Posts by tonywonder:
Introducing Letherette
April 18th, 2011
Just stopping by the blog to blog a blog about a terribly blogworthy duo from London who split the difference between Ghostface’s Supreme Clientele and the entire Brainfeeder roster. That is to say, if you like your hip-hop wordless and vaguely backwards-sounding, chock full of barely-recognizable snatches of finely-aged soul, if you use music to assist you with your couch-sitting and maybe even some couch-snack-eating, if you are between the ages of 18 and 34, single white female, drug and disease free, and looking for love in all the wrong places, then perhaps Letherette is for you.
Howl Street Recordings
April 11th, 2011
[photos by Cj Foeckler. Words by Charlie Wallman]
Located in Bay View, the walls of Howl Street Studios are covered not in tacky wallpaper or tortured adolescent graffiti, but rather giant strips of bark. Shane Hochstetler, sole proprietor of Howl Street recordings, appropriated the method from a source that one of us can’t remember, although for the sake of ethnic coloration let’s say he acquired this knowledge via a three-fingered Belgian gypsy with a mouth like a sailor (alas, forearms like a gypsy) and a book full of holistic reverberation-damping effects, and also let’s say she smelled like epoxy and looked sort of like Helena Bonham Carter.
Though Shane is loathe to be anything but humble about it, 12-hour workdays are the norm at Howl Street. The studio’s business model operates with an unilateral disgust for the economic barriers to entry confronting all but the richest and most suburban of modern rock and roll bands; Shane charges way less than you’d expect, works way more, and lets karma split the difference, or something. It encourages such an eclectic batch of musicians that Howl Street has become the welcoming open arms of the local music industry. The gatekeepers are few whether you’re in music, authorship or online poker, but the golden gates have a dual requirement; talent, and high-quality recording. Either because of or in spite of this business model, Howl Street is frequently booked months in advance, and acts as a common denominator for Milwaukee bands far and wide – burly man metal rubs shoulders with anarcho-robot-punk shakes hands with girl-pop makes awkward eye contact with Chris DeMay who sits on a couch next to two bearded children from a blog (that’s us!), and so on, like Escher’s Metamorphosis, everything more connected than it seems and united under a tattered constitution of organic drum sounds and long winters.
O’Death, feat. desolation
April 7th, 2011
I saw this band open for Dan Deacon several years ago in a bunker or perhaps a ditch on the desolate outskirts of Chicago, and think it’s an accomplishment of the highest caliber that they generated a positive response from a teeming horde of post-teenage irony-practitioners – but thus is the power of five ramshackle Brooklynites and a drummer covered in tattoos (like a pirate!), packed like sardines on a nearly ground-level stage, sermonizing about wistful debauchery (not to mention an unbelievable, breakneck cover of “Nimrod’s Son”) to a crowd drunk on Deacon’s Casio keyboard pop, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
O’Death are an arch, macabre, and syphilitic version of Fleet Foxes (or Iron and Wine or Will Oldham or some other darkhorse choice of millenial hipster folkie – for the record, vocalist Greg Jamie admirably echoes both Oldham’s strained warble and Sam Beam’s beard-and-bald cocktail…so that’s something); there’s really no greater compliment than that. Other references include Tom Waits’s mid-80s output – when Waits finally got over the sad-sack barroom ballads and started dry-humping accordions and rasping stories about bourbon-soaked jockeys, crooked shell games, and one-eyed Indonesian hookers like all the Great American Songwriters eventually do (still waiting, Stevie Wonder…still waiting) – except melded with downright mainstream harmonization, Appalachian instrumentation, and of course, dalmatian sensation.
They are one with the various historic forms of the elegant dirge – the pirate shanty, the gypsy hoedown, the hobo seance, the possibly-incestuous West Virginian shotgun wedding reception – so much so that they will probably not release their very best album until each respective bandmember is dead, buried, and pulling minimum wage as the resident pervert-ghost of various bordellos in and around New Orleans, perpetually drunk on cheap ghost-liquor and lusting after the living, floating through walls and doors long after the novel thrill of doing so is gone. Until then, Outside is available on April 19; in the meantime, I suggest a bathtub full of moonshine and, if you wish, a Krazy straw. Go nuts.
(O’Death is currently on tour, and while they won’t be stopping by in the dairy state, you can catch them in Chicago at the Beat Kitchen on April 9)
Introducing Adoptahighway, feat. MELT #5
March 30th, 2011
Another edition of MELT is finally here (that makes 5 in all), four months after Christmas (just like we wanted!) and stacked to the brim with seething, wonderful computer music. Taking place this Thursday evening at Club Garibaldi (somewhere in the crystal caverns of BayView), MELT, which is on its 5th installment, is curated by a noisy bastard who goes only by the name of The Demix ( who’s also closing out the night). MELT 5 will feature sets from the grim Dolor; the pensive Made of Oak (who’s also in Decibully); Samarah, Wisconsin’s first ever female electronic musician (unless you count Gordon Gano…which we DO); and Adoptahighway, a classically-trained composer and and half of beat-team Omega Clash who, as a matter of fact, happens to be IN THE BUILDING RIGHT NOW. (Adoptahighway’s also got an album out, go listen/buy). Here’s some tracks from MELTy-type artists…
Adoptahighway – Yes Like You Think It Is
After the bump, a brief interview w/ Adoptahighway (and an additional track):
Radiohead vs. The Grammys
February 14th, 2011
(Apparently last night’s Grammy awards made Radiohead as pissed-off as they made us [The Arcade Fire for Best New Artist instead of METALLICA?! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, IDIOTS???], because they’ve decided to throw the ol’ (pitch)fork in the microwave (I think that is a metaphor for the 24-hours news cycle) and release a new album, The King of Limbs, this weekend. In honor of this occasion, Part III of Seizure Chicken’s ongoing, nearly worthwhile Chicken Piece Theater. This week: trouble’s a-brewing in New Haven, Connecticut!)
/// Vol. III: …And Keep Your Enemies Closerer ///
