Charles E. Fromage

5811 West Vliet Street.

In the duet Quis est homo, the trombones, which have become a nuisance to frequenters of the Albert Hall, exerted themselves with their usual offensiveness. 

George Bernard Shaw

The other end of the world?”...“Where is that?”

“It is in Walham Green, ….You see it on the London omnibuses. ‘World’s End and Walham Green.’

G.K. Chesterton 

Chesterton could not know because it didn’t exist yet, but there are more than two  ends of the world. A third one is close by in Milwaukee. If it weren’t for a recent bout of Plantar fasciitis, I could practically walk to it. But this is not a medical update.

The ultimate destination sits comfortably on Milwaukee’s west side, on Vliet Street. Early on it was a barber shop where the coifs of the neighborhood were kept in check;  now it serves a different role, but one just as helpful to the survival of any settled neighborhood.  It is the Charles E Fromage wine bar. Every Thursday night in the summer, this tavern offers, besides a knowledgeable selection of bibulous  attractions and cunningly devised cheese dips, a venue for Milwaukee musicians. We visited recently and heard the work of Still No Tomatoes.

The music made by this band perfectly fit the ambiance of the  place. In the diminutive ensemble, Jeff Stehr plays guitar and ukulele; Mike Lizzo, trombone and baritone. Although their music is mostly original, the texts of the proudly quirky duo are concerned with the familiar tropes and preoccupations that have long populated the American songbook.

Yet that night, the band came  across as triumphantly new. Perhaps it is the orchestration that allowed for this impression. When was the last time that you heard a ukulele and trombone duet? When they sang together, their voices were intervallically close; the sound soft and certain. Lizzo played his baritone gently as if loudly would have been impolite. They took water from a fountain of diverse experience and dipped into a deep pool of genres.

What to call it?

Currently, they describe their music as Hodgepop. This is accurate. Stehr takes generously from the songbook of his experience, plays around with the hodgepodge he finds, and writes music that ranges from the witty to the poetic. Despite the impatience of its name, Still No Tomatoes is ripe for the table.

They played on the rooftop of that old alabaster building. Below, but not audible, all sorts of jollifications and pub talk must have been going on. But outside and above, the band was playing for a small and listening audience.  Still No Tomatoes deserved that attention.  And their audience knew it.

When you sit by the edge of the world, you want to be able to hear the music of that world sounded with intelligence, chops, and imagination. 

That helps you hang on and not cross the great divide into a cold and swirling place where there still are no tomatoes.