Even in this day and age, there are people who think of the Midwest states as 'flyover states' - not only in the sense of not visiting here, but also in the sense of believing that no good music comes out of our punk/alternative/indie scenes.
This is clearly untrue.
The Smashing Pumpkins are from Chicago, The Replacements are from Minneapolis, The Stooges are from Detroit, Devo are from Akron, Ohio, and the list goes on.
Granted, those bands I just named are the ones that broke out of the ‘Midwest band’ cage, and became known around the world. But the Midwest (and everywhere else) also has bands that never got known very far outside their town or state or region, that labored in obscurity for years - and just cos they never got famous doesn’t make ‘em any less worth listening to.
In
December of 2012, I covered Chicago punk rock. Now, I’m here with some Wisconsin punk (as well as some other forms of underground music, such as power pop). And you know - if I thought it was difficult to write the Chicago one, in the sense of it bringing up all kinds of nostalgia and happysad memories, this one was maybe even harder, or at least difficult in a different way. Because some of these bands and the people in them have been part of my daily or weekly life since I was twelve. Because so many of the guys from so many of these bands have passed away, and that hurts more than I can express in this brief introduction. Because some of these bands, I have complicated relationships with some of their members - in fact, there are a couple bands I chose not to include at all for that very reason.
The title of this column was borrowed from an essay of the same name -
Cows, Beer, Punk Rock and Noiseby Dave Lang; which is about the Milwaukee underground scene from the late ‘70s through the ‘80s. (If you enjoy reading that, I’d recommend also checking out
The Cease Is Increaseby Steve Nodine.) It is also a reference to the
Die Kreuzen EP Cows and Beer.
Enough about my personal history and feelings, though. I’ll get to the mix - eighteen tracks that sprung from Wisconsin’s frozen underground; everything from the famous to the obscure, from power pop to hardcore, from the ‘80s to now. Tune into
Mix Tapes from the Midwest: The Podcast to hear fourteen tracks that didn’t make it into the column.
One last thing - I will be taking March off from writing this column, so, if you'd like to read more of my music writing and possibly hear some mini-podcasts during March, you can
visit my blog. See you back here in April!
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