Dr. Science originated in conversations between Mike Pauers and Jay Arpin (both members of Clamnation) regarding their mutual admiration of the funk/fusion experiments of Herbie Hancock in the 1970′s, specifically his Headhunters lineup.  When they realized they were serious about pursuing this music, they put together a group of like-minded musicians for these further explorations: Matt Meixner (Five Card Studs, Hudson, Recycled Future) was contacted first, for his keyboard and improvisational wizardry, and Matt suggested that Todd Richards (Todd Richards Group, The Tropics, Recycled Future, Brazzaville) would be a great fit on guitar.  Duane Stuermer (Sweetbottom, Oceans, George Busateri, etc.) was perhaps the only logical choice for bass duties; his long resume and reputation as the go-to bassist for funk and jazz fusion speaks for itself.  With this core group in place, the experiments on stage began in the fall of 2008.

Dr. Science has recently recorded six tunes, to be released later this year. Tune into WMSE’s Local/Live tonight to get a sneak preview of those tunes — WMSE.org to stream live or in the archives or simply tune your radio to 91.7 FM on your radio dial.

words by Cal Roach

You gotta love weekends like this, when you look at your calendar and think to yourself, “No matter what kind of mood I’m in on Friday night, there’s something cool going on that will fit it.”  Feel like electronic beats?  Up for some mind-bending progressive rock?  How about spacing out to some epic improvisational jams?  Or maybe top-notch songwriters with guitars?  Milwaukee’s got all of that and more going on this weekend, so just go with your gut when you start getting ready to go out tonight; the little man (or woman) inside you always knows what’s best.

It’s been a long week of watching gorgeous weather happen through the windows of your workplace, and you’ve got a ton of pent-up energy to expend.  We’ve got the solution: Flying Lotus, tonight (Friday) at Turner Hall.  Everyone’s probably familiar with his ties to Thom Yorke and his critically-acclaimed records (last year’s Until The Quiet Comes will do nicely as an introduction to FlyLo’s jazz-infused beats, if you need one), but his live sets are where the action is really at.  Although he ventures into (the horror!!) dubstep and other typical electronic styles, the quirky blend that emerges is all his own, weird and irresistible.  Also performing: Thundercat and Teebs.

Prog heads would be well advised to visit Club Garibaldi tonight for the only scheduled U.S. appearance (!!?!) of Italy’s Il Castello di Atlante.  This band had a highly unusual path to success, having formed in 1974 and played around its homeland for years but never releasing and album until Sono io il signore delle terre a nord in 1992 (!!?!).  The band has steadily built up a following since then, and tonight they’ll be joined by one of Milwaukee’s best prog prospects, Fibonacci Sequence.  The band put out an impressive debut album, Numerology, back in 2010 and keep hinting at a forthcoming new record; chances are you’ll hear some as-yet-unreleased material at this show.

Also tonight, Shank Hall is your destination for a rare opportunity to catch the legendary Kristin Hersh for a solo show.  Yes, it’s 2013; whether she likes it or not, the Throwing Muses founder can certainly be considered a legend by us children of the 90s.  Over the past several years she’s been concentrating as much on writing books and charitable work as music, but she did put out a solo album, Crooked, in 2010.  Opening for Hersh will be Milwaukee’s own Lisa Ridgely, no stranger to intensely personal, angst-ridden songs herself.  Since we’re all about links here, it would be silly not to point you in the direction of her band’s debut EP, eh?  It’s a very enjoyable listen. Speaking of enjoyable listening, make sure to check out Hersh’s live performance at WMSE from earlier this afternoon (at 2pm CST) in the WMSE archives. 

This weekend also boasts a homegrown camping and music festival in nearby Concord called (naturally) Jam For Jam; the event was formerly known as Operation: Adaptation but the focus of the activism has since shifted from a somewhat vague environmental thing to a more specific humanitarian effort.  The (somewhat poorly-promoted) fest started yesterday and features many of the premier acts of the local improvisational rock scene; tonight’s headliners are the Milwaukee prog/jazz maestros known as Alpha Transit, who don’t play out too often lately but are one of the city’s must-see live acts.  Between today and tomorrow, you can catch great bands like Stealin’ Strings, LovaNova, De La Buena and tons more, and the proceeds benefit the Jam For Jamaica Building Project.  Check out the full music schedule and all the info you need here.

Saturday night, it’s the return of MELT, the Brew City’s celebrated experimental electronic music series, going down at Stonefly.  As always, The Demix will conjure up wild collages of sound, ambient tones and spoken word and whatever noises your kitchen sink might make.  This one’s also going to feature WMSE’s very own BTS.WRKNG, who you may know as the guy behind the turntables on Monday nights cranking out a continuous mix of smooth awesomeness over the airwaves.  You also get sets of unpredictable beats courtesy of Zero Beat and Moriokun, so be prepared for a full night!

Sunday night brings British indie rock to Turner Hall in the form of Foals.  These guys have been slowly finding their hooves (whoops) over the course of three albums; the first two were sort of faceless, mildly noisy and danceable offerings that didn’t stir up a lot of excitement, but the new Holy Fire is a major step forward, a moody and infectious collection of tunes that should translatr well to the stage.  They’ll be joined by West Palm Beach buzz band Surfer Blood (new album due out in June) and the humorously-named L.A. brother-sister group Blondfire.

Back in January, Vermont-based singer/songwriter Anaïs Mitchell came to Milwaukee as the opening act for Punch Brothers, which turned out to be a fantastic night of music all around.  At that show, she introduced us to some tracks from her collaborative album with Jefferson Hamer, Child Ballads, a collection of Francis James Child’s 19^th-century folk ballads, which then came out this past March.  This Sunday, Mitchell returns to Milwaukee with Hamer in support of this album, playing the intimate Pabst Theater Pub.  We’d hope they’ll also be playing some of Mitchell’s originals, because she is one of the overall best songwriters of the past decade; check out her 2010 concept album Hadestown for starters (specifically the flat-out folk masterpiece “Why We Build The Wall”).  As a performer, she is about as impressive and endearing as you can get.  Also playing: Mike & Ruthy.

Kristin Hersh might best be recognized in association with her first musical project, Throwing Muses, formed in the early 80s as a teenager alongside stepsister Tanya Donelly (who went on to work with the Breeders and Belly). Throwing Muses grew in popularity right in the thick of the golden MTV era, building recognition with singles “Dizzy” and “Counting Backwards”, giving early notoriety to Hersh for her forthright lyricism and hook-filled guitar pop that held just the right amount of edge.

That bare and blunt yet intelligent writing style paired with her skill on guitar lead Hersh’s fans to eagerly follow her in 50footwave and her solo work, both during and following the winding down of Throwing Muses in the late 90s. Even with 50footwave still active, Hersh is making time to tour, solo and throw her creative energies and talents as a writer into her many books. Tonight Hersh visits Milwaukee to play Shank Hall and beforehand, tune in for a special WMSE treat as Hersh plays live on our airwaves at 2pm during Andy’s Zero Hour program. Tune in at 2pm via your radio dial at 91.7 FM or stream live at WMSE.org (or in the archives if you missed out).

Kristin Hersh plays Shank Hall tonight, Friday, May 17th, at 8pm. 21+ Also playing: Lisa Ridgely.

From 1996 to now, Kevin Barnes of Of Montreal has made his way to being a heartbroken, pop musician in Athens, Georgia, to nearly a household musical name based on those two legs of foundation. Athens let him be just weird enough (fostered by the creative influence of the Elephant 6 collective) and that failed relationship sprung from the Canadian city that had enough fairytale quality (and lyricality) to give Barnes’ musical project a bit of a boost.

The most recent Of Montreal album (from longtime label, Polyvinyl), Paralytic Stalks, is “bombastic”, in a nutshell, according to Tiny Mix Tapes, but really, what Of Montreal album hasn’t been rooted in that very thing? The band’s live performances have fed off of that bombastic spirit and expect tonight’s performance at the Pabst Theater to be a sensory experience that will be a proper lead-in to the equal spirit of a forthcoming weekend of spring sensory-laden weather. Catch more info on Of Montreal in Milwaukee tonight, here.

Anais Mitchell is no stranger to the outlines and innerworkings of a good story — the familiarity comes with parental influence of a professor and a novelist paired with her own growth and experience in song and storywriting as a solo musician honing her own tales starting in her late teens. Now, just shy of 32, Mitchell is becoming known for her penchant for lyrical and bookish substance. Her 2010 morphing of a classic, but time-transcendent tale, such as that of Orpheus and Eurydice, has given her a nice little bit of ground to build her newest musical project and album, The Child Ballads, from. Released in March, the album covers seven tales from an already-tapped source, but brings the light of discovery into play with thoughtfulness and care.

Diving into the ripe-for-the-picking Scottish and English tales of American adapter Francis James Child (penned in the late 1800′s) and melting and reshaping them a bit more lyrically than 50s and 60s folkies did (Simon & Garfunkel, Fairport Convention), gives the Child Ballads a modern feel, still paying homage to both the ballad’s original messages (not meant for children with its tales of mature pathos). Mitchell and Hamer seal them up loosely and lightly in honest, plainer wrappings (abandoning the “Olde” English and Scottish language) to deliver a small, interpreted collection that captures the youthful (although angst-driven) spirit of the ballads. Mitchell’s voice, alongside bluegrass musician Jefferson Hamer’s, hovers over the tales with a candid fluency, not meant to be an adornment already fantastic tales, but to simply tell them. Mitchell’s “spritely” vocals are a natural fit and Hamer’s softer tones accompany well alongside over sparse but capable instrumentation to settle the Ballads into a new pocket for a new audience. This Sunday, May 19th, Mitchell and Hamer bring their version of the Child Ballads to the Pabst Pub for an all-ages performance (7pm doors/8pm show). Before the two arrive in Milwaukee, Mitchell took some time to explain the work behind her latest project.

Your Hadestown album (based on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice) and now the Child Ballads suggest you are pretty well read — did you come across the Ballads through reading or from hearing them covered by other artists before you?

It’s funny, I wasn’t a mythology geek or anything before Hadestown, I remember reading the Orpheus story in a children’s illustrated book of mythology, and it stuck with me. The same was kind of true with the Child Ballads, I read the text for “Willie of Winsbury” and a few others in my parents’ copy of Rise Up Singing as a kid. Then a few years ago I started listening to a lot of ballad singers from across the pond– Andy Irvine & Paul Brady, Martin Carthy, Nic Jones, Anne Briggs– and just fell head over heels for the stories all over again. Then I found a paperback copy of the five-volume set of The English and Scottish Popular Ballads in a used bookstore, bought it on the spot, and started reading my way through the ballads. This was around the time I met Jefferson, who was already equally enthralled by the material.

Francis James Child put together a collection of over three hundred ballads from England and Scotland — how did you choose the seven for your album?

The seven ballads on the album are the seven that Jefferson and I really worked deeply and closely on together. We had some other ballads in our repertoire that were more my baby or Jefferson’s baby but these seven felt completely co-arranged. We chose some because there were existing versions and melodies that we loved, like Martin Carthy’s ”Willie’s Lady” or Nic Jones’ “Clyde Waters”. Then we got a little braver and bolder about going straight to the text and having our way with the melody a bit more. Most of the songs we chose are love songs of some kind– lovers who have to overcome great hardships to be together– sometimes they’re successful, sometimes not, but the passion is there in all of them.

Which particular ballad spoke most to you, personally?

There are so many I love, but right now I love the emotion in “Clyde Waters”. It’s this tragic story of two star-crossed lovers and the cruel mothers who oppose their union for their own selfish reasons. The treachery of the mothers, the determined quality of Willie, and then ultimately the bravery of Margaret as she steps up “to her feet” and then “to her knee” and then “to her chin” into the raging river Clyde looking for her drowned lover… I just really enjoy getting into the voices of those characters.

How was the translation process both lyrically and musically?

With the first few songs we worked on, as I was saying above, we had already fallen in love with existing versions and melodies, so it was really just a matter of tweaking the language here and there so that it felt natural for us to sing it, as Americans, in this day and age. Then when we got deeper in, we went straight to the text, started making up a few melodies and really choosing which aspects of the stories we wanted to focus on and which we might want to let go of. We tried to be true to the source always, but also to create versions of the songs that really felt natural for us to sing.

What story(ies) have you got your musical sights set upon, next, if any?

I have a few ideas but… the main one is, I’m expecting a baby at the end of July (first one), so I think THAT story is gonna take over for a little while. :)