Every week, the Milwaukee Music Premiere connects the city’s artists with our listening audience. If you’re an artist with a track you’d like us to debut exclusively on Radio Milwaukee, head over to our Music Submission page to learn how.
When you’re trudging through sub-freezing temperatures as the sun barely breaks the horizon, all for the reward of sitting in a lecture hall, nobody would blame you for establishing a few mental escape routes.
Milwaukee-area musician Ila Rose constructed two such temporary exit plans for one particular class at the University of Minnesota: her music aspirations and a soccer player named Paul who sat a couple rows in front of her. Combining the two resulted in Rose’s first original song, “Class Crush,” which we’re helping her premiere today.
“For me, the fun of a class crush was the mix of delusion, fantasy and the motivation to show up to class in negative-degree weather,” Rose shared with us. “The point was to daydream about class crushes just long enough to get through finals.”
The track has been in the works long enough that Paul is married now — in fact, we probably wouldn’t be hearing it if not for the urgings of Rose’s dad, Milwaukee musician Greg Koch. His efforts put Rose in a studio three years after strumming out the song on guitar while sitting in her Twin Cities apartment.
The recording process was a true family affair: Rose on acoustic and vocals, her brother Dylan on drums and Greg on electric guitar. Add another Milwaukee legend, Matt Turner, on bass, and Rose had the kind of support every emerging musician dreams of. The result of their efforts is a bouncy single with a chorus that has a little ’60s girl-group flavor to it:
Class crush, nothing to do
PowerPoint is up, my eyes are on you
$14k, only you in my head
I wonder what would happen if you didn't have a girlfriend
You can listen to Ila Rose’s “Class Crush” anytime using the player at the top of the page, and it’ll also spin on 88Nine throughout today (6:30 and 10:30 a.m.; 2:30, 6:30 and 9:30 p.m.). The single will get its official release this Saturday, and Rose will almost certainly include it in her set at 4 p.m. Feb. 16, when she opens for Greg Koch’s “The Orange Room Live” at Linneman’s.
