In their vintage suits and sport coats, natty sweaters, neckties, fedoras and dress shirts, The Viper & His Famous Orchestra looked like the odd men out amid the prevailing plaid flannel and blue jeans worn by patrons on Saturday at The Coffee House. And though the Milwaukee quintet possesses, in addition to their garb, some instrumentation that anticipates another blast of the ’90s vogues for swing and ska, they’re about other sounds altogether.
The quintet’s mélange of pre-1940s U.S. pop incorporating various retro-futuristic elements was very much at home in the long-lived, non-alcohol venue in a liberal Lutheran church near Marquette University. The Viper and his merry musical pranksters play (mostly) acoustically with scads of cleverness, giving even their most politically vehement numbers a dose of humor. One could call them the Rage Against The Machine for sophisticated Hoosier Hot Shots or Spike Jones fans.
One could, but that would then neglect Viper’s more dominant concern of having a winking good time with old-fangled musical tropes in contemporary modernity. They can harmonize about their “dope ass beats,” get meta about how pilfering from musical sources can make an act original and dedicate a ditty to Santa Claus’ little-remembered counterpart for bad kiddies, Krampus, amid a backdrop of trombone, toy piano, upright bass, a primitive Stylophone synthesizer, violin and a sillier-looking melodica than Augustus Pablo ever blew.
With his serpentine moniker and the ukulele in his hands, the bandleader fits in a lineage of hometown suaveness and virtuosity, from former Milwaukeean John Kruth’s rambunctious way with stringed instruments to John Schneider’s chic ballroom lounge act. But there’s only so upper class Viper and his crew will ever be if they’re going to decry capitalism as they do, even if they have the wit to fit Marxist analytics into a tune from The Music Man and turn it out like a revival meeting-cum-labor rally.
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A recasting of Langston Hughes’ testimony at Joe McCarthy’s hearings on un-American activities as a love ballad duet came off a touch more forced, but give them credit for recasting their convictions in unexpectedly jolly sonic guises. Their merch table offerings are likewise inventive in how they communicate their invective. From what other local ensemble can one buy not only sheet music to some of their songs, but bottles of their own brand of bitters to mix in cocktails sipped while listening to the group’s CDs?
The overalls and work shirts with rolled-up sleeves sported by opening act Mother’s Worst Fear may be the furthest removed sartorial choices from The Viper’s wardrobe. What local folk mainstay Ken Haferman’s trio shares with the urbane headliner is the fondness for making a fresh setting for music of the relatively distant past. In this instance, it’s pre-bluegrass string band repertoire, be it by banjoist-singers such as Charlie Poole and Grandpa Jones or early-’60s folk revivalists. Hafermam, who leads the trio comprised of his son and grandson, would pull the night’s set list from his pocket before most every song and give curmudgeonly commentary on the number in question before or after it. Charming tableau, that, but more fun still are Grandpa Ken’s craggy, keening tenor assaying those public domain oldies, with occasional background vocals from his sideburned scion with a forearm anchor tattoo like Popeye’s. The more taciturn youngest third of the act has the kind of boyish handsomeness that could serve him well in a boy band if he tires of roots music; tonight he was plucking the bass notes with a fresh-faced intensity.
