When I moved to Milwaukee in 2002 I was excited to hang out with several folks I had known casually for most of the previous decade - some of them I found I had little in common with, and others quickly became close lifelong friends. But there was also a healthy crop of younger punks, reared on sweaty basement pop punk and Midwest hardcore, with just as much for love for HICKEY as we California transplants had, but little interest in the early '90s DIY punk that made Milwaukee famous to a fresh faced out of towner (that's me without the beard). My favorite bands that had long before introduced me to my now new city (ANIMAL FARM, BURIED, DEMISE, DAMITOL) had been replaced by a crew of beer soaked kids in bands like HOLY SHIT!, TAB, and MODERN MACHINES. I liked some of the bands, some of them were too poppy for my tastes, but I was constantly amazed at the ability of these kids to get shockingly fukkd up and still manage to play - and usually pretty damn well. This scene was the epicenter of basement shows in Milwaukee for many years, and even when I had a hand in hardcore/crust/PV gigs while I lived there, many of those shows still went through those punks. Quite some time before John and I started the Milwaukee Mixtape Exchange, Hanson and I decided to make a swap. I think it was as much "let's make sweet tapes for each other" as "who the fukk is this punk? let's see what he really knows and blow his mind with how deep I roll," but the result was this 90 minute creamer and a tape that I made in trade that is almost certainly way better - no small feat, because Sir Hanson slapped together a total winner. I tried to join forces with them and was in a band for two practices (maybe it was just one?) with Hanson, Andy and Dan once - and the three songs we wrote were pretty damn killer...but we got distracted. Hanson lives in Portland now, and I live in San Francisco.
2 comments:
ACE! Laughed so hard over the stairway to heaven cover.
Long live The Enema Boyz!
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