Crushing Into Festival Season

Yeah, Crusherfest. Pride. Locust Street. That first weekend of June where you feel like how Summerfest used to feel: all those stages! All the talent! Where to go? Who to see? Oh no, there's conflicts galore! And of course, oh no, all that dang rain!

And if you're not playing any of the big festivals, you can't take it personally if there's nobody at your gig at some bar in Walker's Point, like it felt like as I strolled into the (relatively) new (to me, at least) Walker's Point Music Hall last Friday night. I went because it had been a long couple of weeks, and I needed the booster dose of glam I can always count on Silk Torpedo to deliver -- and I wanted to finally, finally see Go Go Slow, a crush of a band that mixes punk, no wave, and a nice splattering of glam over the top, played by a handful of Milwaukee underground veterans: Dan Kubinski, Dave Szolwinski, Tammy Raeck and Bill Backes. Experts in their field, they all come from bands where you can hear the contribution: Fuckface, Die Kreuzen, the Muckrakers, and the seven hundred varied bands Backes has played with. The result was the unlikely ability to put the phrases "headbanging" "toe tapping" and "catchy AF" in the same sentence as "no wave" and "experimental" to describe them.

Silk Torpedo opened the show, and by the time they started, the room had filled comfortably, rather than the dead emptyness we first saw in the front room/bar. There's a back room at the Walker's Point Music Hall, with an ample stage, decent acoustics, and a tall drink table inexplicably plopped in the middle of the room. Still, Silk Torpedo delivered as usual, a great set of 70s glam: standard Cooper, lots of T Rex tonight, Bowie, Sweet, the whole glittering gang. This band is like a salve to me: familiar, plenty of swaggering singalong favorites, and a reverentially cocky presentation. I'd mentioned on my private social media that I actually had a bittersweet moment during "Diamond Dogs" -- I flashed back to when my oldest (who I just put on a plane for her newest adventure a week before) was something like 4 or 5 years old, strapped into her booster seat, listening to a Bowie mixtape I used in the car. In her little kid voice, she was singing along: "Come out of the garden, baby, you'll catch your death in the fog" and I remember rolling my eyes lovingly at her, knowing this was both a Bowie lyric and something a mom would say. The girl's almost 21 now, the song's almost 45 years old; both are wonderful and timeless. So's this band.

 The next day was, of course, Crusherfest. I wasn't the only person who didn't anticipate just how crushingly packed it would be. Word was getting around that even before the statue was unveiled, vendors ran out of beer. One more time: in South Milwaukee, vendors ran out of beer. Before the statue was unveiled, if you were late enough to get there, you couldn't even see it. You could only hear an introduction by wrestling legend Baron Von Raschke, delivering a Shakespearean-level soliloquy in tribute to Da Crusher, alog with the Novas reuniting for just one song, their one hit, which is probably now a Milwaukee standard. Seriously, I hear most Milwaukee underground bands cover The Crusher than I hear Freebird. Once the crowd dissipated, we were able to take it all in: polkas in a huge church-festival style tent courtesy of the Squeezettes. Later in the evening the November Criminals would confound the south siders with a combination of polka and rap. The wrestling tent was loaded with all sorts of wrestling memorabilia circling round a ring set up for live action. Brian dutifully forked over a $10 spot to get "clawwed" by Baron Von Raschke, while his wife (presumably the Baroness) contemplated the life as the wife of a legend. Meantime, there was plenty of other Sout Milwaukee culture to take in and enough Polish to satisfy all yous turkey necks.

By Sunday, I admit it. I was festivaled out. I popped by Locust Street and caught a few acts, (and shamefully missed Sigmund Snopek's wedding!) and wimped out once the rain poured in, which was a switch from some ten years ago, when I and my girlfriends ran the beer run in the pouring rain wearing evening gowns. Most of the acts I would have stayed for, frankly, have gigs lined up (indoors!) in the next few weeks or so, so I've got to rely on all the other media in town to run down the bands to see at Locust street. In the meantime, I'm still basking in the glow of a festival that paid tribute to a guy who trained for his bouts by lugging a keg full of beer from 'Tosa and back. Few things summarize Milwaukee so well.





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