Madcity Nights October 2018

Previews of Shows around Madison in October

Madcity Nights - September 2018

Madcity Nights for September features show picks and previews by Maximum Ink staff writers. This month: Willy Street Fair and many more!

Madcity Nights - June 2018

Previews for shows around Madison for June 2018

Madcity Nights - May 2018

Show Previews around the Madcity for May 2018

Madcity Nights - April 2018

April 2018

Madcity Nights - March 2017

Previews of shows around the Madison, Wisconsin area for March 2017

Sunflower Bean

New York City’s vibrant SUNFLOWER BEAN channels an almost psychic musical tightness into colorful, combustible chemistry to design serpentine Valentines that seduce in lubricated grooviness while courting fiery desires with a heady mix of acid-etched textures drawn from haunting lyrics, shaman beats and liquid licks. Fresh from a stellar SXSW appearance and riding high from a critically acclaimed debut, the power-trio heads to Madison’s The Frequency, headlining a can’t miss show on April 6th with WEAVES and PILES. Bassist JULIA CUMMINGS and guitarist NICK KIVLEN were kind enough to answer some questions via email about the band’s sound, influences and life on the indie-rock bandwagon.

MAXIMUM INK: Psychedelic seems to be the go to label for rock bands these days, do you think of Sunflower Bean as psychedelic?
NICK KIVLEN: To me psychedelic rock means creative rock. Things that we think of as weird or trippy are things that haven’t been done before or seem strange and new. New experiences make the brain feel confused and “psychedelic”. So new sounds and music people haven’t heard before has the same effect. We don’t take drugs but we want to make something new and fresh. Psych isn’t retro, it’s the future.

MI: Why do you think psychedelic music is trending these days?
JULIA CUMMINGS: Trends kind of happen in cycles, and bands like Thee Oh Sees who are so great, kind of re-ignite some of that passion for guitar music. I’m not sure how “trendy” psych rock is in comparison to other genres like electronic music or rap, but bands like Tame Impala and Unknown Mortal Orchestra (who are some of our favorites) really push the genre forward by making really innovative and ambitious music.

MI: Your debut, “Human Ceremony,” had you laying down songs you’ve played live for quite some time; are there songs you left off the album or will you have to start from scratch for the follow-up?
JC: We are currently writing new music for the second album, when we have off time or during sound checks. There is one fully done song and a few that are close. We didn’t really leave anything off the album, we were basically able to fit everything we wanted to make it cohesive in our minds.

MI: Do your songs come from jamming together or does someone have a song they bring to the group to work on?
JC: Usually Nick brings in riffs or ideas or songs in various degrees of doneness to the basement and we all jam on them and figure out where the song is going to go. Sometimes a song becomes a pet project of one of us, whoever has the most vision for it.

MI: Seems like the band spends a lot of time together, was there an immediate clicking when the three of you first connected?
JC: We were definitely all friends before we started making music together. We got along well and had similar influences and ideas about what we wanted out of a band.

MI: Is there an band or artist that you all agree on?
JC: We love Lou Reed. We are trying to talk about him less in interviews but he is probably the biggest point where we all agree.

MI: You’ve worked the most in New York City where you also live, what’s the oddest thing you’ve confronted on tour outside the city?
JC: Playing the college shows can be a little weird because anything can happen. One time we all slept in a room with an escaped snake

MI: What do you miss the most when you’re away?
JC: Probably our beds!

MI: The buzz on the band skyrocketed rather quickly, have you experienced any perks in all this sudden media attention
JC: We’ve all been playing in bands and making music since we were 13 and 14, so it doesn’t feel as sudden as it may seem on the outside! But it’s definitely an exciting time. We are getting to travel to Japan this summer, which is amazing and we’ve always wanted to do that.

MI: Do you have a strategy for surviving the flash and establishing long-term credentials?
JC: We are going to keep making music!

Eskimeaux

Wrapped around unstoppable rock and unraveled in homespun dream-pop, lo-fi hospitality greets intimate whimsy in GABRIELLE SMITH’s approachable folk poetry. Her solo project ESKIMEAUX gently mesmerizes in coy joyrides whose occasionally dark detours shake one awake to face forked roads, close calls and near misses. Joining FRANKIE COSMO and YOWLER at Madison’s High Noon Saloon April 26th, the refreshingly perceptive chronicler took time from a busy SXSW schedule to answer a few questions about her songwriting process and her latest release, “Year of the Rabbit.”

MAXIMUM INK: What made you decide on an EP rather than hold off and release a full-length?

GABRIELLE SMITH: All of the songs on “Year of the Rabbit” were written during the recording process of our previous album “O.K.” So we (Double Double Whammy and I) figured by the time I had enough songs to broaden the collection into a full-length album and went through a whole album cycle (plus, at the time vinyl records were taking 8-12 months to get back from pressing plants), these songs, which felt really nice and fresh, would be pretty old! Instead, we thought it would be nice to make a short record, or an EP with no filler material. Plus, it gave us a chance to try a new release medium - a CD inside of a full-color photograph, hardcover book. So, that’s what went into the decision to make this specific EP.

MI: Did last year’s O.K.‘s critical acclaim shape the Year of the Rabbit at all?

GS: Not really! I mean, maybe it gave us the confidence to try out a new kind of release format.

MI: When you write a song, how much comes from the gut and how much from the head?

GS: I’m not really sure…I mean, it all comes from the head, maybe, and then the gut gets put into the performance of each song!

MI: I really like that. What part of the creative process is the most challenging for you?

GS: Having time to record. Most of my time is dedicated to having band practices, traveling to and playing shows, and writing emails. Lately, as well, I’ve added making a few music videos, making show posters, and being on the hunt for a new amp to the mix. So having time to record is definitely the most challenging part.

MI: Is there any artist or musical hero by which you judge your own writing?

GS: No way, that’s a terrible way to go about being an artist. My own art is the standard by which I judge my writing and that’s the way it should be!

MI: Will this be your first time playing Madison WI?

GS: Nope! One time, in 2013, we played at Bright Red Studios.

MI: What’s usually the first thing you do when you get a chance to take in a city you’re playing?

GS: Find tasty donuts

There you have it, tweet, Facebook and Instagram Eskimeaux your favorite place for tasty donuts in Madison.

Metric

Jimmy Shaw is a hands-on guy. As producer, songwriter and guitarist for the Canadian band Metric, Shaw has a say in every phase of the operation, right down to picking venues and opening acts for their tours. “I hate lists and links,” he admits, preferring input from a trusted network of friends. “I’ve known our Booking Agent since we were eleven,” Shaw says, “he suggested Joywave as an opener for this current tour.” It also happens that Metric’s current Tour Manager is from Joywave’s hometown of Rochester, N.Y. and seconded the idea. When it was pointed out that in taking control of all these details, Shaw had no one to blame but himself, he was happy to assume that responsibility, preferring by whatever means necessary to maintain the band’s DIY cred that has successfully fostered a creative outlet for himself and co-founder Emily Haines going on twenty years. Asked whether wearing so many hats in the band gives him more power over the other members, Shaw turns diplomatic and replies, “Let’s say I can be very persuasive, if you happen to disagree with me.”

Largely a product of Shaw’s work in his Toronto recording studio, Metric’s latest release, “Pagans in Vegas,” is an electric circus of blitzkrieg beats, neon-lit riffs and sterling hooks. When asked if there was a specific toy that that was behind this album’s genesis Shaw quickly credited the large modular synthesizer Studio 66 from Synthesizers.com; specifically a duophonic patch that allowed him to compose bass lines with his left hand and the melody with his right. The results, he gushed, “were more skeletal than sketches,” and instead of taking his ideas and having to reproduce them over again in the studio, his work with Studio 66 gave him a foundation that just needed to be fleshed out, streamlining the process to completing a song. Meanwhile, halfway around the world, Emily was also writing songs, but with the barest of technology, created on acoustic instruments. When Jimmy, Emily, bassist Joshua Winstead and drummer Joules Scott-Key looked at the pair’s accumulated songs, decided to let each stand alone rather than integrate them. 

Soon thereafter the band embarked on a tour opening for Imagine Dragons, where they visited different studios to work on Emily’s songs. Gathering the tapes four months afterwards to review, the tightly-knit quartet discovered something they hadn’t anticipated. Despite their hopping from studio to studio, the songs had a sameness to them that fell short of their individual potential. When asked how this could have happened, Jimmy explains, “You can have a Fender, a Telecaster, whatever, but it comes down to the fingers on the instrument.” “I can get Billy Gibbons’ guitars and amps and use the same studio he uses, but I’m never going to sound like Billy Gibbons,” he reasons. “You can’t duplicate that magic, if you could you’d have dozens of ZZ Tops, hundreds of Beatles!”

While Shaw admitted to having no memory of Metric’s last time playing Madison nine years ago beyond an after-gig drinking game with whiskey, he is ecstatic to be returning to Madison with a tour whose sound and lighting have been recently road-tested with flying colors. “We’ve been playing longer, having lots of fun,” he says and it’s amazing to hear someone who has logged in so many miles playing all around the world, sounding so primed for another tour. Does Shaw do anything except live, sleep and breath music? He laughs, but says when he needs to get away from it all he will pour himself into a frenzy of cooking, racing around town gathering groceries and creating exotic meals without a recipe. It appears as if no matter what Shaw does, he does with gusto. “There are lots of forces in the world to get you down,” he admits, “it’s easy to bum out and hard to keep that naively positive attitude, but you can’t succumb to it, otherwise life is a waste.” 

Fasten your seat belts, Metric along with hyper-kinetic techno-rockers Joywave will fill Madison’s Orpheum Theater February 13th with gleaming streams of fierce lyrics and vampish anthems coyly uncoiled inside an explosive dose of rock and roll charisma you will not want to miss.

Wildhoney - FRZN Fest 2016

Labeled lo-fi shoegaze, retro noise-pop and post-modern doo-wop; guitarist Joe Trainor from Baltimore’s WILDHONEY understands how the band’s unique blend of styles defies easy categorization. Citing an eclectic mess of musical influences ranging from the Shangri-La’s to Cocteau Twins and early Madonna, Wildhoney shines most when least predictable, shifting gears and fusing genres to make for an amazing live show. MAXIMUM INK had the opportunity to pose a few questions to Mr. Trainor about their upcoming gig opening up day two of FRZN Fest 2016, January 15th at Madison’s High Noon Saloon and here’s what he had to say.

MAXIMUM INK: What do you think of when you think of Madison, WI?

JOE TRAINOR: Technicolor Teeth, Garbage and a nice coffee shop by The Frequency

MI: What sort of show should Madison expect from the band?

JT: Bring ear plugs for the music, bring acid for the visuals

MI: Nice of you to visit in the middle of winter. How can we make you feel welcome?

JT: Tell the sound guy we are loud, and be nice

MI: How would you describe your sound to somebody not yet tuned into Wildhoney?

JT: The song ” Kiss Me” by Sixpence None The Richer meets Nirvana

For more information check out www.frznfest.com to learn more about Wildhoney and the eleven other bands playing the three day festival.