Pitter's rechristenes as downtown's first 'Barcade'

If JJ Seabaugh had seen the young people, tongues sticking out, hunched over the glowing pinball machines, it's safe to say he would have smiled.

Granted, he smiles a lot, but the way they were focused and shook down spectators for spare quarters seemed like a good sign. It seemed to suggest that his decision to expand Pitter's Café and Lounge into what he's dubbed Cape Girardeau's first "barcade" was a good idea.

But the owner of what is now Pitter's Barcade and Performing Arts Center couldn't see the players because it was Wednesday -- Open Mic Night -- and he had jumped onstage to play drums for an impromptu pickup band who jokingly called themselves "The Dicks."

JJ's brother Timexx couldn't see them either. He was busy manning the soundboard, nodding and sliding an equalizer knob whenever a guitar had too much feedback.

Earlier that afternoon, the pair of bearded brothers sat down to talk about the evolution of the bar as they waited for more vintage arcade games to be delivered.

"Traveling around, I saw some places in other cities where some of the old vintage games were coming back and I thought, 'Man, that's a really good idea,'" JJ Seabaugh said.

He explained that instead of just being open in the evenings and being known strictly as a concert venue, he wanted to make Pitter's a place where people could hang out in the daytime, a place for conversation and video game tournaments -- a laid-back and fresh take on the run-of-the-mill watering hole.

"When I started Pitter's originally, I wanted to offer Cape something different than what downtown already had," JJ Seabaugh said. "We're always looking to find that new change to keep us separated from the cafes and the coffee shops to try to maintain the reputation we've built over the last four years."

He hopes that the vintage games and the debut of "Pitter's Pizza" by the slice will only serve to enhance that reputation.

They may be expanding the business model, but what's important to the Seabaughs is that the atmosphere remains unchanged.

"It's not uncommon to come in here and see a guy from a bluegrass band and a dude from a death metal band and somebody from a hair band all sitting around talking about music," Timexx Seabaugh said, explaining that that's the type of interaction Pitter's was made to facilitate.

Whether it's paintings by local artists, band stickers or hand-scrawled graffiti, local art covers the walls. A handful of local bands were born on the Pitter's stage. Jamie Gooch plays guitar for one such outfit, BEEF, and explained why Pitter's role in the Cape Girardeau art community is so important.

"They're the only place where you can go and play original material without having a CD or an established name. They'll give you a shot when nobody else will," Gooch said. "Not only do they bring in big-name national acts, but they also give the little guys a shot."

It's unlikely that Pitter's open-minded atmosphere will evaporate in the light of day. Even the building itself has decades of history as a rendezvous point for like-minded eccentrics, what Timexx Seabaugh describes as Cape Girardeau's "young, creative and energetic" crowd.

During Prohibition, 811 Broadway was a speakeasy. A surviving roulette wheel now hangs opposite the bar, repainted with the Pitter's logo. After that, it was a teenage jazz club where it's rumored a young Elvis Presley came upstairs and sold records to the kids on his way through town. Since then it's been a beatnik lounge, a hippy bar and a coffee house before becoming Pitter's in 2010.

"Back in the day, it was a place where kids would come after school to play that crazy jazz music," Timexx Seabaugh explained before adding that even though it's constantly evolving with the zeitgeist, not too much has changed. Now after months of renovations, the kids once again have a place to hang out after school.

Both brothers are musicians. JJ's band, The Monstars, grew from a particularly successful Open Mic Night experiment and Timexx is in a band called Herman Ze German with Herman Rarebell of Scorpions' fame. Their musical roots and eclectic tastes help explain why, when they saw a lack of variety in the downtown music scene, they took it upon themselves to provide more.

JJ, who has been booking shows since he was 17, started bringing in as many out-of-town acts as possible.

From national-touring alt-rockers Hawthorne Heights to rapper Afroman and all the local acts in between, the shows at Pitter's tend to be every bit as refreshingly unpredictable as the patrons who show up to see them.

Like the girls who dance with hula hoops as JJ and his new friends delve deep into a reggae take on Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine." People sit and watch them turning and gyrating, passing the hoop back and forth to twirl around elbows and ankles, but nobody bats an eyelash. It's Wednesday at Pitter's. Open Mic Night is a place for new things.