Ten Latest Flame Records Releases You Should Hear

On Thursday Milwaukee Record ran my feature article on Latest Flame Records closing up shop after nearly 13 years of kickass releases. It was really difficult to write that piece without injecting lots of personal asides and, admittedly, sour grapes and snarky butthurt feelings about Dan's decision to close up shop, which is why i'm hopping over here to do that, naturally. Make no mistake--i fully support Dan's decision to stop setting his personal income on fire in order to allow his favorite bands to have something to sell at shows. But the day i got the email from Mr. Hanke breaking the news, i felt like a family member had died.

To me, Latest Flame Records and the bands that recorded for it during its noisy second act were family. Having become aware of punk rock and independent record labels beginning with a mind-expanding summer between my senior year of high school and the onset of college in the early 90s, i was immediately drawn to the romantic notion of record label as symbol of quality and community. If i bought a Touch & Go Records release in the 1990s, i had a pretty good idea of what it sounded like before breaking the shrinkwrap--it was going to be loud, it was going to be abrasive, and it wasn't going to sound exactly like anything else available. And i was probably going to love it. Just as importantly, i had a pretty good notion that each of those bands were likely to play shows together, tour together, hang out together. Eli Janney of Girls Against Boys recorded Brainiac's Hissing Prigs in Static Couture. Blond Redhead opened for Shellac at the Congress Theatre. And so on. It quickly became a dream of mine to be a part of something like that. Dan shared that dream and made it happen with a stacked roster of aggressive and off-the-beaten-path-yet-completely-accessible-if-you-give-it-a-chance rock tunes from the likes of Police Teeth, Waxeater, Trophy Wives, Nervous Curtains, his Like Like The The The Death, and my own IfIHadAHiFi and Body Futures.

Music, like any art, is deeply personal and subjective, of course, and that the Latest Flame roster never exactly set the world on fire is by no means an indictment of its quality....of course. It's the same story that scores of labels that have come and gone have endured over the years. But when you're sinking the amount of money that it takes to release a record or a CD into something in which you believe, it's hard to not be frustrated when those efforts aren't validated by the outside world. We are only human beings, after all, and human beings are inherently social creatures seeking outside validation. But make no mistake: almost every time i get on stage with Body Futures or IfIHadAHiFi, and every time i throw on one of our records, i feel completely validated in that we've produced music that i would want to listen to and would be stoked about even if i wasn't in the band, and that's all anyone can realistically hope for. As my friend John Dykstra has often said to me, we should all be thankful for living in a time where we are able to make music and press records with our pals in the first place; should anyone else actually enjoy it, that's a bonus.

Still, being able to cover costs would have been a nice bonus.

In the spirit of celebrating the diverse Latest Flame catalog, here are ten Latest Flame releases that everyone should hear. Dan was kind enough to document it, so dammit, it should be heard. This stuff is all over the map, from new-wavy power-pop to wiry post-punk to brutal riffage, and it all deserves to be remembered. I hope you take some time to check them out if you don't know about them already. And thanks, Dan, for helping all of us live that dream of being part of a musical family with a sense of real community and belonging, just like those indie labels of lore. What a gift.

In more-or-less chronological order:

Quarters Rock 'n' Roll Palace Will Save Us!

Whenever i get a message from an out-of-town musician friend looking for help getting a Milwaukee show on a Monday or Tuesday, i break out into hives, my teeth itch and i feel a dull ache and nausea not unlike 30 seconds after a solid punch in the nuts. I've spent enough Monday and Tuesday nights apologizing for our town's generally weak showings on those nights (not that it's anyone's fault, as day jobs are, in the common parlance, a bitch) to finally be fed up with the whole endeavor. It's the same on the other side of the fence as well; if i'm booking a tour and we're not heading somewhere with solid Monday night potential (see: the old Uncle Festers' Punk Rock Nights in Bloomington, IN; New Brunswick, NJ basement shows), my instinct now is to say "screw it" and schedule a day off of chilling out in a hotel watching wrestling.

I hoped that when my friend James' band Male Bondage stopped by Quarters Rock 'n' Roll Palace on Tuesday night while on tour from Indianapolis, there would at least be fifteen or twenty stragglers wandering in to see them sandwiched between Absolutely and Lord Brain. Instead, Male Bondage completely threw down their top-volume combination of overpowering post-hardcore Jehu drive and pseudo-psych Meat Puppets licks in front of a jazzed and packed room...on a Tuesday night. What in the samhell?

Dear Milwaukee: something is brewing at Quarters, and it is exciting. Aaron Skufca's busted his damn fool hump making the humble dive on the corner of Center and Bremen a nearly sure bet for a night of drinking and punk rock, and if stuffing 40-50 people into the Rock 'n' Roll Palace's itty bitty bar on a Tuesday night is any indication, it's working. (Sure, it doesn't hurt that Absolutely is a killer band and can probably draw 50 people by themselves on a good night, but since when does heady Unwound-inspired noise consider a Tuesday a good night?)

So what's working in Quarters' favor? This is all speculation, but it feels like a perfect storm of positives:

1) It's small, but not Circle A small. Get 20 people through the door at Quarters, and it feels like a party inside already, unlike larger mid-sized venues like Stonefly and Mad Planet, where 20 people feels like a bummer. Combine this with the large bay windows in the front of the bar, and the odd stray is likely to glance in through the window, see something interesting's happening, and wander in. And that's likely to happen a lot, because of

2) Location, Location, Location. The second most important group of three words in Real Estate (behind "Indian Burial Ground"), Quarters is smack dab in the middle of Riverwest foot traffic, surrounded on all sides by Foundations and Fuels and That Hookah Bar I Still Have Never Wandered Into. Ever since Quarters re-opened after that whole unfortunate "dude getting shot outside" thing, it's seemed to evolve into a place where everyone within a four-block radius between the ages of 21 and let'ssay40becausei'mold is likely to gravitate if they want a beer after work. And if there happens to be a band playing, what the hell? May as well check it out, because

3) The shows are cheap. Because Quarters doesn't take anything out of the door for sound (which, by the way, is pretty darn good for a tiny room), it's easy to get touring bands good money while keeping the door low, which encourages people to wander in and give new bands a try. Heck, just last night my friend Zach wandering in to the Absolutely/Male Bondage/Lord Brain show because he had nothing else going on and what's five bucks for some live tunes? IfIHadAHiFi played there on Friday with Police Teeth, Strange Matter and Like Like The The The Death, and thanks to the karmic "local bands don't take any money when touring bands are playing" rule, Police Teeth managed to pocket $244 from a door that got sassy and bumped it up to $6 since it was a Friday. Are you as old as i am, and remember when $6 was seen as outrageous for a punk show? Yeah, that was 1990 dollars, gang. A movie is ten bucks these days! Seeing a show at Quarters is cheaper than going to see Wrath of the Titans, and the loud noises are less obnoxious!

Sometimes a venue manages to exist in a perfect storm of circumstance and smart planning. Sure, none of it's rocket science, but not every bar can pull it off. Quarters, having re-opened in a neighborhood that has some musical open-mindedness with a plan that focuses on cheap fun while keeping the needs of touring bands in the forefront, seems to be onto something. It's a little early to proclaim it the Savior of the Scene or anything like that, but man, am i jazzed it exists right now.

By the way, i'm totally not kidding about Male Bondage. Get on this. (Upon listening to the recordings, they have way more of a Double Dagger thing going than what i picked out live. Volume!)