Here are four of the best tracks off my 2003 self-produced album, which I did under the moniker Love Live Music Collective, and entitled “Stringzology.” Personally recorded digital sound samples from a huge peace protest in Washington, D.C. are woven throughout and the album features some of Milwaukee’s many talented musicians.
Contact me at thacherschmid@hotmail.com if you’re interested in buying a copy.
These two tunes, “Whistle Song” and “Hall of Godcar,” on Sigmund Snopek III’s double-disc rock opera “Trinity Seasseizesees,” represent my one and only professional recording gig as a, um, whistler. When I did this gig with Snopek in his cluttered East Side apartment recording studio in 1999, I learned that when you record the sound of your whistle you have to point your lips away from the microphone so the sound isn’t all wind noise.
Snopek, who played keyboards with the Violent Femmes for a minute and is an excellent flute and other wind instrument player, deserves credit for completing a project of the scale and magnitude of this rock opera, which he started way back in 1973, when I was one year old. It’s definitely the antithesis to today’s track-oriented iPod music mentality; at 120 minutes, it’s a commitment to sit down and listen to, but worth it.
You can purchase the full double album on iTunes, and can find plenty of info about it with a simple web search. Here’s the link to an Amazon.com page about him: http://www.amazon.com/Sigmund-Snopek-III/e/B000AQ3AO2.
I think his website is now defunct.
These are the best three tracks off of the short-lived 56th Street ensemble’s one recording. The reggae / West African group was comprised of Saskia Pretorius on lead vocals and guitar, me on viola, violin and mandocaster, KT Rusch on bass and Patrice Nassalang on percussion — plus contributions from Yaya Kambaye, also on percussion.
Nassalang and Kambaye, both talented drummers and dancers from Senegal, West Africa, play in a group Pathe founded called Jam Ak Jam, a Milwaukee-based West African drum and dance ensemble.
Pathe Nassalang, Yaya Kambaye, and Jahmes “Tony” Finlayson, with whom I played in One Drum, all were or are part of Milwaukee’s Ko-Thi Dance Company, on the web at http://www.ko-thi.org.
Saskia currently plays in a dub reggae group called Mt. Zion Sound System, on the web at myspace.com/mtzionsoundsystem.
Amy Rohan — sister to Dave Rohan, who played drums with me in Moriarty — recruited me to sing backup vocals and play violin and acoustic mandolin on her debut CD, “Jar Full of Pennies,” which got some critical acclaim.
Here are a few tracks that I helped out on with strings and vox; Amy, of course, wrote the tunes, sang lead and played fingerstyle guitar. The songs make me think of a time in the late 1990s in Milwaukee, Wis. when I was hangin’ at Linneman’s Riverwest Inn, jamming with Amy, Moriarty (see other post), harmonica and ukelele virtuoso Lil’ Rev, and Colin O’Brien (see other post). Also, Amy’s Dad Mike Rohan, a longtime exec at Miller Beer, who died shortly before she finished her CD.
You can order the CD or find out more about Amy at amyrohan.com.
“Ritual Blues” comes from a live compilation CD called “Live At The Nomad,” and was recorded live at the Nomad World Pub on Brady Street. The track was penned by Reg Owens and His Orchestra and released way, way back on 45. I think it conveys a spooky vibe that gives the original a new spin.
“Must Be Milwaukee,” “Summer” and “I Like You” all come from Moriarty’s debut CD, released in the late 1990s. It was nominated for best album art by the Wisconsin Area Music Awards. (Around this time I also got a couple nominations by WAMI as a string instrumentalist.)
“Theca” is Track #9 on Signaldrift, a.k.a. Franz Buchholz’s debut album 060, released by Outward Music Company in the late 1990s. I play violin briefly on the experimental low-fi track, all of seven minutes long.
You can check out more Signaldrift or buy the album at http://www.myspace.com/signaldrift.
Buchholz and his brother Jason, Hans and a mutual friend Bill, a.k.a. jungle/drum & bass DJ B23B and I all played together in a really strange but at times incredibly cool experimental (knob-twiddling) project called Pargo. Think underwater, synthy, Steve Roach and Kraftwerk-inspired oceans of sound.
B23B and I played more than a few club gigs around Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood and did a DJ mixtape together. It was a cool phase in my musical career, playing with Signaldrift and Pargo and B23B, and taught me a lot about electronic music. (I still have a lot to learn.)
“Tickle your Cattails” was produced by Miri and Darka Stebivka, under the name Mode M, for their compliation album Church of the Get Down, a tribute album dedicated to Scott and Sherry Pendarvis. The Pendarvis family owns the Pendarvis Farm, on which the renowned Portland-area music festival Pickathon is held each year.
I don’t really know the whole story here, and have only been to the Pickathon once, when I volunteered. But, as the tune, on which I play violin (around 4:30 into the heavily-layered track), indicates in Scott Pendarvis’ own words, the farm has been besieged by those who aren’t exactly down with the communitarian, free-music message of Pickathon.
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.
Songs & Stories 