Bob

One of my first musical experiences was learning to play the keyboard when I was about 8 years old. I'm sure none of this would have happened had it not been for my parent's encouragement and for getting me started with keyboard lessons when I was in grade school. Mrs. Wilhelm would pick my sister Bonnie and me up from school and drive us to our house for organ lessons. I still remember at the end of a lesson often asking her if she would play for me the song that I was to practice that week. Unfortunately instead of learning the correct way by reading music, I would instead listen to the music and through practice eventually learn to play the music "by ear". Looking back I now wish I had learned how to read music. But instead I took the learn "by ear" approach and applied it to my other musical experiences as well.

I played cornet in band while in High School, where I was also part of the horn section of the Vine Street Rhythm Band, the drummer drawing the name on his bass drum in the car on the way to our first gig. I played trumpet in the UW Marching Band for Mike Lechrone while in college, playing at all the UW basketball, football and hockey games. My playing "by ear" actually helped when playing at football games in Camp Randal when I had to march through all the formations while playing trumpet at the same time. It was also at a football game that I met my future wife Patty, also a UW student. It was 1970, the year after the Dow Chemical riots and the Sterling Hall bombing, the year the National Guard was on campus and getting to class often required dodging tear-gas, and it was only Mike Lechrone's 2nd year on the job. He had his Marching Band practicing twice a day, 2 hours long each. The band practiced just as much as the football team did. Back then it was an all male band, not getting its first coed to join until the following year.

When I was 15 my Dad took me to the Buy & Sell shop on East Washington Ave, where I saw this beautiful, huge, white Kustom amp with a large horn, last used by the band U.S. Pure. It was more than I could afford and so my parents helped me buy it. We brought it home, and it is the same amp that I'm using today, having only replaced a broken handle and a small light bulb in the past 38 years. You can imagine the sound I had when it was hooked up to a stereo in my dorm room at Ogg Hall. My first real band playing keyboard was called Sundance out of Belleville. We played country rock and did a pretty good imitation of the Statler Brothers while fine-tuning our 4-part harmonies. We were playing at the TownPump in Verona one night, when my wife Patty ,who was quite pregnant with our first child, decided it was time to go. While the rest of the band played "Welcome To My World", Patty & I headed to the hospital where our son Bradley was born.

When auditioning for a chance to play at the Dane County Fair, the judge stopped us midway through a song, insisting she must be listening to a hidden recording somewhere. I remember her carefully looking over all of our equipment expecting to find a tape recorder somewhere. I thought it was quite a compliment. We went on to win 1st Place that year (1979) in the Battle of the Bands competition. Had we won the year before, we would have earned a trip to play in a New York venue, but that prize was discontinued the year we won. It was very exciting playing on stage at the coliseum, with Patty in the audience holding our son who was only 1 week old at the time. Following Sundance, for a short time I was in a band called Remuda, before leaving Belleville and moving to Madison in 1983. At that time our daughter Amanda was just 1 year old, and both Patty and I were tired of the daily commute to Madison for our jobs. Patty is a Physical Therapist with Madison Schools. I have a degree in Real Estate and Finance, and at the time was working for Evergreen Savings & Loan, making home loans costing 18% and taking in CD's earning 22%!

In 1985 I went back to school and got a computer degree. I started with CUNA in 1987, the same year my son Brian was born. It was at CUNA where I first met Joe Ripp. In 1995 Joe and I were both in the CUNA Choir, both singing tenor, and every year we would travel with the CUNA Choir and sing at about a dozen nursing homes each holiday season. One day he mentioned that he used to be in a band, and I replied that I did too. It wasn't long before we got together in Joe's basement along with several musicians that Joe knew from past bands (Mark, Jon and Bix) and soon after we created The Relics Band. In the last few years we talked about how nice it would be to have a sax sound as well. Peter has been an excellent addition to the band. It's kind of unusual for a band to stay together this long. I think it takes a fair amount of tolerance and consideration of others but most of all it takes a lot of mutual respect to make it work. It's not always obvious, but we do take our music seriously and work hard to always put out a good sound. I personally feel honored to be playing with these guys and after all these years, it's still a lot of fun every time we step up on stage.