The whole thing started out as a treasure hunt of sorts, an ambitious and industrious young woman named Ashley Town was on a quest. She had written a book; a work she was immensely proud of and was simply trying to get it printed.

From the minute you enter the door, Float Milwaukee is an experience. The stark entryway foreshadows the next 60 odd minutes of your day where everything will be stripped away, clothing included, so you can sit with yourself for possibly the first time all week, month, year.

I met Elmer at one of those career day things at an elementary school. There was the fireman, I was the radio guy, and Elmer was the entrepreneur. The set up was that you’d go into a classroom, you give your speech to the kids for ten minutes, they ask some questions, or don’t, then you move along to the next classroom. I thought I was going to have an easy gig.

When I met Dan Atkinson in his studio on Vliet Street, I was fully expecting to discuss his work making planters out of cream city brick. And, while we certainly talked about that, the things that inform Dan’s world and his work turned out to be much more wide-ranging and multi-faceted.

In the pantheon of pop/rock music there are only a handful of iconic duos – those whose voices mesh together seamlessly, whose songwriting and approach perfectly complement each other, who sang as if some kind of magic wand tapped them on the vocal cords at birth and made it so. There is Lennon & McCartney, Simon & Garfunkel, Phil and Don Everly, and I submit, Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer of the Posies.