Rebecca and the Grey Notes + special guest Matt Tyner

Rebecca and the Grey Notes 

The motto of Rebecca and the Grey Notes is “bringing back the art of playing music.” The idea for the band began in June 2011 when Rebecca asked her father, lead guitarist Tyler Famularo, on Father’s Day if he would be interested in forming a band with her. His answer: I've been waiting for you to ask. Rehearsals began soon thereafter with the addition of Michael Juley on bass. The trio first performed in April 2013 in Waukesha, and after a successful first year and with festivals beginning to call, including Bastille Days in 2014, the band added drummer Jeff Franks.

The father-daughter band released its first CD in 2015 and immediately began getting airplay on two radio stations in southeastern Wisconsin. The EP was recorded at Third Ward Records in St. Francis and featured five songs written by Tyler and a cover of “End of the World” by Skeeter Davis. A second CD, “Volume Two,” was released in 2017 and contained seven songs written by Tyler.

In its first year of release, the album received airplay on five radio stations in southeastern Wisconsin, including FM 106.1, the most popular country music station in the Milwaukee area. A Kenosha County station, WGTD-FM, called one of the album’s cuts, “Picture of You,” the best locally produced song ever played on the station. And in August 2017, the band recorded two videos for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s “Sound Check.” It also recorded two of its songs for WUWM-FM’s “Lake Effect” program.

A review of “Volume Two” in the Shepherd Express stated: “Any band whose motto is “Bringing back the art of playing music” has set a lofty critical bar for

themselves. On their second release, Milwaukee’s Rebecca and the Grey Notes perform increasingly assured chin-ups on that bar with a smart, sincere amalgam of unassumingly sweet acoustic country, light blues-rock swagger and a hooky sort of Americana. The familial bond of lead singer Rebecca Famularo and the presence of her lead guitarist-father among her three Grey Notes put them in the city’s parent-child lineage of The Spanic Boys, an act whose rootsiness aptly parallels their sound, too.”

In addition to its 12 original songs, the band fills out its set lists with covers of artists such as Bonnie Raitt, Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Linda Ronstadt, Ann Peebles, Patsy Cline, Led Zeppelin, the Byrds, Tom Petty, B.B. King and more, covering a wide range of styles and genres.

Matt Tyner

Matt isa self-taught musician, singing and playing guitar most of his life. He enjoys performing solo and collaborating with a variety of talented local musicians putting together duos, trios and his band, DON JUAN and the PAWNSHOP GIGOLOS. Influences like Blues great Muddy Waters, Alt-Americana legend Tom Waits, Rock n’ Roll’s elite Rolling Stones and Classic Country hero Hank, Sr. are just some of the artists that inspire Matt’s original tunes and interpretations.