Milwaukee Boat Line Summer Concert Series Cruise - This Friday!

Ladies and gentleman, friends, countryman, West 'Stallians - lend us your ears.

We've had a busy last month with the band. Lots of shows, all of them fun and interesting. Starting off with our performance in Appleton May 18th at Jonnie's old stomping grounds, Chadwicks, and then a week later being asked by our good friends at the Best Place to play their (and coincidentally OUR) third anniversary party... just great fun. It is really awesome to see how far we've come as a band over the last three years, and the number and quality of great gigs we are now getting is a testimony to the hard work we've put in. Having a new CD is the icing on the Bockenplautz cake, for sure! 

This last weekend we played for the Wisconsin Paralyzed Veterans of America for a benefit show, which was also a ton of fun. We were asked to do this due to connections Jonnie has with the VA hospital in town, and were very glad to volunteer our PA and our musical talents to the event. About 100 Harley riders met up with us at the beautiful outdoor courtyard at Mr. B's Steakhouse in Brookfield to relax after their morning ride, have a beer or two, enjoy a raffle, and partake in some acoustic powerpop. Cool for us as it was our first outdoor gig in the sun (sunscreen thoroughly applied to all balding bandmembers, no doubt!), and our first time playing for a Harley riders group, which is a little different than what we normally do. We kept our setlist very classic rock heavy, and they really seemed to enjoy us. We also proved what we have always thought - that we are a great daytime beer-drinking band! We were honored to participate in this event.

This Friday, June 14th, is perhaps the coolest gig we have ever had - the date is finally here! Our Milwaukee Boat Line Summer Concert Series Booze Cruise! Please make every effort to attend - this may be our only show in Milwaukee until September! 

Other things on the horizon:

• Door County Tour 2013! Make your plans now! July 10-13.

1. Wednesday July 10th - Sister Bay Summer Concert Series Featured Artist - free show in the SB Marina.
2. Friday, July 12th - Washington Island Shipwreck - playing at a famous bar on the island, ask us for details.
3. Saturday, July 13th - Sister Bay Bowl

• We hope to be one of the first bands to play at the new Wauwatosa Beer Garden in Hoyt Park! More info to follow on that one.
• September show, hopefully with our friends in one of Milwaukee's best bands The Carpetbaggers - still working on a date for this one. 
• Doc Rock MKE 2013 is set for November 15, and we will definitely be involved once again.

Keep spreading the love people! We appreciate all your support very much. 

Holy crap tons of new shows! Plus: Bassist Wanted

We had a truly awesome time playing for our friends down at the Best Place last weekend, raising money for MS for our buddy Scott. We put ourselves up as an auction item in addition to playing the show pro bono. Winds up that the people that won us in the auction also won a quarter barrel from the nice people at the Best Place. So they hired us to play another Best Place party for them next month! We're going to use the occasion to try to raise even more money for the MS Society.

We've had a ton of great bookings line up over the last few weeks, including some really awesome new opportunities for us! All links go to Facebook events for these shows

• Saturday February 9, Best Place - (this is the MS Society Benefit Part Deux from above)
• Friday February 15, Club Garibaldi - with opening act annA, going back into the Bay View Rock Pool
• Saturday March 16, Montecito's in Waukesha - St. Patty's in the 'Sha! Erin go Bockenplautz!
• Friday April 19, G-Daddy's BBC Upper Level - First time playing this stalwart Milwaukee rock club
• Satuday May 18, Chadwicks in Appleton - Taking the Fox Cities by storm
• Bockenplautz Summer 2013 Door County Tour - 5 days, 3 shows, 1 county, all exciting

7/10/13 Sister Bay Summer Concerts in the Park series performance

7/12/13 Washington Island Superior Acoustic Powerpop Shipwreck

7/13/13 Door County Superior Acoustic Powerpop Finale - working on possible gigs in Sister Bay, Fish Creek, Bailey's Harbor, or Sturgeon Bay

In other news:

• We are doing final mixing on our new album. Yes that's right. NEW ALBUM.
• We've still got a few 2XL shirts left from the last pressing, let us know if you want one!
• We are actively searching for an upright bass player to join our superior acoustic powerpop mission, check out the craigslist posting HERE if you're interested. 
• Looking to book a possible Milwaukee Boat Lines booze crooze gig this summer - more info TBA!
• We have an awesome new ReverbNation band page, and we're currently the #5 ranked rock group in Milwaukee according to them! Not sure if I believe them, but you can see for yourself HERE. 

Stay strong. And always remember: why settle for less than Superior Acoustic Powerpop? 

Bockenplautz Haikus for the Best Place Benefit Concert Next Friday!

Hey people - we've been asked to help out with a benefit concert for our good friend Scott Smith from the the Best Place. Scott has Multiple Sclerosis, and has battled it for years. It is purely due to the research that is funded by the National MS Society that people like Scotty have meds that enable them to function day to day. Please join us there next Friday, 1/11/13, 7pm, 901 W. Juneau for a great night of live music and merriment for a great cause. $10 cover gets you all the Superior Acoustic Powerpop you can handle, plus likely some surprise musical guests, and door prizes. Plus, PABST. 

Facebook event for this awesome night is here.

In honor of this occasion, we in the band have composed the following haiku poems:

No Regrets (S. Nolan)

The last face melting

Reality leaving fast

As Bockenplautz plays

It's Not Cold (S. Nolan)

Through the winter night

Milwaukee warms by our fire:

Bockenplautz rocks you

Priorities (J. Bock)

Pabst tastes better with

Superior powerpop

That is acoustic

Club Garibaldi Premiere

So that was probably our best gig ever. Club Garibaldi is an awesome venue and the stage and sound system there were simply incredible. Special thanks to Jeff Hamilton for giving us a chance, Pat for doing a great job with the sound and Joe the owner as well as the great bar staff for making it a great night. Over 100 fans of Superior Acoustic Powerpop showed up for our live recording. Cd's and HD video to come!

People, mark it down. 2013 will be the year of Bockenplautz! We already have three great gigs set up for next year, with a few more in the formative stages.

- January 11 at the Best Place for a Multiple Sclerosis benefit show
- March 16 St Patty's day show at Montecito's in Waukesha
- May 18, possibly the best show ever: a double bill with our friends in the Minneapolis rock explosion known as Toasterfork! at Appleton's best bar with a first name, Chadwick's.

Hire a sitter now, batten down the hatches, buy your hearing insurance, and pencil in your calendars.

2013 - You belong to Bockenplautz.

Best Place Tavern <3

Wow, what a great night. The show on Friday was just tons of fun. We had around 150 people come out to the Best Place Tavern for our show, and the crowd was amazing. We also had the pleasure of having the Best Place's own annA open up for us, and even play a few songs together. It was great.

Special thanks to Jim and Karen Haertl for being so supportive to us, we continue to love playing at their venue, it really is one of the coolest spaces in Milwaukee. It's the Pabst Brewery, for the love of God!

Next gig is perhaps our biggest one yet, playing for the nice people of Bay View at Club Garibaldi - the Bockenplautz Bay View Bonanza! We'll be recording a live demo CD on 11/30/12, 9pm start, which will be a ton of fun. We'll also be proudly featuring our good friend Roxie Beane's soulful stylings as our opening act. She's awesome, and worth the price of admission all on her own!

Thanks again to everyone for continuing to support us, especially our wives, without whom we would not be able to keep this rock and roll train barreling forward.