The classic lineup of Plasticland is back for its first show in more than a decade—and possibly its last.
By the late 1980s, the psychedelic impulse coalesced as acid house, trip-hop and other mutant electronica, but when that decade began, few artists were willing to wave the multicolored banner of mind-expanded consciousness. When Plasticland debuted in 1980, denizens of the punk rock circuit where they played (there were few other alternative venues at the time) didn’t know what to make of them. Everyone was supposed to be in black or flannel. What’s with the paisley and striped trousers?
Although they didn’t know it at the time, in that pre-internet age when ideas traveled more slowly, Plasticland was part of an emerging wave of neo-psychedelic rock bands that surged across the ’80s alt-scene and continues to expand the horizons of garage bands and roots rockers today. For many fans of psychedelia around the world, the Milwaukee band became a touchstone. Plasticland never made the cover of Rolling Stone but they got their picture inside, part of a mid-’80s article surveying the resurgence of music that many had tucked away in the ’60s memory box.
The classic lineup of Plasticland is back for its first show in more than a decade—and possibly its last. The founding members—Glen Rehse (vocals), John Frankovic (bass) and Victor Demechei (drums)—will be joined by their mid-’80s through early ’90s lead guitarist, Dan Mullen, and augmented by a second guitarist, an old friend, Leroy Buth, from Milwaukee’s pioneering punk band The Lubricants.
“We’ll be playing a mix of recorded songs from all of our albums,” Frankovic promises. “It will be a retrospective—the highlight of music we made over the years, a legacy show.
Debuting on their own label in 1980 with the quirky dreamy single “Mink Dress,” Plasticland went on to release LPs for many labels including Lolita (France), Enigma (U.S.), Midnight (U.S.) and Repulsion (Germany). In recent years, compilations have been issued by Rykodisc and Cherry Red. They never toured more than minimally, hitting New York and Boston on the east, venturing west to Seattle and Vancouver and no further north than Montreal or south than Pittsburgh. Their enduring popularity is the result of the recordings they left behind.
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Plasticland was steeped more deeply than most of the neo-psychedelic cohort by ’60s England, down to their Carnaby Street shoes, Tomorrow pop whimsy and lofting Pretty Things harmonies. “I wanted to put my own stamp on the genre,” says Rehse, the band’s sole lyricist and cowriter of much of its music. Safe to say, no ’60s psych band came close to the theme of Rehse’s “Nonstop Kitchen,” whose lyric is an exasperated account of housecleaning. Plasticland occasionally replicated the airy visions of 1967, but many of their songs conveyed deeper anxieties about a society that seeks to define and curb the imagination. The jittery neurosis of “Too Many Fingers” comes closer than most of their tracks to the demented American garage psychedelia of The Thirteenth Floor Elevators.
Plasticland’s music was usually propelled by searing fuzz distortion or hard-ringing jangle, lifted by soaring harmonies and delivered by Rehse with high vocal drama or sardonic glee. The songs were short and pointed, ’60s pop-rock married to distorted acidic noise. Like many of their Milwaukee shows in the ’80s, their upcoming performance will be multimedia, surrounded by Dale Kaminski’s liquid lights and projected images.
“It seems that our legacy is growing, not fading,” Frankovic says. “We keep being reissued on CD. People are downloading our music. I went on Amazon and saw four pages of Plasticland product. The buzz continues to murmur, 40 years after the fact and much to my surprise.”
Plasticland will perform at Shank Hall, 1434 N. Farwell Ave., on Saturday, May 11, at 8 p.m. Tickets are available at ticketweb.com.
