Photo Credit: Blaine Schultz
Milwaukee Fringe Festival
After taking a break last summer due to the pandemic, the fifth annual Milwaukee Fringe Festival resumed Saturday outdoors at the at the Marcus Performing Arts Center and Peck Pavilion.
Nineteen Thirteen, a cello and drums duo comprised of Janet Schiff and Victor DeLorenzo closed the festival with a set of music that defied easy description. An introductory piece began with Schiff’s volume swells as a bed for her to pick notes over a repetitive loop while DeLorenzo played a rise and fall pattern on his drum kit, broken up by splashes of drum and cymbal chaos.
Instead of free-form flights of fancy, these were primarily concisely wound pieces of music—at times tribal and kinetic. Nineteen Thirteen’s “Candy Necklace” built on a descending riff that would not have sounded out of place on late night FM radio decades ago. “Hot Garbage” featured a walking cello line over which DeLorenzo added Beat-Poetry spoken lyrics; the mesmerizing “Tango” suited the sultry evening. On other pieces, Schiff’s Eastern European-inspired lines were made all the more vibrant by the sight of the minarets on the nearby Germania Building.
Photo Credit: Blaine Schultz
“Arco Pizzicato”—played as a memorial for a friend of the band who recently passed—was both heavy and joyous with droning cello lines and circular riffs, that ended with the lyric “Where’s the note?” moving into a chanted rap hopscotch rhyme.
In a moment of unplanned brilliance, when an approaching boat set off a ringing alarm on the Kilbourn Ave. drawbridge, DeLorenzo nodded in time and began the song with that cadence. At the end of the tune Schiff faded out and the drummer resumed a duet with the bridge bell and signed off “Goodnight Charlie Watts wherever you are.”
Dial-Up Stepmom, Nineteen Thirteen’s de facto opening act, set up just beyond the Peck’s seating area. The Chicago trio of tenor saxophones (not to be confused with saxophone trio) played without the crutch of a PA. Their sound was a moaning river of loosely orchestrated intertwined parts.
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WMSE Backyard BBQ
Photo Credit: Blaine Schultz
Another event that was sorely missed in the year when everything changed, WMSE hosted its 11th Backyard BBQ at Humboldt Park. The all-local lineup of talent showcased five acts. The variety of music was testament to a healthy local music scene.
De La Buena’s sprawling Latin jazz kicked off the day’s live music followed by the rocking blues of the The Stephen Hull Experience. The Racine trio’s set was cut short by a heavy downpour, but not before giving a new audience of fans a dose of what the band offers.
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Photo Credit: Blaine Schultz
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Photo Credit: Blaine Schultz
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Photo Credit: Blaine Schultz
The weather moved on, as it always does, and Rexxx took the stage. Armed with a set of urgent, spikey pop tunes and a killer rhythm section, Rexxx was an instant party—just add water. A cover of “Last Night” by Australian legends The Scientists was a nice touch and caught record hounds pleasantly off-guard. Even a blown amplifier and a quick changeover couldn’t halt the band’s momentum.
With the humidity back on the rise, Vincent VanGreat and Ninja Sauce melted the air with a mix of hip hop, melody and groove. VanGreat, who was voted Music Producer of the Year in the Shepherd Express 2020 Best of Milwaukee roundup engaged the audience with socially conscious raps and gratitude.
Photo Credit: Blaine Schultz
Per his wont of scheduling shows around holidays, Voot Warning’s early Labor Day show found the trio taking over the backroom of The Uptowner. With the pool table pushed up against the wall and a small vocal PA to work with, Warnings offered up songs populated with both real and imagined characters including Jesus Christ and Donald Trump. With plenty of unreleased material on display, here is hoping for a new album. Among Saturday’s highlights were the mournful “That’s How We Break Things” and the bop-manifesto “Dance, Motherfucker Dance.”
