November might be cold in Wisconsin, but just before Talib Kweli’s set at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, I had the chance to speak to one of the hottest DJs in the game. He’s the DJ for the headlining Beastie Boys and one of the founding members of the Invisibl Skratch Piklz, but this 34 year-old California native waxes about music, life on the road and the like.
Cameron McGill is a pop-fectionist. What should be needless to say, is that this has nothing to do with aesthetic, marketing or sales. Be it McGill solo or with his Chicago-based band What Army, the music doesn’t just take center stage, it’s the only thing meaningful thing on the stage.
McGill’s music is the new smooth voice of the Midwest. People like Bright Eyes, Devandra Banhart, Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s, Jentri Colello and Madison’s whole alt-country scene plus so many more have started or taken on this quest of giving our green plains an audible, distinct, interesting and unique musical pulse. McGill’s place in this line up is on the radio.
Eli Mattson is probably best known as runner up on TV’s America’s Got Talent, on NBC, where he lost to Neal E. Boyd by only 0.5%. He has made several appearances in Vegas with AGT winner Terry Fator. Eli started playing the piano at 5 and has been performing as a vocalist/pianist since the age of fourteen.
MAXIMUM INK: You claim Door County, WI as your home. What it is like to get chances to play your home town?
ELI MATTSON: “Well I lived in Door County as a kid, went to Southern Door, and worked at the Pizza Hut in town. After that I moved around a lot but what Door County really gave me was a start with music. My first regular gig was at Java on Jefferson when it was there. Now when I play there it’s great to see the people who supported me first.”
Listening to the new instrumental record by HELEN MONEY, In Tune, is a completely different kind of instrumental experience. Alison Chesley is a Chicago-based cellist who earned her rock credentials with the 90’s alternative band, Verbow, then started performing with world-rockers, Poi Dog Pondering, and even recorded with nu-metallers, Disturbed. If you’re expecting just cello renditions of rock n’ roll songs, you won’t hear that, but you’ll hear music that’s completely unafraid to reach into dark places and her mixture of pizzicato, heavy bowing, distorted leads over beds of soft strings is a fascinating listen of how to channel rock’s traditionally guitar-oriented aggression through an instrument that gets most of its heavy metal recognition from the bridge section of Whitesnake’s “Still Of The Night”.
For her interesting choice of musical direction, Alison says that it was because the traditional model didn’t appeal to her.“ I grew up in Los Angeles and I spent about ten years after I dropped out of college, where I just wasn’t feeling inspired playing cello.”, she says. “So I started going out to clubs to see bands like The MInutemen and Meat Puppets and Bob Mould
With their debut of Burn My Eyes, MACHINE HEAD has transcended the masses with a bludgeoning sound so consuming; so biting; so immensely pit worthy that listeners have been known to trash bedrooms, obliterate venues, stomp, kick, scream, and sucka punch their friends. With a knee to the cranium, fist to the grill, overheated speakers, angry mothers, MACHINE HEAD have reaped mayhem in only the most admirable ways from their very inception . The More Things Change saw the band in a more mature light: Still chock fulla aggression yet more refined and appealing to their less militant fans. 1999 sees the band offering up their most mature release yet. Coming this month on Roadrunner Records, The Burning Red is essentially a collection of the band’s most potent qualities; Heavy, emotional, gripping bombastic.
Ahrue Luster, who replaces guitarist Logan Madder, is a more than natural progression. In fact, there’s something refreshing about the addition of Luster both in his sound and his overall personality. No attitudes, no image and no gimmicks. Just straight up MACHINE HEAD. Maximum Ink caught up with Ahrue Luster and spoke with him about the past and future .
Spread over two consecutive weekends in mid-September, Madison’s global gathering touches every point on the compass across Madison in every creative fashion imaginable. Syrian singer GAIDA, Indian guitarist PRASANNA and the psychedelic dub of Turkey’s BABA ZULA perform, dance, lead workshops and colorfully flavor UW’s campus, the Annex and the Willy Street Fair.
What’s so magical about Magic 7? It depends who you ask. For fans of Last Crack it’s the first time writing duo of Paul Schluter and Buddo have worked together in more that five years. For the former member’s of Madison’s best known hardrock outfit, it’s an opportunity to put the past behind and focus on the present.
“This wasn’t pieced together just to get all of the members of Last Crack, except for the drummer, together in another band,” said guitarist and principal songwriter Paul Schluter in a recent interview. “We’ve all worked together before, we’re in each other’s heads and it’s a great starting point, but I think the thing that makes this band special is that we’re relying on mostly new music. Last Crack was fun for us, but it was in the past. What makes this band worth being around is that it’s a whole new style of music for us, a lot mellower at times, a lot more melodic, a lot more mature, and at times completely different sounding.”
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