Milwaukee's Yellow Phone Music Conference returns for another lineup of panel discussions and local-music showcases next weekend, so this week on The Disclaimer—WMSE's weekly panel with Ryan Schleicher, Matt Wild and I—we consider Yellow Phone's mission and efficacy. Has the conference succeeded in helping bands navigate a changing music economy? Is it worth the money for aspiring career musicians to spring for a pass, or are those funds better spent elsewhere? For all the opinions we have on the subject, we can't offer many hard conclusions, so we put out a call to listeners for their perspective. If you've attended Yellow Phone before, let us know. Then for the final stretch of the show we turn the discussion to Macaulay Culkin's shticky Velvet Underground cover band The Pizza Underground, which will be playing Hotel Foster this fall with (ugh) Har Mar Superstar. That spurs a spirited, digressive conversation about novelty bands, meme-chasing, racial sensitivity in pop music, Taylor Swift and Lorde. Even more than most episodes, it's one big can of worms after another.
You can stream the episode below, and, as always, feel free to weigh in on the conversation on our Facebook page.
