Post-Hip, The Cure vs. The Smiths, Mad Planet
Dark and eclectic, Mad Planet did its usual service providing temporary abode to wayward fun-seekers, freak flags waving. Everything from sport coats to jeggings were barely visible between the dim-dive ambiance and the shocking zips of colored light emitting from the dance floor laser effects. Personally partial to The Cure‘s earlier sounds, dance-synth and saxophone infused tunes of The Smiths interrupted the heavy crunch and symbols The Cure kept around even post-punk.
Surprisingly, The Cure’s tribute to Albert Camus, Killing an Arab, made it into the set and was complimented with subtler emotional hits that The Cure well know for off of albums like Faith. Love that album and Mad Planet for making Riverwest Milwaukee’s Hell’s Kitchen/Theater District and being the burn-out/play hard club for a night; the kind of venue where you can make-out shamelessly with your girlfriend in a corner like the dead-beat lovers that you are.
Mad Planet sticks with the regularly scheduled Retro-Dance Party this Friday night and the Saturday Night Get Down returns April 14.
Leap Week! Weekend Performance Happenings
Waiting for the next snow storm won’t make the Spring come any quicker, I get the feeling people can sense the season coming anyway. Don’t be so hard on yourself you earned it. By the end of the week, you’ll be ready for a few entertainment options provided by a few of Milwaukee’s brightest unsung talent. Okay, maybe this “talent” is a little further away from the mainstream Galaxy than most, but the Easter bunny cometh, so some options other than the Bar should spark some interest.
Thursday March 1, 7:30p
Opening Night
1984
Alchemist Theater, Bay View
Friday March 2, 7:30p
One-night only
Milwaukee Area Composers & Artists (MACA) Showcase 4
featuring Stand By a Quasi Mondo Production
Marian Center Auditorium, Bay View
Saturday March 3, 8:00p
One-night only
Astral/Subastral at the Riverwest Follies
Polish Falcon, Riverwest
Leap Week! Milwaukee Area Composers & Artists
Live original composition jazz meets experimental performance theater at the Marian Center for Non-Profits for one night only on Friday March 2.
The Notes
Milwaukee Area Composers & Artists (MACA) jazz collective, led by Milwaukee grown Jazz composers and saxophonists Steve Gallam and Blake Manning, will perform in tribute to their first CD Release of Live Jazz performances. Solo, duet and quartet sets will create melody, as Mike Neumeyer navigates the marimba, Steve Gallam on Bass Guitar duals with Nathan Dill on violin, and Blake Manning corners a quartet of sax, drums, violin, and bass. MACA’s musicians all benefit from formal training but maintain their artistic warrant, clearly paying homage to their golden age of Jazz heroes in their works. This show should be a real treat for jazz enthusiasts who may be concerned about the future of the music, the MACA residents are all barely approaching 30 years of age.
The Experiments
Quasi Mondo Productions artistically directed by Brian Rott (formerly of Loose Canon Productions) pours a night cap/second-wind starter with its experimental theater trial Stand By that distills movement, props and illusion to tell a story. A subset of short acts from its parent production A Night of Something or Other, Stand By will play with elements designed to leave the audience room to narrate their own sub-text filling the space left by the production’s deliberate omission of spoken dialog. Visually intriguing and at times a bit nonsensical, Stand By aims to satiate the theater scene’s taste for something slightly askew of the typical flavor spectrum. Stand By enlists the talents of artistic consultant Jessi Miller, Lamont Smith and several other budding performers.
The Venue
The Marian Center for Non-Profits Auditorium provides the stage for MACA part IV and will begin at 7:30pm. Proceeds or the $5 cover at the door go to offset the cost of space rental.
The Marian Center for Non Profits is located just South of Oklahoma Avenue on South Superior Street in the old St. Mary’s High School across from Bay View Park. The Marian Center for NonProfits is a mission of the Congregation of Sisters of St. Francis Assisi that provides affordable office space for non-profits and rent-able space for events.
Main Article
Alive Week, Three Fingers-Plus of Weekend Performance Happenings, http://wp.me/p1hPwN-1bf
Related Post
Marian Center for Nonprofits, Bay View Compass
Super, Ultra, Listening, Marty McDoom
Making a few waves only takes one big ripple. Marty McDoom gradually builds his repertoire of music, adding tracks to his under-the- surface hip-hop playlists regularly. Marty McDoom recently dropped a EP demo online called Super, Ultra. Hey… McDoom might be on to something, Local Trolley got a chance to exchange a few words about his progress towards breaking his sound out.
Fuck it, I’m Depressed, Marty McDoom
L.S. Trolley: What best describes your style… hot water on a hot day or cold water on a cold day?
Marty McDoom: I’m Like….uh…uh…cold water on a hot day (laughing), Perfectly slightly colder than room temp water on a hot day..(laughing).
LT: You put out some EPs recently, dark themes, but still listenable, were you surprised by how they were received?
MM: Yeah they did pretty good for completely random projects. I tried to really capture my thoughts and what was going on in my life at the time and people responded pretty good to it all. I knew that i couldn’t be the only person who has those thoughts or has those feelings. I made them to be an accurate depiction of myself at the time, and relate-able.
LT: Yeah, in hip-hop emotions are basically to be avoided, even truth, I was listening to the Mad Kids on WMSE tonight and they were getting on Rick Ross, joking that he was a probation officer at one time or something, [quite] opposite of his persona. Rick Ross is one of the biggest out there, do you feel pressure to make music that responds to this tendency?
MM: I’m totally against this pressure…I think this “pressure” is whats killing Hip-Hop, no one feels free to be themselves, everyone is trying to live up to these expectations and normalities of what a hip-hop artist is suppose to be and represent, its all wrong…completely f*cked. If you ask me, instead of being an expression of real life , real thoughts and feelings, and real issues, its become a big advertisement. One huge show and tell of everything your suppose to want and want to be, but its all bullshit…f*ck a chain, f*ck a nice car, f*ck money. I mean that’s all nice, and should be a by-product of your success but it shouldn’t come as a replacement for reality.
LT: What was the hip-hop moment that pissed you off the most in this era… the one that gave you the, “man this is #$% ##%% #%…”
MM: It sounds cliche…but when they turned Kanye into a social villain for being spontaneous at that award show, at Taylor Swift’s expense… that’s the [real] reality and the flare we need back in not only hip-hop…but the world…everything is becoming so scripted, its lame.
LT: Oh ok it was the act of spontaneity, I’m surprised they didn’t tackle him [on stage]. Obama called him an ass for that, what was your take? Did you agree that Beyonce’s song was really better? or [fill in the blank]…
MM: Nah…he wasn’t an ass…He was just out of place..and drunk [laughing]. I never saw Beyonce’s video… Could care less to be honest. Think about it, who let him up there? A huge award show and no security? Fuck that..they let him up there… They just didn’t know what he was gonna do. He shocked all their asses [laughing]. Personally, I laughed for days.
LT: Do you see any hope for Milwaukee harboring scenes friendly for your flavor of music. Right now it’s really street or really traditional style battle rap.
MM: Not really no….but I love Milwaukee enough to know that it’s not all about Milwaukee. People are really receptive to my music in other places, other States to other countries. Once everyone else loves you…then Milwaukee will.
LT: Good getting a chance to hear some words from the mind for a few, any parting words for the fans?
MM: Stay tuned…Got a lot of cool music in the works, a lot of big things happening…No spoilers as of yet, but improvised sound is definitely in the works…!
Marty McDoom has two other Ep’s currently spinning online Destruction of Leviathan and Shut Your Freakin’ Gob and Listen.
The 4th, Summerfest, with or without you…
Half way through the year, our Leviathan, our Body Politic, our Country celebrates its independence from the Great Britain. Here in Milwaukee, we commemorate with the best of them other cities in our Union. The Big Bang already teamed up with Summerfest to open the World Biggest Music Festival with an impressive fireworks display.
We didn’t have a man running on wind currents 100 feet in the air over the Marcus Amphitheater, but the good folks organizing the Beijing Olympic Opening Ceremony would have been proud. Of course WISN Channel 12 can help you re-live the finale to the tune of that one famous opera.
Fireworks were invented in China, and now they are sold on State highway frontage roads.
Wait, is Summerfest going on? This is Brew City…
The Fondy Farmer’s Market (looky here)
It’s the largest in the area and it opened last week Saturday. Field greens, green onions and chinese broccoli are available however, this time of year The Fondy Market stands out for its prepared foods. Fresh from the grill burgers, brats, corn on the cob and even smoked turkey legs, make great outdoor meals. Spring rolls and other Asian dishes mix up the market menu. Walnut Way Conservation Corp also sells fresh honey from bees that had access to peach tree blossoms.
On Milwaukee did an nice article on The Fondy Market on the eve of the market’s opening day last Saturday. Located on 22nd and Fond du Lac Ave. just north of North Avenue, The Fondy Market has off street parking on the Meineke Street side for your convenience.
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The Vliet Street Green Market (looky here)
The Washington Park Partners sponsor the Vliet Street Green Market, a Sunday farmer’s market in the midst of Washington Park, on 4420 W. Vliet Street. It features food, live music and crafts in a community that is a hot bed of Fair Trade awareness and neighborhood building.
Great business like Amaranth Bakery, Birdie’s Cafe and the fair trade shop Four Corners of the World , a central organization in founding Fair Trade Day observance in Milwaukee, make their home in the Washington Park area. Milwaukee Artist Resource Network (MARN) just circulated an e-mail call for crafts persons, artists and musicians interested in participating in the Green Market to contact Bess Earl at beumcs@sbcglobal.net.
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US Ping Pong Championships (looky here)
Everybody’s talking about it, and its going on until July 4th. WUWM even did a radio news story about it. Can it take the place of a cook out? We can thank Forrest Gump for introducing us to Table Tennis, not to be confused with Ping Pong played by locals in the Third Ward’s Spin. Right now and for the rest of the summer, and when open, On Milwaukee’s Jeff Sherman reported that you can play ping-pong free at the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Chase Bank Plaza and at Mitchell airport, and these places too for free on Killerspin tables… But in the meanwhile you can get inspired to appropriately wear resale gym shorts and a head band at the Frontier Airlines Center.
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PBR Fest (looky here)
The A.V. Club reported that on Sunday July 3rd PBR Fest can cure your Summerfest blues (they mention some other random stuff too). I can attest to PBR Fest being extra cool. It’s just too bad it’s not on the same day as New Belgian Brewery’s Tour de Fat like last year, a rare orbit crossing of fests. PBR Fest keeps only PBR flowing, on the block between Burnhearts and Hi-Fi, has a main stage underplayed by sidewalk stages, and usually both entertain. If I’m not mistaken, if you really want to go to Summerfest you can stumble up the block to The Highbury and catch the shuttle, if I’m wrong you can just get more drinks at The Highbury (actually not as bad as the first photo slide show photo looks).
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The Band Shell at Washington Park (looky here)
Among other great things you can do in the Milwaukee County Park System you can see music performed in a band shell. July 6 opens the Band Shell Concert Series with a Leahys Luck performance. They may look a little smarmy, but have you every heard an Irish Folk band that didn’t force a jig out of you?
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Wiz Khalifa at Summerfest July 5 (looky here)
Phrophetic and Pizzle’s Green and Yellow gave Wisco a busting Super Bowl theme song this past winter, adapted from Pittsburgh repping Wiz Khalifa’s single Black and Yellow (86 million views on one post, woa). Wiz’s track brutally pays homage to the Steeler’s football franchise. Snoop Dogg did a remix for the Steelers that Lil Wayne crushed on behalf of the Pack. If you don’t know what happened, and why this will make one of Summerfest’s top shows (hopefully without incident), well you probably were hating on Kanye (Christina Daglas’s point and JC Poppe’s counter-point) like those JS Online commenters the A.V. Club heckled (scroll down the page of the link), and you mind as well…
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The Lakefront Segway Tour
…take the Lakefront Segway Tour from Veteran’s Park…
History is History
Last thing, in light of inevitable mass teacher layoffs in MPS (a story that made CNN), let’s recognize Third Coast Digest for exercising journalistic freedom by printing a impeccable selection of prose, in a piece excerpting the original underground media star Frederick Douglas (makes you wonder how long public education has been under attack). Happy 4th MKE!!
Retrospective: Summerfest Pitbull Show Recap
More than memorable, Summerfest 2010 hosted Pitbull on the Harley-Davison Stage. Are there words…? I tried…
This piece appeared two weeks after Summerfest ended in the Sane Artworks Blog, I can’t actually remember but I think I was no worse for wear after having thwarted multiple suitors attempting to sweep my teenage cousin away.
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Summer Solstice Season Reprise: Pitbull Show Recap
Is it June, I mean July 19th already? I have gotten the most out of the summer outdoor (and indoor) concert / fest season while it has lasted. I was not going to post this a month later but I am anyway. It’s worth sharing. I think I am still recovering from the damn Pitbull show, and I think his web managers are too. They have only posted one story since the show at Summerfest on June 28th. The show in Milwaukee was extra live, and I have seen a lot of shows in my day. Here’s the recap…
Pitbull barks hard and bites harder
If it wasn’t obvious what the Pitbull show was all about, something is very wrong with your cognition of body language. I was packed in tighter where I was standing than the cornucopia of glutes on stage that were stuffed into spandex thong singlets and sequined Carnaval showgirl costumes. I’ll give you a hint, at fifteen rows back and ten feet off of the seating area, I could barely see the top of Pitbull’s shaved dome. Did it really matter?
A true testament to a music artist’s pull is the turnout they draw on an off-night like Monday. Seriously, any day, any time, except Sunday morning, Mr. 305 could have shut the Brew down. 3/5 parts honeymoon for his latest album Rebelution, 1/5 part ode to his fans, 1/5 part charging the air with lust because he can, Pitbull early on broke into Triumph, a single-worthy anthem from his newest joint. Fans were feeling it, but they responded most to the hard tracks like Calle Ocho, Hotel Room Service and WATAGATAPITUSBERRY.
While people were loosing their minds jumping up to the song KRAZY, bouncing, popping, shaking, and thrusting without millimeters separating appendages and supplely cleaved muscle groups, Pitbull was saturating his marquee skinny tuxedo, the first of which was some kind of blackish-purple, which quickly liquefied into deep violet from repeated end-to-end gallops of the stage, weaving between booty dancers and hype-men alike that were donning head dresses of mohawked multi-colored feathers; some standing on hydraulic stilts giving them the Jar Jar Binks gait.
A set break ensued. At the crowd’s impatient beckoning, in the nick of time, Pitbull emerged through the stage lighting, starting this round in a perfectly good white tux before spitting classic cuts like Go Girl, Mentirosa, and neos like Shut It Down. Mr. 305 had intentions of mongering perspiration like that Axe commercial, as he gyrated dangerously parallel to the stage apron, caring little for the condition of his ankles, Achilles tendons or cumber bun.
Without warning there was a planned power outage, and Pitbull disappeared, only to come back on cue with the rest of his entertainment squad. What happened next can only be described as utterly ridiculous. Pitbull unleashes a cover of the LMFAO ditty Shots, and the secret to world peace is revealed, as every person in sight went absolutely AWOL, jumping in unison like newly freed South Africans.
The show mercifully ended, no one could even scream for another encore. Groups and solo exhibitionists all-the-way to the main promenade, with bloodthirsty gazes, refused to stop dancing: swaying their hips, hands waving and mouths screeching. Last I looked, from the back of the Harley area, the front areas of the stands(it had become an entity unto itself) still overflowing unfurled a Mexican flag, stubbornly cheered and pulsated in the glare of the illuminating flood lights. For all I know the party is still going on. Even Pitbull had to admit Milwaukee is KRAZY. Dale!
Retrospective: Summerfest Shows, Public Enemy
Summerfest 2011 ignites an already raucous solstice season, in its 43rd year of jamming, the local tradition of traditions since 1968. Wasn’t there some other fest in upstate New York around that time? Oh yeah, August 1969…
Last year was no slouch, and will be hard to top. Black Sabbath and Public Enemy played simultaneously last year on the side stages, still hard to fathom.
This post originally appeared on the predecessor to the Local Trolley e-zine, Sane Artworks Blog.
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Solstice Season Part 1: Summerfest Shows – Public Enemy
Summerfest is the biggest thing going, in the world they say. The Milwaukee masses come together and do what they can to forget about the winter that past and the one that’s coming.
I covered the PE concerts as a guest writer on MKE Wired.
Finally I’m back in the sphere… follow the link Public Enemy Wrap: Not out of the cross hairs yet.
Public Enemy Wrap: Not out of the cross hairs yet
I’m bleacher surfing and tunneling through the aisles like a mere cat trying to get closer to the front of the stage. I pop up on an open bleacher and this faux hip-hop teapot statured dude with a chinstrap beard is jibber jabbering something about “if you get up, you gotta get down”. I tell this dude “Bro, you been listening to too much 88-9.” The look on my face is saying, fool don’t you know we at a Public Enemy concert and you can get a smack for that. For pushing twenty-five years in the art of boom-bap, Chuck D, a second generation patron rebel of rap, and trusty entourage lead by the antic laden Flavor Flav, still can rock a crowd at any coordinate on the world map. From the looks of the turn out Friday night, you would have thought Drake had just parachuted on to the US Cellular arena stage.
Stuck in the main walk way of the festival grounds, I peer over frocky banged girls, spike mohawk haired guys and nodd with old school players, enjoying a deep remix groove version of Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos, simultaneously urging my Madisonian friends to venture into the fray. Just then PE broke into Anti N**GA Machine. Exhorting every lyric that still comes to my mind, the abrupt fade into Burn Hollywood Burn confirmed the set recapped, in sequence, several tracks from each of PE’s albums, which suited the tracks from PE’s third album Fear of a Black Planet particularly well.
By the time, I excavate my way into the center stage area with surprising ease, Power to the People rhythmically churns and I double back to the outskirts of the masses, to find my feeble Madisonians had already sought refuge from the exuberance. I grab college co-eds at will that chirp about trying to get a better look at Flav, in the spirit of Harriet Tubman, and guide them through the canals of seating to a better vantage point.
The vintage hits Bring the Noise, Terminator X to the Edge of Panic, Can’t Trust It and Fight the Power played, but the show’s highlight was Flavor Flav’s rendition of I Can’t Do Nuttin’ For Ya Man, which I recited in time, miming the patented Flav dance, only to notice those around looking at me like I had the holy ghost and was speaking in tongues. I was truly possessed and so was everybody else. Possessed enough to chant “f*nk separatism” and “f*ck racism” on Flav’s cue after he improved a verse of Sly Stone’s Thank You For Letting Me Be Myself Again. Some visual irony could be witnessed if you scanned the audience. For being in Milwaukee that showed how good of sports we are.
It wasn’t the headlining flashing red X-shaped DJ table show of the glory days, noticeably absent was Terminator X who left the group in ‘99, but well worthy of a Friday night. The sea of people was probably more of a testament to Flavor Flav’s new found pop appeal than their love for the PE message, but an overall worthy effort on the part of Milwaukee’s party goers to do justice to the music legends.
MKE Molecules, WMSE Buy-Local Bazaar
A sidewalk sign boasted availability of “fine fineries” at the Buy-Local Bazaar in the Kern Center Sunday afternoon. In case you missed it, here are few of Local Trolley’s favorite booths:
Lovesick Robot Studios http://lovesickrobot.org
I mention this booth from the standpoint that I used to be a super duper Star Wars freak. The key phrase is “used to” and if you try bringing up some Star Wars trilogy fun facts around me, it won’t be very fun for long. Lovesick Robot Studios‘ t-shirt liquidation drew my attention with an iconic Storm Trooper helmet image. Browsing the rack, yet another T design of an AT-AT with the slogan “they see me rolling, they hating” written below it made this booth note worthy. Judging from the website, I think a pod of Bay View kids are responsible for this silliness.
The Brass Rooster http://toorockabilly4awebsite.rock
Featuring $5 patent leather shoes, short brimmed fedoras, and snap-brim smoking caps, The Brass Rooster will have you ready for your Big Bopper makeover in no-time. Why am I telling you this? The Brass Rooster will also spruce-up outfits with vintage cuff-link and tie-clip combinations for a reasonable price. Located at 2479 S. Kinnickinnic Avenue, The Brass Rooster opens on May 7th, 2011. If you tried to click on the web link I should take you by the ear and drag you from the computer.
Present Music http://presentmusic.org
Present Music showcases composers and reciters of avant-garde music. Present Music brought toy piano virtuoso and Juilliard’s first woman doctorate, Margaret Leng Tan, to Milwaukee this past Thanksgiving. Season finale Amy X Nueberg plays ‘avant-caberet’ and sings in four-octave range at Turner Hall June 18, 2011.
Ian Pritchard Photographs http://milwaukeephotos.com
Ian Pritchard, no stranger to local art events, stunned me with a excellent street shot, of which I inquired as to the setting to find it actually captured a corner of Brady Street. Nice work Ian, turning local, global.
Honorable mention:
Too Much Rock for One Hand for the two fisted abomination of a devil-worshiping logo, More 2 Gain video production for going out of their way to provide a business card, and Kasana Concierge Gourmet for having the nerve to do anything in St. Francis.
Borders hoarders leave Aceyalone
Cold rain deepened my resolve to visit the Grand Avenue Borders blow-out sale, a trip that I plotted and canceled several times. Who am I to separate the uncanny combination of books and rain? The partially burned out ‘O’ in the marquee sign atop the building also helped. Until Borders announced its closing I never noticed, but since that point my fascination with the failing sign would not relent and in part prompted my want to take photos of downtown (along with the scenery on Michigan Avenue one night, which my camera couldn’t make look as cool as my eyes could).
A bit jostled by wind and spattered by inclement droplets, I opened the glass door guarding the entrance. The critters attracted by corporate carrion had done their worst already picking through many of the still pricey items, especially in the cafe where all of the chairs, tables, serving dishes and equipment sold at lower cost, except for the red coffee mugs going for $10 a piece. I move past the music section knowing that it is hopelessly retail, circling back when I realize the Plankington Avenue side of the store is void of media merchandise, with price tags on everything but the store windows and the bubbler.
The R&B section is closest to the aisle, since a lot of ‘urban’ music listeners have a hard time finding music suitable to their taste when they are shopping in high-end bookstores. I take a quick once-over glance and I notice that apparently Mike Epps has an album out. I got a little closer and saw ‘Accepted Eclectic’ scribed on the simple cover layout. Damn, my fault Aceyalone I can’t blame you for re-releasing a terribly slept on effort. I held maps of Park City, UT and Washington D.C. I willingly swapped, keeping the Grand Canyon and 5-Borough Maps, so that I could save this album from further cd wasteland disgrace and stay on budget. Shame on me, I had not bought it earlier.
Old Aces
I ‘acquired’ the only Aceyalone album I own back in 2001 from the UW-Madison student government office boom box scratched-up cd pile, figuring it in place there only because of the Hip-Hop Conference that the campus used to host. It was a quality promo sampler with 7 full-length tracks from then recently released Accepted Eclectic (2000), A Book of Human Language (1998) and previous albums from beyond. His sound, somewhat missed placed for Leimert Park, goes against the grain of the stereotypical South Central Los Angeles environment that birthed it.
Aceyalone not shy about mentioning his stomping grounds, has a line in the song Accepted Eclectic “…down in Leimert Park hanging with the hooligans…” that rung recall in my head while I numbed my mind with The MTV “reality” show The Buried Life one night. The Buried Life dudes lamely went to Leimert Park trying to learn how to ‘Krump’ (a dance) to fulfill a bucket-list wish. They eventually received love from the Krump scene, but 1:45 – 4:20 of the episode were basically rather comical. I thought “…oh okay, that’s Leimert Park…”
Cellar Voice
To Aceyalone’s credit, time can’t age a great song. It’s somewhat bad form, but worth it to share a couple standout tracks that demonstrate why Aceyalone is the Furious Styles of the LA underground rap scene.
He further solidifies his status as a pioneer of West lyrical delivery in Project Blowed , with a classic pot shot at the Hieroglyphics MCs (Even though Tajai does recognize Aceyalone on a track during the same time period as Accepted Eclectic‘s release)
Aceyalone performed at SXSW this past Saturday, with DJ Babu, Alchemist and Oh No. A quality line up for one night under one roof, that no doubt upstaged Wu-Tang’s Thursday night performance. Although a tad bit harder, add Aceyalone to your oldies but newbies list usually reserved for A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul.
I am a fan of the bricks and mortar bookstore but the Grand Avenue could use a better tenant anyway. Borders liquidation will likely continue until several UWM off campus housing units get a carpet transplant. I also saw a 3-gallon Kool-aid jug and a slow drip coffee maker still available.
Boom is Back, Codebreaker
I was listening to Radio Milwaukee Tuesday morning and heard native MKE band Codebreaker getting spin. Might not be the first splash they made on the radio waves, but it’s the first I heard leading in with band name announced before the song.
True to Milwaukee form, I first heard about Codebreaker in winter of 2008 while in Chicago, from Chicagoan Leah Pietrusiak a free-lance journalist with a knack for sniffing out new cool stuff. When asked, I couldn’t put a finger on the sound. It wasn’t getting air time locally. Radio Milwaukee was too busy still heavily rotating the Phoenix song 1901.
Codebreaker had a set that I missed later that summer in 2009 at Turner Hall, warming up for Tortured Soul (a mellow yet tenacious three-piece band who play so hard they are kinetically bound to their instruments). After hearing Follow Me from Codebreaker’s new album The Space Chase, I’m surprised a couple of Turner Hall bricks didn’t shake loose that night.
In the 20-0′s music atmosphere, Codebreaker inspires praise for their willingness to reintroduce the cryogenically frozen genre of dance/disco to all the spring chickens out there. Codebreaker is making rounds, currently breaking sound barriers in Austin, TX at SXSW playing last night on Patty’s Day. Codebreaker tramps back to the Midwest April 10th scheduled to play at Smart Bar in Chicago.
Here’s an extra great Codebreaker music video via Boing Boing.
Fire (Jimmy Edgar Remix)-Codebreaker Feat. Kathy Diamond from Erik West on Vimeo.
You Late
2008 Press via ExpressMilwaukee, Press via Radio Milwaukee, Press via On Milwaukee
Retrospective: Gallery Night, Winter 2011
Always enjoyable Gallery Night yielded a few notables during the winter 2011 edition. Originally posted to the Sane Artworks Blog January 26, 2011.
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Gallery Night Milwaukee: Green Gallery, Patricia Terry, Berkeley and other splashes
The winter edition of Gallery Night in Milwaukee took place Friday and Saturday this past weekend. I took the A.V. Club’s lead on a couple of art exploits seen on Friday night, but ended up off the trod path and left one destination on my to do list.
The Green Gallery is somewhere I’ve wanted to check out for a while. I heard of this space a couple of years ago, recognizing the name of creative mind Michelle Grabner in a promotional piece for the Green Gallery’s second installation Silverpoint Drawings with Guest Mobile. Keeping with Milwaukee’s good fortune, several classes of privileged but angsty local teenagers (myself included, more angsty than privileged), among others I’m sure, felt edified by her instruction and her work.
A Person of Color: a mostly orange exhibition is currently on display at the Green Gallery. It features a host of artists, mostly spry, hip, and trained with their works of mixed mediums staking out floor space and wall art hung low to make you exert some effort to take a gander. Aggressively, which I guess reflects the color swatches of orange employed here, several of the current pieces take deliberate stabs at your intelligence in overtly self-indulgent to fast approaching borderline cliché ways (making it quite possible that cliché is the new cool this spring).
At Cuvee Black Art made a seldom witnessed mainstream appearance in Milwaukee, expressed through several collages, paintings, and illustrations authored by Evelyn Patricia Terry, a founder of Milwaukee’s art presence. Best known for her paintings and printmaking, Terry’s Gallery Night work included a series of illustrations carrying wisdom laden captions. Words offered ranged from the philosophical “Opposites attract, but likes stay together” to the practical “I have much work to do”. The didactic intent of the Black Arts legacy resonated the gathering.
Art showed up in musical form at Bayview’s Sugar Maple, as the cooperative Milwaukee Area Composers and Artists (MAC&A) filled the sound stage with a couple Master’s thesis jazz compositions, featuring brass favorites tenor and baritone saxophone, trumpet, and lesser seen instrument the marimba. Instigated by local musician Steve Gallam, the set featured work by composition peers Blake Manning, and Mike Neumeyer. Ears out for these guys. Their scoring of original works with pen on parchment tinted paper and impromptu is well done; neither often shared with the public in an informal setting, both suitably hosted by Sugar Maple’s indy jazz inspired confines.
Speaking of jazz, a free benefit (donations accepted) for the legendary Berkeley Fudge will take place at 7:30p this Friday January 28, 2011, at The Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. Berkeley recently suffered a health setback and the arts community is doing their part to recognize his contributions to the Milwaukee scene. Berkeley resident musician at the Jazz Estate, he was on the bill in the summer 2009 and I missed him unfortunately.
I missed out on Studio 420b exhibitions that featured artists Leslie Peckham, Lindsey Marx, Steven Ruiz, Fred Kames and several others. Judging from previous work, this camp of artist should also be added to your watch list.
Gallery Night in Milwaukee comes around again with spring this time, April 15 and 16th 2011.
Use out of the useless at MAM After Dark, feats by Chakaia Booker
February’s installment of MAM After Dark kept it fun and snooty, truly befitting of the Calatrava. Although the recently opened Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition fills the main gallery space, providing the draw of a registered trademarked name, New York artist Chakaia Booker concluded her MAM co-starring role. The MAM atmosphere, ambient with disc jockeyed music courtesy of Radio Milwaukee, supported the closing of On Site: Chakaia Booker in the Baumgartner Galleria (back hallway leading to the War Memorial).
Booker’s sculptures, forged of tightly wrapped, sharply cut automobile tires and industrial screws, and some other secret bonding agents no doubt, evoked curiosity and anxiety in Quadracci Pavillion patrons. Fourteen unsung weeks on display, the unsettling creations of On Site stood poised on the floor, and perched on the walls presumably ready to strike at any moment.
It was not really an option to stand with your arms folded, gawking. Option one: karate stance with hands prone in an action grip. Option two: impulsively grabbing at the twining appendages. Option two tested, and a nipping from a security guard occurred from 18 feet.
There is not much one can do with old tires. No, I recant. You can contort them beyond recognition, and actually make people want to look at them. Conservation art with found industrial objects is a fine tradition indeed. On Site closed February 13, 2011.
Retrospective: Sleeping in the Aviary
Local Trolley, Issue 5, Post 3
Borgs and Ugly Sweaters originally posted to the Sane Artworks Blog January 10, 2011.
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Borgs and Ugly Sweaters
“So there was this cool cat with an autotunes guitar who went to the bar to tune his guitar… the bar tender asks if he wants a tune-a-sandwich…” If you walked in at this moment of the performance, with a blindfold, you might have thought a stand-up comedian voiced a futile introduction to a terrible joke. If, hypothetically, you were thinking that, with a blind fold on, you would have been wrong.
I stay tuned to ‘MSE no matter the play format, and I keep hearing about this band Sleeping in the Aviary. A friend of mine during the same time period keeps hounding me about this show at the Borg Ward, for over a month she’s been raving. Well, yesterday I happened to be at this place and these cool cats are tuning their guitars, and you probably can’t guess who they are.
Drawing a crowd of anti-scenesters, bad sweater-wearers, beat up chucks, broken-in skull caps, some onlookers that could have been extras in Deliverance, and good old average southsiders of with their customary above average good sportsmanship, Sleeping in the Aviary mid-lined a small independent show of deadpan spaz rock brute force.
Tuning done a riff breaks out: a chorus of drum, guitar, bass, and accordion reminiscent of a 50′s sock hop ditty ode, but that damn accordion is making the music so randomly today that the toe tapping of the spectators soon turns knee bopping. Next song, a little less 50′s with a little more DIY alternative, and torsos start getting in the action. Before the set starts my girlfriend sees a friend of hers and his friend claims he has nothing bad to say about this band. A first time listener, I can’t say that I do either. Even luckier for me my first time is live.
Midway through the show the moppy haired band member stalls by picking up where he left off earlier, “So this guy at the bar, wanted to tune his autotune guitar, was going to get something from the guy at the bar, uh… what did he get?… [pause]… [pause]… he got nothing…[crowd laughter].” His punch-line delivery, an effort to disguise a bubble machine controversy from going public, didn’t keep the slow-train-wreck-like “story” of spending too much on the bubble machine that doesn’t work from happening anyway. Meanwhile, the accordion player managed a wardrobe change into a 1992 Shaq Diesel Orlando Magic jersey and suddenly brandishes a saw to be chorded with a cello bow.
Bubbles spraying lightly into the crowd initially provide ambiance for a crowd member who counts the band back in for the next song. Since lightly spraying bubbles at the wall is no fun, bubbles are cranked up and aimed into the center of the light mass of town folk. The majority of said bubbles are landing on a fairly large fellow you would not expect at show of this sort on a prime Magic: The Gathering card game night. Heads on loose necks are now joining the rest of their bodies, on most of the Borg clan. Even the those of southside-patented least affect are noticeably enjoying the show, although still lacking movement or affect.
Fun is contagious. This axiom proves true for Sleeping in the Aviary: a bright and motley clothed bunch who are barely mumbling one minute and screaming manically the next; a pretty sick musical ensemble (in the previous metaphorical way, which is far less sold out than in the old school snow boarder slang sense). You have to be entertaining if you get bored enough to think up a band name like Sleeping in the Aviary. I heard they might be playing in Mini-soda soon. Go see, they really don’t suck that bad.
Funk, e’Lectrick Warbabyz do it, to it
The dedicated month to recognize Black History brought forth a small gathering of culturally inclined and community oriented minds to enjoy one of the greatest musical genres invented in America, funk music. An underrated space in an underrated neighborhood, King Commons II in Harambee, played host to the e’Lectrick Warbabyz‘ Friday night performance. A squad of musicians stationed on bass, rhythm, guitar, drums, conga drums, and lead guitar lent support to a vocalist and vocal backup, who together tore a whole in the cheap musical fabric that dominates contemporary rhythm and blues.
photo by Angela Smith
Evoking the theatrics and character-making of the founding era of funk music, in full agbada, the lead vocal urged the crowd to “Do what you do” behind infectious guitar riffs and bass scales. Kick drums smashed sound waves “on-the-one” emphasizing the warning made in their chorus that the e’Lectrick Warbabyz will “Take you to the Darkside”. Customarily, the band members broke into solos, highlighted by a hundred hand slaps on a set of six congas and a searing guitar solo.
photo by Angela Smith
Adjacent to the better known Riverwest and Brewer’s Hill neighborhoods, the Harambee neighborhood has a long history as home base to Black arts and community building in Milwaukee. Known as Bronzeville in the 1950′s, 3rd street was a thoroughfare to thriving Black business. During the 1960′s Bronzeville lost viability from redlining, “block-busting” and the construction of I-43, culminating with crime and blight in the 1980′s and 90′s. In spite of the adversity, some of Milwaukee’s richest cultural outlets such as America’s Black Holocaust Museum and the Milwaukee Inner City Art Council remained as pillars of the neighborhood through the down period.
photo by Angela Smith
Harambee’s backbone today is still Martin Luther King Drive (3rd Street). Hard-knocks could not completely extinguish the embers of soul that warm the Black arts community here. A testament to those who refused to abandon MLK Drive north of North Avenue, the e’Lectrick Warbabyz performance commemorated the neighborhood’s legacy and gave a preview of what Harambee has to offer in the present day.
Although a throwback to a bygone era, funk represents the bridge from Motown to the South Bronx and therefore the genre will always have relevance to music. Worthy of bookings and boogie-ing crowds, the e’Lectrick Warbabyz incarnation of that “Fiii-ire” could fill a terrible void in the Milwaukee live music scene.
