Decapitado

Most bands worry about making music to appease and please the masses. Not so with Decapitado. This Milwaukee trio is focusing on originality in an effort to maintain their sanity and produce high quality art. These guys are not newcomers to the music scene by any stretch. Each is currently in at least one other band outside Decapitado and each has been in several others before this as well. Bands like Fuck Face, Custom Grand, Boy Dirt Car, and Die Kruezen to mention a few.

Dan Kubinski (vocals/bass), Andy Keels (guitar) and Charles A. Mayer (drums) are Decapitado. Starting at the top, Andy fills us in about the band name. “The word decapitado appears in a newspaper clipping in the movie “Curdled.” I thought it was such a cool word. My wife said it would be a great band name. I was in three bands at that time, and this one fit the name best. The name symbolizes the world today; a lurching, twitching body, lumbering forward, unable to hear or think or see. It stands for the way too many of us live our lives.”

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The The Devil Wears Prada

It seems like America has a strange obsession with zombies in the past few years. More and more zombie movies and shows are coming out, but one has to ask themselves, “Why?” Because they’re awesome! Nothing is scarier than total zombie apocalypse, where your friends and family are turned into the undead and you’re forced to kill or be killed and do what you can to survive. The Devil Wears Prada recognized this and have created a kick ass zombie game with their music in it. It’s called Zombie Slay and it’s exactly what you imagine, as they put it, “Slayin’ zombies and head banging at the same time!”

Maximum Ink: Where did you guys come up with the badass idea for the game?
The Devil Wears Prada: The band wanted to do an extension of the Zombie EP. We wanted to give our fans something different than just a re-release. We met up with ECHO interaction group and developed the idea of Zombie Slay. It is a prequel first person swipe/shoot game to the Zombie EP Comic Book.

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Doomsday 2011

Anyone who pays any type of attention to music knows it’s becoming harder and harder for quality bands to break into the music scene. With social media becoming ever popular and new ways of sharing music making music distribution easier for bands, there are more new bands now than whiney teenage girls who praise Justin Beiber like he’s the second coming of Jesus (and that’s saying something). So, for all the metal-heads out there, this means you are oversaturated with stumbling, offbeat double bass beats and ear drum bursting shrieks. Luckily, I have a cure for these metal doldrums by way of an event called Doomsday 2011. An annual event started back in 2000 that gives us all hope that there truly is good, high quality, kick your ass music still left out there. Maximum Ink sat down with event creator and coordinator Lawrence Weeks, to discuss the event and hear what sets this event apart from the rest.

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Claude Dorsey

To a generation of Milwaukeeans, Claude Dorsey was the musical centerpiece of the city’s nightlife. For 40 years, he entertained diners as the house pianist and vocalist at the Clock Steak House, a downtown crossroads of politicians, entertainers, and reputed mobsters. “It had great food, and the entertainment was pretty good, too,” Dorsey quipped. “The best meals were when Miss Addie was cooking. Whatever she made, it was the best.” In many ways, The Clock became the crossroads where Milwaukee met the Vegas Rat Pack culture. “All the cabbies recommended it to touring acts – that’s how Bob Hope came to see me a few times. [The] same with Nat ‘King’ Cole , Tony Bennett, and others. The cabbies were great at networking.”

Dorsey traces his roots to Gainesville, Georgia, about 40 miles north of Atlanta. “My daddy was the main minister of a church there,” he said. “I wanted to follow him – I tried, but I was always playing music.” Dorsey came to Milwaukee as a teen in 1928. “My dad became minister at Calvary Baptist Church,” he said. The approval of his father was an important factor in Dorsey’s career. “When he heard me play, he said, ‘you’re ministering here; you’re reaching people. That’s what it’s all about.’ I was so happy that my daddy approved of what I was doing; that he was proud of me,” he said.

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Egypt Central

This summer is filled with new music and great new sounds.  One of the most evident marks on summer 2011 has been the release of Egypt Central’s sophomore album White Rabbit.  The album hellishly paints a picture of a series of events and consequences that occur when one accepts or declines the heralded “White Rabbit.” The album is laced with hard riffs, catchy lyrics and more hooks than a fisherman’s tackle box. Maximum Ink’s Aaron Manogue sat down with vocalist John Falls to discuss Summerfest, WJJO Band Camp and their latest album.

Maximum Ink: What’s it like to play Summerfest and Band Camp and these huge shows alongside other great bands that are out there today?
John Falls: We’ve been fortunate to play Summerfest before and this will be our first Band Camp. We’ve played for JJO quite a few times so to finally get an invite to Band Camp is awesome. But it’s weird on the festival circuit you get to know everyone pretty quickly because usually it’s the same bands that are out at that time. That’s another cool aspect of it is that there’s ten to twenty bands that happen to be putting out records that year.

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Enemy Star

After the demise of the COCKSMITHS in 2009, Milwaukee guitar slinger Paris Ortiz (formerly of popular Brewcity rock bands like PSYCHADELICASI and BIG DUMB DICK) had a new sound in mind. Presumably, he was looking for a band that didn’t have a word for penis in the name, but also he was looking to create a more melodic kind of hard music. And ENEMY STAR, the band that eventually would come out of his idea, definitely has both the sweet-sounding and feminine element.

“I was on Myspace and saw an ad from the singer of 9MM SOLUTION.” Paris says. “It said, ‘My vocal teacher is looking for a band’ and I thought it was a gag. I mean, I was like, ‘Who’s your vocal teacher? Satan?’ But then I heard her [ENEMY STAR singer, Kassy Gruszkowski], and I knew it wasn’t a joke and I thought the voice was unique and refined.” A longtime Milwaukee singer, Kassy, was on the lookout for a new band as well. As she says, “The band I was in, THERESBEENAFIRE, broke up and I was out there kind of like ‘Will Rock For Gigs’. It was hard to find a good band at the time and Paris calling me was really, really awesome.”

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Fever Marlene

Bubbling with a feverish energy layered in melodies, beats, and laid back rock and roll, Milwaukee band FEVER MARLENE ambitiously unearth the limits of where they can take their sound. From a big pop-rock debut to a minimalistic approach and now entering raw rock and roll territory, singer/guitarist Scott Starr and drummer Kevin Dunphy let the situation dictate where their band’s music goes.

“It’s important with us being a two-piece to not put ourselves in a corner with what we can do,” says Starr.  “We can’t force something that’s not really there.”

With this mentality, Fever Marlene has rapidly grown in popularity in their hometown and the Midwest music scene, constantly adding fans, bands (both local and national), and media memorized by how they create such big sound with only two members.  Brian Kramp, morning show co-host on FM 102.1 in Milwaukee, is just one of these people.

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