Launchpad

“Some of the best original music today comes from high school garage bands.” –Les Paul

The Wisconsin School Music Association (WSMA) is about to kick off the seventh year of the one of a kind music competition called Launchpad, using the same idea that the late great Les Paul personified in his quote. Launchpad is a statewide alternative music competition for high school students in bands formed outside of the traditional music classroom. Maximum Ink caught up with director and creator of the competition, Dennis Graham to talk about how the competition got started and where he sees it heading in the coming years.

Maximum Ink: Tell us about how Launchpad got started.

Dennis Graham: I was approached by the WSMA, which presents this program, seven years ago to talk about raising awareness on raising funds for them. As a result of my discussions with Michael George, the current Executive Director of the WSMA, and I brought up a couple ideas and the first was to present a Lifetime Achievement Award to recognize people who had a successful music career and were also impacted by a music teacher. The first ever Lifetime Achievement Award in Wisconsin was given to Les Paul. I hand delivered a letter that I wrote, which was signed by Governor Doyle, to Les inviting him back to Wisconsin (He hadn’t been back in twenty years.) October 27th, 2004 was Les Paul Day in the State of Wisconsin and it was just a marvelous day of honoring him. Steve Miller (Steve Miller Band), Les’ godson, came out and was part of it as well.

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Guided By Voices

“Eh, I’m getting old,” causally remarked Robert Pollard, referring to his recent on-stage back injury from his home in Dayton, Ohio. The 44-year-old, former elementary school teacher is the singer, songwriter, and only permanent member of Guided By Voices, one of the greatest bands that most radio-friendly ears have never even heard of. But once exposed to the Guided By Voices empire, many will become borderline worshipers. Magnet magazine publisher Eric T. Miller has said that Pollard has written more great songs than the Beatles, the Who and the Rolling Stones combined. Last year, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown went as far as declaring April 3, 2001 “Guided By Voices Day” in the city. In an age of utterly disposable bands like Limp Bizkit selling millions of records, this well-merited praise comes to a band that, after 17 years, finally made it to the billboard top 200 last year, peeking at 168. 

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Kristin Hersh

When songs come to Kristin Hersh she has found it best not to ignore them. Fronting rafter-cracking banshee rockers the Throwing Muses, she depended on her muse to provide the band songs. So, even though she made the band a “non-functioning entity” seven years ago, when some songs came to Kristin she couldn’t get a handle on, she packed off the solo demos along with a batch of homemade cookies affectionately known as the Devil’s Feedbag, to Muse bassist Bernard Georges. His solution was obvious. These were band tunes. Thus was born the temporarily reformed Throwing Muses. Uncannily, it came back as it always should have been.  The record was recorded quickly over three weekends while they were still learning their parts. Kristin says the nervous energy had them all on fire and new classics like, “Mercury,” and, “Pandora’s Box,” show her point.  The sessions were planned around the band member’s schedules instead of intruding on pre-existing routines.  Kristin says the main reason she broke up the band was because she couldn’t ask her friends to go through the rigors of holding it all together.  They were no longer teenagers and everyone was looking to settling down.

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I Fight Dragons

Bratfest 2009, Saturday May 23rd - stage two, early afternoon; the six-headed monster that is I Fight Dragons grab their joysticks and commence to rock with old school video game samples, digitally modified vocals and fanboy fantasies of conquering worlds and getting all the girls. Smarmy and cynical, IFD’s boyish charms and killer riffs pick a part hearts and kick out the jams. “I just tried to keep the guiding principle that it had to be fun, joyous, and smart,” says lead vocalist Brian Mazzaferri. A glib, gleeful stew of polished geek-pop anthems, old school video gamer gambits and rockin’ smartass scholarship, IFD take their Super Mario soundbites, new wave power-ballad cravings and studio noodling to a whole other level.

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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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Josiah Leming

Josiah Leming is likely most well known from his appearance on the seventh season of American Idol(he was cut right before the semifinals). The Idol stage is a long way from his hometown of Morristown in East Tennessee. He began writing his own music by the age of 16. Josiah has four previously released EP’s and his newest album Come On Kid is out now on Reprise Records. He is set to play the Loft in Madison, WI on October 22nd with Tyler Hilton.

Maximum Ink: I have read that would you rather end up dead in a ditch somewhere than to not be able to make music. Is that true? What do you think you’d end up doing for a living if not for the music? When did you first know you had to be a musician?
Josiah Lemming: Music is my thing and it makes me feel alive; it’s the only thing that does that and it’s the only thing I can do successfully. The statement stands strong, just maybe not quite as dramatic. If I did anything else it would still be music-related. I knew I wanted to pursue music around age 15.

MI: What was it like to come from East TN and end up playing for millions on American Idol? What did you learn from that?
JL: For me that wasn’t a dream come true because the ultimate dream is being on stage playing my own songs, so that was just a quick taste of what I’m going for. I’ve learned so much since then; I’m in a completely different mindset now.

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Little Red Wolf

Success is happening fast for Little Red Wolf. The four Madison women who make up the group and have been writing multidimensional folk based pop songs together since 2008. Each member of LRW is well-versed in various instruments and the singers harmonize like a group that has been together for years. With influences ranging from seminal riot grrrls Sleater Kinney to current groups with diverse but traditional sounds like The New Pornographers and Grizzly Bear, listening to LRW develop their sound is going to be a thrilling ride. When asked what groups they would most like to share a stage with drummer Emily Mills mentioned the Ditty Bops and Fleet Foxes. “Both of these groups have taken traditional American music and found a way to put their own, unique and—frankly—awesome, spin on it. I think we’d mesh pretty well with them.” Kelly Maxwell added, “Little Red Wolf with Fleet Foxes would be amazing. I would just die of happiness.”

The four seem to agree that traditional folk music is just a starting point in their quote"collaborative” song writing process. Maxwell said, “Most of the time it starts with something simple and we all add to it: One of us has a riff, we’ll work on it in rehearsal several times with different instruments until it sounds right, then someone will bring lyrics and that person gets to sing it.”

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