It's perhaps been more like the myth of Sisyphus, but Milwaukee rappers Ill Groove Movement are happy to call their long-awaited debut "The ILLiad," in a nod to the Homer epic.
The disc -- which seamlessly melds hip-hop with a wide array of other styles -- and mixes live instrumentation with beats and rappers, took four years to get from notepad to iPod, but it's been worth the journey.
The band comprises drummer Steve Kulwicki, bassist Davin Hanson, guitarist Adam Lovinus and MCs Professor and Catalyst.
We asked Hanson about the history of the band, the struggle to get the record done and what's coming next.
OMC: Tell us a bit about how the group got started and the career up to now.
DH: Professor, Catalyst and I met in the dorms at Marquette back in '99. We were all kind of like-minded individuals and big fans of hip-hop, so we hit it off pretty quickly. I met Adam about a year later through some mutual friends, and we started jamming together now and again.
In early 2002, Catalyst was doing a radio show with live freestyle hip-hop on Marquette Radio and asked Adam and I if we wanted to be the back up band. Professor was a frequent contributor to the show as well. At the time we were just using a drum machine, but as things progressed, we figured we needed a live drummer. Coincidentally, our drum machine broke one night before a gig and our original drummer, Barney, happened to be there, so that was the official first Ill Groove gig.
After Barney graduated from Marquette in 2004, he moved back to Chicago. We auditioned a whole bunch of drummers, and were very lucky to find Steve, who came on board without a hitch. We had been playing a lot of little bar gigs with up until then, and had tons of original material, but once we hit stride with Steve, things really started to take off. We knew our way around the scene enough at that point to be able to make things happen for ourselves.
OMC: It's been a long time in the works, can you tell us a bit about the road to getting "The ILLiad" completed?
DH: We first tried to record in early 2003, but with nine tracks recorded, our engineer's hard drive got wiped out and we lost everything. It was devastating. He helped us out, and gave us a lot of free time to make up for it, but we only ended up with a four-track demo. The demo was really good, but we were all still disappointed. We spent all the money we had putting together press kits and getting our demo in the hands of everyone we could, and by 2005, we had made enough money to take another shot at it. We went with a new engineer this time, Vinnie Millevolte, who recorded us at the Engine Room. We recorded in April 2005, but because our budget was so low and we had no label backing us, production and mixing dragged on until March 2006. After that, problems started raining in from every direction -- copyright issues, problems with artwork, disc reproduction, funding -- but we worked through all of them, and finally, nearly four years to the day after our first recording session, "The ILLiad" is finally coming out.
OMC: Does the title reflect the struggle to get the record made?
DH: Yes and No. I think that is certainly something one could take away from it. But we originally chose the title, because our music is kind of a war on conventional concepts of genre. And as many literary scholars would consider the Iliad the first great literary epic, our album is kind of a first-of-its-kind thing in and of itself. A totally unclassifiable work in terms of sticking it in a genre. Even our band name pretty much says it; we take an Ill Groove -- doesn't matter what kind of music it is -- and try to put lyrics over it that are socially progressive in some way. Hip-hop has been so smart and socially progressive for years, yet there are so many people who close their minds to it because they don't see the talent involved. We just took the same ideas and added cool grooves and guitar solos, and I think it makes some of those people stand up and take notice. My favorite compliment that I ever got at a show came from a guy who was probably about 50, he said, "You know I never liked hip-hop until I heard you guys." The idea that you opened up somebody's mind to something like that ... it's indescribable.
OMC: Of course, there is precedent for it going back even to Stetsasonic, but is the group's mix of live instrumentation and rappers kind of unique in hip-hop these days?
DH: It's not totally unique, but I think we do it in a unique way. A lot of groups who do it stick really close to rock, or jazz or R&B. We are all over the map. We take old jazz hooks, turn them into rock songs, and then do hip-hop over it ... and a million other combinations, reggae, metal, R&B, folk, classic rock, hard rock, house, drum and bass. We sometimes borrow generously from five, six, seven different genres in one song, but somehow we stumbled across a way to give it a sense of continuity and not make it sound totally whacky.
OMC: Does that set up allow you to bridge or straddle both the hip hop and the rock scenes in Milwaukee?
DH: Definitely. We play with all different kinds of groups: jam rock, hard rock, hip-hop, jazz. We have such a range of material we can pretty much play with anyone. A lot of people still slam their doors in our faces when they hear hip-hop though. Very ironic.
OMC: Are you guys looking ahead to making the next record or just focusing on working the heck out of this one?
DH: We're always looking ahead. We hope to be back in the studio again by fall 2007, if not sooner. But for now, we're going to pound the pavement with "The ILLiad" and sell as may copies as humanly possible.
"The ILLiad" hits shops on Jan. 23, 2007.
The disc -- which seamlessly melds hip-hop with a wide array of other styles -- and mixes live instrumentation with beats and rappers, took four years to get from notepad to iPod, but it's been worth the journey.
The band comprises drummer Steve Kulwicki, bassist Davin Hanson, guitarist Adam Lovinus and MCs Professor and Catalyst.
We asked Hanson about the history of the band, the struggle to get the record done and what's coming next.
OMC: Tell us a bit about how the group got started and the career up to now.
DH: Professor, Catalyst and I met in the dorms at Marquette back in '99. We were all kind of like-minded individuals and big fans of hip-hop, so we hit it off pretty quickly. I met Adam about a year later through some mutual friends, and we started jamming together now and again.
In early 2002, Catalyst was doing a radio show with live freestyle hip-hop on Marquette Radio and asked Adam and I if we wanted to be the back up band. Professor was a frequent contributor to the show as well. At the time we were just using a drum machine, but as things progressed, we figured we needed a live drummer. Coincidentally, our drum machine broke one night before a gig and our original drummer, Barney, happened to be there, so that was the official first Ill Groove gig.
After Barney graduated from Marquette in 2004, he moved back to Chicago. We auditioned a whole bunch of drummers, and were very lucky to find Steve, who came on board without a hitch. We had been playing a lot of little bar gigs with up until then, and had tons of original material, but once we hit stride with Steve, things really started to take off. We knew our way around the scene enough at that point to be able to make things happen for ourselves.
OMC: It's been a long time in the works, can you tell us a bit about the road to getting "The ILLiad" completed?
DH: We first tried to record in early 2003, but with nine tracks recorded, our engineer's hard drive got wiped out and we lost everything. It was devastating. He helped us out, and gave us a lot of free time to make up for it, but we only ended up with a four-track demo. The demo was really good, but we were all still disappointed. We spent all the money we had putting together press kits and getting our demo in the hands of everyone we could, and by 2005, we had made enough money to take another shot at it. We went with a new engineer this time, Vinnie Millevolte, who recorded us at the Engine Room. We recorded in April 2005, but because our budget was so low and we had no label backing us, production and mixing dragged on until March 2006. After that, problems started raining in from every direction -- copyright issues, problems with artwork, disc reproduction, funding -- but we worked through all of them, and finally, nearly four years to the day after our first recording session, "The ILLiad" is finally coming out.
OMC: Does the title reflect the struggle to get the record made?
DH: Yes and No. I think that is certainly something one could take away from it. But we originally chose the title, because our music is kind of a war on conventional concepts of genre. And as many literary scholars would consider the Iliad the first great literary epic, our album is kind of a first-of-its-kind thing in and of itself. A totally unclassifiable work in terms of sticking it in a genre. Even our band name pretty much says it; we take an Ill Groove -- doesn't matter what kind of music it is -- and try to put lyrics over it that are socially progressive in some way. Hip-hop has been so smart and socially progressive for years, yet there are so many people who close their minds to it because they don't see the talent involved. We just took the same ideas and added cool grooves and guitar solos, and I think it makes some of those people stand up and take notice. My favorite compliment that I ever got at a show came from a guy who was probably about 50, he said, "You know I never liked hip-hop until I heard you guys." The idea that you opened up somebody's mind to something like that ... it's indescribable.
OMC: Of course, there is precedent for it going back even to Stetsasonic, but is the group's mix of live instrumentation and rappers kind of unique in hip-hop these days?
DH: It's not totally unique, but I think we do it in a unique way. A lot of groups who do it stick really close to rock, or jazz or R&B. We are all over the map. We take old jazz hooks, turn them into rock songs, and then do hip-hop over it ... and a million other combinations, reggae, metal, R&B, folk, classic rock, hard rock, house, drum and bass. We sometimes borrow generously from five, six, seven different genres in one song, but somehow we stumbled across a way to give it a sense of continuity and not make it sound totally whacky.
OMC: Does that set up allow you to bridge or straddle both the hip hop and the rock scenes in Milwaukee?
DH: Definitely. We play with all different kinds of groups: jam rock, hard rock, hip-hop, jazz. We have such a range of material we can pretty much play with anyone. A lot of people still slam their doors in our faces when they hear hip-hop though. Very ironic.
OMC: Are you guys looking ahead to making the next record or just focusing on working the heck out of this one?
DH: We're always looking ahead. We hope to be back in the studio again by fall 2007, if not sooner. But for now, we're going to pound the pavement with "The ILLiad" and sell as may copies as humanly possible.
"The ILLiad" hits shops on Jan. 23, 2007.
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.
