Photo Credit: Lily Shea
Long Mama
Long Mama
The longimamma mammillaria cactus is the unspoken feminist emblem of the floral world. Its tubercles resemble green nipples, the tips sprouting prickly spines as if to say “hands off.” But it's also incredibly fragile—and can produce big, beautiful yellow flowers if cared for properly.
Kat Wodtke coined the name Long Mama for her country project for a number of reasons. But after learning Wodtke’s story, it feels especially fitting—her band’s debut album Poor Pretender is the blooming yellow flower of a cacti that has taken its time and endured hardships.
Wodtke, a Wisconsin native, has spent her time drifting between Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Alaska. She has a theater arts background and has bopped around various music scenes while working odd jobs. But Wodtke ultimately found herself planting roots back in Milwaukee to be closer to her father, an aging professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
This turned out to be a fruitful return. Long Mama was formed after Wodtke met guitarist Andrew Koenig and drummer Nick Lang, a duo known for their roles in Ryan Necci & the Buffalo Gospel.
“I was always writing and sharing my music in some way but didn’t land on a group of people that made me feel compelled to record this stuff until I started playing with Andrew and Nick,” Wodtke says.
Appearance and Reality
Long Mama’s current lineup was solidified in 2019 when Samuel Odin of Horseshoes & Hand Grenades auditioned for the part of upright bass. His addition to the band was a no-brainer, according to Wodtke, considering his musical resume.
Written partly in Alaska and partly in Wisconsin, Long Mama’s debut album Poor Pretender is a 10-song trek through genre and emotional ups and downs, sometimes told through the perspective of Wodtke, other times lived through the eyes of fictional characters based on Wodtke’s travels.
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“(It’s about) appearances versus reality and the ways we kind of mask what’s really going on,” says Wodtke. “Whether it's the romantic heartbreak or grief that you’re trying to push your way through, or a mountain man who may have just been misunderstood.”
Grief found Wodtke in 2018 when a close friend passed away, pushing Wodtke into an unwell spot mentally. But writing and releasing Poor Pretender has been a cathartic experience – there are characters in Long Mama’s songs that do not make it out alive, but the ones who do come out stronger.
And while it is easiest to digest Poor Pretender when thinking of it as a country album, it's much more than that. There are also elements of R&B and a tinge of punk, and the album moves at a wanderer’s pace. It’s atmospheric and invites listeners to be whisked away to a fictional but uncanny Western world that reflects Wodtke’s observations on humanity.
Poor Pretender kicks off with its titular track, a slow-building country ditty that starts slow and somber, but picks up its gait with an apologetic message on pretending like everything is fine while the world metaphorically burns around you. Wodke sings, “This phoenix is drinking fire/And holding court in the ashes.” It sets the tone for the rest of the album—Wodtke is coming out of her previous hardships a stronger and more hopeful person, but not without wearing her heart on her sleeve.
Backcountry Adventure
Photo Credit: Lily Shea
Long Mama
Track three of the album, “Badlands Honeymoon,” changes up the pace. Here, Wodtke becomes a storyteller, spinning a tale of a backcountry adventure gone wrong. It's a cinematic-esque experience that benefits from Wodtke’s background in theater. The track starts off with plenty of room to breathe but picks up the pace as the adventure carries on. Koenig launches into a guitar solo about halfway through, bringing the suspense to new heights before the tale reaches its final arc.
That track is followed by “Kite Flyer,” a solemn slow dance of a tune pondering how someone can keep up the facade of being a people pleaser when it comes to social situations. “Kite Flyer” is followed by “Quiet,” a song that every Midwesterner can relate to with its lonesome anticipation of an unrelenting winter.
“The Narrows” tells a true story of the Canadian outlaw Mad Trapper, manifesting the intensity and suspense of a man on the run in its instrumentation. Up until now, the album has trained the listener to be patient. But Long Mama shows that it can rock-and-roll when it needs to, and we’re treated to an exciting jaunt in the shoes of a wanted man.
The album closes out with “Lonerman,” a frostbitten narrative about two friends with an appetite for trouble. “Loneman” feels like the listener is sitting around a campfire with Long Mama as the band performs. There are very human moments in the recording that reveal tiny imperfections—Lang’s breathing is picked up by a microphone, and Wodtke’s vocals crack at opportune moments. In an age where so much is perfected through the use of digital tools, Long Mama leaves the listeners with one last honest look at the band.
Misfit Country Band
“‘Loner Man’ evolved when we were in the studio,” Wodtke says. “We became even more sparse – things that don’t happen when you’re recording live happened in that one.”
Folks from Nashville or areas where country music grows a little more organically might be quick to label Long Mama as “fringe country.” But like a spiny cactus thriving in a climate it wasn’t meant for, Long Mama perseveres with an exciting debut – one that takes its time telling its story. And that story’s 10 chapters transport the listener to strange, Western locales, yet are still reflective of the life lessons that a theater girl from the Midwest holds dear to her heart.
“I’ve never tried to sound like something I’m not – I’m a kid from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, so I write what I know and the places I know,” Wodtke says.
In fact, Wodtke quite literally makes it known that she’s a Poor Pretender mere minutes into the album. Instead, she proudly and unapologetically embraces the band’s bizarre identity.
“We’re like a weird, misfit country band and we like it that way,” Wodtke says.
