James McKain, Damon Smith and Weasel Walter performed two short but energetic sets at the Sugar Maple in Milwaukee earlier this month. The music was freely improvised with all three musicians in rapt concentration and reacting in complex ways to each other's sounds.
Recording information:
JAMES McKAIN
DAMON SMITH
WEASEL WALTER
2025-08-03
Milwaukee, WI at the Sugar Maple
James McKain: baritone sax
Damon Smith : bass
Weasel Walter: drums
Tracklist:
01 First (10:52)
02 Second (15:22)
03 Third (4:57)
04 Fourth (6:34)
05 Fifth (5:13)
Total time = 42:58
Recorded with permission by Richard Hayes for this blog
Microphones: Beyerdynamic MC930 pair in ORTF in front row
When I first heard the name Nolan Potter's Nightmare Band, I was worried that I would be listening to nightmarish music. There might be unpleasant vocals or maybe a detuned banjo. Luckily, this was not the case.
This Austin-based psych band came to the 2023 Milwaukee Psych Fest and played a subtle set consisting of melodic psychedelia infused with elements of Krautrock and 1970s-era prog rock.
Recording information:
NOLAN POTTER 2023-05-06 Milwaukee, WI The Cooperage Milwaukee Psych Fest
Setlist: 01 Caberfae Peaks (10:09) 02 Singing A Single Song of Satan (11:24) 03 Gregorian Chance (8:08) 04 Seahorse Retreat - A Spirit Lasts Forever (10:31) 05 Stubborn Bubble (9:54)
Total time = 50:06
Recorded with permission by Richard Hayes for this blog
Microphones: Line Audio CM3 in NOS Additional source: mono soundboard feed Recorder: Sound Devices MixPre3 at 24/96 Software: Audacity, Fission, xAct
Doug McCombs is certainly no stranger to this blog. He has had an impressive career in jazz, rock, post-rock, and adjacent genres for several decades. McCombs has been a member of Eleventh Dream Day, Brokeback, Tortoise, Sea and Cake, Black Duck, and various Chris Forsyth bands including BASIC.
For this show he performed on guitar (and not his more typical bass) opening up for William Tyler and Marisa Anderson. This was an immensely interesting short set with a wide range of textures.
The 2023 Milwaukee Psych Fest partnered with several labels, one of which was Chicago-basedTrouble in Mind Records. They brought several of their bands with them including one of the many highlights and unexpected discoveries of the festival for me, France's En Attendant Ana.
This group, which formed in 2014, has more of a jangly indie-pop feel than what many might expect at a festival labeled as being "psychedelic," but one of the many strengths of this festival has been the wide range of music to be found annually at the Cooperage.
This recording was made using a pair of Line Audio CM3 wide cardioid mics in NOS configuration in the balcony, next to video projectionist Lance Gordon (Mad Alchemy) providing his unique liquid light show. I added in a mono soundboard feed which sounded quite thin yet provided needed clarity in some of the upper frequencies.
Recording information:
EN ATTENDANT ANA 2023-05-05 Milwaukee, WI The Cooperage Milwaukee Psych Fest
Setlist: 01 Flesh or Blood (2:55) 02 The Cutoff (2:08) 03 Principia (3:43) 04 Do You Understand? (2:37) 05 Somewhere and Somehow (2:10) 06 The Fears, The Urge (5:00) 07 Ada, Mary, Diane (3:15) 08 Anita (4:07) 09 Same Old Story (3:03) 10 Wonder (5:12)
Total time = 34:10
Recorded with permission by Richard Hayes for this blog
Microphones: Line Audio CM3 pair in NOS Additional source: mono soundboard Recorder: Sound Devices MixPre6ii Software: Audacity, Fission, xAct
Boston-based guitarist Ethan WL came through Milwaukee in March and performed a very tight 40-minute set of originals.
Ethan's approach to guitar playing can perhaps best be described as a branch of "American Primitive" guitar, a style pioneered in the 1960s by John Fahey. Certainly far from being "primitive" in musicianship, this guitar style focuses on tapping into the raw, untutored, and “primitive” rhythms of early American folk and blues.
His compositions were riveting and I am very much looking forward to seeing him perform again.
Recording information:
ETHAN WL
2025-03-08
Milwaukee, WI
Acme Records
Ethan WL: guitar
Tracklist:
01 Washed in the Blood of the Lamb (5:25)
02 Requiem for Jayne Mansfield (1:44)
03 Black Cat Breakdown (5:24)
04 The Angels Start Singing (5:43)
04 My God is a Consuming Fire (7:05)
05 The Ely War (15:04)
Total time = 40:25
Recorded with permission by Richard Hayes for this blog
I first saw Ken Vandermark perform in early 1994 at the old Hothouse in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago, when it was in the Flatiron Building. He was leading his Vandermark Quartet, opening for Tom Varner. At that performance I was extremely impressed with guitarist, violinist, and cornetist Dan Scanlan, whose white-hot energy and virtuosity made me feel like I was in the presence of an erupting volcano. I thought drummer Michael Zerang's style was a fascinating mix of powerful rhythm and unexpected (even exotic) textures. My initial impression of Vandermark was that he was an earnest enough saxophonist who was trying a bit too hard to sound like a rock-influenced Ornette Coleman.
After seeing the band a few more times, I soon realized that Scanlan preferred just one speed (very fast) and one intensity (full-blast) with very little variety. This could be quite exciting but also had the potential to become exhausting with prolonged exposure. I began perceiving more complexity and range in Vandermark's playing. With that, I quickly became a fan and unabashed booster of his playing and (especially) his compositions.
Soon I was seeing Vandermark perform three or four times a week, every single week. He started performing more with Mars Williams, in the duo Cinghale and then bands NRG Ensemble and Albert Ayler-inspired Witches and Devils. He then went on to perform frequently with Kent Kessler and Hamid Drake in the DKV Trio. By the end of 1994 I had seen him perform at least a hundred times in many different contexts. I kept up that pace for all of 1995 and the first half of 1996.
Since I moved to Milwaukee in 1996, each year here has unfortunately had progressively fewer chances to see him perform. At first I would drive down to Chicago weekly to see my fill of jazz for a night. Then the car trips became monthly, and eventually once a season or so. Luckily for Milwaukee music fans, for a decade and a half Vandermark was a frequent performer at the legendary Sugar Maple bar in Milwaukee.
About a week ago he came to the Jazz Estate for the very first public performance of his compositions of his latest project -- Edition XL. This band is his Edition Redux quartet -- Erez Desell, Beth McDonald, and Lily Finnegan -- with the additions of cornetist Josh Berman and bassist Nick Macri.
Recently, Vandermark described his compositional methods in a statement on his website, which in part reads:
At this point, seven pieces have been completed: one “triptych” working with different tempos that explore a generalized “jazz lexicon”, a second triptych to focuses on “free-funk” ideas influenced by Miles Davis’ “Cellar Door Sessions”, and the beginning of a third triptych that’s going to investigate different musical strategies set in motion by Cecil Taylor’s groups from the late 50’s/early 60’s.
Each piece has three components, essentially foreground, midground, and background. The first step was in the writing. I needed to figure out how to overlay the charts for each composition so each part would speak with clarity. This meant selecting the aesthetics, key center to work with, and essential structure (AABA, ABAC, etc.) for each triptych and applying this to the writing procedures. This was necessary because, not only do the three components need to combine with each other, they also need to merge with the other pieces in the triptych, so each foreground can utilize a different midground or background.
The second step has been to figure out how to distribute the parts so the foreground material always remains primary. This has gone through many permutations. The first was to assign three instrumental voices to the foreground part, and one the mid and background parts, with Erez playing the written elements in octaves to make two “voices” available in the arrangements. Another key factor is that every part of each composition can be played by any of the musicians, so the lead voices on one performance might be tuba, clarinet, and cornet; with the secondary “voices” being the keyboard in octaves, and background part played by the bass. On another occasion the same piece might feature the keyboard in octaves with tenor sax; and the midground covered by tuba and cornet, with the bass in this instance using a walking bass line.
This was an excellent performance of a mature jazz composer at the height of his abilities, writing complex but very enjoyable pieces for a virtuoso ensemble of musicians.
He opened for Takaat at the Cactus Club back in May, producing a hypnotic solo drum set that appropriately held the audience in a trance-like state throughout. It was a demonstration of sheer stamina and quite impressive in its hard-edged aesthetics.
As the promotional material for one of his past tours describes it: "Jon Mueller's Afterlife Cartoons are solo acoustic percussion performances that use repetitive tom patterns and subtle shifts in grid-like pulsing to instigate overtones, phasing, and choir-like acoustic phenomena that transform the work from mere drum solo to the sonic illusion of a small orchestra. Rhythmic minimalism, contemporary phrasing, and energetic sustain drive Mueller's improvisations into a space somewhere between modern electronic music and primal drumming, inspiring audiences toward movement and contemplation."
Microphones: Line Audio CM3 in ORTF Additional source: excellent soundboard feed from Alex Recorder: Sound Devices MixPre6ii at 32/96 Software: Audacity, Fission, xAct
Recorded with permission by Richard Hayes for this blog
While recording a live album for Ryley Walker at the Empty Bottle in Chicago in January 2025, I was able to tape a short set from one of the opening acts -- Sam Prekop on modular synths.
Sam is perhaps best known as a member (along with John McEntire and Archer Prewitt) of the Chicago band Sea and Cake. His recent solo work has been focused on electronics. This was a fascinating set-long piece with constantly evolving textures.
Here is another recording from the wonderful 2023 edition of the Milwaukee Psych Fest. This tape features Plastic Crimewave Syndicate, a Chicago group featuring guitarist and vocalist Steve Krakow which has been active since at least the mid-1990s. For this outside stage show at the Cooperage in Milwauke, Steve was accompanied by Andrew Kettering on bass and Jose Bernal on drums.
It was a cool and sometimes windy outdoor set (as can be seen in the photos below) but the music kept the appreciative crowd warm. I was fortunate to receive an excellent soundboard feed from audio engineering wizard Max Nemer which was augmented by my trusty Beyerdynamic MC 930 cardioids wrapped in windscreens.
