The music world has certainly seen a lot of changes since 1981. Formats have come and gone and innumerable fads have had their 15 minutes—and that’s even before you factor in the seismic effect of the Internet. But here in Milwaukee there’s been one constant to turn to through it all: WMSE. “Anti-established” 35 years ago this month, the station is an institution that graces the local airwaves with a plethora of eclectic styles heard nowhere else on the radio dial, and owes it longevity to little more than the love of the community that surrounds it. Passionate listeners happily provide the bulk of their operating budget while a veritable army of volunteer DJs keep the tunes spinning 24 hours a day. That sense of appreciation and dedication also energized Saturday’s anniversary celebration at Turner Hall Ballroom, itself a kind of deservedly nostalgic trip through the generations of local music history WMSE has borne witness to.
Titled, Sex Pistols-style, “Never Mind the Reunions, it’s WMSE,” the jam-packed concert serves as the centerpiece of a month-long series of special events. True to its title, it dragged a number of long-defunct, punk-leaning local acts, self-consciously chosen from different eras going back to the early 1980s, out of retirement. Getting the long night underway at 6 p.m., and demonstrating that the programmers were playing fast and loose with the “punk” concept, was recently reformed ’90s-staples Moloko Shivers, whose sound is more steeped in the styles of their heyday, particularly heavy, dramatic alternative a la Alice in Chains. Few people were there to see them, but more began to arrive as The Mighty Deerlick, a band with notoriously flexible personnel and a sound that walks the line between power-pop and pop-punk, took the stage for an energetic, humorous performance, one mostly focused on quirky fan favorites such as “She’s My Chemist” and “Choke That Chicken."
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By the time experimental metal-heads Feck were introduced, the hall had filled out considerably and they had a nice crowd for their smoke-shrouded, mostly instrumental set, which deftly layered in theremin and other unusual sounds to interesting effect. Following Feck was more pop-punk courtesy of Skiptracer, who came through with a tight, raucous outing that raised the energy level for what came after, a jolt of hardcore from Die Kreuzen frontman Dan Kubinski and a backing band punningly named The Crosses, who ran through the entirety of Die Kreuzen’s landmark 1984 Touch And Go Records debut, amply doing it justice. Winding things down at the end of the night was the heart-on-sleeve emo sounds of The Benjamins, who also played a full release, 2001’s The Art of Disappointment, before rounding out an encore with a sing-along cover of Weezer’s “My Name is Jonas.” Times may change, bands may break up, but WMSE is still going strong.
