- This week on "Wisconsin Life":
A rock star who lives the small town life,
a metal artist who forges culture into his craft,
a coach who turned his passion into a profession
and a group strumming up tunes.
It's all ahead on "Wisconsin Life!"
* *
- Funding for "Wisconsin Life" is provided in part
by Alliant Energy,
Lowell and Mary Peterson
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.
- Hello and welcome to "Wisconsin Life."
I'm your host, Angela Fitzgerald.
Today we're exploring the rhythm and sounds
of the Oneida Nation
at the Music from our Culture Camp.
The camp is located in the arts cottage
in the Oneida Nation,
which is just west of the Green Bay metropolitan area.
Each year, the Oneida Nation Arts Program
holds the Music from our Culture Camp,
where children get hands-on experience
learning about tribal and hymnal music
heard in their community.
The experience culminates
with the campers putting on a live performance
in traditional regalia.
I can't wait to get started.
But before I do, let's head to Germantown
where another member of the Oneida Nation
is fusing his heritage into his art.
[torch fuel flows, lighter clicks]
- My grandfather was a blacksmith.
[flame whooshes]
My dad was a pipefitter.
So there was always a torch in the garage.
We're heating it up to about 1,200 degrees.
Any time I have a stressful day or have a bad day,
I go weld something together.
It always makes me feel better.
I've always done this, ever since I was a little kid.
My grandfather taught me how to do this...
and my father.
And it's--
I'm going home. I'm relaxed.
I'm with my family.
Even though they're both dead and gone,
I still feel like they're here and helping me.
Or I'm helping them.
[combustion]
My mom's family moved from Green Bay
where the reservation is to Milwaukee.
And a lot of Natives did because of the jobs.
My mother's an Oneida.
And my father's actually German Jew.
My mom had us registered at birth.
She was well-known on the reservation.
And she wanted to make sure that we all knew that we were Native.
* *
Where you come from, I always wrote "Red."
At the time, it wasn't too cool to be Native.
It was kind of a rough time as a child.
Picked on and teased a lot and that sort of thing,
about being Native American.
But it just made us tougher.
Our symbolism...
And this is the symbol of my tribe.
It's a Iroquois flower pattern.
It has fiddlehead fern hair, and it's a shawl dancer.
She's out dancing her heart out
and showing everybody that she's an Oneida.
I'm from the Turtle Clan;
the poets, the prophets,
and the artists of our community.
This is my turtle teacher.
It's a self-portrait.
I'm a former educator.
He's got the talking stick and a book.
This is the old way and the new way.
The turtle has all its students.
It has all the babies around him
wanting to hear the story.
Every piece that I make tells a story.
And that's how most Native American art is done.
It's not just a beautiful piece.
It tells a story.
The oldest piece I have is...
probably the long boat.
This is a symbol of our tribe.
We are "the people of the long boat."
We were originally from New York.
I'll start working on a pattern or a design and
sometimes it'll sit on my bench for months.
And all of a sudden,
I'll be inspired,
"Oh yeah, I should do this or this
and that'll really make it beautiful."
I'm thinking of making a wolf out of this one.
And it'll have legs
so that it actually sits on the edge of the table.
Just leave them sit on the table
until you're inspired on what would really be
the nicest piece I could make.
And then we're going to put the top of the shell on.
You go around and attach it to each leg.
Probably it was in my forties [laughs] before I started.
I'm 60 now.
Most of the stuff I just kept in my yard.
On the weekends, I'd get people pulling in my driveway,
walking through my yard.
I'd go out there
wondering what people were doing in my yard going,
"How much is this one?" thinking I'm a gallery or something.
That helped influence me to go into the field
'cause people were stopping
and liked it and wanted to purchase it.
Either do this or become a greeter at Walmart.
[laughs]
So we had to make it work.
The story is very important.
Once I do come up with a design,
for instance, if I do a Bear Clan pattern
that represents our nurses, our doctors, our firefighters
and policemen and our veterans.
And all of our protectors are Bear Clan.
I'll tag a little story onto it
that actually tells about this piece and what it means to us.
I would say less than 10% go to other Natives.
It's usually to non-Natives
that want to learn more about Natives.
And they like the way I teach it.
I think it's so neat
that so many people are interested
in the original culture of America.
[power sander vibrates]
Yeah, I like beautiful things
and I like making beautiful things.
But I'm just as intrigued
when someone comes up and falls in love with it.
I've had it many times where they come in
and see my life-sized bison
and say, "Oh, my God" and tears start rolling.
I mean you really feel that heartfelt message.
Its name is "Ancient Dignity."
But it's all hand-pounded.
Heated up and pounded with a hammer to form the body.
Then I put on 5,000 feet of hair
which came out to about 30,000 individual hairs
on the body itself.
I tried to make the eyes aware,
so that wherever you walked around it,
the eyes were following you.
The nose, being big and soft and cushiony,
the children just love to come and touch the nose.
That's why I do it is I like making beautiful things
and I like making things that touch other people.
-I figured the best way to learn about the Oneida arts culture
is to see and hear it yourself.
In a bit, campers from the Music from our Culture Camp
are going to play on the powwow drum
with their instructor, Harold Katchenago.
[Powwow drum music and singing]
What a wonderful experience
and there's still so much more to see.
Before we check out more, let's keep the tunes rolling
with a stop in the city of Durand
to meet a rock star who's got a famous band of friends.
* *
- Mark Healey
is as comfortable in a recording studio
as he is in the small west-central Wisconsin town
called Durand.
- You know, I know everybody and it's kinda nice.
[car rumbles by]
- Here you can still find a barber, a bar, and a bakery,
all on the same street.
- There's this mindset
that's a little bit different than other places
and it turns out to be my mindset.
[rock guitar music]
- And Mark "is" a little bit different
because not everyone is part of a legendary rock band.
- People know the songs but they don't know the name of the band.
[performing "Baby Blue"]
- The band is Badfinger.
Back in the 70s, long before Mark was a member,
their songs were bona fide Billboard hits.
- "No Matter What", "Day After Day",
"Come and Get It",
"Baby Blue."
- * If you want it *
* Here it is *
* Come and get it *
* Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh *
* Make your mind up fast *
- If they sound a bit like the Beatles,
that's no coincidence.
They were a protégé band
that followed in the wake of the Fab Four.
And the first group signed by the Beatles' Apple Records.
- Paul McCartney wrote the first song for the band:
"Come and Get It."
Then George Harrison produced
the "Straight Up" album.
- The Beatles and Badfinger were often intertwined.
Around that same time,
Mark Healey was a teenager
growing up in Wisconsin's capital city.
- Oh, man, it was fantastic.
I grew up on the west side.
It was definitely an exciting time.
I mean when the riots were going on.
The Mifflin Street block party,
I think the police
gave everybody 30 seconds to disperse.
And then within no time at all,
they were just shooting tear gas in.
- It was against that backdrop
that Mark found his musical footing.
- I know when I was 14,
I got in this band called "The Fine Young Men,"
except we had a girl singer.
We had an agent.
We played on the weekends.
I had to wear glasses,
because I was 14 and we're playing in these bars.
I didn't want to be rich or famous or anything.
I just wanted to play.
- And play he did.
Mark found his way to Los Angeles
and into recording studios,
engineering music for television shows
like "Magnum P.I."
- Did some music for a show called "Gilligan's Planet."
Did a lot of Hanna-Barbera stuff.
Did a lot of cartoons that never went anywhere.
- The group Badfinger wasn't going anywhere either.
Trying to overcome the suicides of two original band members
and financial problems,
lead singer Joey Molland had an idea.
[Joey Molland speaks with a British accent]
- Decided to put the band back together
and take it on the road.
So we started looking for players.
Mark was recommended to us.
He came to my house and I thought,
"Yeah, this guy's it. Yeah."
- It's now been more than 30 years
and Mark is still performing the hits
with Joey Molland's Badfinger.
[rock guitar music]
[performing "No Matter What"]
* No matter what you are *
- The songs still stand up today.
* I'll always be with you *
* Doesn't matter what you do, girl *
* Ooh girl *
* With you *
- When he's not touring,
Mark is usually here in his recording studio.
- * I went looking for the middle *
* But all I could find was the edge *
- The studio keeps me busy all the time.
I just produced a guy named Ben Brooks,
who's from Portsmouth, England.
This one that I did for Ben,
he's got Michael Bland playing drums.
Michael was Prince's drummer.
Gregg Inhofer, who worked with Bob Dylan,
is the keyboard player.
* I'll do anything *
* Anything *
- Mark also engineers his own music.
- I've got a solo record out.
It's getting played in 55 countries
between 20,000 and 30,000 air plays,
every three months.
* I know what I want *
* I know what to do *
- Molland: He brings energy.
He brings his heart.
- * I'll do anything *
- He brings his voice,
which has improved greatly over the years, I gotta say.
And... [laughs]
- A voice that takes lead vocals on an original Badfinger hit
featuring the Beatles' George Harrison.
* I remember finding out about you *
- Keep your ears open for him
'cause he'll always be around
and he'll always be doing something
and it'll always be something good.
[performing "Day After Day"] * My mind is all around you *
* Looking out of my lonely gloom *
* Day after day *
I've found this path
to make my living
and to get through life.
I think things worked out quite well for me.
You know, I'm very happy.
[closing notes]
- Thanks a lot, everybody.
Good night to 'ya. Hope you enjoyed it.
[applause]
- I'm here with Kal<na Niko Lee Daniels, camp co-founder
and Yuntle'kala°ú McLester, camp director
who are going to tell us more
about the Music from our Culture Camp.
How are you ladies doing today? - Good. - Great.
- Thank you for having us.
So our first question is
how many people does it take to run the camp?
- Our camp started in 2005.
And now we, 2017,
we have grown to four different genres.
In the beginning, it was just one or two,
which was the Oneida Longhouse Singers and the Oneida Hymns.
And now we have grown to the contemporary music,
which we take contemporary songs from the radio
and we implement the Oneida language into the songs.
And then we also have powwow,
which comes from the Menominee Nation.
Harold is one of our teachers.
And then we have the flute with Wade Fernandez.
And so we are up to five different genres now.
- Wow, it sounds like a lot of staff may be needed
to help teach all those different genres.
- Of all ages too.
- Why is this camp so important to children in the community?
- We found that the importance of this
is more than just music and language.
It's actually--
We sit on the reservation
in seven different school districts.
So we have a lot of kids that don't have any exposure
to their culture or any exposure to Oneida in general.
So aside from the music
and bringing the hymns and the Longhouse,
we're incorporating the language into it
which is very vital for us.
- So what is your absolutely favorite part about working for
the Music from our Culture Camp?
- So my favorite part is how the kids start out very young
and then they develop into these young men and women.
They show gratitude through singing.
They show gratitude
through the Kanehelatúksla Thanksgiving address.
There are, I think, 45 to 50 kids that we have now
in this summer camp.
And so they come eager and ready to learn.
They are, I guess, grateful in all different ways.
And they really mature into young men and women
and are displaying and advertising for us.
Recruiting, they're recruiting now kids to come,
which is awesome for the program.
- That is so good.
Being immersed in their community and their culture
but also building community at the same time.
- Yeah. - Thank you so much, ladies.
Next up, we meet a Madison coach who took his team and favorite
sport to the big leagues.
- Many kids in Green Bay grow up dreaming
of one day playing at Lambeau Field.
That was certainly true of Tim DeByl.
- So I grew up probably two miles from the stadium
and my family's had season tickets.
For me, it was amazing.
Me and my brother used to go to all the games.
- But in college, Tim discovered a whole new game:
Ultimate Frisbee.
You've probably seen it played like this
on a sunny day in a park.
It's a simple game.
Connect on a pass to a teammate in the end zone to score.
- It's unique to sports I think, in that
it always requires two people to have a score.
There's no way to run it in.
There's no way to throw it to yourself.
There's seven guys. They all touch the disc.
Everybody needs to work together to get a score.
I think that's one of the compelling things
about the sport.
- That cooperative spirit goes back to Ultimate's origins
in the 1970s counterculture.
An era that also inspired the name
for Madison's professional Ultimate team:
the Radicals.
That's right.
Ultimate, the mellow pastime, has gone pro.
And Tim is playing a huge part as manager, head coach,
and co-owner of the Madison Radicals.
- Look at the coach-owner setting up the sign.
I don't think that we ever really thought
that it was a great business decision.
You know really this is much more about
having a passion for the sport.
- A passion that is being shared
by hundreds of fans who show up at games,
and through live streaming video coverage.
* *
- Announcer: We are live at Breese Stevens Field.
- And it really took off.
There's highlights all throughout the game.
People are diving for the Frisbee.
- Come on. - Let's go.
- They're making great catches, great throws.
- And while the Radicals are a passion project for Tim,
it helps that his day job is running a marketing firm.
- Having marketing skills in this was a huge advantage
to our franchise.
- The Radicals have been
one of the league's most successful franchises,
both on the field and in the stands.
- Fans obviously want to come out and watch a winning team.
And I think without that,
they might not be as interested as they are.
- Tim has provided the hometown fans with a winner.
Going into today's game against their division rivals,
Pittsburgh Thunderbirds,
the Radicals are unbeaten at home.
- A 30-game home win streak is somewhat unheard of in sports.
It's kind of an amazing streak in itself.
And we want to keep it going.
- The streak is all the more impressive
considering Madison is, by far,
the smallest city in the league,
giving Tim a much more limited talent pool to draw from.
- There's a bit of a bias towards the bigger cities
like San Francisco and Dallas and Denver
where there's a lot more players.
I think our guys just want to prove
they want to be in that conversation.
- Like many sports teams without superstars,
the Radicals have found success by emphasizing defensive play.
Something Tim learned from basketball,
especially from legendary UW-Green Bay Coach Dick Bennett.
- My high school coaches in basketball
were Dick Bennett fundamentals.
- Announcer: One against four. Knocked away.
- So he was always about defense.
- But it was a hard sell
to get an Ultimate team to work on defense.
- When I would ask,
"Hey, what's our defensive strategy?"
It generally would be, "Well, stand near your guy."
We focused half of our practice on defensive principles.
And I think that was a big surprise to everybody.
But it proved to be really successful.
We've been the number one defensive team every year
in the league.
- Tim's coaching success is even more impressive
considering that even having a coach is new to the game.
- We're back, okay, if it goes in the end zone.
Coaching ultimate players is really hard.
So most of them didn't have a high school coaches.
Most of them didn't have college coaches even.
- But coaching has become Tim's real passion.
- When I started the AUDL team,
I wanted to be the general manager.
I thought, "Well, for the first year,
I'll coach until we get things going."
And I just, I remembered how much I love coaching.
I love working with players.
I love the interaction between coach and players.
And those relationships that you build.
I think being a coach
is something that I don't want to give up anytime soon.
- Ra-Ra-Radicals!
- And it even lead to something Tim never imagined
growing up in Green Bay.
- Announcer: Let's play Frisbee, gentlemen.
- Ultimate being played at Lambeau.
The Packers invited the Radicals
to play Ultimate at halftime on the Frozen Tundra.
- Eighty-thousand people.
The biggest Ultimate game that's ever been played.
- For me, coming out of the tunnel was the best part.
The team got to run out of the tunnel and it was like,
"Wow! This is Lambeau and it's packed.
And the fans were really into it,
which was cool too.
It was amazing.
- While Tim didn't get to play at Lambeau,
he's now done something even fewer people have achieved.
He got to coach a team there.
- Being able to see them
out there on the field playing, for me,
was as good as playing.
I knew how much it meant to the guys.
- Earlier today, I got the chance to spend some time
with young adults and children
attending the Music from our Culture Camp.
Here are a few of the highlights.
[Oneida singing and drumming]
Now this is the type of camp
I wish I had gone to when I was a kid.
So fun!
Just as fun as the group of women
our team caught up with in Milwaukee,
who bring island tunes to the big city.
- Hello, everybody! - Group: Hello.
- Everybody, let's hear your first pitch.
* Doo, doo, doo, doo *
- This group started and evolved out of a chorus that I directed.
So what we're going to do now is we're going to do a few of our songs.
About eight years ago I said,
"Look, we have to do simpler music.
"We have to still have fun
"but we really need to do something
"at a little easier level.
How about I teach you the ukulele?"
[performing "Walk Right In"]
* Walk right in *
* Sit right down *
Hi, I'm Mary Backus.
I am the director of the Ukuladies.
[singing "Those Were the Days"]
* Those were the days my friend*
* We thought they'd never end *
We're located in Milwaukee and we're a very open group.
* La, la, la, la, la-la, la, la, la, la, la-la *
Five years ago, I would have said,
"We are a group of older or even elderly women."
I mean I'm 76.
Now we're attracting younger women as well.
Remember it's very "legato," everything smooth.
I'm a retired music teacher but I am still teaching.
[singing "Hanalei Moon"] * When you see *
* Hanalei *
The ukulele is--
It's a very easy instrument to play.
* You will be *
* In heaven *
The sound is nice.
We are able to harmonize.
* Every breeze *
* Every wave *
I'd say more than 50% come in
and have never sung in a chorus, never played an instrument.
[ukulele music and singing]
* Get over *
It's very attractive to women
who want to participate, have fun, make some fun music.
It's a very democratic group, and do some performing.
We are so happy to be here.
We are so thrilled to be invited
by Summerfest Seniors to be here.
This year we went to Summerfest.
[singing "Walk Right In"] * Walk right in, sit right down*
* Daddy, let your mind roll on *
* Walk right in *
Summerfest was pretty much a ball.
We really had a good time.
* Roll on *
I think we kind of represent
a group of women
that are kind of fearless.
They're learning something new.
So if you like to sing
and you're willing to purchase a little instrument
for $20 to $40
and you want to practice,
you probably qualify for our group.
And that's how it is.
* Love me do *
* Love me true *
* But you gotta love my ukulele, too *
* Oh, yeah *
* You gotta love my ukulele toooooo *
[closing notes] - Group: Whoo!
- It's been a blast
learning about the arts of the Oneida Nation,
here at the Music from our Culture Camp.
If you'd like to learn more about the Oneida Nation,
visit WisconsinLife.org.
And as always, we'd love to hear from you!
What's your "Wisconsin Life?"
Tell us by sending an email to WisconsinLife@wpt.org.
I'll leave you now with some highlights
of the community performance from the campers we met today
at the Music from our Culture Camp.
I'm your host, Angela Fitzgerald
and this is our "Wisconsin Life."
See you next time.
[singing in Oneida Iroquoian language]
[applause]
- Funding for "Wisconsin Life" is provided in part
by Alliant Energy,
Lowell and Mary Peterson
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.