Best Of 2006

How could the Sex Robots' self-titled full-length be anything but fun? Just look at the album art: black-and-white photos of the trio exploding popcorn-kernel style on the cover; a color scheme that's a festive cotton-candy pink, orange and yellow; and the band's logo bursting forth with a cartoonish nod to the Batman TV show's pow! biff! bang! graphics. Fittingly, the punk-pop speedballs contained within are equally jaunty—seeing how they're inspired by the Replacements' shambling moments, the '50s-goes-punk sounds of Blondie and the concise pop nuggets of U.K. legends the Undertones and Buzzcocks. But the Sex Robots' secret weapon is their ability to craft the kind of hooks that refuse to leave your head—whether it's the sweet refrain of "Take Me Out Dancin'" or the centerpiece of the bitter buzz saw that is "I Won't Say I Heart You Back." For a sampling, visit the band's MySpace page,
Ruka Puff's live show has always been outstanding: He tears the shirt off his flabby chest and crunks it up to eleven. The only rap against the mohawk-sporting, Hoo Bangin' Records MC is that the production on his debut, Escaped: Off the Chains, wasn't up to snuff. But that was forgotten with the release of his recent single, "Like a Pro," an explosive dance-floor anthem in which Ruka imparts that he's "looking for a girl that'll rub my belly!" The song even earned spins on the local corporate hip-hop stations—no mean feat. For this, we declare "Like a Pro" the Ted Drewes of crunk jams: local, thick and superior.
Because HotCity Theatre's GreenHouse staging of Skin in Flames, an intense Spanish drama written by Guillem Clua in response to America's invasion of Iraq, was an American premiere, everything about the work-in-progress was a surprise. But as a poverty-stricken Third World factory worker, Julie Layton's spectral portrayal transcended surprise and approached revelation. Layton is a staple in the local acting community; her sprightly turns often elicit adjectives like "charming," "delightful" and, well, "sprightly." But there was nothing winsome about Ida, a timid young woman sadistically exploited by a sexual predator. Required to excavate the dark shafts of her soul, Layton rose to the challenge with a performance that shamed the viewer, just as Ida had been shamed. Layton elevated an anonymous nonentity into a heroine worthy of Greek tragedy. Her shattering work left a raw scar on the memory that, many months later, refuses to heal.
With this year's release of Test Presses and Dub Plates—an album eight years in the making that features collaborations with everyone from MF Doom to MC Eiht—DJ Crucial went from being St. Louis' best hip-hop DJ to being our best hip-hop artist. The album's transitions, scratches and (most impressively) production show that Crucial is hip-hop's Steve Nash; in other words, he makes everyone around him better. A longtime DJ at Blueberry Hill's Friday-night party, The Science, he now boasts props from national publications such as URB, XXL and Scratch. Folks around the nation are becoming hip to what we've known for years: Much like Cleveland, Crucial rocks.
Jake Wagman is your prototypical old-school reporter—scrappy, dogged, endlessly prolific. He also embodies the quintessential rumpled look, as if he just rolled out of bed or stayed up all night banging out the last few grafs for a Sunday banner story. The frenetic newshound prowls the corridors of city hall, eternally on his cell phone, a pen in his mouth, a stained cup of joe in one hand, a tape recorder in the other. His prose is clean and dispassionate, particularly when the assignment involves government or political coverage (which is often). Wagman is what we in the biz call a hard-news guy. As such, he has a flair for taking a snoozer of a story—a school bond issue, a tax battle, an arcane piece of legislation—and turning it into something, well, interesting. When Jeff Smith won his race for the state senate, Wagman observed, "Watching Jeff Smith's victory party, it was hard to tell whether he had won a race for the Legislature or for student council. College-aged kids were drinking beer and chasing each other with water guns. A live band belted out 'Free Bird' [sic]. And there was Smith—playing the drums. St. Louis, meet your next state senator." Our Wagman of the Year award goes to his dispatch about the four-foot lizard on the lam, which began: "It's still not a good time to be a bird in the Compton Heights neighborhood of St. Louis."