Photograph by Kevin A. Roberts
Every Saturday evening, a one-man band named Tom Flynn plays Tim’s Chrome Bar, a charming, time-bound tavern in the shadows of the Bevo Mill. Seldom do you find a performer more perfectly matched to a venue, as Flynn brings life to the songs of the 1960s through the ’90s in a location that caters to a clientele who grew up on this music.
When he’s gigging, songs like “Runaround Sue” and pieces by bands like The Beatles are the consistent winners, as his audience enters and exits the little dance floor bordering the stage. With his own sound system, light show, and sequencer, Flynn knows what works, after nearly 30 years of bringing his solo act to life.
In 1985, he says, he purchased his first sequencer, after initially playing out with a simple drum machine. The process of creating his own backing cuts has changed, of course, with continual technology upgrades. Using vintage and new gear (from Roland synths to his iPad), he takes a time-intensive, multilayered approach.
“I make all of them, for the most part,” Flynn says. “A few that feature background vocals are ones that I’ve actually bought, but the majority I’ve mixed myself. I have my own recording studio at the house. You lay down your drum tracks, your bass line, then add piano, organ, strings, horn, whatever you need. Once the last keyboards have been added, you mix it like you would at any recording studio.”
While the process, he says, is “tedious,” it allows him to offer a more thorough, more personalized form of entertainment.
“I feel like what I’m doing is my performance,” he says. “I’m doing something that a lot of people can’t do. People who do karaoke are singers, they’re musicians with their voice, but they’re not playing an instrument. I’ve played my whole life, developed the skills to do this. I’m very pleased with the outcomes of this stuff. I used to bring out my keys, but now with the iPad, I don’t have to. I’ve been playing guitar since the ’60s, and it’s second nature to me. You’re working with two different parts of your brain, but it doesn’t take a whole lot of concentration for me to play with vocals and guitar.”
Part of his comfort level at Tim’s comes from his total familiarity with the place. He’s worked there on and off since 1999, he’s been holding down Saturdays for the past two years. The folks who attend his gigs tend to be age 50 and up; he quips that it’s a group that’s selective about going out, since “when you hit a certain age, you don’t go out on a Wednesday night. You go out on Friday or Saturday, if at all. When it rains, they don’t come out. You have to worry about those things.”
Their tastes mirror his own. “I do still pick up songs that I like,” he says. “Although lately, I haven’t really been into what’s current. I probably lost picking up on all the new stuff in the late ’90s… They don’t know the new songs, and when I play a song from even the ’90s, they’ll look on and sigh. People like songs they’re familiar with.”
Those he can play by the dozens, to an audience that’s kind and appreciative. “They’re die-hards,” he says of the crowd. “They’re there almost every Saturday night. There are 14 of them from that one main group, and they come in together and they’re here until the end of the night.”
He figures as long as owner Tim Pappas keeps running the club, he’ll have a weekend home. “When people are up and dancing, you know things have gone well,” he says. “With people sitting and enjoying, that’s good, too, but if they dance, that’s the best.”
Long may they do so at Tim’s, a true gem of the St. Louis night-life scene, with Flynn providing the pitch-perfect soundtrack.
Hear Flynn on Saturday nights at Tim’s Chrome Bar (4736 Gravois, 314-353-8138). For more info, go to tommyflynnmusician.com.
Bad Dates, Bad Dates, and Wild Hex, II: The number of bands releasing cassette tapes might not be a growing one, but cassette culture is still alive and well. A larger group of acts is punching out materials and releasing it digitally, often through Bandcamp. As shared members of two groups, Wild Hex and Bad Dates, musicians Geoff Naunheim and Gabe Karabell have created bands that are different yet complimentary. Bad Dates, fronted by the entertaining Mark Willey, has a more glam style, while Wild Hex features a slightly harder, punchier approach.
Both groups have recently released shorts bursts of songs via the local imprint Don’t Touch My Records, each evincing the DIY spirit common to the pair of groups.
“I have recorded a little in studios with nice soundproofing and isolation,” Naunheim says. “It is great for getting a good drum sound, but can be expensive. Since Wild Hex and Bad Dates are mostly working with tape and MP3 format, getting a really crisp, clean tone seems silly. And honestly, we don’t sound crisp or clean live. We’d be misrepresenting ourselves. However, if someone wanted to front us the money to make a nice clear recording, I’m sure we wouldn’t say no.”
The self-titled, four-song EP by Bad Dates and the two-track Wild Hex release, II, can both be found on Don’t Touch My Records’ Bandcamp page (donttouchmyrecords.bandcamp.com).
