JJO Band Camp

Willow Island at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison becomes JJO Band Camp on Saturday, August 14th. The outdoor music festival has been growing since it’s inception in 2003, attracts some of the world’s biggest names in modern metal, and is put on by Madison’s solid rock.. er ahhh.. metal radio station… 94.1 WJJO and promoters Frank Productions.

Randy Hawke is program director for WJJO, a station that went from classic rock to “solid rock” around 13 years ago. He has been in radio for 19 years and has also been PD of WAPL in Appleton as well as WLUM in Milwaukee.

MAXIMUM INK: How did Band Camp get started?
RANDY HAWKE: The name came about when Blake Patton and I were brainstorming what we wanted to call our show and we made a deal that the title could not end in Fest, Stock or Palooza. The location was Fred Frank.  He starts a lot of sentences with “Hey Randy what do you think about ….” One of those sentences were completed with “having a huge festival on willow Island next to the Alliant.” Band Camp was born.  Crazy thing was for the first year we had to spend more time telling people where Willow Island was than who was playing. No event of Band Camps magnitude had ever been held out there. Band Camp put Willow Island on the map.  LITERALLY!

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Ari Herstand

A Madison native that’s now based in Minneapolis, musician and songwriter, ARI HERSTAND, has been making his musical name touring on a remarkable solo live show that mixes the classic singer-songwriter elements of guitar and voice, that is infused with trumpets, live looping, and orchestration. His latest project is not only performing, but also conducting seminars in high schools where he discusses musical careers with students. To him, music education in school was key in creating his artistic identity and he wants to get that message across to the next generation.

He picked up the guitar for the same reason most guys do. “I’ve been playing the piano for as long as I can remember and I picked up the trumpet in the 5th grade for band class.”, Ari says. “The summer before my freshman year of college I was sitting around a living room with a few friends and my friend Danny came into the room with his guitar and played the room a song. When he finished, he set the guitar down and left the room. Two girls looked at each other - one of them my girlfriend at the time - and they said ‘guys who play guitar are so hot.’ And here we are.”

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Hum Machine

Going for broke in the Midwest during the mid-90’s alternative rock scene, HUM MACHINE was started in Madison in 1995 by four people with influences from late 80’s and 90’s indie and punk bands like Pavement and Mike Watt. Releasing their debut album, Speed Kills The Dying Beat, in 1996, HUM MACHINE spent the next decade writing songs, recording albums, playing shows for record labels, and generally chasing the rock and roll dream. In 2003, they even attempted to set a Guinness Book of World Records record for consecutive shows by performing 65 dates in a row throughout the United States. While that tour and world record was derailed by the vicious Hurricane Isabel of that fall, the band still went on to release one more album, Songs Before The Blackout, in 2005 before taking an extended hiatus. While the members of the band have continued to stay busy with the group, Shazy Hade (featuring former New Recruits blusterer, Shinky) and avant-garde jazz project, Voltress, they haven’t performed in their home state for three years. Deciding that it is high time to get the band back together, HUM MACHINE has something a little ridiculous in store for their next move.

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Infernal Rock Radio

Internet radio has come a long way from the technological wasteland of the 1990’s when you were tied to a desktop machine with a wired Ethernet connection and then you could listen to a low-bitrate stream that sounded like an AM radio station from 200 miles away over tinny crapola speakers. At the time, just the idea of listening on the Internet untethered by the rules and corporate economics of terrestrial radio was invigorating. Everyone could be a pirate because it was radio without limits. Deejays that didn’t have to spin the same Top Forty songs that only your little sister likes or the same tired classic rock songs that haven’t left the airwaves since 1975. It was going to be the great equalizer, because everyone could listen to you. But an idea is all it was. It was usually more of a pain to figure out than it was an actual joy to listen to. Today, in the second decade of the new Millennium, it’s a completely different story. Everyone has Broadband and for many, it’s mobile. Computers are starting to become the foundation for home entertainment. Internet radio broadcasts in crystal-clear quality, sounding better than FM when you’re next to the antenna. People are listening to radio over the Internet in their cars, on their iPods, and wherever there’s a cell phone signal. One of this new breed of Internet radio stations that’s making waves in Madison is Infernal Rock Radio, a station devoted to hard rock and heavy music.

Started by Dread Pirate Vane, a veteran webcaster who takes the “pirate radio” symbolism all the way, even into his moniker, Infernal Rock Radio’s motto became “The station built by the bands, for the fans”.

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Maxmas - Volume II

Christmas albums tend to be schmaltzy overblown affairs by aging artists looking to cash in on their demographically-changing audience as they move from the hipster stage to developing families. Scott Weiland’s latest bizarre big-band/lounge Holiday embarrassment is just another in a long line of overt money grabs by rockers as they struggle for relevance in the fluid and fickle morass of pop music popularity. Christmas albums are for guys like Barry Manilow and Neil Diamond, right? (Yes, he did release one and yes, I did see The Jazz Singer, thank you.)

Well, thank sweet Zombie Jesus that the Madison Area Christmas Compilation Vol. 2 (abbreviated M.A.Xmas) is the antidote to that kind of thing. 

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Last Crack - Sinister Funkhouse Reunion

It started as a dream… to make it to the top. The formula is easy. Start a band, write some songs, get a singer, record a demo, get signed by a major label, put out an album, tour the world. Success.

And that’s exactly the way it started. Last Crack’s rise out of the local music scene in Madison is the thing of legend. Almost every band starts with the same credo in mind, but not many break through. For Last Crack, it was a given.

Many bands make their start from a garage or basement, but for Last Crack it would be a storage facility in Madison on Stoughton Road just off the beltline, and answering a classified ad from the Good n Loud billboard for a singer named Buddo in 1987.

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Taproot

Fourteen years, seven albums, and hundreds and thousands of tour miles traveled, they are a band of many fortunes; Bad fortunes such as lineup changes and losing record labels, and good fortunes including touring with Deftones, Incubus, Mudvayne, as well as having multiple Top 20 singles off of various albums. Resilience is key when considering Taproot. Bassist Phil Lipscomb tells Maximum Ink a little about where he came from musically, and what sets Taproot and their fans apart.

Maximum Ink: Where did you get your start with music?
Phil Lipscomb: For me personally, my start was with my brother. I got my first bass off of him, and he had been playing guitar for years. I just going from there.

MI: You have been touring a lot in the past year or two. What do you do to stay sane when you’re on the road for months at a time?
PL: Well, my dad was in the Air Force, and I’ve moved around all my life, so I really enjoy traveling. I love being on the road. Two or three months is a long time to be on the road. By the end of the tour, I get that, “I need to be home, and I need to be able to relax for a little bit,” feeling. For the most part, we’re all friends, we’ve been friends for years and we get along pretty well. That helps tremendously.

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