For a mere $40, you can get a silhouette of the Milwaukee skyline immortalized in wax. In PVC that is.
On its Etsy, RecordsRedone out of Lansing, Mich., offers a number of city skylines, including Milwaukee's, cut from vintage long-players. Each measures 12" across -- of course -- though only about 10.5 inches tall once the cutting is done.
There are also silhouettes of U.S. states, the Beatles, Johnny Cash, Hendrix, Joplin and Dylan available, too.
The Etsy store suggests a couple Milwaukee related albums in its inventory that might be suitable: "Heart's Horizon" by native son Al Jarreau and "Fly Like an Eagle" by Brew City boy Steve Miller.
I'd be more inclined to have it done to the first Violent Femmes album or maybe something by The Promise Ring or Die Kreuzen, but perhaps it's better to keep those records playable and hack up a sickly sweet, overproduced smooth jazz vocal disc.
Other cities available include New York, Denver, Toronto, Atlanta, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland and others.
Folks from many of those cities have an impressive array of quality records from which to choose. But, of course, if you're buying Nashville, with its Batman building, there's only one logical choice.
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.
