
Transcript
A Nostalgic Night with Mascot Theory (Hour 2)
Nite Lite with Pete Schwaba and Greg Bach · Fri Aug 29, 2025
Everybody was out smoking them if they got them.
Well, welcome back.
We are kicking off Act 2 here at Nightlight on this Friday pre-long holiday weekend show.
Hope everybody's in a great mood.
It is great to have you here being part of the show.
We got a lot of text we'll get to.
We'll do that soon.
If you're just joining us, our question of the night is, name a store.
Or what is a store to make it an actual question that you miss browsing in stores that are no longer around due to mall closings or whatever I say music land Conrad said black blackbuster blockbuster
Yeah, Prangie Wayne and Chess King.
I thought of another good one that was a fun one at the mall.
You know, if you didn't really, if you had to be there, because you know, mom was doing some shopping, but you wanted to kill some time.
Spencer's GIFs was awesome.
Oh, yes.
That's a great one.
Yeah.
I think so.
It's like right up there with Brookstone.
But let us know.
That's our question of the night.
Be part of the show.
855-752-4842-8557-5CIVIC.
Also, if you have not gotten your text word in tonight, folks, there is still time.
This is the Nightlight Last Chance summer getaway.
As you know, we have just a little bit of summer left here, and we are doing this really cool concert.
All right, concept.
What is it?
Conrad, it's a contest.
Yes.
I can't make mistakes like that with an actual pro radio person sitting next to me.
It's
very, it's very
You're the pro.
I don't have somebody else like doing all the... You don't have a Conrad?
No.
Oh, come on.
I got to do all the heavy lifting myself.
You know, we came in here and I don't know, people can't see it because it's out of camera range.
I mean, there's like a whole food spread that eat.
No, I'm just kidding.
Conrad whipped up a
Conrad's like, please hire me away from this monster.
But we do have the nightlight last chance, summer getaway.
And our keyword is, for tonight, is dine.
D as in David, I-N-E, dine as in diner.
What other examples can I give?
I gotta make sure people understand that.
Dine.
Like...
like fine, but with a D. So text that in on the app folks and you're eligible to win an overnight stay at Chula Vista and we're even throwing in some free grub.
It's worth 175 bucks and it is all yours if you are the winner.
So good luck everybody.
You still have time.
And all you have to do is send a text.
What else do we say, Conrad?
What else do we miss?
What do I need to recap?
Conrad's bummed
The candy, yeah, you gotta clarify that.
Go out and eat cow dung, folks.
My name is Conrad Greger.
Yeah, we covered that too.
We got some texts, we'll get to those.
Let's do steady eddy.
Steady eddy texted in early tonight, and we usually, I'm under the gun on Fridays to get through a steady eddy text.
But we'll do Steady Eddie right now.
He says, Pete, I miss Kmart.
I would go with my dad on a Saturday.
Oh, that's great.
Because the one of Menominee just closed like two years ago.
So that made me think maybe there are still some out there, but.
Anyway, either way, Everett from Sun Prairie, some clarification on a previous text.
He says the exclusive company was a small record store chain rumored to be a Chicago mafia front.
How do you like that?
I went to the Blue Mountain Road and Brown Deer Road locations in Milwaukee.
The question is Everett, did you ever whack anybody?
That's what I want to know.
I'll sneak one more in here before we get back to Eric Tyler from Wisconsin Rapids.
Also, Drucker's general store in Hooterville.
See, Tyler likes to get these cheeky things and I think he always has some kind of innuendo.
Pickles in the barrel, another one, or the best.
I've never heard of that.
Have you heard of Drucker's, Eric?
Well, Sam, you know, I believe Sam was running it up until his death a few years back.
Sam Drucker?
Yes.
Are you playing
is that?
That's from
TV show.
Petticoat Junction or whatever, yeah.
text is referring to?
I'm pretty sure.
Tyler, how old do you think I am?
So it would be, and there's a couple shows that use that.
They use Druckers.
Well, Sam Drucker's, Drucker's general store in Wooderville.
All right.
Hooderville sounds like a nice little Berg.
Dave says, I don't want to get censored.
He was the one that typed in porn, but he spelled it all kinds of different ways earlier.
And then he also said tempo, which was a store in Menominee, Michigan that was like, I always confused it, like when targets came out, I thought, oh, they're bringing back, oh no, that was tempo.
Kind of the same department store, but have you guys ever heard of the tempo?
No.
All right.
It's a Marinette Menominee original.
All right, my guest in studio folks is Eric Westfall.
You can hear his work here on WGBW afternoons from two to six, spin in the oldies, break into the news, do in time and temp.
Yeah.
Right?
That's a radio thing.
Well, yeah, but there's other people that do that.
So I don't have to.
But you have to go to it.
Yes.
Yeah.
Nobody can blame me, though, you know, if it's the weather's bad.
I didn't give the forecast.
Conrad gives a mean five day
He can't predict the future.
All right, so you're also an actor, Eric.
We covered your radio career more or less.
People can hear you on WGBW every day.
I was saying this to Dan Marcus last night.
Like, oldies, like, I would imagine the ratings are gonna go through the roof because who doesn't love oldies?
You're playing nothing but
hits.
Yeah, and nobody, there's not another place.
You can get that unless you go online or get Spotify or something like that and pay money for it.
Right,
that sounds
but you've
that.
I have, you know, and I think this goes, I probably, this started when I was a little kid, like I would wear like,
Different clothes and that I would keep costumes and then create characters like my mom would come home from work And suddenly I'd be some little man or say you know so I think that's where it first started But you know that I was very excited once getting to high school and actually being able to do plays in that So I've been doing it all my life.
Sometimes the job is you know doing nights obviously
rehearsals and shows are at night,
was doing nights in wasa, I couldn't act.
But when I moved to Green Bay, I was very excited because I would have the nights free again.
And the first show I did was within months of here with Evergreen Theater called Inherit the Wind.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, it's about the Scopes Monkey Trials.
It's based on real life.
And I was the defense attorney.
Dude, I could totally see that.
Yeah, it was so cool.
And at that point, Evergreen performed at St.
Norbert at the Webb Theater, which is a thrust stage.
So, you know, we put the courtroom scene like right down in the people's face and, you know, we're going at
other.
It was pretty cool.
And at this point, I don't really think there's a theater group that I haven't worked with in an area in some capacity.
is
here?
It actually is.
It actually is doing pretty well.
You've got...
just across the River Green Bay Community Theater, who has their own space on Walnut Street there, the Librault Playhouse.
Evergreen Theater in Dupere, they've had to move around a little bit lately, but they've been in the area for a long time.
Play by Play Theater is a little bit newer, but they're more of a semi-professional group.
They're the ones who have brought the the Shakespeare summer Shakespeare 2019 was the first year that they brought it in Whitney Park Just down the street a little bit and then within the past couple of years we brought it to some other locations including the tidal town area over by Lambo and at Heritage Hill and It's been pretty it's been a lot of
You get a little bit of everything.
You know, it's free.
So people are like, hey, what's going on?
You know, food trucks and stuff.
But the first year that they did it, it was just one show.
And they had no idea what was going to happen.
The weather ended up being very nice because obviously your weather dependent was doing it outdoors.
And they don't have a full count, but there had to be at least 1,100 people or more.
over 1,000 people.
Some people were saying 1,500.
I don't know, but Whitney Park was packed.
And in subsequent ones, it's been less because we've had more.
shows, but we still bring in several hundred people if you don't have an issue with the weather.
Yeah, Frank's a great guy.
He's a great guy.
Yes, I've never had the opportunity to actually...
haven't worked with every theater, right?
You haven't had a chance to work with them yet because they do a lot of performances.
They're busy.
And you know, when you're doing radio and things like that, we have events that come up in that.
And it's awfully tough for it to say, you know, to your boss, hey, can I have, you know, these next 20 nights?
It's a lot easier to say, can I have six, you know, available days or seven or whatever.
So, but Frank does so much for Green Bay.
He is the Green Bay cheerleader.
And I love it.
And the fact that, you know, he's got all the things.
going on, you know, he's really created something awesome here.
Busy guy, prolific too, I mean.
And he's happy to promote the arts and stuff.
He's had me as a guest a couple of times, you know, what he does is the feature interviews guests on local.
Oh, he's WFRV.
On local five live, yeah.
I
Yeah.
And you're right, he's such a unique guy, like, I don't know many towns the size of Green Bay that have a Frank Hermans, one guy that puts on that many shows, or a Meyer Theater.
Like,
just kind of two treasures in this area.
And I know you're friends with Frank because you were on TV recently and I watched an interview you did.
You did some cool stuff during the draft.
Can you
Yeah, so of course, everybody knows that there was stuff happening down at Lambeau during the draft, but...
downtown Green Bay didn't want to get left out.
And the history that Title Town has, so there's the Packers Heritage Trail, different spots around downtown Green Bay that'll
that I have a certain connection with the history of the Packers franchise.
Well, during the draft, they wanted to do a living Packers heritage trail.
So they had about 10 of us who were portraying different characters.
So I was a Brian Mulligan's Siruji.
I chose him because he was a telegraph operator, kind of a song and dance man.
And before the radio broadcast, when they would gather together in the Eagles Club, he would relay the message off of the...
off of the teletype.
What's the Morse code?
No, before radio, they...
they used
Stay.
All of a sudden, I can't think of what it's called.
But anyway, when that would come in, he would let everybody know and it started from there.
Nice.
So I got to portray that during the draft.
It was really cool.
Yes,
Theatre, Abrams Spotlight Productions, which is just 20 minutes north of Green Bay.
The play that goes wrong.
We did this back in May.
We're bringing it back.
one of the funniest shows ever, and not next week, but the week after.
I'm gonna have tickets to give away.
Dude, Khan,
that?
I would say I could run a theater.
That would be fun.
I love theaters when there's nobody in them and they're just quiet.
And I love that moment where it's packed and there's the murmuring right before the curtain.
It's just magical.
It's a cool energy.
Very cool stuff.
Thank you for coming in tonight.
Hey, thanks for having me.
Great to get to know you
Me too,
swear to God, I'm not trying to drop in.
I'm the one with the bad breath.
I brushed
before I came here, actually.
That is something I ask of all the guests that committed to the studio.
But it's great meeting you, Eric Westphal, folks.
Check out his work here at WGBW every day.
I'm having trouble talking.
I'm going to have some water, and we're going to come back and read your text.
It's Peach Wabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.
I like it Yeah, I love it.
It says tavern you have to say I get it totally man.
I'm with it Are we are we good on text?
Am I keeping up with text for once in my life?
I I think so.
I think we are ever from Sun Prairie Told us what exclusive company.
Yeah, all right.
Oh, here we go Brett from brown deer.
I did almost miss this one
He lives in Brownshire, Conrad, but he's got a 920 area code.
He's just like your parents.
You don't have to deliver your area code anymore.
What are we eating?
Here let's go to our social media texts from earlier Daniel Wheeler Danny wheels says I enjoyed locally owned video rental stores as a kid It's very specific.
I love that Daniel.
He says they smelled weird but getting to browse all the box art Lining the wall was always cool, especially the horror section.
Yeah, there was something video stores definitely had especially the homegrown ones Definitely had a charm,
Scott Lieberman from Marinette, now living in AZ says, tempo.
Another Marinette native son misses his tempo.
Okay.
Thank you, Scott.
Paulie Krieger, Conrad's mom says, Prangie Way and Sears that were at Fondlec Forest Mall.
Sears.
God, there's no more Sears either.
What was so good about Sears though?
It's just a department store.
I would say it wasn't like You
What oh the West Bend store I remember a closing because my friend and I we went in went ahead You know the big closeout sale.
Yeah, he found like this where they had a sign where it was like said Nikes, you know like socks or something or whatever He bought the Nike sign so I can hang it up
He does it.
That's the beauty of it like just See me in Green Bay says Yonkers and shop go.
Oh Yonkers.
I love Yonkers Folks our keyword tonight one more time just because I feel bad that some people
Texted in fine is dine The nightlight last chance summer getaway Contest where you get a free night at the Chula Vista resort with a free meal a dining voucher if you will 175 dollar value That is our contest all you have to do is have the app and text in the keyword and tonight's keyword is dine Dia's and David I NE So good luck everybody.
I miss diners
Even though there's still some.
The diners that exist now are kind of like, hey, we're like a nostalgic diner.
There's just not a diner for diner's sake, it seems like.
So you can still text us, folks.
Terry Barr, it is a Bar Band Friday night.
Terry Barr is here.
She is bringing with her music from someone who has been on the show before.
I've had the lead singer of this band on the show who performed live when I was in Madison about a year ago, not quite a year ago.
And he is just getting over an ailment and he is back at it and we are thrilled because he's incredibly talented and his band is outstanding too.
And you're going to find out who that band is coming up next.
After the news, Terry Barr will be here.
I almost said in the flesh on the stream.
For Bar Band Friday night, one of our faves.
Coming up next, it's Pete Schwabba in Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio
Network.
I love it.
Terry, our question
Um, I grew up outside of Shawnee and I would say there was both the Schultz's five and dime Right on Main Street.
Um, it probably was modeled after what was at Woolworth's.
Yeah, so five and dime
And I just remember the squeaky wood floors when you would walk around and kind of browse at everything.
And then they built a bigger, they called that one Schultz's family store.
And that was a really big one.
And they both just sort of went away.
And I think it just reminds us of when we were younger and.
simpler times, more innocent times maybe?
I don't know.
Yes.
Hey, you've got a great band you're about to talk about.
I love this band.
I'm just gonna, we've been teasing it all night.
I have not said who the band was, but I'm gonna leave this all to you.
Who are you bringing us tonight, Terry?
That is the Got a Grip song.
The other song no one has heard yet.
And I spent the afternoon with Eric Chelen.
Eric is the lead singer.
He's the main songwriter.
And we listened.
We track this entire album from beginning to end.
And much like the bands he enjoys, Pink Floyd and others like those, this album is written to be listened to.
beginning to end.
It tells an incredible story of loss and life and trying to hang on to the light.
And it's incredible.
I have no words to even try to describe it any better than that.
The first, if you listen to the album and remember good old albums have the side A and the side B. We listened to it streaming so we could listen all the way through.
But side A is all about his dad passing away during COVID and how he felt he never took time to acknowledge it.
So he wrote these songs.
He does what a great songwriter does.
Yeah.
And the other side is sort of coming to terms with that and then adds in this very rare brain ailment that he just had surgery for.
So he's kind of coming off of both of those things and talking about, you know, how do you hang on to the light?
What comes after your life is done?
Just really some deep things, but
What I love about this band, they always keep it a little more on the uplifting side.
If people want to listen to it, they can go to any streaming services.
And this one's fun because they brought in a rapper.
The guy's name is Tyler Durden.
Tyler used to be from Wisconsin.
He's now out on the East Coast.
And I think he just really adds a little flair to this song.
to me across the family dinner table separate the truth from fable my brain is drowning loud and free past that salty ocean to me across the family dinner table
to carry it all.
The baggage you buried, it's there when you're raring to fall.
Cause they don't care if you disparage to perish or stall.
The tank is empty, start to rush to the ambulance.
Tempting to break all the rules from Lady Justice is bending so save me from all the lies and the maybes.
Cause maybe if he told the truth then all our lies would be gravy.
I'm going crazy, but I'm saying enough to know that you made me.
The game is changing and I'm praying I'll continue to play it, but lately I'm
Embracing now get it grip and be patient don't slip when you face it take another deep breath face the heat and embrace it face the heat
to fly into a sunset painted sky passing ships and star-crossed lovers peek your eyes from under covers cross my heart and vote to fly into a sunset painted sky passing ships and star-crossed lovers peek your eyes from under
Great tune.
Boy,
He's so chill.
Eric Jelen, I'm talking about the main singer.
He's going to be on Nightlight again on September 22nd.
And it's interesting.
that when the last time he was here, Terry, we met him through you, obviously.
He brought an album, a double-sided vinyl album.
So I love that old-school element to their music and just the way they present themselves.
It's just a really, really good Wisconsin
Oh, they're so good.
And, you know, you listen to them, and then when you hear other bands actually play it on the radio, as we're doing with their music tonight, you kind of wonder,
Why have these guys not broken through?
They're just so good, so professional.
And I just really want everyone to see them and hear them because I just think they're spectacular, really.
Terry Barr is here.
It is a Barbie on Friday night.
We've got another tune called Final Hour from mascot theory off their new album.
That is coming up after a very short break.
We have a text here from Tom from New Berlin, says, Sears was the first retailer in the 80s that you could buy it right there with Sears credit.
I did not know that.
Thank you, Tom.
That's a great bit of info.
Bridget from the 818 says, Yonkers, I loved that department store.
I loved browsing and looking for big, big savings.
phrase I use here on the show a lot.
Tom also says, like it, Lincoln Park, they're influenced with the country ending.
We're coming right back on Barband Friday
I'm Pete Schwab, and this is Night Light, a Friday night edition of Night Light, where we celebrate Wisconsin music with our pal Terry Barr on Bar Band Friday night.
She is here right now.
We are talking about the band, the mascot theory.
We will be back with Terry in just a second.
I want to finish off these final two texts.
And I want to, this, maybe Terry can speak to this.
Tom from New Berlin said,
Like it, Lincoln Park, they are influenced with a country ending.
I think I know what Tom is saying there, Terry.
Like they have that kind of, I don't know, you hear kind of a lot of different stuff in their material.
It's great.
And here's Rob from Green Bay in the 920.
He says, wow, great song.
I've never heard them before, but we'll definitely check them out.
So there you go.
Yes.
Very productive Barbie and Friday night here.
Let's talk about this last song and then I think we'll just close the show and go out on the song if that's okay with you, Terry.
And I want to remind everybody, yes, they're going to be playing all over the state.
Coming up, they have a show in Green Bay, October 18th, Madison, October 5th.
That's one you want to hold if you want to be part of this big album release show.
And the other really big one is at Gibson Music Hall in Appleton.
That one is October 3rd.
And why I say big, Pete?
The one in Appleton and the one in Madison.
they are going to sit down to be interviewed about these songs and why they are so very personal to them.
And
I think that that's outstanding.
So folks, take advantage of that if you're
If you're in those areas, and especially the one where Terry is there, I'm sure Terry will crush the Q&A portion, if you will.
We do have two more quick texts.
John Murray from Madison says, Peter and Conrad, fun fact, when I was seven years old, I bought my first alarm clock with my own $5.
When browsing the local Sears back in 1972, still wakes me up every day.
Wow, that's pretty good value, John.
It's incredible.
It's like a 50-year-old alarm clock.
Janet from Madison says, I miss Woolworths.
I went as a kid at the one in Madison and in Jamesville when I moved to California in 1990.
There was one in Santa Monica and I was so excited, but it soon was transformed into a bookstore.
I was sad.
Thank you, Janet.
Bookstores are okay.
Tuesday night, folks, tune in.
I'll be, I'm off Monday, but we've got a great show with Dan Schaefer and some great highlights.
So, Steve, who else kind of read Steve Cochran and...
There you go, Terry.
Another Terry Barre referral.
So that's Monday night.
I'll be back live Tuesday with Ty Williams and Greg Vatney from the Rar West Museum in Manitowoc.
So... Excellent.
Terry, this has been so much fun.
I think we'll just, we'll go out on this great tune.
You good with that?
So you taken an unplanned midnight stroll Wanderin' blind through the unknown Searching for answers Only ghosts could ever know
You travel an unhaved gravel road What you will find there God only knows A thief in the darkness Or a light to guide you home Is this the final hour?
Is this the last goodbye?
Cannot get some sleep
Tonight, while these memories collide Is this the final hour?
Is this the last goodbye?
Can you make it back to me when shadows fill your eyes?
I didn't want to retire from the daily grind And you didn't plan to be cast aside Surrounded by strangers While the symptoms multiplied I tried to decode inconceivable plots Unwinnable games Unreachable docs
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