Anyone can sell out Madison Square Garden or the Hollywood Bowl. It takes true talent to sell out America’s first certified bowling alley.
What seems like a bold claim on its face becomes less so when you consider that Milwaukee surf-garage rockers Cozy Danger didn’t just need to fill Holler House to the brim this past Saturday night. They also needed to convert the South Side bar/bowling alley/treasured landmark into a live-music venue so they could properly celebrate their first full-length release, Orange Feels.
First off, there’s something so wonderfully punk about seeing a band play live while backlit by a TouchTunes digital jukebox. That’s where most of the night’s music was delivered, although the guys did manage an acoustic-megaphone-tambourine performance a Brunswick’s throw from the bowling lanes.
Beyond that, the show/celebration contained many hallmarks from a night out at one of Milwaukee’s historic taverns: pull tabs, Miller High Life, shotskis and autographed undergarments.
How about the album itself? We premiered the track “Again” from Orange Feels way back in February, calling it “a downbeat message, wrapped in an upbeat package.” You can extend that description to the LP as a whole, the name of which comes from the emotionally color-coded past two years that guitarist and co-lead vocalist Chris Vertovec has spent sober.
As the band put it: “At times heated and dangerous (red), later finding peace and happiness (yellow), and all coming together in the end to make ‘Orange Feels.’”
The album even sounds orange. It never quite revs its engine to the highest point, nor does it ever simply coast. Instead, it operates in a middle ground that delivers serious energy without feeling exhausting (“Lose / Lose”) yet still knows when to decelerate things so the record maintains a sense of pacing (“Aimless”).
It feels too easy to pick “Milverine,” Cozy Danger’s ode to another Milwaukee institution, as the standout track, so I’ll go with “Lucid Dreams.” I’m always down for a song that plays around with syncopation to keep it (and the listener) off-beat, and the Irish jig of a guitar solo right in the middle is a highlight of this nicely composed piece of music.
You can find Orange Feels on Bandcamp and the other usual places on the interwebs, and relive their Holler House takeover in the video below. Cozy Danger also has a couple non-bowling live shows coming up: Aug. 3 at MobCraft's Weird Fest (sets at 1 and 2:15 p.m.) and Aug. 22 at Third Space Presents (6-8 p.m.).
