Soup Activists

Reno, have you heard this band?

[soupactivists.bandcamp.com]

Nope. The only bands in St. Louis that have gotten much buzz in the last few years are 100 Gecs and Slayyyter, which has made the Lou a hub of the Set My Teeth On Edge wing of Hyperpop, which has made me not pay much attention to the locals in recent days.

How about this one?

[stillanimals.bandcamp.com]

Holy jeez, this group even incorporates the Gateway Arch into its logo.

Nope. As I said, local social media only cares about hyperpop as it's the first time since Nelly's heyday that StL has found itself in the forefront of a musical trend.

And KDHX, the local community radio station where you could reliably hear local bands, has been embroiled in a death struggle over the last year between the long-time volunteers who founded the station nearly 40 years ago and its incompetent dictatorial imbecile of an executive director and her handpicked dumbass board of directors - the result of which has been the firing or resignation of the bulk of its DJs, a loss of 2/3 of its funding, competing letters from the local business community and music community begging for said idiot executive director to please just fucking resign already, fines from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, occasional dead air and AI generated playlists. Needless to say, the station is currently not worth listening to.

Combine all that with the fact that I haven't set foot in a record store since Thanksgiving due to greatly reduced economic status, and I have not kept up with local bands much at all.

I first heard of Middle Class Fashion on KDHX. Other STL-only locals, too, but Middle Class Fashion sound like they'd fit on a John Hughes soundtrack (yes, that's a compliment) and other than Nation of Language, not easy to find bands like that.

I do know Middle Class Fashion and like them quite a bit. John Hughes-ready is a good way to describe them.

Real bummer about KDHX - we were following its’ gruesome demise at WFMU, and in fact brought aboard one of the veteran DJs, Dr Jeff, who’d been there for 22 years. A number of his old fans followed him over, so there’s the occasional St Louis banter in the chat.
Thanks for these tips, Delvin, I’ll pass them on to Dr Jeff.