Wednesday night at the North Star Bar, a band with what can only be considered a strange name blew me away. I missed the opening band, “Los Dos Bros”, and actually came in during WMMF’s 2nd song. It was an all-ages show, which I hate at the North Star because they make you jump through all kinds of hoops to get into the show, keep the wall sconces lit up, and don’t allow beer in the venue. Regardless of these strikes against them, and a rather small and mellow crowd (mostly there for Louis XIV), What Made Milwaukee Famous made it worth it.

What Made Milwaukee Famous (website | myspace) are a medium sized band from Austin, TX with an amazing talent for singing harmony. I can only imagine how bad the acoustics are on stage, and the monitors are poorly placed as well, but these guys were so spot-on with their harmonies it was quite ridiculous.

As I normally do, I was focused on the drummer, who was quite ambidextrous, which is the sign of a great and well-practiced drummer, as well as makes any observing drummer who isn’t, quite jealous. He was playing the Louis XIV drumset, but had his own cymbals, which I found out later are “Paiste Bronze Dark” and crazy expensive, but they sounded fantastic and were barely mic’d.

The singer has a very Ours meets Bono vocal range and style. Some songs remind me of Keane, but only a little. The whole CD is great, the show is awesome, definitely go see them.

Songs to check out: Sultan, Cheap Wine, Resistance St (all on their myspace).

Louis XIV was completely boring after seeing WMMF. We stayed for 1.5 songs, yawned, and left. They have a very White Stripes feel, but weren’t impressive, at least for me (sorry Louis fans..).

The White Rabbits [website | myspace] have 2 drummers. It’s not the usual one drumset, one auxiliary percussionist. They have 2 full drumsets on stage and 2 drummers manning them. Yeah, I know bands have done it before, but to see 2 full drumsets in Johnny Brenda’s with 2 equally skilled drummers behind each made for quite a spectacle. They played to compliment each other, not to just be louder overall. Not only that, but everyone played everything. The guitarist would pick up a tambourine, one of the drummers would come out from behind his set and play the 2nd keyboard, the keyboardist would play a floor tom… Not only great music, but an interesting show to watch.

To actually do a decent account of the show, I guess I have to talk about the rest of the band… The pianist/lead singer played a piano/keyboard that sounded rather like an old-west saloon piano. His hands were a blur for most of the show, I really couldn’t figure out how one man can play that many notes a second…  Comparatively, the guitarists were unremarkable.  They did their part, and did it well, but were definitely overshadowed.  The outcome was a great sounding show, very tight, very clean.

The sound in Johnny Brenda’s was clear and not too overbearing. I’ve not seen a show yet where the sound was questionable (Johnny Brenda’s makes the Electric Factory sound like a pair of airline headphones). I guess the only thing I wasn’t too fond of was the fact that the 2nd guitarist / other singer was front and center on the stage. We expected him to do something awesome, and while he was the lead singer on one or two songs, just basically stood there, played rhythm guitar, and looked at the keyboardist for cues. I wouldn’t really dock them points for this however because it could be due to the small stage size and large number of band members.

Key tracks to check out are While We Go Dancing and The Plot (both on their myspace). Just buy the whole CD, you won’t regret it.

Some friends and I went to The Middle East in Boston, MA to see Vampire Weekend, Ra Ra Riot and Tokyo Police Club. It was a great lineup and a benefit for a good cause, The John Ryan Pike Foundation, which is where all proceeds from this show went.

The Venue: The Middle East – Cambridge, MA
The venue was a great place to see a show. It’s your average low-ceiling, dark room venue but had a few different levels so you could get your head above the crowd if you wanted to. It was downstairs, which is an actual venue with a soundboard, 2 bars, coat room, etc… They have shows upstairs in the restaurant/bar, but that’s more acoustic-type, open-mic shows.

Opener: Vampire Weekend
I don’t know… This is the second time I’ve seen these guys (actually, this is the 2nd time I’ve seen this exact lineup). They’re too gimmicky for me. I’m really not sure why. They can’t catch my attention. This time, like when I saw them last time, I find them just good to keep me from wandering off to the bar to watch the silent TV. They were about as interesting as this description of them…

Next up: Ra Ra Riot
I’m conflicted. They were amazing live, their recorded stuff… smeh… Anyone who brings an electric violinist and electric cellist to the stage deserves mad points. Their songs had what every half-assed band with a synthesizer is trying hopelessly to accomplish, but most fail miserably. I guess that’s what is missing in Ra Ra Riot’s recordings. (wow, I’m in ramble-mode today…) Their tunes are catchy, I thought the drummer was great, and the singer was dead on the whole time. For their last song, they brought out Vampire Weekend and Tokyo Police Club to “bang on shit”. It was highly entertaining, with most of the crammed stage just jumping around and clapping.

Headliner: Tokyo Police Club
Awesome. They played a lot of new material. They only have one official release that is very short, but I’ve never heard a lot of the songs they played, which points toward a promising sophomore release. The keyboardist is probably the most entertaining part of the show. He goes absolutely nuts the whole time AND he when he screams into the mic, he sounds like 20 people… seriously… listen to Citizens of Tomorrow… That’s him.

The only disappointing part was the fact that the venue emptied out a lot after Ra Ra Riot. I guess it was because John Ryan Pike was part of Ra Ra Riot and everyone there was only there to see them. Those people that left missed a pretty awesome dance-fest.

No, I didn’t dance, I’m jus-sayin…

So, anyway, go far out of your way to see TPC, drive a good distance to see Ra Ra Riot, and if Vampire Weekend is playing in your living room, well… I guess… don’t tell them to stop…

A while ago… back in like August, I went to see Lake Trout at the 8×10 in Baltimore. That was Exit Clov, The Benzos, and Lake Trout. We stayed all the way through one song by Lake Trout and left because the sound was horrible. I was hoping it was just the 2 first bands and that Lake Trout would sound good, but man was I wrong. I’ll be hard-pressed to go back there for another show.

But that’s in the past. We went around the corner to the North Star Bar (walking distance, already gonna be better) to see Lake Trout again. I talked to Woody, the lead singer of Lake Trout and asked him why Benzos isn’t playing this show (as was billed on the posters hanging all over). He said there were some family issues with one of the members so they had to bail. I didn’t care very much, I wanted to see them, and was glad they were finally at a good-sounding place.

The Underwater
First, the opening band (well, the 2nd band, I didn’t get there for the opening band). The Underwater was… well… let me put it like this: they are excellent musicians. That being said, I wasn’t a big fan… Joking referring to them as Incu-back… Or Nickle-bus… The drummer was very good, he just needs a few lessons in dynamics (everything had to be F*#$in’ LOUD or it was not worth playing). Also, the crowd for them was quite small, and they seemed pissed off about it. The singer was trying to do some crowd participation, but when that didn’t fly, he was basically like “screw you guys” and turned his back, leaning on an amp. If you’re not the main band, appreciate the people that are listening to you and move on. So, while it didn’t warrant me going into the other half of the bar and watching the Bronco’s game, and it was entertaining to watch, every song sounded the same, so on to…..

Lake Trout
Awesome. Very good. They played a lot of stuff off of “Not Them, You” but also did key tracks from “Another One Lost” which made me extremely happy. Woody has this thing where he has more effects peddles for his vocal mic than his guitar, but it was just used as an effect, not a crutch for bad singing like some people do (ex: Eiffle 65: Blue… that stupid voice through keyboard effect because they can’t carry a tune). They closed with Bliss which is definitely my favorite song too.

The guitars (both guitarists played hollow-body electrics for most of the time) sounded great, the balance on stage was great, and even the keyboard player tucked in the back left of the stage came through fine. And he played a F@#!ing FLUTE. I always thought the flute on their tracks was a keyboard, but no, he whipped out out from behind him and was dead on. points++ on that one…

Also, after I was talking to Woody in the bar before their show, I overheard him mention to someone that this was their first show in 6 months because they were on tour as the live backup band for Unkle, which I will definitely be trying to track down some recordings of…

So yes, go see them. Go buy the albums. I’m glad I didn’t write off their live performance after the failure at 8×10. And I’ll see them any time they come through again.

Next up is Tokyo Police Club at Middle East in Cambridge MA Saturday night. Hopefully we can make it up there, but the snow has other ideas…