Wooldridge Brothers: Days Went Around

by folkbum

Once again, I marvel at the Power of the Blog™. It only took six years of blogging, but I have finally found myself on the receiving end of that mythical Free Stuff, and no doubt now that the floodgates are open, I will be deluged with books and CDs and so forth. Any minute now.

What broke open the floodgates is the excellent new CD by the Wooldridge Brothers (web, myspace), a pair with strong Milwaukee roots and a definite midwestern sensibility in how they roll. Days Went Around is a fun romp, and worth a listen.

The CD opens with "Thumbs," an upbeat number that draws a pretty clear line between the txt generation and us normal people. "It's a new day/ in a new age/ and I'm lost," it begins, and includes the very important declaration, "When you say I luv U/ please spell it right." The theme kind of comes back a couple of tracks later in "Connecting to Aphrodite," a short Elvis Costello-y tune about a guy "looking for Nirvana in a plastic box."

Other standout tracks include "Hey," which showcases Scott Wooldridge's piano playing; and "Coffee Spoons," which borrows a line from TS Eliot and wraps it in a new clever lyric and some of Brian Wooldridge's jangly guitar. "This Rain" is probably my favorite, though--a near-perfect 3-minute pop song with a catchy melody and a classic play-out fade.

The Brothers have, as I mentioned, Milwaukee roots, going all the way back to the Squares, a band some of you probably remember from the 1980s and 1990s (they were before my time in town), and there are some familiar names in the credits, even to a guy like me only peripherally connected to the local music scene. The CD was mostly recorded with Ric Probst, who recorded Peter Mulvey's last album. One song was recorded with Jon Leubner, who is the engineer of choice for a number of my friends, including the Moxie Chicks. melaniejane makes an appearance on cello.

The Wooldridge Brothers have a Milwaukee CD-release show at Turner Hall on March 6. Sadly, I'll be down the road at the John Prine show (working on that project of People To See Live Before They Die), but you could do a lot worse on a Friday night than go check out the Wooldridge Brothers' show.