Icarus Himself/Alpha Centauri; December 13, 2009; The Frequency

We had just arrived at the Frequency, slightly late, and had already missed the first band on the bill. We were at the bar in the other room when the strangest noise erupted from the back room. The other folks at the bar looked worried, but I was intrigued and went to check it out. I found a skinny, sharp-dressed, lead singer/guitarist with an impressive vocal range, a drummer, a vampire (in a good way, vampires are totally in you know) with three keyboards stacked in front of him, and a female bass player, who also sang, with two more keyboards in front of her. I watched for a minute, intrigued, and went back to the front of the bar to report. After running through the above line-up, I ended with a sincere “and I dig it.”

I’m not sure how much of the meager crowd agreed with my assessment, but I was hypnotized as they went through waves of spacey dance music and more grounded rock. It was difficult to define, but I liked it despite the lack of catchy melodies or clever lyrics. The boy-girl vocals were essentially just another instrument in a mix that also included trombone and accordion. While their plea to buy a CD so they had gas money to get back home usually works on me on a sympathy level, I was already planning on getting one. It certainly wasn’t enough to get them back to Minneapolis, but maybe knowing they had one fan will be enough to get them to come back to Madison again.

Of course, I was there to see Icarus Himself. The side project of Nick Whetro, leader of the National Beekeepers Society, it has developed into something I find more interesting than his main band. While the first several shows I saw were ramshackle and unorganized, recent sets have been impressively slick (that’s slick in a good way). At first I thought it was practice, but sideman Karl Christianson had already dismissed that idea. Perhaps it’s due to the sampler that Whetro has been using recently, which allows him to have at least some of the music he hears in his head on stage with him.

Coffins, their most recent release, ranks as one of the best records I’ve heard this year. If the newer tunes they’ve been playing are any indication, the next release will be even better. This is a work in progress I’ve enjoyed watching develop.

Alpha Centauri






Icarus Himself