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."