Little Red Wolf

Success is happening fast for Little Red Wolf. The four Madison women who make up the group and have been writing multidimensional folk based pop songs together since 2008. Each member of LRW is well-versed in various instruments and the singers harmonize like a group that has been together for years. With influences ranging from seminal riot grrrls Sleater Kinney to current groups with diverse but traditional sounds like The New Pornographers and Grizzly Bear, listening to LRW develop their sound is going to be a thrilling ride. When asked what groups they would most like to share a stage with drummer Emily Mills mentioned the Ditty Bops and Fleet Foxes. “Both of these groups have taken traditional American music and found a way to put their own, unique and—frankly—awesome, spin on it. I think we’d mesh pretty well with them.” Kelly Maxwell added, “Little Red Wolf with Fleet Foxes would be amazing. I would just die of happiness.”

The four seem to agree that traditional folk music is just a starting point in their quote"collaborative” song writing process. Maxwell said, “Most of the time it starts with something simple and we all add to it: One of us has a riff, we’ll work on it in rehearsal several times with different instruments until it sounds right, then someone will bring lyrics and that person gets to sing it.”

Read More...

Lords Of Discipline

Take the shredding of Yngwie Malmsteen and Joe Satriani combined with the epic musings of bands like Nile and Behemoth and top it all of with beer soaked Wisconsin metal you have LORDS OF DISCIPLINE, a quintet that define their own take on metal. As bassist Nick Moreno explains, “we only have one gear, and that’s straight out metal, that’s it… we just play metal.”

Brutal and technical are the words these guys live by. Their name runs deeps through not only their musical ventures, but the LORDS OF DISCIPLINE are also regimented in their downtime. Whether it’s learning various forms of martial arts or constant guitar theory, discipline is the heart and soul seeking the level of mastery with a martial arts state-of-mind in music. Their recording techniques reflect the structure they require to create such a monsterous sound. Moreno explains, “it’s the most intimidating thing I have ever come across as a musician.”

Read More...

Lords Of The Trident

Can you define heavy metal? Does metal mean screaming vocals and deadly distortion? Or is metal wailing guitar solos and an iron lunged singer?

To Fang VonKillenstein of Lords Of The Trident, heavy metal is “that distorted sound that makes you roll down your windows in the summer and makes you put your fist in the air, out the window. It just gives you that feeling in the pit of your stomach that just drives that ‘yeah.’” One can only assume that “yeah” would make King Diamond proud.

Mr. Killenstein, also known as Ty, defines their sound as “80’s metal mixed with modern influences.”

“Our structure is more towards classics 80’s, but we down tune and are fans of modern death and black metal. Those tonalities show up a lot as well.”

Using their local flavor, they have turned bits and pieces of the UW Campus and Madison into epic metal. Fang explains:

“The Madison music scene is really a lot of indie rock, around campus especially. When you say metal, the average Joe thinks of death and turns the other cheek to our music. Half the people come to our shows for cool music, but the other half just come to see what the hell we are up to. “

Read More...

Luna Mortis

Halloween is coming, metal is in the air and Madison will make another mark on the heavy metal map.

Last December you may remember Maximum Ink ran a band called The Ottomon Empire, a Madison metal band featuring the operatic and sometimes brutallic vocals of Mary Zimmer, guitarists Brian Keonig and Cory Scheider, drummer Erik Madsen and bassist Jake Bare, on the front cover.

I had to go back to the Max Ink website to check out the story one more time, seeing how so much had changed in less than a year… but oddly, it was the same.

In July, it was announced that band had signed to Century Media records and that explained to me why they had changed their name to Luna Mortis.

Read More...

M.A.X.-mas Volume II

We’ve all heard the lousy Christmas songs that get beaten into our head over and over every single year since our conception. The one’s that make you go just a tad bit crazy and one more step closer to that breaking point. If you’re from the U.S., you know all about the corporate sponsored shopping spree we as Americans partake in, despite whether or not we have money. Now, I’m no Scrooge. But if I’m going to have to suffer through another year of thousands of meaningless dollars spent and seeing family half of us don’t like as it is, I want some kick ass music to dull the pain.

Read More...

The Mifflin Street Block Party

The University of Wisconsin has traditionally held two giant student parties every year. One is Halloween (where out of town revelers caused so many problems, it evolved into Freak Fest, still a good party but one that turns State Street into a demilitarized zone each year) and the other is the Mifflin Street Block Party. Started in 1969 as a reaction to the Vietnam War (the event that seems to loom over every student activity or university story from that decade), the party has been an annual tradition some times at odds with the city and some times with the city’s blessing. After a long time of relative peace, in 1996, drunken and foolish partygoers decided to attack a fire truck that came to put out a bonfire started in the middle of the street. Next thing you know, there’s riot gear, people are screaming bloody murder, and lots and lots of arrests are made. Needless to say, the 1997 party was kind of a drag. But the fest has continued in the ensuing years, and now local music promoters DCNY PRO, Madison natives and longtime Mifflin Street attendees, David Coleman and Ny Bass, have taken the bull by the horns. They spearheaded the party in 2009 to one of its most successful years. On the fortieth anniversary of the festival and even with over fifteen-thousand people in attendance, arrests were down from the year before and in 2010, they’re bringing more changes to make it a friendlier and safer place.

Read More...

Muzzy Luctin

The release of Symptoms of a Simple Life has been a long time coming for Muzzy Luctin.  Initial writing and recording for the album began in 1999, but scarce studio time and busy personal and professional lives for Muzzy Luctin’s members caused the final release to actually materialize almost three years later.

The time stretch proved to be a positive aspect in a number of ways for the band. Guitarist Paul Schluter took on mixing responsibilities for the disc, and quickly admits to being a perfectionist, refusing to be satisfied with anything less than excellence.  Perhaps even more significant than studio perfections, or even a more accepting rock scene than that of two years ago, is what the time has done for the personal dynamics of the band.  “You really find out whether or not you can stay together as a band, because we went through [a lot],” recalls Schluter.  “At least as bad or worse than some bands, and we stayed together.” Stressing the variety within the band, he continues, “[We have] different personalities, but we’ve all been able to compromise and work together and make it work, and that’s what’s gonna make us stay together.”

Read More...