1. Art

The Great Rivers Biennial is back. And bigger.

Three diverse artists make for one tremendous show.

By Malcolm Gay

Published: January 30, 2008

One created an international relief agency modeled in no small part on the United Nations. Another produced a mnemonic landscape of expanding and receding subjects, inviting the viewer...

2. Art

On the Wall

Malcolm Gay encapsulates the St. Louis art scene.

Published: January 30, 2008

All Systems Go and Meditations on Limitations/One-Hour Sculptures White Flag Projects exhibits two young artists from out of town. In the main gallery is All Systems Go, a suite of...

3. B-Sides

The Go-Go's make a St. Louis stop-stop.

And B-Sides catches up with Richard Marx.

Published: January 30, 2008

In the early '80s, the Go-Go's were considered the quintessential California girls, mainly thanks to sunny new-wave songs such as "Vacation" and "We Got the Beat." But times are (somewhat)...

4. Cafe

Agave gives Mexican cuisine the white-tablecloth treatment.

It just might be able to find its niche in the Grove.

By Ian Froeb

Published: January 30, 2008

For the second week in a row, this column finds me in Forest Park Southeast's Grove neighborhood, a once rundown area trying to rebuild itself with new restaurants and bars. It's a...

5. Critics' Picks

Chris Brown

7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 31. Scottrade Center, 1401 Clark Avenue.

By Dan Leroy

Published: January 30, 2008

Chris Brown's story is the sort that keeps aspiring stars dreaming and scheming. A chance meeting with a local music producer — who had stopped at the gas station where his father...

6. Critics' Picks

Cobra Starship

7 p.m. Friday, February 1. Creepy Crawl, 3524 Washington Boulevard.

By Ryan Wasoba

Published: January 30, 2008

Initial impulses suggest that pop-punk supergroup Cobra Starship started as a joke. The first indicator is the NYC band's name; second is its music video appearance under the closing...

7. Critics' Picks

Parachute Musical

9 p.m. Friday, February 1. The Bluebird, 2706 Olive Street.

By Roy Kasten

Published: January 30, 2008

Parachute Musical could be from anywhere — anywhere, that is, but Nashville, the town the quartet calls home. With the delirious pretentiousness of high school musicals and poetry...

8. Critics' Picks

Patrick Sweany

8 p.m. Saturday, February 2. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue.

By D.X. Ferris

Published: January 30, 2008

Patrick Sweany is an Ohio roots-blues revivalist with an old soul and a deep voice to match. He compares his eponymous band's sound to "Lightnin' Hopkins mixed with Solomon Burke,...

9. Critics' Picks

Sound Tribe Sector 9

7:30 p.m. Saturday, February 2. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Boulevard.

By Ryan Wasoba

Published: January 30, 2008

As Sound Tribe Sector 9 performs one of its packed shows, it's easy to imagine the jam band kids staying on one side of the club and the rave kids standing on the other. The ravers...

10. Critics' Picks

Giant Bear

9 p.m. Wednesday, February 6. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue.

By Roy Kasten

Published: January 30, 2008

Just when you think Americana might get sucked dry by anemic Nashville and Austin rejects and coffee-house politesse, the vast synthesizing power of roots music — and the equally...

11. Critics' Picks

Flogging Molly

7 p.m. Wednesday, February 6. Pop's, 1403 Mississippi Avenue, Sauget, Illinois.

By Andrea Noble

Published: January 30, 2008

Flogging Molly is in its eleventh year of setting feet ablaze by effortlessly blending traditional Irish fare with rabid punk rock. Whether the audience is a throng of teenagers at...

12. Drink of the Week

Bushmills' Black Bush

Our kitchen, South City

By Kristie McClanahan

Published: January 30, 2008

Nary a week after we'd boasted how we'd skated through fall and winter without so much as a sniffle, we woke up and found our face holes plugged with gunk. Our ears feel as though...

13. DVDish

Donkey Punch

Week of January 31, 2008

By Robert Wilonsky, Jordan Harper and Jim Ridley

Published: January 30, 2008

The King of Kong (New Line) Seth Gordon's best-of-2007 documentary about the battle for Donkey Kong supremacy remains a work-in-progress: Billy Mitchell, the longtime titleholder dethroned...

14. Feature

River Styx keeps on rolling.

After thirty-plus years, it's still a literary force of nature.

By Aimee Levitt

Published: January 30, 2008

"let's start a magazineto hell with literature we want something redblooded... something authentic and delirious you know something genuine like a mark in a toilet" — e....

15. Film

The Islamic revolution, and puberty, through the 2-D eyes of Marjane Satrapi.

Persepolis

By Nick Pinkerton

Published: January 30, 2008

Persepolis is a small landmark in feature animation. Not because of technical innovation — though it moves flu­­idly enough, and its drawings have a handcrafted charm...

16. Game On

No amount of sharpening can save this dull blade.

Samurai Warriors: KATANA

By Gary Hodges

Published: January 30, 2008

The very first time I saw the Wii's motion-sensitive "Wiimote," a single thought bounced in my head like a toddler on corn syrup: Finally we're gonna get an f-ing brilliant lightsaber...

17. Homespun

Kevin Bowers

Nine Story Building
(self-released)

By Christian Schaeffer

Published: January 30, 2008

Kevin Bowers is perhaps best known as the drummer for local trio the Feed, but his solo outings prove he's a singer-songwriter with a skill for arrangements and a penchant for genre-hopping....

18. Keep It Down

Bartles & James Fuzzy Navel Flavored Malt Cooler

By Malcolm Gay

Published: January 30, 2008

For those of you unable to measure the hours by the Cinnabon at the multiplex last weekend, I'm here to tell you (spoiler alert!): John Rambo has Burma's back. Now, as anyone with...

19. Ask a Mexican

Yo quiero Chihuahuas!

A tale of the toughest dog in North America.

Published: January 30, 2008

Dear Readers: Mucho feedback from ustedes regarding recent questions about archetypical Mexican dogs and the propensity of wabs to D.U.I. Let's empezar with the doggies: Dear Mexican:...

20. Music

Band of Horses finds its rhythm from evolution.

Ben Bridwell points out there's no "me" in "band."

By Shae Moseley

Published: January 30, 2008

Ben Bridwell is inspired. Not from overcoming his checkered past and migratory youth, or by anything particularly grandiose, hip or politically charged. But when reached by phone in...