It's "Madison Week" at OnMilwaukee.com. We sent our editorial staff to check out bars, restaurants, retail outlets and cultural venues in order to uncover some of the best of Wisconsin's second-largest city.
MADISON -- Since I didn't go to UW, Madison for me is measured in musical memories.
For me it's playing at Club De Wash, The Chamber, the Nar Bar, in the Rathskeller, at house parties and other places. And playing some joint I couldn't even find again, much less name, opening for the Skatalites and sharing a drum kit with the god-like Lloyd Knibb. It's meeting one of my absolute best friends and his future wife for the first time on Atwood Avenue when we opened for some young guitar player named Kid Johnny Lang.
It's seeing Linton Kwesi Johnson one year and then drinking with him in a hotel bar a few years later. It's a string of shows at the Stock Pavilion -- The Psychedelic Furs, Reggae Sunsplash and others -- and seeing Big Audio Dynamite, Public Enemy and U2 at Camp Randall. And Echobelly at O'Kayz.
It's seeing Everything But the Girl for my 30th birthday at the Barrymore and spending a day with Billy Bragg at Bunky's in 1985 (the sound check version of "Tracks of My Tears" is amazing). That's also where the above photo was taken of a younger version of me with Jamaica's No. 1 bass player, Flabba Holt and late Morwells and Roots Radics guitarist Bingy Bunny, three years later, when Radics were supporting The Itals. (Britpop dorks like me will note that The Jam played Bunky's once, marking Paul Weller's sole Wisconsin appearance to day.)
It's having pizza with Del Amitri and playing some great gigs in exchange for food at a hippie café in a mini-mall. It's meeting King Sunny Ade at the same show at which my friend Gerry and Robbie Shakespeare compared their bass-playing blisters and Black Uhuru's Michael Rose -- flustered -- implored me "tell (my) friend about Jah." I guess I must have appeared to know.
My friends and bandmates over the years have worn a deep groove on I-94 between Mad City and Brew Town, always for the music.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
