He grabs his laptop from the truck and scrolls through iTunes, past a copy of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantas_y, to a recording of Justin singing "The Lady Is a Tramp" with the Eau Claire Memorial High School Jazz Band. He holds the Macbook up to our ears and we lean in to hear his son, known for his falsetto, here sounding like Frank Sinatra. ("It's fabulous," Gil says. "It's just great.") The project was a fundraiser for the group, who that night played classic jazz cuts and songs from Bon Iver's 2007 breakout _For Emma, Forever Ago. The performance was released in 2009 as an album called A Decade With Duke.

So we do. The bar is closed (it is, to be fair, 11 AM on a non-football Sunday), but a man and woman who turn out to be Nolte and his longtime partner Kathy are inside, and they let us through the door after we tell them we know Gil, because this is how small(ish) towns work. Inside, the walls are covered with bumper stickers ("THE MORAL MAJORITY IS NEITHER," "Beware of the Dance Police!") and a banner rightly proclaiming, "All we are saying is give cheese a chance." Bill is a gregarious man, white-haired with sparkling eyes and streaks of paint on his faded jeans. He talks a lot with little prompting, and he looks a bit like Nick Nolte, who happens to be his second cousin.