How many shows does a band need to have played together before it can lay claim to a reunion show?
That's the curious question posed by the sadly short-lived but hard-rocking indie outfit Owner Operator, which played just a handful of shows before drummer and Milwaukee music scene fixture Thom Geibel packed up and moved to Seattle last year.
Luckily, the band, comprising IfIHadAHiFi drummer DJ Hostettler on vocals, Michael Marchant of The F*cking Teeth on bass and Anthony Webber of defunct noise band New Blind Nationals on guitar, gets an unexpected victory lap when it playw Cactus Club tonight with King's Horses, Terrior Bute and Zombie Chickens From Outer Space.
"I missed a lot of people when I came back for Christmas because I was in and out in like three or four days. I booked the trip as kind of a spring break thing, to come back and see friends," said Geibel.
"I was coming actually to see the show that King's Horses was playing and some band dropped off and I said 'Hey, I'll be in town. Why not?'"
People who didn't catch one of the handful of shows Owner Operator played before Geibel's departure can look forward to some seriously fun indie rock taken to it's loudest boundaries.
Hostettler, freed from his behind the kit duties with IfIHadAHiFi proves a fun and engaging front man, running all over the stage while the rest of the band rips through its choppy tunes.
"Originally one of us was going to sing but it didn't work so we asked DJ to sing on some of the songs," said Geibel. "He was kind of attracted to the idea of getting to be a frontman. In HiFi he's stuck behind the drums. Recording-wise you can always hear his vocals but live it's always hard to get a drummers vocals to come out."
Despite being a side project to their other musical endeavors, there is a musical chemistry on their posthumously released free digital record "I Run With Sharks, Motherf*cker."
"I like Tony's guitar style. He and I have a pretty good chemistry. I could see where he was going and come up with something that would fit," said Geibel.
"In the scope of things it was one of those young bands. Young as in we had only been playing together for a little while, so we still had a lot of movement behind us and being excited about what we were doing."
Geibel speculates that some of that chemistry was born out of the pressure put on the band to finish writing before he left town.
"And it had an urgency since I was going to be leaving," Geibel said.
Despite having not practiced for months, Geibel said he doesn't foresee rust being a problem when the band takes the stage tonight.
"We've played these songs plenty of times so I am pretty solid on the parts. I actually just mixed our demos, so for a month straight I was listening to these songs and mixing them so they are drilled into my head," Geibel said.
Geibel's not sure when his next visit to Milwaukee will be or if it will allow for another Owner Operator show, so tonight's reunion show just may be the last.
