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!

Bela Fleck and the Flecktones

You have not heard the banjo until you’ve heard BELA FLECK play the banjo. Not just because of his jaw-dropping talent for lightning-fast runs and twisted knuckle-busting riffs but because he places the instrument in unusual settings and manages to make it sound perfectly natural. For decades, the FLECKTONES have found new ways to present musical conundrums that are easy to love. A Madison favorite, the band recently reunited their original line-up to produce last year’s awesome, “Rocket Science.” As the quartet prepares to swing by Madison’s Union Theater March 1st, MAXIMUM INK managed to snare Bela for some questions about the reunion, the new album and this year’s tour.

MAXIMUM INK: It’s great to hear the original line-up back together.  With everyone’s extremely busy schedule was it difficult for everyone to drop their other projects and concentrate on an album and tour?
BELA FLECK: There was a lot of enthusiasm for the idea of going back to the old sound. Victor, Future Man and I were ready to have a musical adventure again. When we contacted Howard Levy about filling the Jeff Coffin slot (which was Howard’s 17 years ago) he could see the potential for an interesting reunion as well. We decided on giving it a full year’s commitment, and doing new music together, and that combination of parameters gave it some heft. Having a planned ending has made every gig special.

Launchpad

“Some of the best original music today comes from high school garage bands.” –Les Paul

The Wisconsin School Music Association (WSMA) is about to kick off the seventh year of the one of a kind music competition called Launchpad, using the same idea that the late great Les Paul personified in his quote. Launchpad is a statewide alternative music competition for high school students in bands formed outside of the traditional music classroom. Maximum Ink caught up with director and creator of the competition, Dennis Graham to talk about how the competition got started and where he sees it heading in the coming years.

Maximum Ink: Tell us about how Launchpad got started.

Dennis Graham: I was approached by the WSMA, which presents this program, seven years ago to talk about raising awareness on raising funds for them. As a result of my discussions with Michael George, the current Executive Director of the WSMA, and I brought up a couple ideas and the first was to present a Lifetime Achievement Award to recognize people who had a successful music career and were also impacted by a music teacher. The first ever Lifetime Achievement Award in Wisconsin was given to Les Paul. I hand delivered a letter that I wrote, which was signed by Governor Doyle, to Les inviting him back to Wisconsin (He hadn’t been back in twenty years.) October 27th, 2004 was Les Paul Day in the State of Wisconsin and it was just a marvelous day of honoring him. Steve Miller (Steve Miller Band), Les’ godson, came out and was part of it as well.

Brandon Perry

French Canadian, Brandon Perry is best known for his work as a Chef in the culinary arts. Not one to be limited to just one profession,he is also an author(his latest book is due out soon featuring Eerie Von from Danzig, Calabrese, and Tom Sullivan from Evil dead series fame),and is(to my knowledge) the world’s first chef to also be part of not one but four bands. Brandon is for the most part a solo artist as he provides most of the music in those..himself. Jazzvanguard, is a jazz band with Perry, technical metal drummer playing Jazz. The Resurrected is a technical death metal band he plays in as well(providing bass,drums, and keyboards, while his vocalist lays down the lyrics). He can also be found in the gore metal band Desgustipation and the newly formed(with a girl in Japan), black metal band, Screams of the Dead. Since it isn’t every day you find a celebrity chef that can as he himself puts it, “can still get down and dirty with my death metal”, who loves doing music because others said he couldn’t. I had to take a moment to pick his brain so to speak.

Maximum Ink: Do you find it challenging to have three, possibly four bands going at the same time as your career as a chef?
Brandon Perry: No, not really, we aren’t a super big touring band where that’s how we make our living and have no other careers, I mean I think we all see that if lost our real jobs we would be all fucked up and shit, and starve to death, metal bands that make money are corporate metal bands they are sellouts and that’s that, we don’t sell out, never will, and never have to.

Ratdog

Maggot infested skulls on bony blood-dried bodies, skulking graveyards in midnight mists is how people usually picture the rise of the dead. Bushy-beards and wonky wa-wa waves on a six-string, tie-dye twists and baby boomers lighting up, is however, the reality.

Far from the grave, ex-Grateful Dead frontman Bob Weir and his solo project RatDog, have scoured the sphere, playing over seven hundred shows since 2006. Along with a slew of brilliant musicians such as lead guitarist Mark Karan and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti, RatDog has dug deep into the core of improvisational riffs and melodies, and is safely the most musically comprehensive jam band formed post-sixties. A chunky brew of blues, jazz fusion, progressive bluegrass, and folk, RatDog delivers with an equally diverse palette as the latter day Grateful Dead. Weir channels Garcia in numbers like “Black Muddy River” and “Scarlet Begonias.” Yet the spectacle lies in the audience. The peace-loving, daisy-smelling youth that once swarmed Dead shows have become the stock-broking, suit wearing, SUV-driving dads, moms, and grandparents who come see Bob Weir to remember the days of freedom and hope, if just for a couple songs. 

Les Paul

‘Upgrade’ is a fairly new term in today’s society, yet it has sparked an international obsession. We need our internet faster, our cars bigger, our celebrities skinnier, and our televisions more…defined? Well listen up, Generation Next, because the man responsible for the original upgrade worked for it… Without the cheat codes.

There is no doubt Les Paul is a living legend of the twenty-first century. He not only invented the first electric guitar, but revolutionized the music industry with countless recording breakthroughs. Les Paul has played for kings, queens and presidents, and is revered by musical titans throughout the world. But one Monday night, on the busiest and brightest street in New York City, this legend sat on a moth-eaten, dusty couch, alone in a cramped dressing room, just a door-swing away from his audience.

A chill ran up my spine. I tried to imagine all the influential people that had gazed into those misty blue eyes, as I was doing. Every inch of his face was brimming with eagerness to talk about the past, perhaps wondering which stories I would conjure. He gently twisted the top of his cane as his eyes darted around before settling on an object across the room, and then back at me.