Photo by Shepherd Express
Peter Jest
Peter Jest
When Peter Jest opened Shank Hall in 1989, he was adamant about what he didn’t want the space to be: a bar. The club would serve drinks, of course—this is Milwaukee, after all—but it was to be a concert venue first and foremost, a place to take in live music without the intrusions of clanking pool balls or escalating bar chatter. “I didn’t want a sports bar,” Jest says. “I didn’t want to serve food or have drink specials or karaoke. From the beginning, this club was about seeing a band and then going home.”
Twenty-five years later, that mentality hasn’t changed. Shank Hall still only opens its door for concerts, and Jest still prides his East Side venue on providing an optimum live-music experience, with fine-tuned sound, unobstructed sightlines and fair prices. Shank Hall remains, as it was when it opened, a local rarity, one of the only mid-sized, 300 capacity clubs in a market where live music tends to takes place in crowded bars or roomy theaters. And even more so than most local venues, it’s a niche destination, a magnet for blues, classic rock, alt-country and roots music fans that remains all but off the radar of casual bar hoppers.
For Jest, the club’s sheer longevity is proof that he’s doing something right. Without calling out anybody by name, but usually while leaving little doubt about who he’s talking about, the outspoken promoter criticizes venues that charge hidden service fees (“When we advertise a $10 show it’s really $10,” he says), offer shoddy sightlines (“You can’t call yourself a live music venue if bands are setting up on the carpet in front of a dart board—to be a music venue you need a stage”), or crowd their weeknight bills with opening acts (“I don’t understand why you’d have four bands starting at 9 o’clock on a Wednesday night”). And he’s earned the right to weigh in on these things—after all, he marvels, Shank Hall has been around for 25 years, and countless other venues have come and gone during that quarter century.
“At least 50 venues that have had live music as one of their main draws have closed since we’ve been open,” Jest says. “It’s not that I enjoy that, but that shows that we must be doing something right. Those other venues had owners that weren’t as passionate about music as I am. There’s no way to explain it: I’m passionate about music and I know what I’m doing.”
Although there are a lot fewer venues in Milwaukee today than there were a quarter century ago, Jest notes that there are new challenges. Shank Hall now competes for bookings with the Potawatomi Hotel & Casino and the Pabst Theater venues, two organizations that are aggressive about landing the shows they want. Meanwhile, Milwaukee’s ever-expanding calendar of outdoor festivals and free concerts in the parks has cut deeply into the club’s summer business. Jest also laments that the club has struggled to draw some of the city’s more popular young bands.
“It’s too bad that we can’t get younger bands to play here,” he says. “My theory is that every band should play two venues in town if they’re doing well, because not everybody wants to see shows on just the East Side, or in just Bay View or Riverwest or Cudahy. But there are some people that run venues who try to lock in talent by telling bands, ‘If you want to keep playing here you’re only going to play here.’ That’s why you see some local bands that are playing a 1,000-seat room when there are only 200 people there, or some bands that are playing rooms that are much too small. It’s unfortunate that goes on, but there’s not much I can do about it.”
But, Jest notes, that’s not to say the club has trouble filling its calendar. In the last year Shank Hall has hosted acts like Shawn Phillips, Jonathan Richman, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Movits!, The Wood Brothers, James McMurtry and Semi-Twang, the local roots-rock institution that played the club’s opening weekend 25 years ago and will return for its 25th anniversary show this weekend. The club inspires that kind of loyalty.
“I still really enjoy what I do,” Jest says. “When you love music it’s fun to be a part of. As long as I can keep booking shows and make a few bucks I’ll keep doing it. I see no reason to stop now.”
Shank Hall hosts its 25th anniversary show with Semi-Twang and Mike Benign Compulsion on Saturday, Nov. 8 at 8 p.m.
