Image courtesy Mark G.E.
XPosed 4Heads
XPosed 4Heads
“A few years ago, I was at Synth Fest in Riverwest and I thought, ‘Somebody should invite us to play a festival. Why don’t I make my own festival?’” says Mark G.E.
The musician-filmmaker did just that by organizing the annual New Wave Fest. His band, Xposed 4Heads, will host this year’s event at the Cooperage. Xposed 4Heads goes back to the original new wave era in the early ‘80s. He reformed the group in 2012 to play Lest We Forget, an evening at Turner Hall that reunited Milwaukee punk and new wave musicians and fans from the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. To his surprise, he found a new audience for XPosed 4Heads and inaugurated New Wave Fest in 2018.
Image courtesy Mark G.E.
Mixtape
Mixtape
“I worried that interest in new wave music would taper off,” he says. “Truth is, it’s alive and well. The audience continues to get younger—it’s not just people of the generation that first heard the music. Most people at New Wave Fest looked under 40 or even under 30.” New Wave Fest 2023 will include XPosed 4Heads (original music), The First Wave (Depeche Mode and darker new wave covers) and Mixtape (a set of Blondie).
Aside from getting ready for New Wave Fest, it's been a busy year for XPosed 4Heads. They released two singles, the guitar-powered “Are You Crazy” and the synth-driven “Flash Cube.” “Lyrically, the concept behind ‘Are You Crazy’ is the thought we’ve all had in the last few years—‘has the whole world lost its mind?’”
Both singles have received airplay on college stations across the U.S. and from XPosed 4Heads’ supporter in high places, Rodney Bingenheimer, the legendary LA DJ now spinning for Sirius FM. The band consists of G.E. (vocals), Kelp Chofs (keyboards), Tommy K (bass)and Andy Stilin (drums) Greg Barta (guitar). They are supported on stage by the Star Girls, Theresa Ala Mode and Linda Strain, on backing vocals.
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Image courtesy Mark G.E.
The First Wave
The First Wave
Since reforming in 2012, XPosed 4Heads have gone from genre spoofing to a more sophisticated brand of social satire. “Those who get it will get it. For everyone else, they’ll sound like fun songs,” G.E. says.
Expect XPosed 4Heads to put on a show at New Wave Fest, complete with costumes, choreography and props. For “Disconnected,” a song about disconnection between people in contemporary society, G.E. will whirl about with a red phone. “We are exuberant in our celebration of absurdity,” he insists.
New Wave Fest will be held Saturday, Nov. 18 at the Cooperage, 822 S. Water St.
