In MKE Music Rewind we revisit notable Milwaukee music that was released before Milwaukee Record became a thing in April 2014. This week: the Milwaukee Hometown Music Scene Documentary from 1991.
Though it’s nowhere near the navel-gazing levels of cities like New York or Los Angeles, Milwaukee is no stranger to documenting its own music scene. There’s the feature-length Taking The City By Storm, which covers Milwaukee’s punk, new wave, and alternative scenes from roughly 1975 to 1985:
There’s the (still in the works?) hip-hop-focused History Of Milwaukee Music:
There are documentaries on individual Milwaukee artists—some of which are currently in production:
There are even documentaries on recent DIY basement-show hotspots:
And then there are similar “present-day” documentaries that become fascinating time capsules themselves. Like today’s subject, the Milwaukee Hometown Music Scene Documentary from 1991. It’s very Milwaukee, very hometown, and very 1991.
The Milwaukee PBS / Student Ops doc is anything but comprehensive, but what it does include is fascinating: chats with Lazer 103 DJ Marilynn Mee and Shepard [sic] Express journalist Lisa D’Acquisto; chats with Milwaukee bands like Men Among Thieves and Nerve Twins (seen in the top photo); chats with individual artists like Steve Grimm and Tony Brown; timely shout-outs to Die Kreuzen and Spanic Boys; and timeless grousing about people not coming out to shows and local radio not playing enough local music. Same as it ever was!
Enjoy all 28 minutes of the Milwaukee Hometown Music Scene Documentary below. And stick around for great blooper-reel lines like “Take lots of LSD and open your mind! This is the ’90s!” and “Stop playing Boston on the radio!”
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RELATED ARTICLES
• MKE Music Rewind: The Haskels, ‘Taking The City By Storm’ (1981)
• MKE Music Rewind: Spanic Boys, “Face The Facts” (1991)
• 5 of my favorite things about ‘Don’t Say Please: The Oral History Of Die Kreuzen’