Aftershock's Brad Van preserving the classic arcade experience

You found Wisconsin's local music authority.

This is MagSync Radio.

We are local music.

Brad Van, he's been living two lives.

One is a founder and guitarist and vocalist

for local legendary Stoner Rock Band, droid's attack.

And the second running classic arcade machines

in Wisconsin since the late 90s.

He opened his first location of aftershock classic arcade

on the north side of Madison in year 2000.

And now aftershock is the largest arcade bar in the state

with over a hundred arcade machines and two party rooms.

Nice.

Brad Van, welcome to MagSync Radio.

Hey, thanks for having me, man.

So Brad, I noticed that you are still using your AOL email.

Yes, what's up?

Everybody's on Gmail and now you're on AOL.

Yeah, well, I've, I've always had it.

And I just, I mean, when my, when my band first started,

I just started, you know, using that screen name.

And I just never got rid of it.

You know, it's the contacts, right?

Moving the contacts from one place to another isn't possible.

Yeah, well, I got a Gmail account,

but I just forwarded to my AOL.

That's a big circle.

It's a big circle, you know, I'm a creature of habit.

Man, I'm really consistent looking at it.

Oh, that's funny.

I know, well, I've known Brad for so many years

and we definitely corresponded over chat many times

on AOL, right?

I was on AOL way back in the beginning.

Do this still have chat?

I think so.

I haven't used AOL chat in like the longest time.

I mean, AOL somehow it just connects some.

AOL, that comes from AOL chat, man.

Yeah, you know, all that stupid stuff.

Yeah, it's funny.

Brad, I've been following your music career

since the mid-90s and tell us a little bit

about Brad van the musician.

I mean, you started on drums

and now your founder, singer and guitarist

were Droid's tech.

Yeah.

I mean, I wanted to be a drummer in a band

and all the bands that I ever joined drums

or joined as the drummer.

You know, eventually they would break up

and I'd put all this work into like putting my parts down.

I mean, I know you probably know what that's like, right?

I do.

You're a drummer.

And anyway, I just kind of thought, man, you know,

I should probably learn how to play guitar

if I want to be in a project that I can take with me.

Yeah.

So that's what I did.

I decided I wanted to keep playing music

because it's one of my favorite things to do.

And so I started learning how to play guitar.

Like I started like when I was 18.

And by the time I got good enough

to start kind of playing the music,

I really wanted to play.

Like I started off playing, you know,

like my old band, Daisy Hadmeasy,

that you're familiar with,

was kind of more like a strummy, you know?

Yeah.

Like like open chord kind of singer songwriter stuff.

Very like alt rock kind of influenced.

But I really wanted to play like the heavier stuff, you know?

Like it was really into helmet,

sound garden, allos and chains, you know, bands like that.

And I tool.

And yeah, when I started learning how to pick, you know,

a little better and riff a little more,

I started taking it into a different direction.

I decided the name didn't fit anymore.

So I wanted to do droids attack

and keep that sound as consistent as I could.

Man, that, it's a great story.

I remember wasn't, wasn't you played drums

where Jolly naked fisherman was it?

Yeah, we started that band.

I think I was, I mean, in 16, 17, I can't remember.

Did you guys play naked or what?

No, it was just, you know,

they only fished naked.

We came up with that name.

It was, you know, how it is when you got like four guys

and you're trying to come up with something.

I think we all just wrote down a bunch of words.

Or just kind of, yeah, and we just sort of came up with that

and thought it was funny.

It made us laugh.

So we stuck with it.

Now, excuse me, I grew up in the 80s.

I spent many rolls of quarters playing asteroids

and Robatron at the local bowling alley.

And what was your favorite game?

And what inspired you to start preserving

classic arcade machines and keeping the classic arcade

experience alive?

And well, you know, one of the first games I remember

was Pac-Man.

Yeah, I was like very young

when video games first hit.

And they were all the rage.

And I remember I was like at a bowling alley

playing Pac-Man with my aunt.

And I just, I don't know, I just remember that one.

Those are the first arcade machine I ever bought.

Yeah.

So that's a favorite of mine just because of the,

you know, like the memories, but, you know,

joust tempest, a lot of those games,

Zach's on, you know, I could go on.

I'd really, really just dig arcades.

And, you know, back then you could go anywhere

and there would be a machine.

So whatever it was, I'd want to check it out and play it.

And, you know, over the years, I just kind of,

yeah, I was in that scene.

So I knew what games were cool.

And when the arcade industry was, was in the decline

back in the late 90s, you could,

they were just giving these things away.

I bought my first Pac-Man machine at a Euro Restaurant

on Williamson Street for a hundred bucks.

And I was like, man, if I could buy this game for a hundred bucks,

I'm going to start an arcade.

And so I did, and my first arcade was on Northport Drive.

Yeah, it was, you know, I just, I just spent about,

I don't know, three years collecting,

about 50 machines when I opened that place.

How did you learn how to fix them?

Well, you know, back then it was a lot harder.

There was this message group I was on

called Recreational Games Video Arcade Collecting.

So RGVAC, and there were a lot of other collectors on there.

And, you know, you'd say, hey, I've got a Pac-Man machine

and the monitors, you know, looks like this.

And somebody would tell you what to look for.

And eventually, you know, like I met my technician, Al,

and him and I have been working together

since I bought my second machine.

I bought it from him.

He had it in his kitchen, a game called Rolling Thunder

by, well, Atari put it out, but it's a name co-game.

And it's a great game, love that game.

And ever since then, he's been helping me fix games.

Now he works at the arcade.

Back then, you couldn't really find a lot of parts.

If you weren't in any sort of scene like that,

there were not any like emulation and everything was there,

but it wasn't like, you know, with Raspberry Pi,

or any of these things that people do now

to, you know, like make games at their home,

like cabinets and things.

Parts, people make, you know, reproduction parts now.

It's a lot easier now than it was back then.

We were definitely one of the pioneers of that stuff.

Oh, yeah.

Brad, after shock has been at several locations

as you said over on the north side,

that was behind Young Garden Center.

And now you've settled on East Washington Avenue here

in Madison with more than 100 games

and two party rooms.

Tell us about your arcade.

It's like, you know, just,

I've been wanting to have like either like a pizzeria

or a bar or something.

So, you know, I've been looking for partners over the years

and I finally found one that wanted to do a bar with me.

And so, you know, at this time though,

this is like, I don't know, 20 years or so.

I can't remember how long it's been.

And I just had so many games and we needed a big space.

And so, yeah, I just was like,

I have more games than we can fit in the space.

So, yeah, we got a full bar and a lot of games

that you can't find anywhere else.

That's right.

I know, because I've looked.

I've played a couple of them.

Yeah, yeah, we have, you know,

it's kind of more like a museum

than it is like a straight-up arcade.

But it's a working museum, right?

Yeah.

It does bring back, you know, many memories.

Honestly, when you walk around and you see that the graphics

sometimes are just, you know, that the actual physical game.

Yeah, or a pinball machine.

Sure. Yeah.

We got about 21 pinball machines

and the rest, we got like ski ball,

we got air hockey, you know, like a lot of the typical stuff,

you know, that you find at other arcades,

but then you know, we'll have like Indiana Jones

and the Temple of Doom.

We'll have Missile Command.

Oh, yeah, we got Missile Command.

We got Robotron.

Oh, yeah, those are very like,

those are like the core classics of you that those.

But, you know, you can't really,

you don't see dragons layer, you know,

at a lot of these places.

You don't see, you know, like a pack land or, you know,

like, you know, some of these more kicks, you know,

discs of Tron.

I don't think anybody else has a disc of Tron in Wisconsin.

Um, you remember the tabletop football games

that you'd have a roller ball.

Yeah, you're sorry.

Yeah, we've got some cocktail table games.

We've got a, you know, but I put them out and like as tables

for people to use them as tables,

but they don't seem to understand like,

you can't use this as a table.

Like it's, but I used to use this as a table all the time

at Pizza Hut when I was a kid.

Is it still a quarter?

Oh, yeah.

We use tokens and the tokens are a quarter each, yeah.

Now, every Tuesday night after Shaqosa pinball tournament,

is there anyone in town who you would say is the pinball wizard?

Oh gosh.

Yeah, there's a lot of very talented people in town.

We've got this one fella who comes every week

and he's in the top three every week.

Wow.

And yeah, he's just very, very good and practices a lot, I guess.

I mean, I see him at the arcade when we're not having

our tournaments and stuff too.

Yeah, stamina.

Well, yeah, I just, you know, the reflexes you need for that

and the, you know, like just the understanding of the physics,

I guess, I don't know the magnet.

Yeah, maybe he has a magnet in his pants.

And he's like, he got it like a left lean.

So instead of going straight down the middle,

it goes to the left, I think that's probably it.

Well, what's the tournament?

So every Tuesday between six and seven,

you sign up and you warm up, it's a $5 buy-in.

And then at the end of the night, the top three get a cash prize.

We do like a three strike knockout.

So you play against somebody if you lose, you get a strike.

And, you know, you play at least three rounds.

And if you, you know, get three strikes, you're out.

And then we just go until we have a winner.

And that is pretty cool.

Well, back to aftershock classic arcade

is one of the sponsors who came together

to make the rocker jamboree happen at the burrow in Madison

on Sunday, May 4th.

It features legendary Madison bands

who haven't played together for many years,

including last crack, magic seven, mind ox, and subatomic.

It's a benefit for mama cares,

a part of Madison area music association

that helps our musicians in their time of crisis,

usually medical.

And it's also helping me in kind of some of my medical crisis

as I recover from a serious medical incident.

Brad, I can't thank you enough for aftershock.

Help me.

Well, glad to, man, and glad you're still here.

I'm glad I'm still here.

That was scary.

Whenever the news, man, I was like, oh, dude,

that's my good pal.

That was pretty cool.

You were the one you came out on Facebook

and you had a very memorable post you made.

Thank you.

You're welcome, man.

Well, I meant every word.

And find more details on aftershock,

classic arcade on Facebook and Brad Van,

thank you so much for coming into the studio tonight.

We really appreciate it.

Sure, no problem.

Thanks for having me.

Now, the rocker jamboree, as we were saying,

was happening at the Burr Oak Sunday, May 4th.

And one of the bands that's getting back together

Rob is mind ox.

And mind ox was a band that came about after last crack

with Pete Ress on guitar and butto on vocals from last crack.

And we have another song queued up.

And we're going to hear it for the first time here

on Maxine Gradio, Jefferson, Penn Dervis, mind ox.

You're listening to Maxine Gradio.

We are local music.

If I had my way, I think you loved me every day.

If I had my way, I'd keep you here with steady chains.

If I had my way, I'd drag you down.

Can you see it?

And we let anybody take you away.