We are the new year

By Matt Wild

“You always seem to have the same problems, month in and month out. It’s like you never fucking learn.”

This gem comes courtesy of an honest-to-a-fault friend during a blurred, never-ending round of drinks at Foundation. It’s nostril-freezing cold outside, and while it pains me to admit it, I know she’s right; nearly every one of my past 20 columns for this fine monthly have trod the same emotionally stunted, unemployment-fueled territory. So if you, dear reader, find yourself in agreement with this assessment, I implore you to brace yourself, because as far as repetitive and depressing columns go, this one’s a real doozy. Hate mail from jilted ex-lovers? Check. Half-hearted suicide attempts? Yup. Soppy, self-indulgent final paragraphs bemoaning a misspent, penniless Milwaukee youth? You better believe it.

It’s a few weeks later when I find myself grudgingly attending a rock show at – dear God in heaven, help me – Live. It’s not the bands on the bill that give me pause (although all but the excellent Highlonesome will prove to be utterly useless), but instead the familiar list of aforementioned woes: a perpetual lack of money and a recent email from a former female acquaintance detailing my lack of “…conscience, courage, integrity and a spine.” Nevertheless, I’m placing my bets on the dim hope that some live music – along with the possibilities of the impending new year – can pull me through the evening.

Tonight’s crowd is a schizophrenic mess, and can be divided up thusly: the kind of folks that currently frequent Live, and the kind of folks that haven’t stepped within a 20 foot radius of the place since it ceased being The Globe. (So long, bastion of all-ages Milwaukee rock; hello, 2-for-1 Jager bombs!) Style-wise, the assembly is equally polarized: button-ups crowding the bar, tattooed lunatics crowding the stage.

Up first are The Sensible Pant Suits (Author’s Note: due to the extreme awfulness of the first two acts, I feel it’s only good manners to use aliases; if you care to know the true identities of these bands, contact me courtesy of this publication.) The group peddles in the kind of boring, outdated punk rock dreck that used to dominate the scene before every local band changed their music to boring, outdated “classic” rock. Their set is filled with the typical “Dude, we’re like, totally wasted!” between-song chatter, as well as the always popular “Come up front and dance!” demand that usually signifies barely-disguised desperation, a collective mental handicap or both. Next up is a solo set from Barry Getz, lead singer for local upstarts Let’s Hear It For Remedial English. Getz’s “sound” is hard to nail down, though imagining a 14-year-old boy giving birth while repeatedly picking up and dropping a series of electric-acoustic guitars seems to sum it up quite nicely. The straights seemed pretty miffed at all the racket, however, and a particularly oafish goon soon gets the boot after repeatedly screaming something about all the “dirty punk rockers and their B.O.”

A slew of $1.25 PBR’s later, and Highlonesome’s Noah Tyson (finally!) takes the stage. My strong attraction to HL’s music has always been puzzling; I typically rank the whole “cowpunk” thing a few notches below Bollywood show tunes in my ever-shrinking list of music worth listening to. Maybe it’s Tyson’s voice, weary yet bold, that gets me. Maybe it’s the solid songwriting. Maybe it’s his opening greeting, “Thanks to everyone for coming out, and no thanks to this shit-hole of a bar.” Or maybe it’s the way he seems genuinely surprised by the amount of goodwill his set brings. Whatever the reason, this is good – really good – everything ecstatic, everything suddenly blurring around the edges…

Later in the week I’ll find myself driving alone at 2 a.m.,near-comatose from an angry mix of sleeping pills and booze, unwittingly revisiting some of the old haunts I’ve accumulated over the past 10 years: the Shorewood apartment where I once made love to a frail and brilliant girl, the hair salon where I once found myself at 7 a.m. – my body still electric with scary chemicals – waiting for an ill-advised and ultimately disastrous haircut. Now I’m passing the frozen swath of Lake Michigan shoreline where I sat with two moonlit girls (so long ago!) discussing dreams of alien abductions and giant, underwater fans. All of these sad landmarks still standing, still accessible, all reminding me that even though they still exist, I can never truly own them again…

But like I said, all of that comes later. For now I’m back at Live – itself a former landmark of so many life-altering events – singing along to “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” a gaggle of dirty punk rockers with B.O. joining me. The song ends with a swell of unafraid, beer-soaked voices (“In the sky, Lord, in the sky…” ), and it’s in these fleeting moments of dumb beauty and self-delusion that I’m convinced that everything can still be worked out, that no matter how repetitious and sad we may become, the absolution of a new year is still something worth betting on. VS