Zebras: Animal instincts Trio crafts a danceable rock vision Jessica Steinhoff on Thursday 01/01/2009, (2) Recommendations Local prog-punk trio Zebras is only a year old, but it's managed to play some of the most rocking local shows of 2008 and assemble a fan base that stretches from Madison to Milwaukee. This week Isthmus spoke with guitarist/vocalist Vincent Presley and synthesizer player Lacey Smith about their plans for the new year, which include the much-anticipated release of a split 12-inch vinyl LP with Milwaukee's E = MC Hammer. >More
TOUR STOP
Buffalo Killers: Peace, brother Reviving psychedelic hard rock Rich Albertoni on Thursday 01/01/2009 Buffalo Killers' songs reference bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers and Grand Funk Railroad. But those references are ultimately imperfect because the Buffalo Killers' sound is all their own. >More
THE BIN
Amy Curl & Dan Kennedy: Sharing a Head (Slothrop Music) Jessica Steinhoff on Thursday 01/01/2009 Singer-songwriters Amy Curl and Dan Kennedy are both quite versatile musicians: Kennedy plays backup for Mark Croft, Sean Michael Dargan and other local artists, and Curl released a MAMA-nominated pop album, Mixed Bag, back in 2004. On their new EP, Sharing a Head, they prove that two heads -- or two brains inside one cranium -- are indeed better than one. >MoreCourtney Collins and Jeremy Ylvisaker Welcome to Christmastown (Maypole Records) Jessica Steinhoff on Friday 12/19/2008, (14) Recommendations Singer Courtney Collins, one-half of the local trip-hop group Voltress and lead singer of the defunct power-pop foursome Arena Venus, has got quite a few tricks up her sleeve. The best of 'em might just be Jeremy Ylvisaker, a friend from Minneapolis she teamed up with to make Welcome to Christmastown, a holiday album filled with echoing lo-fi guitars, sultry vocals and creative vision. >More
An exit interview with Nate Palan of Hometown Sweethearts Jason Joyce on Tuesday 08/19/2008 5:44 pm, (1) Comment, (22) Recommendations Look, Madison, Nate Palan is moving to New York, okay? The sooner you come to grips with that fact, the better. That means no more Tuesday nights spent dancing as his celebrated cover band, Hometown Sweethearts, pumps out the best party set ever pulled together at the Crystal Corner. So instead of blubbering about it, let's celebrate the luck we've had to be in the same town as the Sweethears lo, these many years. >MoreForward Music Fest: Counting down Tom Laskin on Friday 08/15/2008, (1) Comment, (20) Recommendations With just four weeks to go before the inaugural Forward Music Festival takes place Sept. 19 and 20, Bessie Cherry, one of the fest's five co-organizers, admits that things are getting a little harried. "I tell the other guys it's kind of like the eighth month of being pregnant," she laughs during a mid-afternoon break from her day job at a local web design and consulting firm. "You're hot. You're tired. You're uncomfortable. And it hasn't happened yet!" >More
My most memorable concerts of 2008 in Madison and Milwaukee Shelby Lynne, Derek Trucks, The Guarneri Quartet, Sam Baker and Gurf Morlix, The Tender Land, and a little bandoneon Marc Eisen on Monday 01/05/2009 3:00 pm, (7) Recommendations It was a marvelous moment, yet another reason why I love live music. The pleasures are visceral, surprising and life affirming. It's why I headed for the concert hall and the clubs 50-plus times in 2008, culminating New Year's Eve at Uihlein Hall watching the Milwaukee Symphony and Chorus performing Beethoven's awe-inspiring 9th Symphony. >MoreMy favorite vinyl finds of 2008 The year in obsessive collecting Bob Koch on Saturday 01/03/2009 10:00 am, (7) Recommendations This year was feast or famine as far as tracking down vinyl. I seemed to either come home with a giant pile of random records to sift through, or not much of anything. Since I write in this space most weeks about LPs, here's a double album's worth of singles that stuck out! >MoreMadTracks -- 'Down On A Bender' by the .357 String Band Jessica Steinhoff on Friday 01/02/2009 12:00 pm, (6) Recommendations There are some regional differences that simply can't be denied, especially when it comes to how we deal with life's ups and downs. Californians have exercise, New Yorkers have therapy, and here in Wisconsin, we've got booze. >MoreA musical whirlwind of my favorite albums from 2008 Jessica Steinhoff on Wednesday 12/31/2008 1:00 pm, (9) Recommendations If there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that my taste in music is pretty eclectic, if not eccentric at times. As such, my take on this past year's releases veers slightly off the beaten path. >MoreMadTracks -- 'Wonder Woman' by VO5 Jessica Steinhoff on Monday 12/29/2008 3:00 pm, (1) Comment, (14) Recommendations Windows Media Player -- thanks to the wacky, mutating psychedelic images that appear when it's used to play music -- can turn almost any song into a laughingstock for a few seconds. Strangely enough, the VO5 cover of the classic theme song "Wonder Woman" is one of few tracks that almost, just almost, seems to complement this aesthetic train wreck. >More
MadTracks -- 'The Reverse' by the The Eric Tessmer Band at BAMFest 2007 Tom Laskin on Wednesday 06/25/2008 5:36 pm, (66) Recommendations Austin-based guitarist Eric Tessmer and his two-man rhythm section plainly caught a contact high last year at the Belleville American Music Festival, as heard in the new live compilation album BAM Fest 2007. The youthful bluesman and his mates race through this breathless recording of "The Reverse" like a careening, nitro-fueled funny car, blistering the beat of the self-penned roadhouse shuffle and shredding its bare bones melody along the way. >MoreMadTracks -- 'On Landmines' by Crane Your Swan Neck Tom Laskin on Thursday 06/19/2008 12:25 pm, (39) Recommendations Pale Young Gentlemen have already made Madison safe for the dramatic, cabaret-influenced indie-rock and gypsy punk that swamped Brooklyn several years back. Consequently, the materials that make up this song by Crane Your Swan Neck -- a melancholy accordion drawn from a 19th Century dancehall, a dirge-like Tom Waits-style beat, and an elastic-voiced swain pleading his case most pathetically as he rearranges the marbles in his mouth -- aren't going to surprise anyone hereabouts. But the quality of the writing, playing and particularly the arranging on this demo version of "On Landmines" might. >More
MUSIC
Jazz and jam reunite at the Midwest Gypsy Swing Fest in Fitchburg Tea Krulos on Sunday 08/24/2008 10:21 am, (24) Recommendations The fifth annual Midwest Gypsy Swing Fest, held on Friday and Saturday at a farm in Fitchburg, felt more like a family picnic of talented jazz musicians than a festival. They played at Art in the Barn, with plastic chairs and bales of hay set up for seating. There were no aggressive sponsors, and the bathroom was located through the horse stall, next to a horse named Ringo. >More
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