GREG KOCH - Tucked away in Midwestern
obscurity, Greg Koch was a diamond in the ruff, the best kept secret in the
guitar firmament. But at some point, he decided to make his move and conquer the
world with his unique brand of guitarmaggedon. As he recalls of that pivotal
moment, ""Seven years ago my wife came home from work one day and said, 'You
know what? I want to stay home with the (four) kids. You need to fire up your
game.' And I said, 'Well, I'm a musician in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Exactly what
does firing the game really entail?'" Koch had already amassed a strong local
following in the greater Wisconsinarea through his gigs and self-produced CDs
(on his own Rhymes With Chalk label). He did the occasional recording session in
Chicago and also began showcasing his jaw-dropping fretboard facility at Fender
clinics a few weeks out of the year. It was at one such clinic, while
demonstrating Fender's Cyber-Twin amp at the 2001 NAMM show inAnaheim, that
Koch's fortunes changed. An associate of guitar hero Steve Vai caught his
pyrotechnic act and within an astonishingly short amount of time, the hotshot
guitarist found himself signed to Vai's Favored Nations label. The release of
his 2001 Favored Nations debut, The Grip, was met with a flood of rave reviews
which alternately described Koch as ""a twisted guitar genius"" and ""fiendishly
talented."" And suddenly the Milwaukee guitarist was obscure no more.
In his liner notes to that auspicious debut, Koch described The Grip as ""Chet
Hendrix meeting the Kings (BB, Albert and Freddie) at the first annual Zeppelin-Holdsworth
Coffee Guzzlers Hoedown."" Writer Matt Blackett later wrote in a December, 2001
feature on Koch in Guitar Player: ""The licks keep coming...an impossible stream
of riffs jumps off of Koch's fretboard like clowns spilling out of a VW bug --
and when you're convinced that there can be no more, out pops another one.""
Greg would subsequently showcase his over-the-top chops and wicked sense of
humor on 2003's Radio Free Gristle and 2004's 13 x 12. He followed those
primarily instrumental outings with 2005's 4 Days In the South, a song-oriented
project (recorded at legendary Allman Bros.-Widespread Panic producer Johnny
Sandlin's studio) that combined Koch's potent guitar playing and vocals on a set
of clever, well-crafted originals like the James Gang-ish ""When Were The Good
Old Days?,"" the Zappaesque ""Chicken From Hell"", the nasty blues shuffle
""Your Face"" and the melodious ""Keep On Singin',"" along with a faithful
rendition of Johnny Cash's ""Folsom Prison Blues."" As Koch explains, ""The
material on 4 Days in the South represents a coming to grips with my true love
of vocal-oriented bluesy-tinged rock with elements of funk, country and jazz
thrown in for flavor. The maniacal guitar and fiendish musical humor prevalent
on Radio Free Gristle is still represented here although subdued in comparison
and in the context of vocal ditties. This has always been the material I have
gravitated to and certainly my period of writing instrumental guitar music
happened for a reason, but it was the real deviation from the path and this is a
return to it.""
Koch continues on that song-oriented path with Live on the Radio, which
showcases his current working band, Greg Koch & Other Bad Men. With bassist
Roscoe Beck (longtime sideman to guitarists Robben Ford and Eric Johnson),
drummer Tom Brechtlein (a former member of Ford's Blueline band and a frequent
collaborator with Chick Corea) and the charismatic Austin-based soul singer
Malford Milligan (formerly the frontman for Storyville and Double Trouble), Koch
again unleashes his considerable chops in the context of song forms on this
vibrant live set recorded at the adventurous, alternative Milwaukee radio
station WMSE located on the campus of the Milwaukee School of Engineering.
""While I felt some pressure to do the pyrotechnic thing on Vai's label -- and I
can't complain because it really put me on the map and gave me notoreity and
that kind of stuff -- the core of what I'm really into is more of the bluesy,
chicken-icking, funky, quasi-jazzy aspect of guitar playing,"" says Koch. ""I've
worked on my rhythm playing every bit as much as the lead playing, trying to
have sinewy lead parts along with chunky chord parts and funky rhythm parts, and
that comes across on this new recording.""--
But make no mistake, there is also plenty of blistering, mind-bending fretboard
feats (or in Koch-ese, ""plectrum-fueled skullduggery"") for six-string
connoisseurs to savor on--Live on the Radio. Koch channels all the right people
on this searing collection of blues, funk and R&B, including Jimi Hendrix,
Albert King, Albert Collins, Jeff Beck and Roy Buchanan with touches of Stevie
Ray Vaughan, Danny Gatton and Richie Blackmore thrown in for good measure. And
he filters all those killer influences through his own slightly bent prism that
is tinted with grunge and tinged with gristle. From faithful covers of Freddy
King's ""The Stumble,"" Jimi Hendrix's ""Manic Depression"" and ""Spanish Castle
Magic"" to soulful interpretations of Sam Cooke's anthemic ""A Change Is Gonna
Come,"" T-Bone Walker's ""Stormy Monday"" and Delbert McClinton's ""Standing On
Shakey Ground."" Add in some funk with the original instrumental ""Mrs.
Buckley--, Johnny --Guitar-- Watson--s ""Don't Change Horses"" and Al Green--s
""Ain't No Fun For Me,"" and Koch's deranged guitar prowess is evident from
start to finish. Some call it awesome. Koch calls it ""good clean fun.""
The evolution of this powerhouse band began when Koch hooked up with bassist
Beck (who appears on a few tracks on 4 Days In The South). As Greg recalls,
""Roscoe and I met at a NAMM show about three years ago and we really hit it off
right then and there, musically speaking. We had a lot in common so we thought,
'We should put a band together.'"" Koch later flew Beck in to Milwaukee for a
gig at Shank Hall and a couple clinics in the area along with a live appearance
at radio station WMSE. ""We did that WMSE appearance basically to promote the
gig and they recorded it,"" says Koch. ""And when we listened back to the stuff
we said, 'This is pretty good! We could actually release this.''""
They subsequently expanded on this formula to make Live on the Radio, which is
the first Koch project to feature vocalist Milligan, who had been working with
Beck and otherAustin luminaries in the house band for Blue Tuesday at Antone's
nightclub. ""With Malford handling all the vocals, I can sit back and comp and
let the band percolate in a different fashion,"" says the guitarist-bandleader.
""And I enjoy that. Plus, he's got that kind of crazy, go-for-the-jugular manic
thing. He's a perfect foil for my psychosis.""
While Milwaukee drummer John Calarco and Austin's Brannen Templeappear on a
majority of Live on the Radio, Tom Brechtlein was brought in for a track and
continues to hold down the drum chair with Koch's group. The band debuted at
Festa Italiana inMilwaukee in the summer of 2006 and subsequently went into the
radio station to record Live on the Radio. ""I think for being completely off
the cuff, it's really good,"" says Koch of this debut outing with His Other Bad
Men. ""And the fidelity of the record is great. That live in the studio sound
where everything is bleeding into everything else is fantastic. We're not
messing with anything on this recording. We couldn't really fix anything even if
we wanted to. It is what it is. You just gotta crank it up and whatever happens
happens.""
Opening on a powerhouse note with a letter-perfect reading of Hendrix's ""Manic
Depression,"" played with a heavy duty tone that delivers a direct hit to the
solar plexus, Koch & His Other Bad Men move into a searing rendition of the
Freddy King vehicle, ""Goin' Down,"" which features the guitarist skronking on a
Fuzzbender pedal while dropping in references to Jeff Beck along the way. ""I
couldn't help but live out my '60s fantasies with that particular pedal,"" says
Greg of his fuzzfest on that tune. The funky, Meters-inspired instrumental
""Mrs. Buckley"" (an inside reference to a line Orson Welles uttered in a tv
commercial from an infamous blooper reel) features some slick Univibe-imbued
guitar licks from Koch. Then on a show-stopping rendition of the classic slow
blues, ""Stormy Monday,"" he tips his hat to Albert King with some vicious
string-bending and also salutes Roy Buchanan with some virtuosic volume swells
and a solo of tortured, cathartic intensity.--
On a ripping rendition of Freddy King's ""The Stumble,"" Koch flaunts sustained
tones, remarkable speed and masterful command of his instrument during his
crackling solo. Milligan turns in some soul-stirring vocals on a faithful cover
of Sam Cooke's gospel-tinged ""A Change Is Gonna Come-- and also on the funky Al
Green selection ""Ain't No Fun For Me,-- which features some stinging Tele licks
from Greg. His version of Hendrix's ""Spanish Castle Magic"" (a tune he
previously recorded live on The Grip) cleverly morphs into the Band of Gypsys'
tune ""Who Knows-- and culminates in a wicked wah-wah solo. Koch unveils his
substantial slide chops on a unique rendition of the Delbert McClinton tune
""Standing On Shakey Ground-- while on Roscoe Beck's uptempo, chops-busting
instrumental shuffle ""Cotton,"" he joins together with the bassist on some
challenging unison lines on the head. The collection closes on a funky note with
Johnny --Guitar-- Watson--s ""Don't Change Horses,-- underscored by the Koch--s
slinky rhythm guitar work. ""I'm pretty proud of this collection of tunes,"" he
says of Live on the Radio. ""And I'm looking forward to getting out and playing
them with this band.""
Born in Milwaukee in 1966, Koch got his earliest musical influences from his
brother George, who was 14 years older. He later became infatuated with Jimi
Hendrix and by age 12 began playing guitar. After studying jazz guitar for four
years at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Greg's musical maturity led
to national attention as a fiery instrumentalist, winning 1st Prize in the
Bluesbreaker Guitar Showdown judged by legendary bluesman Buddy Guy in 1989. He
started his own band, Greg Koch and the Tone Controls, and soon found himself in
one of the most renowned groups of the region. The band went on to win five
Wisconsin Area Music Awards for Blues Artist of the Year ('93, '95 through '98),
and Greg personally took in seven as Guitarist of the Year ('92, '94 through
'99). Putting out five independent releases, Greg Koch and the Tone Controls had
acquired an increasingly growing base of fans who craved music 'outside of the
box.'
He later found himself as the premier clinician for Fender, the world's largest
and most prestigious guitar and amplifier manufacturer. Bringing together
world-class chops and a humorous ability to articulate sounds and techniques
with a genuine devotion to all things guitar, Koch has developed an
exceptionally effective clinic. With his own tunes as a backdrop and various
Fender devices as the tools, a variety of tones, tricks and anecdotes are
willingly shared with those in attendance. Greg's relationship with music
publishing giant, the Hal Leonard Corporation, has resulted in an
extraordinarily successful catalog of guitar instructional materials including
the rewrite of the Hal Leonard Guitar Method with the original author Will
Schmidt, which has become the top-selling guitar method in the world. His latest
Hal Leonard guitar instruction book, ""Guitar Clues: Operation Pentatonic,"" is
geared toward guitarists of all levels. ""This is not a beginner's book, nor is
it a grand thesis on improvisatory complexity, but folks on both ends of the
spectrum can learn something from it,"" he writes in the introduction to the
book. ""I'm hoping that the 'Guitar Clues' book will be another one that will
perpetuate my thousandaire status,"" he adds.
Koch's popular Hal Leonard instructional DVDs -- two on the style of Stevie Ray
Vaughan (approved by Jimmie Vaughan), one on Lynyrd Skynyrd, another celebrating
revered blues stylists like Albert King, Albert Collins, Elmore James and Guitar
Slim and one on his own twisted take on guitar called ""Guitar Gristle"" -- have
revolutionized video guitar instruction with a combination of insanity,
effective instruction and inspiring musical performances into a package that can
only be described as ""edu-tainment.""--
Other books on everything from Blues and Country guitar to Lead and Rhythm
playing are available by Greg and when Fender and Hal Leonard got together to
put out a publication celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Fender
Stratocaster by releasing a book by Tom Wheeler called ""The Stratocaster
Chronicles"", Greg was brought in to record a program called ""50 Sounds of the
Stratocaster"" which included him conjuring up the spirits of some of the
greatest players and sounds of the Stratocaster with his trademark dialog for a
CD that accompanies the book. The winning combination of Fender/Hal
Leonard/Wheeler and Koch continues with the release of ""The Soul of Tone""
(Fall '07), a history of Fender amplification which includes a CD. of Koch's
""Amps Through Time"" in the spirit of the ""50 Sounds of the Strat.""
Along with his instructional guitar books and DVDs and his own CDs as a leader,
Koch also appears on synth wizard Roger Powell's 2006 recording,Fossil Poets,
which features-- his earthy, toe-curling licks on top of the former Utopia
keyboard player's celestial soundscapes.
Muriel Anderson's All Star Guitar Night benefits the
Music For Life Alliance
