Tag: Brett Newski

Talking new Milwaukee music with WUWM’s Lake Effect (March 2025)

March 31, 2025

Once a month, Milwaukee Record's own Matt Wild sits down with WUWM's Lake Effect and discusses some of his favorite new Milwaukee records and songs. Listen to the latest installment HERE. This month, Matt...

Music streaming injustices: A call for indie musicians to stick up for themselves

Brett Newski

February 26, 2025

In 2016 I made a song called "Fuck You Spotify." I recorded it during a performance at Paste Studios in New York City. For years, I hesitated to push this track, worried that Spotify would suppress my reach or ...

Brett Newski shares seedy story from new tour journal collection, ‘Piss In The Wind’

Brett Newski

November 13, 2024

Milwaukee musician Brett Newski has spent the past decade-plus releasing countless albums of earnest indie rock, playing countless shows across the globe, and even penning his own book. Now, Newski has mashed h...

Brett Newski gets back to basics with analog, home-recorded Vanity Metrics

Matt Wild

March 12, 2024

Back in the '90s, Danish film directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg created the Dogme 95 movement. The movement proposed a loose set of "rules" for producing films: shooting on location, using handheld...

NEWSKI: “We played an unlicensed show at Chipotle and everyone hated us”

Matt Wild

March 2, 2023

Has it really been nearly five years since Milwaukee alt/geek-rock lifer Brett Newski played a surprise show at an area Walmart and got kicked out? It has! In the year of our lord 2023, Brett Newski's musical m...

Brett Newski’s ‘It’s Hard To Be A Person’ makes being a person a little easier

Matt Wild

June 24, 2021

The most surprising thing about Brett Newski writing a book is that he hasn't written one already. Or two. Or three. Here's a Milwaukee musician who has, over the past 10 years, toured the world (he spent rough...

Brett Newski writes book, enlists Barenaked Ladies co-founder Steven Page for “I Should’ve Listened To Ferris Bueller”

Matt Wild

April 2, 2021

There's nothing unusual about a new Brett Newski song. Hell, the hard-working alt-rock troubadour has released eight singles in 2021 alone. What is unusual is a new Brett Newski song that doesn't come complete ...

Auction of latest Brett Newski song will support FairVote, and oh yeah, the song is on VHS

Matt Wild

October 19, 2020

Remember earlier this month, when tireless Milwaukee troubadour Brett Newski released his latest and greatest "messin' with people in public" video for the song "What Are You Smoking?" In between shots of Newsk...

Watch Brett Newski annoy/delight people (again) in video for “What Are You Smoking?”

Matt Wild

October 1, 2020

"I know it's a terrible time for many, but the virus is going to get people off the hamster wheel and have a healthy new perspective. It will give people much more clarity as to what's a priority in their lives...

“Quarantine brings clarity”: Stream Brett Newski’s empowering new “Fight Song”

Matt Wild

April 2, 2020

"Quarantine brings clarity." That's tireless Milwaukee troubadour Brett Newski, speaking (remotely, natch) about his forthcoming album, Don't Let The Bastards Get You Down. The album was written and recorded...

My First Band: Brett Newski

Milwaukee Record Staff

July 19, 2019

Brett Newski has been called the "loudest acoustic act ever," and that might not be an overstatement. Since embarking on his solo project in his late twenties, the tireless troubadour has earned a reputation as...

Watch Brett Newski play a show at Walmart, get kicked out

Matt Wild

June 12, 2018

Love him or refuse to listen to him, Brett Newski is a man of the people. Dude will do anything, play anywhere, and pull whatever stunt is needed to bring his bright-eyed indie rock to the masses. Travel the wo...

Public Domain: Brett Newski performs “On, Wisconsin!”

Milwaukee Record Staff

February 28, 2018

Milwaukee Record is proud to present Public Domain. The monthly video series features Milwaukee musicians setting up at Colectivo Coffee to adapt some of the world’s best-known songs in ways they’ve never been ...

Brett Newski trusts no one in animated “I’m Paranoid” video

Matt Wild

October 2, 2017

Here's an understatement to end all understatements: We live in crazy times. Degenerate politics and politicians, the end of "truth" and "facts," and the ever-expanding filmography of James Franco have all beco...

On The Record Episode 70: Crowdfunding and the music industry with Brett Newski

Milwaukee Record Staff

June 22, 2016

// Having played more than 200 shows last year and continually booking both cross-country and cross-continental tours between rock-solid releases, Brett Newski's work ethic is indisputable. However, before ...

Brett Newski exhales in anxious “Cigaretiquette” video

Matt Wild

April 13, 2016

// Milwaukee-by-way-of-the-world troubadour Brett Newski has done it all—penned tampon commercial jingles in Vietnam, angered Shaquille O'Neal as a young boy. It's enough to set anyone on edge. Perhaps that...

The art of dreaming small, and why Shaquille O’Neal hates me

Brett Newski

February 9, 2016

Editor's note: The following piece originally appeared on brettnewski.com as "Why Shaquille O'Neal hates me." I was 13. We were on a family trip to Los Angeles to visit my Uncle Marcus. At the time, L.A....

Exclusive: Stream Brett Newski’s cassette-only B-side “Everybody Knows You Can’t Sleep With Your Eyes Closed”

Tyler Maas

June 17, 2015

Following an 11-week, 73-show European tour, during which he ate “Space Cake” and declined a post-massage HJ, Brett Newski likely wouldn’t be the first person you’d expect to issue a new release within two week...

Space Cake, attic squatting, and unhappy endings: Brett Newski’s European tour diary

Tyler Maas

June 8, 2015

You will not find a more worldly Milwaukee musician than Brett Newski. The well-traveled folk rocker (and former Vietnam resident) hits the road so often and ventures to such distant destinations that he makes ...

Nick Woods and Brett Newski talk life on the road in Episode 10 of On The Record

Milwaukee Record Staff

March 11, 2015

If you’re looking for hard-won tales of life on the road and some laughs, you’ve come to the right place. In this week’s episode of On The Record, Tyler and Matt welcome Nick Woods and Brett Newski to their plu...

Tagged Brett Newski