« 01.15.06 - 01.21.06 | Main | 01.29.06 - 02.04.06 »

What Made Milwaukee Famous

(We covered WMMF last year, here's a reprint of that original entry and an update of what they've been up to in the past year.)

I finally had a chance to ask the members of What Made Milwaukee Famous if they're named after that Jerry Lee Lewis song ("What's Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me)"), or the just the old Schlitz slogan. Or both. Well, for the record, it's totally the Jerry Lee Lewis song -- though I swear, each member of the band seems to have some sort of Schlitz memorabilia emblazoned with the slogan -- it's totally adorable of them.

Anyway, don't let that initial impression give you the wrong idea -- WMMF are not a beer-soaked frat party band, but purveyors of very fine dark-edged power pop -- a sort of California-meets-New-York sound that could only come out of a band based in Austin.

Big swinging pop hooks, singalong choruses and melodic basslines collide with New Wave-y snare and synths, all tied together with lead singer Michael Kingkaid's sweet, strong, melancholy voice -- and the effect is pretty impressive. Instead of sounding like every power pop band since the dawn of time or a cookie-cutter retro New Wave gloom and doom outfit, WMMF are on a path to carve out a sound that's uniquely their own. And I think they're doing a damn fine job of it -- plus, they put on one heck of a live show.

...as I hope some of you must know by now. In late 2005, WMMF played a set for that venerable PBS institution, Austin City Limits, along those sassy Scots Franz Ferdinand. The result can only be described as perhaps the most satisfying David vs. Goliath moment I've seen in a long time -- WMMF played a grand set and blew the Franzies out of the water. And they just happened to be the first unsigned band that's ever played on Austin City Limits, to boot! (We don't think that condition will persist too much longer, though!)

Other big events in 2005 were the acquisition of a new drummer, Jeremy Bruch (who does double duty, here -- he's also in Hurts to Purr) and the semi-retirement of the band's beloved (pretty much by me alone, sadly) Rhodes stage piano. I hear it's not gone for good, just taking a rest -- which was nice to hear as it's sorely missed in the WMMF live show.

And, as a bonus, I was happy to spot today that the lads will be playing Stereogum's SXSW day party, along with an assortment of bands that are favorites of the various SYITP ladies: Ted Leo, Aloha, Thunderbirds Are Now!, and Rogue Wave. We'll be there with bells on, you can count on it.

new tracks posted for 2006!
What Made Milwaukee Famous - Selling Yourself Short
What Made Milwaukee Famous - Around the Gills
What Made Milwaukee Famous - Mercy, Me (live on KVRX)

What Made Milwaukee Famous' website. Buy their self-released debut CD, Trying To Never Catch Up, from cdbaby.com and at iTunes music store

Posted by Little Miss Rock'n'Roll on 01.28.06 at 4:27 AM | Comments (1), TrackBack (0)

Silversun Pickups

The average five year old child is often energetic and fidgety, and has a short attention span. He can also ride a two-wheeler with training wheels, can swing by himself, and draw simple figures. The average five-year-old moderately successful indie rock band, however, probably has two full-lengths out, perhaps an EP, has gone on several nationwide tours, and perhaps has crossed oceans to play shows in other continents.

The My Bloody Valentine-esque Silversun Pickups, on the other hand? Los Angeles' "best kept secret" is finally anticipating releasing their debut album in 2006 (they're probably working on it at this very moment). The only official release from the band is a single EP, put out only due to pressure from badly-recorded fan bootlegs.

This Silverlake based-quartet draws influences from indie rock and shoegaze, and, most surprisingly, mid-90s Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam, with shifting dynamics and that familiar alt-rock drone. Their melancholy songs are complete with chugging guitars, throbbing basslines by secret weapon and teenage wet dream Nikki Monninger, and radio-ready vocals, all soaking in wonderously fuzzy feedback. And after making a splash at CMJ 2005 a few months ago with their formidable stage presence (five years of playing shows does wonders for a band, doesn't it?), Silversun Pickups are set to take on SXSW at full force.

When I listen to Pikul, I like to imagine that I'm back in high school, shortly after grunge has exploded on MTV, driving around in my mother's car, days after getting my license. Brian Aubert has graduated from the days when he was too nervous to sing properly into the mic. And whenever he yelps during "Kissing Families," I think to myself, Billy Corgan, eat your heart out.

Silversun Pickups - Kissing Families
Silversun Pikcups - Comeback Kid

Silversun Pickups' official site. Buy the Pikul EP from Amazon or iTunes Music Store.

Posted by Queen of the Front Row on 01.27.06 at 2:29 AM | Comments (3), TrackBack (0)

Destroyer

I'm not totally well-versed in these kinds of things -- but I think that Destroyer may be the only indie rock band with a drinking game. (Certainly, there must be a Mountain Goats drinking game, or maybe an East River Pipe drinking game?) Here's an excerpt from the rules: Reference to a Destroyer song in the lyrics of another Destroyer song? Drink! Appearance of the word destroy/destroyed/destroyer in the lyrics? Drink! Wholesale quotation of lyrics from another source? Drink! Song addressed to a woman? Drink! Every song forms the backbone of a concept album about the struggle between art and commerce? Drink the whole damn bottle and forget about this shot nonsense. Pass out.

The Destroyer drinking game, apparently, will get you really plowed -- which really is something for a one-man band that has somehow managed to produce some of the freshest and most challenging pop music of the past ten years or so.

There are definitely a few things to keep in mind before you engage in a conversation of any length about the work of Dan Bejar, who is the heart and soul of Destroyer. (The band was technically a solo act until the most recent touring band became a full time backing band as well.) Llike previous SYItP denizen Neko Case, Mr. Bejar is a member of The New Pornographers -- whom The Queen of the Front Row will be profiling any day now. Which is to say, Mr. Bejar has talent to burn as he supports two fantastic projects -- he's no slouch in his solo nor supergroup career. (However, as I write this, I'm concerned that Ms. Case and Mr. Bejar will wear themselves out, performing in two showcasing acts each. Perhaps someone should let them know that we're worried.) He began recording albums under the Destroyer name in 1996 and has put out seven albums to date with a eighth, Destroyer's Rubies, en queue for Spring 2006. (My personal favorite is 2004's Your Blues.)

I've heard Destroyer at various times compared to David Bowie (ca. Low or Hunky Dory, I would imagine), and really, that's about the best comparison one can come up with. Bejar's meandering, bizarro pop monologues are truly singular, but completely reminiscent of Bowie's word play and nonsensical lyrics, when at times it seems two words are slapped next to one another, not to serve the story the song is trying to tell, but rather for how pleasing they sound next to each other instead.

On Destroyer's Rubies, these epic songs wend their way through the weird logical infrastructure of Bejar's thought processes only to be neatly tied up by a la-de-de-da-da-da chorus that 's photocopied and bolted on to almost every song on the album instead of a more traditional verse/chorus/verse format. This is a far cry from the lo-fi songlets from the first Destroyer record, We'll Build Them a Golden Bridge, or the glossy-hard pop of Streethawk: A Seduciton or the synth-fueled rants heard on Your Blues -- and yet the album folds seamlessly into the fabric of Destroyer's (and Bejar's ) artistic evolution. One can't even begin to imagine where he'll be up to with next album.

Destroyer - Sublimation Hour
Destroyer - Very Modern Dance
Destroyer - Loves of a Gnostic
Destroyer - Notorious Lightening
Destroyer - 3000 Flowers

Destroyer's site at Merge. Pre-order Destroyer's Rubies at Amazon; listen to the rest of Destroyer's massive back catalog at the iTunes Music store.

Posted by Little Miss Rock'n'Roll on 01.26.06 at 4:00 AM | Comments (1), TrackBack (0)

Man Man

(We featured the following artist last year on SYITP but thought they were so good that we should feature them again. This previous entry has been updated to reflect changes in the last 12 months. And if you missed out the first time around, now is your chance!)

Imagine that Captain Beefheart's demented second cousin meets a warped Tom Waits, a demented Nick Cave, and both go gallavanting with two Franks (Black and Zappa) in the backwoods of Philadelphia and you're pretty close to the dark, deeply strange, but still charming stylings of Man Man. Frontman Honus Honus' voice reminds me of the sputtterings of Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock, full of grunting and yelping set against the joyous chaos of Wolf Parade or Need New Body. The rest of the band joins in with an equally haunting backdrop, whether they're adding chilling, otherworldly screeches, or piercing falsettos, or a deranged wedding song, or the occasional angelic choir composed entirely of first graders' voices.

Man Man act like a jaunty circus orchestra of keyboards and brass instruments, pinned up against a wall of shout-singing, punctuated with very unusual percussion. The band does not hesitate to use any possible object, including, but not limited, to the kitchen sink, as drummable surfaces. Which is not to say that Man Man is overly noisy or pretentious art-rock, though they have a certain art school sensibility about them -- but this is an art school that exists only in the night terrors triggered by reruns of The Twilight Zone.

I get the sense that Man Man took stock of someone's garage or abandoned mansion, filled with dusty rattles, rusty metal fans, broken keyboards, a discarded flute, long forgotten songbooks and somehow made music the only way they knew how: quirky, fascinating, sweaty, strangely sexy, uncomfortably creaky, but still accessible. Freaks of the world, feel not alone, as this band is for you, as the live show is filled with toy instruments, Japanese umbrellas, and animal masks.

The Man Man line-up has changed since The Man In A Blue Turban With A Face, and only frontman Honus Honus remains. The new members have also taken carnie stage names: Sergei Sogay ("brown bass, vibes, caveman throat"), Les Mizzle ("science...color, smooth throat"), Blanco, Alejandro "Cougar" Borg ("marimba, trumpet, snake guitar, manic throat"), and Pow Pow ("sexual trap kit, bedroom eyes, coyote throat, spirit healer"). Something tells me that the previous album is just the beginning for this gang of freaks. The music of Man Man is strongly hypnotic, slowly revealing layer upon layer of intricacies not visible to the naked eye; Six Demon Bag reveals Man Man expanding their musical palate to elements of hip-hop, 60s girl groups (the elegant horns and "Shoo, sh-doo-ba-doo" backing of "Ice Dogs" yielded a double-take on first listen), and easy listening pop (the surprising "Van Helsing Boombox" wouldn't be out of place in a Broadway musical).

Surreal yet still strongly melodic, this is a band to be fascinated by. Man Man draw upon freak folk, the fringes of klezmer, and the twisted undercurrents of underground rock to great effect.

Man Man - Ice Dogs
Man Man - Feathers
Man Man - Skin Tension
Man Man - Van Helsing Boombox
Man Man - Against the Peruvian Monster
Man Man - I, Manface

Man Man's official site. Pre-order Six Demon Bag from Amazon. Buy The Man In A Blue Turban With A Face from Ace Fu, iTunes Music Store, or Amazon.

Posted by Queen of the Front Row on 01.25.06 at 12:15 AM | Comments (2), TrackBack (0)

Annie

After falling off the radar following the release of underground club smash "The Greatest Hit" (which sampled Madonna's "Everybody") in 1999 and the premature death of her boyfriend and producing partner Tore Andreas Kroknes in 2001, sassy Norwegian Annie returned with a vengance and put out one of the best best pop records of 2004, Anniemal. And for a while there it seemed that the only people who'd heard it were a slew of Scandinavians, a couple of people in the UK, a whole bunch of music bloggers.

Annie was one of the very first international acts on my radar who became bona fide Internet music ultra-meme, garnering glowing recommendations from the pop-loving Stereogum to crumudegons at Pitchfork. The discovery and dissemination of Annie's music in this way is one of those things that makes me believe in the inherent goodness of man -- and incredible power of word-of-mouth and file sharing. (Anniemal was released in the US in mid-2005.)

[Sorry, I, uh, just had to get up and have a dance break there for a few minutes!]

Aggressively yet sweetly metallic and busy with jingles and clanks -- especially her best-known track, the Richard X-produced "Chewing Gum" (the remainder of the album was produced by Royksopp and Finnish electrohead Timo Kaokolampi) -- Annie's songs are full to the brim with electropop flourishes and ABBA shoutouts and throbby RnB beats. Her delightfully accented, breathy, and slightly detached (yet wonderfully expressive) voice puts the Ashlee Simpsons and even the Gwen Stefanis of the world to shame. (Namechecking one's self in a song is always infinitely better than a call-and-response cheerleader chant, in my book!)

In fact, Annie is a great rarity when it comes to pop divas -- she's definitely not just a mindless chirping (or lip-synching) Barbie doll. She wrote (or co-wrote) an overwhelming majority of the songs on Anniemal (which run the gamut from crystalline dancefloor stompers to thumpy slow jams) and she's producing tracks on her next album. On related career path, she's a hot property on the celebrity DJ circuit and contributed a set to K7's DJ Kicks series in 2005.

Annie - My Greatest Hit
Annie - Chewing Gum
Annie - Heartbeat (Phones Maximo Remix)
Annie - The Wedding

Annie's official site. Buy Anniemal at Amazon or from the iTunes Music Store.

Posted by Little Miss Rock'n'Roll on 01.24.06 at 1:21 AM | Comments (0), TrackBack (0)

Calla

If you're still recovering from addiction to twee pop or what Little Miss Rock'n'Roll referred to as "gloomy progcountryemo," Calla probably aren't the best starting point for rediscovering what guitar can do when stretched to the limit. Even with training wheels and the ultimate accessibility of their new album Collisions, Calla's uncomfortable melding of spaghetti-western landscape meditations with Eno's glamtastic guitar trickery doesn't make for easy listening.

Though Calla have been name-checked and championed by artists as diverse as Sigur Rós and Chan Marshall and have toured with both Interpol and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, large-scale success has eluded them, even after four critically acclaimed albums. Perhaps driving with the lights off and only the moon reflecting on coliche isn't a route everyone is comfortable with, but Calla's rhythms so eerily match the shapes and textures of the flat expanses of South Texas that the trip down a dark road is inevitable, so the possibility is avoided altogether -- which is a tragedy. Hope remains that Calla's recent signing with Beggars Banquet will remedy a bit of the obscurity and shed warmer light on what three boys from Texas have been creating in Brooklyn for the past eleven years.

Last year at SXSW was the first time I was able to catch Calla live (due in part to my being perpetually ten minutes late...and in the case of some show nights, longer). Never before had any live performance so lived up to my expectations or the transcendent potential of recordings that had already made themselves at home in my life. I stood near the low stage at the Ritz and watched a pure experience stripped bare of banter or antics, a standard that Calla continue to deliver in regular tour sets. They were four then, but slimmed down to a three piece, the edge of extraordinary racket has honed, making Calla more than worthy to cover Eno's "Needles in the Camel's Eye," which they've seized and made their own to round out encores on the Collisions tour.

What the next tour and Calla's second SXSW appearance in as many years will bring for them is yet to be seen, but if the attention of 2005 is an indicator, there may be bigger plans and paths yet to unfold for this band whose very history is Texas scene legend turned fairytale of New York.

Calla - Awake and Under
Calla - Custom Car Crash (live)
Calla - Astral
Calla - Pete the Killer
Calla - Overshadowed

Calla's official site. Buy Calla's newest album, Collisions, and others from their back catalog Amazon or the iTunes music store.

Posted by Last Girl to the Party on 01.23.06 at 1:33 AM | Comments (0), TrackBack (0)

The Boy Least Likely To

No matter how much my taste changes, I will never, ever be over my search for the perfect pop song. Just as last year, on this very blog, I often confessed that I would never be over power pop, and the same follows for twee pop as well.

The Boy Least Likely To are quite possibly the most deliciously, unabashedly twee band I've heard in ages, which is nice -- because once upon a time long, long ago (and by that, I mean the mid/late 90s), there were many, many twee bands. These days it seems like there's tons of boppy dancerock bands and gloomy progcountryemo bands and ultratrendy bands with 'Wolf' in their names. A twee band would never, ever be called anything wolfish, except maybe Wolf Hugs or Cuddle Wolf or uh, Wolf Parade or something like that.

Oh, don't get me wrong, there's plenty of twee-ness out there to be had, mind you: Architecture in Helsinki, The Go! Team, Tender Trap, Acid House Kings, Labrador, The Rosebuds, The Brunettes, and The Pipettes are taking chipper pop in new and interesting directions. But only The Boy Least Likely To is singing songs about monsters who get married and have baby monsters and take them on walks in prams around the town that turns into an indictment of suburban blandness; songs that feature glockenspeils and banjos and recorders and handclaps and xylophones -- not to mention sweetly pained lyrics and catchy, earwormy choruses.

And okay, I'm probably not going to sell you dark little gloomcookies out there who are too cool for anything cute and adorable on the merits of The Boy Least Likely To, but hear me out. Jof Owen (vocals and lyrics) and Pete Hobbs (multi-instrumentalist and composer), the rural English bedroom popsters who make up The Boy Least Likely To, are solid musicians and great songwriters. One of the band's best songs, "I'm Glad I Hitched My Apple Wagon To Your Star," a delerious number full of wonderful contradictions that manages to unabashedly quote liberally from the entire back catalog of The Beatles and ELO and Blur simultaneously without being at all annoying about it (as, well, most of their songs do -- and really, I promise, they don't sound at all like Belle and Sebastian, no matter what other music writers have said), mentions a 'country disco band,' and honestly, I'd much rather sell you on the fact that that's exactly what The Boy Least Likely Is, actually: A country disco band. A country disco band that worries about death and turning into dull, plodding adults. A country disco band that compares the painful hearbreak of unrequited love to paper cuts. But maybe this isn't winning you over either.

Time to bring out the big guns, then. Go look at this picture (the achingly sweet art for The Boy Least Likely To's graphic idenity is created by an artist simply known as Tim) and give a listen to the songs below. And if you don't like them, well, heck -- we'll soon be covering gobs of bands that sing angsty songs in dark rooms and holler a whole lot. Promise!

The Boy Least Likely To - I'm Glad I Hitched My Apple Wagon To Your Star
The Boy Least Likely To - Paper Cuts
The Boy Least Likely To - Monsters

The Boy Least Likely To's official site. The band's self-released debut album, The Best Party Ever is available in the US as a pricey import from Amazon or for a much more reasonable cost from Insound.

Shadows tag: theboyleastlikelyto.

Posted by Little Miss Rock'n'Roll on 01.22.06 at 4:06 AM | Comments (5), TrackBack (0)