Farewell to Frederick's
The little lounge on Chippewa is history, but its impact on the local music scene lives on.
A version of this story appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 19, 2006
The room is empty now.
Over the piano, three women painted on the cinderblock wall stare at no one. The singing deer head is silent. The bubble machine, which broke some months back, has already been removed.
The beer signage and other pop culture detritus – a Johnny Cash poster, the head of a Star Trek Borg figure wearing a paper Steak ‘n' Shake hat, a speed limit sign, various Christmas decorations, a giant cardboard spark plug (“improved spark!”) – remains for now, but will soon be put into storage or returned to whoever left it behind in the first place. Original paintings, some of questionable taste, will have to come down, as will the chalkboard drink menu which for the last few weeks has carried the slogan, “The end is near (screw that, let’s get drunk).” Until it is unplugged or emptied of CDs, however, you can still play a bootleg recording of Uncle Tupelo’s “I Drink Stag” on the jukebox.
The liquor bottles behind the bar have dwindled to a few. From the ceiling still hangs perhaps the dirtiest sweat sock west of the Mississippi as well as the room’s signature decorating choice – a selection of women’s undergarments donated to the cause or, um, left behind.
Bereft of patrons, the place has the look of a slightly naughty rumpus room – which is more or less what it was. True, it was business, a bar, and a place where both local and touring rock and country bands could play and sell their wares. But thanks to its host, Fred Boettcher, Jr., better known as Fred Friction, whatever was going on inside Frederick’s Music Lounge always had the feel of a private party that everyone could attend.
A lounge divided cannot stand
Frederick’s is shuttered forever, and pending a few dotted i’s and crossed t’s, will be sold. The familiar south side hangout is owned by Friction and his five siblings, left to them in 2000 by the late Fred Boettcher, Sr., who ran the Music Lounge in his own inimitable fashion for 16 years. Though other avenues were investigated, selling the building, which includes the attached house where Friction lives, proved to be the only way each of them could finally receive their full inheritance.
Left somewhat in the lurch, however, is the St. Louis music scene, which has lost another venue where original music was valued and nurtured.
“That was one of the things that Freddy did right,” says Paul Stark, who until recently managed the bar’s business affairs while Friction booked the bands and worked the room. “He found bands that nobody knew, they came to St. Louis and, even if they had really poor attendance in the beginning, he kept bringing them back and it would grow from there.”
Certainly the musicians appreciated Friction’s taste and loyalty. It wasn’t unusual for members of bands to come by on off nights and, even when Friction attempted to wave them in for free, offer to pay anyway – a sure sign of respect and a desire for the venue to remain solvent.
“I said from the stage one night that I thought Fred contributed more to St. Louis culture than anyone from the Kiel Group ever did,” says John Wendland, who played at Frederick’s with his bands Rough Shop and One Fell Swoop. “I was serious about that. You lose a little something every time a place like that goes away. It was a diamond in the rough and I don’t know if people appreciated it the way that they should have.”
Attendance was never consistent at Frederick’s. Some nights there were more people on stage than there were in the audience. The equipment, too, was sometimes found wanting.
“The stage was small. The PA could feed back and be a real bear to work with. The mikes sometimes were ungrounded,” says Chris Grabau, who played there with Magnolia Summer, Waterloo, and other bands. “But it didn’t matter. When you went to Fred’s, you went because there was music there, but also because there was this community and this whole vibe that went beyond the music.
Inspired by Cicero's
“Community” is a word you hear a lot from people who attended Frederick’s on a regular basis. In some sense, that community had been looking for another place to meet ever since Cicero’s moved from its original location – the basement space that is now Blueberry Hill’s Duck Room.
“I wanted to recreate the feel of the old Cicero’s – that camaraderie – but in a place that didn’t have graffiti on the walls and had clean toilets,” says Friction. “We accomplished that and we got something done in the past five years that I’m very proud of.”
Even before he ran Frederick’s, the rail thin Friction was a familiar figure on the local scene thanks to his stint as drummer for the Highway Matrons and an itinerant spoon player who sat in with anyone and everyone. He says the thing he’ll take from Frederick’s is “a lifetime of memories from everybody who has come through these doors and people that I’ve met from across the country – who’ve been here and gone and come back and decided that this tiny little space was where they’d prefer to play as opposed to a larger capacity venue. There was something here that wasn’t all about the money, and that is very gratifying.”
Bob Reuter, who played the Music Lounge as a solo act, with his bands Kamikaze Cowboy and the Dirty South, and often hosted Noiseday Hootenanny, the bar’s open mike night, agrees.
“At Frederick's, the musician is king," he says. "There was a green room – originally Fred’s living room – where bands could hang out, drink, smoke and God knows what all. Occasionally the tip bucket would spontaneously get sent around when attendance was light, just so the touring band could make some gas money to get to their next stop. Bands drank for free, which made no sense from a business standpoint, but was one of the points Fred stood firm on.”
As for those drinks, there were at least two that were unique to Frederick’s: the indelicately named Cock Soup, which was made with chicken broth – “It tasted like crap,” Friction allows – and the equally horrific sounding Pabst Smir, an unholy mixture of Pabst beer, Smirnoff vodka and grapefruit juice, served in a glass rimmed with jalapeno jelly. “Initially we were going to garnish it with a speculum,” Friction says.
The bar had other quirks as well. For a while, the only way to get in was to ring the buzzer on the front door and explain why you wanted to enter. Another experiment was to replace the cover charge with an “exit fee” that encouraged patrons to leave behind whatever they didn’t spend at the bar.
Those patrons may not have taken to the exit fee, but they did take to Frederick’s. For them it was a place to hear some music, hang out with regulars, and be themselves.
“Someone called me a couple weeks ago and asked me ‘What kind of crowd do you get there?’” Friction says. “I said, ‘Well, you know, late 20s, early 30s, 40s.’ They said, ‘More of a mature crowd?’ I said, ‘No, an older crowd that likes to act immature.’ We’ve always been blessed with a clientele that likes to act like they’re four years old, but they’re respectful of others. They know when to stop.”
The Moment Passes
Last Saturday night, it was time to stop for good. But not before giving the place a fitting send-off. About a hundred patrons – regulars as well as a number of newbies wanting to get in on the fun before it was too late – crowded into Frederick’s for one last time.
“This is like the final Uncle Tupelo shows, which were sold out though they’d never sold out before,” one regular said. “Who are these people?”
As opening bands Fertilizer Bomb and the Saps played, Friction was nowhere to be seen, preferring to hang out in the green room and drink with friends and the headlining group, Two Cow Garage. A couple of the celebrants asked Friction for some hair clippers and proceeded to give themselves impromptu Mohawks, then drew on their foreheads with magic markers. In short, it was a typical night.
When Two Cow Garage – an Ohio band that Friction said he “raised like kids” hit the stage, they adapted Will Johnson’s “I Sure Enjoyed You” to express their affection for Friction. As they played, Friction made his entrance from the green room and down the stairs, looking dapper in a coat, tie, and wraparound shades.
“There are places and there are places and there are places,” bassist Shane Sweeney said from the stage. “But sometimes places become transcendent parts of a community. Everybody I know in St. Louis, I met at Frederick’s.”
As their set roared toward its conclusion, Friction joined them onstage and announced, “We’re out of Stag. I think you all know what that means.”
The staff hugged and cried as Friction held his wife, Kathleen, on the dance floor and the band played the Beatles’ “Don’t Let Me Down.” Friction called for one more song, at the bartenders’ insistence. The band obliged, offering Poison’s “Talk Dirty to Me.”
Friction returned to the stage and essentially tackled the band, knocking them to the floor and crashing into the drum kit. Somehow, they kept playing. Friction gathered himself and dove into the audience, crowd surfing back to the bar where he was handed a beer, which he downed while still held aloft.
It was a Moment, to be sure. Too bad for everyone who loved Frederick’s Music Lounge, it was the last of its kind.
The little lounge on Chippewa is history, but its impact on the local music scene lives on.
A version of this story appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 19, 2006
The room is empty now.
Over the piano, three women painted on the cinderblock wall stare at no one. The singing deer head is silent. The bubble machine, which broke some months back, has already been removed.
The beer signage and other pop culture detritus – a Johnny Cash poster, the head of a Star Trek Borg figure wearing a paper Steak ‘n' Shake hat, a speed limit sign, various Christmas decorations, a giant cardboard spark plug (“improved spark!”) – remains for now, but will soon be put into storage or returned to whoever left it behind in the first place. Original paintings, some of questionable taste, will have to come down, as will the chalkboard drink menu which for the last few weeks has carried the slogan, “The end is near (screw that, let’s get drunk).” Until it is unplugged or emptied of CDs, however, you can still play a bootleg recording of Uncle Tupelo’s “I Drink Stag” on the jukebox.
The liquor bottles behind the bar have dwindled to a few. From the ceiling still hangs perhaps the dirtiest sweat sock west of the Mississippi as well as the room’s signature decorating choice – a selection of women’s undergarments donated to the cause or, um, left behind.
Bereft of patrons, the place has the look of a slightly naughty rumpus room – which is more or less what it was. True, it was business, a bar, and a place where both local and touring rock and country bands could play and sell their wares. But thanks to its host, Fred Boettcher, Jr., better known as Fred Friction, whatever was going on inside Frederick’s Music Lounge always had the feel of a private party that everyone could attend.
A lounge divided cannot stand
Frederick’s is shuttered forever, and pending a few dotted i’s and crossed t’s, will be sold. The familiar south side hangout is owned by Friction and his five siblings, left to them in 2000 by the late Fred Boettcher, Sr., who ran the Music Lounge in his own inimitable fashion for 16 years. Though other avenues were investigated, selling the building, which includes the attached house where Friction lives, proved to be the only way each of them could finally receive their full inheritance.
Left somewhat in the lurch, however, is the St. Louis music scene, which has lost another venue where original music was valued and nurtured.
“That was one of the things that Freddy did right,” says Paul Stark, who until recently managed the bar’s business affairs while Friction booked the bands and worked the room. “He found bands that nobody knew, they came to St. Louis and, even if they had really poor attendance in the beginning, he kept bringing them back and it would grow from there.”
Certainly the musicians appreciated Friction’s taste and loyalty. It wasn’t unusual for members of bands to come by on off nights and, even when Friction attempted to wave them in for free, offer to pay anyway – a sure sign of respect and a desire for the venue to remain solvent.
“I said from the stage one night that I thought Fred contributed more to St. Louis culture than anyone from the Kiel Group ever did,” says John Wendland, who played at Frederick’s with his bands Rough Shop and One Fell Swoop. “I was serious about that. You lose a little something every time a place like that goes away. It was a diamond in the rough and I don’t know if people appreciated it the way that they should have.”
Attendance was never consistent at Frederick’s. Some nights there were more people on stage than there were in the audience. The equipment, too, was sometimes found wanting.
“The stage was small. The PA could feed back and be a real bear to work with. The mikes sometimes were ungrounded,” says Chris Grabau, who played there with Magnolia Summer, Waterloo, and other bands. “But it didn’t matter. When you went to Fred’s, you went because there was music there, but also because there was this community and this whole vibe that went beyond the music.
Inspired by Cicero's
“Community” is a word you hear a lot from people who attended Frederick’s on a regular basis. In some sense, that community had been looking for another place to meet ever since Cicero’s moved from its original location – the basement space that is now Blueberry Hill’s Duck Room.
“I wanted to recreate the feel of the old Cicero’s – that camaraderie – but in a place that didn’t have graffiti on the walls and had clean toilets,” says Friction. “We accomplished that and we got something done in the past five years that I’m very proud of.”
Even before he ran Frederick’s, the rail thin Friction was a familiar figure on the local scene thanks to his stint as drummer for the Highway Matrons and an itinerant spoon player who sat in with anyone and everyone. He says the thing he’ll take from Frederick’s is “a lifetime of memories from everybody who has come through these doors and people that I’ve met from across the country – who’ve been here and gone and come back and decided that this tiny little space was where they’d prefer to play as opposed to a larger capacity venue. There was something here that wasn’t all about the money, and that is very gratifying.”
Bob Reuter, who played the Music Lounge as a solo act, with his bands Kamikaze Cowboy and the Dirty South, and often hosted Noiseday Hootenanny, the bar’s open mike night, agrees.
“At Frederick's, the musician is king," he says. "There was a green room – originally Fred’s living room – where bands could hang out, drink, smoke and God knows what all. Occasionally the tip bucket would spontaneously get sent around when attendance was light, just so the touring band could make some gas money to get to their next stop. Bands drank for free, which made no sense from a business standpoint, but was one of the points Fred stood firm on.”
As for those drinks, there were at least two that were unique to Frederick’s: the indelicately named Cock Soup, which was made with chicken broth – “It tasted like crap,” Friction allows – and the equally horrific sounding Pabst Smir, an unholy mixture of Pabst beer, Smirnoff vodka and grapefruit juice, served in a glass rimmed with jalapeno jelly. “Initially we were going to garnish it with a speculum,” Friction says.
The bar had other quirks as well. For a while, the only way to get in was to ring the buzzer on the front door and explain why you wanted to enter. Another experiment was to replace the cover charge with an “exit fee” that encouraged patrons to leave behind whatever they didn’t spend at the bar.
Those patrons may not have taken to the exit fee, but they did take to Frederick’s. For them it was a place to hear some music, hang out with regulars, and be themselves.
“Someone called me a couple weeks ago and asked me ‘What kind of crowd do you get there?’” Friction says. “I said, ‘Well, you know, late 20s, early 30s, 40s.’ They said, ‘More of a mature crowd?’ I said, ‘No, an older crowd that likes to act immature.’ We’ve always been blessed with a clientele that likes to act like they’re four years old, but they’re respectful of others. They know when to stop.”
The Moment Passes
Last Saturday night, it was time to stop for good. But not before giving the place a fitting send-off. About a hundred patrons – regulars as well as a number of newbies wanting to get in on the fun before it was too late – crowded into Frederick’s for one last time.
“This is like the final Uncle Tupelo shows, which were sold out though they’d never sold out before,” one regular said. “Who are these people?”
As opening bands Fertilizer Bomb and the Saps played, Friction was nowhere to be seen, preferring to hang out in the green room and drink with friends and the headlining group, Two Cow Garage. A couple of the celebrants asked Friction for some hair clippers and proceeded to give themselves impromptu Mohawks, then drew on their foreheads with magic markers. In short, it was a typical night.
When Two Cow Garage – an Ohio band that Friction said he “raised like kids” hit the stage, they adapted Will Johnson’s “I Sure Enjoyed You” to express their affection for Friction. As they played, Friction made his entrance from the green room and down the stairs, looking dapper in a coat, tie, and wraparound shades.
“There are places and there are places and there are places,” bassist Shane Sweeney said from the stage. “But sometimes places become transcendent parts of a community. Everybody I know in St. Louis, I met at Frederick’s.”
As their set roared toward its conclusion, Friction joined them onstage and announced, “We’re out of Stag. I think you all know what that means.”
The staff hugged and cried as Friction held his wife, Kathleen, on the dance floor and the band played the Beatles’ “Don’t Let Me Down.” Friction called for one more song, at the bartenders’ insistence. The band obliged, offering Poison’s “Talk Dirty to Me.”
Friction returned to the stage and essentially tackled the band, knocking them to the floor and crashing into the drum kit. Somehow, they kept playing. Friction gathered himself and dove into the audience, crowd surfing back to the bar where he was handed a beer, which he downed while still held aloft.
It was a Moment, to be sure. Too bad for everyone who loved Frederick’s Music Lounge, it was the last of its kind.