Maritime

Thursday night Maritime played a free show at the Gasthaus, which is a basement bar/restaurant in the Union at UWM. Immediately upon entering the place I was overcome with the all too familiar smell of the Gasthaus' infamous french fries. If you have ever ordered food there, you'll know that it comes with about 8 pounds of these taters - and they are god awful. I wanna puke just thinking about them, even though I occasionally still eat them.

We had a few beers (PBR) before Maritime took the stage. I spotted lead singer and emo trailblazer Davey von Bohlen readying himself backstage, which also happened to be the mens bathroom. The show started off with was announced as the first three songs on the bands forthcoming record Heresy and the Hotel Choir, two of which can be downloaded off the labels' website and the video of another is embedded above. Those three songs sounded damn good, and gave me hope that the new record will measure up to the bands last one.

The rest of the show was very good as well, despite the less-than-optimal venue. There was a decent pocket of people near the stage that were into the show and then other people were strewn about sitting at tables and looking half-bored. Maybe they had all become ill from eating the food there.

Bloc Party

Last Tuesday Bloc Party came through Milwaukee and played at the Pabst Theatre downtown. I was introduced to Bloc Party in the summer of '05 by a friend on our way to our 10 year high school reunion. We listened to 'Silent Alarm' and I immediately fell in love with that record. Over two years later and I finally got a chance to see them live. Bloc Party released their sophomore record a handful of months ago - it is pretty rad as well, but isn't nearly as energetic as Silent Alarm.

This was the first time I had seen a show at the Pabst. Maybe it was where we were sitting - 3rd level in the balcony, but it sounded fucking amazing in there. As soon as we walked in I saw a giant sign advertising $3 tallboys of PBR and I knew this was going to be a good night. We were able to catch a good part of the set by the opening band called Smoosh. I felt like a dirty old man watching them play. The were pretty good though, even though their 8 year old bass player took off during the second song and never came back. The next group was named Final Fantasy. They were even more nerdy than the name implies - the band consisted of a dude with a violin connected to some kind of looping machine and a girl who placed art work over an overhead projector that seemed to go along with the different songs. Not as bad as it sounds.

Bloc Party opened up with the first song from 'Weekend in the City.' They covered what seemed like a good chunk of both albums, but most came from Silent Alarm. The highlight had to be when Kele made his way out into the crowd (with the help of a very long microphone cord) during 'She's Hearing Voices.' At some point he disappeared from view, only to return doing a backwards somersault just after getting on stage. Go see them if you have the chance.

How do you say.......Fat Pig Hypocrite of the Year?

I really wished I had saved the letter Rep. Jim "I am taking my fucking gavel home with me" Sensenbrenner sent me in response to my letter supporting legislative efforts to legalize online poker. According to what he wrote in that letter efforts to allow online gambling would be the downfall of society. Crime rates would go up; teen pregnancy would skyrocket; the national debt would triple; alcohol, drug, and trans fat consumption would hit heights never seen before. Terrorism would be funded for life! Birds wouldn't fly anymore! And there would be a state of complete and utter paranoia!!!!!!

Ok Then. You couldn't imagine my surprise to learn that the esteemed Congressman from WI has won his fair share of money playing the lotteries in DC and WI. If he doesn't think that state sponsored lotteries leads to some of the same perils for some percentage of the population he is an even bigger douchebag than I think he is.

The Detroit Cobras

A friend of mine was in a band that came through Milwaukee a few years ago and they played at Mad Planet. There was an all ages show in the afternoon and a 21+ later at night. Mad Planet is in Riverwest neighborhood of Milwaukee, which is a really awesome area, but it can get pretty shady especially if you go a little west on Center. At some point during the afternoon show I had a strange vision of someone bursting into the club and mowing a bunch of people down. I didn't think much of it at the time. Between the all ages show and the night we walked down to the Riverhorse and then on to the Foundation for a few drinks. We ended back up at Mad Planet in the "backstage" area downstairs. Some dude in a local band that was opening the evening show went into this long story about some massacre that occurred on New Year's Eve outside of what is now Mad Planet.

Last Thursday I ended up back at Mad Planet with a friend to catch the Detroit Cobras show. I had never really got into them, but I was able to give some of their stuff a bit of a listen before going to the show. What I had listened to was good, and the show they put on was great (see obligatory grainy cell phone photo).

Two bands preceded the Cobras, The Willowz and Dan Sartain. Dan Sartain was, I presume, Dan on guitar and vox, and some dude on drums. A two piece! Fucking awesome and t(he)y made a pretty great racket. Although apparently Dan had some pretty crunchy B.O. and he was spotted stealing a poster off the wall near the bar at Mad Planet. The Willowz, on the other hand, had absolutely no redeeming qualities. All of the band sported the same haircut despite the fact that they all seemed to vary greatly in terms of age, weight, and sex. The lead singer also made a conscious decision to don a Kid Rock-like hat and they fucking droned on for what seemed like hours. I went to the bathroom at some point during their set and heard the guy next to me remark to his friend that he "hoped for fucksake that they will be off the stage soon or that someone comes in and murders them."

Beisbol es malo

He's pitching so badly he cut his own fucking thumb off and threw it!