Follow Friday: Chris Hansen
Chris Hansen has been a part of all aspects of the music business, from playing in bands to running a talent management company. Currently, he continues his passion for music through starting and running Lola (http://www.facebook.com/welovelola), Downtown’s hottest new restaurant and venue. We talked with Chris about how his decision to bring Lola downtown and his path through the music industry.
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This entry was written by , posted on July 23, 2010 at 6:13 pm, filed under Local Profile and tagged Chris Hansen, Lola. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Follow Friday: Mia Brown-Davis
Shop owner and personal stylist Mia Brown-Davis brings her passion for vintage fashion to Downtown St. Louis. If you are a vintage lover you might have previously seen her business, Eve’s Apple Vintage, on eBay. However, as of last summer you can also visit her shop on Washington Avenue.
Eleven recently sat down with Mia to discuss moving Downtown, loving vintage, and being a personal stylist.
This entry was written by , posted on July 16, 2010 at 7:47 pm, filed under Local Profile and tagged Eve's Apple Vintage, Follow Friday, Mia Brown-Davis. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Follow Friday: Eric Woods
Photo by Dionna Raedeke.
Printmaker Eric Woods is a cultural scene veteran. His enterprise, The Firecracker Press (@FirecrackerP), resides in the heart of Cherokee Street: the unofficial (but certainly eligible) print capital of St. Louis, where it’s been since (in Cherokee terms) the Paleozoic year of 2008. Eric is now in the captain’s chair in the neighborhood’s business association, and Eleven took a minute to catch up and to talk about his experience, his work, and his ideas for the future. Check out his prints at http://firecrackerpress.com/, and read on past the jump for our interview.
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This entry was written by , posted on June 25, 2010 at 9:44 am, filed under Local Profile and tagged Eric Woods, The Firecracker Press. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Follow Friday: Tech Supreme
Producer Tech Supreme (@techsupreme) has been in St. Louis hip-hop since he moved here at 16. Now, he ties the whole scene together with his innovative beats and community attitude. He talks with Eleven about his work with The Force, the St. Louis scene, and the music business. Check back soon for some exclusive Tech tracks, too.
How did you get started in music?
My mother is a recording artist. I grew up in New Jersey. I came [to St. Louis] when I was 16. I was always around studio equipment and stuff like that. My mother was free with what I could listen to – I could listen to what ever I want[ed], like Slick Rick. It was a musically liberal household. Then I came to St. Louis and my cousin was a piano player and he got me into making music…it started with rapping. Just [because] being such a rap fan as a kid, [I] started rapping, moved to St Louis, came to U[niversity] City High School and hooked up with some guys who wanted to be from New York – I was from North New Jersey – so we started rapping together, me and Young Thunder and some other guys. We needed beats, and I had been playing with it, so I decided to start doing beats for us. And then that first year, I fell in love with it completely and decided that’s what I want to do full time – I don’t want to rap. I wanted to be the guy behind the scenes, making the music and making everything happen. I’ve been doing it since then, but there’s always a time period before you can consider yourself a professional, that you’re honing your skill. You’re never really a professional till you start releasing your projects to a mass amount of people you don’t know. It’s probably only been six or seven year[s] that I’ve been doing that.
This entry was written by , posted on June 18, 2010 at 5:23 pm, filed under Local Profile and tagged Tech Supreme, The Force. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Local Profile: Evan Sult & Paige Brubeck
Photo by Corey Woodruff. More on Flickr
Among the neighborhood locals, Evan Sult and Paige Brubeck's Sleepy Kitty Graphic Arts is often referred to as Cherokee Street's foremost storefront-less business. But the company's lack of an "Open" sign and welcome mat doesn't do anything to dissuade the duo's fervent passion for their block. Eleven caught up with Sleepy Kitty's co-owners to discuss Cherokee, late nights, and fine cuisine. See more of their work at http://sleepykittyarts.co.nr, and catch highlights from our interview below.
Q+A:
Could you drum up some experience, or some story that happened that made you just say “Man, that’s Cherokee?”
Paige: It happens all the time. Recently we were walking down the street when we heard some…positive sounds…and we look and we heard the Peat mobile and a ton of people in costume doing a photoshoot for Cinco de Mayo. Just in the middle of the day in front of Latino Americana, Peat Wollager and his awesome truck. And we’re just like…that’s Cherokee street! That’s awesome.
Evan: People talk about St Louis being a small town; we think of it instead as a short story. It’s a limited cast of characters who play multiple roles that kind of keep recurring. It feels…we don’t have a TV…but it feels not unlike TV where you walk down the street and there’s this sort of unrealistic number of familiar faces, and situations that you get to see unfold right in front of you. It’s really rewarding to feel like you’re part of this ongoing narrative. And new people are kind of cycling in and out of the narrative, but the narrative is engrossing. Just being a part of the street is engrossing.
This entry was written by , posted on May 14, 2010 at 5:52 pm, filed under Local Profile and tagged Cherokee St., Local Profile, Sleepy Kitty. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Local Profile: Mike Glodeck
A newcomer to business in the Cherokee Street neighborhood, Foam Coffee & Beer is steadily building its rep as one of the hippest destinations for drinks or conversation in St. Louis. If you’ve already visited Eleven’s latest Neighborhood of the Month, you might have stopped by for a cup of joe or a break from walking out in the sun. If you’re still hunting for an excuse to head over, however, then Black James’ live set at 9pm tomorrow might be just the ticket you need.
Eleven interviewed Foam’s owner, Mike Glodeck, for his take on building a business from the ground-up in one of the most up-and-coming parts of town.
Q+A:
Tell me about how you found yourself on Cherokee Street.
I spent some time looking at all the different commercial districts in the city. I wanted to be part of some kind of a community….and Cherokee has that potential. You know, you already have that on the Loop you have that in the CWE, but I was really excited to get in on the ground floor here.
This entry was written by , posted on May 7, 2010 at 3:09 pm, filed under Local Profile and tagged Cherokee St., Foam, Mike Glodeck. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Local Profile: Steve Pohlman
No conversation about St. Louis venues would be complete without mentioning Off Broadway, and its contributions to the city. Likewise, no conversations about the music “scene” would be complete without mentioning Steve Pohlman, one of the owners and proprietors of Off Broadway. I recently asked Steve some questions about the state of the city’s renascent music scene.
In operating one of the most active venues in St. Louis, what has been your generally impression of the state of the music scene? Are more people going to shows now, versus 5 years ago? Are bands more active?
We are up significantly in terms of attendance, and from talking to some of the other venues in town they are too. I think there are more venues now compared to five years ago and more shows on any given night. While you would think that could hurt our business … the number say otherwise.
This entry was written by , posted on March 18, 2010 at 4:33 pm, filed under Local Profile. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Local Profile: Tiffany Minx
Enter Apop Records, a Wunderkammern of Exotic Sounds, Curio Publications, and Psychotronic Cinema! Wunder-what? you might ask. Yes, Apop Records truly is a “wonder chamber” or “cabinet of curiosities.” It also happens to be home of business owner, Tiffany Minx. Minx established Apop Records with business partner, Dustin Newman, in the unassuming town of Columbia, MO in 2004. Specializing in the realms of sub/counter/fringe culture, avant garde & experimental music/cinema, obscure literature, and contemporary wonders, Apop has remained a vital part of the Cherokee St. community since their move to St. Louis in 2007. I had an opportunity to catch up with Tiffany and discuss Apop Records’ Past, Present, and Future.
Why did you choose to move Apop Records to Cherokee St?
Tiffany:
Even though Dustin had lived in St. Louis before, I don’t think either of us had a really good sense of where the right place would be for the shop. Delmar, to me, continues to be one of the only actually flourishing areas for independent business (this of course, discounting Clayton and CWE for obvious yuppie-laden reasons) but we knew that even if we could afford it, we didn’t want to be on Delmar. We wanted to be somewhere more music oriented and DIY; or somewhere else that wasn’t already branded with an image.
Many of our friends lived in South City; the shows we attended when visiting were at SC locales (Radio Cherokee, Lemp, CBGBs); and in general, it seemed a more down to earth neighborhood with a lot of potential and interesting activity.Because the once prominent commercial district had been in such a dormant state–except, of course, the active Mexican community that really pioneered business here after the street’s initial decay–the existing infrastructure and reasonable rents/property prices encouraged opportunity for those of us who lacked the capital backing of larger businesses but could compensate with a unique vision and determination.
Could we do better on Delmar or S Grand? Likely. The burden of taxing all one’s resources running a small business is further compounded by the fact that anyone who opens shop on Cherokee also takes on the job of street promoter and community revitalizer, which can be pretty overwhelming and disappointing at times. Since we’ve opened, we’ve seen more than a dozen of one-of-a-kind businesses and shops open on Cherokee — shops that would make a killing in better ‘hoods, but still struggle mainly due to lack of foot traffic and city awareness of the street. Yet, only one of these businesses has thus gone under, and considering how much turn over you see on Delmar, well, I think that’s a testament to the exceptional work ethic and fierce determination of entrepreneurs and organizers here.
This entry was written by , posted on March 3, 2010 at 12:00 am, filed under Local Profile and tagged APOP Records, Cherokee Street, Tiffany Minx. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Local Profile: Tawaine Noah
Welcome to our new feature, the local profile! Every Wednesday, we’re going to be interviewing people who are involved in the St. Louis music community; not necessarily in bands, but those who are interested in seeing St. Louis become a better place for musicians.
Today, I interviewed Tawaine Noah, Barista at Foam Coffee & Beer and lead singer/songwriter in local band Union Tree Review.
How have you been involved in the St. Louis music community in the past?
I started like a lot of the folks around my age at the time: You’re in high school, and you start going to local shows. If you’re like me, you get really inspired to be that guy or band up on stage. So, long story short, a couple of my friends and I put together a small acoustic band, and luckily it’s not really all that hard to get booked in St. Louis. Eventually, we put together an album and started playing out.
This entry was written by , posted on February 18, 2010 at 12:16 am, filed under Local Profile and tagged Foam Coffee & Beer, Tawaine Noah, Union Tree Review. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
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