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Going 'famous'


Milwaukee, Wis., does have a remarkable amount to be famous for.

First, you have Gene Wilder, who was the original Willy Wonka. Liberace and Spencer Tracy also hail from the City of Festivals. On top of being dubbed with that name, it is also known as the "Beer City" (wouldn't it be awesome to be able to tell your friends that?)

That was the inspiration for the 1968 Jerry Lee Lewis song "What's Made Milwaukee Famous," which subsequently became the inspiration for the name of a band who eventually signed onto Barsuk Records and released "Trying to Never Catch Up" back in August.

Surprisingly, this band is not even from Wisconsin, but in fact hails from Austin, Texas, a city equally famous for its large music scene. Austin hosts two of the biggest music festivals in the country.

There seems to be some pretty big shoes to fill in that respect for this band, which has label mates The Long Winters, Rocky Votolato and The Starlight Mints, among others.

The band's sound is simply lovely, mixing in elements of synth, acoustic guitar, vocal harmonies and a fair amount of percussion and keyboards on top of the basic band structure of guitar, bass, and drums.

The vocalist draws comparison to political indie rocker, Ted Leo, a bit of falsetto mixed with a bit of strain and a whole lot of power. WMMF can't be so easily packaged though, bouncing from heavy instrumentation to stripped-down vocals and guitar, making it difficult to even try to classify the band.

The online Web zine, Mundane Sounds, summed up the album almost perfectly by saying, "It's melodic, it's smart, it's intelligent and it sounds like everything you probably like and nothing you've probably heard."

While you may have heard of Milwaukee and the great state of Wisconsin for its dairy, chances are Austin might have something more exciting to tote when this album makes What Made Milwaukee Famous ... famous.



'Trying to Never Catch Up'

5 out of 5 pitchforks.

Artist: What Made Milwaukee Famous

Label: Barsuk Records

Reach the reporter at: ashley.e.harris@asu.edu.


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