Begin the Begin

aaaaahhhh. Summer season begins in Milwaukee today; birds are singing, a spring rain freshens the air, and THEY'VE SET UP A FRIGGIN BEER TENT IN FRONT OF MY DOOR!

It's the first festival of the season, a downtown affair called Riversplash. The prob-o is that our office is also downtown. So The fest starts honking away right outside our windows. DID I MENTION THERE'S A BEER TENT RIGHT BY OUR FRONT DOOR?!?!!

Milwaukee is funny about outdoors, it really is. I think it has to do with the long winter and inhospitable springs and falls. All that time inside makes everybody a bit stir-crazy (and in the case of Jeffrey Dahmer, stir FRY crazy. Thankew! I'll be here all week!), infected with a special brand of cabin fever. So when the weather breaks and the summer season starts, we feel a genetic need to do everything outside, including drinking the vast amounts of beer we are famous for.

Every bar, restaurant, and cafe worth a dime has some sort of sidewalk seating or outdoor patio. It's kind of counterintuitive, right? For a climate where most of the time the weather doesn't allow us to use it? It's kind of like having a motorcycle in this climate...wait. Every third person here has a Harley. See, we're friggin nuts.

HEY! THEY'RE SETTING UP A BEER TENT OUTSIDE!!11! KNOW WHERE IT IS? 40 FEET FROM OUR FRONT DOOR!11!

Anyways, after this weekend's festival, the summer becomes a blur. Every weekend there's some kind of festival, from the ethnic festivals that occur on the Summerfest grounds to the local street festivals, there's always too much to do, and it's all outside, it all has music, and it all has beer. AND IT STARTS BY ME HITTING THAT BEER TENT LIKE IT STOLE MY LUNCH MONEY, STARTING RIGHT AROUND NOON!!1!1ELEVEN!11!

It IS genetic, I suspect. After all, the history of Milwaukee and the German heritage is filled with beer halls and music halls, where everybody gets together to drink and dance. Milwaukee, as a matter of fact, was the center of the resistance during Prohibition, with the Breweries selling the materials necessary and every third house on any given block brewing beer. Brewing equipment, copper, barley, malt was sold and shipped all over the country from this area.

It's also a lesson in Carpe Diem. Summer weather is limited; we are aware, every minute we spend outside, that savage weather is coming, and right soon. If we don't enjoy every minute, every second we can outside, we're going to regret it in January when it's twenty five below and the dog is frozen to the tree in the backyard.

Of course, the Festival season hits it stride at the end of June with Summerfest. There are a lot of Summerfests around the country, but no other is like this one. Eleven consecutive days of music food and beer over acres of beautiful lakefront, with cumulative attendance usually over a million people. It's...awe-inspiring. Especially when the moon is rising over the ranks of porta-potties....

I kid. About half of the toilets at Summerfest are permanent structures.

UNLIKE THE BEER TENT OUTSIDE MY OFFICE DOOR!!

Well, like I said, at this time of year I kind of feel sorry for people who don't live here (the rest of the year I daydream schemes to move elsewhere). So, I believe posting will start to lessen a bit, and start to focus on music and beer (more so than usual, I mean). And the Summerfest Blog will go active in the near future; when it does I'll throw a link up. Until then...

THIS IS THE FRIDAY RANDOM-BEER-TENT-IN-FRONT-OF-MY-OFFICE BLATHERING MUSIC REVIEW AND I'M-LEAVING-AT-LUNCH TIME-WASTING MINUTIAE SPLATTERAMA!!

1. Billy Pritchard from the album "Barrel Chested" by Slobberbone sadly defunct band, they are now The Drams. As the 'bone, they played a smoking hot live show.
2. Things You Say You Love from the album "Who You Fighting For?" by UB40
3. All I Want For Christmas from the album "Just Can't Get Enough: New Wave Xmas" by Timbuk 3
4. D.I.Y. from the album "2" by Peter Gabriel
5. Abolish Work from the album "The First Conspiracy" by The (International) Noise Conspiracy
6. Lillywhite Lilith from the album "Lamb Lies Down on Broadway[live, disk 2]" by Genesis
7. Heaven Or The Highway Out Of Town from the album "The Bottle & Fresh Horses" by The Refreshments
8. Are You A Good Witch Or A Bad Witch? from the album "What is Truth?" by J Neo Marvin and the Content Providers Well worth searching out this West Coast band, lots of good stuff on their discs.
9. Underwater Love Story from the album "Stay Young" by Ultrasound One brilliant disc, a handful of EPs, several incendiary shows, and poof! they broke up.
10. Spaceboy from the album "Siamese Dream" by Smashing Pumpkins



A couple of inadvertent mulligans there, as I got distracted by work and phone. Hey, any reason to blow a few extras, righto?

11. How Do You Say Goodbye from the album "Violent Femmes (Live 1982)" by Violent Femmes
12. Wipeout from the album "Golden Lies" by Meat Puppets
13. View From The Rim from the album "Eighth" by Eleventh Dream Day
14. You Know What It Is from the album "Lived To Tell" by Eleventh Dream Day Heh. Now THAT's pretty funny, hey? 2 in a row.
15. Give It To Me from the album "Runaway Boys: A Retrospective '81-'92" by Stray Cats


Rock em out, Zelmo. How's that ankle bracelet? By my estimate, I think I owe you seventeen beers. You know where I'll be.