We're a city of bees, apparently. We've had a muzzle of them and collections of colonies of them, too. On Friday night, we'll get a visit by She Keeps Bees, who play at Riverwest Public House.
The show starts at 9 p.m., costs $5 and also includes performances by Chicago's Cains & Abels and Milwaukee's Jordin Baas.
She Keeps Bees comprises guitarist Jess Larrabee (who you might have heard singing on Groove Armada's "Black Light") and her boyfriend, drummer Andy LaPlant. (Let the White Stripes comparison fly...)
The two are on the road in support of a new 7" that pairs "Counter Charm" (see a live in the studio video below) with a cover of "Blue Moon." It's pressed on blue vinyl, natch.
"Counter Charm" debuted on no less than NPR's "All Songs Considered," which you can hear here.
We're told that Larrabee is a force of nature on stage. See for yourself tomorrow night and in the meantime, here's a video of "Counter Charm:"
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
