Slo-fi Continues Power Pop Exodus
Whitefish Bay singer/guitarist Stephen Ziel recharges the batteries in his new band.
It was a special era, those mid-‘90s Midwestern summers. In between rewound samples of Dumb & Dumber, bone-dry sarcasm from bands like Cake, and dark, cold basements with SEGA Genesis hot to the touch from overuse, life moved a bit slower when rock veterans Slo-fi took a bite out of Milwaukee’s local rock scene as members of Pet Engine. In its late-nineties prime, the group opened for Oasis, Collective Soul, and Lemonheads, and soon found itself busy readying demo deals for major labels, garnering healthy radio play in Milwaukee at the turn of the millennium. Looking back, chief songwriter/guitarist Stephen Ziel, of Whitefish Bay, sees the band’s attractiveness as very telling in relation to the size of its audience. “We were big enough …
