Defeat

This was the second track on BoDeans lead singer Sammy Llanas’ extremely dark solo album with Jim Eannelli. Recorded in 1998 under the name Absinthe — a supposedly psychoactive liqueur — at Llanas’ funky studio on Milwaukee’s South Side, it was called “A Good Day to Die.” I played violin and mandolin, directed through my parts by the strict ears of engineer Gary Tanin.

I also played with the tone genius guitarist Jim Eannelli in a Milwaukee blues-rock band for about a year shortly after this recording was done, and it was Eannelli who volunteered my name to sit in with the short-lived Violent Femmes side project Guido Quartet at legendary East Side bar The Nomad.