Bobaflex

We’re all swamped within the information age and bombarded with less than adequate bands that spew out music just to keep their record label at bay. However, very seldom do we have the pleasure of hearing a band stay true to their fans and themselves without ever selling out. In a nutshell, the aforementioned describes one of the most genuine hard rock bands out there today. The guys in Bobaflex have been in the business for years now, and through struggles inside and outside the industry, they’ve managed to stay relevant and remember how to play their trademark, soothe your soul one minute, kick your ass the next, rock and roll. Maximum Ink sat down with Bobaflex guitarist and vocalist Shaun McCoy to talk about what they’ve been up to and what they have in store this summer for our ears’ pleasure.

Maximum Ink: What’s Bobaflex been up to for the past year or two?
Shaun McCoy: Well, a little ways back our record label went bankrupt, so we ultimately had to fight a legal battle with regard to the t-shirts and touring. Once we got through that, we started to record a new album called, Hell in My Heart. We paid for the album, for every recording, and for the producer ourselves. Right now we’re working on a late spring, early summer release.

Read More...

The Meat Puppets

Drifting in the hazy, smoky air like their psychedelic, attention inducing beats, guitar plucks and other worldly lyrics that intertwine, the MEAT PUPPETS and their music refuse to return to reality.  While some attempts have been made to call their sound acid-fried country-punk, stoner rock or cow punk, just to name a few, the band couldn’t care less.

“I don’t own up to any genre classification,” says singer Curt Kirkwood.  “We’re just the musicians.”

Read More...

The Melismatics

With edgy and energetic shows heating up with undiluted charisma and passion, Minneapolis-based rock band The Melismatics pioneer their way ahead with a dynamic, ever-shifting sonic landscape. While the band’s latest and fourth album, “The Acid Test,” touches in 80s new wave and post punk-influenced power pop realms, their sound is constantly growing.

“As the band evolves so do our influences that we focus on,” says singer Ryan Smith, of the band’s four distinctly different albums. “Like the music’s gone over the years I think we go to different places and every song doesn’t sound the same.”

With this attitude, the band’s earned popularity around the Midwest and the country, with several songs being used on several television shows. This includes invitations to play several major festivals like South by Southwest, Lollapalooza and Summerfest. Milwaukee’s hosted a number of their shows and August 15 they add Mad Planet to their venues visited.

Read More...

Metric

METRIC – named after a synthesizer beat on a sampler. A band whose lead singer has dual citizenship, whose members range from Texas-raised to Boston-trained, New York hardened and Toronto nurtured. No wonder then this group of like-minded friends’ new album, “Fantasies,” is an edgy, coy and cosmopolitan masterpiece packing musical precision, sly hooks and savvy metaphors. Recorded in large part at guitarist JIMMY SHAW’s home studio and self-distributed in the States, “Fantasies,” is independent music with a capital I. Playing Chicago’s Metro June 14th, singer, songwriter and co-founder EMILY HAINES took some time out to answer a few email questions about the band and the new CD.

Read More...

The Mifflin Street Block Party

The University of Wisconsin has traditionally held two giant student parties every year. One is Halloween (where out of town revelers caused so many problems, it evolved into Freak Fest, still a good party but one that turns State Street into a demilitarized zone each year) and the other is the Mifflin Street Block Party. Started in 1969 as a reaction to the Vietnam War (the event that seems to loom over every student activity or university story from that decade), the party has been an annual tradition some times at odds with the city and some times with the city’s blessing. After a long time of relative peace, in 1996, drunken and foolish partygoers decided to attack a fire truck that came to put out a bonfire started in the middle of the street. Next thing you know, there’s riot gear, people are screaming bloody murder, and lots and lots of arrests are made. Needless to say, the 1997 party was kind of a drag. But the fest has continued in the ensuing years, and now local music promoters DCNY PRO, Madison natives and longtime Mifflin Street attendees, David Coleman and Ny Bass, have taken the bull by the horns. They spearheaded the party in 2009 to one of its most successful years. On the fortieth anniversary of the festival and even with over fifteen-thousand people in attendance, arrests were down from the year before and in 2010, they’re bringing more changes to make it a friendlier and safer place.

Read More...

2012 Summer Camp – Where Musical Memories Are Made

Ah, Summer Camp. Two words that kickstart memories of canoe races, archery, roasting marshmallows, painting t-shirts… hula hoops, glow sticks, and Jane’s Addiction. Wait, what?! Those last three don’t sound like the summer camp you remember? Then you must not have been to the Summer Camp Music Festival!

Now in it’s 12th season, Summer Camp is the brainchild of Jay Goldberg Events, JAM Productions, and the bands moe. and Umphrey’s McGee. Taking place near the Illinois River on Memorial Day weekend just outside the sleepy rural burg of Chillicothe, Illinois, this three day festival features an exceptional line-up of bands and artists from multiple genres, plus more fun activities than you can shake a tambourine at. In fact, it’s near impossible to take it all in!

Read More...

Helen Money

Listening to the new instrumental record by HELEN MONEY, In Tune, is a completely different kind of instrumental experience. Alison Chesley is a Chicago-based cellist who earned her rock credentials with the 90’s alternative band, Verbow, then started performing with world-rockers, Poi Dog Pondering, and even recorded with nu-metallers, Disturbed. If you’re expecting just cello renditions of rock n’ roll songs, you won’t hear that, but you’ll hear music that’s completely unafraid to reach into dark places and her mixture of pizzicato, heavy bowing, distorted leads over beds of soft strings is a fascinating listen of how to channel rock’s traditionally guitar-oriented aggression through an instrument that gets most of its heavy metal recognition from the bridge section of Whitesnake’s “Still Of The Night”.

For her interesting choice of musical direction, Alison says that it was because the traditional model didn’t appeal to her.“ I grew up in Los Angeles and I spent about ten years after I dropped out of college, where I just wasn’t feeling inspired playing cello.”, she says. “So I started going out to clubs to see bands like The MInutemen and Meat Puppets and Bob Mould

Read More...