Ask most people what Milwaukee’s love for music looks like, and they’ll likely hit a few familiar beats. A night under the stars lit by the towering Hoan Bridge listening to Dinosaur Jr. play at Summerfest. Watching Faye Webster turn the Riverside Theater into an encore of oohs and ahhs. Catching an all-local lineup at one of the neighborhood festivals.
This is a city where cultural landmarks become concert halls and miles of Lake Michigan shoreline are reserved solely for music. A city whose every corner has legendary spots for shows only known through word of mouth, where artists of any size can earn their place among the stars.
But what about the music in between the century-old theaters that thrive in the shadows of skyscrapers? Music that might not reach a crowd of a thousand and instead will change the lives of 40 kids packed together in a college basement?
This is Milwaukee’s DIY scene — a culture that inspires hundreds of artists to create for themselves … and for the communities around them.
The DIY music community exists as a symbiotic appendage of Milwaukee’s broader arts landscape. It constantly changes and redefines itself for the sake of innovation but doesn’t get the spotlight outside of adjacent circles. It’s an unfortunate shadow to linger in because the culture represents Milwaukee at its core: boundary breaking.
DIY is a cultural hub where so many artists get their start carving out niches for themselves across the decades — from The Violent Femmes busking on the East Side before making it big to Diet Lite opening for Jimmy Eat World. All it takes is time.
To get a better understanding of what this subgenre of Milwaukee art really represents, I reached out to Fake My Death, a local punk band fully immersed in DIY, with an idea that would go beyond a black-and-white sketch of the scene and render it in full technicolor. Instead of one interview, I wanted to follow the four-piece throughout their day-to-day as a band, culminating with a show at Cactus Club.
- Oct. 21: The Beginning — Everyone in the band got involved with the DIY scene at different stages in life, but somehow it enraptured them in similar ways. I’ll examine what it is about the scene that inspires people to listen, perform and create long-lasting relationships.
- Oct. 23: The Venue – Cactus Club has been a DIY destination for years, especially under the stewardship of owner/operator Kelsey Kaufmann. They’ll share how DIY brought them to Cactus Club in the first place and why the venue matters to the community.
- Oct. 28: The Day Jobs – It can be hard being in a DIY band and working 40 hours a week on top of it. In Fake My Death's case, being EMTs (and in finance) is a lot to balance with their love of music and the DIY culture. Still, it’s all part of the work that goes into being a band.
- Oct. 29: The Show – We wrap things up at a proper DIY show and learn why people care so deeply about a Monday night concert in Bay View.