I heard some news tonight that saddened me. Frederick’s Music Lounge, a great old dive bar at 4454 Chippewa (Route 66) in St. Louis, closed last Saturday.
Frederick’s was a family-owned bar for many years. One report in December from the Riverfront Times said the place had been put up for sale. Fred Boettcher Jr., aka Fred Friction, was the current proprieter. Fred, incidentally, is a member of the Highway Matrons band and a guest DJ at KDHX-FM in St. Louis.
Frederick’s was a favorite hangout for St. Louis-area musicians, and it also hosted live music in spite of it not being a lot bigger than many living rooms.
Here’s a story in the The Webster Journal about Frederick’s. Here’s another in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Both should give you a feel for the place’s atmosphere.
Fred hosted Elvis impersonator Mark Curran when Curran needed a venue in St. Louis during his Route 66 tour in 2002. Here’s one picture from that gig. Here’s another; both photos were taken by occasional Route 66 News contributor Emily Priddy. I wasn’t there, but Curran’s show was reportedly a great time.
One of my favorite memories was taking Chicago-area writer Tim Steil to Frederick’s when he was doing research on his “Highway 61 Revisited” book. Steil was going to track down Brian Henneman of the roots-rock band Bottle Rockets for an interview for the book. I knew that Henneman was performing with a classic-country side project, Diesel Island, at Frederick’s that night. We all went there, drank a few Stag beers, Steil interviewed Henneman, and Diesel Island tore into covers of Glen Campbell’s “Southern Nights,” Don Williams’ “Tulsa Time” and plenty of Merle Haggard. Good times.
Hopefully, someone will reopen Frederick’s and keep its funkiness.
UPDATE: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has some recollections from Frederick’s customers.
UPDATE: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has posted a story about Frederick’s closing.
Man…
That is some sad news. Fredrick’s was a great basement dive that seemed to a variety of really cool…if unheard of..bands.
Fred Friction was and is the real deal, a true character. Don’t the circumstances of it’s closing, but it is sad to see.
I suppose we all look at these sorts of places, and consider how cool and unique they are, yet we arent the ones who have to sit down every week and do the payroll and write checks to the beer distributors.
If there is a lesson to be learned, I guess it’s support the ones you love by opening your wallets once in a while.
Also Ron, if you have any details on how exactly I got back to the motel that night other than when you and Emily said “the interstate is that way”, I’d love to hear them.
tim
Beats me. The Stag beer I quaffed that night made my memory fuzzy.
You probably made it to you motel safely because you didn’t imbibe in any of Fred’s mixed drinks, such as the Butt Pucker (butterscotch schnapps and Apple Pucker) and the Pabst Smir (PBR and Smirnoff vodka).
By the way, my iPod on a recent road trip randomly dialed into a few Bottle Rockets songs. Talk about songs that age extremely well … Brian Henneman is my hero.
I just remembered this … the opening band that night at Fred’s (the name escapes me) did a very cool cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Heartbreaker.” It tapped into the song’s darkness admirably.