occasional acts of over-enthusiasm, and I’d hope that the people in question don’t resurface at other clubs. If I’d have any knock on the club, it’s the violence that I occasionally saw inflicted on customers.”
As for the St. Louis scene in general, Smith sees it as more than just a local problem. “The scene has stagnated, but the live music scene has stagnated nationally as well, it’s really not down though,” he said.
While this phenomenon may be occurring in other cities, it’s hard not to notice it here. The crowds just aren’t coming out to see other bands like they have for the Urge, Gravity Kills and Fragile Porcelain Mice. The Midwest Regional Music Festival (MRMF) that was sponsored by The Riverfront Times (RFT), Anheuser-Busch, ASCAP and local radio stations was shut down when the New Times bought the RFT in 1999. The Riverfront Times was the main organizer and sponsor of the MRMF.
“Some type of festival needs to come into existence, other than the Slammies (St. Louis music awards hosted by the RFT yearly), which is too-affiliated with a single publication,” Crone said. “If a couple of stations got behind a handful of artists, that would make an immediate and tangible impact on things.”
In the mid-1990s, 105.7 The Point backed the Urge and Fragile Porcelain Mice well, even getting heavy radio play in Lawrence, Kan. With The Point’s help, St. Louis got to hear Fragile and the Urge doubling, even tripling their fan base.
In the later part of the `90s and in 2000, 101.1 The River has heavily supported local acts such as Robynn Ragland, Javier Mendoza and Sarah Cloud, who have all benefited by being a part of the St. Louis music scene that was thriving.
Now Cloud and Ragland have fans turning out in great numbers for their shows as they are headlining shows at the multi-million dollar Pageant on the border of St. Louis city and the Delmar Loop in University City.
“The Pageant is the envy of all the other cities’ live music scenes, but so far it has yet to pan out results on how to bring more life to the scene. I don’t see the direction that the booking has had to take St. Louis to the next level, but time will tell,” Smith said.
The scene is not all about the radio airplay, The Pageant or Mississippi Nights, it’s about getting the fans to once again be a part of the scene.
“I think there are too many bands and I guess there were too many clubs,” Williams said. “I’m not saying people should hang up their gear, but when earlier bands that did well and were coming up in St. Louis, there wasn’t a whole lot of stuff going on.”
The bands that make up the scene now need to work harder promoting shows. But when it comes to promoters for venues, how hard are they really working?
“Promoters, club owners? I think they do well enough, at least as well as they used to. It’s not like one day they all conspired and said, `Hey, let’s all get together and shoot ourselves in the foot,'” Williams said. “At the same time when you look in the RFT and a band is playing that Friday, but the ad didn’t come out with them in it until two days before, that’s a problem to me.”
While the music scene here seems to rotate in cycles, St. Louis has never experienced the type of national explosion seen years ago in cities like Chicago and Seattle. “There hasn’t been a city music scene explosion for years,” Smith said. However, he noted that “hip hop has made huge strides in St. Louis with shows like the Science at Blueberry Hill’s Duck Room selling out occasionally and raves doing better than ever.”
A generation gap may also play a part in the lack of enthusiasm for the local scene.
“Those of us now 28-35 who were the core audience of some of the great early ’90s bands have bought houses, gotten married, had kids, whatever, there was a gap in the next wave of young people going to shows,” Crone said.
The state of the scene here is obviously not conducive for bands getting noticed on a wider scale. Playing more than the same few clubs in St. Louis is almost always necessary for bands to get their name out in other markets. Some bands aren’t encouraged at the thought of driving to Kansas City, Columbia or even Carbondale to play for a crowd of 30 for $50.
“It’s not fun, but it’s critical,” Crone said. “Not only developing your name in other markets, but in toughening up your resolve as a band and in crafting a sense of `us against the world.'”
The St. Louis scene may be down, but it’s not out. St. Louis, historically known for its ska following, is losing that reputation. Clubs are dropping off left and right, but this city, compared to others, still has a good thing going. There is no doubt that some fine-tuning is necessary in this decrescending ritardondo that the scene is in. “Things do go in cycles,” Williams said. “I think for the scene to grow, we need the bands to come with it stronger, put on a good show, mean what they are saying or just be great entertainers.
