Milwaukee, WI
Milwaukee Music Premiere: Standstill, ‘Soft Side’
Every week, the Milwaukee Music Premiere sponsored by Density Studios connects the city’s artists with our listening audience. If you’re an artist with a track you’d like us to debut exclusively on Radio Milwaukee, head over to our Music Submission page to learn how.
As a non-musician, I can only imagine how difficult it is to take the two disparate elements of songwriting — music and lyrics — and make them seamless, as though they burst into existence simultaneously and instantly merged harmoniously.
That’s always been my way of identifying a “good” song. Not even a song I like, necessarily, but one where you give a nod to the artist because the craftsmanship is on point.
To clarify, I do like the track we’re premiering here: “Soft Side” from Milwaukee shoegaze-ish five-piece Standstill. I think you’ll like it, too, because the quintet really nailed the fit between their economical lyrics (48 words in the entire song) and instrumentation that doesn’t rely solely on vibes — a trap easily sprung in the shoegaze/dream pop genre.
As the band put it in their bio, “Standstill believes that a song is an experience and their sound can create an escape — their dream world.” The opening moments of “Soft Side” make that happen by easing you into another realm via gentle synth and Aliya Moore’s beckoning vocals that introduce a relationship living in the middle ground between what is needed and what actually exists:
Open wide, collect the rain
Stay inside, it’s all the same
I will lay this bed I’ve made
Twin-sized frame, I fan your flames
“There is a tension that happens when we expect more from someone who can’t meet our needs or give us more,” the band explained. “In this song, there is a self-awareness that the protagonist is engaging in something that isn’t good for them, but they do it anyway. This one-sided relationship can make us stretch too far, become jaded, lose our softness and turn us cold.
“This song ends with the protagonist choosing themself and doing what they know they needed to do a long time ago.”
Standstill don’t need a wheelbarrow of lyrics to get the point across because of how the music carries the narrative just as effectively. Moore sings about saying goodbye as the song builds, recedes slightly and then busts loose, led by a tension-relieving guitar part. It’s an emotional pressure valve and satisfying conclusion to a listening experience you can get lost in for a little under four minutes.
Take that time to enjoy “Soft Side” using the player at the top of the page, or catch it on 88Nine throughout today (6:30 and 10:30 a.m.; 2:30 and 6:30 p.m). The track will also be part of Standstill’s self-titled debut EP set for release this Friday, May 30, and they’ll celebrate that same day with a show at The Pocket in Riverwest.
West Allis Fire demonstrates using Narcan for opioid overdoses
West Allis Fire Department Assistant Chief Armando Suarez Del Real illustrates how a Narcan nasal spray kit is administered in the event of an overdose.
The number of Milwaukee County residents who died from a drug overdose fell for a third year in 2025, which county officials say is a promising sign that more money spent on harm reduction, treatment and prevention efforts is working.
New data released April 21 show 387 overdose deaths across the county last year, down about 43% from their peak in 2022.
“The work is paying off,” Dr. Ben Weston, Milwaukee County’s chief health policy adviser, said at a news conference, touting the county’s vending machines stocked with Narcan and drug testing strips, as well as a state-sponsored data collection system that helps local health departments understand when and where overdoses occur.
Still, the hundreds of county residents who lost their lives last year to a drug overdose means that work isn’t close to done, officials say – especially as the drug landscape continues to change, presenting new challenges.
“We can’t let our foot off the gas quite yet,” said Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley.
Drug mixing continues to drive lethal outcomes
Milwaukee County’s decline in overdose deaths is a trend mirrored across the state and the country, following years of climbing fatalities that were deemed a public health crisis.
The county will spend $111 million in opioid settlement funds over the next several years and is already putting what it has received to use, focusing on “reaching residents where they are,” said Jeremy Triblett, prevention integration manager with the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services.
That includes initiatives like the harm reduction vending machines and also knocking on doors, providing county EMS workers with Narcan and seeking the opinions of people who use drugs to shape the county’s strategy.
But officials say they still see a concerning trend of combinations of drugs leading to overdose, particularly fentanyl being cut with stimulants such as cocaine. These mixes of drugs make it harder to reverse an overdose, said Dr. Wieslawa Tlomak, Milwaukee County’s chief medical examiner.
Nearly a third of all autopsies the medical examiner’s office conducted in 2025 were deaths by drug overdose, Tlomak said, and the majority involved multiple drugs. Data show the most common combinations were fentanyl and cocaine, cocaine and alcohol, and opoids and fentanyl.
Methamphetamines are also involved in more overdose deaths than a few years ago, Tlomak said.
For drug users, not knowing exactly what’s in the drug they are getting is one of the most dangerous elements of the current drug landscape, she said.
Fatal drug overdoses were most common among American Indian and Alaska Native residents in 2025, the data show, followed by Black residents. About two-thirds of fatal overdoses were in men, and the median age of death from an overdose was 49, a number that’s been climbing steadily since 2018.
Triblett said the county is focusing on how substances interact with cultural norms in different communities and that a community advisory board is convening to develop harm reduction messaging for specific populations. His team will also host a door-knocking event June 12 to reach new people across the county with prevention and treatment resources.
Madeline Heim covers health and the environment for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact her at 920-996-7266 or mheim@usatodayco.com.
Drone video shows dug‑up yard at former Michael Lock home
Drone video shows a dug‑up yard at a Milwaukee home once owned by Michael Lock, following a police search for possible homicide victims.
Milwaukee police on Monday, April 20, began digging up a home once owned by notorious Milwaukee drug dealer Michael Lock.
The dig marks another chapter in Lock’s long criminal history in Milwaukee, which has included convictions for homicide, drug dealing, kidnapping, torture and running a prostitution ring.
As of 6 p.m., April 20, police had partially dug up the concrete driveway and yard in Lock’s former home. Lock has been convicted of murders of other drug dealers whose bodies were found under concrete slabs at a different home he owned.
As the dig continues, here’s what to know about Lock:
Who is Michael Lock?
Lock was the head of a murderous criminal organization known as the “Body Snatchers” and one of the leading criminal operators in Milwaukee until his 2007 arrest.
Over the course of a decade, Lock’s organization sold large volumes of cocaine, tortured and killed other dealers, prostituted women across the Midwest and ran a mortgage fraud scheme.
A jury convicted Lock in July 2008 in the homicides of two drug dealers in 1999 and 2000, whose remains were found in 2005 under concrete slabs in the backyard of a home once owned by Lock at 4900 W. Fiebrantz Ave. He has also been found guilty of running a prostitution ring, various kidnapping and drug dealing charges and mortgage fraud.
Where is Michael Lock now?
Lock is is serving multiple terms of life in prison at Waupun Correctional Institution without the chance of parole.
Where are Milwaukee police digging on April 20?
Milwaukee police confirmed they are executing a search warrant at the home on 4343 N. 15th St. in Milwaukee’s north side. City tax records show the property is owned by Shalanda Roberts, formerly Shalanda Lock, Michael Lock’s former wife.
Why are police digging up the yard of Lock’s former home?
There has long been suspicion on the part of law enforcement that there are additional bodies buried under the yard. In 2011, police dug another Milwaukee yard looking for remains.
In that warrant 15 years ago, investigators said at least four victims are buried somewhere in Milwaukee. Before that, police had dug a half-dozen other yards. Police have found no remains in the other digs.
Who lives at the property now?
It is unclear if anyone currently lives at the North 15th Street property. Shalanda Roberts told the Journal Sentinel she owns the property where police are digging, but it is a rental and she lives out of state now.
She said she has no information on the dig and has not spoken to her former husband in years.
Read the Journal Sentinel’s past coverage on Michael Lock
The Journal Sentinel documented the case against Lock in a five-part investigative series, “The Preacher’s Mob,” published in 2009.
You can read the series below:
Marvin Bynum, adjunct professor at Marquette University Law School, was named to BizTimes Milwaukee’s list of Notable Leaders in Law.
Bynum, shareholder and real estate attorney with Milwaukee-based Godfrey & Kahn, teaches a course on real estate transactions at Marquette. He has experience with a range of property types, from sports facilities to manufacturing plants and office spaces, and works to help clients navigate transactions including development, financing, leasing, acquisitions, dispositions and low-income housing tax credit-financed projects.
Notable Leaders in Law is part of BizTimes Milwaukee’s Notable series, which recognizes leaders in the southeastern Wisconsin business community.
Six alumni were also named to the list:
- Jim Brzezinski, managing partner and CEO of Tabak Law
- Adam R. Finkel, partner at Husch Blackwell
- Jeremy Guth, shareholder and attorney at O’Leary-Guth Law Office S.C.
- Keith Kopplin, shareholder at the Milwaukee office of Ogletree Deakins
- Isioma Nwabuzor, associate general counsel and assistant corporate secretary at Modine Manufacturing Co.
- Joe Pickart, partner at Husch Blackwell
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