Last year when I was home with COVID the first time, I downloaded the PBS Wisconsin app. There I discovered their archive of their show 30 Minute Music Hour. The archive includes 11-years of performances by predominantly Wisconsin artists including area acts like DUSK, Copper Box, Pudge, Redshift Headlights, Driveway Thriftdwellers, Dead Horses, Purgatory Hill, and Bandallamas featuring the late Chris Aaron.
However, it was the name of a Madison area band, with whom I was previously unfamiliar, that really caught my eye; Cribsh*tter. I had to give it a listen and I was not disappointed. From the drummer sporting a lion mask and whittling his own drum sticks to catchy tunes like “Crazy Boobies” and “Where You Going With That Hard-On?” they are delightfully unusual and musically superb. But what does it sound like? They describe their sound as “Smack a snake in its head with a wooden spoon while it’s eating garbage. That’s what we sound like.”
I kind of forgot about Cribshitter, or perhaps thought it was some kind of COVID fever dream, until yesterday when my friend Kevin discovered them at the annual WAMI awards and posted about the experience on Facebook. As I went back to take another look at the PBS video, it occurred to me, if Kevin didn’t know about Cribshitter, perhaps a lot of other people round these parts don’t as well. And so, I feel it’s my duty to spread the word. Check out this video from a 2017 edition of 30 Minute Music Hour from PBS Wisconsin.
