A whole mess of sound

At least the spirit of music isn't dead in the Loop. For four days in September 9oish bands will descend onto the neighborhood for a festival of epic proportions. Well, epic for St. Louis, anyway. The PLAY:stl fest runs the 15-18, though it remains to be seen how this will compare to the RFT Showcase. The low, low price of $20 gets you in to see all this glory. I'll admit it's a good deal, but that's versus a simple five spot for the RFT. And this thing is sponsored by Sam Adams. Again, I have to admit that it's a good beer, but we've got plenty of good beer a lot closer to home. I'm not convinced this is not a plot masterminded by Joe Edwards. Now that the RFT deal has moved elsewhere he's free to make a bunch more money off of anyone wanting to see a pile of bands in the Loop? Just a little wild speculation, though it remains to be seen what the real story is. Now that the schedule is up there are a whole lot of bands I don't know... but that could be good! If they're cool, what an intense period of new music discovery it would be. Most notably I see Art Majors are playing, been looking forward to seeing them for a minute. Might be worth checkin' out...