Silos Remember their Milwaukee Fans

After 13 studio albums and many miles on the road, The Silos return to Milwaukee to perform at Shank Hall.

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Music Features

On Christmas Day 2024, the Silos offered an unexpected present via Bandcamp to Milwaukee music fans from the band’s (and city’s) distant past: Live at The Toad Café, 1988.

The 12-track live album gloriously captures the New York City rock band toward the end of its first national tour amid a relentless stretch that saw the Silos do 75 shows in 90 days as they sought to promote 1987’s Cuba. Lead singer and group founder Walter Salas-Humara, who has kept the Silos going through the years with many different lineups, will bring the band to Shank Hall on Sunday as the group celebrates its 40th anniversary.

From the Toad to Today

Salas-Humara remembers the show at the defunct Downtown Milwaukee club well. He says it was booked, like other shows on the tour, by Global Network, the booking agency of SST and Black Flag’s Greg Ginn.

“The tour was booked very much like the punk rock tours at the time, where you would just play every fucking where, you know,” he says. “You’d show up and half the time it would be like some high school kids or something that had rented out the VFW hall for a night, and their band had a little PA. They would be the opening band, and then you would play. All the kids would come, that kind of thing.”

But in bigger cities they would play slightly larger clubs like the Toad, Salas-Humara says. Riding the acclaim of Cuba, including being named “Best New Artist” in Rolling Stone’s annual critical poll, the Silos hit Milwaukee on a high.

“A bunch of people showed up to that gig, like Milwaukee celebrities at the time,” Salas-Humara says. “People from all the different bands and stuff that were happening right then. E.I.E.I.O. and Semi-Twang and all those guys.” He made many more visits to Milwaukee. “I’m still friends, and I mean good friends, with people I met that night at the Toad Café,” he says.

A couple of the tracks on the live album appeared on the 2002 reissue of Cuba. Salas-Humara, who learned about the existence of the Toad show recording while talking to a fan in Chicago in the very early aughts, is planning more live Silos albums from across the years for later in 2026.

Everything

Meanwhile, the Silos have an excellent new Pete Donnelly-produced album, Everything, that came out April 1.

Salas-Humara, who moved back to New York three years ago after stints in Flagstaff, Arizona, Austin, Texas, and Los Angeles, says the players on the new album mainly come from his East Coast friends, along with a few musicians from the Midwest. His last album, 2022’s Family, featured musicians and recordings from across the U.S. and Europe. “I really made an effort on that one to get everybody on it, like everybody’s on it that I’m currently working with on both continents, like 40 people,” he says.

On Everything, one of the most prominent contributors is Salas-Humara’s partner, LuAnne Blaauboer, who co-wrote many songs with him, he says.

“She’s a poet, like an amazing poet, an amazing writer,” he says. “Some of the best songs on the album are our lyrics. So that was a big bonus.”

One of the albums highlights is their beautiful reflective song “Magdalena,” the first song he wrote with Blaauboer, Salas-Humara says. “When we wrote that song, we are actually driving in my van in New Mexico,” he says. “Magdalena is the name of a town in New Mexico, and when we wrote that song in the van, I was just blown away by her unbelievable talent.”

The band has created videos for all 10 songs on the album, their 13th studio album.

40 Years on the Road

Salas-Humara will be joined by drummer Konrad Meissner, guitarist Eric Kassel, organist Jonathan Rundman, and bassist Ron Gomez on the current Midwest tour.

“We’re going to play 12 nights in a row on this little Midwest thing,” he says. “You’re gonna catch us at the perfect time. Milwaukee is like night number five, so we should be super tight by then.”

Together, Salas-Humara says, the band picked some songs from the Silos catalog to play in addition to music from Everything. “They’ll pick out some songs, and I can’t even remember how they go anymore,” he says. “I haven’t listened to them in 20 years. All right, we’ll do it, but you figure it out. And then they teach me. We were rehearsing on Zoom today. That was some fucking funny shit. Those guys teaching me how to play songs I totally forgot.”

The Silos perform at 8 p.m. Sunday, April 12 at Shank Hall, 1434 N. Farwell Ave., Milwaukee. The Carolinas open.