Cat’s Meow

To encourage people to land at Karma and the Beach Club at the end of the night, she has started booking some of her favorite DJs. At the Beach Club, soul-funk-Afrobeat specialist Oz McGuire, punk-rock king Rico and the charismatic Brodie Rush (who's never had a regular DJ gig before) are the new additions. They hold down the weeknights; live salsa flares up on weekends. At Karma, Robert Moore, host of KCUR's Sonic Spectrum free-form radio show, rocks Wednesday nights. A recent Friday brought electronic-dance-music maestro Steve Thorell, and Saturdays belong to Simpson's favorite DJ, Mike Just. (Just, by the way, was in command those Saturday nights when the chicks got on the tables.)

In the end, there's only so much that one person can do to keep a Midwestern city's nightlife from going down the shiny-shirt, velvet-rope and bottle-service drain. But luckily, our music scene is young, and with Cat Simpson on its side, we may not have to go out strangling beautiful people with guitar strings anytime soon.