Snopek Documentary Premieres in Milwaukee

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Film Reviews

Sigmund Snopek III is the old growth tree of Milwaukee music, an ancient redwood with numerous concentric rings of growth … Scratch that—too linear. How about Snopek as an incredibly eclectic Milwaukee musician whose imagination and talent has always moved in many directions on multiple platforms. Making sense of his life in music is head spinning.

Just ask Nick Toti. Seven years ago, the filmmaker set out to make a documentary on Snopek, a conventional 90-minute bio punctuated by the comments of relevant talking heads. It turned instead into a six-hour-plus epic, The Complete History of Space/Time (Destination Milwaukee), premiering Sunday, May 5, starting at 1 p.m., at Linneman’s Riverwest Inn. Given the film’s length, the screening will include two intermissions. Following event will conclude with a Q&A session with the directors, Toti and Bob Mielke, and Snopek himself. The full event is expected to end around 9 p.m. The screening is sponsored by the Milwaukee Independent Film Society.

“I couldn’t be happier with the finished movie,” says Toti. “Sigmund is a really special person, and he opened his life to me completely. I only hope that we can get people to actually watch the movie. I have complete confidence that anyone who invests the 6.5 hours it takes to watch the whole thing will be convinced that every second spent was a worthwhile investment. The strange thing is that people will watch a 10-episode docuseries about, I don’t know, a suburban housewife who murdered her life coach or whatever, and they won’t think twice. They’ll go on Twitter and say ‘I didn’t want it to end!’ But when I tell someone how long this movie is, they look at me like I’m crazy.

Based at different times in Austin and LA, Toti (The Complete History of Seattle) knew nothing of Milwaukee aside from Jeffrey Dahmer before diving into the project. The spark came from reading Mielke’s 2013 book Adventures in Avant Pop, a massive tome with essays on artists such as Yoko Ono, Frank Zappa, Sun Ra … and Sigmund Snopek. “The chapter on Snopek is the last chapter, and, significantly, it’s the only chapter about an artist who is not a well-known cultural figure,” Toti says.

Intriguing, but …? “This is where the story gets a bit mystical,” Toti continues. “I have this thing happen sometimes where I will encounter a story or situation and some kind of alarm goes off in my head. It's not a literal sound, but it almost feels like one, like an irritating internal buzzing. It’s the feeling I get when I am absolutely certain that the story or situation that I’m encountering is something that I should make into a movie … Reading Bob’s chapter on Sigmund gave me that unmistakable feeling. I knew there was potential for a good movie here, and I knew that I had the resources to pull it off without needing anyone’s permission or financing to do it.”

And so, in the spring of 2018, Toti journeyed to Milwaukee, shooting B-roll of the city’s snow-edged streets and encountering the mysterious Mr. Snopek. There he is, bundled up for the weather on an East Side corner, his long alpine horn resting on the pavement. As a crowd of adolescent schoolgirls gather round, he blows his horn and leads them in a chorus of the Ricolacough drop jingle.

Toti discovered that Snopek has a sense of humor. Little wonder Jay Leno was among the talking heads gathered by the director. The comedian calls Snopek “an artist.” Leno? “Summerfest used to have a Comedy Stage that Sigmund helped manage back in the late ‘70s-early ‘80s. His band would play before some of the comedy acts, so he got to know a bunch of popular comedians from that time,” Toti explains. “Jay Leno was a name that kept coming up, so I reached out to his people to ask if he really knew Sigmund. That same day, I got a phone call from Leno and he pretty much said, ‘Sigmund Snopek! I haven't heard that name in years!’ and then talked about how much he liked Sigmund back in the day.”

Among the more expected interviewees are Violent Femmes Brian Ritchie and Victor DeLorenzo. Snopek played keyboards for the band’s recording sessions and world tours in the ‘80s. DeLorenzo also knew Snopek from his involvement in the ‘70s with Theatre X. Snopek composed music for one of their groundbreaking productions. “We’re all die-hard eccentrics,” DeLorenzo says.

Acute Observation

Ritchie provides an astute observation, saying that Snopek contains “many great contradictions.” Classically trained as a pianist and composer, Snopek told Ritchie that he made the decision to go into pop “because in classical music they expect you to be on time. He made major decisions based on minor factors.”

And yet he didn’t reject classical music for pop as much as try to do it all—on his own schedule. A telling scene in Toti’s film shows Snopek in a recording studio, drifting from pump organ to piano, sliding between “Daydream Believer,” “Strawberry Fields Forever” and Bach. Inspired by John Cage and Edgard Varèse yet grounded in 19th century traditions while drawn to rock’s exuberance and pop’s accessibility, Snopek’s diverse catalog includes symphonies, rock operas, rock songs and novelties. He can be compared to Frank Zappa—although it’s unlikely that Zappa ever sang a polka (or Snopek sang doowop). Zappa latched on to an international career while Snopek, after his late ‘60s psychedelic band Bloomsbury People was dropped by MGM, didn’t seem to bother with big labels but pursued symphonic commissions while releasing his own albums, DIY before punk coined the acronym.

Getting back to Ritchie: Was staying in Milwaukee a “major decision based on minor factors”? Toti grabs a quote from John Gurda, explaining the city’s allure for many residents as “a blend of large and small,” “global yet manageable,” “Midwest friendly.”

But unlike some heartland cities, Milwaukee’s cultural roots are deep enough for an ambitious composer-musician to find work as varied as the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and Summerfest. Snopek never reveals why he stayed on in Milwaukee—at least not in episode one—but back in the ’70s he set a precedent for local artists by amassing a body of creative work, a career in original music, in a city far from the national media spotlight. Toti shows Snopek in the studio of Riverwest Radio, where he hosts a weekly show dedicated to playing tapes (in the process of digitalization) covering more than 50 years of work.

Did Toti’s idea for the project change as time went on? “In fact, the project changed very little from conception to finished product,” Toti insists. “When Bob Mielke and I started discussing making this back in 2017, I decided early on that the movie would be a mix of present-day footage shot with Sigmund, archival footage, interviews shot with colorful lighting in a black void, and that it would incorporate science fiction elements (as a nod to Sigmund’s alternate-reality appearances in the novels of his cousin, Russell Snopek).” 

As for the length, “I actually remember the exact moment we decided to embrace a longer format,” he continues. “It was during Summerfest 2018. Bob and I were at our hotel after spending the day filming Sigmund, and Bob mentioned having recently watched the (fantastic) Abel Gance silent film, La Roue, which, in its original form, was eight hours long and shown over two nights. He said this, and then he and I just looked at each other, and we immediately agreed that that was the sort of approach Sigmund’s story was going to require.”