Milwaukee at SXSW | Group of the Altos for Muzzle of Bees

Listen: In crafting a showcase for SXSW, Ryan from Muzzle of Bees managed to snag an awesome cross section of Milwaukee’s music scene — a little bit of this, a little bit of that, all top notch. During the process of getting it all together, Ryan said he felt a bit like a coach putting together a lineup for the big game, filling each slot with some purpose and meaning.

So who batted leadoff for the Bees? Milwaukee’s favorite post-rock orchestra, Group of the Altos. Moving from the delicate and contemplative to the soaring and intense, the Altos seemed to make a crowd materialize from nowhere with their inspired set. I’ve seen them a number of times, and they’ve never never sounded as good as they did in the Austin morning sun. Listen to a track I recorded from their set:

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After the show, Group of the Altos’ very affable and awesome trumpeter, Brenden Benham, gave me a wonderful interview. We talked about his trip down to Austin, the Altos, and how he wrote an e-mail that led to him touring with the spectacular Broken Social Scene:

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Below, check out a picture of myself and Brenden, who became old pals during the course of our interview.

1. 

   MKE2ATX says:

   March 21, 2010 at 9:53 am

   I was there. This set was awesome. It was a great way to start off the Muzzle of Bees show and let everyone attending know what type of musicians were here from WIsconsin.