Bottle, Lightning, Yield, The Please Please Me

Jessie Torrisi digs for a loud octave to check the sound sound system with. It’s The Please Please Me’s last stop on their tour, Yield, before heading back to homebase. Above the stage, clear plastic cords house a series of small lights that grant a red haze; dim red, the color of Rock. The eyes and images of a thousand Rock heroes stuck to the wall on posters approve. The Please Please Me can now begin.

A drummer, a cellist, and Torrisi on lead and vocals, at a volume suitable for listening, dive into their set. They easily touch shallow water of typical triangle-ting pop, then drift deeper looking for country and bluesy rock roots. Born south by south west in Austin, The Please Please Me call it circus pop. It sounds like the music stuff that definitively adds to the shape of Rock.

Fittingly they lope down the heartbroken road that keeps fingers calloused from strumming away the pain. Drum lines beat by Agustin Frederic switch back and forth mid-song from mid-tempo big epic rock ballad-esque tom pounds, to slight time-keeping hi-hat ticks. The cello bowed by Alissa Shram haunts mysteriously, giving each song a ambient cohesion. Intriguingly, The Please Please Me makes Sunday evening wine sipping music that when played live amps up to a whiskey slugging pitch.

That frighful edge of Milwaukee’s Eastside that dulled in the 2000’s, grates against a new breed of old souls, in clunky worn leather boots. The Please Please Me fit right in, Yield growing in its own way, incubating dark musky crevices needed for spawning a good rock lounge.