‘We Had Fun and Nobody Died: Adventures of a Milwaukee Music Promoter‘ by Amy T. Waldman with Peter Jest

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We Had Fun and Nobody Died by Amy Waldman

Some of the importance in telling Peter Jest’s story is its increasing rarity. Since Jest started promoting concerts as a UWM student in the mid-1980s, the promotion of concerts and other entertainment events has become more corporatized and dominated by monolithic players who buy out or otherwise squeeze out their competition. It’s tougher for someone to succeed as an independent concert promoter.

But succeed he has, to the extent that Jest’s Alternative Concert Group has become a reliable presenter of musical entertainment for nearly 40 years; and what has become his home base, Shank Hall, stands as one of Milwaukee’s most enduring venues. Based on colorful recollections by the man himself as well her own research of the era covering Jest’s career, Amy T. Waldman’s We Had Fun and Nobody Died tells the story of a good guy who has done well by adding a personal touch to an often-cutthroat business. Jest has thereby enriched many concertgoers’ lives and seems to have developed a balanced life that makes time for family, a hobby or two and close friendships with a handful of the artists whose Upper Midwest performance dates he has regularly booked.

Waldman recounts Jest’s adventures in lively prose that conveys her subject’s ascent from a kid whose telephone savvy helped him amass a basement full of radio call-in contest prizes to a seasoned businessman who weathered the Covid crisis—and a fire at his nightclub years prior—to come out standing strong as ever. Waldman illustrates Jest’s tenacity tempered with the kind of irreplaceable human touch that bigger time concert organizers like Live Nation can’t offer. That he was able to get city brass to declare official days of recognition for Leonard Cohen and Patti Smith are credits to Jest’s ingenuity. That he forsook a night of partying with Sam Kinison and porn star Seka for a night at home speaks to how he has eschewed rock star excess in favor of comfier domesticity.

Though Waldman’s episodic, animated writing probably approximates the pace of much of Jest's life, one may rightly wonder how much more compelling his story may be were he to have written a memoir instead of granting a series of extended interviews. Perhaps when, or if, Jest retires, he can write that book. In the meanwhile, We Had Fun and Nobody Died is a music-business biography not likely to be replicated any time soon.

Waldman and Jest will talk about ‘We Had Fun and Nobody Died’ with David Luhrssen 7 p.m. July 13 at Shank Hall, 1434 N. Farwell Ave.; and 2 p.m. July 20 at Central Library's Rotary Club Community Room, 814 W. Wisconsin Ave. The library requests people register for the July 20 event at mpl.org. The trio will also will be on hand at a 5:30 p.m. July 31 Milwaukee Press Club event at the Newsroom Pub, 137 E. Wells St.

Get We Had Fun and Nobody Died at Amazon here.

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