A Lot from a Little – Little Trouble Kids’ Haunted Hearts

Who else remembers building a bridge out of toothpicks and glue in middle school shop class? A few days of hard work usually came crashing down after your teacher methodically added a couple pounds. If only you had more time, more glue, more toothpicks, or some actual lumber. Then one kid in the class manages to get his bridge to hold all of the weights at your instructor’s disposal. Haunted Hearts by Little Trouble Kids is that overachieving kid.

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Butte, MT – Robert Sarazin Blake

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I love writing for a music blog. This time it was Robert Sarazin Blake under the proverbial lights playing his music for all you to hear. I was embarrassingly unfamiliar with Mr. Blake. Kent came to me and said he had a good candidate for a Dig Session so I proceeded immediately to the interwebs where I did my best to become acquainted with his cannon. His recorded music is great, but his live performance was wonderful.

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Bosch’s Butt Music – When History, the Internet, and Metal Collide

The Internet is a strange and glorious place. A few weeks ago blew up with the transcription of music written on a man’s butt in the depiction of hell in Hieronymus Bosch’s painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights. Well, at least in our circle of musician and history buff friends it did. It made it’s way around Tumblr, Gawker, Buzzfeed, and the music history student responsible for the original transcription, and the choral adaptation of the piece were featured on Anderson Cooper’s Ridiculist. Within a few days of the news, our own Kent Heberling took it upon himself to create an orchestral metal version of the tune, because what else would you do with a sinner’s hymn written on a man’s butt in a renaissance depiction of hell?

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All Good Things – Mexico

One of my favorite things about playing shows is meeting the other bands on the bill. The day I met John Petty from All Good Things was a great day. He played a phenomenal set late into the night (early into the next morning). As I loaded my equipment out the bar door into my car the snow was falling and I found myself humming a tune. Mexico.

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The Peaks and Valley’s of Pittsburgh’s Action Camp

Because I spend most of my day at a computer, I spend a lot of time wondering what to listen to next. Despite the infinite world of Pandora, Spotify, YouTube, and my own library, I still get stuck in ruts of listening to the same stuff over and over. Thus, when I get wind of something new coming along, it’s an absolute delight to take some time with fresh sounds. This last week, that new thing was Pittsburgh’s dark electro-pop duo, Action Camp‘s forthcoming LP, PA. While that last sentence may have read like a bad business presentation with too many acronyms, it’s because the LP is simply titled and written about their home state. As Ivan, a long-time Pennsylvania native, will tell you, it’s a gorgeous but occasionally depressing state, and the tone and subject matter of the LP reflects that perfectly. With songs about various infamous disasters such as the Centralia Mine Fire and the Johnstown Flood, and recurring themes about earth and industry, it’s a delightfully dark experience.

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Milwaukee by Calamity Janes and the Fratney Street Band

I’ve recently come to a realization: the Milwaukee music scene is incredible, and we who live here are all horribly spoiled. Case in point, the Calamity Janes and the Fratney Street Band. Mixing heart-melting vocal harmonies and tight instrumentation into pure auditory joy.

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You Can't Be Everywhere at Once – Carousel at Turner Hall

Sometimes, you just can’t make it to show as much as you’d love to. As a local musician, I hear a lot of really sad excuses for not making it to shows, but I promise, I’ve got a good one for not making Carousel and Cherub at Turner Hall Ballroom tonight. You see, I stay busy, and getting married at the end of this month doesn’t alleviate the schedule. The bachelor party is today, and if my best man does things right, I wouldn’t remember the concert even if I made it. Oh well, I at least had a chance to check out their music, watch their videos, and chat with the Kevin from Carousel and ask some questions about the band.

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5 Things Learned from the Juiceboxxx Incident

Promoting last week’s East Side Music tour in Milwaukee, local hip-hop artist, Juiceboxxx, made an appearance on the local news. The interview was awkward, the quality of the performance was terrible, and the internet blew up. While the popularity of the video will actually probably help Juiceboxxx in the end, it’s a bit of a shame to see the knee-jerk reaction so many people had to a situation pretty well beyond his control. The incident demonstrated the ugliness that sometimes happens when artists get out of their niche and into the general public. After watching the video several times, looking at Juiceboxxx’s other performances and material, I compiled the top 5 lessons we can learn from the Juiceboxxx incident.

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Sharing and Reviewing My Favorite Unknown Album

Big news! My go-to “I bet you’ve never heard of this” album, no longer available in stores and produced before the days of Bandcamp, is now available on YouTube. It looks like it was actually uploaded about a year ago, but I just discovered it and compiled it into a playlist. I absolutely adore this album. It’s a rare confluence of raw edge, intelligent songwriting, and intriguing lyrics delivered by a solid three-piece. At only 8 songs at about 5 minutes each, it’s a pretty quick listen, so get listening while you read why I love it so much. The Whole Fantastic World – Chime Here’s to Looking Up Your Old Address: Like a few others tracks on this record, this song is about death. As the melody weaves in between the choppy guitar, smooth synths, and an active bassline, we learn about a girl named Dreary’s last night, concluding with “As she made her way out of the bank, To see a sea of Turin’s finest steady their aim, With one shot. Her last night.” This song sets up the tone for the rest of the record with active instrumental interludes in between many of the verses. We’ve Got … Continued

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