Back in the mid 60’s, most of us saw the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. Some of us started playing a musical instrument. I started to learn the electric guitar. After many lessons I started to get together with other musicians and quickly determined that there were many guitar players. I wanted to play in a band and switched to bass guitar. Up until about 10 years ago, I was always in a band, performing and traveling for 35 years. I played in a couple of bands in high school then went to college for 5 years as a voice major in music education. During that time, I played with a few other college students from Wisconsin including opening for Cheap Trick at the then famous Milwaukee live music venue, Humping Hanna’s. After the breakup of Bobstar I was looking for another band to join. I answered an ad in the Milwaukee Journal for a band called Footch Kapoot. I went to the audition at a barn in Mequon, WI, now the sight of a huge strip mall. The audition went well and I got the job. We went through several drummers until we found the right fit. Footch Kapoot was unique in that the choice of band members was not just based on musical ability. The personality of all the members is what made the band what it was. We tried our best to become a full time band and recorded our album and hoped it would launch us into a touring situation. After a lot of effort from all of us, it became obvious that the success we were looking for was not to be. A last gig at the annual Manure Fest and we all went our separate ways. Most of us have stayed in touch and are a big part of what we’re doing now with the re-release of our album. After Footch, I still wanted to audition with a road band called Private Stock. I hit the road at 23 years old and never looked back. I spent almost 10 years touring the Southeast and Gulf states 6 nights a week and about 45 weeks a year. In the fall of 1986 I moved back to Wisconsin and with the kindness of Paul and Vickie Schneider (Footch’s drummer) I stayed at their home long enough to get a regular job and my own apartment. Before too long I was playing every weekend in a wedding band, The Dance Hall Doctors. During this time I had many side projects and met many of the major players in Milwaukee. One of those side projects was Spike and the Eargoggles, an improv group that recorded every other month or so. We had a large and changing line up that included: Mike “Spike” Judy (Semi Twang), Victor Delorenzo (Violent Fems), Connie and Kim (Mrs. Fun) Jim Ohlschmidt and Gary Koehler (Dusty Drapes and His Shades of Swing), a band I joined later. I also played bass and sang on Victor Delorenzo’s second solo recording Peter Cory Sent Me. After Dusty Drapes and His Shades of Swing disbanded, I hooked up with Jim Eianelli and Bill Siebert to play in a band called Milk Train, a 3 piece trio playing rock and blues, and bands including: The Shivers and Colour Radio. Bill and Jim played for many years with Al Ek in the Shuffleaires. Finely I joined a popular festival band called Hot Sauce. For 3 ½ years, we played a lot for Milwaukee’s festivals including Summerfest. Today I travel much of the time working for a great company, still play gigs a few times a year, and still play with the many friends I met over the years in jamming situations.

The Amazingly Ageless Michael Haupt

Michael has been musically active for about 28 of the 34 years since his musical career started, playing in part time local bands and doing some recording. His 1st band was the Ozaukee County Jam Band, formed by guitarist/singer Mike Sipin in the early 70s. This band also featured Jim Bohn on guitar and vocals. From there, Boniwell Road was formed with Jim. Next came Footch Kapoot, which he considers the peak of his clarinet/reed modulator playing. Soon after, Mike took up sax and joined a band called "On the Loose", which included drummer/singer Todd Stephens who later joined Mark Pannier and the BB's, and Peter Alt, cofounder and current member of the popular Milwaukee band Blue Hand. From there he played with the Syndicate formed by Mike Sipin and his brother Tom on bass and vocals.

Next was a brief jazz project with Frank Tarantino, and a wedding band called Wild Nite, who he played with for 13 years. Michael is currently playing with the Ozaukee County Jam Band, who got together in 2000 for a reunion and has stayed playing together in some form to present. He has also studied with and performed with sax player/educator/author Aaron Santee.   

Michael's list of cd contributions include:  "Old Dogs, New Tricks" by the Ozaukee County Jam Band   "Alabaster Moon" by Mark Hecker  "Tales It Is" by Kelly-Norman-Nestler  "Farther Up The Mountain" by Jim Bohn  and Ray Last's latest cd, “Inner Mission.”     

 Michael currently lives in Grafton, WI, home of Paramount and oK’eh Race Recordings of the early 20^{th century, and works a day job [a guys gotta eat, and likes to!]. Besides playing and listening to music he enjoys fishing, reading and watching T.V. He has remained close friends with members of Footch Kapoot since its breakup. "The friendships we formed in Footch Kapoot remain as deep and timeless as the music we created and played together.}

Michael lists his greatest influences being - Rory Gallagher, Benny Goodman and David Sanborn.

Mark Hecker

Mark Hecker AKA “Tater,” burst onto the scene in August of 1953. He got his first blues harp in 1965 at 12 years old. It was one of the old “Marine Bands,” which he still has.

Although he loved playing blues harp, he really had a fire in his gut for guitar. The desire was so great, he fashioned a crude guitar out of scrap wood. “My father was a wood worker. We always had scraps lying around.” It had a furring strip neck, no frets, a square plywood body, friction pegs that he carved with a pocket knife and fishing line strings. “I painted it black and actually figured out a way to tune and play it.” His dad decided he must be serious about this. In 1967, he got Mark a “Stella” 6 string. Mark got his first electric guitar a year later. From that time forward, he played in a countless array of garage bands.

In the fall of 1971, R. J. and the Wellingtons, a fairly well known band from the 60’s, regrouped. Mark came in on guitar with 15 year old Mark Pannier on bass. We decided to capitalize on the 50’s rock revival. “Within a few months, we got tired of trying to wash the grease out of our hair and our musical interests were much more vast.”

The band changed their name to “Smoke,” altered their play list, became a hard rock and blues band and played all over southern Wisconsin and Illinois. “We worked a lot.”

Tater retired on good terms from Smoke in late summer of 1973, to embark on a solo act. “I was getting into Delta Blues and finger picking. In early spring at a Jean Luc Ponty concert, he met a funny little man named Ray Last. Tater was told of this band Ray was putting together. It would be called Footch Kapoot and they needed another guitar player. “I was pretty satisfied with my solo gig. I had no intention of joining a band. Still, the name intrigued me. Long story short, I spent the next 5 years in Footch Kapoot.”

After Footch Kapoot, Tater all but retired from music for the next 12 years. “I still played all the time, I just didn’t perform.” He also learned to play an array of unusual musical instruments. After losing his day job in 1994, he listed himself in the Wisconsin touring artist directory. He performed all over Wisconsin for several years. At the same time, he started his current business, Greenway Pest Management Services. “Music is dandy but bugs pay the bills.”

Tater began jamming with 2 other friends, one of them from the former band Smoke. They performed as Blind Owl. “That was great fun. We also had sweet vocals.”

In the same time frame, Tater met a guy that everyone said he should meet. “People say stuff like that all the time. They were not wrong this time. The guy’s name was Kevin Kelley. It was like we knew each other all of our lives.”

Kevin was in a band as a vocalist and blues harp player. He invited Tater to jam with his band. Again, he had no desire to get into another band. But for the next year, he played with both Blind Owl and the Freak Brothers, later to become Roadmaster. Due to lack of time on everyone’s part, Blind Owl dissolved.

Roadmaster enjoyed a busy schedule until 9/11. “Everybody quit going out. You couldn’t give a band away.” So once again, Mark began doing coffee house gigs, often joined by various members of Blind Owl and Kevin Kelly of Roadmaster with Mark’s son Michael on bass.

Kevin began booking the three-piece “Hecker-Kelley Band. As the economy and gigs started to increase, several members were added. The six-piece Hecker-Kelley band is currently active. The elusive Roadmaster also makes an occasional appearance.

Mark has written and produced a C.D., Alabaster Moon, available at

www.beneaththestairs.com and other markets.

Mark counts among his greatest influences Tom Waits, Mick Abrahms (Jethro Tull, Blodwynpig), Robert Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller) and a vast array of Blues/Jazz artists he’s stolen licks from.

Susan Julian is a Midwestern old-school product of a baby-boom generation of artists, a singer of rhythm and blues when rhythm and blues was still rhythm and blues... a self-taught, idealistic musician, singer, writer, and thinker whose songs touch on life and truth in a way that touches the depths of the heart.

A Chicago native, Susan played with a wide variety of different bands around the Midwest, from hard-rock edged "Survivor" clone Intruder in Chicago to the Waukesha-based BoDeans, who included in their accomplishments opened for U2 during the Joshua Tree tour. After recording their 3rd album, "Home", Susan left that tour to form her own band and go from side-man to big cheese.

In there somewhere is a long list of commercials, recording projects, 6-nighters at Holiday Inns, two shows a night in Las Vegas, and 3 shows a day directing a country music revue in Japan. Yes,....really. Dues-paying stuff, you know. Student at the School of Hard Knocks, Susan finally put her own band together and recorded some original stuff for posterity.

I was born on April 6, 1950 in Grafton, WI, a small town about 25 miles north of Milwaukee. When I was 12 I took accordion lessons, but I really wanted to play the guitar.

On Christmas Eve in 1964, at age 14, my father gave me my first guitar. It was a red double cutaway Harmony electric. I was a freshman in high school, and within months had formed a rock and roll band.

By the summer of '71, I was living in the San Francisco area, still performing music but becoming more interested in spiritual things. The next four years found me absorbed in learning about Eastern religions, mind sciences, but more intensely, the Native Americans.

Having hand sewn two of my own tipis, I became a tipi dweller on and off for about two years. By fall of 1975, I was back in Wisconsin after much wandering and searching.

A new music group was formed, named Footch Kapoot. After recording an album, we seemed destined for success. But, success eluded us and by the end of 1978, I found myself severely depressed and despondent

In June of 1979, I received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. My main focus over the past 27 years has been to know Him and praise Him, especially in song.

I have been married to my wife Susan since 1980. We have three children. (Ray has recently recorded a Christian CD, “Inner Mission” available on www.raylast.com )