Music is one of my few interests that takes up more of my time than chicken wings. Music is great, and I listen to a lot of it. I make a list of my 10 favorite albums every year.

This most recent Saturday, I was on the way to a concert with my wife, my 2 siblings, their spouses and my mother. What a crew! We were headed to see The Mountain Goats. Fronted by John Darnielle, the Mountain Goats have existed for over 30 years as a solo project and have grown to a group of four. While they are certainly an indie rock band, they maintain their singer-songwriter vibes.

What the Mountain Goats surely are not is a metal band. Metal is one of the few genres of music that I’ve really never given a fair shake and to be honest I still struggle to see the appeal. This makes me different from John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats who LOVES metal music. He wrote a whole book on Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality.

So it seemed appropriate to check out The Headless Bat, a new pizza & wings place in the Tower Grove South, named after an infamous Ozzy Osbourne incident, before heading to see the band!

We arrived, a party of 2, at 6pm and the place was pretty full. Metal music was playing at a volume that was within the realm of reasonable that didn’t make conversation difficult. Our server was very pleasant and enjoyable, which was good because we were told they were out of 2 of the things we tried to order (one of their 3 beers on tap and a Thai slice of pizza), and the menu had their pizza special crossed out.

But they weren’t out of wings! You can order 6 or 12 in one of 3 flavors: Buffalo, Thai Curry or “Murder Spice”. They describe them as “slow roasted” which isn’t a wing cooking style you see too often.

I ordered 6 buffalo wings to go along with my NY Slice of pizza. The wings come with a healthy sized serving of ranch (very good) and I added a Side of Murder Spice (which is a sauce, not a seasoning) just to see what it was all about.

The food took… an amount of time to arrive. Perhaps 40 minutes for the wings and another 20 minutes after that for our 2 slices of pizza. It was pretty busy and we were in no hurry, but this was a bit surprising.

The wings did not necessarily look the most appealing on arrival (the Slow Roast method perhaps doesn’t add a lot of color) but upon first bites, both Lydia and I said something along the lines of “oh shit, these are really good.”

The spice level on these Buffalo wings is perfect in my opinion. That makes them a bit spicier than most standard buffalo wings. There was a good heat, but it was never overwhelming.

Despite their dry-ish looking exterior, the wings were far from dry. They were extremely well cooked, juicy all the way through. Truly a great execution.

The Murder Spice (again, it’s a sauce) arrived with my pizza and I dipped my crust in it + ranch. That Murder Spice That sauce would have been far too spicy for my 36 year old gastrointestinal system if my wings were covered in it, but eaten like this, it was fantastic. A very flavorful sauce that I would have been enthused about as a younger more foolish man, but can no longer justify eating at scale.

Anyway, if you end up at the Headless Bat, you should add some wings to your order. They are good. I’d like to try the Thai Curry sauce, but I’d be happy if they only had buffalo. Also, if you have a chance to see the Mountain Goats, you should also do that.