A Place for every Tom, Dick and Harry

Adam Biemeret
Campus Compass
Editorial

The lights dim, and the crowd goes wild. The stage is set, and the power chord from the lead guitar drives the masses to frenzy. Most of the fans are close enough to feel the sweat fall from the musicians as they pour out their heart and soul through the lyrics and the riffs they play.
This is what live music is all about and what Tom, Dick, and Harry’s delivers.
Green Bay’s newest entertainment mecca is located in the heart of Green Bay’s west side on Potts Avenue. While it’s in walking distance of Lambeau Field and the Resch Center, it’s easy to miss for those who don’t know where to look.
Marketed as a place for everyone, Tom, Dick, and Harry’s is a restaurant, bar and concert venue. Its Web site says its mission is to take the ordinary and make it extraordinary.
And that’s what it does.
The restaurant features a menu that includes gourmet pizzas, salads, wraps and seafood. For the less adventurous, there are normal comfort foods, such as a burger and fries. Catering to the hungriest clientele, Tom, Dick, and Harry’s is also home of the two-foot bratwurst, which makes the site a game-day paradise.
Tom, Dick, and Harry’s décor embraces elements of a historical Green Bay fixture—Kaap’s Restaurant. Kaap’s opened on Washington Street in downtown Green Bay in 1914. Started as a candy shop, it evolved into a downtown staple until it closed in the 1970s as part of the downtown renewal project. Today it lives on at Tom, Dick, and Harry’s, where some of Kaap’s original furniture and fixtures are scattered throughout the building.
The restaurant also has a private dining room for those who wish to have a little privacy or an intimate family or business dinner. The dining room accommodates up to 35 people and features a state-of-the-art video and sound system.
After eating at the restaurant, patrons can head to the main bar area to sample the large selection of beers from all over Wisconsin and the Midwest. If Bud Light is your thing, Tom, Dick, and Harry’s has that, too. Seasonal house vodkas are also unique to Tom, Dick, and Harry’s.
The atmosphere at the bar is inviting, and large booths ensure ample seating for everyone in your party. There are daily drink specials, such as $4 double Captain and Cokes or Cherry Bombs every Monday and $4 martinis during Thursday’s ladies night. During Packers games, football fans can watch the game on a 20-foot high-definition TV while they can enjoy $4 Green and Gold doubles and a free shot every time the Packers score.
Happy hour is every weekday from 3 p.m.  to 6 p.m. All tap beer, house wines and rail mixers are $1.
The entire building is smoke-free, so non-smokers will appreciate the fresh air not found in bars downtown.
Smokers will be pleased to know, however, that they can enjoy their drinks and cigarettes in the patio bar, a rare opportunity in Green Bay. Although the outdoor area may not be appreciated right now, it will be the go-to destination once the statewide smoking ban is in effect.
Although the restaurant and bar are reason enough to give the venue a try, the real draw of Tom, Dick, and Harry’s is The Club. PMI Entertainment Group manages the venue and brings in a variety of acts, ranging from local talent to national recording artists.
The venue offers a more intimate experience for fans than an arena tour. The open concept allows more than 800 fans to stay on their feet and enjoy the music and gives everyone an equal chance to have front row access. Reminiscent of the Rave in Milwaukee, this is one of the best ways to  experience live music in Green Bay.
The club gives wristbands to concertgoers who are 21 or older, and a bar at the back of the club keeps the beer flowing all evening. The best part is the prices at Tom, Dick, and Harry’s aren’t as inflated during concerts as they are at venues like the Resch Center. Where else can you get a $3 tap beer while listening to a band like Jet?
When it’s not used for concerts, the club can be rented for banquets and weddings and can seat up to 350 people.
The next time you hear someone complain about the lack of entertainment in the Green Bay area direct him or her to Tom, Dick, and Harry’s. It really is a place for everyone.

Attractive Disaster poses for a photo-op, one of the many perks of forming a band.

Bad mama jammin’: A guide to rockin’ and literally rollin’

Vanessa Smith
Campus Compass

You tune up your amp, close your eyes and breathe for a moment. You imagine hundreds of screaming fans that have paid to see you.
Then you wake up. You are a musician who wants to perform, but doesn’t know where to start. How do you develop a career in musical performance? You must start from ground zero.
Oh, yes, starting at zero means basement shows and coffee houses. Try playing as much as you can to get publicity. Then, move on to paid gigs, such as bars and receptions.
 “I didn’t start performing publicly until half way into my education,” said Victoria Vox, a solo musician who has toured all over the United States. “After I graduated, I got a few jobs working retail until May 2003 when a singer and songwriter friend, Kellie Lin Knott, asked me to go on the road with her for two weeks and tour coffeehouses in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois.”
After many shows, Vox didn’t want to do anything but perform.
“My final decision was to quit my job to ultimately do what I wanted, and why not continue doing that?” Vox said. “So I never went back to another job and began my new job as a singer and songwriter.”
Once you, like Vox, have established solid ground in a few local places, you can think about bigger places to perform. Eventually you could plan a tour.
It’s not as impossible as you think. It just takes a while to get publicity for your band and connections in the business.  
[Our drummer’s] “cousin introduced us to this guy named Bryan,” said Josh Bublitz, the vocalist for the punk band, Attractive Disaster. “Bryan works with a lot of big name bands, clubs and bars in the Green Bay and Fox Valley areas. He offered us a tour with a national act. We all had to make sure that we were mentally in it 100 percent. Since we had never been on a tour, we didn’t know how to plan for it.”
Attractive Disaster was lucky with its connections. If your band isn’t as fortunate to know someone in the biz, then send out music samples and information  to a few venues after you’re established locally and keep following up with them. Meanwhile, keep playing shows and writing. Eventually, if you’re talented or persistent enough, you may land yourself a decent band to open for.
Vox was not as slick with connections.
“In the old days, I’d look at a map and think of all the places I could go,” Vox said. “Then, I’d map out a path playing a town every four to six hours.”
 She called clubs and coffee houses, and “after about the 200th call, I started getting better at it. After six years of gigging, putting me where I am now, I have an anchor gig, a festival or bigger gig, that dictates where and when I travel. Then I have to do my best to fill in the spaces.”
When you agree to play at a venue, negotiate a fair guarantee payment. If you are new, don’t expect a lot of money. The fairest guarantee would be a percentage. Consider 30 percent of the cover charge at the door. If the venue makes a deal offering to pay for a hotel room or even food, it is something you don’t have to pay for out of pocket. Just don’t pay money to play unless you have rich parents and your band sucks.
Overall, play some free shows and send thank you notes to the venues and the epic kegger parties you played when your band was in its infant stage. Practice and continue to write. Also keep promoting your band online, and update often. If your band isn’t having any luck with your music samples, maybe you should start writing more.
Vox’s believes “no one will work as hard for yourself as you, and the more you can accomplish on your own, the better off you will be.”
Bublitz believes in promotion and dedication by “striving for more than you think you can do.”
Now that you know the secrets to success, you and your band can be rock stars or country royalty.
The key is determination. The whole thing is a learning experience that can lead to a career.
If petty drama gets in the way, hopefully it will draw everyone in the band closer. If not, just form another group or go solo if you can.

Grab a friend or two, get in the garage and live out your rock ‘n’ roll fantasies.

A message from the department of rock

Allison Tappa
Campus Compass
Commentary

The play button is pressed. The baseline begins to thump. Two figures in headbands and sunglasses nod into a mirror that hangs on the bedroom closet door. The first figure has a brush in hand. The second holds nothing but air, hands position where a guitar might be. As a guitar riff starts, the second figure begins moving his hands as if he’s strumming along with the song, bobbing his head with the bass. Then, the first figure dramatically lifts the brush to her mouth and lip syncs the lyrics, without making a sound.
What happens in that bedroom in front of that mirror for the next three minutes and 40 seconds will never leave that room.
What follows is a strange choreography of jumps, kicks and leaps. The singer closes her eyes at the climatic high note of the ballad and throws her head back with emotion. Then the guitarist pulls out all stops for his solo, saving the craziest antics for this part.
This is air guitar, and it’s safe to say that the age of the air guitarist has ended.
Rock Band, one of today’s most popular games, has taken its place. Rock Band is a game where a person plays a guitar by hitting a sequence of buttons, including a strum key. In the game, there are options to play drums or do vocals.
While many people have played the game, Rock Band skills don’t help players pick up chicks (or guys). Surprisingly, most of students interviewed said they don’t play guitar or drums outside Rock Band.
Are the real musicians too cool to mess with fake guitars, drums and mics?
Melissa Winchell, a psychology and neuroscience major at UW-Oshkosh, started playing Rock Band without any guitar experience, but she has played the clarinet and harmonica in the past.  
Maybe orchestra kids like her  have always wanted to feel cool, and Rock Band helps them. Here’s a challenge to the creators of Rock Band—make a game centered toward band geeks and call it Pep Band.
Just think about it. There could be a fake trumpet, a flute, a saxophone—even a tuba. Sure, these instruments might not be sanitary. For those who worry about germs, a snare drum or marching band base could also be available. Although there would be sharing of drum sticks, even the spray-can sanitizer could get in on this deal. It’s a win-win situation.
This solution leads to the question, why has air guitaring and lip syncing disappeared? Are young people lacking in creativity? Is it because people have never heard of good bands before? The answers seemed to point to no.
Perhaps the world should be happy people are still enthusiastic about music in the first place. With schools cutting their music programs, maybe more kids are resorting to video games instead of working on perfecting a concerto. Technology is the future.
Rock Band is popular simply because it is fun. Not only can someone play great songs, but the player can also customize bands and characters, play all the instruments he or she  always wanted to play, and also get his or her friends together and play at different levels.
It’s sad to see air guitaring go by the wayside because there’s a loss of creativity when someone no longer makes his or her own sounds or jumps on the bed like a maniac.
It’s doubtful the craft of air guitaring will ever completely disappear, but for now, Rock Band rules as king.

Sammy Hagar performed recently at the Three Clans Ballroom at the Oneida Casino.

Music at Oneida is not a gamble

Michael Schilleman
Campus Compass

Gambling is not the only way to leave the casino a winner these days. With top-name acts playing Indian casinos across the country, UW-Green Bay students can go to Green Bay’s Oneida Casino to enjoy a variety of big-name musical performances. Some don’t cost a dime.
The casino has two venues for music—the Three Clans Ballroom and an area in the casino lounge. Its larger venue, the Three Clans Ballroom, is in the Radisson Hotel, which is connected to the casino. The capacity of the ballroom is 2,000 people standing and 1,500 seated.
Jewel and Smokey Robinson are a few of the famous artists who have performed at the casino. Phillip Doran, the entertainment manager for Oneida, says the variety of musical genres at the Three Clans Ballroom is endless.
“The type of music played is A to Z,” Doran said. “We’ve had everything from Stone Temple Pilots to Kenny Rogers.”
According to Doran, there are at least one to two shows in the ballroom each month. During some months, there can be as many as eight
Three Clans Ballroom shows are open to people of all ages. Tickets can be purchased at the concierge desk outside the casino.
Free lounge performances at 7:30 p.m. are also offered almost every Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.
“The act is done by 9 p.m., so it’s not too late,” Doran said. “You can get home and go to bed if you have school or work in the morning.”
The music in the lounge is inside the casino, so only people 21 and older are permitted.
Dustin Rauls, a senior business major from UW-Green Bay, says that music definitely adds to his experience at the casino.
“I love how the music is free at the casino,” Rauls said. “The music makes the atmosphere more fun.”
Vang Thao, a 22-year-old undecided undergraduate from UWGB, says she has only been to Oneida once or twice, but the music was her favorite part.
“Gambling has never appealed to me much, but I do like to shake my groove thing,” Thao said.
Just like the Three Clans Ballroom, the lounge showcases everything—from surf to country to bluegrass and rock. Previous artists have included Ray Price, Los Straightjackets, L.A. Guns and Firehouse.
“You don’t have to be a gambler to participate,” Doran said. “You can come hang out for the 90 minutes and enjoy the free music.”
The casino has more to offer than flashing lights, card tables and slot machines. Even though music may not come to mind when the word casino is mentioned, Oneida knows how to entertain.
For more information about dates and times of upcoming performances, check out Oneida on Facebook or Myspace.

We the Living
Pumping tunes through your veins

Ashley Ludvigsen
Campus Compass

We the Living, which has appeared at UW-Green Bay on several occasions, is a driven rock band that is out to make a difference through its music.
“We want to make people happy with our music,” lead vocalist John Paul said. “We have things to say that we feel need to be said, and said now.”
The music in the band’s albums, “Heights of the Heavens” and “Depths of the Earth,” is inspired by the band’s beliefs and philosophy.
“People have their beliefs, and they should have their own philosophy,” said John Paul. “That’s one of the ideas we want to send out through our music.”
Individuals and groups such as Cold Play, Radiohead and Joni Mitchell have influenced John Paul, whose band will be coming again to UWGB in the near future.
“We just make the music we love,” said John Paul, whose band members include guitarist Benjamin Shaefer and drummer Matt Homen.
Over the last year, the band has come a long way from when two college buddies John Paul and Shaefer, began it in Madison, Wis. With the addition of Homen, the Nashville-based band now performs all over the U.S.
The band has learned from its failures and has built on its success. It has shared the stage with other bands such as Hellogoodbye and has performed in front of big crowds.
Although the band is quickly getting its name out, it doesn’t make music merely for the fame or to get on MTV.
“We make music because it’s what we love to do,” John Paul said. “It’s great doing something you have passion for everyday.”

 

Lead singer John Paul of the band We the Living recently performed at the UWGB Phoenix Club.