Monovox was an American rock band. In 1992, four band members – Matthew Schaeffer, Cliff Hammer, Matthew Kramer and Tony Krug – started writing and performing songs while they were still in high school. They graduated and went their separate ways for a while until moving to

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th-lar ...

, in 1995. In 1997 while performing at Chicago's Beatlefest, they were discovered by Chicago record producer Joey Donatello. He developed the band and got their first album, ''Burlap and Broadcast'', released in 1997. Their career and time together were short lived.

Early history

Beginning in 1992,

Fond du Lac, Wisconsin Fond du Lac () is a city in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 44,678 at the 2020 census. The city forms the core of the United States Census Bureau's Fond du Lac United States metrop ...

, high school classmates Matthew Schaeffer, Cliff Hammer, and Tony Krug (a.k.a. Anthony) began writing and performing songs together. Under the moniker J.J. War, the band wrote and performed original songs. In 1994 after graduating high school, Schaeffer moved to Madison to study piano performance and composition at the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

, under Professor Carrol Chilton. Hammer and Krug remained in Fond du Lac. The band members all moved to Madison the following year, living together and writing songs. In 1997, they traveled to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

to perform in the city's annual BeatleFest. The resulting publicity brought the band to the attention of Chicago record producer Joey "The Don" Donatello, who developed the band and was responsible for their first

album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

, ''Burlap and Broadcast'', released in 1997. The band then relocated to Chicago to gain wider exposure in the local club scene.

Big break and subsequent parting

In 2000, Monovox earned a $250,000

recording contract A recording contract (commonly called a record contract or record deal) is a legal agreement between a record label and a recording artist (or group), where the artist makes a record (or series of records) for the label to sell and promote. Artists ...

through the internet record label

GarageBand.com GarageBand.com was a large online community of independent musicians and music fans, founded in 1999. The site was used by musicians who were seeking greater exposure and critical insight provided by an audience of their peers. The site was also u ...

. The highest user-rated song out of thousands of recordings submitted to the Garageband.com website, "First Time" (which was penned by Schaeffer and later lyricized by Shaw) was soon re-recorded in

Sausalito, California Sausalito (Spanish language, Spanish for "small willow grove") is a city in Marin County, California, Marin County, California, United States, located southeast of Marin City, California, Marin City, south-southeast of San Rafael, California ...

, with

Jerry Harrison Jeremiah Griffin Harrison (born February 21, 1949) is an American songwriter, musician, producer, and entrepreneur. He began his professional music career as a member of the cult band the Modern Lovers before becoming keyboardist and guitarist ...

producer Producer or producers may refer to: Occupations *Producer (agriculture), a farm operator *A stakeholder of economic production *Film producer, supervises the making of films **Executive producer, contributes to a film's budget and usually does not ...

. This song, along with twelve additional tracks that the band would record, would become the group's first and only full-length album as Monovox. Garageband dissolved with the

dot-com bust The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compos ...

of 2001, and the self-titled album was not released until much later, under the band's own "Ask A Chimp" label. In the years that followed, Schaeffer continued writing, touring, and recording songs with the band until March 2004, when Schaeffer and fellow Monovox guitarist Paulie Heenan (who had joined the group in 2001) announced that they were leaving the band to move to

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, so that they might pursue music careers there. Kramer remained in Madison, working at DNA Studios as a producer. Hammer now performs with several Madison-area bands, and Shaw has occasionally and acoustically performed solo in Madison. Shaw graduated from the

University of Wisconsin-Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

with a BA during the spring of 2004.

Death

Paulie Heenan died on November 9, 2012, in Madison, at the age of 30. He was shot by police during an altercation after apparently being mistaken for a burglar after a night of drinking and entering the wrong house by mistake.

Discography

* ''Burlap and Broadcast'' (1997) * ''Monovox'' (EP) (2003) * ''Sausalito'' (2004)

References

{{Reflist

External links