The late Kenny Baldwin ran The Starship, a downtown club that was ground zero to Milwaukee bands of the punk/new wave era. Along with being an entrepreneur, Baldwin was a trained drummer and percussionist in the style of jazz-fusionists like Tony Williams. Yet the energy of new wave punk drew Baldwin in and upon leaving the band Colour Radio, Baldwin and bassist/vocalist Andy Cavaluzzi reformed Locate Your Lips with guitarist Jim Eannelli. For Kenny is both a tribute to Baldwin (who passed in 2015) and a worthy document of the trio in action.
According to the liner notes, Locate Your Lips wrote 22 songs in two weeks and the first disc, a live WQFM broadcast from Café Voltaire, finds the band’s frenzy in fine form. Hardly what a listener would expect from an Album-Oriented- Rock station in 1983, the band tosses out intelligent pop gems bursting with throbbing drums, traces of reggae rhythms and melodic basslines. This is a lot of racket for a three-piece.
The second disc’s studio tracks from a year later, offer a more produced view of the band with Eannelli’s angular, razor-sharp guitar lines in contrast with the chorus and delay sounds of the day. “I Can’t Take Another Taste of This” rumbles before it turns into a cousin of the dB’s or Let’s Active. Using the studio as another instrument “De Lon Jon” offers up backwards guitar impressionism with sax from the Stooges’ Steve Mackay. The experimental “Take off Your Clothes” would have warranted an interesting video in those early days of MTV.
There will be a CD Release/Listeing Party for Locate Your Lips’ For Kenny starting 8 p.m., Jan. 5 at Shank Hall.
