By Bobby Tanzilo Senior Editor/Writer Published Nov 05, 2009 at 3:50 PM

Is it my imagination or is John Mayer looking more and more like an update of the circa-1986 Charlie Sexton these days?

I guess it's been a while since I've seen a photo of Mayer.

Once the poster boy for college dudes everwhere, with his just woke up hair and his untucked shirts and jeans -- let's not forget the occasional backpack in some photos -- Mayer has transformed himself over time and now sports a spiky 'do and extremely high-visibility, seemingly expanding tatts on his arms.

Admittedly, the hair doesn't reach the same altitude as Sexton's did, but, hey, that WAS the '80s!

Mayer comes to the Bradley Center for a show on Monday, March 1 as part of the tour in support of his new disc, "Battle Studies," due out later this month. Opening the 8 p.m. show is Michael Franti and Spearhead.

Tickets go on sale on Saturday, Nov. 21. If you want to get a jump on it, though, there is a special offer on www.johnmayer.com that allows fans to pre-order Battle Studies before Nov. 10 and get access to a pre-sale offering allowing the purchase of up to 12 tickets before they're available anywhere else.

Say what you want about the look -- and I just did -- but there's no denying they're both talented guitar players, even if neither is sucking up zeroes and ones on my iPod.

Bobby Tanzilo Senior Editor/Writer

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.

He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.

With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.

He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.

In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.

He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.