The Kids are alright in St. Louis

Heading from Indianapolis to St. Louis, the fact that we were in the heartland really started to sink in. Cruising down the I-70, which is an east-to-west route that covers two-thirds of the U.S., the grandness and vastness of middle America's open spaces became ever more apparent. The scenery, though fairly constant, is breathtaking in its scope, and even sometimes overwhelming. We saw lots of crops being tended to by farmers in massive machinery, old barns barely managing to stay upright, farmhouses both modest and impressive, and endless fields of grain.














Some funny things we saw along the route: a sign for "Lu-Bob's Home Cooking," a "cow mobiling" vehicle packed with live cattle, and a sign for "foot-high pies -- actual size!"

Pulling into St. Louis, the famous Arch looked spectacular. Pictures don't do the structure justice. The Mississippi River was also a sight to behold. Mighty, swift, mysterious. You could see the effects of all the recent rain on the Midwest, though, as the river had spilled over into areas along the shore where it clearly didn't belong.




























Our show that night was at the Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center, a community center geared toward teenagers that offers workshops, exhibitions and a safe place for kids to hang out. They also put on all-ages, alcohol-free rock shows on a regular basis, and some fantastic bands have come through there, including Xiu Xiu. We got to play with an incredible all-instrumental band from Asheville called Ahleuchatistas. If you're into out-jazz and progressive styles of rock, make sure you check this band out. They've got stuff out on John Zorn's label, Tzadik. A heavy local band called Dhat also played, and the kids in the crowd really got into their sludgy thrash-core.

We were a little disappointed that there weren't more girls in the audience, which was dominated by metal-listening teenage boys (no offense at all to metal-listening teenage boys -- Dom was one of them not too long ago, and we love Dom to death -- but it would have been cool to have a more mixed crowd), but we were thrilled that most of the girls who were there went home with CDs of ours that night. The guy who runs the center, Mark, was also extremely gracious and treated us to a wonderful homemade meal before the show.















We were supposed to crash on the center's couches that night, but opted to upgrade to a hotel. Four nights in a row of floors, couches and aero-beds were finally catching up with us.














The hotel, just a basic, bare-bones, one-star joint, was like the Taj Mahal for us. We slept well!

Next up: Kansas City!