Category Archives: those that from a long way off look like flies

those that from a long way off look like flies

Shows in May & June, 2016

A couple busy weeks ahead for the normally pretty lazy Viper & His Famous Orchestra, across four towns in two states: Lake Zurich and Chicago, IL, and Milwaukee and Westport (basically, Middleton), WI.

Here’s what you can expect.

Thursday, May 19, 2016 (7:00 to 8:00 p.m.)
Lake Zurich Middle School North
LZMSN Cafetorium
95 Hubbard Lane
Hawthorn Woods, IL 60047
(847) 719-3600

The Really Big Shew!!! The Viper performs his material with the Lake Zurich Middle School North Orchestra under the direction of Riley Broach as the culmination of his time with them as Spring 2016 Composer in Residence. The evening will include the world premiere of a piece written especially for the LZMSNO, a concerto gross for ukulele and orchestra titled “Let Not Life Far From These Fingers Flee / My Dog Has Fleas.” Read all about it here. Open to the public.

Saturday, May 21, 2016 (7:00 to 10:00 p.m.)
The Coffee House
1905 West Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee, WI 53233 | (414) 534-4612

The Viper & His Famous Orchestra with Andy Jehly, Mississippi Sawyer, Bill Murtaugh, Paul Smith, Sweet Diversity, and host Jym Mooney to close out the 49th season of The Coffee House. $10.00 cheap! suggested donation.

Saturday, June 4, 2016 (7:30 to 10:00 p.m.)
Parched Eagle Brew Pub
5440 Willow Road #112, Westport, WI 53597 | (608) 204-9192

Google Maps will tell you this is in Waunakee, but if you’ve got a date with The Viper & His Famous Orchestra in Waunakee, we’ll be waiting in Westport — here! At the Parched Eagle! And Edward Burch will be there with us. Westport/Waunakee is right on the other side of Lake Mendota from Madison, and in good old Madison-area fashion, there is no cover. We play for your tips, just like we did at your Bris.

Sunday, June 5, 2016 (7:00 to 10:00 p.m.)
The California Clipper
1002 North California Ave., Chicago, IL 60622 | (773) 384-2547

The Viper & His Famous Orchestra bring their hog-butchering style to a city that really appreciates it, in the fancy digs of this Humboldt Park neighborhood classic space. It’s a beautiful bar! Plus DJ Lawrence Peters, who’s a stand-up guy and drummer, too. In fact, The Viper first premiered “Big Headed Small Minded Man” some years ago with Mr. Peters on the snare. I believe it’s a $5 cover, which, in Chicago money, is about what it costs to convince someone to give you their already-been-chewed gum and then punch you in the gut.

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If you come to our shows, the Viper will break out that shirt again.
those that from a long way off look like flies

Show announcement: Kneel to Neil benefit at Linneman’s in Milwaukee, Saturday, November 14

If, like me, you need a fix every two years or so of The Viper and His Famous Orchestra at Linneman’s Riverwest Inn in Milwaukee (1001 E. Locust St. | (414) 263-9844), then you’re in luck. We’ll be there again on Saturday, November 15, 2015 as part of the all-night, all-singing, all-playing Kneel to Neil show going on that evening.

This is annual event — the eleventh one! — of local Milwaukee stalwarts, upstarts, and icons doing their best to take on the fugitive, classic, and anti-iconic music of Neil Young, and to do so for the greater good. And by “greater good” I mean benefiting the folks at WMSE who keep local Milwaukee radio weird and also benefiting the Bridge School. The Bridge School is a California-based non-profit that works with alternative technologies and modes of communication to enable children with severe speech and physical impairments to participate more fully in their schools and communities. It was started, along with few others, by Pegi Young — mother of transformer man, Ben Young, and wife of Neil Young (provider of Ben Young’s blue jeep rides).

Sure, Neil Young himself plays at the annual benefit concert that happens in Mountain View, California. But if you want The Viper, you’ve got to come to Milwaukee!

I don’t know if a start time has been set or the order of performers, but last time it started at 7:30 and we went on about four or five acts in. Here’s what it looked like the first time we did it back in 2011 (though we didn’t look nearly as squatty as this footage makes it seem):

Shot and posted by Sue Peacock

those that from a long way off look like flies

Show announcement: Sept. 26, 2015 at The Coffee House in Milwaukee

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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”

those that from a long way off look like flies

Viper, where’ve you been so long?

Announcing two upcoming Milwaukee shows for the season, which, shameful to say, will be the first honest-to-cripe Orchestra shows since this past July and our first Milwaukee shows since February.

February! Viper come home!

  • Friday, October 24, 2014, Anodyne Coffee Roasting Co.
  • Saturday, December 13, 2014, The Coffee House

On Friday, October 24, 2014:

We’ll be at the Anodyne Coffee Roasting Co., Walker’s Point Roastery (224 W. Bruce Street, Milwaukee, WI 53204 | (414) 276-8081 | questions@anodynecoffee.com) from 8:00 to 11:00 p.m.

The Roastery is masterpiece of restoration and reclaimed wood, a great place to see a show, sip some site-roasted coffee, or have a featured beer on tap from the Milwaukee Brewing Company just down the block.

And we’ll have Mississippi Sawyer as our special guests, an inspired three-piece who, by virtue of appearing, will double our usual on-stage suitcase count.  As they’ll tell you on their Facebook page, Mississippi Sawyer plays old time songs, traditional and original music with members playing homemade instruments and household items as musical instruments. (Who’d want to do that?)

When they’re not letting every hour represent itself at farmers markets or festivals in and around Milwaukee, you might find them, as here, featured on “The Dig Sessions,” playing “Ella Speed.” Sing it to your sweetheart!

This double bill has been a long time in the making, and it’s something not to be missed. $7.00 cover.

Then on Saturday, December 13, 2014:

We’ll be playing at The Coffee House (1905 West Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee, WI 53233 | (414) 534-4612), a Milwaukee institution that has been hosting acoustic music poetry since 1967.

More details on this show will follow, but we’ll be playing on the second floor auditorium that this venerable organizations has managed to infiltrate in this, its 48th season, and we’ll be onstage between 8:00 and 10:30. The date is 12/13/14 — the last number-sequential date you’ll see until January 2, 2034. We see this as part of our commitment to numerologically significant shows dates, like the show we did on 11/11/11, and the Fibonacci sequence-themed show we’re playing for November 23, 2058 (11/23/58).

those that from a long way off look like flies

A wet hot Madison summer with The Viper

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Lamp this: The Viper & His Famous Orchestra will be calling Madison, Wisconsin their viper’s nest this summer, with three (free & outdoor) shows at Mickey’s Tavern and an Adult Swim: Summer Speakeasy show at the Madison Children’s Museum.

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Look for The Viper & His Famous Orchestra in Madison this summer of ’14. Here’s a younger Viper playing trombone with My Cousin Kenny: David Koller sings, John Papageorge plays accordion, and Joel Mark (out of frame) plays guitar. We were playing what would not yet have been known as a “house show” in the apartment of (I believe) Kathy Rathke on E. Gorham, or E. Johnson, or E. Gilman, or something like that.

The first of the Mickey’s Tavern shows happens this upcoming Monday, July 14, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. That’s Bastille Day, you know. So we’ll plan on opening up some prison doors — mental and physical, but mostly mental — during our two sets. And did I mention it’s free? And outdoors on the patio?

Then on Friday, July 25, 2014, we’ll provide the musical portion of the entertainment at the Madison Children’s Museum’s Adult Swim: Summer Speakeasy (ages 21+, with tickets at $12). The whole event runs from 6:00-10:00 p.m., and we play between 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. As the museum describes the event: “Dust off your Zoot Suit and travel back to the 1920’s for a Prohibition-Era party featuring the music of The Viper and His Famous Orchestra.” Along with our music, you’ll be able to:

  • Discover a rum pot in the Log Cabin
  • Sneak into a secret society meeting
  • Play your cards right in Possible-opolis™
  • Get connected with post-war spiritualism talks
  • Learn the Charleston, Foxtrot, and other steps

The Viper has a lot of fond memories of summers in Madison, where I played in a number of bands as an undergradate (Phlegm, Enzymatic Fly Vomit, My Cousin Kenny, Kissyfish, The Beatles, Gentlemen Prefer Hank), and where I first honed my ukulele chops on various corners along State Street… to the consternation of my many unwitting serenade victims.

My usual practice was to busk until I’d earned enough to subsidize an evening of pitchers, burgers, Tetris, and “Beat on the Brat” on the jukebox at The Plaza Tavern.

So if you can’t catch us at Mickey’s or the Adult Swim, look for us near The Towers, if we can jostle Art Paul Schlosser out of the way.

VSD
Viper the Younger (Ryan Jerving, right) plays with John Papageorge at the foot of State Street, between the University bookstore/Christian Science reading room and the UW main Library. I think we’re singing Duran Duran’s “Wild Boys” here. The boombox in the back stands at the ready for our rap numbers.