Sad news to report again as another local music scene veteran passes away.
The Racine Journal Times reported last night that Dennis Flemion, 57, who founded The Frogs with his brother Jimmy in 1980, drowned Saturday on Wind Lake.
Flemion was on a boat and went into the water to swim and did not come back up. Searchers began looking for his body on Saturday before nightfall. The search resumed Sunday and Monday but as of 4:30 p.m. yesterday, the Journal Times reported, Flemion's body was still not recovered.
The Frogs – in which the Flemion brothers surrounded themselves with a cast of some of the city's best musicians of the period – were one of Milwaukee's quirkiest and most influential (both here and beyond the city's borders) post-punk era bands, mixing humor, social issues and a lo-fi sound.
The brothers' style garnered them some big-name attention when Billy Corgan and Eddie Vedder became fans. The Frogs were invited to tour with Pearl Jam and Dennis Flemion spent seven months touring as a keyboardist for The Smashing Pumpkins.
Monday night, Corgan tweeted, "I'm devastated by the loss of my friend Dennis Flemion. Words can't explain the sorrow. A tragic loss. Please pray for his family."
A pair of new studio records – "Squirrel Bunny Jupiter Deluxe" and "Count Yer Blessingsz" – was released last week.
Dennis Flemion will be missed but he will be remembered among local musicians as a friend and as an innovator on the local scene.
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.
