Where to bring the noise

The last post about the sound art performance/installation at Dunaway Books reminds me that I'm overdue to mention here a couple of alternative performance spaces where St. Louis listeners can go to hear free improvisation, electronic music, noise and sundry forms of experimental music, as well as lots of punk and alt-rock bands, spoken word, multimedia and all sorts of other things.

Perhaps the best known of these spaces is the Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center, which offers a wide variety of performances, as well as other arts programs and activities focused on the surrounding neighborhood.

At 8 p.m. on Thursday, May 12, the LNAC will play host to Phantom Limb & Bison, an ensemble comprised of Jaime Fennelly on electronics, guitarist Chris Forsyth, Shawn Hansenon on EMS Synthi and radio feedback, and reed player Chris Heenan. The group records for a small label called Evolving Ear, which seems to revolve around the work of Forsyth, a Brooklyn-based musician who "is mainly concerned with exploring the limits and usage of sound as music and the guitar as a sound-generating device.”

Radio Cherokee, also located on the South Side, presents a similarly eclectic menu of performances, including some free improv and electronic stuff. A word to the wise: be aware that both of these venues lack some of the amenities one typically associates with either club- or concert-going, and with their wide-open booking policies, music can vary vastly from night to night in terms of both genre and quality.

Finally, any discussion of creative music in St. Louis would be incomplete without at least a mention of New Music Circle, which has been presenting various sorts of avant garde musical performances since the late Fifites, making it the longest continuously operating group of its kind in the USA. (Full disclosure: I was a board member for NMC from 1992-1994, and then served as the organization's administrator, overseeing the concert series and all other operations, from 1994-1999.)

NMC's current season is winding up with two events this month. At 7 p.m. on Friday, May 13, they'll present a screening of The Blue Bird, a 1918 film by French artist, designer and filmmaker Maurice Tourneur (1873-1961) with live improvised music by guitarist Larry Marotta, bassist Nick Mancini, percussionist Ted Royalty and Mark Sarich. The event information says that "the innovative effects, striking imagery, and unusual lighting techniques are strongly reminiscent of German Expressionist films—although The Blue Bird predates The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari by a year."

Then at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Friday, May 20 and Saturday May 21, NMC will present X-P.O.E. Anima(L), a multimedia performance conceived by artist Kelsey LaPoint, at the historic Lemp Brewery, 3500 Lemp Avenue. What to expect? NMC's website says it "explores our relationship to animals—particularly how we perceive them for our own empowerment and entertainment. Enter an environment of puppets, poetry, video projections, and live music from the Nuclear Percussion Ensemble, Richard O’Donnell, and others."