After eight years, many Milwaukee musicians probably have at least a passing familiarity with the premise of All Messed Up. For the general public, though, the annual celebration of creative chaos is still one of the city’s best kept, and most fun, musical secrets. That’s a shame, since, even as the yearly experiment regularly attracts plenty of established talents, absolutely anyone—even those without an ounce of experience—is encouraged to join in. All you need to do is register, meet your new, randomly selected bandmates and give the ad hoc collaboration your best shot.
Even if starting a band with total strangers is a little too intimidating (not that it needs to be; apparently, participating has helped some overcome social anxiety and stage fright), you can still enjoy the always unpredictable results by attending the annual two-night showcase at Linneman’s Riverwest Inn. Each set consists of a few original compositions and a cover, and this year, they were encouraged to have some visual component as well—which made it feel a little like Halloween as The Sheets kicked off Saturday night in costume, delivering some invigorating garage rock and a raucous tribute to The Kinks.
Next up, and a good example of the exceedingly silly band names the event always seems to inspire, was Pickle Cat, whose otherwise unlikely lineup of three guitarists and a keyboard player obviously posed a few obstacles as they gamely attempted to integrate bluesy psych jams with soulful piano pop—perhaps coming closest on a relevant rendition of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth.” After their often-self-deprecating set came the pop culture-skewering antics of Lindsay Lohan and Tonya Harding who boasted smart, snarky numbers about both their eponymous celebrities as well as a surprisingly earnest take on “This Magic Moment.”
Following Lindsay Lohan and Tonya Harding’s tight, memorable performance was maybe the most stylistically adventurous act of the evening: You, Me, Dad & Boba Fett, who jazzed up Rhymesayers-style alt-rap with some unusual instrumentation—namely, a flute—which added a languid cool to the MC’s straight-faced lyricism. Taking the stage shortly thereafter was the unappetizingly named Wheat Thiccs, who took the visual suggestion seriously, going so far as to purchase matching dinosaur costumes, which seemed somewhat incongruous throughout their set of expansive, cello-laden post-rock, but made more sense once they launched into John Williams’ swelling theme from Jurassic Park.
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Discharge Instructions’ performance continued to push things into more experimental, post-rock territory, although with a somewhat harsher edge, before tightening up considerably for an energetic version of Devo’s typically tense, synthpop fable, “Freedom of Choice.” Once they wrapped up their interesting set, it was time for Sofa King What, whose punny name was a good indicator of their looser, more fun-loving attitude. With an old episode of “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” unfurling in the background, they mostly stuck to upbeat blues before dipping into the Dr. Dog discography and pulling out “Shadow People” as their cover song.
Closing out the evening, and All Messed Up’s, was Aztec Nickel, whose frantic, genre-bending post-punk played out against a delirious video backdrop, which jarringly cut together commercials for Pontiac’s ugly “Aztek” SUV and what may or may not have been Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto. Their tribute—Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground”—seemed appropriate at the end of what’s always an aspirational and inclusive event.
Were all the bands actually good? Of course not, but there’s no judgement at All Messed Up. It’s simply a celebration of people stepping outside their musical comfort zones. Next time around, you could be one of them.
