Dogs in Ecstasy w/ (ORB)
The Mill — Thursday, July 31 at 9 p.m.
The Mill is going to get weird this Thursday when two of the Milwaukee’s wildest synth-punk acts, Dogs in Ecstasy and (ORB), come to party. Iowa City’s Alex Body and Brooks Strause will also be playing.
Dogs in Ecstasy have an unusually well-fitting band name. The three-piece plays music like a litter of dogs, as their scuzzy guitars wrestle with filthy synth sounds to make ecstatic power-pop jams. They released their first cassette, entitled Dat Cruel God, last October on Organalog Records. With six songs all clocking in around the two and a half minute mark, they’ve got a Guided By Voices-style brevity on lock, wasting no time on anything that isn’t immediately catchy.
As good as their music is, their social media presence is their real work of art. Their Twitter is a barrage of bizarre dog-related jokes and their Facebook page largely features pictures of (you guessed it) dogs looking really happy. It’s simply more proof that this is a band with two goals: to have fun and get their audience to have fun.
(ORB), who are joining Dogs in Ecstasy on a five-show tour, bring a similar noisy synth-centric sound. They don’t have very many recordings available online, but the group makes up two-thirds of Terrior Bute, a spazzy synth-punk group that sounds like a radio tuned to both Devo and The Thermals. If (ORB) resembles them at all, they are definitely worth checking out.
The show starts at 9 p.m. and costs $5.
