Trash Fest 2018: Sorry, Not Sorry

Trash Fest -- by its very name -- is a celebration of tacky, of trashy, of reused and resusable cultural crap, and it revels in it. Consider the themes of years past. "It's Crap and That's That" "Scum Always Rises To The Top" or seasonal tributes or tributes, period; last year's fest was a tribute to the Gong Show. Sometimes the acts are parodies, some are actual tributes to trashy culture, and as founder Voot Warnings once pointed out, "some bands just come and play their standard set." If they're trashy enough, more power to them.

But when you celebrate trash, there's going to be a self-effacing part to it, such that even though this year's Fest didn't have an official theme, I'm going to go with Sorry, Not Sorry. Because as self-effacing as Trash Fest gets, no, nobody's sorry about the poor taste, the horrid puns, the slip ups and the trash. Every year new people come in to check it out and they're not quite sure what to make of it, but everybody who steps on that stage is unapologetic about it, no matter how low they go. That's why it's Trash Fest. I enjoyed my delicious taco truck dinner (the taco truck parked out on Burnham in front of the Journal Sentinel Printing Press rocks) as I settled into my seat at Kochanski's Concertina Beer Hall for the festivities. Wads of trash were arranged neatly on the tables like it was a wedding reception.

Back after a multi-year hiatus, former Trash Fest perennial openers, the Nervous Virgins took their rightful spot as the opening act. Fronted by Eric Griswold (the Wisconsin contact for Burning Man -- he runs the Burning Snow Center in Riverwest), the band delivered their set of dependable weirdness, finishing off, as has been their tradition, to an a capella rendering of "Iron Man" to the tune of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" (it works, really), dressed as Ebenezer Scrooge, but sounding like a sweet boys' choir. Oh and say, was that a Washday Cigar Box guitar in that band?

Up next was Serena's Magic Show.

Serena Stone brought her magic act to Trashfest, and the accomplished hypnotist trashed it up very nicely for us. Accompanied by a friend on piano, she remained silent as she flipped rope and card tricks at the crowd. Even when she was flipping off the crowd, the whole effect was that of a very charming mime, as she realized that getting trash thrown at her from this audience was a compliment -- she then used her magic rings to not only wow us with illusion, but to set up target practice for the increasingly rowdy crowd. Oh, by the way, for those of you confused, she's a (her own term) "transgendertainer," not a man in drag. I'm sorry she doesn't have the porcelain skin and dainty demeanor of some manic pixie dream girl but this wasn't a drag act.  Sorry, not sorry.

Exposed 4 Heads frontman Mark G.E. was this evening's MC (somebody had him confused with Paul "The Fly" Lawson, who was too busy distributing trash, playing stage nazi, playing in a band later on, doing all the press, booking the club, confirming all the acts). Mark vacillated between being Your Host of Hosts with his clear gameshow host voice, and university professor reading various bits of maintenance tips and trivia that left me with a furrowed brow thinking "What the hell was that?" I was actually surprised that Mark wasn't in an act of his own this evening -- God knows he's got both the charisma and the trashy sensibility to pull something off. Nevertheless, he held the thing together onstage while Fly was holding it together offstage. Yet, as this thing's been going for 37 something years, I'd discussed with a few Trash Fest veterans by the door --Dale Kaminsky and Rusty Olsen (who would later appear in the Mirror Men) -- how smoothly this thing seems to run itself. How we used to need a genuine stage nazi to shuffle the bands on and off, how we needed to keep an eye on the mounds of trash so that nobody would get hurt, and how we needed to keep an eye on some of the acts so that nobody would get arrested. But frankly, most of the participants are old pros, who know they get 20 minutes to trash up the stage and 10 minutes to get the hell on and off. You don't need a stage nazi for that.

Speaking of old pros, up comes Dave Thomas, paying tribute to trash bands past and present as the Fallen Angels, and throwing in some guitar classics on his big bad guitar. But here's the thing: they nailed the tricky changes in the past songs, but they fucked up "Gloria." You know, G-L-O-R-I-A! It's the first song anybody ever learns on the guitar after they learn their first three chords - E D A ad nauseum! How, I asked the twitterverse that night, how do you fuck up "Gloria"? And even more perplexing was that right afterwards they sailed through a flawless version of "Pipeline" -- a song twenty times more difficult than "Gloria." Well, sorry not sorry, but this is Trash Fest.

Right behind him was Dave Alswager as Johnny Trash and Marlavous Marla as June Cart-Her-Trash and their costumes, hair and makeup were dead on, not to mention "June"'s watchful "you had better walk that line" gaze on "Johnny." Replacing "June"'s autoharp was a casiotone that apparently she'd learned three notes on that day (the three you need to replace the horn section on "Ring of Fire") and a fourth note to add a bit of out of tune solemnity to "Hurt."

Keeping with the roots theme, up came Full Irish Breakfast, full of old McTavish and other Irish alumni. It's about time somebody took on the hallowed Irish music genre and starting out a set with "I Gave My Love A Potato" set the tone perfectly. It's a good thing they had plenty of parody ready, because musically they were spot on. Plenty of 6/8 time, and a quick little jig called "Michael Flaherty You Fucking Drunk You Owe Me $400."

So, like I said, Paul "The Fly" Lawson was too busy behind the scenes, but that didn't stop The Paulettes from taking the stage.

Paulette looked ravishing in black minidress, and of course they plowed right into classics including "Walk on the Wild Side" and "Lola." But the highlight of the set was when they busted into a ZZ Top tune, which at first seemed out of place -- a little too WKLH for this crowd -- until they got to the chorus that slipped perfectly into the lineup: "Every girl's crazy 'bout a cross dressed man!" The general consensus is that none of us are ever going to hear the "normal" version of that song ever again without singing this much more fun chorus.
The Mirror Men followed this tough act, but Frank Chandik is visiting back home from Panama and this is one of those acts that isn't just a Trash Fest act. It's a loving tribute to Captain Beefheart. Most of this crowd has seen Frank and this band do Beefheart before -- and it won't be the last (catch 'em at Zappafest in a couple of weeks). Special kudos go to drummer Keith Michels -- who was already called upon in a few other bands in the evening. The Mirror Men's regular drummer couldn't make it at the last minute. Michels went out to his car, plugged in the set list, listened a few times, and reportedly told the Mirror Men, "I got this." Indeed he did. No sorry not sorry here.

Finally, your intrepid reporter threw on a T-Shirt and fronted a Dead Kennedys tribute band which we named "Rose Kennedy's Speculum" (we had to top the original band name for bad taste, and I think we did) and as a local alternative reporter put it, "spat" out DK hits that frankly, didn't need much updating. We qualified for Trash Fest: the band we were paying tribute to was a funny, trashy, albeit hardcore punk band. We fucked up a few of the changes (this is Trash Fest, after all) but in general we got the chords right. But I guess we were too angry and sincere for the alternative reporter, despite the fact that we were sincere in our love for the whole trashy genre in general. I guess he wanted us to be more silly and have more "positive" fun, despite my feelings that shouting out a quick 1 minute hardcore tune with the chorus "Nazi Punks FUCK OFF" was the most fun I've had in a while.  But here's the thing. Despite last Tuesday, we're still living in a land governed by a would-be autocrat intent on stripping away rights for anybody who isn't white, male and "Christian" by picking away at the Constitution and a few critical amendments -- much as Jello Biafra warned us about 30 years ago. We did a song called "Too Drunk To Fuck" and dedicated it to our most recent Supreme Court justice, who weighed in on a decision to further curtail voting rights (and don't get me started on why this song was apt for him). We closed our set with yet a bigger update to "We've Got A Bigger Problem Now" (updating California Uber Alles to the obvious reference to Mar A Lago) I'm sorry I wasn't the happy and goofy chick that should  "get over it" or "lighten up" and just shut up and be happy and put a real world damper on your fun. I'm sorry my version of fun reminded you that there's good trash that we celebrated and there's bad trash that got elected president.

Wait wait wait. Back up. Sorry, not sorry. Not one little bit.