Friday night, students and Madison locals alike piled into The Sett at Union South for WSUM’s 9th annual Snake on the Lake Fest for a loud and eclectic night of music. The performances ranged from garage-punk and experimental-folk to trippy techno and bass-heavy trap. Despite the wide range in genre, all acts were received well by the laid-back crowd, simply there to listen to good music and drink good beer.
The punk band from Minneapolis, Frankie Teardrop, kicked off the night with high-tempo, growling garage rock that livened up the room. With his long, wispy blonde hair and signature shades, lead vocalist Frankie is an accurate depiction of an offbeat, rebellious teenager. The band’s image centers on an interest in drugs, Marlboro reds and a reflective frustration with conformity. The detached image was projected through each song as the music rang pure and the band members remained aloof and withdrawn.
In similar fashion, the brother-sister duo White Mystery riled up the festival with their red afros and animated rock and roll. The Chicago-based pair fed off the crowd’s affirmations of their near-constant hair flips, and vigorously strummed on guitar and crashed on drums. It is unclear if it was the music or the insane hairdos that the crowd was applauding, but either way, White Mystery put on quite a show.
Next on stage was Madison’s own Julian Lynch, who strayed from the preceding head-banging tunes and performed a lighter take on experimental-folk music. Lynch has continued his music career at the University of Wisconsin, studying ethnomusicology. The wonderfully talented artist is known for breeding genres so seamlessly that whatever labels are tied to them are often inaccurate. His sound is distinct; a sect of music all of its own. His music remains very fluid and forever adapting, which made for a diverse and popular show Friday night.
Joel Shanahan of Golden Donna then took the stage, scratching out some heady electronic music in his solo act. While Golden Donna is a one-man band, he’s quite open to collaborating with other people. He’s expressed interest in working with a handful of Madison bands like Nick Luebke, the John Masino Band and Chase Smith. At the same time, Shanahan has said he enjoys doing everything on his own and not relying on anyone but himself. Given his rave performance Friday night, one can trust the man knows what he’s doing.
The final two acts of the night were similar in sound, with techno DJ Deastro and disco-funk artist Saint Pepsi delivering solid performances marked by quick synths and trance-inducing hooks. Randolph Chabot of Deastro started developing music at a young age and began recording his space symphonies soon thereafter. Under the alter-ego pseudo name Deastro, Chabot has self-released dozens of songs and played an impressive string of shows back in his home base of Detroit. Deastro’s sound is often heavy on the tremolo, with rapid fluctuations in volume much like the famed track “Calling” by Alesso & Sebastian Ingrosso. The DJ kept up the tempo-tease Friday night, and produced very danceable beats with layered melodies.
When set against Deastro, Saint Pepsi’s sound is not quite as outlandish but more like chill electro-funk. His music crosses borders between established music genres and has been described as a sort of disco-pop. Saint Pepsi often reworks Top 40 hits, stating, “I want to make pop music for freaks, basically.” Recently, the electronic music producer garnered attention for his “Call Me Maybe” remix, an airy funk spin off the Carly Rae Jepsen dance-pop hit. From the animated punk performances early on to the DJ’s lush synths later in the night, all artists certainly rocked The Sett with some quality tunes.
