a Well-Intentioned Rebuttal (Or: Oh! Matt! Gimme a Hug!)

Fig.1: This image of a packed Cactus Club witnessing Call Me Lightning is sure evidence of a dying scene

Matt Wild needs a hug.

If you’ve read this month’s edition of SubVersions, Matt’s back-page column in the pages of VITAL’s print edition, you may have gotten that impression. Every year, to close the annual music issue, Matt gives his take on the state of the Milwaukee Music Scene, and he’s not in a very good mood this month.

“You want to know my take on the state of the scene? It sucks. What’s more, I’m glad I’m out of it. And that HiFi lyric [NOTE: Read the article and you’ll see he’s referring to “Success! Success! Success!,” a rock song by the band I drum in. Do note that I found it totally flattering that Matt referenced us! Oh, Matt]? Oh, it’s true all right, though I would argue that in Milwaukee, no one hears you, period. It doesn’t make a lick of difference whether you’re 20, 30, or 48, because the only people that are going to give a shit about your band are your friends and girlfriends, and even they’ll piss and moan if you don’t put them on the guest list. Is the idea of a bunch of slowly graying adults playing basements and barely-attended clubs inherently ridiculous? In a world of few absolutes and rampant relativism, let me just come out and say it: Yes, yes it is. Give up now. Feel the shame.”

Jon Anne Willow, our fabulous Editor in Chief, the Robbie Robertson to my Peter Parker, suspects what I am certain is true. She “has known Matt for many years and has believed for a while now that he was heading for that aspirations-vs.-reality wall most young artists collide with eventually.”

Since Matt ended the music issue on such a downer, I thought I’d take a stab at a well-intentioned rebuttal to his contention that the current Milwaukee Music Scene is sucky and awful. I also would like to send Matt a small ray of hope from the other side of that wall Jon Anne is talking about, not unlike the black GI who peers over the Berlin wall and rescues Hedwig from cold East Berlin in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Only, ya know, with slightly less gay. (But only slightly.)

Fig.2: Let me save you from all this strife and sauerkraut, Matt

What I’m trying to say, Matt, is this: Jon Anne is 100% correct about that aspirations-vs.-reality wall. I know because I full-on smacked into it head first two years ago.

The year was 2006. The Republicans were about to cede control of Congress to the Democrats for the first time in 12 years, and a little tv show called Heroes had caught the nation’s imagination before jumping the shark a season later (because, really…West? That kid sucked). And your humble narrator had just ended a 5-year relationship because he didn’t follow his lady love to grad school, choosing instead to stay in Milwaukee with his stupid band, believing they had lots more to accomplish before they called it a career.

That fall, we went on tour to the Southeastern part of the country, eager to rock the shit out of cosmopolitan locales like Nashville, Birmingham, and Raleigh—you know, cities pre-built to accommodate noise-oriented chaos rock that buries what pop hooks it manages to vomit out under an unlistenable din of bullshit. As you may guess, the tour didn’t go very well—five people showed up in Nashville, three in Raleigh, and the club in Birmingham didn’t even know there was a show booked that night.

I wasn’t in a healthy state of mind. At all. “DJ, you are an idiot. You stayed in Milwaukee so you could go on tour and play in front of three people per night if you’re lucky. Way to fuck up your life, jackass, and by the way, you totally ended “Potential Energy” early in Columbus, loser.” Guh. I’m really hard on myself when I’m schizophrenic.

When you hit that wall, you need to slam through it with the hammer of your choice. Let’s go back to Jon Anne, and her Editor’s Desk from the music issue: “Meanwhile, back here in the neighborhood, I still see community-building as our best course of action in effecting long-term change.” She wasn’t talking explicitly about music when she wrote that, but music as community is as old as, well, music.

A few days after our tour’s low point, we hit Long Island while I was still hitting my head against that wall. And who should show up at the gig but our pal Kael, an old Manitowoc pal who was living in upstate New York and traveled four hours, on about three different kinds of public transportation, to see us. BAM. Wall broken. Really? We inspire someone to spend four hours one way on buses and taxis and trains…just to see us? And most importantly, bring whiskey with him? Screw the money we’re losing on tour—you can’t buy how awesome that feels with cash.

This is why Milwaukee’s Music Scene will always be strong: because this city gets what I’ve always known, but took until 2006 to really understand. It’s all about the love. Maybe you start a band because you have something to say; maybe you’re just looking to have some fun. Hopefully you’re not looking to become famous, because that guarantees that your band will suck rocks (check out the lineup at the next Emergenza fiasco if you don’t believe me). But if you stick with it long enough, you realize that you’re in a band because you meet the coolest, most talented, most inspiring people in the world while playing in a band. The Milwaukee bands that succeed—and by “succeed” I mean “stay together for a long time without sucking”—are the ones who reach out beyond the city and make friends that they can be inspired by. Whether it’s bringing the bands here or journeying out into the big, scary world, at risk of forfeited wages and romantic relationships, to take your music to complete strangers, that sort of worldwide community building makes our city stronger. Outside ideas leak in, keeping the creative juices from going stale (and I’m not talking about out-of-town bands playing the Pabst, either—yeah, buddy, you’re the only one who ever decided to rip off Of Montreal. Sure). People in other cities start to associate our city with quality. Don’t believe me? When we played Detroit in August, the sound guy was excited as hell to hear we were a Milwaukee band. “Milwaukee bands always kick ass. I’ve never seen a bad one.” (That’s because the bad ones either don’t tour, or tour once, get discouraged when they lose their ass in the gas tank, and break up.) We’re bringing a fantastic band called The Antiques, from Washington, DC, to the Borg Ward later this month, and when they listened to some mp3s by Year of the Scavenger (a relatively new Milwaukee band made up of people from older Milwaukee bands), their reaction was “holy shit, this is awesome. Is every Milwaukee band as good as the three we already know?” (Where did they meet the other two? In DC, as White Wrench Conservatory and we wrapped up our tour at the Velvet Lounge.)

As long as Milwaukee bands have the wisdom to reach outside the city, Milwaukee bands will kick ass. The ones that stick to their insular group of friends and remain comfortable playing to the same thirty people every show? They’ll get bored and fall by the wayside, wondering why no one else ever notices them. And the scene will be better for it.

This isn’t, by the way, some sort of “inferiority complex,” as Milwaukee often accuses itself of having; I’m not saying that Milwaukee isn’t any good without other cities propping it up. Rather, we make those other cities better in return. It’s symbiotic bliss, baby—they inspire us, and we inspire them. That’s why our pals in Boston moved heaven and earth to get us a show in their town, and why we’ll move equivalent amounts of earth to bring them back here. Because we blow each other away, and it’s awesome.

So buck up, Matt Wild, ya little scrapper! Break through that wall! OK, maybe your band’s broken up, and maybe you think that you’re “a terrible singer, a hopeless guitar player and a mediocre songwriter at best” (your words, pal, not mine). But these words I’m spewing forth apply to more than just music. You’ve got something to contribute, and you’ll make us all better when you do. Find your new niche, and hammer away at it, because chances are, you’ll find your own Kael from Manitowoc—someone truly inspired by what you do. And if you’re lucky, you’ll be inspired right back.

And Matt? Spend some time doing your thing outside of Milwaukee. When you play a show in front of two people in Philadelphia because the bar didn’t promote your show or get a local on the bill to help with the draw, you’ll appreciate a town where the local bands are at least willing to play, and the clubs are more than happy to have them (even if the same ones end up playing every other week). And hey—when you’re playing where no one knows you, there’s no one to bitch and moan about not being on the guest list!

Agree? Disagree? Come buy me a drink or slap me in the face at “Smoked Out: A Great American Rock Show,” this Saturday at the Cactus Club in scenic Bayview! My stupid band, IfIHadAHiFi, will be sharing the stage with The Celebrated Workingman and Canyons of Static, all for a ridiculous $5. Come see how strong Milwaukee really is.