{image1} Love it or despise it, St. Valentine has claimed yet another perfectly good Monday in the name of Hallmark. Whereas in most cities the gush fest had pretty much faded by Tuesday, here in Milwaukee the love is still in the air and is manifesting itself in the form of sound tonight at Onopa. The Noise is Love tour, featuring L.A.'s Books On Tape (BoT) and Milwaukee's The Demix, kicked off their seven-stop trek across the Midwest on Valentine's Day in Minneapolis. Tonight at Onopa they will join Old Man Malcolm for a dip in the melting pot of manipulated sounds. As one man, BoT (aka Todd Drootin) possesses more sonic complexity than a five-piece band. While primarily electronic, his tracks also invite improv jazz to play with punk rock power chords in what feels like a perfect marriage of the organic and the synthetic.
Rarely heeding to conventional boundaries, The Demix smears musical genres all over to create an environment all his own. His debut release, "The Storm," is an eerie experiment in obscurity, one minute lulling the room with ambience and the next harassing it with aggressive distortion. His horror film sampling might be a bit arduous for post-Valentine's Day, but then again, the only thing he's claiming is that noise is love, he never said anything about it being particularly sweet.
And why not continue showing the love well on through the weekend? Screenwriter Qudsia Sethi and film producer Allyson Bahr of Karma Productions are making a movie here in Milwaukee, and frankly, they'd like your help. They're trying to create a buzz about their independent film project "Rite of Expression," so, for starters, they figured they'd throw a big party. Never underestimate the powerful pull of a healthy helping of vodka and exotic fruits. The appropriately named Karma Party 2 is a film fund-raising event (read: party) happening from 4 p.m. until 2 a.m. on Sunday, Feb. 20 at Lava Bar & Grill. The healthy helpings of vodka and exotic fruits are to be enjoyed in the form of pomegranate martinis, and the Indian and Arab buffet offers various temping tastes of the Far East from 4 until 8 p.m. After you eat, hit up the hookah tent where you choose from a variety of tobacco flavors for your puffing pleasure.
What would a karma party be without music? The gentlemen behind the beautiful Bhangra music of Red Light's Asian Massive night -- Mississippi Cactus's Brian Kasprzak on the sitar and Neil Qusba on tabla drums -- are set to saturate the night with Punjabi style music while DJ J-Money fuses a few modern beats with their traditional sound.
Classic Bollywood films will be playing on plasma screens throughout the evening, even that is not the type of movie Sethi and Bahr are making. "Rite of Expression" is a coming-of-age film following the lives of five first-generation Americans of Arab, Indian and Pakistani descent struggling to find a balance between conflicting cultures. They're charging $8 at the door, and all proceeds will benefit the film's production here in Milwaukee. Cue the sitar and meet me in the hookah tent.
OnMilwaukee.com staff writer Julie Lawrence grew up in Wauwatosa and has lived her whole life in the Milwaukee area.
As any “word nerd” can attest, you never know when inspiration will strike, so from a very early age Julie has rarely been seen sans pen and little notebook. At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee it seemed only natural that she major in journalism. When OnMilwaukee.com offered her an avenue to combine her writing and the city she knows and loves in late 2004, she knew it was meant to be. Around the office, she answers to a plethora of nicknames, including “Lar,” (short for “Larry,” which is short for “Lawrence”) as well as the mysteriously-sourced “Bill Murray.”
