Brother O’ Brother “Show Pony” 2016. Romanus Records/Fonoflo Records. I have found one of my new favorite bands! We attended Mile of Music, a four-day performance showcase in Appleton, WI, with 800 concerts at 70 venues packed into the relatively small downtown area of our original hometown (my parents live within walking distance – convenient!). Kind of what SxSW used to be before being taken over by the corporate machine.

Anyway! We read the description of Brother O’ Brother in the MoM program, “Brother O’ Brother, an Indianapolis-based duo [Chris Banta: guitar and vocals and Warner Swopes: drums], formed in the Summer of 2013 and began making music with the message of love in mind and combining their message with their garage, blues and gospel sound. They participate in this conversation of life by drenching guitars in fuzz, booming drums, and mountains of smoke and lights.” SOLD! They were playing on Saturday afternoon, the totally non-sexy hour of 3:00 p.m., at the small College Avenue bar Chadwick’s. They started early (!!!) and ripped into a raucous set filled with raging guitar, crashing drums and the highest performance energy I’ve seen in a loooonggg time (probably not since Murder City Devils’ and Nashville Pussy’s shows in the late 90′s). Banta was everywhere – jumping off the walls, rolling on the floor and a stroll down the bar, dumping ice water over his sweat-soaked head.

Swopes was not idle. Oh no! Frequently leaping out of his drum stool with the excellent posturing of a WWE fighter, he at one point began swinging from the temporary stage scaffolding (he did mindfully check its integrity first though).

Show Pony is Brother O’ Brother’s second full-length release. The best band comparisons are White Stripes, Soledad Brothers and Flat Duo Jets: blues garage rock with lots and lots of soul. “The Itch” starts off the album with an ass-shaking blues beat and dirty garage guitar. “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing” is a blues head-banger and check out the power on “You Would” which starts off almost demure but then intensifies into mass stomping fury. And here is their performance of “White Dove” from the show we saw at Chadwick’s.

As soon as the show finished we headed to the merch table, waited a few minutes and the guys, dripping with sweat and all smiles, came over to sell records, cd’s and t-shirts so we got to do a brief chat and bought as much as we could afford (2 records – this one and their self-titled 2014 release, a 45 split with The Ghost Wolves – I’ll be posting about that soon – and a t-shirt). These guys work their asses off and we will definitely see them again.