{image1}This weekend you can get two great bands for the price of one at Mad Planet as Chicagos Punsapaya joins forces with Milwaukee-based Nude Bill Clinton for a 9:30 p.m. gig on Saturday, Feb. 26. Cover is $6.
Punsapaya recently nabbed the best rock album of the year award at the Chicago Music Awards for its disc, Prepare to Qualify, released on the indie Sideways 8 Records.
Meanwhile, Nude Bill Clinton is something of a free-form improvisational group co-founded by bassist Matt Turner and drummer Jeremy Kuzniar of the Milwaukee jazz/funk fusion band The Westfall.
The group might be described as Live Drum & Bass,' with plenty of live self-sampling, looping and grooving, says Turner. Little or none of the groups material is written or rehearsed, giving the music the independence to voyage to furthest-reaching sonic galaxies.
The group germinated as an idea by the rhythm section, Turner says.
The group began as a duo with the intentions of adding former president, William Jefferson Clinton on tenor saxophone. When the former president refused the duos offer, (we) opted to recruit the equally attractive Jessee Sheehan to round out the groups sound on tablas, saxophone and synth.
The show's promoter Brian Fricano of Interlobate Music says that Nude Bill Clinton's unorthodox style has gotten them noticed around town lately.
"Nude Bill has played several shows in Milwaukee over the past year, and have developed a good amount of hype due to their live improv," he says.
According to Turner, the band plans to begin recording its first CD in the coming months.
The first 30 paid admissions get tickets to Umphreys McGees April 16 show at The Rave and a free compilation disc, Chicago Minds and Souls, featuring Punsapaya is included with all admissions.
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.
