Heather and I have just returned from playing the open mic at the Shanti in St. Louis, MO – Heather’s cold is in insanely full swing, and though they would’ve have had us play all night, we begged off after only four songs… It was a shame, I think I could’ve had a pretty nice time hanging out for a while. Jamming with other people (we only took advantage of one guy’s offer – he played flute on Locomotive Breath. He had a great time, and you could tell the populace Loved being shaken up that much. Beautiful dogs populated the bar and the courtyard outside, and their owners were grizzled be-bearded men with upright basses and old Stratocasters. I had a good night, but we packed it in pretty soon afrer our set and got Heather home to rest.
Earlier in the day we’d had a radio appearance on KDHX, St Louis’ community radio station. We’ve played a lot of college radio, and a lot of small radio stations, so KDHX was an excellent surprise – a great big studio space to set us up in with good microphones and an engineer and an ACTUAL SOUND CHECK!!! We did a short interview with “The Other One” Drea interspersed with a couple of rob tunes. You ought to be able to stream the whole performance HERE (we come in around 40 minutes into the show, btw). Drea was a sparkling, rainbow coloured Deadhead with a wide grin and an easy laugh. She made us feel right at home really quick and she came in and danced as we played. Radio gigs can be hard, because you have no audience but the DJ, but her enthusiasm just made things so easy – I was stupid and didn’t snap a picture.
After the radio show, Heather and I went and grabbed some pho, and then wandered around St Louis for a couple of hours, meandering wayward streets down to the shores of the Mississippi We drove slowly through construction sites and under trestle bridges, evading baseball traffic and rush hour traffic and trains. We eventually found ourselves at the base of the St Louis Arch and had ourselves a little tourist moment with every last ounce of the meagre memory of my borrowed camera. The Arch is just a miraculous monstrosity.
Later that night, driving home from the Shanti, we passed the Arch in the misty night weather – it was a different beast then – steel reflecting light and sky and cloud and shadow. In the grey and the iron rain we’ve been having, I’m struck by it”s beauty. A truly amazing structure of industry.
