Somewhat on-again off-again band, Guido’s Racecar has been on-again since 2007. Made up of Roni Allwaise on vocals, Mike Hoffman on guitar, Johnny Washday on bass and fellow Max Ink writer, Lane Klozier on drums, this relatively low-key “kinda glam & kinda punk [band]” as Allwaise calls it, had its start back in 1998. I had the opportunity to speak with Roni Allwaise.
The Sleighriders with their cast of ever changing members, continue their fundraising activities at the Benefit for the SafeZone Community Art Project, taking place at Shank Hall in Milwaukee on December 15th. This year’s performers include: Eddie Butts, Steve Cohen, Warren Wiegratz, Gregg Koch, Sigmund Snopek, Annie Dennison, members of Bad Boy (including Steve Grimm & Xeno), Blue Hand, Crisis, Speakeasy, Dirty Ernie, Boogie Men and many others. The Brandon James Band opens the show this year.
2008 marks the 26th annual charity event by the Sleighriders. It is an event to encourage kids to get involved in making music and discover their potential. The money raised is given to buy instruments and musical instruction for children in the community. Their newest cause is the Safezone Community Art Project, which they have been raising money towards for the past five years.
An Illinois native whose star is on the rise in the Milwaukee blues scene, lead guitarist and frontwoman, Sue DaBaco came to southeastern Wisconsin a decade ago after playing in Chicago’s Buzz Kilman And The All Bubba Blues Band for years. She solidified the lineup of her band, WISE FOOLS, four years ago with Scott Walters on bass and Darrel Douglas on drums. A power trio that started off as primarily blues but has “morphed into a progressive rock-blues thing”, according to DaBaco.
Raised on the still-ubiquitous 70’s rock sound of bands like Fleetwood Mac, Rush, and Heart, DaBaco says Jimi Hendrix is still her favorite, but she also incorporates influences like Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Sonny Landreth. WISE FOOLS has been performing regularly throughout Wisconsin, being an annual Summerfest favorite, and even opening up for big classic rock names like Peter Frampton, Eddie Money, and Jefferson Starship, along with more straight-up blues musicians like Koko Taylor, Lonnie Brooks, and The Fabulous Thunderbirds.
Sometimes you find a band by accident. A band that you’re expecting nothing from but at the end of the night, you’re so happy you saw them. There is that initial moment of doubt when you say to yourself “do they really sound as good as I think they do?” I found such a band in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and they are called A TORTURED SOUL.
They formed in 2001 when old high school friends lead guitarist Nate Gorenc and bass player Stefan Bohl put together a group named REZ. They placed an ad in Uncle Bob’s music store (where they buy most of their equipment) and vocalist Rick Black answered it. With a change of name and the additions of Ryne Schultz on rhythm guitar and Eric Gnant on drums, ATS does the business every time they step on the stage.
Two seminal members of two of the most influential New York City punk bands, THE NEW YORK DOLLS and DEAD BOYS, join forces in BATUSIS (Yes, named after Adam West’s ridiculous dance in the 1960’s Batman TV series), a straight up rock and roll band with an upbeat and catchy sound. With their image, sound, and attitudes, guitarists Cheetah Chrome (also a founding member of ROCKET FROM THE TOMBS) and Sylvain Sylvain were at the forefront of the underground rock and roll movement that would eventually lead to being able to buy CBGB shirts at the mall. But back then it was the most dangerous music around.
Their first concert was at this year’s South by Southwest festival in Austin and they were backed up with the rhythm section from Joan Jett’s BLACKHEARTS. Cheetah explains how they started, “Syl’s manager and my label guy got to talking” he says, “and they suggested that since we’d known each other for a long time that we should do something together. We said ‘Hell yeah’! It sounded like fun because we’ve always wanted to play together. Basically it started off as just the EP and it went so well, we went off to do some touring and now next week we’re going to do a full album.”
Guitarist/vocalist Eroc explained to me how they came up with the name BLACK FROG. He had four carnivorous albino aquatic frogs in a fish tank. One day he noticed a frog was missing. The next day another one was gone. Mystified, he put weights on the cover of the tank but he came home and the other two frogs had vanished.
Months passed and the frogs were never found as Eroc concentrated his energies on building a recording studio in his basement and launching a new band. One fateful day, the furnace in the studio needed repair and as the technician opened the furnace, Eroc heard him scream. When Eroc entered the room he found the repairman holding four fist sized frogs as flat as pancakes and blackened from oxidation. They had made their escape through the heating ducts to an entire new floor of the house. In honor of these four brave souls, Eroc decided to name the band BLACK FROG. He still has their corpses today and hopes to shellac them into a guitar.
A Milwaukee original, THE BUGGS have been punking up classic pop and rock songs since 1999. As lead singer and guitarist, Lane Klozier, describes, “We were all from original bands and we were just tired of playing shows for eight people in the audience. We got a couple sets together of music anywhere from The Beatles to Badfinger, played out and it went very, very well.” Similar in vein to Punk rock super cover group, Me First and The Gimme Gimmes, Lane describes THE BUGGS as Milwaukee’s only “original cover band” taking classic songs and makes them their own with a hard rock/punk sensibility.
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