An event such as Milwaukee’s 37th annual Trashfest isn’t just about getting some of the city’s tawdriest, scuzziest, funniest and otherwise singularly strange entertainment on one stage. It’s about the audience, too.
Whether those in attendance are at all tawdry, scuzzy, funny or strange isn’t this writer’s call. Whether they’re prepared with the cardboard, Styrofoam and, especially, wadded-up newspaper to toss at the bands and other performers in appreciation and/or insult is easily enough to observe, and plenty of the comers to Saturday’s fest at its current location of Kochanski’s Concertina Beer Hall were well prepared.
Many of those short-range projectiles were tossed early on in the evening at acts who may have been the trashiest of the lot. It’s difficult to top the spectacle and sonority of The Nervous Virgins. The group of middle-aged-looking dudes sported a lead singer in a beige choir robe, surrounded by a drummer in a chef’s cap, a bassist in a Grim Reaper get-up that could have been purchased at a pop-up Halloween super store last month, among sundry other members. Theirs may be studied amateurism, but they earn an “A” at summoning an iteration of the kind of neo-garage punk that could net them a contract with Estrus Records and rotation on Little Steven’s Underground Garage. Throwing in a smidgen of equally fuzz-encrusted, four-on-the-floor disco was a genius move, as was ending with the utterly baffling acapella remake of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” set to the tune of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”
Others on the Trashfest bill were more traditional in their covers. Johnny Trash and June Cart Her Trash injected a dose of silliness to their tribute to country legend Johnny Cash and his wife. They played their impersonations fairly straight, apart from bringing out a keytar on accompaniment, which undid the air of emotional devastation on—yes, they went there—Cash’s recasting of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt.” This camp approach contrasts to The Mirror Men’s take on selections from Captain Beefheart’s estimable catalog; the lead singer’s only visual nod to his object of homage was the wearing of a top hat in the manner of the erstwhile Don Van Vliet.
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Oddly, perhaps, the group of crossdressers The Paulettes played their music rather “straight.” Runs through The Kinks’ “Lola” and Lou Reed’s “Walk On The Wild Side” were squarely on the nose for the ensemble’s concept. Cleverer was their transformation of ZZ Top’s “Sharp-Dressed Man” into “Cross-Dressed Man.” The Paulettes weren’t the night’s only drag attraction. Serena’s Magic Show spoofed the coquettish and more ornery manifestations of female impersonation with legitimate, if elementary, prestidigitation. That Serena did it all with nary a word (but plenty of upraised middle fingers) and the accompaniment on Kochanski’s house piano lent the performance the air of old-timey—though definitely transgressive—burlesque.
Old-timey in another sense is the rousing Celtic folk of Full Irish Breakfast. If that seems like a peculiar Trashfest booking, it’s not every band given to jigs and reels who will also sing odes of bawdy leprechauns and cheekily compare the cultural appropriations endemic to St. Patrick’s Day to those of Cinco De Mayo. The Breakfasters’ stylistic curveball was far cheerier than the vituperative vitriol seethed and spat by Rose Kennedy’s Speculum. Their topical recreations of repertoire from San Francisco ’80s hardcore punk band The Dead Kennedys came from a seemingly sincerely pissed-off place, though they made for a sour, angry way to wrap up a show so rife with silly fun.
In a much lighter vein in the middle of the gig were The Fallen Angels. Drawing from similar wells of garagey fuzz as the Virgins before them, they used what they drew to remember Milwaukee bands of yore: The Haskels, The Violent Femmes and The Mighty Deerlick. The trio’s originals deserve some attention, too, as does their unhinged medley of garage punk standard “Gloria” segued into The Chantays’ instrumental surf classic “Pipeline.”
The night's emcee Mark G.E. of Xposed 4Heads handled his intros with the appropriately smarmy aplomb of a carnival barker, inserting a quote from original Woodstock Festival host Wavy Gravy about not ingesting brown LSD, sex toy maintenance instructions and other verbal nuttiness into his spiels. Fittingly trashy, he was in a cavalcade of largely entertaining trashiness.
