Les Paul — the godfather of guitar-based rock ’n’ roll — would be proud to see his legacy lived out onstage by energetic high school musicians.
The inventor and guitarist would have turned 100 years old on June 9, which makes this year’s Launchpad State Finals extra-special.
One of 13 high school garage bands, including four finalists from the Madison area, will battle it out Saturday, June 13, at the Sett inside the UW’s Union South for the prestigious Les Paul Launchpad Award. The winning band will also perform at the Les Paul Centennial Birthday Party in the guitarist’s hometown of Waukesha on Aug. 6.
“Some of the best places where original music comes from are unknown high school bands,” Paul told a Wisconsin journalist two years before his death in 2009. (A pioneer of the solid-body guitar, which helped define rock, Paul began his career well before high school.)
Music for the Launchpad competition begins at 2 p.m., and admission is free. A panel of judges (musician and journalist Rick Tvedt, Broadjam founder and CEO Roy Elkins and 19-time Madison Area Music Association award winner Beth Kille) will evaluate each band on expression and creativity, technique and synergy. In addition to the written evaluations, bands receive a private verbal critique.
All bands already have won regional competitions earlier this year and secured 45-minute sets on Summerfest’s Johnson Controls World Sound Stage in Milwaukee. The overall winner and one runner-up also will perform 60-minute sets at the BMO Harris Pavilion on July 5, opening for Kansas. And the overall winner will receive a professional recording session and a Yamaha equipment package for the band’s school.
As the only program of its kind in the country, Launchpad is open to all genres and seeks to extend the reach of music education in Wisconsin by giving students a chance to start groups outside of traditional music classrooms.
But that doesn’t mean music teachers aren’t crucial, says Dennis Graham, a longtime music promoter and the producer of Launchpad: “So many bands in Launchpad’s first 11 years have been formed because of the support of their music teacher.”
Indeed, Launchpad, which is sponsored by the Wisconsin School Music Association, has given developing artists the push they need. Gabe Burdulis, who fronted the Gabe Burdulis Band, winner of the 2014 Launchpad competition, recently moved from Madison to Nashville, where he finished recording his first full-length CD.
“I’m just blown away at how talented some of these young bands are,” Graham says. “They display such a mature grasp of playing their instruments that often belies their age. I have seen thousands of bands in nearly 50 years of checking out shows, and Launchpad’s have ranked as some of the best.”
Here are short profiles of the four Madison-area bands competing in this year’s Launchpad State Finals:
After the Rain
This is the second Launchpad finals for the relentless retro-rock power trio from Madison West. They cite influences such as Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins and Stone Temple Pilots. “Grunge definitely describes our sound,” says vocalist and bassist Dominic Cannarella-Anderson. “But at the same time, we consider ourselves ‘post-grunge.’”
Richard Bock
Disq
Although Disq performs live as a quartet, the band is officially an eclectic duo featuring Isaac De Broux-Slone from Madison’s Shabazz City High School and Raina Bock from Youth Initiative High School in Viroqua. A self-professed “recording geek,” De Broux-Slone is influenced by the warmth of classic-rock production. “That ’70s drum sound is one of my favorite things,” he says. Disq is the state competition’s “wild card” band, selected from all Launchpad entries via a worldwide vote of listeners on Broadjam.com.
Distant Cuzins
Distant Cuzins was a 2014 Launchpad state finalist and — as guitarist Sam Miess says — “we want to make the audience think they’re at a major rock show.” With a classic-rock-meets-rockabilly sound, this quartet from Oregon High School has roots in a fourth-grade surf-rock duo Miess formed with drummer Ben Lokuta, and its influences range from ska to Rush. Distant Cuzins closed the regional competition in April with a dramatic hotshot guitar-solo battle between Miess and Nate Krause.
The Whyskers
Another band from Madison West, this heavy-rock power trio has officially been together for only about six months and takes inspiration from “Hendrix, Zeppelin and all the good stuff,” says vocalist and guitarist Oliver Gerber. “But a lot of what we do is actually just winging it.” The Whyskers also have been known to throw a song by the late Chicago bluesman Howlin’ Wolf into their sets.
