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 List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is the List of municipalities in Wisconsin by population, second-most populous city in the state, with a population of 269,840 at the 2020 Uni ...

, 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, United States, and its county seat. It is located at the southern end of Lake Winnebago and had a population of 44,678 at the 2020 census. The city forms the core of the Fond du Lac met ...

, 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 tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

, 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 Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

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 (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

, ''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 act (artist or group), where the act makes an audio recording (or series of recordings) for the label to sell and ...

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 ...

. 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 for "small willow grove") is a city in Marin County, California, United States, located southeast of Marin City, south-southeast of San Rafael, and about north of San Francisco from the Golden Gate Bridge. Sausalito's ...

, with

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

as producer. 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 (or dot-com boom) was a stock market bubble that ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Intern ...

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 ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

, 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 tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

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