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And then there was Valentino’s — a short ride up the glass elevator to a night of dancing.
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Irene Keenan Jr. performs at Nighthawks in downtown La Crosse. Erik Daily photo |
But those bars have long since disappeared.
Some are physically gone. Others just changed names, went from country to rock and back again, or became karaoke bars.
Through it all, Nighthawk’s Tap owner Chris Rasmussen keeps booking live music.
“I booked my first band in 1971,” he said. “It was for my fraternity in college.”
He kept doing it, he said, not just because he’s a fan of live music but because it makes good business sense.
“The live music scene is very dynamic in La Crosse at the moment. There’s lots and lots of music for all tastes. There’s many more bands than there were in the ’80s.”
Yet the crowds have not kept pace, he said.
“The bars are trying to do more to attract business now because business is down,” he said, so they work harder to get people in the door.
Musician Shawn Martin has played in the La Crosse area and beyond for 35 years. Now back with the band Strait Up, he has noticed one major change.
“In the ’70s and ’80s, you could make a lot of money locally,” he said, because the legal drinking age was lower and bars were packed with people wanting to hear bands.
“You could make $1,000 to $1,500 a night and split it up.”
These days, he said, he and band members are lucky to take home $100 each for a night’s work.
“Karaoke has put a dent in it,” Martin said. “It’s fun, it gets more people out. And it’s cheaper for the bar. That’s always a hurdle. We went through the DJs, now it’s the karaoke. There are local musicians that are very, very talented, and now they are doing karaoke, but they’re making good money.”
Count Rose Sobotta as among those musicians. She tried Nashville, she tried bands, and now she’s trying karaoke.
“When I was younger, I wished there was karaoke around for me,” she said. Without the expense of a band, it’s a pretty good way to make money.
But most musicians say money never was the main motivation.
“We don’t play to get paid,” Martin said. “We play because we love it.”
If you figure out the money end, he said, “We get paid for the load in and the load out.”
There’s bigger money to be had out there, Martin said, but you have to make it to that level and be willing to travel.
“If a person wants to play the fair circuit or the casino circuit, you can make a good living.”
Martin said the swings in live music probably can be charted by the swings in the economy.
“Whenever the economy gets bad, the music scene gets good. People need a place to go to get rid of their frustrations. People will go out and do that,” he said, especially with so many casinos now open. “These places have an entertainment budget. The money is there, and the crowds are there. There’s a good living to made out there.”
Downtown has the La Crosse Center, the biggest live music venue in La Crosse. In the ever-changing world of music, the arena has to take what the market offers, and often that’s not the acts people most want to see.
La Crosse Center Director Art Fahey said a couple big promoters now control most touring acts, and if they don’t want the band or artist to play a certain venue, they won’t.
And because of videos and the Internet, he said, “the amount of inventory that is out there touring is down, and ticket prices have gone right through the ceiling.”
With festivals such as Country Jam and Rock Fest and casinos cutting into the market, he said, the La Crosse Center can’t offer enough money to book the preferred acts.
“What casinos have done is they’re paying acts a handsome price,” Fahey said. “They’ve driven up the cost of B-level acts.”
They can do that, Fahey said, because those who come to hear the music also will spend time and money gambling.
Would he like to book Elton John, the Dave Matthews Band or Miley Cyrus?
Of course.
“But they have to be willing to come here,” he said. “We’re not turning away great bands.”
Steve Harm, owner of The Warehouse, which is just down the street from the La Crosse Center, has made his living by booking great bands many people have never heard of. His young audience is willing to listen to new bands, he said, because he has built a reputation for good music at his club.
“The Internet has changed everything,” Harm said, because it’s an incubator for hatching new bands. “Bands can record something and put it online in an hour and have it worldwide. And they can book tours.”
He checks bands out on Facebook to see whether they might be a group of 17-year-olds unlikely to have reliable transportation for a summer tour. “I know their tour isn’t going to happen,” he said, so he can’t book them.
He hangs on to the precarious business of owning a club, he said, because he loves music and musicians.
“I don’t think I could do it if we didn’t get as many accolades from the bands as we do from the fans. We have great people working at The Warehouse, so (the bands) love to come back to The Warehouse.”
La Crosse isn’t a big market, but it is a popular market, he said. The band Sherwood, which recently played at The Warehouse, took off the two days after their gig here so they could spend that time in La Crosse, Harm said.
“We’re not a big club, but we do get bands that insist on playing here. La Crosse is a nice town for bands. They can park in front of the venue, unlock their trailer and not have their stuff get stolen.”
Harm also books local bands, but it’s a constant struggle to balance how often local bands play the club.
“I disappoint some of them, too, because I don’t book them every week,” he said. “Having come from being in a band, I entirely understand the thrill of being on stage.” But if you play out before you’re ready, he explained, you won’t have anyone show up for your second show. “I try to look out for their interests.”
For Harm, it is as much about having the bands as it is about making a living. If he can do something to make The Warehouse experience good for the musicians, he will — including helping carry equipment up the stairs.
“I’m usually the first one out there. We’ll go to the trailer and they’re all freaking out about the stairs. So we grab the biggest piece of gear. When they see a punk rock kid and the old guy hauling the heaviest piece of equipment” they settle down, Harm said, and haul in the rest of the gear themselves.
Meet the band
Profiles of some local musicians:
Irene Keenan Jr.
Irene Keenan Jr. has been bumping around the La Crosse music scene since age 17. An Army brat, she has lived all over the country but calls La Crosse home. She may be gone for months or years at a time, but she always comes back to La Crosse.
“I keep running away from here, and I keep coming back,” she said with a laugh.
Her first band in town was The Wails, and then she joined Migrant Workers Bound for France. Migrant Workers still plays together every now and then, but they’re beginning to creak with age, Keenan said, laughing again.
“Whenever we feel our joints are moving well enough to get up and play, we do. The last time we played, our drummer pulled a groin muscle.
“When I look back, I wish I could go back and start over again,” she said, thinking of the wrong turns and missed opportunities.
But she’d still choose music, something Keenan’s been doing full time for years.
“I tried to do the whole work-for-somebody-else thing,” but that didn’t work for her.
She gets frustrated with bands, she said, because it’s too difficult to match up everybody’s schedule.
“I do lots of solo work because I got tired of waiting on everybody and getting everybody’s schedule together.”
As much as she loves music, she hates how the industry treats women who travel this road.
“It’s horrible, being a girl in rock ’n’ roll. It’s the struggle I’ve had forever. I can relate to Hillary Clinton,” she said.
So lately, she has been climbing into a different persona on stage. Long a fan of Halloween contests, Keenan has begun playing parties and even some gigs as Capt. Jack Sparrow, the Johnny Depp character in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies.
And it’s all thanks to her mom, who is a big Depp fan.
“She changes the channel on her TV and screws up the cable, and I have to go fix it,” Keenan said. “She had this huge poster of Jack Sparrow by her TV, and she’s looking at the poster and she’s looking at me and she’s saying, ‘You could do that.’ Then she took me to the costume shop out at the mall and put one of those hats with the big dreds on me and said, ‘Now run.’”
Keenan ran, and her mom said, “You should do that for Halloween.”
Keenan did, and so began a pirate’s tale.
“I made some money at Halloween,” said Keenan, who is legendary for her Halloween costumes. “I do this stuff at home all the time. You know how Grandma’s got that dress-up box for when the grandkids come to visit? ... My whole house is like that. They never know who’s going to come down for coffee in the morning.”
Keenan started performing at private parties and children’s birthday parties.
“It’s really fun. As much as you’re a pirate, Jack Sparrow is a fairly polite pirate. You get to be this fairly bizarre, polite pirate. I’m a frustrated actor,” she said, so this fulfills that side of her nature.
Now, she’s embarking on a new project with old friends Howard Luedtke and Peter Phippen. After playing one gig with them where their raunchier sides were put on display, the three are performing as Triple XXX H-I-P. When it comes to raunch, Keenan said, Phippen is the king.
“Howard and I can’t even play because we’re laughing so hard.”
Rose Sobotta
If you’re a musician, there are two main ways to get your voice and face out in front of people — perform live with a band or as a solo act, or take up karaoke.
Rose Sobotta has tried both ways. For now, she chooses karaoke.
“I’ve been into music since I was 5. My parents had a band, but I was never really in the family band because they were country and I was a rock rebel.”
Sobotta mostly taught herself how to play guitar when her parents were out shopping.
“All of a sudden, I just knew how to play guitar because my dad played. It was in the house, so there you had it. They would go shopping, and I would take all their music equipment out and learn how to run it when they were gone. The first time my mom heard me sing Heart or Pat Benatar, she freaked and said, ‘Where did you get your voice?’”
Sobotta’s played solo, in duos and a trio. Her most recent band was Midwest Coast.
“I did go to Nashville by myself and played down there and in Minneapolis. I’ve been trying a long time,” she said, but then she married and decided she needed more time home with her husband.
At that point, it was a decision between staying with the band or doing karaoke.
“It was not a hard adjustment,” she said of karaoke, because she enjoys helping people develop their musical talents.
“I’m encouraging anyone and everyone to sing. I had a couple guys who always came to karaoke, singing on the side, and now they’re hooked. It’s easier than being in a band,” she said, because she’s the emcee. “A lot of people are really scared,” she said, fearing people will laugh or be mean to them. “But I tell them, ‘I’ll go take care of ’em, you just sing. Anybody says anything, I’ll go over there.”
Sobotta said she hasn’t totally given up on the dream of a hit record, though.
“My dream is to do music full time and make a living at it comfortably. There’s always that pull from Nashville, and I’m running out of time. I wish I could do it all. If it was music and writing, I would give anything to leave and go down to Nashville.
“I got my foot in the door, but it’s scary and intimidating. I had no support down there, and I had no one. It’s hard. You have to pick yourself up and go do it. You’re scared of the dream to come true when you get close. It’s almost safer to be home, still dreaming. I need to go one more time.”
Until then, look for Sobotta in the live! calendar under the karaoke heading.
“As for karaoke, I love it. And the money, it’s not bad at all. I have a following. People come to hear me sing. It’s not my original music, but they still want me.”
Gregg ‘Cheech’ Hall
As a member of the Smokin’ Bandits and as a well-known solo player around town, Gregg “Cheech” Hall has made the round of venues, whether it’s a jam at Del’s or playing with a full band at The Joint.
“La Crosse is a gem as far as musicians go. There are so many talented individuals in this town, it’s sick,” Hall said.
He grew up in La Crosse “watching musicians like Jimbo Zill, Randy and Billy Hembd, Jeff Sherin, Dave Rogers and many others. When I turned 18, the Hembds (Billy, Randy and Lucas) took me under their wing, and I started playing out at local establishments. Through them, we all just kept playing and playing and playing.
“Now I am hosting open jams at Del’s Bar on Mondays and the Animal House on Tuesdays. I have played with just about every musician in town and consider all of them good friends.”
Hall recommends open mikes as the best way to get started and to meet other musicians.
“From there, you’ll find people who want to play and collaborate with your style. Then just practice and practice.”
Smokin’ Bandits will host its fourth annual Bandit County Fair on June 13-14 in Romance, Wis.
“Smokin’ Bandits has accomplished more than I ever thought possible. We’ve played at such festivals as 10,000 Lakes, Hookahville, Campout Roots, Log Jam, Harvest Fest and countless others. We’ve done tours in Connecticut, Arkansas, Ohio, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Michigan and Illinois.”
But like many musicians before him, Hall finally accepted a full-time job. He works in the Cashton Distribution Center at Organic Valley Farms and, yes, he will have health insurance.
“I was working at Leithold Music, but I quit to pursue my music in the summer of 2007. So from May 2007 until February 2008, my steady income was music and CD sales,” he said.
“I took this job (at Organic Valley) because I knew it was a fantastic place to work. I could have kept playing full time, but it was time for a break. But it took almost a decade to get established enough to make an OK living. Now, with my job, I can pick and choose gigs a little more, which is nice.”
Johnsmith
Somewhere on the road, John Smith of Trempealeau, Wis., became Johnsmith, road warrior. He merged his names, headed down the highway, and he has been driving and singing ever since.
He got his start in the La Crosse area in the 1980s when he was hired at Perrot State Park in Trempealeau as a part-time naturalist and part-time folk singer.
Then funding got cut, and the music that had been part-time grew into full time.
“Hans Mayer and I played together for six or seven years, playing mostly colleges,” Smith said, and then he did some duo work with Dan Sebranek, with whom he still performs when he’s in the area.
“In the music business, there’s this bizarre high and low thing. There’s people who make nothing, because they’re so right brain they can’t get a career going. The other extreme is the James Taylors — the people way up on top. In the middle ground (which Johnsmith calls home), you never coast. You always work, work, work. You always tour.”
Though he married and raised a family, he never stopped playing.
“That was a little bit different. When my wife and I got together, I already played music. I was sort of half hippie. I wasn’t trying to have a new house and a new car. I was following the music. I was doing that when we met. Then we had kids, and back in those days I didn’t travel as much. In the last 10 to 12 years, especially since my kids are grown up, I go out there like a wild man. I’m trying to save money for retirement.”
It’s that need to hit the road, he said, “that weeds out most people. I am lucky. My wife is a school teacher,” he said, so he has health insurance through her.
But the romantic notion of a wonderful life on the road is just that — a romantic notion.
“Maybe I do have a little bit more of a gypsy gene than some people might. When I am out there driving from town to town to town, there is a sort of peacefulness about it. For hours, I don’t have any music on or anything, but I do work on songs when I’m driving down the road. There’s a good rhythm thing to it.”
But the older he gets, he said, the more challenging it is to climb back into the car and drive for hours. “You have to keep your body in shape. That’s more of a challenge. I remember one month, I worked 19 days out of 23 days in Texas and just kept going, going, going, with hardly any rest. It’s worse than being a truck driver.”
From the beginning, Johnsmith figured out that he’d have to be his own business manager.
“When you get enough money generated, you need an incredible team. But a lot of people who do what I do are extremely independent. It probably said, ‘He doesn’t play well with others,’ on the report card. They’re used to doing everything themselves. I’ve gone through a handful of agents, but 90 percent of everything I’ve done is myself.”
The music scene in La Crosse is great, he said, but he can’t make his living here.
“If I want to play at the Pump House and charge, then I can’t play around town for free. That’s the whole key. There’s very few places in the country where you can stay in your hometown. If you’re trying to do what I do, then it’s a concert kind of thing.”
Shawn Martin
Giving up music was never an option for Shawn Martin, bassist, vocalist and founder of Strait Up.
“I originally started playing clubs when I was 15 years old here in La Crosse. I am now 49. My desire to play music and perform was fueled by this first gig and has led me to places I would have never dreamed of.
“When I first started out, I was playing part-time locally and the money was not the best, which led to many part-time jobs such as pizza delivery, newspaper delivery, cook, mechanic, stock boy and warehouse work. I have always known my love for music would prevail above all else, but too many distractions kept me from giving it my all ’til around the mid-’80s.”
Back then, he played with The Wails and then Pipestone.
“Pipestone became quite successful on the B circuit and took us to playing Summerfest in Milwaukee and opening for quite a few national acts around the Midwest. We also played the Winter Olympics in Norway. This band is still together as an original music project and plays out about once a year.”
He got an even bigger break in the early ’90s when Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show lost its bass and keyboard players. Martin was asked to fill in at the Trempealeau Hotel gig.
“I accepted and ended up befriending Ray Sawyer (Dr. Hook) and for the next two years toured the world with the band. When I returned from this, I joined a regional act called Little Vito and the Torpedoes and toured the fair and corporate circuit extensively for the next year.”
When the Torpedoes disbanded, he came home and joined Skeeter Louis and the Stingers. After that band broke up, Martin formed Strait Up and they began playing full time in the Midwest, appearing at casinos, fairs and bars.
But Martin felt the tug of home. His 12-year-old son wasn’t doing well in school, so Martin made the decision to come home and try home schooling while still a part-time performer.
And that brings him back to family: What made it possible for him to be on the road eventually got him off the road.
“Behind all of this is a loving wife who works professionally and plays in this version of Strait Up, which helps us make ends meet.”
He has just returned to work at Hokah Co-op Oil but continues the home schooling and part-time performing.
“Between playing weekends and my wife working, we are managing to stay afloat. When the kids are all gone and off on their own, Shelby and I will grow old playing on some circuit or another ’til we can’t do it anymore.”
Until then, Martin said he’s pretty good at facing reality.
“I’m enjoying being home right now, because my son needs me home. The problem with being married on the road is you’re gone all the time. And that’s hard,” he said, especially on the kids.
Mark Grundhoefer
By touring relentlessly to places like La Crosse, Down Lo has built up a loyal following. The Twin Cities band often comes through La Crosse to perform.
“It’s always a nice jump off for us,” said band founder Mark Grundhoefer.
The band now performs full time, he said, but it hasn’t been easy.
“It’s a struggle, and we’re really blessed to be doing this,” he said.
In the beginning, Grundhoefer worked a 40-hour-a-week job and played music on the weekends and evenings.
“We pushed it pretty far. I would work 9 to 5 all week long. We would go out Thursday night, come back at 3 or 4 in the morning, work Friday, and go on the road Friday, Saturday, Sunday. It was a real brutal schedule. It was hard on me. But nothing worthwhile comes for free.”
Grundhoefer also handles the business end. They sell records at their gigs, and he runs a music company, MJG Productions.
“I wear a lot of hats. I manage a lot of artists. I’m a booking agent, promoter. I wanted to do the business because I needed that. You need a good business mind.”
There was never another choice, he said.
“I’ve known my whole life, since I was 11 years old. But you can’t jump ahead. You’ve got to go slow. We’re still stepping stones, we’re still growing. We’re still a very young band, we keep working day by day. We’re always building the future and the next move and the next record, always planning the next project.”
And he never loses sight of what got him this far — the music.
“Inspiration in the music is all the reason to do it. When we see people absorb something worthwhile from our music, make a connection. Music releases so many things inside people, so many emotions. It can take you away from the daily stresses of life. If you need a minute of relief, music always does that.”
Geri Parlin can be reached at gparlin@lacrossetribune.com or (608) 791-8225.
