urbanSTL

Okay, what's the Creepy Crawl?

Basically an always all-ages rock club that plays everything from touring independent bands to local acts of limited experience to fill in the gaps. Mostly punk, "indie," and maybe some metal here and there. I used to see shows there in high school. I always felt like the place needed more space.



www.creepycrawl.com

Outstanding. I've been looking for a place in STL that has live bands on the weekends. That's one thing I miss about living in Bham...there were plenty of good local bands playing on the weekends.



All of the techno music in STL can get tiring and monotonous.

UAB,



If you like live music, and don't like the club stuff, there are tons of places you can go. From musical venues like the Duck Room, Mississippi Nights and Creepy Crawl, to bars like Venice Cafe, BBs, Mangia (has live music later at night)...



Really, just pick up an RFT and find what you want to hear, and there's places to see it.

and don't forget radio cherokee. it's a coffee house/music venue on cherokee. a bit more on the creapy crawl side in terms of atmosphere, with out the booze. then wait, why would I ever go there??!??!???!

It's funky to think about but Grand Center was once the cultural clashing hub of St. Louis by being the crossroads between north-south city and linking the core middle neighborhoods like the Mississippi River through the middle of our nation or examples continue:





Today the central corridor west of the City is the meeting ground and it is a much larger area since the Galleria, West County Mall, Chesterfield Mall, and the St. Louis Mills are relatively in the crossroads of capital or money and regional culture; the same is true for making the Loop so popular since young people from all over the region flock there. St. Lukes, St. Johns, MO Baptist, St. Mary's like BJC are all relatively centrally located hospitals



This is long, sorry, but I included the above paragraph to relate how today's crossroads of money, ideas, ideals, culture, and more come into interaction at a place of centrality just like how Grand Center was once that crossroads and place of centrality and interaction and conflict. The first place that comes to mind is Ben Yahuda in Jerusalem or Times Square in NYC



sorry for the rant, but how can Grand Center have that position again while laying aside the population argument?

From the RFT:

After weeks of uncertainty, punk mecca the Creepy Crawl has finally confirmed its new location.



According to owner Jeff Parks, the venue will be moving to Grand Center, a few doors down from Jazz at the Bistro and about a block from the Fox Theatre. Parks says the space will have a capacity of between 550 and 600.



"I'm really stoked," Parks says. "It's a real step forward for us.... It should really be great for us in the long run. We're still going to have a nice, intimate feel to it. I'm glad we're preserving that quality."



The planned opening date for the new location is March 17, but Parks intends to send out the old Creepy with a bang on March 13. The lineup features the Spunks, Gito Gito Hustler, the Independents and "Surprise Special Guest" Peelander-Z.

I will reiterate how great it is that the venue size has increased.

Parks says the space will have a capacity of between 550 and 600.

This is from an earlier Riverfront Times on a "Christmas List" for the STL Music Scene:

What: A 500-capacity indie-rock club

Why? The KC-Lawrence area draws so many bands (see above) because they have the venues to properly accommodate 'em. It's difficult to bring bands that are between up-and-coming and established to town when venues are tiny (Hi-Pointe, Fred's) or too big (Mississippi Nights, the Pageant). The Gearbox (R.I.P.) endeavored to plug this club gap, but it closed.

Just what we need!



The entire "christmas list" can be found here:

http://www.riverfronttimes.com/Issues/2 ... /atoz.html

i don't know, the average national show at mississippi nights is probably like 500 people, and the indie shows there usually do really well. i have a feeling that the creepy crawl will probably utilize the extra space to still bring in the same brand of by the numbers punk rock rather than actual mid popularity indie groups.

Creepy Crawl holds around 1000-1200

you must have gone to a different creepy crawl than me, the one i'm familiar with holds maybe 400 or so. mississippi nights has about 1000 capacity, give or take, but the vast majority of shows don't sell out.

Whoops! I meant to say "Mississippi Nights holds 1000-1200"



And club owners don't like wasting their time with bands that they KNOW wont have a chance of selling very much of their capacity. Band managers don't want to deal with it either. Mississippi Nights usually gets the bands that are pretty established and at least have a chance of filling it up pretty decently if not selling out as all clubs should do to meet their capacity size. Creepy Crawl is no different and it is nice to see their club size expand slightly bigger into that "in between area." (Between its former self, hi-pointe, and duck room and bigger venues like mississippi nights and the pageant)

yeah, after a rereading it i kinda figured you meant mississippi nights. sure, they try to find bands that can fill it up, but the truth is, sold out shows only happen once in a while, they're more frequent in the busy season and it might be harder to get a show that isn't going to deliver at least 700 in that time of year. it still stands that a 500-600 person show is fairly average at mississippi nights, and it's not uncommon for a band to do 200-300. if the sales at the bar are still good then it's still considered a success. it's true that there's a certain demographic of indie bands that do well but might not be quite big enough for a mississippi nights show, for example the hold steady or magnolia electric co. still though, it just depends on how the bar does. i just wouldn't rule it out for that size of show. i do work there, but that doesn't necessarily give me insight as to what goes on with the booking process, but i think having been there for most every show they have gives me some degree of insight into it

The entire "christmas list" can be found here:

http://www.riverfronttimes.com/Issues/2 ... /atoz.html

OT: And Amen to the 7 Shot Screamers wish...

The Creepy Crawl is moving to Grand Center, just down from Jazz at the Bistro on Washington sometime in March. Its where Club Riviera used to be.

Has the new Creepy Crawl opened yet...originally they were set to open March 17th but faced some setbacks with the church on Washington and Grand not approving of their liquor license. The leaders of the church, as I recall, had looked at some of the names of the bands on creepycrawl.com and felt that they weren't very respectable sounding. A lot of the other community leaders (head of the Fox, and owner of Jazz at the Bistro) felt that the Creepy Crawl would be a very nice addition to the neighborhood.



Has it opened yet? When will it open???

I was looking through show listings in the RFT earlier this week and one of the Creepy shows was listed at the new address. Might have been a typo, or maybe not... Their website doesn't say anything, so probably an error of some sort.

I'm pretty sure both locations are open right now. If you go to their website, they have two locations of dates. Rogue Wave played on Wednesday at the new location, I wanted to go but had a previous engagement.



http://www.creepycrawl.com/

Yeah, they finally got their liquor license for the new location. All is well.

I've heard that the Creepy Crawl is in trouble and may have lost its liquor license. (Last time I was there - about a month ago - they were not serving. I figured it was just an "all ages show") What I've been told is basically hear-say, but I do know a local production company has been moving some of their shows around that normally would have been at the Creepy.



Wondering if anyone else has heard this?



I hope it is not true.

This is the first I've heard of this, but to be honest I wouldn't be surprised. There are so many new options in St. Louis in beautifully renovated buildings, interesting neighborhoods etc. that The Creepy Crawl would have to really step up to compete. I use to give them leeway in the old space but they made the effort to move to a new location in GRAND Center and they did the minimum possible to get the place open. The sound has never been good. The lighting is embarrassing. I go reluctantly because of the bands they book. If those bands could play elsewhere I'd be happy to see them in another space. That rope down the middle of the space with drinkers on one side and non on the other is annoying as all get out.

stellar wrote:This is the first I've heard of this, but to be honest I wouldn't be surprised. There are so many new options in St. Louis in beautifully renovated buildings, interesting neighborhoods etc. that The Creepy Crawl would have to really step up to compete. I use to give them leeway in the old space but they made the effort to move to a new location in GRAND Center and they did the minimum possible to get the place open. The sound has never been good. The lighting is embarrassing. I go reluctantly because of the bands they book. If those bands could play elsewhere I'd be happy to see them in another space. That rope down the middle of the space with drinkers on one side and non on the other is annoying as all get out.

And the chain link fence at the old location was any better?

they did lose their license, i don't know for how long though. they lost it once shortly before the move but got it back. as far as the fence/rope, yeah it sucks but it's the norm for all ages venues in st louis. it's a really sh*tty system for the customers but it's effective in reducing underage drinking. most of the time the drinkers want to hang close to the bar and the minors want to get up front anyway, but it's particularly uncomfortable at the creepy since it's such a small venue. it worked better at mississippi nights and even better than that at the pageant. i want all of the local venues to do well for the sake of the bands they draw, but if we have to lose another one, i'd be ok with it being the creepy crawl.