Anne Tkach

In 1997 I fulfilled a childhood dream and finally moved to the 

city of St. Louis. At the time I was spending most of my time

painting and didn’t know anyone in the city except for a few

skateboarders. Around the block from where I lived was 

some rinky dink gallery and I got involved with them. Sure

enough in a few months the guy running the place had

disappeared along with money and all kinds of items that 

belonged to a number of people including myself. That’s 

when I decided to switch back to music and start a band. 

Not knowing one musician in St. Louis, I convinced two friends 

from my hometown of Jackson to move to St. Louis and play 

music with me. It was from this decision that I met so many 

of my current friends, including Anne Tkach.

The first time I saw her was at Frederick’s Music Lounge. I 

had just moved in down the street and both Frederick’s and 

Lemmons was in walking distance of the rented house. 

During this time the band she was in, Nadine, were very 

active and would play occasionally at Fred’s. Nadine was a

real band in every sense of the word, real recordings, real 

CDs, real shows, real manager, real tours, the whole real thing. 

I was very new to this scene and didn’t know a soul. I was

way too timid and shy to talk to any of the band members, 

but that didn’t stop Anne from talking to me. From there we’d

bump into each at Fred’s, Lemmons, Way Out Club and Chris

Deckard’s studio, Radio Penny. The first show I played with

her was at Lemmons when they were having bands play in

the basement, she was filling in with Deckard’s band, Incorporated

and my goofy band was playing also. I still remember walking

to Lemmons from my house thinking, “Wow, playing a show

with Anne”.

After a while I gave up being in a band and went back to painting. 

The first pieces I painted during this time was a series of musicians

who I had met while playing in bands. These musicians were not

only in bands I’d go see as a fan, but they were real people

who I had gotten to know, spend time with and love with all

my heart. The first batch of paintings included, Mark Stephens,

Fred Friction, Jason Hutto, Eric Hall, Chris Deckard and

of course Anne.

Our friendship blossomed when she started playing in a band

called Bad Folk. She played drums in this band, and Holy Shit

could she play the drums. I would talk to her about it and she’d

just kind of brush it off. The whole idea of Bad Folk was everyone

in the band was playing an instrument they didn’t normally play.

But Anne was so damn talented that you would think she was

drumming all her life. The band contacted me to do some

artwork for them and over the course of a couple years I hung

out and worked with them at every opportunity. Their last

album, which was never release, was to feature a painting I had

done specifically for them, but it was not to be. Despite the

album being so amazing, it was never released and the band

broke up. During that time I would hang out at Anne and Adam’s

apartment a lot just talking with them about it all, drinking beers

and generally enjoying their company. I never did understand

what the hell happened to that band, but out of that break, two

phenomenal bands developed, Union Electric and

the great Magic City.

After that time, our relationship was cemented and I just

assumed we’d always be friends until we were both old and

meeting up at the corner tavern. Dare I even say I took for

granted all the times I would see her? Each time we’d always

talk and catch up, have drinks, be goofy, be serious and end

with a big hug. The idea of actually seeing or bumping into

her somewhere was reason enough to get out of bed, she

always made everything better. She truly cared and was

authentic about it, and that’s not just with me, that was with

everyone. That’s how she treated everyone. One time at the

Heavy Anchor she off handily mentioned how she’d like to

jam sometime with me on drums, her on bass and Adam on

keys. After that I always threatened that I was going to show

up on her doorstep one day and take her up on her offer. It

was something I actually dreamed about, thought about all

the time. But of course life gets in the way of stuff like that. 

She never flinched and said, “We’ll be waiting for you”.

The last time I saw her was in January. It was a Sunday night

and kind of late. I got a message from Jaime Lees saying

Hutto was in town and at Ryder’s. I wanted to see him so

I headed down there. Sure enough there was Hutto surrounded

by all these people, it’s always like that. So I grabbed a seat

at the end of the bar to wait for a break to say “hello”. Jaime

was there and we started talking and drinking. Then out of

the corner of my eye, I see someone waving at the other end

of the bar, it was Anne. She got up, walked down and sat

down next to me. We just picked right up from where we left

off the last time we saw each other. We ended up spending the

whole evening together and thankfully Jaime took some photos. 

Photos I’ll cherish forever. I still can’t believe we’ll never see her again.

Now playing – Rough Shop