Our Music Director, Ben Slowey, is more than on top of the local music scene. In addition to his work for Breaking And Entering, he also hosts the Mr. Nice Guy podcast, an interview-based show that reaches out to Milwaukeeans for conversations about what motivates them. Many of these shows fittingly involve the local music scene, and we’ll be sharing some of them here as well.
Today, Ben talks to Shane Hochstetler, who has been playing in bands since the 90s. He owns and operates the studio Howl Street Recordings. We discussed Shane’s early days drumming in bands, getting into recording, the studio itself, playing in Child Bite, and how much we love Cactus Club. You can check out more episodes of Mr. Nice Guy on YouTube, and check out this interview below:
A stacked bill occurred at the Riverwest joint Quarters on Sunday night, drawing a solid and enthusiastic crowd. Hardcore punk band Ballstomper, Atlanta black metal band Malevich, Iowa grindcore band Closet Witch, and powerviolence duo LIFES all gave stellar performances.
Ballstomper consists of vocalist Jesse Vile, bassist Cora Bequeaith, and drum machinist Cyborg Mary. Formed this past February and primarily centered in Riverwest, the three-piece has brought an unapologetic, confrontational approach to punk music with an emphasis on queer liberation and anarchism.
“Mary knows a lot about cool technical stuff and I’ve been in a band with a drum machine before, so I was like “fuck yeah let’s do it.” It’s less stuff to carry too,” Vile said.
Vile came up with the band’s name.
“I was thinking something to do with chastity or BDSM-specific phrases, and when I said “Ballstomper” everyone was like “yeahhhh.” We also thought of “Heterophobe” but Ballstomper was too good.”
“Jesse was on this whole cock-and-ball torture kick at the time,” Mary said. “We were throwing names back and forth and it turns out there already is a band called CBT…it’s some porno-grind band from Germany.”
They recorded two songs that are available on Bandcamp, “No Free Love / Clocked.” Vile gives a bit of backstory.
“I wrote the lyrics for “No Free Love” about someone who is extremely predatory to me and tried to use weird hippie bullshit language to justify having sex with a teenager. People in the city are divided about it, but he’s a piece of shit…I did not have sex with this man but he tried. “Clocked” is about when someone can notice you’re trans and act shitty about it.”
“I came up with the idea for “Clocked” when I was drunk at a show at Riverwest Public House,” Bequeaith added. “I had an experience that is unfortunately not that uncommon, but a guy was clearly interested in me and was hitting on me…then he realized I was trans and was super grossed out by it and stayed the fuck away from me for the rest of the night.”
The band is working on their debut project.
“We’re in the first stages of recording a five-song EP,” Bequeaith explained. “We’re doing that all in-house at my home studio. We just got started this week laying down the first of the bass parts, but I’m really excited. We’re definitely taking a little bit more time and care than with the demo, so hopefully it’ll sound a little better.”
“We got our friend from Chicago to do the album art and it’s super sick,” Vile added.
The band speaks on what they hope to see more of in the scene in terms of safety and accountability.
“In punk scenes and radical scenes or any allegedly subversive group of people, I think that we should hold restorative justice and accountability processes so that when people do hurt each other in serious ways, it doesn’t have to be a huge fiasco,” Vile said. “People can heal and grow from it and not continue to do the things they were doing, and I think that there’s always this tension because people say you can’t have accountability if you deny you did it, and that seems to be the case. I have been going to punk shows since I was in high school and I’ve always dealt with bullshit and so have all my friends that aren’t cishet white guys. It should be better for us.”
“I would really just like to see more bands, specifically hardcore punk bands, coming up in Milwaukee who have queer/trans members and are focused on our life perspectives,” Mary said. “We might see that happening…stay tuned.”
“I have been overall pretty impressed,” Bequeaith said. “I’ve lived in a few different places and coming to Milwaukee, what really struck me is that while there is definitely a lot of scene-guy bullshit happening here as there is everywhere, there are a lot of people that care about making sure their friends are safe and that shows are welcoming spaces for all sorts of people. There’s certainly a lot more that can be done to improve, but there’s a lot of folks that take that very seriously and it’s a very heartening thing to see.”
Ballstomper hope to have a benefit show early next year for Chrystul Kizer of Kenosha, who is incarcerated for acting in self-defense at the age of fifteen.
LIFES are a two-piece band consists of vocalist/bassist Dave Rudnik and vocalist/drummer Zach Holochost. They are both dads who believe the world is in trouble, and make music about their anxieties. The band formed in 2013.
“It’s stress relief,” Rudnik said about their project. “We’re really focused on our families and this keeps us connected with something that’s meant a ton to us for our whole lives. We’ve both been playing in bands since we were young and it would be really easy if we weren’t actively playing music to lose touch with what else is going on in the city. This gives us a good excuse to be out every now and then.”
The band released an eighteen-track album “Treading Water” in June, which they recorded with Shane Hochstetler of Howl Street Recordings.
“It took about four years,” Rudnik said. “Both of our wives were pregnant and we had written about half the record – we knew we weren’t gonna be doing anything for awhile. We demoed a bunch of the songs so we wouldn’t forget them.”
“We took a summer off and then eventually got back into it,” Holochost said. “We started playing shows again and then decided we’d set a date to record, and then that pushed us to write more songs where we felt like it was a full-length worth of stuff. We needed to go back and do vocals a couple times and then all the noise and mixing. From when we started the drums and bass tracks it took about a year to get everything mixed and sequenced.”
The boys are going on tour in Germany in less than two weeks.
“This is the first thing I’d consider a tour,” Rudnik said. “We’ve done weekends here and there.”
“We usually pick a city we can get to in a weekend and then we see what’s in between and we book around that,” Holochost explained. “That’s what we’ve been doing for many years just so that we can get home after the weekend to get our kids to school. So my work sometimes makes me go to conferences and about once or twice a year I go somewhere and this year they’re sending me out to Germany. As soon as I told Dave that night he was emailing places setting up shows.”
“A handful of our records have come out on European labels so we had some connections already,” Rudnik added. “I had gone over there about twenty years ago and some of those people are still involved in music.”
The band is currently not working on any new material.
“It took four years to write all these songs so now we wanna play them live,” Holochost said. “In the last couple months, though, we have gotten together to practice occasionally where we have ideas, but then they get lost in time and space. We’re just practicing for these shows.”
Lifes are also opening for Nile and Terrorizer this coming Thursday at Turner Hall.
“It’s crazy we’re playing that too,” Rudnik laughed. “We’ve got enough songs to keep us busy for now.”
Heavy Hand have triumphantly returned with their fourth release, “Get Soft Get Clean”, a record that sounds like it won’t slow down for anyone. You can feel the energy in this ten-track release, which is hyped up punk rock at it’s finest. Recorded at Howl Street Recordings, the album also sounds incredibly clean, but is still able to maintain the rough-around-the-edges feel that any punk record should have. “Get Soft Get Clean” is a great take-no-prisoners release, from a band that knows exactly what they’re doing when they put songs together. Check out the album below:
Soft rock outfit Lady Cannon played the recently-opened Hacienda Beer Co. on the East Side Saturday night, doing two sets with a short break in between. Fans and friends scattered the room as they played with elegance, heart, and grace.
Lady Cannon is fronted by vocalist/guitarist Martha Cannon. The current lineup consists of backing vocalists Ellie Jackson and Steph Lippert, guitarist Andrew Trim, upright bassist Barry Paul Clark, cellist Pat Reinholz, and drummer Nick Lang. Their latest album “Fortune’s Darling” came out this past March – their first full-length in seven years. Also available on Bandcamp is their 2016 song “A Bad Man,” which had been made in protest of Governor Scott Walker. Cannon describes their recording process.
“We stockpiled quite a few songs and felt we should go into the studio and document them. We worked with Shane at Howl Street, which was great – we worked with him before. He mixes really well, which is interesting because Shane plays a very different kind of music and records a lot of hardcore and metal bands…but he really did super well by us in our Musicians Against Scott Walker compilation. We ended up with a collection of songs that I sat on for two years because they didn’t make sense together; they were kind of all over the place…there was no cohesive theme. I kept waiting thinking the idea would come to me, and then I got to a point where I felt weighed down by it…and we just put it all together and released it. In my opinion, it’s kind of a confusing album and hard to tell “what genre is this band?” but maybe that’s me being too involved.”
Cannon finds it difficult to classify the sound of her band.
“It’s a little bit shoegaze at times, a little bit rock influenced…I don’t really know. We do a few different things – certainly with the way the instrumentation works we have a noticeable exploration…but with the lyrical approach there’s definitely some consistency. The lyrics are consistently candid storytelling, all non-fiction…like what’s going on in my life right now. That’s like my disclaimer when someone meets me and has romantic interest, it’s like “can you handle songs being written about you?”.”
The band has re-arranged old songs into new manifestation.
“Whiskey Dear was us working with a different set of musicians; my ex-husband was one of them. I actually quit making music for awhile; I didn’t have the best experience with it at my first try. I don’t know what I was expecting but it was difficult to be touring and playing, especially here in Milwaukee people at the time didn’t seem too interested in the kind of thing I was doing.”
Lady Cannon plans to enter the studio again soon to work on a new batch of songs. They play with Rose of the West at the Back Room on November 2nd.
“I’m toying with the idea of releasing singles, especially with my experience of making an album with any sort of identity or piece of feel…that’s not really how I work. I just want to make things that interest me at the time and that challenges me in the moment.”
Post-punk outfit Absolutely has been together since 2009, and continue to make noise, even with frontman George Ananchev relocating to Portland. The band is back with a new album, “Plays Pillory Crown Shyness”, and it’s a gripping example of attention to detail working well on a record. Lyrically, much of the record deals with Anachev’s experience as an undocumented person, and while the album was written before the 2016 presidential election, the sentiments that come out on these tracks still reign true today. From a musical perspective, the band gets intricate with simple elements, with curling guitar lines and vocal effects that create sonic space. Absolutely have a really strong release with this body of work, and you’ll likely need to come back to it multiple times to hear everything going on within the record. Check out “Plays Pillory Crown Shyness” below:
Now this is a way to kick start your day. Milwaukee metal/hardcore act Knaaves have a new pair of songs out, and they absolutely crush from the moment you press play. The band recently announced the addition of bassist Amanda Daniels, who had previously left the music scene altogether, along with this pair of songs, recorded at Howl Street Recordings. “January” is more of a brooding, building track that is absolutely punishing once it fully kicks in, whereas “Nine Lives Lost” is a thrash fan’s dream. Both songs play off of each other well, and we’ll be interested to see where it takes the band going forward. Check out both songs below:
One of the great things that comes from Marquette Radio’s Battle Of The Bands every year is that new names seem to come from out of nowhere to make an impression. That’s the case for The New Grey, who were only playing their third show ever last Thursday night. The band also celebrated the release of their EP that night, which was recorded in December at Howl Street Recordings. The band is definitely young and ambitious, and within five tracks on their self titled debut release, give you a great idea of their sound. This is a band getting out of the starting blocks, but doing so with a burst of speed. Get your introduction to The New Grey below:
If you were looking for a straight up, no frills, heavy rock record to kick start your day, you’ve come to the right place. Madison’s Powerhouse were a force to be reckoned with sonically in the 90’s, until calling it quits right around the turn of the millennium. However, the band is back, located in Milwaukee now, and recently released their self-titled album, recorded with Shane Hochstetler of Howl Street Recordings. The album is gritty, tight, and packs a punch like no other. Before the end of the first half of the record, you’ll already be craving more from the band, and even if you have no prior knowledge of their 90’s run, you’ll be stoked on this release. Check out “Powerwagon” below:
Bad Grades, the punk project of Call Me Lightning’s Nathan Lilley and Shane Hochstetler, is finally on Bandcamp, and along with that, they’ve released a single for free download, entitled “Whaddja Doo”. The band recently tore through a set at the Bay View Bash, and according to Facebook, have demos in the works for a full project. “Whaddja Doo” was recorded at Hochstetler’s Howl Street Recordings studio, which has captured some of the best sounding records in recent Milwaukee music. With that in mind, the upcoming Bad Grades record has the potential to be phenomenal when it comes out. Get your sample of the band below with “Whaddja Doo”:
One of the names that has already been making a big splash in Milwaukee this year is Faux Fiction, and that’s only about to increase with the release of their first full-length album, “Staring At The Sun”. Recorded at Howl Street Recordings, the album is full of the energy and fun that Faux Fiction bring to their live show. Frontwoman Gabriella Kartz’s vocals bring a calming level over husband Jason Kartz’s guitars. Similarities range from indie groups like The Breeders to punk mainstays like The Distillers from track to track. All of it, however, is great quality, and an awesome album from front to back. Check out “Staring At The Sun” below:
Milwaukee rockers Eagle Trace are back with a new EP, “Off In The Night”, and I’ll be quick to tell you that it’s something you have to hear. The EP is four hard hitting tracks, centered around the single “Ghost”. I received the advance copy on this one, and kept hitting play multiple times after the initial spin. Recorded by Shane Hochstetler at Howl Street Recordings, this EP is another high quality project, with a big-yet-gritty sound reminiscent of bands like the Black Keys and Wolfmother. There’s also a touch of retro classic rock influence as well, which has become a main element of Eagle Trace’s sound. Long story short, this EP is well worth the listen. Check it out below:
Are you a Milwaukee musician/band? You can submit your music to be the Milwaukee Artist of the Week by emailing links to info@BreakingAndEntering.net. We’ll check out every submission we get!
This week’s Milwaukee Artist of the Week is Space Raft, a group focused on making quality pop-rock. In May, the band released their self titled debut album. For many bands, a debut album can sound kind of cluttered; generally it features the best of the band’s formitive days, figuring out their sound. Space Raft’s debut, however, sounds much more put together than most debut albums. Attribute that to clever, solid songwriting, as well as strong production to aide the band’s sound. The album was recorded at Howl Street Recordings, as well, which seems to be the place to go for great sounding records. All of those elements put together add up to a great album.
If you’re into comparisons, Space Raft’s sound is sort of like a blend of OK Go, with just a touch of 80s era Cheap Trick, and a bit of psyche influence as well. Obviously, that’s sort of a wide variety of bands to compare them to, but putting all of those elements together creates a great hybrid that you’ll want to keep listening to. The band is definitely past the point of finding their feet, and they’re ready to keep their momentum going. The band has shows coming up across the midwest, and with their sound, they may be taking their band to the next level soon.
Are you a Milwaukee musician/band? You can submit your music to be the Milwaukee Artist of the Week by emailing links to info@BreakingAndEntering.net. We’ll check out every submission we get!
This week’s Milwaukee Artist of the Week is Call Me Lightning, a name on the local scene that is long overdue of our little award. The band emerged in 2004 with their first full length album on Revelation Records. They followed it with 2007’s “Soft Skeletons”, a record that I spontaneously bought shortly after its release, and a record that remains as one of my favorite local projects. After a release in 2008, as well as a great but troubled release due to label complications in 2010, the band went mostly quiet. Drummer Shane Hochstetler remained active with his studio, Howl Street Recordings in Bay View, which has consistently produced some of the best quality releases that the city has seen in a relatively short amount of time. (I also may have called Shane while I was a freshman in college, in hopes of working at the studio, but I’m sure he doesn’t remember that).
2014 has already seen the return of Call Me Lightning, though, with the release of “Human Hell”, their first full length release in four years. Now acting as a trio, Call Me Lightning still fire on all cylinders, packing a punch into every part of this album. Even with a four year interim between new releases, and a recording process that took over a year, the band retains its signature sound, which is beautifully arranged chaos if there ever was such a thing. Vocalist Nathan Lilley pushes himself to the limit as much as possible, while Hochstetler and bassist Tyler Chicorel keep an aggressive jam going to support him. It’s almost impossible not to nod your head along with some of these songs, such as thumping anthem “Our Time Is Over” and the faster paced “Not The One”. The band has a knack for songwriting, and that shows on this album.
When a member of your band owns a studio, and consistently records, produces, and mixes bands, you’re going to get a pristine, wonderfully produced album in return. “Human Hell” is near perfection in this sense. Every ooh and ahh sounds like it was meticulously placed into these tracks, and it is a testament to the great music that comes out of Howl Street Recordings. All of the pieces come together to form a fun, energetic album, and a triumphant return for Call Me Lightning. Stream “Human Hell” below, via 25 Diamonds’ Bandcamp:
Are you a Milwaukee musician/band? You can submit your music to be the Milwaukee Artist of the Week by emailing links to info@BreakingAndEntering.net. We’ll check out every submission we get!
They say you don’t know what you have until it’s gone, and that is the case for this week’s Milwaukee Artist of the Week, Disguised As Birds. The group just put out an EP, “We Buy Gold”, this week. And… they’re also calling it quits as well. Luckily, I think it’s still okay to label them Artist of the Week, and once you hear their EP, you will too.
“We Buy Gold” is a collection of four tracks, and yet another awesome sounding album recorded by Shane Hochstetler of Call Me Lightning at his Howl Street Recordings studio. From the opening notes, I knew that this was release was going to punch me in the face throughout, and it did. The EP kicks off with “Arnold Friend”, a heavy, trudging, tough song that reminds me of the best qualities of At The Drive-In. With long, drawn out chords, it’s just a jam from the start. Disguised As Birds pull no punches with the follower, “Red Matador” either. Halfway through the release, and you know that you’ve got something special. The band was definitely intent on going out with a bang, and they did that, several times over.
The title track of “We Buy Gold” is keeps the intensity up, to say the least. You can just feel the energy, and even the recorded version gives you an idea of how powerful the live experience must be. There’s passion in every part of this recording. It’s intense, it’s angry, and it’s awesome. It’s kind of like the musical equivalent of whatever happens before a bar fight breaks out, if that makes sense. You know where it’s going next, but that doesn’t matter when you hear it. You just want to keep hearing it. That makes a great record. Closer “Black Marty” is a final blaze of glory for the band. There’s no slipping anywhere on this EP. Disguised As Birds put out a tough, take no prisoners collection of songs, and it’s definitely worth the listen, as is their earlier material. Oh, and you can pay whatever you like for the EP. I highly suggest picking it up.
Hopefully, I’ve said enough nice things that the band will stick around a little longer. Stream “We Buy Gold” below:
Are you a Milwaukee musician/band? You can submit your music to be the Milwaukee Artist of the Week by emailing links to info@BreakingAndEntering.net. We’ll check out every submission we get!
This week’s Milwaukee Artist of the Week is Like Like The The The Death, a band that is dead set on blowing you away in a moment’s notice. It’s been a good week for the band, who recently had their latest album “Cave Jenny”, listed among Shepherd Express’ Essential Milwaukee Albums of 2013. From the moment you press play on this record, you understand why they have earned that honor.
The first note on album opener “Here Comes Irregular” hits like a punch to the face. Considering that you probably are close to your stereo, or maybe haven’t adjusted your laptop volume, it’s a great start to an album that blows you away. LLTTTD are in full swing from the moment you press play, and they never look back from there. With alternating vocals reminiscent of Taking Back Sunday, and the intensity of At The Drive-In (or The Mars Volta, if you prefer), Like Like The The The Death is an in your face experience, plain and simple. With crushing, powerful guitars and two vocalists matching the band’s aggressiveness, this album is chaos incarnate. And it’s great.
Another great thing about “Cave Jenny” is that it never loses your attention, either. While keeping the breakneck speed party going, LLTTTD switch it up ever so slightly, pulling the listener in. Yes, there’s intensity, but there’s melody in just the right places, like the guitars on mid-album cut “Porch Gold”. There is a danceable drum beat that opens the track that follows “Night of a Hundred Hondos”. It’s not just noisy, fast guitars; it’s well crafted noise done correctly. Recorded at Bay View gem Howl Street Recordings, “Cave Jenny” is sonically clear, but carries enough raw power to get you hooked. It is undoubtedly one of the best local albums to come out this year, and definitely worth a listen. Check out the cool but creepy, Jack Packard-directed “Here Comes Irregular” video, and stream “Cave Jenny” below.
For more Like Like The The The Death, check them out on Facebook and Bandcamp.
Are you a Milwaukee musician/band? You can submit your music to be the Milwaukee Artist of the Week by emailing links to info@BreakingAndEntering.net. We’ll check out every submission we get!
This week’s Milwaukee Artist of the Week is Appleseeds, a punk rock quartet with enough aggression and energy to knock you down in under four minutes. They’re everything that you could ever love about riot grrl punk; lo-fi guitars distorted to a listenable tone, breakneck speed, and just enough melody to keep you singing along. Led by frontwoman Flannery Steffens, their latest self-titled album is a garage rock thing of beauty. Rather than some of the wonderfully crafted recordings coming out of great studios in Milwaukee like Howl Street Recordings, the band opted to record their entire album in their basement on a Zoom portable recorder. I didn’t know that was an actual thing, but there was obviously the right amount of gear plugged into it to give the record a great sound with an overall gritty feel. Loaded with buzzy guitars and a surprisingly clean drum sound, Appleseeds manages to put together an 11 song party, which leaves nothing to the imagination.
Let’s be clear, this album isn’t a sonic masterpiece, but they don’t want it to be, and quite frankly, it’s better that way. This is the essence of what has always made punk rock records so great; the wall of sound is everything from a guitar to a cymbal to every other hissing, buzzing noise in the background. In fact, this album is reminiscent of the great punk albums (or homemade cassettes) that shaped the early days of legends like Black Flag and the Circle Jerks. Appleseeds add an increasingly addictive component to their sound, as well. There is a good deal of catchy melodies throughout the album, which is the product of great songwriting no matter what genre you’re talking about. Their first release, August 2012’s “BOOM!”, is more of the same, and it’s all great. This is what you’d expect to hear come out of a basement party show, and with the energy in Appleseeds’ songs, that high speed atmosphere has to carry over to their live show. This is DIY, punk rock, the way it really was meant to be. Stream Appleseeds’ self-titled album below:
