"Live at Lake Effect" is our music series featuring local and nationally touring artists performing in the Lake Effect Surf Shop in Shorewood, Wisconsin.
We brought the Lake Effects together, along with Visionary Studios, to showcase musicians once a month through an interview with the band exclusively on Lake Effect, plus filmed performances.
This episode features Milwaukee musicians Amanda Huff & Steve Peplin. The duo have been longtime collaborators and bandmates since 2017, known for leading the experimental jazz septet Strangelander. Their music takes inspiration from and fuses genres such as blues, East-Indian sounds, jazz, rock, funk, Latin, klezmer and folk.
"I don't really have any formal training so a lot of this was just like, you know, singing in the shower, singing in the car, singing in my bedroom and I didn't get stopped. So it just kept kept going," says Huff, who originally came to Milwaukee to study painting at MIAD.
"I ended up pursuing art because I was a real artsy kid just doing all the weird stuff, but I always wanted to do music," she recalls. "I just think that because I didn't know anything about it, I didn't think that I could get into a school for it. So I just kind of did it on the side and found out that that was actually really nice to have constant — no rules for music, rules for art, and I could build my own parameters by cross training those two fields. And it was really nice just to be steeped in creatives — I found that to be really inspiring for my music."
Peplin has also been steeped in Milwaukee's creative music scene for over 20 years as a guitarist, composer, professor at Lawrence University and Milwaukee Area Technical College, and arranger. He's played with groups including the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, De La Buena and many more.
Peplin considers himself an eclectic musician, who enjoys drawing upon many sources and genres to compose pieces that can challenge the melodic memory of the listener. This mission is not only shown in Strangelander or their duo, but is also something Peplin tries to pass on to his students.
"I wrote a book called Sound Travelers Atlas, which Amanda actually proved, and it's kind of just a really weird music book that's kind of focusing on the motives behind being a creative person rather than technical ephemera," he explains. "It's more about training and disciplining your mind and just trying to stay inspired. So many of my students seemed like they're struggling to be inspired and I'm just kind of going for that with that book."
Both Huff and Peplin like to lean away from lines of technicality and embrace the feelings music can enhance. Their creative endeavors outside of the duo add to their playfulness, and for Huff, it's about trying out different personas. She's lent her voice to commercial and film projects and likes to keep herself challenged.
"I also really like to wear many hats, you know, you kind of wake up every day and put a different one on see how it feels. I really like getting into character play, I find so many different types of music exciting and so I tend to to bounce around different projects," says Huff. "It can get a little confusing sometimes when you're trying to contextualize who you are specifically, but I think like at the end of the day if I can find a way to put myself into each of these boxes that's like an even bigger, harder win."
While there are some upcoming projects Huff can't speak on quite yet, in the meantime her main focus has been with her band You Win, working with Strangelander, and a new solo project called Lila Realm. Huff notes that she's also teaching herself how to do her own production work "to kind of take my voice back into my own hands and that'll kind of be the debut — whatever that looks like."
SET LIST
- Nervous System (0:08)
- The Star and the Lantern (4:28)
- Tangerine (9:45)
MUSICIANS
- Amanda Huff: vocals
- Steve Peplin: vocals, guitar
Live at Lake Effect Team:
- Executive Producers: Audrey Nowakowski & Trapper Schoepp
- Audio Engineering: Jason Rieve
- Location: Lake Effect Surf Shop in Milwaukee
- Production Company: Visionary Studios
- Camera Op: Brad Roehl, Kieran Walter Sundaram, & Jessie Wolff
