Thursday, May 28, 2026
Monday, May 11, 2026
New book gets deep into details of Violent Femmes debut album
If more than 7 million copies sold and a public-television special are not already enough validation of the classic status of the Violent Femmes' 1983 debut album, here's another indicator:
That album is now the subject of a book in the famed 33⅓ series about individual recordings.
Books in this series can vary widely from detailed music journalism to idiosyncratic personal takes. "Violent Femmes" (Bloomsbury Academic) by Nic Brown, a drummer as well as a writer, is both fannish and deeply reported. Brown interviewed original band members Gordon Gano, Brian Ritchie and Victor DeLorenzo at length. He also spoke with album producer Mark Van Hecke and other figures.
As someone who has read many Milwaukee takes on the Femmes over the decades – and has written a few, too – I also enjoyed Brown's view of the band from outside the local hothouse.
Brown explores the band's formation, its unusual instrumentation and how it worked in the studio. He also goes over each song in detail, both lyrically and musically.
Here are a few takeaways gleaned from Brown's book. While passionate fans may already know some of these, you'd have to be a certified expert to know them all.
- Bassist Ritchie coined the Violent Femmes name as a label for the rhythm section he had with DeLorenzo, at a time when the pair played with various other musicians.
- By the time he met Ritchie and DeLorenzo, the prolific Gano had already written all of the songs that would appear on the Femmes' first two albums, and some of the songs that would turn up on the band's third.
- What led to the Femmes' acoustic instrumentation, particularly Ritchie's acoustic bass guitar? "I just thought that we should all be equipped to play acoustic music because there was an imminent apocalypse on the horizon," Ritchie told Brown. "I thought we probably wouldn't have electricity."
- The trio's first gig was in the basement-level Beneath-It-All-Cafe on Downer Avenue (under the old Wash Tub laundromat).
- The person who actually "discovered" the Femmes busking outside the Oriental Theatre on the day of a Pretenders concert in 1981 was Peggy Sue Honeyman-Scott, the wife of guitarist James Honeyman-Scott. It's often written that James or even singer Chrissie Hynde was the initial talent spotter.
- Who bankrolled the recording of the album? DeLorenzo's father loaned the group the $10,000 they needed.
- Castle Studios in Lake Geneva, where the album was recorded, was a facility that had been installed in the main lodge of the fabled Playboy Club there.
- Given the enormous backlog of songs Gano had written and the limited studio time the band could afford, how did they decide what to record for the first album? Gano said Ritchie had "the brilliant idea" to pick only "the poppy songs." That's why the band's second album, "Hallowed Ground," is so different: it has the Gano songs influenced by gospel, country and jazz.
- DeLorenzo calls the distinctive snare drum beats he plays at the beginning of "Blister in the Sun" "stutter flams." A flam, Brown explains, is played with two sticks hitting one note together. Those familiar flams are heard today as pump-up music samples in stadiums and arenas around the country.
- Penn Jillette, of the magic duo of Penn and Teller, gave Gano a specific and enthusiastic compliment about the timing of a line in "Kiss Off." But you'll have to read Brown's book to find out what it was.
Thursday, March 12, 2026
Here's why Racine received more rainfall than other parts of SE Wisconsin on Tuesday
Holly Gilvary
RACINE — While a narrow swath of heavy rainfall Tuesday night that spanned from Lake Geneva to Racine left significantly more rain locally compared to the rest of Southeast Wisconsin, Racinians can expect a drier end to their week.
The greater Racine area received 2.5 to 3 inches of rain Tuesday night into early Wednesday morning, compared to about 1.7 inches in Burlington and half an inch in Kenosha and Milwaukee, according to the National Weather Service.
NWS Meteorologist Marcia Cronce said "repeated rounds of individual cells of storms" caused the band of heavier precipitation.
"This fairly typical," she said. "We call it (thunderstorm) convection. You always get localized areas of higher versus lower precipitation. It just depends on where the storms track."
A light snow and rain mix was expected for Wednesday evening in Racine, according to Cronce.
Another round of light rain with a possible snow mixture is forecast for Racine on Thursday evening, Cronce said. Friday will be windy, but dry.
Thursday, July 10, 2025
Cops Gone Wild: Former Wisconsin police chief connected to ammunition importing scheme, feds say
John Diedrich
A former small-town Wisconsin police chief is implicated in a scheme by a California gun dealer to illegally import armor-piercing incendiary rounds into the United States from Bosnia, according to federal court records.
Bringing such ammunition into the country is a violation of federal law, but there are exceptions, including if the ammunition is for an American police department.
In 2021, the California gun dealer and his brother enlisted then-police chief James Bushey of the Town of Linn Police Department in Walworth County to sign documents saying his department needed the ammunition, according to a federal search warrant unsealed in late 2024 and other documents.
In exchange, the gun dealer promised to provide money to pay for squad cars and other equipment for the town's police department, the warrant says.
The plan failed when the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives halted the import, asking why a department of a half-dozen officers policing a town of 2,600 people south of Lake Geneva would need more than a million rounds of such specialized ammunition.
The California gun dealer, Darin Dowd, has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to defraud the U.S. regarding the importation of a half-million of the rounds of ammunition.
A plea agreement was filed in the Eastern District of Wisconsin on July 2. Dowd faces up to five years in prison. No court dates have been set.
Dowd did not return messages for comment.
Dowd's brother, Jacob Dowd, has also been implicated along with others, but to date, only Darin Dowd has been charged.
The former chief, Bushey, 41, did not return calls and messages seeking comment.
James Weiss, chairman of the Linn Town Board, confirmed to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on July 9 that Bushey is no longer employed by the town and added officials have been fully cooperating with federal authorities.
"As confirmed by federal representatives, the Town of Linn and its current administration are not subjects of any prosecutorial inquiry," Weiss said, reading from a prepared statement. "The Town of Linn holds all officials to standards of integrity. Actions that violate those standards are inconsistent with our values."
Weiss declined further comment, citing the ongoing federal probe.
Chief misled Town Board on deal, according to court documents
The search warrant and other documents provided these details:
The scheme played out in 2021 as the Dowd brothers were looking for a police chief to file false paperwork to get the highly sought-after ammunition.
Dowd was part owner of United Forces Enterprises, a federal firearms licensee in Vacaville, California.
Bushey said he was approached by his former roommate, who was acting as a go-between with the Dowds. Bushey said he agreed to sign the paperwork saying 1.5 million of the rounds were needed for his department.
At a meeting with the Town Board in June 2021, Bushey told board members he was entering into a creative deal with a gun dealer to get ammunition, which was in short supply at the time, donated to the department.
But Bushey didn't include the fact that he was falsely claiming to the ATF that all the ammunition was for the town department, or that he would be receiving cash payments in exchange for submitting the paperwork.
Bushey provided a second purchase order of 3 million rounds of 12.7X99 Armor-Piercing Incendiary Brass Case ammunition. This type of ammunition is used in firearms such as the Barrett M82 rifle and M2HB/M2 Browning belt-fed rifle.
"This is a large-caliber weapon and is rarely, if ever, used for law enforcement purposes and even more rare to be an API round," the warrant said.
After the paperwork was submitted, an ATF agent contacted Bushey and, according to Bushey, said it “looked a bit odd that a small department in Wisconsin was buying 1.5 million rounds of belt-fed ammo."
John Diedrich can be reached at jdiedrich@gannett.com.
Friday, April 4, 2025
Clergy Gone Wild:: Disgraced former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, charged with sexual abuse in Wisconsin, has died
Laura Schulte
His death was confirmed by Archbishop of Washington Robert McElroy, according to reporting from the National Catholic Register.
The former Cardinal was ordained in 1958, became the archbishop in Newark, New Jersey in 1986, and then the archbishop of Washington, D.C. in 2000.
McCarrick rose to power despite credible claims of sexual abuse against him. A two-year investigation conducted by the Vatican found credible reports of abuse as far back as 1999, including one allegation that he slept with seminarians, according to the National Catholic Register. He resigned from the priesthood in 2018 and was defrocked in 2019.
Peter Isely, a founding member of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said in a statement Friday that McCarrick's death leaves behind a legacy that the Catholic Church has failed to take full accountability for. Isely cautioned that the process to elect the next pope needs more transparency.
“McCarrick may be dead, but his many victims are not. We are still here, still living with the harm he caused — and with the church’s failure to stop him," he said in the statement. "There is no reason to believe the next conclave won’t include more McCarricks — influencing, protecting, and electing one of their own, just like he did at the last conclave. That’s why the public must know who these candidates are.”
In 2021, McCarrick was accused of assaulting a teen boy at a wedding reception in Massachusetts in 1974, and in 2023 he was charged with sexual abuse in Wisconsin. He was declared unfit to stand for trial late last year, though the charges are still open against him.
Though McCarrick never served in Wisconsin, he did visit the state on vacations.
Prosecutors in Walworth County and the Department of Justice in Wisconsin charged McCarrick with fourth-degree sexual assault over a 1977 incident. Had he been convicted, McCarrick would have faced up to nine months in prison and a $10,000 fine.
The Walworth County case began after someone reported the abuse to the state Department of Justice's wide-ranging clergy abuse investigation. The department's inquiry is ongoing.
Prosecutors said McCarrick groped an 18-year-old while they were both staying as guests at a residence on Geneva Lake. According to documents, the teen was in the lake off a dock when McCarrick and another adult man entered the water. Both groped him and discussed his genitals, the complaint alleges.
The teen tried to get away from the men, according to the complaint, and got out of the lake and ran to the house.
The teen told investigators McCarrick began sexually assaulting him at age 11. According to the complaint, he reported several incidents in which McCarrick inappropriately touched or assaulted him before he was 18 years old.
McCarrick took the teen to lavish parties and events, the complaint said. The accuser also reported that McCarrick had taken him to an event where several adult men assaulted him.
The accuser also said McCarrick had sex with him the day before the incident on Geneva Lake.
In 1977, McCarrick would have been 46 years old. He was a priest in the Archdiocese of New York and was working as the private secretary to Cardinal Terence Cooke. The incident is said to have occurred a month before McCarrick was named auxiliary bishop of New York.
Laura Schulte can be reached at leschulte@jrn.com and on X @SchulteLaura.
Wednesday, March 5, 2025
Sunday, March 2, 2025
Sunday, February 2, 2025
Friday, October 18, 2024
'Just like the icicles, our hearts are melting': Ice Castles won't be in Lake Geneva this year
Amy Schwabe
This story was updated to accurately reflect the most current information.
Ice Castles will not return to Lake Geneva this year.
The castles, which were hand-built from thousands of icicles to create slides, thrones and tunnels for visitors to walk through, had been a winter event in Lake Geneva since 2019 (their first Wisconsin appearance was in the Dells in 2018).
On Oct. 16, Ice Castles, LLC announced on its Facebook page that: "Just like the icicles, our hearts are melting as we share that we won’t be returning to Wisconsin this year. But we’re excited for new adventures on the horizon! We can’t wait to bring the magic back in future seasons and create even more unforgettable moments with you."
The allusion to a weather-related reason for the castles not returning doesn't come as a surprise as warm winters have plagued the Ice Castles for the past few years. In 2023, the Ice Castles had to close after just three days, as the company's Facebook page announced: "Over the last three days, the castle has melted beyond repair. We always say that Ice Castles is a delicate dance with Mother Nature. Sadly, this winter she didn't feel like dancing."
Last year, Lake Geneva's Ice Castles event was rebranded as "Winter Realms," and the ice structures were billed as more "weather-resilient," although Ice Castles CEO Kyle Standifird still encouraged people to hedge their bets, stating in a news release at the time that, "We do not know how long we will be able to remain open due to unpredictable weather forecasts, and we encourage guests to come as soon as possible and not wait."
That turned out to be good advice; in an interview with the Journal Sentinel, Standifird said last year's castles only lasted ten or 11 days. He did note, however, that the "weather-resilient" innovations — which included adding snow elements to the ice — did help, as the castles lasted longer than the previous year, even though last year's temperatures were even warmer.
"Last year, about half the castle was made out of snow, and we made ice igloos that we covered with snow as a form of insulation, with some ice features inside the igloos," Standifird said. "We also did things like have courtyards made of snow instead of ice, and we have some other ideas that we're working on that can keep the Ice Castles magic but also keep things open a little longer."
Although those innovations won't be used in Lake Geneva this year, Standifird described this year's cancellation as a pause that the business had to take in order to regroup in an effort to "bring the Ice Castles magic back to Wisconsin."
Quite a few Facebook comments noted that it might make sense to locate the Ice Castles in a more northern area of Wisconsin, where the weather is likely to be more cooperative. Standifird said that's a possibility, but also said that the company's preference is to return to Lake Geneva.
"We have been looking at other Wisconsin markets to see if we might have a better chance of success farther north, and we're evaluating if that would be necessary in order to return to Wisconsin," Standifird said. "But we have loved being in Lake Geneva, the community there and the partnership with Geneva National Resort
"Lake Geneva has just been a great place to do business with, and we hope to be back."
Thursday, September 26, 2024
Tuesday, August 3, 2021
Friday, March 19, 2021
Mount Pleasant woman charged with child abuse at Timber Ridge Water Par
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| The indoor waterpark at the Timber Ridge Lodge & Waterpark located in the Town of Lyons. |
LYONS — Mount Pleasant resident Julia Jarlsberg, 31, is being charged for allegedly causing bodily harm to a child at the Timber Ridge Lodge and Water Park, located by Grand Geneva Resort outside of Lake Geneva.
According to a criminal complaint, an officer was dispatched to the Timber Ridge Lodge on March 10 after receiving a report of a mother who had struck a child.
Upon arriving on the scene, the officer spoke with Jarlsberg’s child.
The child reported that Jarlsberg was intoxicated and that she had struck her when attempting to prevent Jarlsberg from grabbing another beer from their hotel unit’s refrigerator.
The child reported Jarlsberg had pulled her hair, pushed her and struck her.
The child’s injuries consisted of bruises and scratches, which were photographed by responding officers.
When officers went to Jarlsberg's hotel room to talk to her, they found she had exited through the back patio door, according to the complaint.
Officers later located her near a vehicle in the resort parking lot. She reportedly was having trouble balancing and slurring her speech.
Jarlsberg admitted to officers she had been drinking and that she was violating a condition of her probation by doing so. After initially denying striking her child, Jarlsberg later admitted to pushing and yelling at the child, according to reports.
Reports indicate Jarlsberg’s blood alcohol content was .247 after a test was administered.
Jarlsberg faces a felony charge of physical abuse to a child with a maximum sentence of six years, as well as one misdemeanor charge for disorderly conduct with a maximum sentence of 90 days.
Jarlsberg has been convicted in Racine County on a number of charges before the Timber Ridge incident.
In July 2012 she was convicted of a disorderly conduct charge with a domestic abuse modifier. In 2016 she was convicted of an OWI while operating with a passenger under 16-years-old. In 2019 she was charged with a misdemeanor for violating a domestic abuse order as well as a disorderly conduct charge in March 2020.
She also received an injunction in August 2019, restricting her possession of firearms.
Wednesday, August 12, 2020
STORM UPDATES: Cleanup expected to take days across Racine County
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