Kicksville, Joey Broyles, Meghan Rose

press release:

Founded as a studio experiment by Conrad St. Clair and Mike Stehr, Kicksville has grown into a musical collective, artistic movement, and multimedia freak show. Basically, we make music. And visual art. And poetry. And, well, pretty much anything from Dada theater to technical sound design. There's a core group of roughly 15 people (we call 'em the City Council), but there are a LOT of people in our happy little collective.

Musically Kicksville is all over the map with something for everyone. Comparisons to Zappa and The Police crossover into Fela, The Pogues, Portishead, Pigface and Gogol Bordello. I know, right? Lots of bands that start with “P.”

So who exactly is Kicksville, you say? In a nutshell, the band is comprised of a cross-section of Madison musicians like Andy Ewen, Tani Diakite, Maggie Weiser, Randall Harrison, Buzz Kemper, Anna Purnell, Geoff Brady, Georg McKee, Kia Karlen, Aaron Williams, Conrad St. Claire, John Sarris and myself. Throw in some major talent from the east coast, including a crazed visual and vocal artist named Tone Deaf - who not only creates mixed media art in real time during the show but narrates the “story” through a police dispatch microphone - and that kind of explains who they are.

Normally for the ‘big shows’ Kicksville has a dizzying array of live video feeds and sync’d production films - but this special event show concludes before sundown so the High Noon set will be slightly stripped down to just the alternative rock’n’roll, live art, storyline and special guests.

Special guests? Oh hell yes. Meghan Rose will sing a couple with the collective, as will Capitol City Theatre’s Musical Director Andrew Abrams, Chris Giese and Shawn Goodman (currently killing it in Violet, CCT’s first show ending this week at Music Hall).