Speaking of The Bikini Beachcombers -- which I was at the start of August -- for BB bassist Pete Flessas (a veteran of other Milwaukee bands, too) has a new surf outfit revving up in town.
Flessas formed The Revomatics with guitarist Scott Barrette from REV 500, whom he met via Craigslist. Although the band did a brief set with Chicago's The Cocktail Preachers in July,, The Revomatics still hasn't made its official debut.
"We have written several originals to date and are currently recording our CD one song at a time. We hope to have something in the can by this winter," says Flessas. "Our covers include songs by The Ventures, Fender Four and Dick Dale. We are purely an instrumental band."
Although he started out in a hardcore band -- NRK -- and ran a short-lived, storied all-ages Milwaukee punk venue downtown -- Yano's -- Flessas says he's had salt water, sand and Mosrite guitar licks in his heart for years.
"I've always been a huge fan of surf music but could never muster enough musicians together locally to form a surf band. Maybe if I lived in Southern California!
"Scott and I jammed together for a few months and eventually hooked up with guitarist Jim Valliencourt who hails from Michigan. We subsequently jammed with several drummers until an old band friend of Scott's, Jeff Schneider, came on board. Scott and Jeff played together in a punk band years ago called Hablo Diablo."
No gigs are scheduled yet but Flessas says the band is "still fine tuning our set."
In the meantime, you can hear three originals by The Revomatics at myspace.com/TheRevomatics. We'll tell you more about the band when it gets ready to hit the stage.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
