It was August of 2011. I was working night shift at a major semiconductor company in Rio Rancho NM, a suburb more or less, of Albuquerque. I loved that job but night shift was tough on the brain and spirit. It was 11PM and I began thinking back to when I was a kid growing up in Northern IL. What was I doing at 11 O’Clock at night? Beer. Lots of beer. Music. Lots of music too. Loud and live.

Back in August of 1987 I called my uncle in Madison WI. The Mentors and St. Vitus were coming to a club called O’Cayz Coral. He knew the club well, had been there several times. My uncle was a rocker from way back. He used to put me in the front seat of his car when he was 15 and drive around Freeport blasting Black Sabbath and Uriah Heep on his 8 track back in the 70’s. So he told me,”Come on up, we’ll do this.” That was the start of me hitting clubs, punk & metal, and really sinking my teeth into live, local music as well. It wasn’t until the late 80’s when I discovered the gold mine that was the local music scene of Rockford (Illinois).

I was writing for SLAM Magazine which had distribution from Chicago all the way up to Milwaukee. It was based out of Madison. It was pro, not a zine, and a lot of fun to work for. I got assigned to cover a lot of live music in Rockford. Cool. I had a few friends who had roots in the local music scene. One was a guy I worked with and the other guy was Mark Snodgrass who had a radio show in Rockford. His show was hot, on fire. He had a lot of buzz around his gig. Before long I was hitting Hurricane Harrys and The Cherry Lounge on a pretty regular basis. I didn’t make it downtown Rockford much but hit a lot of clubs and such on the perimeter.

I initially got into a band called Mirrored Image. I discovered them through a friend who had their sticker on the back of his killer Trans Am. “Who are they?” “Awesome metal band. They’re doing a show at the Cherry Lounge, we should go,” and we did. The shows at the Cherry Lounge were held in the basement. When I saw Mirrored Image, they still had booths in the back where you could sit. The MI show drew a pretty fair amount of people which impressed me. It was loud, it was wild, and it spoke in a language my soul understood.

From there I saw Decadenza, Blind Witness (now September Insomnia), Pure Aggression, forchristsake, etc. I became friends with all of the bands, all great people, all of whom I still stay in touch with and all of whom have appeared in books 1-3 of “All My Friends Are Rock Stars.” These bands drew crowds which blew me away. It was truly a dedicated metal community that showed up and supported, rocked out, partied with each other and repeated the whole process the next week somewhere else.

I’d often travel to Madison and hit O’Cayz and Club DeWash and by god, it was the same thing there except my uncle and I predominately hit the alternative and punk scene. These clubs were jam packed with fans who dug the music, the sense of community, the camaraderie and bonding, and most of all, the celebration of being young and unencumbered — no bills, no kids, no commitments, nothing. Our only job back then was to rock, party and have fun. And we all did.

Everything comes to an end eventually, right? For me it was 1992 when I joined the USAF. The music scenes I enjoyed in Rockford and Madison eventually slowed down and began morphing into something else entirely. Time marches on, I guess, but looking back on it, I’m glad I was there when the shit went down. Glad I got to see Killdozer, The Burning Ernies, Pain Amplified, Feck, etc. Glad I was there for the Milwaukee Metal Fest, Morta Skuld, etc. And I was happy I was able to see and be a tiny part of the hard rock / metal scene of Rockford too.

So, that’s what I was thinking about, on break, back in August of 2011. All of it and more. I missed those times. Soon after, I downloaded a few tunes from Killdozer, Imminent Attack, Morta Skuld, etc. And then I got it stuck in my head that I could buy a video camera, schedule a two week vacation, and shoot a guerilla style documentary featuring many of these bands. They were on Facebook, so, why not try, right? Obviously it didn’t happen but it did spawn the book idea and what happened was, I started the book, got an idea for another book, began pursuing that project, put the local rock book on hold, and before I knew it, it was 2014, three years later.

2014 is a key year for me too. I got laid off from my semiconductor job . As you might infer, it was a bleak time for me. I went back to school, earned a few key IT certifications and began the long process of getting my shit back together and turning everything around for the better.

January of 2015 I decided to finish the rock book. I published it 11 months later, in November. I called it “All My Friends Are Rock Stars” because essentially, it was and they were. By spring of 2018 I published volumes 2 & 3. I swore that was it but I still feel like I have yet to close this chapter of my life, that there’s more stories to tell and history to talk about regarding live, local music in Northern Illinois & Southern Wisconsin, etc.

And that’s why I started this blog and this interview series. The goal is to keep expanding through the Midwest. This time around I’m including Minneapolis MN which often traded bands between Chicago, Madison and Milwaukee back in the day, and I imagine still happens today.

Although I no longer live in Belvidere (still toiling in Albuquerque), I want this blog to be about the music of our area past and present. And I want to reach out as far North as Minnesota and take a critical look at was happening there and see how that scene influenced what was taking place in Madison and how that scene may have inspired what we know as “grunge” in the Pacific Northwest and ultimately, how all of this music from different parts of the country may have influenced each other simply by bands touring. intermingling with one another, zines, tape trading, etc.

Bring people to this blog. Share the music, the interviews, the conversation. And maybe, just maybe, this blog becomes volume 4 of my book series…, stay tuned…,

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