Though it’s hard to believe, The Viper & His Famous Orchestra will be playing our first full-length show of the calendar year on Saturday, September 26, at The Coffee House in Milwaukee (1905 West Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee, WI 53233 | (414) 534-4612). Opening will be singer, wry songwriter, and clawhammerer of banjos, Bob Druker (see a clip of him playing below).

The Coffee House is a venerable venue just west of the Marquette University campus: a borrowed stage space in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, and the home of “Acoustic music and poetry since 1967.” The last time we played there, Jamie Lee Rake wrote this perspicacious and funny review for the Dec. 13, 2014, Shepherd Express, calling attention to our “mélange of pre-1940s U.S. pop incorporating various retro-futuristic elements,” played “(mostly) acoustically with scads of cleverness, giving even their most politically vehement numbers a dose of humor. One could call them the Rage Against The Machine for sophisticated Hoosier Hot Shots or Spike Jones fans.”

Rag against the machine we do, indeed. Read it and weep. And then come see us play!

Bob Druker and Lileah Kroening perform “The Days Are Brief”