Joel Pingitore and the Playground of Sound

Joel Pingitore isn’t wasting any time. He has been performing with his most recent group, The Playground of Sound, for only six months and they’re already booked and/or played 150+ shows. Besides a weekly show at The Dam Bar in Belleville, WI and a once-a-month visit to Stella’s Speakeasy in Stoughton, WI the band is fresh of a stint of gigs at Bike Week in Daytona Beach. In an e-mail interview Pingitore admitted he wouldn’t mind a show every day.

“Naturally,” He also conceded, “it’d be fantastic to be ‘The Next Big Thing.’” With an energetic six month old band that’s already working on an album and playing outside the state, however fantastic the dream, they seem to be aiming for it. On a more realistic, and partially realized note, Pingitore also said “I’d like to see [the band] as a nationally touring act.”

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Katy Pfaffl

Light grooves and soaring melodies circle and dive with Latin jazz accents, soul throaty climaxes and soft, sophisticated pop. Fluid flowers of pan-global sensitivity blossom into polysyllabic rivers that dance among the keyboards, guitar, hand percussion and bass. Sounds conjuring wide-open spaces find strange bedfellows in Manhattan - a crowded city of subways and skyscrapers, but that is exactly where Katy Pfaffl found her muse - New York, by way of Amsterdam, Cincinnati and Milwaukee.

Born and raised in Milwaukee, Katy was a Sukuzi violin student, competing as a classical pianist before she entered high school. While she feels lucky to have grown up in Milwaukee, she found the city’s arts scene limited and more concerned with stability than change. “I’ve always had many interests and was always told I had to choose only one and commit to it,” she explains, “I believe that if you have a lot of talents and interests then use them all, explore them all so you can keep growing and expanding.”

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Pale Young Gentlemen

Adventuresome, theatrical, and a pouring out deeply human emotion in their music, Madison’s PALE YOUNG GENTLEMEN come to give audiences June 14 at the Marquette Waterfront Festival a detour from the usual rock and pop songs.

“I hope people can find some emotional truth in our songs which are trying to be as honest as possible,” says lead singer Mike Reisenauer. “These songs are for people who like being alive, and want to think about things and try to understand their emotions.”

To do this, the band throws convention out the window as far as the blueprint for a typical rock or pop band. Combining the guitar, bass, drum format (which they initially started off with) with instruments such as cellos and violas, the band members have created an original sound that’s their own.

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Papa Roach

An interview with the newly recharged singer of Papa Roach Jacoby Maddix about the Paramour Sessions and more!

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Patchwork

Jeremiah Nelson named his dog after Bob Dylan. Influences aren’t nearly as direct when it comes to Nelson’s band, Patchwork - which released its new full length, “Take Me Down the Interstate” on Aug. 15 at the Frequency in Madison, WI.

“You draw from enough sources that it becomes unrecognizable,” he says over a bagel and cream cheese while Zim, the black lab, explores the sunny porch of Nelson’s Williamson-area house. “A lot of the time it’s my friends,” he says. We talk about Oskosh fav Attack Octopus - who seemingly couldn’t be more dissimilar with its busy, sparkling, crackling, tangy arrangements, odd time signatures and overall challenging sound. In this context, Patchwork is definitely roaming Dylan-esque territory.

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Pronto

Mikael Jorgensen is no stranger to success or the life of a busy musician in a big rock and roll band. In fact, he spends most of his time playing keyboards in Wilco, a critically acclaimed band whose recent days are filled supporting their much buzzed about new album.

But even with Wilco’s success and schedule, Jorgensen’s desire to further discover what he can do with music doesn’t end when his full time band takes a break.

Enter Pronto, an emerging rock band touring in support of their own critically acclaimed debut, “All Is Golden,” released this past spring.  The album, featuring Jorgensen and several friends, showcases a set of catchy pop melodies, rockers and ballads hinting of 70s soft rock while putting a modern spin on it. However, with the release of a new-old set of songs this month featuring a more experimental side of the band called “The Cheetah,” the band shows their sound is constantly on the move.

The band brings its multiple music personalities to Madison September 19th when they play the Forward Music Festival. Jorgensen managed to take some time out his busy schedule and talk with Maximum Ink through an e-mail interview about his band’s fascination with music exploration.

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Psychedelicasi

An interview with Paris Ortiz, then guitarist for the now-defunct Milwaukee band, Psychedelicasi

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