The Creepy Crawl Apartments For Rent - Downtown, Saint Louis, Missouri

Posted by Justin Habersaat on January 28, 2009 22:42

You've seen them around your apartment complex on more than one occasion...skateboard in hand, brightly colored mohawk standing stiffly at attention, chain wallet dangling...ah, the punk rockers. Sneers seem to be their currency, loud music their stock and trade. They sport t-shirts for such ragingly-named bands as Hatebreed, Blood For Blood and Bad Religion, and while you openly admit to being a fan of such classics as The Ramones and

The Clash, it's been a few years since you've peaked your head into the underground music scene. Well, old timer, just ask any of your fellow, albeit fashionably-questionable, St. Louis-area apartment-ites where to go for punk rock and you're likely to get a loudly shouted group cheer of "The Creepy Crawl!", followed, just as likely, by a dismissive laugh.

The aptly named Creepy Crawl has been the go-to joint for touring punk and indie bands for over a decade. Dealing in all things loud and snotty, the Crawl recently shed its legendarily dingy hall for a surprisingly well-scrubbed building in mid-town St. Louis. Currently more resembling a multi-windowed art gallery than a graffiti-covered dive, the venue's open floor plan and low-priced cocktails might soon lead to a moniker change to the "Cheapy Sprawl".

Still the premier spot for St. Louis-area apartment-ites eager for a fix from their local purveyors of punk, the Crawl has hosted such legendary acts as Pennywise, H2O and, of course, even The Misfits. The sound system is, unsurprisingly, permanently cranked to just below ear bleed, although the mostly all-ages crowd hardly seems to notice as they pogo towards the rafters in unison. The bartenders card heavily given the under-age crowd (and rightly so), so don't forget your I.D. at your apartment less thee miss out on absurdly low-priced tallboys of PBR.

Open from 4:30 until 3 a.m. every night of the week, the Crawl is also the perfect low-key place to stop off for a nightcap on the way home to your apartment. Cover charges, in keeping with the DIY theme, rarely top $8 and usually hover around five bucks. And while a lot of the younger local bands are, shall we say, still in the rough early stages of developing their 'sound', you'll at least be able to namedrop them to those same kids doing rail slides off your apartment's picnic tables. While it's doubtful you'll be invited to run and get your board, you might just score enough scene points to be dubbed "the cool guy" of the apartment complex.