IowanChef.com

That’s right, chitlins. I’ve teamed up with Quinn of Quinnstorm.com, and together we are trudging full-force into the trenches of this year’s Austin City Limits Festival. Well, I’ll mostly be running the camera and audio as we chase down rockstars and guzzle all the free booze a benevolent god can bestow upon us. Also there will be golf cart rides.

I’m rather excited to take this giant leap into semi-professional cameraman status. I’m also very happy to be teaming up with Quinn, who I edited a few episodes of Quinnstorm (Heartless Bastards, Passion Pit) for not too long ago. So I’m hip to his jib, I like his swagger, and I predict we’re going to have a rather good time this weekend, despite the threat of rain.

What is especially intriguing about this whole adventure is the fact that I will be on as about the “opposite” side of the fence at this festival as I could possibly be. I mean, I can never be stripped of my musicianship and see music ever as just a “fan,” but I’m eager to see how the bands treat “the help.” As someone who’s played almost every major US festival in the last couple years with What Made Milwaukee Famous, I know how it can be to get shuffled around at breakneck speeds, trying to make every single interview and signing when all you REALLY want to do is go see goddamn Queens Of The Stone Age. “I can HEAR them. They’re right THERE! Are we done here yet? Piss!” So yeah, maybe I’ll get a little randy and let Michael out of the box on one of these days. Maybe even bring some tasty treats to lure Karen O into my cave with? M’yess.. Methinks so.

So here we go kiddos. ACL 2009 is upon us. Let’s all do an UN-raindance and play nice. I’ll be watching you. And wtf, come on up and say hi.. Maybe I’ll feed you.

Do bands hibernate? Most probably should. A solid stint of solitary study would behoove the majority of what seems to fight for the popular vote these days.. Ask me what I’m listening to at any given moment, and nine times out of ten, it’ll be something from before you were born. There was a time when no genre was prefaced with “a thinking man’s..” The musicians I love and return to time after time are almost all dead. Granted, not all of them died of natural causes, if such a thing exists for musicians, but I’m straying here.. Point is, more than half the music we have access to is complete mindless garbage, robbed from the graves of the pioneers who actually took the time to do things like, oh I don’t know, PRACTICE, research, take chances, test their audience, and ultimately GIVE themselves to thousands of strangers in the face of imminent criticism, crucifixion, and the fickle, shared, single-celled mind of the drooling masses.

TONIGHT, my friends, fellow musicians, dudes-in-bands, and fans of real music in general, What Made Milwaukee Famous will celebrate the end of the “What Doesn’t Kill Us” album cycle at Antone’s here in Austin Texas. It’s been three very long years of touring for this band in support of both Barsuk releases, and now that we’re not staring down the barrel of 250 shows a year, we’ve got some time to sit down and think about what the next album means for us, and how three years of road-dogged living has changed both us and our sound.

TONIGHT we’ll be taking the stage around 11pm and we will be joined by Josh King of The Lemurs on keys and Kelly Doyle on guitar, who you’ve maybe seen with WMMF side project The Motts.  Mr Doyle is quickly becoming my favorite guitarist to play with in over 20 years, and might just be my favorite guitarist to listen to.  This guy makes me laugh and cry, often while I’m trying to back his ass on a solo, which makes my already grotesque stage faces even more amusing, I’m sure.  I dunno.  You tell me.  Come out tonight and hear us one last time before we go into hibernation and see what the dream machine conjures up for the next album.  We’ve got new tunes in their infancy we’d like to share with our hometown crowd, old favorites, and probably a LOT of Firefly to drink..

Showtime: 11pm

Doors: 8pm

Openers :  9pm – Quiet Company / The Laughing

Tickets HERE!