Milwaukee’s music scene is a real source of pride for the city, but talk to enough musicians and you’ll hear a common complaint: Bands don’t have the resources they need to make waves beyond the city. Radio Milwaukee is making a real push to change that, and the station has lined up some serious funding for its effort.
As part of its new Backline initiative in partnership with the Milwaukee accelerator gener8tor, the station will provide $20,000 grants to four area bands or musicians “for financial support and initiatives identified through the accelerator process, such as recording, promotion and touring.” For those doing the math, that’s $80,000 that’ll be pumped directly into the city’s music scene.
Artists can apply for the grants from June 3 to June 29 through Backline’s website, http://backlinemke.org. Recipients will be selected by gener8tor staff and a panel of music industry professionals, not by Radio Milwaukee directly.
Interested musicians and sponsors can learn more at a kickoff event at the 88Nine studios, 220 E. Pittsburgh Ave., on Thursday, April 5 from 6:30-7:30 p.m.
Radio Milwaukee Executive Director Glenn Kleiman explained the rationale behind the program to the Shepherd. “Research has been done all over that shows that music cities, cities that have vibrant music scenes, are more attractive to young talent,” he explained. “It’s an important part of a consideration when people decide where they want to go, so if we can help elevate the music scene and the city as a whole we think it’ll have a big impact.”
It’s a radical experiment: an accelerator program that treats bands as a business. “We can’t guarantee that every band picked is going to break out and become famous—that would be naïve,” Kleiman says. “But gener8tor really does have a strong track record of helping businesses grow, and that’s what we’re looking for … We want to be seen as a vibrant music city. We want to be known as one of the top emerging music cities in the country. We feel like the talent is here. We feel like what has been missing is the funding and the business knowledge.”
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To help bridge that knowledge gap, Backline will also produce free, quarterly workshops about the music business featuring local and national industry figures—that may not be as exciting as a $20,000 grant, to be sure, but the workshops could benefit a lot more artists. “We’ve reached out to a lot of people in the industry who are interested in helping,” Kleiman says. The first workshop begins in June.
Backline will run one 12-week accelerator session this year, with plans to offer two per year starting in 2019.
Funding for the program is coming from a variety of organizations, including Northwestern Mutual, Novo Foundation, Manpower, Summerfest and VISIT Milwaukee, and from individual donors including Lynde Uihlein, Sarah and Steve Zimmerman, Kyle and Ruthie Weatherly, John Crouch, Kelly Fitzsimmons, John and Brigid Miller, Gary Reynolds, Ross and Angela Williams, Josh and Sandi Adams, Ignacio and Susan Catral, Juli Kaufmann, C.J. Krawczyk, Patrick Guarasci, Jeff Rusinow and Lacey Sadoff. The Hal Leonard Corporation and Bentoff Communications providing in-kind support, according to a Radio Milwaukee press release.
One Backline artist will also receive the Mary Louise Mussoline Fellowship, named in honor of Radio Milwaukee’s late executive director.
