February 2007

By Erin Wolf February 6 The Apples in Stereo New Magnetic Wonder Simian/Redeye The Backyard Fire Vagabonds and Hooligans OIE/Redeye Bloc Party A Weekend in the City Dim Mak/Vice/Atlantic Fall Out Boy Infinity on High Island/Fueled By Ramen Patty Griffin Children Running Through ATO/RCA Rickie Lee Jones The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard New West Belinda Carlisle Voila Rykodisc The Dexateens Hardwire Healing Skybucket The End Elementary Relapse Sondre Lerche Phantom Punch Astralwerks Lonely, Dear Lonely, Noir Sub Pop Eleni Mandell Miracle of Five Zedtone Lee Ann Womack Finding My Way Back Home Mercury Nashville Mnemic Passenger Nuclear Blast Yoko Ono Yes, I’m a Witch Astralwerks Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter Like, Love, Lust & The Open Halls of the Soul Barsuk The Used Berth Reprise February 13 Anais Mitchell The Brightness Michael Chorney Young Dubliners With All Due Respect: The Irish Sessions 429/Savoy Label Group Seafood Paper Crown King Cooking Vinyl The Infamous Stringdusters Fork in the Road Sugar Hill Lucinda Williams West Lost Highway February 20 The Ataris Welcome the Night Isola Recordings/Sanctuary Jill Cunniff City Beach Streetwise Lullabies/The Militia Group Dolly Varden The Panic Bell Undertow Explosions in the Sky All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone Temporary Residence Ltd. The Frames The Cost Anti-/Epitaph Fu Manchu We Must Obey Century Media Kittie Funeral for Yesterday Kiss of Infamy The Magic Numbers Those the Brokes Heavenly/Capitol Reel Big Fish and Zolof the Rock & Roll Destroyer Duet All Night Long ReIgnition The Nein Luxury Sonic Unyon Trans Am Sex Change Thrill Jockey Trouble Simple Mind Condition Escapi February 27 Dean & Britta Back Numbers Zoe/Rounder Dr. Dog We All Belong Park the Van Kaiser Chiefs Yours Truly, Angry Mob U.K.-Universal Jesse Malin Glitter in the Gutter Adeline/Warner

Living the dream

By Amy Elliott + Photo by Kate Engeriser “Everybody knows about these people,” the boy mutters. “It’s been drummed into their heads about 15,000 times.” He is a young student with a simple assignment: write a two-page essay about an African-American hero. But he is plagued by a classical academic anxiety: hasn’t it all been said before? Crushed by the pressure of history against his attempts to think and work creatively, he resigns and hangs his head. And then he is visited by the spectre of Harriet Tubman leading a chorus of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” The boy’s encounter with the legendary abolitionist is only the first in a long parade of dreamers, leaders, thinkers and changers. This is We Are The Dream, the story of history revisited and myths refreshed. The performance is the work of the African-American Children’s Theater (AACT), a nonprofit organization that has been providing arts education and mounting productions in the community since 1989. This is the first year that AACT has been able to expand its activities to include a resident company of eight to fourteen-year-old actors with exceptional talent, drive and commitment. The company members focus on perfecting their stagecraft in major collaborative roles both on and off the stage. For We Are The Dream, the small company researched, wrote and directed the play together. “I learned about people I never heard of before,” says resident Jakayla Dills. “Everybody knows about Martin Luther King, but I never learned anything about Barbara Jordan.” Jakayla plays Jordan, a former Texas state senator and the first southern black woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Jakayla also appears as writer and civil rights activist Mary Church, one of the first black women to earn a college degree. When she is not in front of the audience, she is behind the scenes, mastering the skills of stage manager. Mahdi Gransbury, who stars as the plagued schoolboy, doubles as the assistant director for the play. “We work within our group,” says Constance Clark, founder and executive director of AACT, who is helping Mahdi learn about technical theater in hopes that he will be able to take over light, sound and stage design soon. “Ultimately,” she says, “he plans to take over everything.” Mahdi smirks and deviously laces his fingers. AACT’s team spirit befits the group’s goals, which extend far beyond the desire to put on a good show. Theater is a discipline; it enhances confidence, sharpens listening skills, fosters active participation and encourages healthy expression. Before each rehearsal, the kids spend some time talking to each other, sharing their ideas and anxieties. Then they channel their energy into their craft. “Art expresses all your feelings,” says resident Ashante Alfred. “If you’re having a bad day, it just makes you feel happier.” Working through a play can be rigorous, but when the curtain falls, the children go home with a certain artistic wisdom better learned by practice than by books. Some of the actors find that the challenge […]

Paris Ortiz

By Blaine Schultz + Photo by Kate Engeriser Paris Ortiz’ fluid guitar sound has been integral to bands in Milwaukee from Psychedelicasi to Big Dumb Dick to his current group The Cocksmiths. If we believe the cliché that lead guitarists in heavy-leaning rock groups are typically as subtle as brontosauri, then Oritz is more like an archaeopteryx in the sky above – often less a focal point than an integrated part. With The Cocksmiths’ trio of guitars, sonic real estate is at a premium, which means listening is as important as playing. 1. What is the one piece of musical gear you find essential to your sound? My Marshall amplifier. It has such a distinctive, versatile sound. It gives me a solid, crunchy/dirty sound for my rhythms and a sweet, sustained tone for my leads. It has the most amazing feedback. I can hit a note, then stand in front of my amp and that note will sing out for as long as I stand there holding it. 2. What lessons have you learned, good or bad, that you apply to The Cocksmiths? Be true to yourself. Just go out there and play what’s inside of you. There was a point in my life where I had managers and labels telling me what to wear, how to move on stage and how long a song should be. Of course The Cocksmiths want a record deal but we don’t pay attention to who’s popular and who’s getting the most airplay. Everyone in this band has different influence from rockabilly, swing, hard rock and indie music. Yet, we all come to a common ground where no one feels cheated or like they’re playing something they don’t want to. 3. How does your heritage influence your music? I am Hispanic and Latin music is very rhythmic and percussive-oriented, but I don’t know if it’s heritage as much as environment. I grew up in a dominantly African-American neighborhood, so my early influences were Prince, Funkadelic and Hendrix. It really made me a very rhythmic player. As I got older I had friends from all walks of life. Those relationships introduced me to everything from Zeppelin to Ozzy to The Eagles. If I need to be bluesy with a country flair I can do that. I’ll have a reference and if I need to bring it and hammer out an aggressive wah-filled solo I can do that too. 4. If someone had never seen or heard The Cocksmiths, how would you describe the band? A huge wall of whiskey rock. Our bio states, “Picture if the Black Crowes and Soundgarden had a child and it was raised and beaten by Johnny Cash – that’s The Cocksmiths.” 5. Is there a solo (not necessarily guitar) that you never get tired of hearing? That’s a hard one. I would say any solo by Jimi Hendrix. They were passionate, bluesy aggressive solos that fit the song. He was the master. I always loved the solo from “Sultans of […]

Puzzles and Games

By Puzzle Answers Page 1 Puzzle Answers Page 2 Puzzle Answers Page 3

The Bird and the Bee

One can’t help but feel like the self-titled debut from L.A. duo The Bird and the Bee answers the question that’s burned in the minds of music aficionados for years: What would it sound like if Jewel and Stereolab grew up on Martin Denny and Herb Alpert records? The opening track (and first single), “Again and Again,” immediately calls all three touch points to mind, as it’s the perfect declaration of what the duo’s all about: providing the soundtrack to cocktail parties on Mars. The entire album speaks to a fascination for merging past with future. The exotic flavor of “Again and Again” is augmented by a thick, fuzzy synth, adding some space-age low end. “I’m a Broken Heart” ups the stakes with some ‘50s R&B/Doo-Wap stylings – if the girls were wearing vinyl and tinfoil and performing on one of those moon bases artistically rendered in atomic-age In the Year 2000 picture books. And the absence of nearly any real drums in favor of machines and sequencers brings the “yesterday’s music tomorrow” vibe home. The duo doesn’t skimp on the hooks, either – “Broken Heart” is instantly hummable, as is the fantastic chorus to “I Hate Camera” and, really, most any of the tracks on the CD. All the singing is done by the female member of the duo, Inara George (a name that is too awesome to be real), and her ability to harmonize with herself is to be envied; her background vocals move the melodies in some very interesting, attention-demanding directions. The Bird and The Bee make party music for people who like to party without raising their voices while sipping their martinis. Throw it into the disc changer at your next formal. VS

Topdog/Underdog

Golden Apollo

By Russ Bickerstaff Local playwright John Manno’s Golden Apollo is a clever fusion between contemporary aesthetics and ancient legend. Having opened a couple of weeks ago, the reasonably offbeat theatrical presentation’s debut run with Insurgent Theatre ends this coming weekend. While the Insurgent’s cast manages an ensemble performance that respectably fits the script, Manno’s Golden Apollo has more than enough potential to deserve a much bigger venue than the tiny confines the Insurgent Theatre provides at the Astor Theatre. Somewhere near the center of the story lies a brilliant immortal woman named Leto. Leto’s been around for several millennia, having taken the form of an attractive, young woman played by Stephanie Adela Barenett. She is immensely wealthy and powerful, living in a huge, palatial mansion looked after by an exotic servant who used to be a king (Shawn Smith). At the opening of the first act, we see Leto begin an experiment that results in fusing the more brilliant qualities of three different men into one known as Sinbad, (Jason Hames). He was perhaps meant to be the perfect man, but can that guarantee happiness? There in the first moments of that first act lie all the elements that are going to occupy the rest of the play. Lofty intellectual ideas are discussed with some pretty interesting dialogue by earth bound voices adorned in simple, modest costuming on a very minimal set meant to represent a vast mansion. The discrepancy between the tiny space of the Astor Theatre’s stage and the place it’s meant to represent is functionally diminished by use of sparse lighting and negative space. Still, it would be interesting to see this story play out with a substantially bigger budget. As Leto, Barnett has enough poise to carry her end of the production quite well. Playing a compelling, modern, three-dimensional goddess would be a challenge for any actress, but Barnett carries it off well. She plays Leto’s intellectual brilliance with precisely the kind of elevated modesty Manno wrote into the character. Her relationship with Sinbad is a complex one. Leto plays many different roles in relationship to Sinbad, but it’s toward the end of the play when we see the maternal aspect of her relationship with him, which really shows the kind of thought Barnett has put into the character. As Sinbad, Hames plays a number of angles quite well, but the greater character seems a bit out of reach. We see his interest in Leto gradually give way to frustration. We see these elements play out in someone who is extremely human, but Hames doesn’t quite reach the complexity of a person who has been forged out of three people. There are strong parallels between Sinbad and Dr. Frankenstein’s creation in the original Mary Shelley novel. Though, the greater challenges of playing a creation grown resentful of its creator never quite materialize in Hames’ performance. Many actual moments work for Hames, particularly those with Barnett, but there’s a larger sense of the character missing from the […]