This weekend, on Saturday, July 22, Fragile Porcelain Mice will take the stage at FUBAR, with NIL8 and Braddock in support. Over the past decade or so, the band’s been good for a show, maybe two, per year. But the feeling’s never been one of “there are many more to come.” Each show, in its own way, then, has felt necessary for fans to make, fans who’ve treated these reunions as precious, noisy gifts. Ones that may, or may not, be experienced again soon.
These days, of course, concerts are gifts that keep on giving, through the omnipresence of cell phones and other, small, high-quality cameras. Though rocking the world from their Belleville home base since the early '90s, the group’s no different than many of their contemporaries, with very light digital footprints from the first years of their career. But thanks to a handful of curators, there are some notable examples of St. Louis rock from the 1990s, visible and available for anyone, anytime.
Today, we’ll survey a collection of clips from YouTube that veer between performances done for local cable access shows of the ‘90s, as well as some other live odds/ends. Though space limits a fuller exploration of pro-shot videos of the time, here’s a cross-section of rock bands that lived at least a part of the lives in the ‘90s, starting with a recent live clip of FPM.
Fragile Porcelain Mice, 20th Anniversary Show at Pop’s, 2014
The Belinda Chaire on Critical Mass, 8/6/92
The Bishops, Complete Segment on Critical Mass, 12/05/90
The Boorays, Complete Segment on Critical Mass, 11/21/90
The Eyes/Pale Divine, Live(ish) at Kennedy’s
Dazzling Killmen and Small Ball Paul, Live at Kennedy’s for Critical Mass
New World Spirits, Live on Velocity, 6/19/95
The Nukes, “Immediate Reaction” on Critical Mass, 5/23/90
Sinister Dane, Live at Bash for Cash at The Galaxy, 3/19/96
Three Merry Widows, RFT People’s Choice Awards, Mississippi Nights, 1992
Tory Starbuck/neXtrAdio, Live for Mind Over Television
Uncle Tupelo, 1989 Complete Segment from Critical Mass, 11/15/89
The Urge, Live at RKCNDY, Seatlle, Washington, 10/9/98
And here’s a special note, a link to the entire documentary STL 2000 by Matt Meyer, which chronicled a year of St. Louis rock, one year past the '90s. A much younger version of this writer appears.
Almost all of this videos were pulled from Rob Wagoner’s ambitious OldSchoolSTL channel on YouTube, part of the St. Louis Music Video Preservation Project.
