New Morells music! From left, Lou Whitney, D. Clinton Thompson, Ron Gremp and Maralie. Photo taken in Columbia, MO.
Musical archeologist and retired mapmaker Glenn Steinkamp first heard the Morells in 1980. The Morells-Skeletons were one of the great American rock-punk-soul-country bands of that era.
They were based out of Springfield, Mo. They are featured on a beautiful mural in downtown Springfield. They made such an impression on me that we had to make a full-length documentary on them.
The Morells radiated the joy that everyone is searching for today.
In 1982 the Morells released [...]
Bob Matonis, we loved you yeah, yeah yeah.
One of America’s greatest rock n’ roll fans known as “Beatle Bob” Matonis died on July 27 in his native St. Louis, Mo. He was 70 years old. He died of complications from ALS.
Matonis spent decades dancing a mosh-up of the Twist and the Frug in the front rows of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, South by Southwest in Austin, Tx. FitzGerald’s in Berwyn and hundreds of other music clubs. He often wore black suits that matched his black bangs, even as the world spun into global warming,
Matonis said he saw 9,439 days of concerts in a row.
That number was in an e-mail he sent out earlier this year [...]
Happy Birthday Lou Whitney
January 10, 2013—
SPRINGFIELD, Mo.—-Lou Whitney props his feet up on the soundboard of his recording studio in downtown Springfield. The bass player-vocalist-producer has just finished his first show of 2013 with yet another version of the Skeletons, the most giving rock n’ roll band in America.
The Skeletons play regular two-hour Thursday sets which start at 7 p.m. at the Outland, a small rock club adjacent to Whitney’s studio. They start early because they have things to do.
Long time Skeletons keyboardist Joe Terry has to get [...]
Sept. 19, 2011—
The guy down at the middle of the bar told his friend how he didn’t do anything this summer. I overheard it because the bar is as small as a penny in a fountain.
I asked Jackie for a bar napkin. It was interesting that in a season as compacted as summer in Chicago you can’t do anything.
Bar napkins are good for three things: wiping up junk, drying tears and aborbing thoughts. With a borrowed blue pen I jotted down some of the things I hadn’t done this summer:
Missed seeing the Cubs win much. Did not go to the historic Centennial Beach in Naperville, nor did I see Russell Crowe swim at ‘The Beach’ when he was living in the [...]
