Jeff Kopp

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Jeff Kopp, better known as "Kopper," (b. July 17, 1965) is a local music fan, concert promoter, disc jockey, blogger and podcaster who has added a lot to the St. Louis underground rock'n'roll scene since the mid-1990s.

Born and raised in the St. Louis metro area, Kopper attended Central Missouri State University (now known as University of Central Missouri) from 1984-1988, graduating with a Bachelor's degree in Broadcasting & Film. He returned home from Warrensburg and got a job working at Streetside Records in Hazelwood, while attending Broadcast Center in St. Louis for a year where he honed his broadcasting skills. It was also during this time that he started booking shows, at that time at the original location of the Bernard Pub. After completing his education at Broadcast Center, he took a job as a DJ at KCHI AM/FM, a classic rock station in Chillicothe, MO. Unhappy with living in a small town and growing increasingly dissatisfied with a career in commercial radio, Kopper decided to quit, and in August of 1990 moved to Lawrence, KS, where he spent the most of his time working as an assistant manager at Pennylane and Streetside Records.

While in Lawrence, Kopper booked occasional punk shows, usually at The Outhouse, a notorious Midwestern punk venue located in the middle of a cornfield outside of town. In fact, Kopper was responsible for booking Green Day's first Lawrence show, getting the band added at the last minute to a bill at The Bottleneck in the fall of 1990, while they were still signed to Lookout Records.

Kopper also lived in Kansas City, MO for a short time, and then he and his wife relocated back to St. Louis for good in the spring of 1994, where he immediately started to become active in the local underground rock scene. Kopper fronted the short-lived garage-punk band, The Pits (which also featured Jason Rerun and Jeff Hess), and formed his own independent record label, Trouble in River City Records which released a 7" single by local surf rockers The Honkeys as well as a stellar compilation of Midwestern garage, punk, surf, and rockabilly bands entitled Landlocked & Loaded! in 2000, which included music from such local rock'n'roll acts as The Trip Daddys, Ded Bugs, The Cripplers, Thee Lordly Serpents, Johnny Magnet, The Geargrinders and 12 Gauge Blues. The label sat dormant for a few years, but may now be picking up steam once again with the recent release of the album Dissatisoul by Left Arm, and the promised future release of an LP by The Nevermores.

In 2000, he, along with the assistance of editor Bob Thurmond and Bill Streeter, helped resurrect and publish Head in a Milk Bottle, an '80s punk fanzine started by Jim Agnew that concentrated on in-depth interviews, reviews and other features on the St. Louis garage and punk scenes. This second volume of the 'zine saw only two issues actually hit the newsstands before money ran out and Issue #3 has yet to be published, even though it was finished.

Kopper also started several influential St. Louis and garage rock-related websites. Inspired by a tourist website triumphing off-the-beaten-path locations in and around Memphis, TN, Kopper established the Lowlife Guide to St. Louis in 1997. The site remained active for several years before giving way to two more sites administered by Kopp: The Trouble in River City music blog and the popular podcast vehicle, GaragePunk.com. He is also an avid fan of hot rods and muscle cars, and formed a local Mopar club, St. Louis Area Mopars after purchasing a 1965 Plymouth Barracuda (his daily driver) in 2002.

But for all of Kopper's contributions to the St. Louis music scene, the most important one may have been his DJ gig on The Wayback Machine, a garage rock radio show that ran on KDHX 88.1 FM from 1995-2006. In addition to being one of the few, if not ONLY, ways to hear garage rock over the airwaves in St. Louis, the show championed the city's underground music scene to an international audience, and inspired the formation of several local bands. When Kopper decided to pack up his mic and call it day, the end of The Wayback Machine left a gaping hole in the St. Louis rock n' roll scene. Several months after leaving KDHX, a new show appeared on the airwaves with a very similar format to The Wayback Machine called Talkin' Trash, hosted by Ashley Hohman of The Vultures. Kopper continues to host his own podcast show, Savage Kick (which is almost identical to the old Wayback Machine) on the GaragePunk Podcast network. In October 2007, he created the Show-Me Blowout, a two-day garage rock music festival he named after an old rock'n'roll music fanzine published by Deke Dickerson. The Show-Me Blowout festival showcased underground bands from across the state of Missouri and happened at Off Broadway music club.

Kopper was also made a sysop of WikiLou by Michael Peters in December of 2006.

External Links

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