Rockford Musician Who Lost Home, Studio in Fire Gets Help from Community

After spending a lifetime helping budding Rockford musicians, is now asking for help from the community for himself and his family.

On October 17th, John Bishoff lost his home to a house fire. Thankfully his wife, son, and himself were able to escape safely.

Bishoff recalled the tragic event to MyStateline.com:

We woke up to smoke being in the room,”  “My wife woke me up. ‘The smoke alarms are going off!’ We ran out into this room. The house looked okay, but we opened the door to the garage and there was just a ball of fire that came at us.”

Since 1985, John Bishoof had been rebuilding the house, room by room, even recently turning one into a recording studio.

Music is the love of my life, and it’s one of the things that’s kept me going,”

John Bishoff has been a part of the local music scene since 1962, most recently playing guitar alongside former Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos in the New Pagans.

He also helped up and coming Rockford talent by archiving their live performances, at no cost to them.

“At one time, when Kryptonite was going, I would go down there and just about videotape everybody,” he said. “We had a huge archive of videotapes.”

Now the community that he spent so much time encouraging is giving back to their mentor.

A GoFundMe has been started to help the Bishoff family get back on their feet after their tragedy.

Ed Dulian started the fundraiser because Bishoff has "mentored countless artists and musicians, myself included."

Bishoff's son Barton is thankful the local music community is rallying to help his family in a big way.

“I think you reap what you sow, and fortunately, I think they gave to the community because they love doing it. But now, we realize that the community is giving back to us, and we’re very grateful,”