Two days after The Wildbirds officially launch their "Golden Daze" disc with a gig at the Troubadour in Hollywood, the Appleton rockers return to America's Dairyland to play at Atomic Records.
The band's 7 p.m. in-store performance is set for Thursday, Aug. 16 and is followed by a 5 p.m. in-store at the Exclusive Company in its hometown of Appleton and an 8 p.m. gig at the Fox Cities PAC.
The Fox Valley music scene has been humming for a while now with bands like Number One Fan (which has since morphed into The Wildbirds) and The Obsoletes garnering raves, but The Wildbirds -- whose debut disc is released by Universal -- look poised to be the biggest success story so far from the area.
"Golden Daze" sounds like a more soulful, rootsier version of The Strokes (sorry). The band's songs are direct and melodic. There's little ceremony, little gloss, just straight up rock and roll. Some numbers, like "Way Down Low" are blues in the way that The White Stripes are blues. That's to say, garage rock with a hint of Jimmy Page.
The record has drawn raves from Spin.com (which named them artist of the day), All Music Guide and others. Check 'em out.
The Wildbirds return to Milwaukee on Sept. 1 for a gig at The Mad Planet, too.
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.
