All Bands From St. Louis Suck.

August 25, 2006 at 4:03 am (Uncategorized)

Waaaaay, waaaay back in the dark ages, when I was a young lad and twee, working as a music geek at KCOU at Mizzou, I would frequently opine that all bands from St. Louis sucked. Can you blame me? From the hilariously awful The Eyes (you know them as Pale Divine, which was an even worse name) to the howlingly bad The Urge…it was just pure junk. Especially when compared to cross-state rivals. Kansas City had The Bangtails and The Pedaljets. Springfield had Fool’s Face and The Morells/Skeletons. Even our college town had interesting stuff from folks like East Ash and the criminally overlooked St. Monday.

But St. Louis? Sucked. Sucks. Musical graveyard.

I stuns me then to say that a St. Louis band might be about to put out one of the best records of 2006. I’m even more shocked to admit that all the guys in this band are actually older than I am. Ok, Patrick, the drummer, probably isn’t. He has kids though. So emotionally, yeah, he’s ancient.

The band is called Finn’s Motel. Maybe if you lived in The Lou during the late ’80’s you remember seeing a promising band called The Finns. Or The Finn Brothers. In both bands you had a guy named Joe Thebeau doing his thing, and nearly succeeding in making something memorable.

For whatever reason, The Finns never made me swoon. Finn’s Motel, on the other hand, have me playing the four songs they’ve released to date over and over and over again. Thankfully, all four songs are available via their myspace page. I defy anyone who truly loves great rock and roll to lisen to “Concord Village Optimist Club” or “Dramamine For Engine #3” and not be bowled over twice. That Joe Thebeau is now getting dangerously close to 40 never enters the equation. This just doesn’t sound like old guy rock. In fact, there’s a liveliness–a vitality–here that makes so many younger acts sound utterly fraudulent.

If you live in St. Louis, Finn’s Motel will do their debut gig of sorts at Off Broadway tomorrow, August 25th. I’m hoping offers of free steak and expensive bottles of wine will lure them to the east coast in the fall. I’d kill to see these guys live.

5 Comments

  1. Anonymous said,

    September 5, 2006 at 5:32 am

    Hey Chris, long time lurker from over at Octopus Overlords, haven’t posted their in over a year, but enjoy your writing style and your music recommendations. Unfortunately, I always forget to check your site (and Octopus Overlords), was wondering if you wouldn’t mind putting an RSS feed of your blog on the page as a way to subscribe. I believe Blogger gives this as a standard option.Anyway, no big deal if you don’t have time, just thought it’d be a nice way to keep up to date.Thanks!Kyle

  2. Anonymous said,

    September 7, 2006 at 2:10 pm

    Wow, thanks for the kind words, man. (blushing)Hope we can get to DC soon!-joe

  3. Chris H. said,

    September 9, 2006 at 5:25 am

    Kyle-Thanks for the kind words. And thanks for turning me on to DCCD back in the day! I still owe you (I think it was you) for hepping me to them having that Spoon disc a few days before street date.You crazy kids and your RSS feeds nowadays. I’ll see if I can figger it out!Joe-Hope you fellas can make out here. Sadly, the Brooklyn gig is a schedule conflict for me, but I’ll be willing to travel to see you geezers anywhere else out here in the mid-atl.BTW, listening to the whole thing for the first time right now (a certain legal pay service has it up already for download)and I’m digging the way the songs tie together. Full review here forthcoming!

  4. Anonymous said,

    September 12, 2006 at 1:41 pm

    “a certain legal pay service has it up already for download”Would be interested to know which.We’re working on more east coast dates as soon as we can afford to get out there.-joe

  5. Anonymous said,

    January 1, 2008 at 10:08 am

    Chris – Six degrees of separation … So when you were at KCOU at Missou (and I was working at the maneater – no capital) Robert White was in charge of radio station KWWC at Stephens College. He was Mark White’s dad … who was the drummer of the Bangtails). Wild, eh? I’ve been trying to find out what ever happened to Mark and whether he is still in Columbia and still with Bea. – JRL @ jrl.pharmagenie@gmail.com

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