Now that Bob Schillinger is back on lead guitar with Full Tilt, a band that often plays at the Willow River Saloon in Burkhardt, including this Friday, Jan. 8, I can recall open mic sessions he helped lead with lavish licks at a different music venue, Dick’s Bar and Grill every Sunday. This was many years before this musical format gained mainstream popularity and prior to some of the players moving their act to other places such as up the street at the former Twisted Grille.
Bob told me that another band with members from those days and around western Wisconsin, Breaking Point, had just formed and was set to play their first gig Up North on Halloween weekend, with a trademark being multiple musicians sharing lead vocals and doing it well.
That resonated with me, also. Not to toot my own horn, (especially since I can’t play an instrument worth a darn,) but the following are some of my fondest memories from singing in an often impromptu fashion at those open mics with Bob and the boys, which included for shorter durations some other talented players, not just Bob, but gave me an appreciation for all their talent and flexibility.
– A soul singer and I did a duet to what became known simply as “Watchtower,” where we individually careened high and low on the vocals, almost to the point of having the difference fly out of control during the Jimi Hendrix standard, only to bring it together at the last moment. (After a while, since I’d sung this standard with them dozens of times, I got a little bored and started doing some funky things with my voice).
– One night between sets, Jason picked his bass and started laying down the track, solo, for Black Sabbath and Fairies Wear Boots. I ran up, grabbed the mic and began singing verses. This was followed by a lead guitarist and drummer following suit and getting up on stage, and it turned into a full-fledged jam. Reminds me of a guy I knew back in that day who trekked to Somerset and OzzFest as part of what he called a “Planet Caravan,” referencing another classic song from that Sabbath album.
– When lead guitarist Geno of Saving Starz first pulled into the house on one of those late nights, he heard Watchtower being sung by “someone just shredding it, and I walked around the corner and it was Joey!” In particular, Geno referenced holding the last note “for what seemed like a minute.”
– Likewise with Hardy of the former Scott Sellner blues band, who started bowing down from the back of the room and saying “I didn’t know a white boy could sing the funk like that.” This black rhythm guitarist should know of what he speaks.
– The overly enthusiastic guys in the house band, particularly JJ on drums who would look my way and nod repeatedly and emphatically, yelled in the first few bars for me to come up midstream and sing a Neal Young song, Rockin’ in the USA. I did my best to recall the words and fill that bill without sounding as ill prepped as many a Bush speech; the president not the rock band.
– I once offered to Bob to rip through Rock ‘n Roll by Led Zeppelin, to which he said, “you know how to do that?” Much better then The Immigrant Song, where I’d always seem to sing the third verse as the second stanza, then forget the middle verse completely.
– The sessions actually got their start at the former Sandbar, where in doing “research” for a newspaper article, I was challenged by bassist Scotty Danger to get on stage myself. I responded in print that I would get up with the guys and do the only song I could think of that we all would know, “Gimme Three Steps.” Alas, with all the ad lib guitar solos, I quickly had used up all my verses and stood around waiting sheepishly for the song to end.
– Later, when the open mic shifted to the former Dibbo’s and took on a harder sound, a guy paid me $5 and a free drink to sing Mother by Danzig. As also was the case with a patron and Judas Priest, where the ante was upped to $20 to do everything from that band on a karaoke play list.
I apologize for making this all sound extravagant, but as Brian Adams once sang, “those were the best days.”