26 BATS! // Freaque // Pete Freeman

224 West Bruce Street,Milwaukee WI 53204

15 September, 2021

Description

“It's a little bit of jazz, a little bit of R&B, a little bit of indie rock, and enough soul to make it interesting.” $10 adv/ $15 at the door (advance sales until 3pm day of show, then available at the door). Doors at 7pm, showtime 8pm Born out of the Kremblems collective, group leader Bailey "26" Cogan (they/them) formed 26 BATS! 26's songwriting melded with Karl Remus' (he/him) production wizardry and flavors from comrades in arms: Christian Wheeler (he/him, bass) and Daniel "Chavo" Chavez (he/him, trumpet) create grooves that bob and weave through sonic rabbit holes. Coined 'the Genre Rebel' by Growler Mag, they wrote "26 BATS! has successfully garnered a following comprised of all kinds of music lovers. Being unmoored to any one genre puts the group in a unique spot, allowing them to share bills with a variety of acts: from Afrobeat legend Femi Kuti, Black Pumas, and Kirin J Callinan, to the silky, beat-laden Dua Saleh." // On Freaque‘s debut EP Decompose, Gabriel Roderick’s voice is mixed so that if you close your eyes, you might imagine that he is sitting right beside you. Say, on a porch swing just after dusk as bats swing low in the sky. You look over a wide expanse of field, and he gestures to things in the distance — a puppet with cut strings, a house in the sky, a family digging graves. As he sings, more of the slowly darkening landscape reveals itself, and a breeze elicits sinister guitar licks and harmonica riffs. After some time, a musical saw quiver pierces the air, and blackness envelopes the field at last. Gabriel Rodreick grew up playing the piano in his south Minneapolis home — for eleven years, he told me, until a C5 spinal injury he incurred a little over eleven years ago paralyzed him from the armpits down and severely limited the mobility in his hands. Three years post-injury, he entered the music world again, singing in the seven-piece funk band Treading North. A little over a year ago, Rodreick found a way to return to the instrument he grew up playing: by using the eraser of a pencil affixed to his wrist brace. As Freaque, the moniker for his solo work, Rodreick explained that he’s making the kind of music he’s always aspired to make: a kind of stripped-down folk, centered on storytelling, and sensitive to the darker side of human experience. It’s a sound he’s coined “dirt folk.” “Post-injury, I tend towards darkness,” Roreick said, after citing Tom Waits as a major influence. “Not in a depressive or negative way — I try to shine a little light on the darkness; it’s always there, and it’s within all of us.” // Pete Freeman has been called a “troubadour” more than once! He writes songs like the back of a Reese’s Puffs box. He sings like a church choir dressed in Brewers themed Hawaiian shirts. He has frequent issues with ingrown toenails. $10 adv/ $15 at the door (advance sales until 3pm day of show, then available at the door). Doors at 7pm, showtime 8pm