Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is considered part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is Madison, and its largest city is Milwaukee. As of 2010 the state has 5,686,986 residents. The state contains 72 counties.

Etymology

The word Wisconsin originates from the name given to the Wisconsin River by one of the Algonquian speaking American Indian groups living in the region at the time of European contact. French explorer Jacques Marquette was the first European to reach the Wisconsin River and record its name, arriving in 1673 and calling the river Meskousing in his journal. This spelling was later corrupted to Ouisconsin by other French explorers, and over time this version became the French name for both the Wisconsin River and the surrounding lands. English speakers anglicized the spelling to its modern form when they began to arrive in greater numbers during the early 19th Century. The current spelling was made official by the legislature of Wisconsin Territory in 1845.

Throughout the course of its many variations, the Algonquian word for Wisconsin and its original meaning have both grown obscure. Interpretations may vary, but most implicate the river and the red sandstone that line its banks. One leading theory holds that the name originated from the Miami word Meskonsing, meaning "it lies red," a reference to the setting of the Wisconsin River as it flows by the reddish sandstone of the Wisconsin Dells. Numerous other theories have also been widely publicized, including claims that name originated from one of a variety of Ojibwa words meaning "red stone place," "gathering of the waters," or "great rock."

History

Wisconsin has been home to a wide variety of cultures over the past twelve thousand years. The first people arrived around 10000 BCE during the Wisconsin Glaciation. These early inhabitants, called Paleo-Indians, hunted now-extinct ice age animals exemplified by the Boaz mastodon, a prehistoric mastodon skeleton unearthed along with spear points in southwest Wisconsin. After the ice age ended around 8000 BCE, people in the subsequent Archaic period lived by hunting, fishing, and gathering food from wild plants. Agricultural societies emerged gradually over the Woodland period between 1000 BCE to 1000 CE. Towards the end of this period, Wisconsin was the heartland of the "Effigy Mound culture," which built thousands of animal-shaped mounds across the landscape. Later, between 1000 and 1500 CE, the Mississippian and Oneota cultures built substantial settlements including the fortified village at Aztalan in southeast Wisconsin. The Oneota may be the ancestors of the modern Ioway and Ho-Chunk tribes, who shared the Wisconsin region with the Menominee at the time of European contact. Other American Indian groups living in Wisconsin when Europeans first settled included the Ojibwa, Sauk, Fox, Kickapoo, and Pottawatomie, who migrated to Wisconsin from the east between 1500 and 1700.

The first European to visit what became Wisconsin was probably the French explorer Jean Nicolet. He canoed west from Georgian Bay through the Great Lakes in 1634, and it is traditionally assumed that he came ashore near Green Bay at Red Banks. Pierre Radisson and Médard des Groseilliers visited Green Bay again in 1654–1666 and Chequamegon Bay in 1659–1660, where they traded for fur with local American Indians. In 1673, Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet became the first to record a journey on the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway all the way to the Mississippi River near Prairie du Chien. Frenchmen like Nicholas Perrot continued to ply the fur trade across Wisconsin through the 17th and 18th centuries, but the French made no permanent settlements in Wisconsin before Great Britain won control of the region following the French and Indian War in 1763. Even so, French traders continued to work in the region after the war, and some, beginning with Charles de Langlade in 1764, now settled in Wisconsin permanently rather than returning to British-controlled Canada.

Wisconsin became a territorial possession of the United States in 1783 after the American Revolutionary War. However, the British remained in de facto control until after the War of 1812, which finally established an American presence in the area. Under American control, the economy of the territory shifted from fur trading to lead mining. The prospect of easy mineral wealth drew immigrants from throughout the U.S. and Europe to the lead deposits located at Mineral Point, Wisconsin and nearby areas. Some miners found shelter in the holes they had dug and earned the nickname "badgers," leading to Wisconsin's identity as the "Badger State." The sudden influx of white miners prompted tension with the local Native American population. The Winnebago War of 1827 and the Black Hawk War of 1832 led to the forced removal of American Indians from most parts of the state. Following these conflicts, Wisconsin Territory was organized in 1836. Continued white settlement led to statehood in 1848.

Politics in early Wisconsin were defined by the greater national debate over slavery. A free state from its foundation, Wisconsin became a center of northern abolitionism. The debate became especially intense in 1854 after a runaway slave from Missouri named Joshua Glover was captured in Racine. Glover was taken into custody under the Federal Fugitive Slave Law, but a mob of abolitionists stormed the prison where Glover was held and helped him escape to Canada. The Wisconsin Supreme Court ultimately declared the Fugitive Slave Law unconstitutional in a trial stemming from the incident. The Republican Party, founded on March 20, 1854 by anti-slavery expansion activists in Ripon, Wisconsin, grew to dominate state politics in the aftermath of these events. During the Civil War, around 91,000 troops from Wisconsin fought for the Union.

Wisconsin's economy also diversified during the early years of statehood. While lead mining diminished, agriculture became a principal occupation in the southern half of the state. Railroads were built across the state to help transport grains to market, and industries like J.I. Case & Company in Racine were founded to build agricultural equipment. Wisconsin briefly became one of the nation's leading producers of wheat during the 1860s. Meanwhile, the lumber industry dominated in the heavily forested northern sections of Wisconsin, and sawmills sprung up in cities like La Crosse, Eau Claire, and Wausau. These economic activities had dire environmental consequences. By the close of the 19th century, intensive agriculture had devastated soil fertility, and lumbering had deforested most of the state. This forced both wheat agriculture and the lumber industry into a precipitous decline.

Beginning in the 1890s, farmers in Wisconsin shifted from wheat to dairy production in order to make more sustainable and profitable use of their land. Many immigrants carried cheese making traditions that, combined with the state's suitable geography and dairy research led by Stephen Babcock at the University of Wisconsin, helped the state build a reputation as "America's Dairyland." Meanwhile, conservationists including Aldo Leopold helped reestablish the state's forests during the early 20th century. This paved the way for a more renewable lumber and paper milling industry as well as promoting recreational tourism in the northern woodlands. Manufacturing also boomed in Wisconsin during the early 20th century, driven by an immense immigrant workforce arriving from Europe. Industries in cities like Milwaukee ranged from brewing and food processing to heavy machine production and toolmaking, leading Wisconsin to rank 8th among U.S. states in total product value by 1910.

The early 20th century was also notable for the emergence of progressive politics championed by Robert M. La Follette. Between 1901 and 1914, Progressive Republicans in Wisconsin created the nation's first comprehensive statewide primary election system, the first effective workplace injury compensation law, and the first state income tax, making taxation proportional to actual earnings. The progressive Wisconsin Idea also promoted the statewide expansion of the University of Wisconsin through the UW-Extension system at this time. Later, UW economics professors John R. Commons and Harold Groves helped Wisconsin create the first unemployment compensation program in the United States in 1932.

Wisconsin took part in several political extremes in the mid to late 20th century, ranging from the anti-communist crusades of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s to the radical antiwar protests at UW-Madison that culminated in the Sterling Hall bombing in August 1970. Recent politics have been comparatively moderate, but the state has continued to push forward new ideas, most notably becoming a leader in welfare reform under Republican Governor Tommy Thompson during the 1990s. The state's economy also underwent further transformations towards the close of the century, as heavy industry and manufacturing declined in favor of a service economy based on medicine, education, agribusiness, and tourism.

Two U.S. Navy battleships, BB-9 and BB-64, were named USS Wisconsin in honor of this state.

State Symbols

State Motto: Forward

State Song: On Wisconsin!

State Flower: Wood Violet

State Bird: Robin

State Tree: Sugar Maple

State Fish: Muskellunge

State Animal: Badger

State Wildlife Animal: White-Tailed Deer

State Domesticated Animal: Dairy Cow

State Mineral: Galena

State Rock:

State Symbol of Peace:

State Insect: Honey Bee

State Soil: Antigo Silt Loam

State Fossil: Trilobite

State Dog: American Water Spaniel

State Beverage: Milk

State Grain: Corn

State Dance: Polka

State Dessert: Ring Pop

Geography

Wisconsin is bordered by the Montreal River; Lake Superior and Michigan to the north; by Lake Michigan to the east; by Illinois to the south; and by Iowa to the southwest and Minnesota to the northwest. A border dispute with Michigan was settled by two cases, both Wisconsin v. Michigan, in 1934 and 1935. The state's boundaries include the Mississippi River and St. Croix River in the west, and the Menominee River in the northeast. Wisconsin is the northernmost state that does not share a border with Canada; in fact, at its closest point Wisconsin is 52.5 miles from Canada.

With its location between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, Wisconsin is home to a wide variety of geographical features. The state is divided into five distinct regions. In the north, the Lake Superior Lowland occupies a belt of land along Lake Superior. Just to the south, the Northern Highland has massive mixed hardwood and coniferous forests including the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, as well as thousands of glacial lakes, and the state's highest point, Timms Hill. In the middle of the state, the Central Plain has some unique sandstone formations like the Dells of the Wisconsin River in addition to rich farmland. The Eastern Ridges and Lowlands region in the southeast is home to many of Wisconsin's largest cities. The ridges include the Niagara Escarpment, that stretches from New York State, the Black River Escarpment and the Magnesian Escarpment. The bedrock of the Niagara Escarpment is dolomite, while the two shorter ridges have limestone bedrock. In the southwest, the Western Upland is a rugged landscape with a mix of forest and farmland, including many bluffs on the Mississippi River. This region is part of the Driftless Area, which also includes portions of Iowa, Illinois, and Minnesota. This area was not covered by glaciers during the most recent ice age, the Wisconsin Glaciation.

Overall, 46% of Wisconsin's land area is covered by forest. Langlade County has a soil rarely found outside of the county called Antigo Silt Loam.

Areas under the management of the National Park Service include the following:

Apostle Islands National Lakeshore along Lake Superior

Ice Age National Scenic Trail

North Country National Scenic Trail

Saint Croix National Scenic Riverway

There is one national forest managed by the U.S. Forest Service in Wisconsin, Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest.

Wisconsin has sister-state relationships with the Germany's Hesse, Japan's Chiba Prefecture, Mexico's Jalisco, China's Heilongjiang, and Nicaragua.

Wisconsin has seven locations in which you can stand in four counties at one time (4 corners), even with the counties' borders often being river based.

Climate

Wisconsin's climate is classified as humid continental. The highest temperature ever recorded in the state was in the Wisconsin Dells, on July 13, 1936, where it reached 114 °F (46 °C). The lowest temperature ever recorded in Wisconsin was in the village of Couderay, where it reached −55 °F (−11 °C) on both February 2 and February 4, 1996.

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City

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Green Bay

(−4/-14)

(−2/-11)

(4/-5)

(13/1)

(20/7)

(25/12)

(27/15)

(26/13)

(21/9)

(14/3)

(6/-3)

(−2/-11)

La Crosse

(−3/-14)

(0/-11)

(7/-4)

(16/3)

(22/9)

(27/14)

(29/17)

(28/16)

(23/11)

(16/4)

(7/-3)

(−1/-10)

Madison

(−4/-13)

(−1/-10)

(6/-4)

(14/2)

(21/8)

(26/13)

(28/16)

(26/15)

(22/10)

(16/4)

(6/-2)

(−1/-9)

Milwaukee

(−2/-11)

(0/-8)

(6/-3)

(12/2)

(19/8)

(24/13)

(27/17)

(26/17)

(22/12)

(16/6)

(8/-1)

(1/-7)

Demographics

Since its founding, Wisconsin has been ethnically heterogeneous. Following the period of French fur traders, the next wave of settlers were miners, many of whom were Cornish, who settled the southwestern area of the state. The next wave was dominated by "Yankees," migrants from New England and upstate New York; in the early years of statehood, they dominated the state's heavy industry, finance, politics and education. Between 1850 and 1900, large numbers of European immigrants followed them, including Germans, Scandinavians (the largest group being Norwegian), and smaller groups of Belgians, Dutch, Swiss, Finns, Irish, Poles, and others. In the 20th century, large numbers of Mexicans and African Americans came, settling mainly in Milwaukee; and after end of the Vietnam War came a new influx of Hmongs.

According to the 2010 Census the state's population is: 83.3% Caucasian, 6.3% African American, 5.9% Hispanic, 2.3% Asian,1.0% Native American, and 1.8% of mixed race.

The six largest ancestry groups in Wisconsin are: German (42.6%), Irish (10.9%), Polish (9.3%), Norwegian (8.5%), English (6.5%), and Italian (6.1%). German is the most common ancestry in every county in the state, except Menominee, Trempealeau and Vernon. Wisconsin has the highest percentage of residents of Polish ancestry of any state. The various ethnic groups settled in different areas of the state. Although Germans settled throughout the state, the largest concentration was in Milwaukee. Norwegians settled in lumbering and farming areas in the north and west. Small colonies of Belgians, Swiss, Finns and other groups settled in their particular areas, with Irish, Italian, and Polish immigrants settling primarily in urban areas. African Americans came to Milwaukee, especially from 1940 on. Menominee County is the only county in the eastern United States with an American Indian majority. 86% of Wisconsin's African-American population live in four cities: Milwaukee, Racine, Beloit, Kenosha, with Milwaukee home to nearly three-fourths of the state's black Americans. In the Great Lakes region, only Detroit and Cleveland have a higher percentage of African-American residents.

33% of Wisconsin's Asian population is Hmong, with significant communities in Milwaukee, Wausau, Green Bay, Sheboygan, Appleton, Madison, La Crosse, Eau Claire, Oshkosh, and Manitowoc.

Religion

Christianity is the predominant religion of Wisconsin. As of the year 2000, the RCMS reported that the three largest denominational groups in Wisconsin are Catholic, Mainline Protestant, and Evangelical Protestant. The Catholic Church has the highest number of adherents in Wisconsin (at 1,695,660), followed by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America with 463,432 members reported and the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod, reporting 241,306 adherents. The percentage of Wisconsin residents who belong to various affiliations are shown below:

Christian – 80%

* Protestant – 50%

** Lutheran – 23%

** Methodist – 7%

** Baptist – 5%

** Presbyterian – 2%

** United Church of Christ – 2%

** Other Protestant or general Protestant – 15%

* Roman Catholic – 29%

* Other Christian – 2%

Other religions – 1%

Non-affiliated – 15%

Crime

Statewide FBI Crime statistics for 2009 include 144 murders/nonnegligent manslaughter, 1,108 forcible rapes, 4, 850 robberies, 8,431 aggravated assaults, and 147,486 property crimes. Wisconsin also publishes its own statistics through the Office of Justice Assistance. The OJA reported 14,603 violent crimes in 2009, with a clearance rate (% solved) of 50%. The OJA reported 4,633 sexual assaults in 2009 with an overall clearance rate for sexual assaults of 57%. Of note, in Wisconsin juveniles are nearly three times more likely than adults to be victims of sexual assault, with 11‐15 year old children as the highest victimized age group.

Law and government

The capital is Madison, Wisconsin.

State Executive Officers

Governor: Scott Walker (R)

Lieutenant Governor: Rebecca Kleefisch (R)

Attorney General: J.B. Van Hollen (R)

Secretary of State: Douglas LaFollette (D)

Treasurer: Kurt W. Schuller (R)

State Superintendent of Public Instruction (Non-partisan Office): Tony Evers

See also:

Wisconsin Constitution

Governors of Wisconsin

Wisconsin State Legislature

* Wisconsin State Senate

* Wisconsin State Assembly

Wisconsin Supreme Court

U.S. Congressional Delegations from Wisconsin

Map of congressional districts

List of U.S. Senators from Wisconsin

Politics

+ Presidential elections results
! Year	Republican Party (United States)>Republican	Democratic Party (United States)>Democratic
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During the period of the Civil War, Wisconsin was a Republican state, in fact it is the state that gave birth to the Republican Party, although Ethno-religious issues in the late 19th century caused a brief split in the Republican coalition. Through the first half of the 20th century, Wisconsin's politics were dominated by Robert La Follette and his sons, originally of the Republican Party, but later of the revived Progressive Party. Since 1945, the state has maintained a close balance between Republicans and Democrats. Republican Senator Joe McCarthy was a controversial national figure in the early 1950s. Recent leading Republicans include former Governor Tommy Thompson and Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr.; prominent Democrats include Senators Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold, and Congressman David Obey.

Much of the state's political history involved coalitions among different ethnic groups. The most famous controversy dealt with foreign language teaching in schools. This was fought out in the Bennett Law campaign of 1890, when the Germans switched to the Democratic Party because of the Republican Party's support of the Bennett Law, which led to a major victory for the Democrats.

The cities of Wisconsin have been active in increasing the availability of legislative information on the internet, thereby providing for greater government transparency. Currently three of the five most populous cities in Wisconsin provide their constituents with internet based access of all public records directly from the cities’ databases. Wisconsin cities started to make this a priority after Milwaukee began doing so, on their page, in 2001. One such city, Madison, has been named the Number 1 digital city by the Center for Digital Government in consecutive years. Nearly 18 percent of Wisconsin’s population has the ability to access their municipality’s information in this way.

In the 2008 presidential election, Wisconsin voted for the Democratic presidential nominee, Illinois Senator Barack Obama. Obama captured 56% of the vote statewide, with the urban centers of Milwaukee and Madison voting strongly Democratic. Bucking the historic trend, Brown County (home to Green Bay) and Outagamie County (home to Appleton) voted for Obama over John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee. In all, McCain captured approximately 42% of the vote statewide and won 13 of the state's 72 counties. Of the counties won by McCain, only a handful were by greater than 55% of the vote (Florence, Green Lake, Ozaukee, Washington, and Waukesha, with Washington County providing his largest single-county percentage victory in the state). In all, Obama was successful in 59 counties, transcending the state's usual east/west and urban/suburban/rural divides. Wisconsin ranked second in voter turnout in the 2008 presidential election, behind Minnesota.

The 2010 elections, however, saw a huge Republican resurgence in Wisconsin. Republicans took control of the governor's office and both houses of the state legislature. Republican Ron Johnson defeated Democratic incumbent U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, and Republicans took two previously Democratic-held House seats, creating a 5–3 Republican majority House delegation.

On February 14, 2011, the Wisconsin State Capitol erupted with protests when the Legislature took up a bill that would end most collective bargaining rights for state employees, except for wages, to address the $3.6 bil. deficit. The protests are ongoing, attracting tens of thousands of people each day, and have garnered international attention.

The Assembly passed the bill 53-42 on March 10 after the State Senate passed it the night before, and sent it to the Governor for his signature.

Lawmakers in Wisconsin

The last election in which Wisconsin supported a Republican Presidential candidate was in 1984. However, both the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections were close, with Wisconsin receiving heavy doses of national advertising because it was a "swing," or pivot, state. Al Gore carried the presidential vote in 2000 by only 5,700 votes, and John Kerry won Wisconsin in 2004 by 11,000 votes. However, in 2008, Barack Obama carried the state by 381,000 votes and with 56%. Republicans had a stronghold in the Fox Valley but elected a Democrat, Steve Kagen, of Appleton, for the 8th Congressional District in 2006. However, Kagen only survived two terms and was replaced by Republican Reid Ribble in the Republican Party's sweep of Wisconsin in November 2010, the first time the Republican Party has taken back both chambers of the state legislature and the governorship in the same election. Republicans have held Waukesha County. The City of Milwaukee heads the list of Wisconsin's Democratic strongholds, which also includes Madison and the state's Native American reservations. Wisconsin's largest Congressional district, the 7th, had voted Democratic since 1969. Its representative, David Obey, chaired the powerful House Appropriations Committee.. However, Obey retired and the once Democratic seat was overtaken by Republican Sean Duffy in November 2010.

Wisconsin's political history encompasses, on the one hand, "Fighting Bob" La Follette and the Progressive movement; and on the other, the Republican and anti-Communist Joe McCarthy.

In the early 20th century, the Socialist Party of America had a base in Milwaukee. The phenomenon was referred to as "sewer socialism" because the elected officials were more concerned with public works and reform than with revolution (although revolutionary socialism existed in the city as well). Its influence faded in the late 1950s, largely because of the red scare and racial tensions. The first Socialist mayor of a large city in the United States was Emil Seidel, elected mayor of Milwaukee in 1910; another Socialist, Daniel Hoan, was mayor of Milwaukee from 1916 to 1940; and a third, Frank P. Zeidler, from 1948–1960. Socialist newspaper editor Victor Berger was repeatedly elected as a U.S. Representative, although he was prevented from serving for some time because of his opposition to the First World War.

William Proxmire, a Democratic Senator (1957–89) dominated the Democratic party for years; he was best known for attacking waste and fraud in federal spending.

Democrat Russ Feingold was the only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act in 2001.

Democrat Tammy Baldwin from Madison was the first, and is currently the only, openly lesbian U.S. Representative.

In 2004, Gwen Moore, a Democrat from Milwaukee, became Wisconsin's first African-American U.S. Representative.

In 2006, Democrats gained in a national sweep of opposition to the Bush administration, and the Iraq War. The retiring GOP 8th District Congressman, Mark Green, of Green Bay, ran against the incumbent Governor Jim Doyle. Green lost by 8% statewide, making Doyle the first Democratic Governor to be re-elected in 32 years. The Republicans lost control of the state Senate. Although Democrats gained eight seats in the state Assembly, Republicans retained a five vote majority in that house. In 2008, Democrats regained control of the State Assembly by a 52–46 margin, marking the first time since 1987 the both the governor and state legislature were both Democratic. However, Republicans won both chambers of the legislature and the governorship in 2010, the first time all three changed partisan control in the same election.

Taxes

Wisconsin collects personal income taxes (based on five income brackets) which range from 4.6% to 7.75%. The state sales and use tax rate is 5.0%. Fifty-nine counties have an additional sales/use tax of 0.5%. Milwaukee County and four surrounding counties have an additional temporary 0.1% tax which helps fund the Miller Park baseball stadium, which was completed in 2001. Retailers who make sales subject to applicable county taxes must collect this tax on their retail sales.

The most common property tax assessed on Wisconsin residents is the real property tax, or their residential property tax. Wisconsin does not impose a property tax on vehicles, but does levy an annual registration fee. Property taxes are the most important tax revenue source for Wisconsin's local governments, as well as major methods of funding school districts, vocational technical colleges, special purpose districts and tax incremental finance districts. Equalized values are based on the full market value of all taxable property in the state, except for agricultural land. In order to provide property tax relief for farmers, the value of agricultural land is determined by its value for agricultural uses, rather than for its possible development value. Equalized values are used to distribute state aid payments to counties, municipalities, and technical colleges. Assessments prepared by local assessors are used to distribute the property tax burden within individual municipalities.

Wisconsin does not assess a tax on intangible property. Wisconsin does not collect inheritance taxes. Until January 1, 2008 Wisconsin's estate tax was decoupled from the federal estate tax laws; therefore the state imposed its own estate tax on certain large estates.

There are no toll roads in Wisconsin; highway and road construction and maintenance is funded by motor fuel tax revenues.

Economy

In 2008 Wisconsin’s gross state product was $240.4 billion, making it 21st among U.S. states. The per capita personal income was $35,239 in 2008. The economy of Wisconsin is driven by manufacturing, agriculture, and health care. Although manufacturing accounts for a far greater part of the state's income than farming, Wisconsin is often perceived as a farming state.

As of June 2010, the states unemployment rate is 7.9% (seasonally adjusted)

In October 2010, the largest employers in Wisconsin were: # Wal-Mart # University of Wisconsin–Madison # Milwaukee Public Schools # U.S. Postal Service # Wisconsin Department of Corrections # Menards # Marshfield Clinic # Aurora Health Care # City of Milwaukee # Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs

Agriculture

Wisconsin produces about a quarter of America's cheese, leading the nation in cheese production. It is second in milk production, after California, and second in per-capita milk production, behind Vermont. The state ranks first nationally in the production of corn for silage, cranberries, ginseng, and snap beans for processing. Wisconsin is also a leading producer of oats, potatoes, carrots, tart cherries, maple syrup, and sweet corn for processing. The historical importance of the state's agricultural production was exemplified by the depiction of a Holstein cow, an ear of corn, and a wheel of cheese for Wisconsin's 50 State Quarters design.

A large part of the state's manufacturing sector includes commercial food processing, including well-known brands such as Oscar Mayer, Tombstone frozen pizza, Johnsonville brats, and Usinger's sausage. Kraft Foods alone employs over 5,000 people in the state. Milwaukee is a major producer of beer and was formerly headquarters for Miller Brewing Company, the nation's second-largest brewer, until it merged with Coors Brewing Company. Formerly, Schlitz, Blatz, and Pabst were cornerstone breweries in Milwaukee.

Manufacturing

Wisconsin is home to a very large and diversified manufacturing economy, with special focus on transportation and capital equipment. Major Wisconsin companies in these categories include the Kohler Company, Mercury Marine, Rockwell Automation, Johnson Controls, Seagrave Fire Apparatus, Pierce Manufacturing (fire apparatus), Briggs & Stratton, Miller Electric, Milwaukee Electric Tool Company, Bucyrus International, Joy Global Inc., The Manitowoc Company, Modine Manufacturing Company, Reliance Controls Corporation, Super Steel Products Corp., Ladish Co., Oshkosh Truck, and Harley-Davidson.

Consumer goods

Wisconsin is a major producer of paper, packaging, and other consumer goods. Major consumer products companies based in the state include SC Johnson & Co., and Diversey Inc., Wisconsin also ranks first nationwide in the production of paper products; the lower Fox River from Lake Winnebago to Green Bay has 24 paper mills along its stretch.

The development and manufacture of health care devices and software is a growing sector of the state's economy with key players such as GE Healthcare, Epic Systems, and TomoTherapy.

Tourism

Tourism is also a major industry in Wisconsin – the state's third largest, according to the Department of Tourism. Tourist destinations such as the House on the Rock near Spring Green, Circus World Museum in Baraboo and The Wisconsin Dells also draw thousands of visitors annually, and festivals such as Summerfest and the EAA Oshkosh Airshow draw international attention, along with hundreds of thousands of visitors.

Given the large number of lakes and rivers in the state, water recreation is very popular.

The distinctive Door Peninsula, which extends off the eastern coast of the state, contains one of the state's tourist destinations, Door County. Door County is a popular destination for boaters because of the large number of natural harbors, bays and ports on the Green Bay and Lake Michigan side of the peninsula that forms the county. The area draws hundreds of thousands of visitors yearly to its quaint villages, seasonal cherry picking, and fish boils.

Film industry

On January 1, 2008, a new tax incentive for the film industry came into effect. The first major production to take advantage of the tax incentive was Michael Mann's Public Enemies. While the producers spent $18 million dollars on the film, it was reported that most of that went to out-of-state workers and for out-of-state services; Wisconsin taxpayers had provided $4.6 million in subsidies, and derived only $5 million in revenues from the film's making.

Important municipalities

Wisconsin's self-promotion as "America's Dairyland" sometimes leads to a mistaken impression that it is an exclusively rural state. However, Wisconsin contains cities and towns of all sizes. Over 68% of Wisconsin residents live in urban areas, with the Greater Milwaukee area home to roughly one-third of the state's population. Milwaukee is at the northern edge of an urban area bordering Lake Michigan that stretches southward into greater Chicago and northwestern Indiana, with a population of over 11 million. With over 602,000 residents Milwaukee proper is the 22nd-largest city in the country. The string of cities along the western edge of Lake Michigan is generally considered to be an example of a megalopolis. Madison's dual identity as state capital and college town gives it a cultural richness unusual in a city its size. With a population of around 220,000, and metropolitan area of over 600,000, Madison is also a very fast-growing city. Madison's suburb, Middleton, was also ranked the "Best Place to Live in America" in 2007 by Money Magazine. Medium-size cities dot the state and anchor a network of working farms surrounding them. As of 2007, there were 12 cities in Wisconsin with a population of 50,000 or more. Cities and villages are incorporated urban areas in Wisconsin. Towns are unincorporated minor civil divisions of counties.

Education

Wisconsin, along with Minnesota and Michigan, was among the Midwestern leaders in the emergent American state university movement following the Civil War in the United States. By the turn of the century, education in the state advocated the "Wisconsin Idea", which emphasized for service to the people of the state. The "Wisconsin Idea" exemplified the Progressive movement within colleges and universities at the time. Today, public education in Wisconsin includes both the 26-campus University of Wisconsin System, with the flagship university University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the 16-campus Wisconsin Technical College System which coordinates with the University of Wisconsin. Notable private colleges and universities include Carthage College, Marquette University, Milwaukee School of Engineering, Medical College of Wisconsin, Concordia University Wisconsin, Carroll University, Edgewood College, Beloit College, St. Norbert College, Lakeland College, Cardinal Stritch University and Lawrence University, among others. Elementary, middle and high school education are mandatory by law.

Culture

Citizens of Wisconsin are referred to as Wisconsinites. The traditional prominence of references to dairy farming and cheesemaking in Wisconsin's rural economy (the state's license plates have read "America's Dairyland" since 1940) have led to the nickname (sometimes used pejoratively among non-residents) of "cheeseheads" and to the creation of "cheesehead hats" made of yellow foam in the shape of a block of cheese.

Numerous ethnic festivals are held throughout Wisconsin to celebrate the heritage of its citizens. Such festivals include Summerfest, Oktoberfest, Polish Fest, Festa Italiana, Irish Fest, Bastille Days, Syttende Mai (Norwegian Constitution Day), Brat(wurst) Days in Sheboygan, Cheese Days in Monroe and Mequon, African World Festival, Indian Summer, Arab Fest, and many others.

Art

The Milwaukee Art Museum in Milwaukee, with its brise du soleil designed by Santiago Calatrava, is known for its interesting architecture. The Milwaukee County Zoological Gardens cover over of land on the far west side of the city. Madison is home to the Vilas Zoo which is free for all visitors, and the Olbrich Gardens conservatory, as well as the hub of cultural activity at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. It is also known for Monona Terrace, a convention center that was designed by Taliesin Architect Anthony Puttnam, based loosely on a 1930s design by Frank Lloyd Wright, a world-renowned architect and Wisconsin native who was born in Richland Center. Wright's home and studio in the 20th century was at Taliesin, south of Spring Green. Decades after Wright's death, Taliesin remains an architectural office and school for his followers.

Music

Wisconsin has more country music festivals than any other state, including Miller Lite Presents Country Fest, Bud Light Presents Country Jam USA, the Coors Hodag Country Festival, Porterfield Country Music Festival, Country Thunder USA in Twin Lakes, and Ford Presents Country USA.

The state's largest city, Milwaukee, also hosts Summerfest, dubbed "The World's Largest Music Festival," every year. This festival is held at the lakefront Henry Maier Festival Park just south of downtown, as are a summer-long array of ethnic musical festivals such as the Milwaukee Irish Fest.

The Wisconsin Area Music Industry provides an annual WAMI event where it presents an awards show for top Wisconsin artists.

Alcohol and Wisconsin culture

Drinking has long been considered a significant part of Wisconsin culture, and the state ranks at or near the top of national measures of per-capita alcohol consumption, binge drinking, driving under the influence, and proportion of drinkers. Factors such as cultural identification with the state's heritage of German immigration, the longstanding presence of major breweries in Milwaukee, and a cold climate are often associated with the prevalence of drinking in Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin Tavern League is a strong political force and the state legislature has been reluctant to lower a DUI offense from BAC 0.10 to 0.08 (only through Federal government influence) and raise the alcoholic beverage tax. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel series "Wasted in Wisconsin" examined this situation.

Recreation

The varied landscape of Wisconsin makes the state a popular vacation destination for outdoor recreation. Winter events include skiing, ice fishing and snowmobile derbies. Wisconsin has many lakes of varied size; the state contains of water, more than all but three other states (Alaska, Michigan and Florida).

Outdoor activities are popular in Wisconsin, especially hunting and fishing. One of the most prevalent game animals is the whitetail deer. Each year in Wisconsin, well over 600,000 deer hunting licenses are sold. In 2008, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources projected the pre-hunt deer population to be about 1.5 to 1.7 million.

Sports

Wisconsin is represented by major league teams in three sports: football, baseball, and basketball. Lambeau Field, located in Green Bay, Wisconsin, is home to the National Football League's Green Bay Packers. The Packers have been part of the NFL since the league's second season in 1921 and hold the record for the most NFL titles, earning the city of Green Bay the nickname "Titletown USA". The Packers are the smallest city franchise in the NFL, and is the only one owned by shareholders statewide. The franchise was founded by "Curly" Lambeau who played and coached for them. The Green Bay Packers are one of the most successful small-market professional sports franchises in the world and have won 13 NFL championships, including the first two AFL-NFL Championship games (Super Bowls I and II), Super Bowl XXXI and Super Bowl XLV . The state's support of the team is evidenced by the 81,000-person waiting list for season tickets to Lambeau Field.

The Milwaukee Brewers, the state's only major league baseball team, play in Miller Park in Milwaukee, the successor to Milwaukee County Stadium since 2001. In 1982, the Brewers won the American League Championship, marking their most successful season. The team switched from the American League to the National League starting with the 1998 season.

The Milwaukee Bucks of the National Basketball Association play home games at the Bradley Center. The Bucks won the NBA Championship in 1971.

The state also has minor league teams in hockey (Milwaukee Admirals) and baseball (the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, based in Appleton and the Beloit Snappers of the Class A minor leagues). Wisconsin is also home to the Madison Mallards, the La Crosse Loggers, the Eau Claire Express, the Green Bay Bullfrogs, the Wisconsin Woodchucks, and the Wisconsin Rapids Rafters of the Northwoods League, a collegiate all-star summer league. In arena football Wisconsin is represented by three teams: the Wisconsin Wolfpack in Madison in the CIFL; the Green Bay Blizzard of the IFL, and the Milwaukee Mustangs of the AFL.

Wisconsin also has many college sports programs, including the Wisconsin Badgers, of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Panthers of University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. The Wisconsin Badgers football former head coach Barry Alvarez led the Badgers to three Rose Bowl championships, including back-to-back victories in 1999 and 2000. The Badger men's basketball team won the national title in 1941 and made a second trip to college basketball's Final Four in 2000. The Badgers claimed a historic dual championship in 2006 when both the women's and men's hockey teams won national titles.

The Marquette Golden Eagles of the Big East Conference, the state's other major collegiate program, is known for its men's basketball team, which, under the direction of Al McGuire, won the NCAA National Championship in 1977. The team returned to the Final Four in 2003.

The Semi-Professional Northern Elite Football League consists of many teams from Wisconsin. The league is made up of former professional, collegiate, and high school players. Teams from Wisconsin include: The Green Bay Gladiators from Green Bay, WI, The Fox Valley Force in Appleton, WI, The Kimberly Storm in Kimberly, WI, The Central Wisconsin Spartans in Wausau, WI, The Eau Claire Crush and the Chippewa Valley Predators from Eau Claire, WI, and the Lake Superior Rage from Superior, WI. The league also has teams in Michigan and Minnesota. Teams play from May until August.

Wisconsin is home to the world's oldest operational racetrack. The Milwaukee Mile, located in Wisconsin State Fair Park in West Allis, Wisconsin held races there long before the Indy 500.

Wisconsin is home to the nation's oldest operating velodrome in Kenosha where races have been held every year since 1927.

See also

Cheesehead

Lake Michigan

Lake Superior

List of National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin

List of people from Wisconsin

U.S. state

Footnotes

Further reading

Detailed popular history and many biographies. Detailed popular history & biographies. Detailed guide to every town and city, and cultural history. :See additional books at History of Wisconsin

External links

Map of Wisconsin at nationalatlas.gov

State of Wisconsin

Wisconsin state symbols

Wisconsin State Legislature

Wisconsin Court System

Wisconsin State Facts

Wisconsin Health and Demographic Data

Energy Profile for Wisconsin – Economic, environmental, and energy data

Wisconsin Historical Society

The State of Wisconsin Collection from the UW Digital Collections Center

Wisconsin Free Speech Legacy

Wisconsin Department of Tourism

Travel Information- Traveling by publuic transit(Wisconsin Department of Transportation)

Category:States of the United States Category:States and territories established in 1848

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name	Timothy James McIlrath
background	solo_singer
birth name	Timothy James McIlrath
born	November 03, 1979 Indianapolis, Indiana U.S.
origin	Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
instrument	Vocals, guitar, bass, drums
genre	Melodic hardcore, punk rock, hardcore punk, alternative rock, post-hardcore, metalcore
occupation	Musician, singer-songwriter, lyricist, composer, vocalist, guitarist, bassist
years active	1995–present
label	Fat Wreck Chords (2001-2003) Geffen, DGC, Interscope (2003-present)
associated acts	Rise AgainstBaxterArma AngelusThe Killing TreeBerri Txarrak Cancer Bats
notable instruments	Gibson Les PaulGibson SG }}

Timothy "Tim" James McIlrath (born November 3, 1979) is an American rock musician. He is the lead singer, rhythm guitarist, songwriter and co-founder for the American punk rock band Rise Against. McIlrath is known to support animal rights and actively promotes PETA with his band. He follows the straight edge lifestyle, along with Rise Against bassist Joe Principe and guitarist Zach Blair.

Biography

Personal life

Tim McIlrath was born November 3, 1979 in Indianapolis, IN. At a young age he read dystopian novels such as Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, which would influence his later work. As a child he went to Our Lady of the Wayside, where he was taunted for his left eye being blue and his right eye brown, known as heterochromia. As a teenager, McIlrath's friends were interested in snowboarding, so he saved his money for a snowboard. But, as his interest in music grew, he instead decided to spend the money he had saved on a Gibson SG guitar.

Education

Attended Rolling Meadows High School in Rolling Meadows, IL. This was also the set for the music video, "Make It Stop (September's Children)." In college (Northeastern Illinois University), McIlrath majored in English and Sociology. In his junior year, he met Joe Principe at a Sick of It All concert. Principe asked McIlrath to sing over a few tracks that he and Mr. Precision had recorded. It was at this time that Rise Against was formed, and McIlrath left college.

Current

McIlrath is now married and he and his wife Erin have two daughters, Blythe and Scarlet. They live with him in Arlington Heights, Illinois. He is a strict vegetarian, edging into a vegan lifestyle, and raises his children the same way. He is also agnostic, but was raised Roman Catholic, although he does not practice Christianity in the least bit.

McIlrath has been featured on many songs and albums outside of his main group Rise Against.

Music career

Baxter (1995–1997)

McIlrath began his musical career in his teenage years; he was very active in the Chicago local alternative rock/punk scene. His first band was the post-hardcore band Baxter, formed in 1995 along with future The Lawrence Arms drummer Neil Hennessy and future Killing Tree and Holy Roman Empire bassist Geoff Reu. Their first release was a full length, self released, cassette, Troy's Bucket, which was released in 1996. Troy's Bucket was met with warm reception from the scene, and Baxter became a popular band in the Chicago underground scene.

In 1997 they released a 7" EP Lost Voices on Static Station Records. After some local touring, the band split up.

McIlrath played bass and sang backup in the first incarnation of The Honor System. He sang on their demo and on some songs on their debut album Single File. He and drummer Neil Hennesy could also be found in a brief lineup of the grind band Yellow Road Priest, whose members went on to form Pelican. The band broke up in 1997.

Arma Angelus (1998–1999)

McIlrath joined the band Arma Angelus, Chicago metalcore band fronted by Pete Wentz, who was to become bassist in mainstream pop punk/emo band Fall Out Boy. McIlrath played bass with the band until 1999 when he quit to form Transistor Revolt, which would eventually become Rise Against.

Rise Against (1999–present)

In 1999 McIlrath formed the band that would become Rise Against with former 88 Fingers Louie bassist, Joe Principe, guitarist Dan Precision (A.K.A. Mr. Precision), and drummer Toni Tintari under the name 'Transistor Revolt'. Drummer Brandon Barnes did not join until 2001; it was at the same time the band was renamed Rise Against. They officially recorded their debut album The Unraveling on Fat Wreck Chords in 2001.

In 2003 guitarist Mr. Precison left due to arguments with the band, and Todd Mohney filled his role. Later that year they released their second album Revolutions per Minute which was greeted with warm success . They toured the U.S. steadily that year, though by the end of it, Mohney left. In order to replace him, former Reach the Sky guitarist Chris Chasse joined in 2004 and they released their Geffen debut Siren Song of the Counter Culture.

With the release of the singles "Give It All", "Swing Life Away", and "Life Less Frightening", Rise Against became more popular with mainstream fans, but still kept their underground sensibility. After more touring (including a European tour and spots on the Vans Warped tour), the band went back to the studio and recorded their fourth album The Sufferer & the Witness, which included eight singles ("Ready to Fall, "Prayer of the Refugee", "The Good Left Undone", "Behind Closed Doors", "Drones", "Survive", "Injection", and "Under the Knife".)

They had ended their tour and were back in the studio in the process of making their next album, when Chris Chasse decided to leave the band in order to pursue family life.

In 2008, Rise Against recorded their fifth album Appeal to Reason with the help of guitarist Zach Blair, who is now a permanent member and has known the band for many years. Appeal to Reason was released on October 7, 2008. The band recorded it at The Blasting Room in Fort Collins, Colorado with Bill Stevenson and Jason Livermore, who produced Revolutions Per Minute and The Sufferer & the Witness.

Rise Against's sixth album, Endgame, contains singles "Help Is On The Way" and "Make it Stop (September's Children)" and was released on March 15, 2011.

The Killing Tree (2000–2004)

McIlrath has played in his metalcore side project The Killing Tree along with Rise Against old guitarist Todd Mohney during the early years of the band, though all members used pseudonyms out of concern for it. The Killing Tree has not produced any music or toured since 2003, but contributed their previously unreleased song "Dressed to Fuck" on the 2006 Thick Records compilation album Hair: Chicago Punk Cuts, featuring Emily Schambra of the alternative rock band Holy Roman Empire.

Discography

;With Rise Against

Transistor Revolt (2000)

The Unraveling (2001)

Revolutions per Minute (2003)

Siren Song of the Counter Culture (2004)

The Sufferer & the Witness (2006)

This Is Noise (2007)

Appeal to Reason (2008)

Rise Against / Anti-Flag (2009)

Rise Against 7" (2009)

Endgame (2011)

;With The Killing Tree

Bury Me At Make-Out Creek (2000)

The Romance of Helen Trent (2002)

We Sing Sin (2003)

Hair: Chicago Punk Cuts ("Dressed to Fuck" only) (2006)

;With Baxter

Troy's Bucket full-length cassette (1996)

Lost Voices... 7" (Static Station Recordings, 1997)

Baxter two-disc CD compilation (Will Not Clear Man, 2002)

;With Arma Angelus

Things We Don't Like We Destroy (compilation) (2002)

The Grave End of the Shovel

;With The Honor System

Single File (four song cassette demo only).

Guest appearances

Tim provided vocals for the song "The Gre(A)t Depression" by Anti-Flag.

Tim is featured on the song "Denak ez du balio" by Basque alternative rock band Berri Txarrak from their album Libre ©.

Tim was also in "Lords of Dogtown" a film in which he performs "Nervous Breakdown" of Black Flag.

Tim sang on the song "Let Them Eat War" in Bad Religion's Live at the Palladium DVD

Tim sings vocals in the Cancer Bats song, "Harem of Scorpions". From their 2008 album Hail Destroyer.

Tim is featured on the song "Resuscitation of a Dead Man" by Thursday from their album Common Existence.

Tim sang vocals on the Bullet Treatment 7" on Fat Wreck Chords in 2009.

Tim provided vocals for the song "Mute Hearts" by Holy Roman Empire.

Tim was featured at the end of the NOFX music video for "Cokie the Clown".

Tim is featured on the Flobots song, "White Flag Warrior" on their album, Survival Story.

Tim is featured in "The Sims 3 - Ambitions". He sings the song called "Savior" in Simlish.

Tim sang vocals on Stephen Egerton's song "South for the Winter" from his album, The Seven Degrees of Stephen Egerton.

Tim is featured on the song "Achtung" by Basque alternative rock band Berri Txarrak from their album Payola.

Straight Edge

Tim and his bandmates, except for Barnes, are straight edge; a lifestyle that eliminates drugs, alcohol and promiscuous sex.

PETA work

Tim is vegetarian, as are his fellow band members. They are active with the animal rights group PETA. Tim often takes part in PETA protests and gives out PETA books and flyers at shows. Rise Against's fifth album, Appeal to Reason, even included a PETA sticker, encouraging people to stand up for the rights of animals. He has given many interviews on the matter along with other bands.

He has appeared in many videos made and distributed by PETA expressing their beliefs on vegetarianism as well as issues and the meat industry and fast food industry, fur and fashion use of animal skins and animal testing and dissection.

References

External links

The Killing Tree's Website (Hasn't been updated since 2003)

Rise Against's Official Website

The Killing Tree's Website (archived)

Tim Mcllrath Interview

Category:1979 births Category:Living people Category:American male singers Category:American punk rock singers Category:American punk rock guitarists Category:Straight edge individuals Category:Musicians from Illinois Category:Christian vegetarians Category:American multi-instrumentalists Category:American rock singer-songwriters Category:American Christians Category:American vegetarians Category:People from Arlington Heights, Illinois

de:Tim McIlrath es:Tim McIlrath eu:Tim McIlrath fa:تیم مک‌ایلریف fr:Tim McIlrath it:Tim McIlrath nl:Tim McIlrath no:Tim McIlrath pl:Tim McIlrath pt:Tim McIlrath ru:Тим Макилрот simple:Tim McIlrath sk:Tim McIlrath fi:Tim McIlrath sv:Tim McIlrath

Name	Lewis Black
Birth name	Lewis Niles Black
Birth date	August 30, 1948
Birth place	Silver Spring, Maryland, U.S.
Education	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Medium	Stand-up, television, film, theatre
Nationality	American
Active	1981 – present
Genre	Satire, news satire, political satire, observational comedy, black comedy, rant
Subject	American politics, American culture, current events, pop culture
Influences	George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Lily Tomlin, Bill Hicks, Bob Newhart, Shelley Berman
Influenced	Dara Ó Briain
Notable work	Back in Black on The Daily Show with Jon StewartThe Carnegie Hall PerformanceLewis Black's Root of All Evil Stark Raving Black
Website	lewisblack.com

Lewis Niles Black (born August 30, 1948) is an American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor. He is known for his comedy style, which often includes simulating a mental breakdown, or an increasingly angry rant, ridiculing history, politics, religion, trends and cultural phenomena. He hosted the Comedy Central series Lewis Black's Root of All Evil, and makes regular appearances on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart delivering his “Back in Black” commentary segment. When not on the road performing, he resides in Manhattan. He also maintains a residence in Chapel Hill, N.C. He is currently the spokesman for Aruba Tourism, appearing in television ads that aired in late 2009 and 2010. He was voted 51st of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time by Comedy Central in 2004; and was voted 5th in Comedy Central Stand`Up Showdown in 2008 and 11th in 2010.

Early life

Black is the son of Jeannette, a teacher, and Sam Black, an artist and mechanical engineer. He was born and raised in a middle-class Jewish family in Silver Spring, Maryland, graduating from Springbrook High School in 1966, summa cum laude. Black says in his book that he scored highly on the math section of his SAT exam and later applied to Princeton University among others. Black enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he studied playwriting and was a brother of Pi Lambda Phi International fraternity and a member of Student Congress. He earned an MFA degree at the Yale School of Drama in 1977, and was once married, for less than a year.

Black's career began in theater as a playwright. He served as the playwright in residence and associate artistic director of Steve Olsen's West Bank Cafe Downstairs Theatre Bar in Hell's Kitchen in New York City, where he collaborated with composer and lyricist Rusty Magee and artistic director Rand Foerster on hundreds of one-act plays from 1981 to 1989. Also with Rusty Magee, Black wrote the musical The Czar Of Rock and Roll, which premiered at Houston's Alley Theatre in 1990.

Black's stand-up comedy began as an opening act for the plays as he was also the master of ceremonies. After a management change at the theater, Black left and began working as a comedian as well as finding bit parts in television and films.''

Comedic style

Black's style of comedy is that of a man who, in dealing with the absurdities of life and contemporary politics, is approaching his personal limits of sanity. Sarcasm, hyperbole, profanity, shouting and trademark angry finger-shaking bring emphasis to his topics of discussion. He once described his humor as "being on the Titanic every single day and being the only person who knows what is going to happen." He claims that he doesn't write his jokes down, he merely starts talking about something that makes him angry until he has to move on before he has a stroke.

Black has described his political affiliation as: "I'm a socialist, so that puts me totally outside any concept...the Canadians get it. But seriously, most people don't get it. The idea of capping people's income just scares people. 'Oh, you're taking money from the rich.' Ooh, what a horrifying thing. These people really need $200 million".

Black lists his comedic influences as George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Lily Tomlin, Bill Hicks, Bob Newhart and Shelley Berman.

Career

Comedy Central Presents

In 1998, Black starred in his first comedy special on the series Comedy Central Presents. He starred in two additional episodes of the series in 2000 and 2002. He starred in another special for the network in 2002, titled Taxed Beyond Belief.

Hosting

Since 2003, Black has hosted the World Stupidity Awards ceremony at Montreal's Just for Laughs comedy festival for the three years the awards have been presented.

Black hosted the Comedy Central television series The Root Of All Evil in 2008. The show pitted two people or pop-culture topics against each other as a panel of comedians argued, in the style of a court trial, which is more evil, e.g., "Paris Hilton vs. Dick Cheney" and "Internet Porn vs. YouTube". After hearing arguments from both sides, Black, acting as judge, made the final decision as to which is more evil.

Black hosted Comedy Central's Last Laugh '07, which aired on December 2, 2007 along with Dave Attell and D.L. Hughley.

On February 18, 2008, Black hosted History of the Joke with Lewis Black, a 2-hour comedy-documentary on The History Channel.

At the end of 2009, Black returned to the History Channel to host Surviving the Holidays with Lewis Black, in which he discussed the year-end pressures of Thanksgiving, Channukah, Christmas, and New Year's.

Stand-up shows

In 2004, he had an HBO stand-up special titled Black on Broadway.

On April 21, 2006, Black performed at the Warner Theatre in Washington, DC for an HBO special, Red, White, and Screwed. It aired on June 10, 2006, and a DVD was released October 3, 2006. When explaining his choice of venue, Black said that "some asshole" was paid to count the number of uses of the word "fuck" from his previous HBO special, Black On Broadway, and that the original location, the Kennedy Center, wanted him to cut back on its use. Black was told the number was 42, when actually it was approximately 78.

On February 11, 2007, Black received a Grammy award for "Best Comedy Album" for his album The Carnegie Hall Performance.

Comedy Central's "Stand-Up Month" in January 2008 features specials originally presented on HBO by Black, along with programs featuring Dane Cook and Chris Rock.

In January 2008, as part of Comedy Central's "Stand-Up Month", Black's routine finished at #5 on "Stand-Up Showdown 2008", a viewer-based countdown of the top "Comedy Central Presents" routine. Black. also was voted 11th in 2010.

On August 2, 2009, Black filmed two shows at the Fillmore Theater in Detroit, MI. These shows were the basis for a concert film called Stark Raving Black, which appeared in theatres for a limited time in October. It will also be released as a CD or DVD June 15 th 2010 .

Film and television career

Black appeared in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as a shock jock and in The Big Bang Theory as an entomologist. He also released his autobiography, Nothing's Sacred, in 2005. Since November 9, 2005, Black has been making appearances in small segments on The Weather Channel. In December 2005, he appeared in an animated holiday special The Happy Elf, as the voice of the extremely tightly wound elf, Norbert.

In the film Accepted, a film about high school graduates who create a college when they fail to get accepted into any, he plays Dean Ben Lewis of the school "South Harmon Institute of Technology" or S.H.I.T.; as the Dean, he talks about his views of the world. He also appears in the 2006 films Man of the Year and Unaccompanied Minors. Black hosted Comedy Central's Last Laugh '06, which aired on December 10, 2006.

Voice acting

Black was the voice of "Manobrain" during the third season of the Cartoon Network series "Duck Dodgers". He was the inventor of a diet pill which was stolen while he was in college. He blamed the theft on his college friend Dr. I. Q. High, not realizing that the actual thief was Duck Dodgers. The theft set Manobrain on the path of evil.

Black played the character of the Deadly Duplicator in Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, on Adult Swim. He appeared in four episodes before the show ended. He played the part once more in the Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law video game.

Black did the voice-over for an oxpecker named Ted in Cartoon Network series My Gym Partner's a Monkey, appearing in "Hornbill and Ted's Bogus Journey." The character is portrayed in the same fashion as his comedy shows, though without the profanity. In addition, the bird's clothes, looks, and mannerisms match those of Black himself. Black currently voices Mr. E/Ricky Owens in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated.

Tours

On June 18, 2007 he sat in with Southern rock/Jam band Gov't Mule at the 6th annual Bonnaroo music festival, where he had performed earlier that weekend, for what was to be a quick joke. A member of the audience threw a bottle at Black, which struck him. Black was upset and he encouraged the audience to boo the heckler before leaving the stage in disgust, while shouting obscenities at the heckler. This act was seen in an episode of "Lewis Black's Root of All Evil" titled "YouTube vs. Porn".

On June 29, 2007, Black gave a benefit show at Springbrook High School, his alma mater, in the school's auditorium for 1,100 alumni, faculty, and students. He performed in his usual style, stopping at points to remark how good it felt to use that language on that particular stage. At the end of the show he was given a Springbrook football jersey, and cursed at one teacher for giving him a B and causing him not to graduate first in his class.

In mid December 2007, Black went with Robin Williams, Kid Rock, Lance Armstrong and Rachel Smith, Miss USA 2007, on a USO trip to support the troops in Iraq and Kuwait. They then wrapped it up on Dec 22nd at the U.S Naval Station in Rota, Spain.

Black helped create the annual Carolina Comedy Festival at his alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In 2008 Black went on tour touting his book Me of Little Faith.He is also currently doing a stand-up tour called "Let Them Eat Cake".

Beginning in January 2010, Black embarked on a new tour called "In God We Rust".

Legal troubles

In 2000, Black and fellow comedian Jim Norton were arrested for their involvement with "The Naked Teen Voyeur Bus", a specially designed bus with acrylic glass walls containing numerous (18 and 19 year old) topless teenage girls. This bus rode around Manhattan while being broadcast on the Opie and Anthony radio show. Unfortunately, radio station management did not inform the O&A; show that the bus' route was also the route that President Clinton was taking that same day. Twenty-eight hours after the arrest, Black and Norton were released. Black appeared on The Daily Show the following night where he stated he was exercising his constitutional rights. He then joked that the location of this particular right was unclear, but that it was "between 'all men are created equal' and 'don't shit where you eat.'" Additionally, at a fundraising event for New York Attorney General candidate Mark Green on June 28, 2006, Black talked about how he was unable to attend a previous fundraising event for Green because the arrest occurred shortly before.

Published works

Nothing's Sacred (2005)

Nothing's Sacred (audio book) (2006)

Nothing's Sacred (softcover version) (2007)

Me of Little Faith (2008) (New York: Riverhead Books -- Penguin Group) 240 pages, ISBN 978-1-59449-994-5.

Me of Little Faith (paperback version with added content) (2009)

I'm Dreaming of a Black Christmas (2010)

Media releases

CDs

The White Album (2000)

Revolver (EP) (2002)

The End of the Universe (2002)

Rules of Enragement (2003)

Luther Burbank Performing Arts Center Blues (2005)

The Carnegie Hall Performance (2006)

Anticipation (2008)

Stark Raving Black (2010)

DVDs

Unleashed (compilation of his four Comedy Central specials plus his appearances on The Daily Show: Indecision 2000) (2002)

Black on Broadway (2003 HBO Special) (2004)

A Pair of Lewis Black Shorts (Sidesplitters: The Burt & Dick Story and The Gynecologists) (2006)

Red, White, and Screwed (2006 HBO Special)

History of the Joke with Lewis Black (2008 History Channel special)

Surviving the Holidays with Lewis Black (2009 History Channel special)

Stark Raving Black (2010)

Filmography

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

Jacob's Ladder (1990)

The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd (1990–1991) (TV series)

Law & Order, "Aria" (1991)

The Hard Way (1991)

Homicide: Life on the Street, "Deception" (1997)

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, "Obscene" (2004)

The Happy Elf (2005)

Accepted (2006)

Man of the Year (2006)

Unaccompanied Minors (2006)

Farce of the Penguins (2007)

Falling for Grace (2007)

History of the Joke (2008) (Documentary) History Channel

Lewis Black's Root of All Evil (2008) (TV series) Comedy Central

The Big Bang Theory, "The Jiminy Conjecture" (2009) (TV series) CBS

Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (2010) (TV Series) Cartoon Network

References

External links

Lewis Black's lewisblack.com

Lewis Black on Twitter

Lewis Black on MySpace

Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

InnerVIEWS with Ernie Manouse: Lewis Black (TV Interview)

Lewis Black Interview on NPR's Fresh Air (April 7, 2005)

Lewis Black Interview on NPR's Talk of the Nation (January 29, 2003)

Lewis Black Interview with the Village Voice (September 23, 2008)

Onion A.V. Club Interview

Lewis Black Interview by Maurie Sherman

Stand Up! Records

Lewis Black Interview, Real Detroit Weekly (November 13, 2007)

"Straight Talk" Interview in Submerge Magazine, (Sept. 2008)

Lewis Black rants about Michele Bachmann, Farmville, Twitter - Citypages.com 5/4/2011

Category:1948 births Category:American comedians Category:American dramatists and playwrights Category:American Jews Category:American social commentators Category:American socialists Category:American stand-up comedians Category:American television actors Category:American voice actors Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Jewish actors Category:Jewish comedians Category:Living people Category:People from Chapel Hill, North Carolina Category:People from Silver Spring, Maryland Category:People from Washington, D.C. Category:Religious skeptics Category:University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni Category:Yale School of Drama alumni

de:Lewis Black et:Lewis Black fr:Lewis Black he:לואיס בלק nl:Lewis Black ja:ルリス・ブラック pt:Lewis Black sv:Lewis Black

name	Tom Morello
background	solo_singer
birth name	Thomas Baptiste Morello
born	May 30, 1964 Harlem, New York
alias	The Nightwatchman
genre	Alternative metal, rap metal, funk metal, alternative rock, folk rock, hard rock
occupation	Musician, songwriter, activist, actor
instrument	Guitar, vocals, harmonica, mandolin, bass guitar, drums, piano, banjo
associated acts	Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, The Nightwatchman, Street Sweeper Social Club, Lock Up, Class of '99, Cypress Hill, Axis of Justice, Electric Sheep, Travis Barker
label	SonyBMG, Epic, Interscope
years active	1979–present
notable instruments	"Arm the Homeless" - Custom guitar with a Kramer neck and custom performance body."Soul Power" - Custom Fender Stratocaster"Sendero Luminoso" - Fender Telecaster "Burnt Budweiser" - Gibson Les Paul "Whatever It Takes" - Ibanez classical acoustic Ibanez Artstar Hollowbody (Custom). }}

Thomas Baptiste "Tom" Morello (born May 30, 1964) is a Grammy Award-winning American guitarist best known for his tenure with the bands Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, his acoustic solo act The Nightwatchman, and his newest group, Street Sweeper Social Club. Tom is also the co-founder (along with Serj Tankian) of the non-profit political activist organization, Axis of Justice, which airs monthly on KPFK 90.7FM in Los Angeles. He is best-known for his unique and creative guitar playing style, which incorporates feedback noises, unconventional picking and tapping as well as heavy use of guitar effects. He was ranked #26 in Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time."

Early life

Tom Morello was born on May 30, 1964, in Harlem, New York, to Ngethe Njoroge and Mary Morello. He is of Irish and Italian descent on his maternal side, and Kikuyu Kenyan descent on his paternal side. His mother was a schoolteacher from Marseilles, Illinois, who earned a Master of Arts at Loyola University, Chicago and travelled to Germany, Spain, Japan, and Kenya as an English language teacher between 1977 to 1983. His father was a Kenyan participant in the Mau Mau Uprising, and served as Kenya's first ambassador to the United Nations. Morello's paternal uncle, Jomo Kenyatta, was the first elected president in Kenyan history. His parents met in August 1963, while attending a pro-democracy protest in Nairobi, Kenya, and Morello was conceived the first night they made love in a hut. After discovering her pregnancy, Mary returned to the United States with Njoroge in November, and married in New York City.

When Morello was 16 months old, Njoroge returned to his native Kenya, and denied his paternity of his son. Morello was raised solely by his mother in Libertyville, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. There he attended Libertyville High School, where his mother was a U.S. history teacher. She was the homeroom teacher for Tom's classmate and fellow guitarist Adam Jones, of the band Tool, while teaching at Libertyville. Tom sang in the school choir and was active in speech and drama club; a prominent role was Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Morello developed leftist political leanings early, and has described himself as having been "the only anarchist in a conservative high school", and has since identified as a nonsectarian socialist. In the 1980 mock elections at Libertyville, he campaigned for a fictitious anarchist "candidate" named Hubie Maxwell, who came in fourth place in the election. He also wrote a piece headlined "South Africa: Racist Fascism That We Support" for the school alternative newspaper The Student Pulse.

Morello graduated from high school with honors in June 1982, and enrolled at Harvard University as a political science student that autumn. He was the first student at his high school to be accepted at Harvard, and was in fact the first person from Libertyville, Illinois ever to enroll there. Morello graduated in 1986 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Studies from Harvard. He moved to Los Angeles, where he first supported himself by working as an exotic male stripper.

"When I graduated from Harvard and moved to Hollywood, I was unemployable. I was literally starving, so I had to work menial labour and, at one point, I even worked as an exotic dancer. 'Brick House' (by The Commodores) was my jam! I did bachlorette parties and I'd go down to my boxer shorts. Would I go further? All I can say is thank God it was in the time before YouTube! You could make decent money doing that job – people do what they have to do. "

Adam Jones moved to Los Angeles as well; Morello introduced Jones and Maynard James Keenan to Danny Carey, who would come to form the band Tool.

From 1987 to 1988, Morello worked in the office of California Democratic Senator Alan Cranston; however, this proved to be a negative experience for Morello, who decided never to pursue a career in politics.

"I never had any real desire to work in politics but if there was any ember burning in me, it was extinguished working in that job because of two things: one of them was the fact that 80 per cent of the time I spent with the Senator, he was on the phone asking rich people for money. It just made me understand that the whole business was dirty. He had to compromise his entire being every day. The other was the time a woman phoned up to the office and wanted to complain that there were Mexicans moving into her neighborhood. I said to her, 'Ma'am, you're a damn racist,' and she was indignant. I thought I was representing our cause well, but I got yelled at for a week by everyone for saying that! I thought to myself that if I'm in a job where I can't call a damn racist a damn racist, then it's not for me. "

Musical influences

At age 13, Morello joined his first band; a Led Zeppelin cover band as the lead singer. At this same age, Morello purchased his first guitar. Around 1984, Morello first started studying the guitar seriously. He had formed a band in the same year called the Electric Sheep which featured future Tool guitarist Adam Jones on bass. The band wrote original material that included politically charged lyrics. None of the songs composed by the Sheep contained solos; soloing was a skill that Morello began learning in college.

At the time, Morello's musical tastes lay in the direction of hard rock and heavy metal, particularly Kiss, Iron Maiden. As he stated in Flight 666 he is a huge fan of Piece of Mind, Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath. Morello developed his own unique sound through the electric guitar. Later, his musical style and politics were greatly influenced by punk rock bands like The Clash, The Sex Pistols, and Devo.

Recording career

Rage Against the Machine (1991–2000; 2007–present)

In 1991 Tom was looking to form an old band after Lock Up disbanded. Tom was impressed by Zack de la Rocha's freestyle rapping and asked him to join his band. He also drafted drummer Brad Wilk, who he knew from his band Lock Up, where Wilk unsuccessfully auditioned for a drumming spot. The band's lineup was completed when Zack convinced his childhood friend Tim Commerford to play bass. After frequenting the L.A. club circuit, Rage Against the Machine signed a record deal with Epic Records in 1992. That same year, the band released their self titled debut. They achieved a considerable amount of mainstream success and released three more studio albums.

In August 2000 in Los Angeles during the Democratic National Convention, Rage Against the Machine performed outside the Staples Center to a large crowd numbering in the thousands while the Convention took place inside. After several audience members began to throw rocks, the Los Angeles Police Department turned off the power and ordered the audience to disperse, firing rubber bullets and pepper spray into the crowd.

In late 2000, after Commerford's stunt at the VMA's, the disgruntled de la Rocha quit the band. On September 13, 2000, Rage Against the Machine performed their last concert at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. After the band disbanded, their fourth studio album, Renegades, became a collection of cover songs from artists such as Bob Dylan, MC5, Bruce Springsteen and Cypress Hill. 2003 saw the release of their last album, titled Live at the Grand Olympic Auditorium, an edited recording of the band's final two concerts on September 12 and 13, 2000 at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. It was accompanied by an expanded DVD release of the last show and included a previously unreleased music video for "Bombtrack".

After disbanding, Morello, Wilk and Commerford went on to form Audioslave with former Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell, and released three albums as well as a DVD from the band's concert in Cuba. De la Rocha started working on a solo album collaboration with DJ Shadow, Company Flow, and The Roots' Questlove, but the project was dropped in favor of working with Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor. Recording was completed, but the album will probably never be released. So far, only one track has been released: "We Want It All" was featured on "Songs and Artists that Inspired Fahrenheit 9/11".

On April 29, 2007, Rage Against the Machine reunited at the Coachella Music Festival. The band played in front of an EZLN backdrop to the largest crowds of the festival. The performance was initially thought to be a one-off, but this turned out not to be the case. The band played 7 more shows in the United States in 2007 (including their first non-festival concert in 7 years at the Alpine Valley Music Theater in East Troy, Wisconsin), and in January 2008, they played their first shows outside the US since re-forming as part of the Big Day Out Festival in Australia and New Zealand. In August 2008 they headlined nights at the Reading and Leeds festivals.

The band has since continued to tour around the world, headlining many large festivals in Europe and the United States, including Lollapalooza in Chicago. In 2008 the band also played shows in Denver, Colorado and Minneapolis, Minnesota to coincide with the Democratic National Convention and Republican National Convention, respectively. Though they played together for these events, they do not play together regularly.

Audioslave (2001–2007)

After de la Rocha left Rage Against the Machine, the remaining band mates began collaborating with former Soundgarden vocalist Chris Cornell at the suggestion of producer Rick Rubin. The new group was first rumored to be called The Civilian Project, but the name Audioslave was confirmed before their first album was released.

The band released their eponymous debut album on November 19, 2002. It was a critical and commercial success, attaining triple-platinum status.

The band released their second album, Out of Exile, on May 24, 2005. It debuted at number 1 on the Billboard charts and attained platinum status. In the same year, they released a DVD documenting their trip as the first American rock band to play a free show in Cuba. The band's third album, Revelations, was released in the fall of 2006. As of February 15, 2007, Audioslave have broken up as a result of frontman Cornell's departure due to "irresolvable personality conflicts". The band reunited with Zack de la Rocha and resumed their previous band, Rage Against the Machine.

The Nightwatchman (2003–present)

Morello is less known for his folk music, which he plays under the alias The Nightwatchman. He has explained:

In November 2003 The Nightwatchman joined artists Billy Bragg, Lester Chambers of The Chambers Brothers, Steve Earle, Jill Sobule, Boots Riley of The Coup and Mike Mills of R.E.M. on the Tell Us the Truth Tour. The thirteen-city tour was supported by unions, environmental and media reform groups including Common Cause, Free Press and A.F.L.-C.I.O. with the ultimate goal of "informing music fans, and exposing and challenging the failures of the major media outlets in the United States." Tom Morello explained:

"Media consolidation needs smashing and globalization needs unmasking. When presidents and politicians lie, it is the job of the press to expose those lies. When the press fails, the gangstas come out from hiding. The lie becomes the law. The point of the Tell Us the Truth Tour is to help others make connections, and to show them that activism can change the policies of this country."

One of his many songs, "No One Left", which compares the aftermath of September 11 to that of a U.S. attack on Iraq, appears on the album Songs and Artists that Inspired Fahrenheit 9/11.

The Nightwatchman also appeared on the album/DVD Axis Of Justice: Concert Series Volume 1, contributing the songs "Until the End", "The Road I Must Travel", and "Union Song".

Morello, as The Nightwatchman, released his debut solo album, One Man Revolution, on April 24, 2007.

The Nightwatchman joined the Dave Matthews Band for its short European tour in May 2007. As well as opening for the Dave Matthews Band, he was invited to guest on a couple of songs each night. The last night of this Morello/DMB arrangement was May 30, 2007 at Wembley Arena in London, on Tom's birthday.

The Nightwatchman is currently supporting Ben Harper on tour. During this tour, Morello has been joining Harper onstage for a cover of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War", on which he plays the electric guitar in the style for which he's best known.

Morello has presided over a Hotel Café residency in L.A. since November 2007, which has featured many of his musical cohorts, including Serj Tankian, Perry Farrell, Jon Foreman of Switchfoot, Shooter Jennings, Nuno Bettencourt, Sen Dog of Cypress Hill, Jill Sobule, Boots Riley, Alexi Murdoch, Wayne Kramer of MC5 and others.

On October 10, 2008, The Nightwatchman appeared on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson as a musical guest, promoting his new album The Fabled City.

Street Sweeper Social Club (2006–present)

Following Audioslave's breakup in 2007, Morello met up with Boots Riley of The Coup, suggesting that they start a band which Morello had named Street Sweeper. After giving Riley a tape of various songs to write to, the two created the duo Street Sweeper Social Club.

Street Sweeper Social Club opened for Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction in May 2009.

Other side projects (1994–present)

Morello has played with a great number of artists. Some of the more notable contributions are listed below.

Morello and RATM bandmate Brad Wilk joined with Maynard James Keenan of Tool and Billy Gould of Faith No More to record the song "Calling Dr. Love" for the 1994 Kiss tribute album Kiss My Ass. The lineup was billed as Shandi's Addiction.

In 1995 Morello formed a short-lived project called Weatherman with former Articles of Faith frontman Vic Bondi. They recorded demos in September 1995. Bondi wrote all the lyrics, while Morello wrote all the music. One track, "Enola Gay", was recorded by Brett Eliason in fall 1996.

Morello played lead guitar and produced on three tracks of Primus' 1999 studio album Antipop.

Morello played the guitar on The Faculty soundtrack, featured with Class of '99 for their cover of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall (pt. 2)".

Morello worked with The Crystal Method on their 2001 album Tweekend. He co-produced and played guitars on the smash single "Name of the Game" and "Wild, Sweet and Cool".

Morello recorded guitars along with country legend Johnny Cash during his late career with American Recordings, which was released on the Unearthed.

Morello has worked with the punk band Anti-Flag on numerous occasions: he produced their 2003 album The Terror State, recorded the guitar solo on "Depleted Uranium is a War Crime" on their 2006 album For Blood & Empire, and has played at some of their concerts.

Morello played guitar in the single "One Man Army" by The Prodigy, which appears on the Spawn Soundtrack and on the "Smack My Bitch Up" single as an instrumental version.

Morello played guitar on the Atari Teenage Riot song Rage.

Morello played a short solo on the Benny Mason band song Exodus IV.

As The Nightwatchman, Morello has often performed alongside Boots Riley, frontman of The Coup; also, he produced and performed on a track for The Coup's 2006 release Pick a Bigger Weapon. In July 2006, it was reported that Morello and Riley were to collaborate on a project called Street Sweepers (see section above).

Morello sat in with the Dave Matthews Band featuring Butch Taylor and Rashawn Ross for multiple dates on the band's May 2007 stint in Europe. He performed on "#41", "American Baby Intro" and "Satellite" at various dates on the brief tour.

Morello appears in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock as a "guitar boss" (the first of 3 in the career mode of the game) in a night club. Beating him in a one-on-one battle (playing an original composition he recorded for the game) will unlock him as a playable character and will result in the player and Tom playing the master track of "Bulls on Parade" as an encore immediately following the battle. Morello's original composition features many of his trademark guitar effects like those heard in songs such as Audioslave's "Cochise" and "Doesn't Remind Me" and Rage Against the Machine's "Bulls on Parade" and "Sleep Now in the Fire".

In April 2006, Morello produced two tracks for the group Outernational; on the band's website, it states that Morello will be producing their debut album.

In April 2008, Morello made two guest appearances with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at the Anaheim Pond. They performed an extended electric version, featuring guitar solos, of "The Ghost of Tom Joad" (which had been previously covered by Rage Against the Machine on Renegades). One of these performance was included on Springsteen's Magic Tour Highlights EP as an audio track or video download.

On October 29, 2009 Morello performed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary Concert at Madison Square Garden. He performed "The Ghost of Tom Joad", "London Calling", "Badlands" and "Higher and Higher" with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

Morello performed on Steve Earle's track, "Lungs," on Earle's Townes Van Zandt tribute album, Townes (album).

On February 23, 2010 Cypress Hill released the second single, "Rise Up", from their album Rise Up featuring Tom Morello on guitar. He is also featured on the track "Shut 'Em Down" from the same album.

Morello performed with the rockabilly supergroup Fistful of Mercy on the November 10, 2010 edition of Conan.

Morello performed on Serj Tankian's "Goodbye - Gate 21".

Appearances in films

Morello played on a number of soundtracks, including Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006), Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Spider-Man, and most recently The A-Team. He was an "Additional Electric Guitar" in the 2008 superhero movie Iron Man and played a terrorist. He also stars in the movie Berkeley (2005) and in Star Trek: Insurrection. He also collaborated with John Debney for the score for Iron Man 2

Additionally, Morello has appeared as himself in an array of documentary films; such as Sounds Like a Revolution, Iron Maiden: Flight 666, about heavy metal band Iron Maiden's Somewhere Back in Time World Tour, and in Chevolution, an exposé about the famous Guerrillero Heroico photo of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara.

Guitar playing technique

Morello is famed for his guitar style, which consists of heavy metal/punk hybrid riffs and hip hop-inspired sounds. Matthew Bellamy of the British band Muse has cited Morello as an influence, which can be heard in his use of pitch-shifting in solos.

To produce his alien guitar sounds, Morello chooses various effects pedals. During his tenure in RATM, he used a Dunlop Cry Baby, a Digitech WH-1 Whammy, a Boss DD-2 Digital Delay, a DOD EQ pedal (set flat and just used to boost the volume during guitar solos or particular rocking moments), and an Ibanez DFL Flanger. Around the time of The Battle of Los Angeles he added a Boss TR-2 Tremolo pedal (which can be heard on "Guerrilla Radio"). For Audioslave, Morello replaced the Ibanez Flanger with a MXR Phase 90. His amplifier of choice has always been a 50-watt Marshall JCM 800 2205 and a Peavey 4x12 cabinet. Though the Marshall is his amp of choice with Rage Against the Machine, he used a Vox AC30 combo amplifier for multiple overdubs on Audioslave's album Revelations. While the Marshall amplifier has two channels, he only uses the overdrive channel, and simply turns down the volume on his guitar to get cleaner sounds.

In the studio, Morello uses the same setup for the bulk of the guitar tracks. For The Battle of Los Angeles, he also used a few other amps, such as a Line 6 as heard on the clean, spacey intro of "Mic Check", plus a Pignose mini-amp and a MusicMan "Twin" style amp. During the recording of Audioslave's last album, Revelations, Morello experimented with different amplifier setups. For the title track's solo he split his signal to his standard Marshall 2205 head and Peavey cabinet and a 100 watt Fender Bassman head and an Orange cabinet. With delay sent to one while the other is unaffected the sound is being "ping-ponged" between the two amplifiers. He also borrowed a VOX AC30 amplifier from producer Brendan O’Brien for some tracks.

Morello's unique technique and talent led to him being voted the fifth greatest guitarist of the past 30 years in a 2010 BBC poll.

Politics

Activism

On August 27, 2008 Morello performed in Denver, Colorado at the Open The Debates rally in opposition to the Commission on Presidential Debates exclusion of third party candidates from the nationally televised debates. He performed "This Land is Your Land" as The Nightwatchman and endorsed Independent Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader. Sean Penn, Jello Biafra, Brooke Smith and Cindy Sheehan were also part of the rally.

In October 2009, Morello, among a number of musicians, sued the US government for the declassification of all documents relating to the use of music in interrogations at Guantanamo Bay. He stated, "Guantanamo is known around the world as one of the places where human beings have been tortured -- from waterboarding to stripping, hooding and forcing detainees into humiliating sexual acts -- playing music for 72 hours in a row at volumes just below that to shatter the eardrums. Guantanamo may be Dick Cheney's idea of America, but it's not mine. The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me."

On February 21, 2011 Morello organized and performed an acoustic concert in support of the protests over collective bargaining rights in Madison, WI. The concert also featured The MC5's Wayne Kramer and Boston punk band Street Dogs. He wrote an article in Rolling Stone about his experience.

Axis of Justice

Morello and Serj Tankian of System of a Down are the co-founders of Axis of Justice, a political group whose declared purpose is "to bring together musicians, fans of music, and grassroots political organizations to fight for social justice together." They "aim to build a bridge between fans of music around the world and local political organizations to effectively organize around issues of peace, human rights, and economic justice." The group has worked for such causes as immigrant rights and death-penalty abolition. Its recommended book list includes such authors as Noam Chomsky, Karl Marx, Che Guevara, George Orwell, Mumia Abu-Jamal and Grant Morrison.

Morello and Tankian, together with a handful of other artists, including Maynard James Keenan, Wayne Kramer of the MC5, the hip hop group Jurassic 5, and Michael "Flea" Balzary of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, released a live recording of covers and original songs, titled The Axis of Justice Concert Series Volume 1.

On April 6, 2006, Tom Morello was honored with the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award for his support of worker's rights and for his AOJ work. Tom has worked on numerous labor campaigns: the Guess sweatshop boycott, the LA janitors strike, the Taco Bell boycott, the southern California grocery workers strike and lockout, and others.

Morello was a strong supporter of the Immigrants Reform Rally and protest around the US. He feels that there's enough room for everyone in the United States, whether those people want to work or not. Morello played as The Nightwatchman at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles and has featured many articles on AOJ. On September 28, 2006, Morello was one of 400 protesters arrested protesting in support of immigrant hotel workers' rights, in what organizers called "the largest act of civil disobedience in the history of the Los Angeles". Morello knew he was going to be arrested; he wore bright yellow signs, and gave the LAPD his driver's license number a few days before the march. Morello told MTV:

Personal life

Tom Morello has a son called Rhodes Morello, he stated this on one of his "The NightWatchman Speaks" videos on his YouTube channel. Morello is a vegetarian for both health and ethical reasons.

Equipment

Guitars

Morello uses heavily modified guitars from various manufacturers, but he has never had an official endorsement deal with any company.

Mongrel Custom "Arm The Homeless" - Morello's most famous guitar, and his main guitar for standard tuning since 1991. The original guitar was made by Performance Guitar USA for Morello to his exact specifications. It featured a Stratocaster body with a Performance Corsair neck, 2 Seymour Duncan JB pickups and A chrome original Floyd Rose tremolo system. However, when he got the guitar he hated everything about it and completely reassembled it. Since then just about everything has been changed countless times. The only thing that remains from the original guitar is the body. The body is blue with the words "Arm the Homeless" written on it in black and red. It has a 3-way toggle switch (pickup selector) mounted on the lower horn, 2 volume knobs and 1 tone knob, 4 Hippos (painted) on the front, one large hippo (upside down) painted on the back, and a hammer and sickle symbol sticker. The neck is a 22 fret Performance guitar neck with a rosewood board and a "banana" headstock. It also has Gotoh Crownhead tuners. It has an EMG 81/EMG H set of pickups and a Ibanez Edge Floyd Rose Tremolo. The guitar is tuned to standard E. This guitar is available in the video game Guitar Hero 3:Legends of Rock.

Fender Stratocaster "Soul Power" - Originally made as a Factory Special Run for Guitar Center, Morello found it on the rack and really liked the look of it. It has a black finish with white binding and a color-matched headstock. It also has a mirror pickguard, Ibanez Edge Floyd Rose Tremolo, a 2-way on/off toggle switch wired as a kill switch, a Seymour Duncan Hotrails pickup in the bridge and Fender Noiseless pickups in the middle and neck positions. It has the words "Soul Power" on the top of the body in silver paint and is his main guitar in Audioslave for songs that are in standard E tuning.

Fender Telecaster, "Sendero Luminoso" - A black stock 1982 Standard Telecaster, his main guitar for use in drop-D in Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave and Street Sweeper Social Club. He got this guitar in a trade with his roommate. The guitar has various stickers on its body, most notably the words "sendero luminoso" in white and red.

Fender telecaster 2. Black with white binding, mirror pickguard and toggle switch on the lower horn. Tom used this guitar when he played with Fistful of mercy on Conan.

Ibanez Artstar Hollowbody (Custom) - Made especially for Morello. Based on an old Vox Ultrasonic, it contains several on-board effects (wah, echo, dist, treble/bass boost) and is painted red and black paint. Used live on the song "Guerrilla Radio" by Rage Against the Machine but rarely seen anywhere else, until it was used in the video clip for Cypress Hill's "Rise Up".

Goya Rangemaster de Greco, "St. George Creamy" - Bought by Morello at a Canadian pawnshop for $60. It was modified with a Seymour Duncan hotrails pickup in the bridge position. A toggle switch was also added that is dead in the middle position, resulting in a "hummingbird chirp" when toggled. Used as a drop D guitar for some songs on the Rage Against The Machine record Evil Empire. Used in Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave.

Ibanez Talman (Custom) - Has 3 single coil "lipstick" pickups, an Ibanez Lo-Pro Edge tremolo, and a killswitch. It has a custom Kenyan flag finish and was used on "Revolver", "How I Could Just Kill a Man", and "Pistol Grip Pump" for Rage Against the Machine and "Exploder" for Audioslave. The guitar has a faulty internal pickup which makes odd feedback noises, which Tom adjusts by tweaking the tone knob and using the guitars tremolo. This technique can be heard at the beginning of Rage Against the Machine's "Revolver", Audioslave's "Exploder", and the live version of Street Sweeper Social Club's Promenade. Tom owns a second Talman, in a white finish, with two humbuckers.

Gibson EDS-1275 (Double Neck SG) - Tuned to drop-D on the 6-string neck, and only seen used live on "The Ghost of Tom Joad".

Ovation Breadwinner - Tuned to standard E, used for "Ashes in the Fall" for Rage Against the Machine. Also used with a MusicMan amp and Tone Bender pedal to capture the Korean radio station audio heard at the end of "Sleep Now in the Fire".He owns 2 others and confines them to the studio because he thinks they look ugly. Morello used one of these guitars in the video for Travis Barker's "Carry It", which he is featured in.

Gibson "Budweiser" Les Paul - Used during the recording of Audioslave's third album, Revelations. Originally bearing an orange Budweiser logo that Morello hated and burned off with a lighter. He liked the new appearance and modified the guitar with DiMarzio pickups. Drop-D tuning.

Gibson Les Paul Standard, #1 - orange burst finish. Tuned to drop-B for use in Audioslave and Street sweeper social club.

James Trussart Steelcaster - A Telecaster style guitar with a body made in steel, finished with a red star graphic over a holey front. Has Seymour Duncan pickups ( Alnico pro II in neck and a Hot rails in bridge). Seen occasionally on the Rage Against the Machine reunion tour, Tom also owns one with polished finish that was used on early tours.

Ibanez roadstar- Tom's backup guitar for arm the homeless. It has all the same specs as arm the homeless (light blue finish, edge trem, toggle switch on the bottom horn, emg pickups etc.) but has several small hippo stickers instead of the 4 larger ones seen on the original guitar. This guitar can be seen briefly in the "sleep now in the fire" music video.

"Whatever It Takes" guitar - A custom Ibanez Galvador classical acoustic guitar he uses during concerts as The Nightwatchman. Plain body with 'Whatever It Takes ((star))' left of the bridge.

Tanglewood Acoustic Guitar.

Note: The drop B tuning used by Tom is different to normal drop B. Tom uses the guitar in standard tuning but drops the low E down to a B.

Effects and amplifiers

Morello's amplifier and effects setup has been practically the same throughout his career in Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave and Street Sweeper Social Club.

;Pedalboard:

DigiTech Whammy WH-1

Dunlop Cry Baby (from the mid 80's)

Boss DD-2 Digital Delay

Boss TR-2 Tremolo

DOD FX40b Equalizer

Ibanez DFL Flanger

MXR Phase 90 (Replaced the Ibanez Flanger for Audioslave)

;Amplification:

Marshall JCM800 2205 50-watt head (with the Marshall logo blocked out to avoid endorsment proposals)

Peavey 4x12 Cabinet

Selected discography

The Nightwatchman is the alter ego of Tom Morello, guitarist with Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. While Morello is best known for his bracing mix of hard rock fury with hip-hop accents, as the Nightwatchman he performs as a solo acoustic singer and songwriter, playing self-penned songs that reflect his leftist political beliefs. Born in New York City in 1964 and raised in Libertyville, IL, by his mother (a longtime political activist), Morello taught himself to play guitar while he was a student at Harvard University, where he received a degree in political science. After graduating, Morello moved to Los Angeles and joined a hard rock band called Lock Up, which scored a deal with Geffen Records; however, Lock Up's sole album, released in 1989, sank without a trace and they soon broke up.

Morello had much better luck with his next project — Rage Against the Machine, which fused hip-hop rhythms and fractured heavy metal guitar sounds alongside Zack de la Rocha's agitprop lyrics. RATM released their first album in 1992, and became one of the most influential bands of the 1990s, blazing the trail for the rap-metal movement and confirming that there was still room for firebrand politics in mainstream rock & roll. Rage Against the Machine split up suddenly in 2000 following the release of their album Renegades, and Morello and his bandmates Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk soldiered on as Audioslave with former Soundgarden vocalist Chris Cornell.

In 2003, inspired by Bob Dylan's early work and Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska and outraged by the administration of George W. Bush, Morello began writing topical songs and singing them at informal shows in California coffeehouses. Calling himself the Nightwatchman, Morello admits to having severe stage fright during his first appearances as a vocalist, but before long he gained confidence and in 2004 the Nightwatchman took part in the Tell Us the Truth tour, a series of concerts (also featuring Billy Bragg, Steve Earle, and Boots Riley of the Coup) staged to raise awareness during the 2004 presidential campaign; an album was released from the tour's recordings, featuring two songs from Morello.

A few months later, the Nightwatchman emerged again on Axis of Justice: Concert Series, Vol. 1, another live album drawn from a series of benefit concerts for Axis of Justice, a political activist group founded by Morello and Serj Tankian of System of a Down. Morello continued performing as the Nightwatchman when not busy with Audioslave, and in 2006 he recorded the Nightwatchman's first album, One Man Revolution, produced by Brendan O'Brien and released in April 2007. Lock Up

Something Bitchin' This Way Comes (1989)

Rage Against the Machine

Rage Against the Machine (1992) US 3x Platinum

Evil Empire (1996) US 3x Platinum

Live & Rare (1998)

The Battle of Los Angeles, (1999) US 2x Platinum

Renegades (2000) US Platinum

Live at the Grand Olympic Auditorium (2003)

Audioslave

Audioslave (2002) US 3x Platinum

Out of Exile (2005) US Platinum

Revelations (2006) US Gold

The Nightwatchman

One Man Revolution (2007)

The Fabled City (2008)

Union Town (2011)

World Wide Rebel Songs (2011)

Street Sweeper Social Club

Street Sweeper Social Club (2009)

The Ghetto Blaster EP (2010)

Filmography

Saturday Night Live (Episode #21.17, 1996) .... Musical Guest (Rage Against the Machine)

Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) (uncredited) .... Son'a officer

Star Trek: Voyager (Season 6, Episode 20, 2000, "Good Shepherd") .... Crewman Mitchell

Made (2001) .... Best Man

Berkeley (2005) .... Blue

Metal: A Headbanger's Journey (2005) ... As Himself

Iron Man (2008) .... Insurgent #5

Chevolution (2008)... As Himself

Iron Maiden: Flight 666 (2009) .... As Himself

Iron Man 2 (2010) .... Insurgent #5

References

External links

The Nightwatchman

Sandmonkey Lives (!)

Axis of Justice

Video of Tom Morello's network TV debut of "House Gone Up in Flames"

"The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time", Rolling Stone, August 27, 2003. Accessed May 30, 2011.

Listen online: Tom Morello On Corporate Imperialism

Performing live at SXSW 2007 on 89.3 The Current

Tom Morello on The Hour

It’s Guitarist Tom Morello - video report by Democracy Now!

Category:1964 births Category:African American guitarists Category:African American rock musicians Category:American activists Category:American socialists Category:American anti–Iraq War activists Category:American heavy metal guitarists Category:American rock guitarists Category:American television actors Category:American vegetarians Category:Harvard University alumni Category:American musicians of Irish descent Category:American musicians of Italian descent Category:American people of Kenyan descent Category:Living people Category:Musicians from New York Category:People from Manhattan Category:People from Libertyville, Illinois Category:Rap metal musicians Category:Rage Against the Machine members Category:Audioslave members Category:Lead guitarists Category:American Marxists

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name	Kardinal Offishall
background	solo_singer
birth name	Jason D. Harrow
birth date	May 12, 1976
origin	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
genre	Canadian hip hop
occupation	Rapper, songwriter, record producer
years active	1994-present
label	MCA Records, Kon Live Distribution, Geffen Records
associated acts	Akon, Black Jays, Sean Paul, Colby O'Donis }}

Jason D. Harrow (born May 12, 1976), better known by his stage name Kardinal Offishall (), is a Canadian rapper and record producer. He is often credited as Canada's "hip-hop ambassador", and is best known for his distinctive reggae and dancehall-influenced style of hip-hop.

Life and career

Harrow was born in Scarborough, Ontario, in Toronto's east end, and raised by Jamaican immigrant parents. From the ages of 2 to 13, he lived in the city's Flemingdon Park neighbourhood. He moved back to Scarborough for two years, before finally settling in Oakwood–Vaughan, in the city's west end. While in high school, he would throw parties at the Alexandra Park Community Centre.

He started rapping at the age of eight and was winning competitions by the time he was 12. Also at the age of 12, he performed live and on stage for the first time, with Nelson Mandela in attendance during Mandela's first visit to Toronto. By 1993, he decided to change his alias "KoolAid", and went by the moniker "Kardinal Offishall" after being inspired by the great 17th century French politician Cardinal Richelieu.

Kardinal was signed to a publishing deal with Warner/Chappell Music Canada at the age of 20. In 1996, he released his first single "Naughty Dread", which was featured on the Rap Essentials Volume One compilation and earned him a Juno Award nomination for Best Rap Recording. In 1997, Kardinal released his debut album Eye & I on Capitol Hill Music. The only single from the album, "On wit da Show", had considerable video play on MuchMusic. In 1998, he was featured on the Juno-winning single "Northern Touch" with the Rascalz, Choclair, Checkmate and Thrust.

In 2000, Kardinal signed with MCA Records. He released the album Quest for Fire: Firestarter, Vol. 1 in 2001, which spawned the hits "BaKardi Slang" and "Ol' Time Killin'". After MCA folded in 2003, Kardinal's highly anticipated follow up album Firestarter Vol. 2: The F-Word Theory was shelved along with the single/video for "Belly Dancer" featuring Pharrell, and Kardinal eventually found himself without a label. Had the album been released, there would have been production from Timbaland and The Neptunes, among others. He released an independent mixtape titled Kill Bloodclott Bill in 2004 with his production company, Black Jays, and he also released his second major-label album titled Fire and Glory on November 15, 2005, through Virgin Records in Canada only. Hits on Fire and Glory include "Everyday (Rudebwoy)" and "Heads Up".

In 2007, Akon signed Kardinal Offishall to his label Konvict Muzik and Kon Live Distribution. In 2008, he released the album Not 4 Sale. It spawned the hit single "Dangerous", which peaked at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100.

In 2010, he was included in the Young Artists for Haiti's version of "Wavin' Flag" in an effort to raise money for disaster relief. He starred along with many Canadian stars. Also in 2010, he was featured in Raghav's single "So Much".

Discography

Studio albums

Eye & I (1997)

Quest for Fire: Firestarter, Vol. 1 (2001)

Fire and Glory (2005)

Not 4 Sale (2008)

Mr. International (2011)

EPs

Husslin' (2000)

Awards

1999: Juno Award for Rap Recording of the Year for Rascalz' "Northern Touch"

2000: Juno Award for Rap Recording of the Year for producing Choclair's "Let's Ride"

2000: SOCAN Award for "Husslin'"

2001: MuchMusic Video Award - Best Rap Video for "Money Jane"

2002: SOCAN Award for "Money Jane"

2004: Canadian Urban Music Award for "Empty Barrel"

2006: 3 MuchMusic Video Awards - Best Video, Best Director (RT!) and VideoFACT Award for "Everyday (Rudebwoy)"

2009: Juno Award for Single of the Year for "Dangerous"; Juno Award for Rap Recording of the Year for Not 4 Sale

2009: SOCAN Urban Music Award for "Dangerous"

See also

Canadian hip hop

Music of Canada

References

External links

Kardinal Offishall interview by Pete Lewis, 'Blues & Soul' February 2009

Rhapsody Interview

Border Block - Canadian Hip Hop vs. America

Much Music

MMVA Awards

Interview with DJ Stallion

Kardinal's KonvictMuzik.net page

Kardinal Offishall on Flow.TV

Kardinal Offishall Spits 16 Bars in Studio - AOL Music

Kardinal Offishall RBMA video lecture session

Category:1976 births Category:Black Canadian musicians Category:Canadian rappers Category:Geffen Records artists Category:Canadian people of Jamaican descent Category:Juno Award winners Category:Living people Category:MCA Records artists Category:Musicians from Toronto Category:People from Scarborough, Ontario Category:People from York, Toronto Category:Reality television judges Category:Reggae fusion artists Category:York University alumni Category:Canadian hip hop record producers

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