On Jan. 23, 2010, Turner Hall Ballroom hosted Milwaukee's first Pablove Benefit Concert, with The Gufs, Willy Porter, Fever Marlene, Maritime, The Lackloves, Pet Engine, Truth in Fiction, Mark Waldoch and The Mike Benign Compulsion.
A number of performances from that evening are now out on DVD, interspersed with interviews with Jeff Castelaz. You can buy copies of the disc, produced by Mindpool, on the Pablove website. They're $12 each and proceeds benefit childhood cancer research.
In related news, The Mike Benign Compulsion, which made its public debut at that show, is nearly ready to launch its second disc. "Martha" will be mixed by Chris Stamey of the legendary dB's and should be out in the first few weeks of the new year.
You can see the Compulsion on Friday, Nov. 25 at Shank Hall opening for Semi-Twang.
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.
