For Clem Snide’s latest tour, singer/songwriter/guitarist Eef Barzelay has been seeking out unique venues, but the Milwaukee show will be different for another reason.
“I like to sing in unexpected places whenever I can,” Barzelay says, “Mennonite churches, abandoned hospitals, houseboats taking on water ... I've done 'em all! Mostly, though, I play living rooms. Just sign the mailing list and I'll come to your house!”
Here, on March 4 – as part of the tour for the 10th Clem Snide LP, “Oh Smokey” – Barzelay will take the stage at Shank Hall, 1434 N. Farwell Ave., a traditional venue for music.
But what makes the stop special is that “Oh Smokey” has a number of Cream City connections.
The album was released on beautiful colored vinyl (each one unique, poured by hand) by Foreign Leisure, a label run by Dan Didier of The Promise Ring/Maritime and Josh Modell, who many of you will surely remember as a local writer and fanzine publisher who is now executive editor at Talkhouse.
It’s packaged in a sleeve designed by local musician and graphic designer Damian Strigens.
We caught up with Barzelay to ask about those connections, the tour and the new LP, recorded with a longtime fan Josh Kaufman of Eau Claire’s Bonny Light Horseman (another Wisconsin link!)
OnMilwaukee: I'd be remiss if I didn't start with the obvious question: can you talk a bit about the Milwaukee connections on the new record and how they came to be?
Eef Barzelay: Yeah! Josh has been a great friend and champion of Clem Snide for 20 plus years.
Do you have fond memories of gigs in Milwaukee over the years?
I love it out there in Milwaukee. Fried cheese curds haunt my waking dreams. I'd even go so far as to say that, per capita, Wisconsin has the highest concentration of Clem Snide fans in the world.
The new record is pensive, intimate, pleasingly quiet – perhaps even more so than usual.
It has a very soon-to-be-divorced energy, I suppose. I don't have many conceptual thoughts on it. I try to let the songs reveal themselves. They're like little homespun prayers to me.
I enjoy the notion that there is no separation between G-d and me and that the true nature of reality is revealed upon death.
How did the collaboration with Josh Kaufman come to be and what did he contribute to the record?
Meeting Josh and finding out that he was a long time Clem Snide was the main motivation to make the record. I can't really do it alone and he was just a delight to work with. Someone who can produce, engineer, and play super tasty parts is almost too good to be true! But he is a real person.
Clem Snide is a survivor ... did you think all those years ago that it would still be going in 2025?
Yeah I was kinda banking on it. I can't really do anything else. I feel like my "career" has been more a test of faith. Like just how much failure can I metabolize? And anyway I never really wanted to be famous ... I only ever wanted to be free.
What can folks expect on this tour? Are you playing solo?
It's mostly solo but the dudes from openers Rye Valley join in for a few songs. The set is a nice blend of old and new, with an unexpected cover or two.
I know fans like the older songs and the covers I've done, so it's really an ever-evolving mishmash … based on my blood sugar level and or deeply-rooted childhood traumas.
Clem Snide and Rye Valley play at Shank Hall at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, March 4. Tickets are $20.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
