"Three years ago Doug was leery of the whole idea but after seeing the show he asked to join the band and has been here ever since," Phlegm said.
Phlegm, 23, is a former UW-Whitewater student who left behind a legend or two with no connections to rock pantomime.
In his collegiate days, Phlegm was kicked out of Wells Hall for playing his music too much, too loud and too late. He was not allowed back in the building after throwing a toilet out of a window.
He also left his mark as former music director at campus radio station WSUW, when the station was known as "Whitewater's Hard Rock Station." After the music format changed, Phlegm -- known on-air as "Artie Toga" in honor of the film "Animal House" -- took a Pink Floyd album and painstakingly altered it so that a scratch caused a skip that repeated an obscene word near the end of the song "Money."
He then placed the album on the turntable during an air shift, locked the studio doors from the inside and sneaked out the back way.
After two hours, radio station officials -- who had to shut down the station's transmitter -- got a maintenance worker to jimmy the lock open. That marked the end of Phlegm's stint at WSUW.
Phlegm is as unique on stage as off. His band performs humorous renditions of popular -- and little-known -- groups including the Cramps, the Romantics and Devo.
The art of rock pantomime is based on the idea of visual music. What elevates a band over simply listening to records is the visual support it lends to the music.
"The show gives reason to look at you," Phlegm said. "The music is really secondary, no more than a backdrop to the show. After all, we could all just sit home and listen to the stereo if we didn't want to see a show."
Phlegm and the other seven bands put on quite a show. For this night, anyway, more than 300 Whitewater stereos were turned off.
