JAILL Reigns In Milwaukee At Verge Festival

[this article was originally published June 7th, 2010 for Examiner.com]

Though last weekend's Verge Festival on Milwaukee’s Summerfest grounds was more or less rained out on Saturday evening, local indie group Jaill, playing in the covered Potowatomi Bingo Casino Stage & Pavilion (called the Fringe stage for the event), “reigned in" the majority of the festival goers by default.

Recently signed to indie music champion label SubPop Records (who released Nirvana’s first album Bleach back in the day), Jaill had been performing as an underground unknown since 2002, self-releasing cassette tapes (yeah - this day and age - cassette tapes!) and CD’s of varying quality sound, recorded in unlikely places like attics and the basements of funeral homes. They aren’t the “lo-fi boutique” sort of band you’d expect with that kind of resume, however, and not a soul amongst the rain soaked crowd huddled before the stage on Saturday night likely felt imprisoned (pun intended!) in their audiece.

Jaill’s songs are clear and concise, meshing driving chord progressions and foot-stomping percussion with guitar interludes that spring loose and coil throughout their music like rogue wires breaking free. It’s nearly indescribable twangy punk rock meets alt country. Combine that with lyrical quirks similar to something They Might Be Giants might come up with (“I fell out of the cab and soiled my pants and nobody cared at all” is one line, for example, in the song “All It Was”), and it makes them immediately interesting and catchier than a brush fire outside a petroleum plant.

Catering obviously to the old school music collector, Jaill’s most recent and consumable album There’s No Sky (Oh My My) is available on LP or cassette tape - and not at all on compact disc! The LP does come with a free download card, though, for a digital version of the album to modernize it for the rest of us. The band is releasing their next full length That’s How We Burn in July - their first record for SubPop, and their first album in actual CD format since 2006!

You can learn more about their antics at: www.jaill.net.