An unlikely assemblage struck grungy gold on autumn’s first evening. While lightning strobed in the equinox sky, Milwaukee’s Teenage Ice Age, Human Ant Farm and headliners Oh Well, Ok – joined by Minnesota’s Lana Leone – sparked the Cudahy crowd with three hours of ’90s-inspired fuzz.
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
Milwaukee’s Teenage Ice Age kicked off the foursome of slack around 7 p.m., delivering on their youthful promise of prehistoric flannel-inspired psych. They led the growing crowd on an electric hike down the Teenage Ice Age trail, and the evening’s path of twisted guitar feedback had begun to lovingly erode our ears like glaciers.
Next up was Twin City traveler Lana Leone, whose band abruptly experienced a guitar malfunction. Vocalist/guitarist Leone gamely chatted up the crowd while the six-string received medical attention. Soon, a revived guitar screamed hallelujah, and Lana Leone led a fuzz afterlife with Smashing Pumpkins-precision, and the lead guitarist treated the crowd to athletic post-Pete Townshend guitar maneuvers in the dark.
Human Ant Farm
I’m brought back to the now by a second guitar injury: Human Ant Farm’s frontman asked if there’s an ax doctor in the house. After a few one-liners, he suggested the crowd follow him on Truth Social. (He’s joshing us.) The jokes came slow and curious from both lead vocalist and a willing crowd member. Oh Well, Ok’s Kelson Kuzdas came to the injured guitar’s rescue, and the brief open mic gave way to Human Ant Farm’s reanimation. The band resumed peeling paint from the X-Ray walls with undeniable shoegazingly grunge fervor, much to the delight of the gathering crowd.
Oh Well, Ok: Making That Mycelium Sound
When I noticed that Oh Well, Ok’s June 2025 release is entitled Infinite Monkey Theorem, I couldn’t click their song “Mt. Sonoma” fast enough. From the furry jingle-jangle guitar and the Wayne Coyne-esque laconic and sincere delivery of lyrics, I knew this was my next local pick. It “took me back to where I wanted to go” – to quote the song – which was to the Flaming Lips of the mid-1990s, tearing chandeliers from the ceiling with pyroclastic flow, all sung with a slowly emerging smile.
After perplexing myself with the Infinite Monkey Theorem, I met the band before the show on the back porch of the X-Ray Arcade. Planes flew lower overhead than one could conceive as safe, though they did prepare my ears for the evening’s explosions. I wasted zero time professing my love for ’90s Flaming Lips and was delighted to hear lead singer, guitarist, trumpeter and principal songwriter James Markwyn exclaim that he’d been listening to Hit to Death in the Future Head today. We shared our love for guitarist Ronald Jones and the 1992-98 era of The Flaming Lips, because this was their era of guitar-based weirdness and evolution.
In addition to frontman James Markwyn, Oh Well, Ok is Irene Jerving on bass and vocals, Anthony Wolfe on drums and Kelson Kuzdas, who produces and provides guitar when he’s not “in his main band,” Diet Lite. Jerving came to the bass via violin, and Wolfe drummed in a marching band back in high school. Each member grew up with music in their home, ranging from the Beastie Boys to Louie Armstrong, The Police and ELO. The four musicians brought it all together and recorded Infinite Monkey Theorem in Kuzdas’ “moldy” house in a very “lo-fi” way that captured the bombastic feel of their live sound. Markwyn credits Kuzdas for mixing and revealing the album’s “mycelium” sound. Kuzdas in turn credits Markwyn for knowing what he wanted.
The Infinite Monkey Theorem title stems from Markwyn’s interest in the idea that if given forever, monkeys might conjure the work of Shakespeare. While the BBC reports “the probability of one chimp constructing a random sentence – such as “I chimp, therefore I am” – comes in at one in 10 million billion billion,” Oh Well, Ok’s album has a massive probability of making fans of Pavement and Dinosaur Jr. sigh happily.
Their music is not at all random. In fact, “FIDELCASTROEUROSTEP” references a specific historical legend that Fidel Castro could ball.
“I read this bit,” shares Markwyn, “that Fidel Castro and Che Guevara would play basketball together. There are so many cool pictures out there of Fidel Castro hooping.” Woven into the dictatorial hardwoods of “FIDELCASTROEUROSTEP” is my favorite lyric on the record: “Now I read it in a magazine, but the only thing I read is in between the lines of what comes naturally to me…” All of this comes with an infectious melody that absolutely slays: Imagine a ’90s grunge pop rock song with historical fiction and lyrics that would make Richard Hell crack a grin.
Oh Well, Ok: The Live Show
Hoping to chase my ’90s nightmare off my skin, I got as close to the band as I could, earplugs locked in and ready for a wave of mutilation. Markwyn and Kuzdas traded grizzly eruptions of varying joules in their fantastic opener “Spill Yer Guts.” Reinforcing the evening’s Modest Mouse vibes, they dropped a searing “Polar Opposites,” with which I unabashedly sang along. “FIDELCASTROEUROSTEP” forced the crowd into the zone. Wolfe and Jerving grooved in the “Shadow”, a moody mid-set piece with landmine guitars surfacing just when you think the coast is clear. “Amaretto Country Club” floated like a black butterfly over asphalt and stung like the suburban takedown it is. The show-closing “Convenience Store” took Pavement hostage and brought them into the bright future of slacker rock, which includes an Infinite Monkey Theorem.
Oh Well, Ok Setlist: X-Ray Arcade, Sept. 22, 2025
Spill Yer Guts
Wrapped Up
Mt Sonoma
Polar Opposites (Modest Mouse cover)
FIDELCASTROEUROSTEP
Shadow
Unnamed New Song
Amaretto Country Club
KTPF
Convenience Store
