A hot rod tearing through a clear mid-western night. Prairie Town is back with a dozen straight-up, stripped-down rock-n-roll tunes.

12 MP3 Songs
ROCK: Americana, ROCK: Roots Rock



Details:
In 1985, while in college, Paul Coady (Guitar/Vocals) and Steve Grzenia (Drums/Vocals) played baseball together. Hanging out while taking batting practice, they discovered that they had very similar interests in music, sixties garage bands and power pop. What do two teenagers do in this environment? They start a band. Recruiting fellow ballplayer Marko Marketti (Bass/Vocals), the three were christened The Flaming Tailpipes (for reasons no one is willing to discuss at this point).

Marketti didnât play bass at this time and in fact didnât even own one. Coady and Grzenia dropped off equipment at Markoâs job and said, âyouâre our bass player⦠you owe us $500â.

Playing three or four sets a night at neighborhood bars was an education for the band. Creating their original tunes and developing a repertoire of covers to flesh out the sets. Throughout the years, the band has been called many things, Heartland Rock, Midwestern Rock, Power Pop, Cow Punk, even Alternative. To which Coady responds, âalternative to what, weâre a rock-n-roll bandâ. The bands influences start with the twang of Buddy Holly and run through the choruses of Cheap Trick and the guitar crunch of Weezer and Green Day.

After recording several demos, the band changed its name to Prairie Town in 1991 when releasing their CD, âFor Keeps and a Single Dayâ. The title track and âRide It Outâ received airplay on several local radio stations and the boys stepped up to larger music venues. In 1992, a fourth member was added to Prairie Town. Then underage guitarist/vocalist, Scott Niekelski joined up for a few shows prior to the recording of the EP, âPlain and Simpleâ. Scott added hard edged guitar sounds to the Prairie Town live show and atmospheric mandolin playing on the recordings.

Scott added his compositions to Coadyâs for the next release, âEverythingâ, and has gone on to write Prairie Town staples such as âDonât Needâ and âStumble and Fallâ. Prairie Town has continued as a quartet ever since Scott joined. The boys are proud of the fact that no one has ever left the band. However, that could be due to the compromising photos that exist of each member.

Several CDs later, the boys are back with a new release for 2006. âPopulation 4â is a collection of a dozen literate, yet hard-hitting rock-n-roll songs. Once again, the band produced and engineered the CD themselves. On âPopulation 4â, Paul, Steve, Marko and Scott each take a turn on the lead vocal mic. In fact, that occurs in the first four songs. The band has been around for 21 years now, but as theyâre fond of saying, âWe still rock harder than any 17 year old.â While that is true, in the interest of full disclosure, it now takes them longer to recover.