Radio Musikola: Run, Don't Walk to Their Next Show
- Jill Stoodley
- May 4
- 6 min read
Updated: Jun 28
The band's slogan is the music you forgot you loved.
But we did not forget in the slightest... We love 80s music. Always have, always will.
And Radio Musikola is equally unforgettable.
My husband and I were invited by friends in the fall of 2023 to see Radio Musikola play. For the past year and a half, I've been dying to see them again.
We had no expectations when our friends (Jen and John Richmond) invited us to a concert in a barn in Hopkinton. We'd never heard of the band or the event space, but we figured even if it was an evening of mediocre karaoke fare, it would be a rare and different night out with friends.
We were stunned by the band and the venue. The music was just as good if not better than any big city headliner. And Barn#81 is a space so cool it deserves its own spotlight — it’s already in the works as my next blog piece. A full music studio, the barn was an up-stairs addition built onto married band-mates Antoniades and Kessler's family home to host lessons, recording sessions, and occasional concerts. The second we laid eyes on it, my husband knew this was the addition of my dreams — I'd always fantasized about building a similar space in our own home.
The stage was beautiful and the lighting and special effects, top-notch. The seating was small, intimate, and very casual with nearly 100 seats, tightly arranged. On first glance, I was surprised at how close, but by the end of the night it was if we were all old friends, life-long fans, sharing a collective, nostalgic experience and the close quarters no longer mattered at all.
The Band Killed It From the Second They Hit the Stage
Opening with Stand or Fall, lead singer Tim Day's sound echoed shades of Sting and Phil Collins — smooth, emotive precision — with a distinctive confidence and style all his own. With fantastic renditions of Head Over Heels, Games Without Frontiers, and note-for-note, sound-for-sound electrifying versions of Video Killed the Radio Star and Cars — boldly featuring a megaphone (yes, you read correctly) — he absolutely slayed.
The band's performance of Roam was our first glimpse of lead female vocalists Barbara Kessler and Amy Fairchild. We were already impressed enough with Day to consider the evening a raving success, but I was totally floored when the women took the stage, solo. With pure powerhouse versions of Voices Carry and Here Comes the Rain Again (from Fairchild) and Running Up That Hill and 99 Red Balloons (from Kessler), the women were so fantastic I started sending video clips to our daughter because the performances were so good I couldn't believe she was home missing the experience.
Can't Wait to Check out Radio Musikola? Here's all you need...
Oddly, I've never been a huge concertgoer until the past five years or so, when we began attending shows with our teenage daughter. It's become a new passion, and one more item on the list of things that woke me up to my need for color and creativity in my life. I've come to learn that in the really good concerts (at least for myself, anyway), there are almost meditative moments when you allow the music to just take over. Moments when self-conscious restraint disappears and you feel the music so deeply you entirely let go. Toward the end of the night, Day returned to the stage with a rendition of Rebel Yell that absolutely brought... the... house... down. With Leadbetter's solo on guitar and Antoniades' fill on drums, the frenzy was real. The entire band was off the charts. And a re-listen a year and a half later while writing this article only confirmed it.
Check out the entire song below — I promise, it won't disappoint.
You Won't Believe the Artists They've Worked With! Click for details.
Band members have worked with or shared the stage with so many amazing artists including: Van Halen, The Spin Doctors, The Dave Mathews Band, Violent Femmes, Hootie & The Blowfish, The Indigo Girls, Jimmy Buffett, BB King, Buddy Guy, Rusted Root, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Monkees, Blood Sweat & Tears, Livingston Taylor, Luther Guitar Johnson, Blues Traveler, Shawn Colvin, NRBQ, Tom Petty, Dr. John, Rick Danko, Mighty Sam McLean, Quiet Riot, Eddie Money, John Anderson, The Guess Who, Rustic Overtones ...and those are just the ones they could remember!
I knew nothing about the band's credentials when we arrived. I didn't know the founding members had opened for the likes of Quiet Riot, the Violent Femmes, Tom Petty, and many more iconic artists. Or, that others in the group had won Boston Music Awards and Billboard Music Awards and toured across the globe. I just knew that they were crazy talented, and I wanted more.
The band strives to be as true to the original recordings as they possibly can. By researching the original synthesizers and instruments that were used, they're able to recreate about 99.5% of the iconic sounds they cover entirely from scratch. "We basically want to do a great show with the modern technology you might see at a bigger concert, in a more intimate space," says musical director, Jeff St. Pierre.
Their limited performances make them even more desirable. Having formed a rare bond early in their music careers, the band members all have their own separate successful endeavors, but they gather together once or twice a year. They've toured the world together in various different configurations, and it's so apparent how much they genuinely enjoy making music together. The combination of all the early years of bonding musically, their three decades of experience, and the new members and guest performers they've added along the way delivers a truly amazing live show.
We couldn't make their latest concert this March at the Hopkinton Center for the Arts, and we were so disappointed. Don't make the same mistake we made!
Find them, follow them, and get yourself to their next gig.
The band is currently working to book upcoming events...
Want More Details on the Origins of the Band?
Mark Yurkovic, Phil Antoniades, and Jeff St. Pierre met at Berklee College of Music in the 80s, forming Signs of Life with saxophonist Mario Perrett and a few other friends. Lead singer Tim Day, their "bonafide rocket scientist" who hailed from MIT, also joined the band early on. They played the college and club circuit up and down the east coast with moderate success — opening for Dave Matthews, The Spin Doctors, Soul Asylum, and Van Halen, to name a few.
In the mid-90s, they all went their separate ways.
Phil was running his own business empowering independent artists, and he met his wife, singer/songwriter Barbara Kessler at a show he was promoting. Barbara, who's won a Boston music award and the Kerrville Folk Festival best new artist award, began touring and recording with Phil and Jeff. And through Barbara’s producer, they were introduced to singer/songwriter Amy Fairchild. Amy played on the Lilith Fair tour in the late 90s and has won the John Lennon songwriting contest multiple times. They've been playing and recording together since the early 2000s.
Jeff met Jim Wooster when Jim's band (the Courage Brothers) and Signs of Life did shows together. Jim was the executive director at famed local music venue, Passim, in Harvard Square until last year — they've stayed in touch over the years, reuniting for Radio Musikola shows and other projects. Chris Leadbetter, known for his work with the Swinging Johnsons and Digney Fignus, was introduced to the band through Mark in 2016 and has been playing with the band for nearly a decade.
Since the original band Signs of Life disbanded, Mark has been putting out solo records under the name Shecky & the Pimp Monkeys. With their decades-long love for the synth pop of the early 80s — Thomas Dolby, Nik Kershaw, Howard Jones — musical directors Mark and Jeff have remained "partners in crime" through Radio Musikola. And the rest is history.
See for Yourself!
Together, with their unmatched talent and incredible breadth of experience, the eight band members create an unforgettable, must-see musical experience. Be sure to follow the band, and check out their video and audio files:
Radio Musikola
Boston, Massachusetts
Additional band member websites to check out:
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Jill Hodgson Stoodley
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