This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, March 5, 2009 - It only seems as if Fred Friction's been around forever.
By the late '80s, the re-dubbed Frederick Boettcher Jr. had become known as a spoons player of some skill, one who might show up on any bill in town, especially at rooms like Off Broadway, Blueberry Hill's Elvis Room or Cicero's Basement.
Events like his Night of 1,000 Spoons only cemented his reputation as one of St. Louis' beloved public personalities, with a hard-partyin' reputation to go along with his offbeat (and not inconsiderable) talents.
His co-founded band, the Highway Matrons, would be a popular one on local stages through the '90s. And around the beginning part of this decade, he had taken on the booking of the his late father's Frederick's Music Lounge, a funky hole-in-the-wall on Chippewa that gained a national reputation as an artist-friendly, if tiny, club in the middle of a South City neighborhood.
When the venue shuttered, you'd still find Friction around town, sitting in on open mics, sometimes reading poetry at bars. Through most of that time, his KDHX show, "Fishin' with Dynamite," locked down Thursdays on 88.1 fm.
But the last month-and-change has brought Friction fully into the local spotlight again, with the release of his solo CD "Jesus Drank Wine"; and the opening of Fred's Six Foot Under, a suitably quirky club underneath the acclaimed Iron Barley restaurant.
As for the latter, Friction says (with a wink) that the room's got "capacity of 30. That's official capacity. Once we get to one person over, we go to the owner, ask him for cash for the cover, then ask him to leave."
That owner is Tom Coghill, the hyper-talented, sometimes-gruff, always-entertaining chef and proprietor of the Iron Barley. Having already turned his backyard into an unusual-looking summer biergarten, Coghill decided to turn a storage space in his restaurant's basement into a music club. He turned to Friction to provide the room a name, a face and a consistent booking policy.
"There were shelves all over the place," says Friction. "When I first saw it, I shook my head and didn't think it was possible. Thought 'someday,' not a couple months down the road."
Instead, Coghill went right to work, emptying out the space, roughing in a bar and giving it the kind of funky edge that perfectly complemented the Barley, itself.
"It was all ready to go," Friction says. "I was amazed he could do that in such a short period of time. When he did that, I could see it as possibly being a music room."
Though the initial push was quick, the city of St. Louis held up the opening for months, and subsequent paperwork kept the club from debuting until Jan. 16 of this year. Since then, the room's served as a spill room for the restaurant (you can dine down there on busy evenings) and as a Friday-Saturday night music club. As with Frederick's, Friction's venue caters to an alt-country or Americana core of artists, from solo acts to six-piece bands like the Sins of the Pioneers, who fan off of the club's pocket-sized "stage."
While the club bears an unmistakable Friction stamp -- down to the lighters that he has hanging from hooks in the ceiling -- the smoky little venue is still Coghill's, not Friction's, a fact that the club's namesake is quite OK with, saying "I wanted to get back in (to the business) with a small, intimate room. And this is enjoyable to do, without too much to hurdle. Bigger isn't always better.
"He's got a good thing going, a good product. And he wanted to expand. Thankfully, I'm one of the people included in the expansion of a music-oriented room. I gravitated toward him."
Happy to share the credit for Fred's Six Foot Under with Coghill, Friction has another combination effort with the album "Jesus Drank Wine. He worked throughout the process with recording engineer Patrick Crecelius. While the latter added simple, needed organization and lots of sonic touches to the work, it's clearly Friction's baby, a dozen-cut effort that finds the songwriter on vocals, guitar and just a bit of percussion.
"We did everything ass-backwards," says a deadpanning Friction. "We recorded 11 tracks in one day, on vocals and acoustic guitar. Every Sunday, I'd go to work with Patrick, who was trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. That's not the usual way things are done."
But after months of steady efforts, "Jesus Drank Wine" was complete, with a host of guest players adding small, key parts to the songs. From pedal steels and mandolins to electronic treatments by Eric Hall, the album's cuts are squarely focused on Friction's inimitable voice, but with enough variance in sound to make it a unique listen.
After drumming and guesting on a variety of works over the years, the solo CD was a much-desired end-result for Friction.
"The opportunity presented itself," he figures. "It's something I wanted to accomplish before I die. I wanted it done right, but not in a perfectionist manner. All of the people on there, I approached. I had parts in mind for each of them on a particular song. And every one of them said, 'I'll be there.' That validation from people I respect so much is more important to me than anything. If I only sell two copies, I accomplished it with peers I respect."
That both projects - his bar, his album - took a bit of time to complete is alright with him. If anything, it's the way Fred Friction would want it.
"I'm very patient," he says, pulling a drag from one of his ever-present Salem Light 100s. "I like to work on something, then see it spring on somebody like a card trick."
Thomas Crone is a freelance writer.