{image1} Five years ago a spacy instrumental band from San Diego called Tristeza came to Milwaukee to play a show at a house on Bremen Street. Their bass player Luis Hermosillo says that even in California Milwaukee had, by then, earned a reputation of sorts for hosting great basement shows. When Tristeza took the stage at the Cactus Club last Friday they paid brief homage to their fond memory of that Bremen Street house. As the crowd screamed, it was apparent that many of them had been at that first show and had showed up tonight to welcome them back.
Opening for Tristeza was Milwaukee's own Collections of Colonies of Bees (COCOB). We met up with guitarist Christopher Rosenau to discuss being an instrumental band, signing with Polyvinyl Records and, most importantly, what in the hell is up with that name?
His answer to the latter question involved a frivolously detailed recollection of the dawning days of COCOB. A random conversation with his upstairs neighbor, a quintessential everything man whose interests ranged from Japanese hookers, to Clydesdale horses, to, of course, bees, led Rosenau to his destiny. "He started telling me about his collections of colonies of bees, and as soon as it came out of his mouth, I knew that was our name," says Rosenau. "People have been hating it ever since."
Their band's name may be up for debate among their fans, but their music is something they can all agree on. Among the swarms of Cactus Clubbers Friday night we ran into another instrumental Milwaukee band, The Silence. This quartet, comprising Craig O'Lander, Chris Roberts, Matt Cipov and Tod Stefan, is the perfect blend of ambient sounds. This is the music that butterflies dream to. As interesting as they are beautiful, The Silence promises Milwaukee another sampling of their sonics in the form of a full-length album due out this spring or early summer.
And across town from Cactus Club, the Pod Squad invaded the Hi-Hat last week. Well, not actually invaded. More like snuck through the back door and waited patiently for the city's digital music player junkies to show up.
We know you're out there.
The evening was set to start at 9 p.m., but the laws of nature that govern Milwaukee events once again proved otherwise. By 10:30 p.m. WMSE's station manager Tom Crawford took the stage to introduce and explain the process to a modest crowd, made up mostly of other WMSE djs. Crawford kicked it off by playing a few songs. Almost and hour later, he was still the only one playing songs.
Where were you guys? I know that 9 p.m., even 10 p.m., is pretty early for the bar crowd. But it's a Wednesday night. What else are you doing? The slow start was definitely disappointing. Maybe it was the snow? It definitely wasn't the lack of promotion.
Sure, it requires a bit of audience participation. For one night a week, the idea is to make DJs out of what would otherwise just be vodka-sipping patrons. Do we always want to give previously established djs the rights to our evening's soundtrack?
This is music democracy and it's happening every Wednesday night at the Hi-Hat Garage. Will it have better luck tonight? Will people battle for more than the attention of the bartender? I hope so because this could actually be a lot of fun. I give the Hi Hat, WMSE and the Pod Squad's official host, DJ J-Money, credit for trying something new. Well, at least new to Milwaukee.
Click here to read more about the Pod Squad at Hi-Hat in a related article.
OnMilwaukee.com staff writer Julie Lawrence grew up in Wauwatosa and has lived her whole life in the Milwaukee area.
As any “word nerd” can attest, you never know when inspiration will strike, so from a very early age Julie has rarely been seen sans pen and little notebook. At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee it seemed only natural that she major in journalism. When OnMilwaukee.com offered her an avenue to combine her writing and the city she knows and loves in late 2004, she knew it was meant to be. Around the office, she answers to a plethora of nicknames, including “Lar,” (short for “Larry,” which is short for “Lawrence”) as well as the mysteriously-sourced “Bill Murray.”
