Free Falls and Friday Tunes

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Coming to Northeast Wisconsin live from the Civic Media Studios and featuring TV and radio broadcast veteran John Minow along with the City of Green Bay's longest-serving mayor Jim Schmidt.

This is Minow and the Mayor.

And here are your hosts, John Minow

and Jim Smith.

Hey, thank you very much.

Welcome back.

Hour number three of Minow and the Mayor.

And a good-looking Friday morning, 97.9 FMW, GBW, 98.3, 96.5 FMW, ISS in Appleton and Oshkosh, and of course, the Civic Media app, along with the 1100 AM and 1590 AM.

48.

Thank you, Todd.

We've only been doing this for two years, and I've always had to look.

Norm, generally, I usually look when I have the signs up here with our frequencies, where it's like, couldn't quite.

What's the

frequency, Kenneth?

None of your business.

Dennis, I'm playing that next.

48 degrees in Green Bay, 52 in Appleton, 51 in Oshkosh, cloudy showers, possible storms this afternoon, high in the mid-60s.

We will take the mid-60s.

Oh,

man.

Vanessa Moran was

here two miles for autism.

Meadowbrook Elementary School tomorrow morning.

They're doing their walk and run.

Lisa Hale, new WISCO weekend.

They've got some unbelievable stories coming up.

Mark Hughes and Mitchell VanVoren from Belvin Sports Medicine.

Man, Mitchell's hoping to have his name called this weekend as a tight end of the National Football League.

Sam Ely and TJ Boles, hybrid wrestling entertainment.

And Todd, before we bring up these distinguished gentlemen and Dennis.

Tell us what we're giving away.

Oh, we got some tickets for tonight's epic center event.

Jim, you want to give us some details?

Sure.

Grand Union's playing.

They've been on... Grand Union is awesome.

Hey, Dennis.

Great friends.

Yeah, unbelievable friends.

They are, and they're good.

They are great.

They're bringing their whole orchestra out there, their whole band tonight.

They're here with two that ladies got a great voice.

Oh, incredible, yeah.

Incredible.

They're coming with their whole crew.

It's not the epic center tonight.

It's a charity fundraiser for the new community shelter, but 50 bucks.

And it's...

Tons of food.

Phenomenal food.

It is.

It is.

It's a great food.

I mean, phenomenal.

And it's, you know, there's seating, there's tables you can sit at and listen to this great music and there's silent auction and door prizes.

And it's just a great event.

And I'm sure a lot of you have been to the Epic Center.

But we're giving away tickets, two tickets to

whom?

Paradise.

Well, let's do

that tonight.

We will give them away.

You can text in right now if you'd like to go to the Epic Center tonight for the big show.

We'd love to send them.

Great event,

people.

No BS.

This is a great event.

Download the Civic Media app right now.

Choose your station, WGPW or WISS.

Lower right hand corner.

There's a text button.

Use that.

Say, hey, I want to go to the epic tonight.

And we will set you up with a pair of tickets that will be at Will Call.

And I actually got a text from the top bishop.

in the state.

He said, even though it's Good Friday, you can eat meat.

They got a special just for infestation.

From the top of character.

Because I fall.

I mean, I don't know if you guys, I'm in the, I'm in the Ultra Boy Hall of Fame.

Yeah.

It was a phenomenal fall.

You said a lot there, John.

Yeah, my hat sock is a little tired in

the Vatican.

Right.

I'm lying so much right now.

It's mine.

I'm

good Friday.

It's unbelievable.

Everything coming out of my mouth is a lie.

Except.

What a great event you guys where we got Dennis Peters here from the glam band of course every Friday We love having him here and you know the number one thing you know people can brag about Dennis being the great singer vocalist of the year He's up for the top award again in the state of Wisconsin the note.

I don't think of Dennis that way I think of Dennis as being a tremendous.

Oh look at that Jim.

Here's a 20 for you.

Thanks.

Thanks buddy Thanks friend

the thing I'm most proud about and most I don't just

Respectful with him tremendous military career.

Oh, yeah spent

many many years Raising his right hand saying he'd put his life in the line for our country and that's what I love having him We're talking about your great free fall thing good, but Dennis is like the most fervent Advocate for supporting veterans and veteran causes that you'll ever

meet.

I'm in.

Yeah.

Cool.

Cool.

Great to see you guys.

Thank you.

I love that shirt man.

That's pretty impressive

Is he the shirt?

It's a cool shirt.

Yeah.

I don't have a cool shirt.

Why don't I have a cool one like that?

I think it's the best sweatshirt in the business.

Well, I'll tell you

what, these guys do an event, and I've been involved with it.

What was the first year?

2015?

2015 was the first event in Almereau.

So let's talk a little bit with us, because I've always wanted to do it for whatever reason.

I swear to God, for 10 years now, something has come up on that day where I can't jump out of an airplane.

Here we

go.

Yeah.

With you

guys.

Here we go.

But

whatever.

Hey, Jim.

Howard.

Jim, actually,

wow.

insurance Jim

Jim who was a pothead somewhat I'm sorry so when he was at St.

Norbert he actually put a sign up on his door if you want to get high Saturday contact

true it's true that is true we needed 20 people to

skydive in Omro because it was much cheaper.

It was like $80 instead of like $150.

So I call that the

group rate.

Right.

It was the group rate.

So I said, if you want to get high, call room 319, which is where I live.

And people called and they're like, what's this all about, man?

And I'm like, hey, then they came up and I got the people we needed.

We all went out there on a Saturday and the training was like.

like an hour.

It just wasn't very in depth at all.

And then we went up, you know, it's 3,000 feet.

It wasn't no high,

but

it was static line.

Yeah, it was great.

That was a lot of fun.

And then back to his dormer, they got even higher.

Just learned the toggles.

And anyway, that was a real thrill.

And the truth that that's the first time I ever flew.

I jumped out.

Yeah.

That was cool.

I've

taken, I've taken plenty of people.

I

bet you

never, never been in an airplane.

Right.

and then they jump out.

I

want you guys to introduce yourselves and tell everybody what you guys do.

I want you to put it in your own words.

All right.

My name is Andy Van Handel.

I've been involved with the Freedom Freefall event since 2015.

When a good friend, John Mayno, was part of it.

Here's a whole history.

We could literally talk for hours about the history of the event.

Basically paired up with

My friend Vinnie here with the Hula group stands for helping out American heroes.

Just an incredible

group.

Tremendous organization.

They are an absolute machine in what they do for veterans in this state.

We got the event going where we pay for veterans to go on a tandem skydive.

To date, I think we put up over 200 veterans in the 10 years we've been

doing.

And again, I was telling these guys a story for when on the air.

The first year I was there in 2015, I did an interview with a guy.

The last time he had jumped off an airplane was on D-Day

in the

Invasion Dennis.

Unbelievable.

Yes.

Yeah, the first year I took nine veterans from six different wars in one day.

I went out to the DZ that day thinking it's just going to be miserable.

It's going to be hot.

And it was, it was August.

It was so hot.

It was mind-boggling.

It was miserable.

But I went home with tears in my eyes and not because of the work we did physically, but I call Will Culkin, who was the founder of Hula, Wisconsin.

And I said, brother, we're doing this every year.

I don't care what we have to do because it takes money.

It's guy diving is very expensive sport.

But we've literally

has changed lives doing it.

Just last year, I took a Marine Corps veteran and in the airplane, he was outright scared.

And there was a whole thing before the event.

His truck broke down, hooked him up with another veteran who I actually went to high school with and they carpooled down there.

I took David out of the airplane and when we landed, the other instructor in the plane says to me, man, I'm surprised you got him out because he was that scared.

Wow.

better part of this whole story is the next day, David messages me and said, that was more adrenaline than the battle of Fallujah.

Yeah.

And then I get chills just talking about that.

It's like, wow.

I mean, this is something with when these guys jump out of that airplane, they hit the ground, they're going, holy man, like,

okay.

Well, let's back up then.

Let's talk about a very, you know,

Poignant thing where this all began with we won't even say her name But a very good friend of ours where this whole thing came about and the prevention of sue I mean the main reason for this is to help bring awareness to suicide prevention.

Yeah with veterans So go ahead guys.

I shouldn't say just better But also not just veterans but their spouses their

girlfriends their boys

there.

Okay, so go ahead.

So we

back in 2014 or so, I was jumping at the drop zone in Pulaski, which we have our June 14th event this year.

And we have a July 12th event in Madison this year at seven Hillscott.

I was, but I was jumping up there and I had met charity.

I'm not a big believer in fate really, but I met her.

She told me her story is incredible story.

In the meantime, the drops on at the time had closed.

The owner closed the stores, couldn't afford to keep it open or whatever anymore.

And we had just kept in touch and she hooked up with the, the who a group and you know, her story was at, at her fiance.

It was a veteran PTSD suicide.

She had this whole thing.

She's going to try skydive and kind of memorialize them.

Yada, yada, yada.

She found out skydive was her therapy.

And I could understand that as a skydiver, I go back to 2001 when the whole world shut down after nine 11, all general aviation, rightfully so.

But I remember going out to the drop zone, being very angry at a lot of things.

Cause I couldn't jump.

Skydive was my drug, my form of therapy, you know?

Yeah.

Right there.

And it was, uh, that was the first year, the, the first freedom free fall event.

And, uh, I remember charity was in the airplane with me and, and Ali, who was our world war two fighter and she got some, some video of us jumping out and, and I tell you, it was life changing for me.

The, the, the first freedom free fall event.

I remember being in the airplane in Oli.

There was a Korean war veteran we took later on that day.

I'm

showing these guys pictures from that day.

Look at those smiles, man.

Yeah.

Hard to beat those.

Was I thinner then?

Yes or no?

A little

bit.

Perfect.

A little bit.

Thank God.

I see a free soul in that picture.

But that's, yes.

And

that's the World War II veteran

would

jump that day.

It is just so.

I was nervous in the plane.

My thought was don't break the veteran, you know, cause I mean, 95 with him.

Yeah.

95 years old.

He wasn't super mobile, but you know, so there's a lot of extra care.

You know, I, at the time, I think I probably had two or 3000 skydives.

I've currently have 3,800 now.

You've jumped 3,800 times.

Um, yeah.

I mean, that sounds like a lot.

If they go to a bigger drop zone and I'm a small fish in a big pond, you know, but around here, I'm a

big fish and a small pond.

So, but yeah, I know Vinny wants to talk more about who and the incredible again.

Let's get

right to the heart of why we do this or you guys do this.

Go ahead, Vinny.

All right.

I'm Vinny.

I've been part of veterans organizations for Chris Vincent, better Chris Vincent, better part of 20 years.

I just, I didn't serve myself, but I have the ultimate respect for all my, all my friends and family that did serve.

Thank you brother for coming.

Thank you for letting me and uh, it's just I tried to give back whatever way I can and I was fortunate to become a board member of who a Wisconsin and I took on will ask me if I would kind of take over the freefall project.

I said absolutely and my first and we're talking about will coconut comes on our show on a regular basis basically with with fourth who just a tremendous job, right?

And my first freefall event.

I tell you what it was

You go into it with the unknowns, but I tell Chelsea and will now that the only way you guys will take it away from me is if I die So this is such a great program.

I've had fortunate up to have so many so many awesome vets A lot of them came from dark places and they we do what we do with them and

It's like night and day.

It's like a light turns back on in their eyes.

We're

going to

send a

quick break.

When we come back, we're going to talk a little bit about that.

Again, we're going to get to the roots of this and how this is formed to help prevent suicide with veterans.

Andy Van Handel, Chris Vincent, and freedom freefall event coming up.

Veterans Salute Olsen legal group out of Oshkosh and New Berlin back right after

this.

In America too, she's a good girl.

She's crazy about Elvis.

Love Scorsese and her boyfriend too.

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started.

two very special gentlemen Andy van Handel and Chris Vincent Vinnie who are freedom free fall event veteran salute also Olson legal group who was a veteran of Purple Heart recipient from pretty much right around a Baghdad great great people down there Olson legal group in Oshkosh and Berlin and we're talking about the free fall event and Jim I give you credit I give you credit you did something that I could never do you jumped out of an airplane congratulations um for doing that

But we've got it.

We've got a great event.

It's 10.

This should be the 10 year anniversary.

Love this is the 11th.

Wow.

And where it all began, it began in, I don't want to say a dark place, but let's just be honest.

It

began.

But Dennis, read this text we just got here from Ted from Green Bay.

Oh, Ted says, I went to last year's event in Pulaski as a spectator.

The smiles on the faces of the veterans after they jumped was an incredible sight.

Airborne.

Ted from green Bay.

Thanks to that.

That is very true.

If I could just make a comment about that is a smidget, a smidget of the feedback we get.

I mean, it is crazy.

I mean, the goal of this year is to jump 20 veterans in Pulaski and 20 in Madison again.

You know, it's a lot of work on the back end on mine and Vinny's part.

You're doing the follow up, make sure we get people there and

let's go to that dark place.

Yeah.

So, I

mean, this part's all fun, but

there's a real dark place.

This

all began

the whole reason.

Yeah.

The whole mission of the event is to prevent veteran suicide and show these guys and gals life again.

Last year in Pulaski, we took two moms who lost their sons to suicide.

And I did not know there was not dry.

I am a whole place, man.

Like it was.

And I always submit an article to parachutes magazine after the event.

So much to the point that Laura at parachutes magazine looks forward to my article every year.

And I sent her literally a seven page word document this year, knowing it wasn't going to all get published because I, I wanted to get feedback from our, our moms that we took and.

And Laura at Perish's emails me back and she's like, well, this is awesome, but I have to cut it down for space.

I understood, but I had to get these stories out there.

It's important to literally life changing, you know, and it's, you know, some of these guys are right on the brink.

And, you know, back in November, I got a call that hopefully no one gets my sister took her own life.

And there were zero signs, man, like none.

My sister was not a veteran, but just go show you that the people that are, are awesome at who a week later was who was annual, uh, Rock March, their big fundraiser.

I called Tammy up who was the president of who, and I said, I don't know if I'm going to be there or making plans.

She asked me why I told her.

She's like, we got you.

And, and the support group, I mean, some of these guys, like, like this fella that just

Texted in this color.

He was 82nd airport Ted was

here.

Yeah, just come out and check out the event and the bond with veterans is so close to how skydivers are That's why this works so well because there's such a bond.

Okay to be in the military I mean Dennis can talk about this you got a step out of a comfort zone.

Yeah, I care helping

you or whatever, but it's a whole War I've got some of the toughest veterans I've ever talked to my lifetime and they say the same thing those first couple of nights they basically

cried in their bunks.

It's like, my God, what have I gotten into?

Is that true, Dennis?

Not for this guy.

Although the guy above me pissed his pants.

But what you guys do with those, you take them out of a comfort

zone

to a different place and that is therapeutic,

correct?

Correct.

Absolutely.

A lot of times you'll see it, they'll walk in and they're just kind of blank, they're nervous.

And then they're sitting around, they'll talk with the other veterans and

They get the norm a little bit.

Then you start putting the harness on them.

Then they know this is happening.

And then I drove her out of them.

I says, you know, there's only one way out of that plane.

And it ain't by you landing with it.

Right.

I mean, when the, when the doors open, it's Wendy.

No sounds a whole lot like gold.

So

he just keep going, you know, but John, you saw that first year of the event, we saw.

Afghanistan and Iraq veterans bonding with the World War two.

It was phenomenal.

Yeah.

It was just so cool to see like, and I remember bud, our Korean war veteran, I would, I would get these guys rigged up.

I'd walk them past their spectator friends on purpose so they could cheer them on.

And perp walk them.

You know, so somebody, uh, as bud is like, bud, you excited for this?

And he stops that as chest.

Well, yeah, you don't get excited for this.

You got

for brains, you know,

text her great job.

And you are so amazing, Jennifer.

I think that's Jennifer from last year that we took.

Yeah.

She's, I think she's a captain in the, in the military and in the army.

And I'll tell you, man, it's, it's a life changing event.

And when we started this fan, I think I had 16 years in the sport.

I've got one of my 26 season now and

When we started the event, it literally gave me a whole purpose to the point where when I went down to Seven Hills Skydivers in Madison, my friends got tired of me talking about it.

Now we've actually created within our club, we've created a committee for freedom free fall because it gets talked about every month, you know.

So there's still some openings, but the people just want to support you because you said this is not an inexpensive.

I mean, I think that was 40 years ago I did this and it was expensive.

So I mean, to put this on, if people want to donate, if they want to send you some money or

tell us about how we can go to the who a Wisconsin's website page, there's a donation tab on there.

You can just do a general donation or you can just designated for free to free fall if you like.

Um, any help is always appreciative because like it is, it's an expensive sport.

And you know what?

People can come out that day and help support.

Oh yeah.

I think that's really important.

The more the merrier.

I mean, you could get the more people to support these guys while they're doing their jumps.

I mean, the better it is.

It's just a great, great day.

You won't be

disappointed.

It's right here in Pulaski.

It's so easy to find, right?

And the date on that is again, June 14th, the Pulaski.

It's a, it's a Saturday before Father's Day.

And then we're having a July 12th event in, in Madison.

And that's actually what they call world skydiving days.

So the veterans that jumped that day become part of a skydiving world record.

And just kind of a cool little promo for these guys too.

You know, and it, uh, you know, another quick story last year, the first veteran that we took it in Madison, it.

was cloudy.

So they had to land with the plane.

We pointed up.

There's a hole they immediately took off.

But one of the first veterans that jumped was my cousin.

And his brother was there.

He's like, and they lost her dad a couple, couple of years prior, who was also a veteran.

And my cousin, Scott, looks like, boy, dad would be really proud of Shane right now.

Like Shane was deathly afraid of heights.

Dad was a carpenter and laughed at him his whole life.

So dad's proud.

So you guys are phenomenal.

Andy Van Handel.

Chris Vincent Huah and freedom free fall event veteran salute Olson legal group coming your way from Oshkosh and Berlin and coming up on June 14th in Pulaski.

Everybody knows where the little airport is

in Pulaski.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful work that you gentlemen do.

Thank you.

Thanks guys for having us.

Whatever we're going to

do to promote anything you guys do, we're here with you.

Come out and see us June 14th in July 20th.

Well, the teams get ready to choose their top draft pick.

You can help Mino and the Mayor choose their top craft pick.

Northeast Wisconsin is home to amazing breweries, wineries, cideries, and distilleries.

And we need your help picking the best.

We've drafted 10 of our favorites, but which local craft beverage creator will go to number one?

That's up to you.

Mino and the Mayor's top craft pick.

Drafting Northeast Wisconsin's finest one sip at a time.

Now, back to Mino and the Mayor.

Here's John Mino and Jim Schmidt.

Hey, thank you very much.

Welcome back.

Hey, can I just mention you broke your microphone.

Can you help John with his microphone?

While we're waiting for that to get fixed, I will just say this.

Don't forget that today at five o'clock is the final time for you to vote for Mino and the Mayor's top craft pick.

And if you haven't done that already, what you want to do is you want to go to our website, wgbw.fm or wiss.fm.

Right at the top, you'll see a big banner that says Top Craft Pick.

Thank you, Amanda.

The things we have to do for you guys.

But you want to do that today before five o'clock and then next week, Wednesday on this show, we will announce the winner of the Top Crafters, right?

And we'll also announce the winner that voted that's going to walk away with $250 and gift cards from all of the participating sponsors.

And the dentist just mentioned the winner.

He's going to do a live concert for free.

Really?

I didn't realize that.

Oh,

wow.

The things they make me do around here.

Give me the day

after he jumps out of the plane with her bunny.

In fact, he'll do a concert on the way down.

Oh, perfect.

I could have a nine-way tie.

Those are all great.

And to see it, to taste it is great.

I'm big on packaging and it's just really cool, the effort they put into that.

And so many of our family owned, which I love that too.

So yeah, that's gonna be fun.

It's incredible.

The quality of product, these people and the quality of people that are doing these things.

And the cool

thing that we've learned from them, and just like the guy in Fond du Lac, wonderful young man, it's like, well, the water is from our backyard in the hills where the limestone filters the water.

And then we grow the corn

right out the window.

And that goes in.

So I mean, it's so organic.

It's incredible.

history to it.

And it's just, yeah, it's fun.

That's going to be very cool.

And our goal is to get to every one of them because some of them, besides making a great product, they have like festivals, but like like music, you know, in the summer, summer hours and tours.

So I want to, and it's all right here,

right?

Right here, within an hour

drive.

Appleton, Green Bay.

And so that's all right in our district.

And the other thing we have to do is, you know, is become more conscious with the environment.

It's good to buy local.

Amen.

So, I mean, Jabison's good and some of this other stuff, but Greg Goose, but it's also right here that is grown here.

So, or made here, I should say.

Absolutely.

Anyway, what is time for our mind on the mayor live music series with Dennis Peters from the glam band.

First of all, we got to talk about your gigs coming up.

I hope you're resting this weekend.

No,

man, do you have really?

No, we're playing at Tanner's on Saturday in Kimberly.

Fantastic venue.

I love Tanner's.

Can't wait to play.

I'm ripped.

I'm so excited about it.

I love

stopping there after doing high school football games.

I can't believe stopping at Tanner's for

a little sandwich.

It's right there.

The food is so good.

They have an ool outside, too.

It's one of the few places around that has an actual pool.

When the summer season kicks in, it's a fantastic place to be.

Tell us about those two weeks.

Next coming week.

We'll be playing.

Let me say that again.

We will be playing at Stadium View Thursday and Friday.

And we can't wait for that.

And do you know that they have

13 bands playing, I mean

you're two of them, but we had, Melissa, who's their director of marketing?

Maddie, it's Maddie,

Maddie is on

here, she's on her show.

They are really going all in on this draft and I just hope, I hope a lot of people show up and we're expecting 250,000 people, I'd like to see 250,000, 300,000 people here because there's some great events, Badger State's doing a lot of things, obviously Anduzzi's is too, but I saw your name on that list a couple times.

Just like Mark

Huston was saying, it's free.

Right.

It's free, you know, so cool.

You have no, no, check

it out.

I don't know how many gigs you guys do a year.

All of

them.

Yeah.

Hundreds.

But it's cool.

It's like, you're going to have an audience that's never seen you before.

Every time.

Yeah, especially when we play.

Houston, Dallas,

Los

Angeles, wherever, seeing you guys.

I think that's kind of cool.

It is really, it's really cool.

And it's something we don't take for granted.

That's for sure.

Good for you.

Well, introduce our talent right

here.

Sit

next to us, brother.

Well, I don't know how he wants to be called today, so we didn't have a chance to speak pre-game here, if you will.

So I'll let him introduce himself and how he'd like to be addressed.

And I don't mean any disrespect in that.

Oh, absolutely.

Go right ahead.

Because he's an artiste.

And I don't want to mess with that.

No, I

understand your confusion.

My name is Brandon.

I go by strategic.

There you

go.

That's my stage name, yes.

So yeah, good to be with you guys this morning.

Great

to have you

here,

man.

I got to ask about the name, strategic.

That's like.

Almost

sounds like a wrestling

name.

Yeah, wrestling's in here.

It's my rapper name.

And it's both of a matrix, I don't know.

Yeah, so I was in a band in college and we just kind of broke up, graduated and all that stuff and just went solo and tried to figure out what kind of name I wanted and what kind of path I wanted to go on and so strategic means like a thought out purpose

or an on purpose.

You guys are all over the place.

I'm strategic.

To hell with you.

Yeah, exactly.

He's bad.

He's nationwide.

Right.

I'm still doing this.

How long have you been on your own?

It's been just over 15 years now.

Oh, wow.

I mean, that's not been a while.

Well, that's good for you.

I've known this cat for a while.

He doesn't age.

It's amazing.

I don't know what is it the water?

Is it the rain barrels?

You know, it's not the

water.

I don't really drink a

lot.

What are you doing real

life unless I'm playing shows when you're not strategic?

Oh always strategic always, you know, I do a lot of stuff.

I do art.

I do some teaching Oh, well and doing some substitute teaching and stuff like that.

Well, that's cool And we're from we're born and raised the whole thing gives all the

bad born and Appleton went to school Milwaukee came back to Appleton been playing all around the state

We talked about this all the time and obviously the glam band is you know, so well known of it, but there are so many talented people

in northeast Wisconsin, we're blown away sometimes,

ain't ya?

And you gotta be pleased with what the community has been doing to elevate that.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Especially in Appleton, we have mild music.

I know.

Actually, when coming up this week, are you performing this week?

Don't they have a mini-mile of music coming up?

I think they

put 11 of you guys on.

They have something going on, yes.

But I'm not part

of it.

Okay.

They just want to give a taste of they want to get people back, right?

That's why we're all doing events is to get people to come back, right?

And not you want to showcase what you have but anyway, Appleton does a great job from Myla Music, P.A.C.

Just you guys, Lawrence, of course, turns out some great product.

Yeah, that's great to see.

Yeah.

All right.

It's your specialty.

Yeah.

As far as

music.

Yeah, growing up, what did you want to do?

What kind of music did you listen to?

All those things.

I mean, I had a pretty eclectic taste and I still do it.

I like a lot of rock stuff.

I mean, I kind of found my way to, you know, not, not a lot of the radio stuff and tried to find different.

We're going to do some radio stuff right now.

We're putting you on

the

spot

right

now.

What he's

saying is I just said, let's hear some of that music.

He prefers talk radio and thank you for that.

I don't think that's

what he was saying

to be

honest

with you.

I heard something like that interpretation.

I heard strategic interpretation, if you will.

All right.

Let's hear some brother.

All right.

I'm gonna do for you guys a Song from my most recent album that came out last year called possibilities and this is a song called with my beating

heart

Make it through this, I just don't know how Chances to prove myself every single day Not afraid to fail and learn from my mistakes

I still have so much left that I can give

Dennis from the Glam Band Music Series.

Hey, I heard you have got something new coming out.

Yeah, so... Something

unique.

Always.

Always.

A life

of a musician.

Well, something for our future.

So tell us about that.

Yeah, so that project came out last year and since then I've been... Which is?

Yeah, I've been recording and working on a kids album.

Yeah, I've heard

about

that.

Yeah, actually it's a second volume.

I already released another volume back in...

22.

So it's been out a while and

yeah, it's been a lot of fun.

And what's the message there?

Is it about their, you teach them anatomy?

No, I'm just kidding.

So yeah, I mean, I just, just kind of in line with a lot of what I do, you know, just trying to, you know, be more of a positive voice.

Nice.

And you mentioned

encouraging.

Your teacher.

Uplifting.

Yeah, I work with kids quite a bit.

So.

It was just kind of a natural thing that happened during COVID.

My kids and I playing around and just writing these silly songs.

That's

awesome.

It's

like other people might want to hear these.

I think that's really cool.

Dennis?

Oh, indeed.

Yeah.

So, you know, here's another example, ladies and gentlemen, of an artist around here that I really think should be on a higher level.

And, you know, nothing to, you know...

about this area.

I'm just saying he should be nationwide, you know, worldwide.

His music should be out there on that level.

I mean, how do you sing and play so cleanly on a Friday morning?

That's what I want to know.

That's a good word.

Clean.

It's

pure.

Your voice is just, it's absolutely show ready at 830 in the morning.

He hasn't gone to bed yet.

Is that it?

Doesn't work for me, man.

Not usually, but.

Tell us about the kids aspect.

I think that's what type of message are you trying to send in your music to kids?

Well, I think it's a couple things I think you know, especially in this area.

I think family is a big thing and so Just kind of playing into that a little bit with all the great things that we have going on in this Northeast, Wisconsin area and just just kind of realizing that a lot of a lot of the people that we know and friends have a lot of kids and

I'm just kind of seeing the culture of music and just trying to be something out there.

But music is a great, and Dennis, I mean, you guys do this to me, we can talk about, you know, okay, we're crazy, 80s rock, but there's, there's something that connection that you can make through music that you can't

do

in speaking in

a

halt.

Do you understand?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

You can create dreams, you know, for me, for me, music has opened up my.

uh, insides to the possibilities of something outside of myself, you know, uh, something to aspire to, something to get out of, you know, something holding me back, you

know.

Can we come back?

Can you play us one of your kids' songs?

Yeah.

Okay, good.

I want to hear that.

I just think that's great.

And I want to get, you know, how people can get your music.

We'll talk about that.

But yeah, that's, I think that's awesome.

Good stuff.

Awesome.

Love

it.

Thanks.

Strategic in the house, Dennis.

Peter's in the glam band in the house.

How you doing?

It's our favorite part of the week.

It's a Friday.

Back after

this.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website,

civicmedia.us.

this next week or so.

That's a rumors get started.

I know, but we're with strategic

right now.

A wonderful local artist.

And I love this.

I mean, we've talked about artists, you know, whatever.

We've never had one that is passionate about doing songs for kids.

And I think this is so you have kids yourself.

I do.

And your teacher.

Yeah.

So this is something near and dear.

Tell us about doing something like this, writing songs and producing them for children.

Well, the nice thing is they're shorter.

The

kids or the songs and the kids.

Yeah, shorter attention spans too.

Well

said.

That would work for us.

Yeah, I know.

It's been a different process, different in recording, in promoting it.

So it's been a huge learning curve.

So yeah, it's a whole different ball game, but it's fun.

A lot of

fun.

Our friend of the show Billy Greissack also has been doing some kids songs for a long, long time.

He's got still dealing with some health issues.

Want to say hi to Billy and whatnot.

Mr. Billy.

I love

Billy.

So he just want to say that we're looking out for him and thinking of him.

So when it comes down to the motivation to write kids songs, we're talking about that a little bit.

How do you get your music out there?

Do you do schools programs or how do you...

move your music to get into the ears of young people.

Yeah, I've done a lot of different things.

I've done some festivals and I've done farmers markets and a lot of different things like that.

I've been in a few schools and libraries and that's something that I want to push a little bit more with this next release.

Trying to get out there into the community.

I love doing community events.

That's, yeah, that'd be huge.

I think that's a good market for you simply because it's basically untapped and you can make a living during the day doing such a thing and schools pay for that stuff.

I'm just saying that out loud because, you know, I think that's a fantastic way for a guy like yourself to get your music out there, get paid decently, I mean, really decently for that as well.

Well, there's like ask musicians if there was one thing that influenced you.

A relative of your parents

took that spark and they encouraged it.

A teacher or maybe somebody that you saw on TV or listened to.

I'm always curious as to what made you give your life to this.

In general?

Is

there

a

person?