If April showers bring May flowers, then Anodyne Coffee in Walker’s Point was our new month’s garden for fresh local sounds on Thursday, May 1. The Bruce Street coffee shop provided an intimate, all-ages setting for folk to flourish that night, led by Milwaukee’s own Maximiano and self-described surf-folk artist Blacktop.
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
Maximiano
“What’s your tolerance for sad songs?”
Opening act Maximiano was met with approving thumbs-up to this question, and the singer-songwriter commenced telling stories through songs sad and revealing on a May evening. Alone with uncommon command on stage, Maximiano sang to their own acoustic guitar accompaniment and well-timed whistles that, as they explained, took the place of the flute, clarinet and slide guitar that appear on their lushly produced 2024 album, The Real Truth.
Standing shoeless in black socks (which freed feet for the occasional mid-song shimmy), the Milwaukee native delivered lovely preamble to most songs with charming backstories, such as, “I took a chance to use this song as a magic spell to help heal someone I love,” and encouraging bon mots such as, “Forgiveness is powerful, but you’ve got to keep bandaging it up, because it bleeds.”
The entrancing storyteller, songwriter, producer, instrumentalist and vocalist engages with spryly endearing lyrics from a brand-new song tentatively titled “Days,” like “I can see us rocking gaily/On a porch swing together when we’re 80” that conjure the Magnetic Fields at their finest. Additionally appealing was Maximiano’s willingness to open life’s pages with the audience in a way that says we’re together in this thing, which suggests more music to come that matters to Maximiano, Milwaukee and beyond.
See Maximiano Live
Summer Soulstice (North Ave. on East Side), June 14
Lakefront Festival of the Arts (Milwaukee Art Museum), June 15, Noon–2 p.m.
Cactus Club, June 21, With Blacktop
Blacktop
Did you hear the one about the guy with a master’s in public health working full-time for the City of Milwaukee’s disease prevention who moonlights as a surf-folk musician with a Chet Baker-like hushed vocal while also producing several local artists? Meet Blacktop, a project led by Milwaukee musician and public health worker Austin Wood, who says music “allows him to be more present for his friends.” The crowd at Anodyne was certainly present and delighted in Wood’s guitar, as his shoeless feet felt for the guitar’s various pedal effects, the notes releasing like fireflies.
Wood shared songs from Blacktop’s previous release, Gardening Is a Practice, Not an Idea, which is a quote from The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh. Austin says the teachings within the book have helped him to discover useful ways to respond to statements like, “Tell me how you keep your head on straight.” The answer may have been to hear his sublime electric guitar tremolo treading on hypnotic Hawaiian, sending songs to keep one afloat, encouraging an evening retreat into gentle waves.
The crowd allows each note to waver, wander and linger before applauding. Before his last song, “Tides,” Woods let us in on a not-so-little secret: Justin Bieber had used the song to accompany his skateboard video he posted on Instagram. “Twenty-six million views,” Woods shrugged. As Blacktop concluded his set, I couldn’t help imagining the lovely echo of Wood’s guitar accompanying Twin Peaks’ Agent Dale Cooper smiling over a warm slice of cherry pie, the camera easing slowly back to reveal the neon sign gently flashing “closed.”
The title of Blacktop’s upcoming release is Modern Spiritualism, which refers to how Woods can implement the ideas from Thich Nhat Hanh’s work into both his music and everyday interactions because, as Woods suggests, its “ideas can influence the average person into having a more genuine and present life.” If music delivers on this suggestion, Blacktop is a band to catch, both live and online, for our hearts and for our minds.
See Blacktop Live in Milwaukee
High Dive, May 11
Falcon Nest, May 31
Cactus Club: Modern Spiritualism Album Release Show with Maximiano, June 21
Get out and catch some live local music!
Live music thrives every night throughout Milwaukee. Anodyne is an ideal venue to hear local bands in a chill, all-ages environment. If you prefer a grittier, up-close club scene, check out Cactus Club, X-Ray Arcade, Shank Hall and more for a wide variety of local music.
