Hey you! F***face!

Four drummers (minus snares and cymbals), two guitarists, one bassist, one guy banging on a piece of metal, and a growling lyricist. Might be worth the $12 it will cost you to get into the Miramar at 7 p.m. on Saturday just to see if they all actually fit on the stage.

Well…that and the musicians from this band, Fuckface, are all local legends. Boy Dirt Car brought vocalist (and owner of now-defunct Milwaukee indie music store Earwaves) Dave Szolwinski and Dan Kubinski (well-known for his time as Die Kreuzen’s vocalist), who started as a drummer and later moved to rhythm guitar. Add drummers Erik Tunison (who was also in Die Kreuzen and, for a time, Killdozer), Paul New (best known for serving in the Crusties), Jed Chrysler, Dwain Flowers (of Jesus Manson), and metal percussionist Karl Paloucek (from Shrilltower and Impact Test), and viola! It’s the percussion section. Dave Raeck (from Fabulon Triptometer and Plasticland) performs his duty as lead guitarist, and wife Tammy Raeck (formerly Tammy Wirta of the Muckrakers) plays bass. There were various other musicians involved at different times, but these are the ones featured on the recently-released self-titled album.

Here’s the short story: experimental band formed in 1990 by Szolwinski (note: originally not meant to be a ‘band’, the group was collected to do some percussion for Richard Franecki’s Vocokesh project), many members of which were chosen from his eclectic customer/employee base. Szolwinski lays down rules: no cymbals, no snares, to differentiate their sound from ‘rock’ acts. Band records album in 1995 at local studio, Walls Have Ears, owned by Mr. Bill Stace. Band drifts apart. Album picked up, added to, and released by local record label, Latest Flame, in March 2010. Band plays 3 live shows (Friday the 9th at Quenchers in Chicago, Saturday the 10th at Milwaukee’s Miramar Theater, and Sunday the 11th in Green Bay at the Crunchy Frog) in July 2010, including the Miramar, a venue run by the same Stace. This might be your last time to see them, in all their creative genius, on one stage.

Previous live performances have involved Szolwinski painting half of his face red and wearing a metal mask, metal percussionist Paloucek using an angle grinder to project sparks, and “a thing with a chain and break drum, I used to swing that around a lot,” says Szolwinski. That was then, this is now, however, and don’t expect to see repeats of any of these antics. “There will be some new ‘surprises’ though,” he claims.
As for the ‘why’…well, I got a few answers, and I imagine all of these may have contributed somewhat. A 2007 story in The Onion‘s AV Club Milwaukee written by Fan-Belt’s own DJ Hostettler sparking the idea of reuniting was one explanation; a conversation between Latest Flame owner Dan Hanke and Karl Paloucek during which Karl casually mentioned that Fuckface had recorded an album that had never been released (a situation which Hanke enthusiastically offered to rectify) was another; and the last was that (bassist) Tammy approached (singer) Dave at the Boy Dirt Car show at Atomic Records’ closing ‘party’ last Valentines’ Day about a reunion, to which he agreed (on the condition that they could actually get everyone back together). As for why these particular cities were chosen, “those were 3 of our favorite locations, we did well in all of these places back in the day,” according to guitarist Dan Kubinski.

Opening the Milwaukee stop will be Eric Lunde, one of the founding members of Boy Dirt Car (who was also in XCHdX with Szolwinski), playing a 15-minute set (he’s also scheduled to return to the stage and perform with Fuckface later in the evening on their song “Black House”), Vocokesh (psychedelic project of Richard Franecki, also known for his involvement in F/i and who was partially responsible for the starting of Fuckface), Milwaukee favorites and Fuckface label-mates noise rock band IfIHadAHiFi, and Decapitado! (thrash/metal-ish trio for which Dan Kubinski plays bass & sings).