Organizer DJ Hostettler was among the artists to record at Howl Street Studios.
The informal term is slacktivism. It’s when someone, armed with moral certitude and a social media account, engages in a topical issue without taking tangible steps to deal with it beyond the computer screen.
“We post our outrage at what’s going on and then just go about our day,” says Milwaukee-based musician DJ Hostettler.
But as Gov. Scott Walker has signed a slate of legislation over the last five years gutting Wisconsin’s progressive tradition, Hostettler started focusing his energy on something more constructive. Teaming up with 15 other bands from Madison, Milwaukee, Kenosha and Oshkosh, he has assembled, as it’s described on the group’s website, “a murderer’s row of angry, loud, Wisconsin indie and punk bands.” They are Wisconsin Musicians Against Scott Walker.
The group’s Unintimidated project — a jab at Walker’s autobiography of the same name — is both the culmination of earlier Hostettler work and an expanded version of what he terms “musical activism.”
At the height of the Act 10 protests in 2011, his band, IfIHadAHiFi, released the single “Imperial Walker,” with dollar-a-download proceeds going to the Progressives United PAC. Unintimidated follows the same model but expands to a full compilation album, complete with additional components like a YouTube channel and retro-style zine.
Inspired by Fugazi and other ’90s post-hardcore groups, Unintimidated is an attempt to reunite up-tempo rock music with socially conscious themes. Punk was once the genre in which overtly political lyrics felt most at home, but that is no longer the case. “Hip-hop has overtaken punk and indie as the more socially conscious category these days,” says Hostettler.
The album’s launch party is April 8 at the High Noon Saloon, with a tour of other venues around the state to follow. Proceeds will be donated to Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and Milwaukee-area soup kitchens, two resources hit hard by budget cuts and closings.
But Unintimidated isn’t just a fundraiser. Hostettler says it’s also intended to be a contribution to the historical record. “People from out of state ask all the time, ‘What’s the deal in Wisconsin?’ [But] the whole state hasn’t gone crazy. There are plenty of good people who are completely aware of what’s going on.”
Thirteen of the 16 bands featured on the album met at Howl Street Studios in Milwaukee to record and film their protest songs for posterity. In the catchy “285 Feet Tall,” for example, Oshkosh-based Haunted Heads explore the relationship between the governor’s deep-pocketed donors and his transparent willingness to meet their every demand.
“Protest music comes in all forms, as we saw during the 2011 protests,” says Hostettler, citing the Capitol Rotunda sing-alongs. “But our genre — combining that resistance message with high-energy punk chords — is not as easy to pull off in the Capitol, for obvious reasons.”
