CONCERT REVIEW: GGOOLLDD, Canopies & Rio Turbo (Turner Hall Ballroom, Milwaukee)

Currently enjoying a rather meteoric rise, much buzzed-about Gloss Records artists GGOOLLDD draw a sold-out crowd of rabidly loyal fans to the Turner Hall Ballroom.   

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FEATURE: Rio Turbo Returns to Party Hard

I sit down with the ever-irrepressible Rio Turbo to find out more about the personal and musical reinvention behind his heady new self-titled release for Gloss Records.

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FEATURE: Milwaukee's Gloss Records Grows from a Whim

I catch up with co-founders Harrison Colby and Joseph Peterson to find out how Gloss Records grew from a glorified placeholder to a bona fide, and rather busy, local label.

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CONCERT REVIEW: Big Freedia & Rio Turbo (Turner Hall Ballroom, Milwaukee)

Big Freedia's exuberant Just Be Free tour takes over the Turner Hall Ballroom with a little help from an unlikely, but very appropriate, opener, Milwaukee's own Rio Turbo.

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CONCERT REVIEW: Juiceboxxx & Rio Turbo (Hotel Foster, Milwaukee)

Local kindred spirits Juiceboxxx and Rio Turbo take over the east side's trendy Hotel Foster with memorable, but rather mixed, results. 

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CONCERT REVIEW: Rio Turbo, Alex Body & Goldendust (Quarters Rock 'n' Roll Palace, Milwaukee)

Three acts, with three very different sounds, but they all have one thing in common.

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FEATURE: Rio Turbo Brings the Party

I catch up with local favorite Rio Turbo to talk influences, alter egos and his appropriately titled new album, Party Trash.

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CONCERT REVIEW: Juiceboxxx w/ Fat Tony & Rio Turbo (Quarters Rock 'n' Roll Palace, Milwaukee)

Fresh off a successful Indiegogo fundraiser for his eclectic label, Thunderzone, and anticipating the release of his upcoming LP, I Don't Wanna Go Into The Darkness, Juiceboxxx has been productive of late, and shows no signs of slowing down. But since he moved to L.A. a while back, Milwaukee hasn't seen much of him, which turned tonight's show into a homecoming of sorts before he hits the road, once again, for a tour of the Midwest and East Coast. It felt good to have him back, especially on such a well balanced bill.   

Starting things off was Milwaukee's own Rio Turbo, whose sleazy, sexed up party raps have only gotten more fun as he continues to collaborate with talented local beat-smiths. There's a welcome crossover funk feel to his newer material that layers Prince-style flourishes over the rough-cut four-on-the-floor that he's long relied on. It would be nice if he shook up his image a bit more often (the smeared lipstick is getting a little stale), but maybe he just realizes that the lithe Turbette back up dancers are getting the lion's share of the stares.

Houston rapper Fat Tony was up next, but first turned over the mic to his tour-mate 10ille (pronounced "Tennille"), a talented MC-chanteuse, for two songs. After that short interlude, he reemerged and ripped into an impressive set, swapping spitfire rhymes with Tom Cruz, with whom he's just dropped the new Double Dragon LP. Tony's got a knack for big choruses, as on a statement of purpose track about drinking Guinness and wearing denim, but he really shines on the verses, where his flow is almost inhumanly fast.

Then it was time for Juiceboxxx's long awaited performance, and though expectations certainly ran high, they were met handily. Recently, he's been experimenting with including live musicians in his set, and I can think of no one better to back him up than the current lineup of drummer Tony Dixon and guitarist Willy Dintenfass. The addition of live instrumentation perfectly suits the new material and adds a lot of punch to the old stuff, recalling the Beastie Boys Check Your Head, but the influence that looms larger than any other is The Boss, Bruce Springsteen. There's a serious Born to Run vibe running through the new songs (one even features a Clarence Clemons-esque sax sample!), but it's all incorporated without sacrificing any of the high-energy danceability. I've seen Juiceboxxx countless times, but he never ceases to surprise me, and the new set is no exception. Check it out if you get the chance.

CONCERT REVIEW: Rio Turbo & Dude X 2 (The Cactus Club, Milwaukee)

New Year's Eve is always something of a crapshoot. Few other nights are saddled with such expectation, with such an obligation to be fun and, more importantly, memorable, and while logically we know that this anticipation only fuels disappointment, it's still hard resist. We've all had dull New Years, but most of us also harbor memories of those rare instances when the holiday delivered on its promise, where libations and laughter just seem to flow a little easier, where you can actually feel like you're moving into a brighter future, even if in the morning you realize it was just strong drink and loud music. Stepping out the door, we know we probably won't capture that communal, celebratory feeling of transition and renewal, but, hey, it's happened before, so it can happen again, right?

A good chunk of the anxiety associated with having a good New Year's Eve is deciding where to go, and if the Cactus Club turned out to be the wrong choice, on its face, it seemed to have a lot going for it, namely a performance by Rio Turbo, whose sleazy party raps are ideal for a boozy night out. The crowd awaiting his 11:00 show was hideously scarce, and while I've personally seen Turbo make more out of less, forging that connection seemed to be tricky tonight. People continued to filter in, but even a handful of slick new tracks (or his vivacious backup dancers, the Turbettes) couldn't really fill all that negative space covering the dance floor.

If he came off somewhat underwhelming tonight, though, it had less to do with Rio Turbo's act than the promoters failure to drum up a good crowd. The failure of Dude X 2 on the other hand is more attributable to the fact that, honestly, they're just kind of terrible. In many ways Turbo and Dude X 2 are the very different sides of the same coin. Both traffic in big beats and an in-your-face humor, but where the former has a good ear for well crafted tracks and an Andy Kaufman-esque ability to bait the audience, the latter brings only affected offensiveness and, apparently, an out of date copy of FruityLoops. They seem to have about one genuinely funny line for every 20 they spout, but since they sounded so atrocious, you were likely to miss it altogether. By this point in the night, the club had filled up noticeably, but the contrast between the crowded bar and the sparsely populated area in front of the stage was unmistakable, and I couldn't help getting the feeling that the only ones hanging in there were their close friends, party promoters trying to inspire interest and masochists like myself.

Still, though things as they turned out made for a pretty forgettable New Year's Eve, they didn't add up to that bad night either, after all, going from one calendar year to the next is a completely arbitrary moment to mark in the cosmic sense, but if it provides an excuse to have a drink, meet friends and make a bit merry then you ultimately can't go wrong. Hell, there were even sandwiches, and if there's anything we can reasonably expect from 2012, it's a bit of good music, a bit of bad music and, if we're lucky, the occasional sandwich.