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You can check that out HERE.
In the meantime, I'd like to get to know more about Merry Old England. So that means they use a lot of superfluous U's.
1. St. Louis City is my hometown. I've lived here for most of my life in and around the city. Where are you from?
Me (Jon) and Craig are initially from Worcestershire, where we lived until we were 18 or 19, then moved down to Kingston in South West London.
We were studying at the time, and met Gavin in a pub here, after noticing he was wearing a Neurosis tshirt. We called him ‘Neurosis Guy’ between ourselves for a while, before we were properly acquainted.
Gav is originally from South West London, but spent some years living in New Jersey before we met him.
2. We have three things that don't really exist anywhere else: the slinger, the gooey butter cake, and toasted ravioli. Tell me about your hometown delicacy.
London is such a diverse place, you can get hold of pretty much anything you’d ever desire to find, food-wise. Worcester though, is home to the world famous Lea and Perrins Worcestershire Sauce.
For those yet to try it, it’s a dark, fermented sauce with a savoury and sweet tang. It’s absolutely dynamite on cheese on toast, or spaghetti Bolognese.
I had to google what a St. Louis slinger was, but I think Worcestershire sauce would totally work on that too! (ed note: that's utter fucking blasphemy and I love Worcestershire Sauce.)
3. In St. Louis, though there have been others. Our biggest hometown team is the St. Louis Cardinals (formerly the St. Louis Perfectos, nee: the St. Louis Browns, not the AL team that moved to Baltimore.) There is nowhere you can go to escape it. I'm a hockey fan, not a baseball fan, so it's a bit weird to me. Tell me about your hometown's big team.
None of us are especially big sports fans, truth be told. That being said though, London in general has so many sports teams and hosts a lot of events.
Some are more visible than others. The Wimbledon tennis championship for example – which is hosted really close to us - is so synonymous with summer in England that it’s quite inescapable.
4. St. Louis isn't really known for any one type of music scene. The biggest acts I can think of to get out of here alive were Gravity Kills, Nelly and the St. Lunatics, and Sheryl Crow. There's always been a vibrant concert scene though. What about where you are?
In Kingston we have a few solid bands actually. There’s Wound, who Craig and Gavin also play guitar and bass for respectively; a hardcore band with members of Silent Front and a number of other projects from the area.
We also have Ophiukhus and Grimsteed, the former being a progressive black death metal band, and the latter melodic black metal. Back in Worcester there wasn’t really ever a scene for any specific kind of music, especially when it comes to more underground genres.
There were a handful of local bands doing things but that was about it, no-one really got out to play elsewhere, but that’s changed a little now.
There’s Misanthropic Existence who have gotten a release out and appeared on some of the more extreme bills, such as Incineration Fest in London, and Soden, who are fairly active around the country as well.
5. 20 years ago, St. Louis had about 300 murders each year, floods, and all sorts of other fun things. You might have heard about us being named the Murder Capital of the USA. Nowadays, a lot here is 150. But there are lots of parts of the city that are returning to former glory. On the whole, St. Louis is a better place to live today than before. Is there anything like that where you're from?
Where we’re based now, things are pretty relaxed and fairly unremarkable in terms of any sinister goings-on. There’s a fascinating incident which took place in Lower Quinton, which is a small village close to Worcester. On Valentine’s Day in 1945, the body of farm labourer Charles Walton was discovered pinned to the ground with a pitchfork, his chest and neck slashed in the shape of a cross.
Due to the unusual and brutal nature of the crime, senior detectives were called in in an attempt to solve the case, but were greeted with a wall of silence upon interviewing the entire village’s population.
It’s been suggested that the motive for the murder was that of witchcraft. The crime itself bears a striking resemblance to an earlier killing in the neighbouring village Long Compton, in which a woman was pinned to the ground with a pitch fork, and cut in the shape of a cross for suspicion of being a witch, blaming her for cattle deaths and crop failures. Total Wicker Man vibes, and the crime was never solved.
6. Are you still there?
We’re still in Kingston now, yes. It’s a cool place to live and has most of the perks of living in London with relatively few of the drawbacks.
It’s not too busy, but it’s a relatively easy journey to places like Camden, where a lot of the venues are located.
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