Sleighriders 2009

Bringing together an almost ridiculously diverse collection of Milwaukee’s most popular musical talents to perform for charity under one roof for one night is difficult enough, but THE SLEIGHRIDERS have done it every Christmas season for the past twenty-seven years. Combining the expertise of forty performers rotating through the lineup throughout the night and blasting through a musical revue of seasonal Holiday music, R&B, and classic rock, over time, it’s become firmly entrenched as a tradition of the Milwaukee music scene’s Yuletide festivities.

Unearth

East coast hardcore bands are a quickly growing force, and one of the heaviest, UNEARTH, makes their way through Wisconsin. Coming off their previous tour with thrash titans, TESTAMENT, Trevor Phipps (vocals) feels the band is only getting started on their contribution to the heavy metal world. Still out promoting their latest album, “The March,” this quintet thrives on the stylings of their local scene in Massachusetts and the metal influences of the 90’s.

Soul Shaker

I often get asked what’s new and interesting in the Madison music scene, and these days usually the first couple words to roll off my tongue are “Soul Shaker”, a hot new ballsy bluesy rock band in town. Their calling card states “Dirty Blues Rock Fo’ Yo’ Dirty Minds” which sums it up pretty well, and somehow they already knew my mind was usually in the gutter.

The guys on the guitars and drums may look familiar if you were a fan of Trinity James And Big Bad. Guitarist Jason “JP” Peterson, bassist Scott Aumann, and drummer Brent King had backed up singer/songwriter Trinity James for a couple years before Trin moved on to the land of grueling competition Nashville. JP, Scott, and Brent kept writing on their own and eventually joined forces with singer and harmonica player Adam Zierten of Reason For Leaving and Jose And The Sumlimes fame.

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.

Rob Zombie

After releasing another masterful horror flick, Halloween II, ROB ZOMBIE is hitting the road again with his band. This tour is in promotion of Zombie’s upcoming album in 2010, Hellbilly Deluxe II. “We bring the heaviness of metal with an underlying groove,” explains Zombie, as the new album is expected to go back to the older ROB ZOMBIE sound as heard in his debut solo release Hellbilly Deluxe, in 1998.

Zombie defines himself and his band as both a studio and live band. He explains, “I’ve been with these guys, touring for years now… we get along, and I’m excited to be working with them.” Previous albums have seen a rotation of musicians and Zombie doing the recording, but he is proud to call the newest album a full band project with the name ROB ZOMBIE. Beyond that, Zombie describes the band as “much more a live band than studio.”

Helen Money

Listening to the new instrumental record by HELEN MONEY, In Tune, is a completely different kind of instrumental experience. Alison Chesley is a Chicago-based cellist who earned her rock credentials with the 90’s alternative band, Verbow, then started performing with world-rockers, Poi Dog Pondering, and even recorded with nu-metallers, Disturbed. If you’re expecting just cello renditions of rock n’ roll songs, you won’t hear that, but you’ll hear music that’s completely unafraid to reach into dark places and her mixture of pizzicato, heavy bowing, distorted leads over beds of soft strings is a fascinating listen of how to channel rock’s traditionally guitar-oriented aggression through an instrument that gets most of its heavy metal recognition from the bridge section of Whitesnake’s “Still Of The Night”.

For her interesting choice of musical direction, Alison says that it was because the traditional model didn’t appeal to her.“ I grew up in Los Angeles and I spent about ten years after I dropped out of college, where I just wasn’t feeling inspired playing cello.”, she says. “So I started going out to clubs to see bands like The MInutemen and Meat Puppets and Bob Mould