Genre: Punk

Wisconsin Punk Fest

Wisconsin Punk Fest

 

BAG POLICY

Bags (max size 12″ x 6″ x 12″) are allowed and will be searched upon entry. Exceptions will be made for necessary medical equipment and bags for nursing mothers. We encourage you to pack light with only the necessities to make the entry process as smooth as possible.

PAYMENT POLICY

We are a cashless facility meaning that we are unable to accept cash as a form of payment. Our Box Office and Coat Check will only accept credit and debit. Our Bars will only accept credit, debit, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Please note that artist merchandise sales are separate and may still accept cash.

 

ABOUT WISCONSIN FEST

Starting in 2013, Wisconsin Fest has allowed us to showcase the state’s diverse musical artistry that makes us prouder than any beer or cheese ever could. Now in its 11th year, the Fests have expanded to five nights and eight unique genres across three Madison, WI venues – The Sylvee, Majestic Theatre and High Noon Saloon.

Click here for more details and tickets to each fest!

Soft Kill

Soft Kill

 

BAG POLICY

Bags (max size 12″ x 6″ x 12″) are allowed and will be searched upon entry. Exceptions will be made for necessary medical equipment and bags for nursing mothers. We encourage you to pack light with only the necessities to make the entry process as smooth as possible.

PAYMENT POLICY

We are a cashless facility meaning that we are unable to accept cash as a form of payment. Our Box Office and Coat Check will only accept credit and debit. Our Bars will only accept credit, debit, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Please note that artist merchandise sales are separate and may still accept cash.

 

Soft Kill from Chicago Illinois is the brainchild of Tobias Grave, making morose and infectious punk songs since 2011. Starting with the seminal “An Open Door” and including stand out records like 2016’s “Choke” and 2020’s Billboard chart topping “Dead Kids, R.I.P. City”. Tobias’ struggle with addiction and loss have created a depth and emotional landscape often missing from the genre.

Direct Hit!

Direct Hit!

 

BAG POLICY

Bags (max size 12″ x 6″ x 12″) are allowed and will be searched upon entry. Exceptions will be made for necessary medical equipment and bags for nursing mothers. We encourage you to pack light with only the necessities to make the entry process as smooth as possible.

PAYMENT POLICY

We are a cashless facility meaning that we are unable to accept cash as a form of payment. Our Box Office and Coat Check will only accept credit and debit. Our Bars will only accept credit, debit, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Please note that artist merchandise sales are separate and may still accept cash.

 

Mannequin Pussy

Mannequin Pussy

 

BAG POLICY

Bags (max size 12″ x 6″ x 12″) are allowed and will be searched upon entry. Exceptions will be made for necessary medical equipment and bags for nursing mothers. We encourage you to pack light with only the necessities to make the entry process as smooth as possible.

PAYMENT POLICY

We are a cashless facility meaning that we are unable to accept cash as a form of payment. Our Box Office and Coat Check will only accept credit and debit. Our Bars will only accept credit, debit, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Please note that artist merchandise sales are separate and may still accept cash.

 

Mannequin Pussy’s music feels like a resilient and galvanizing shout that demands to be heard. Across four albums, the Philadelphia rock band that consists of Colins “Bear” Regisford (bass, vocals), Kaleen Reading (drums, percussion), Maxine Steen (guitar, synths), and Marisa Dabice (guitar, vocals) has made cathartic tunes about despairing times. “There’s just so much constantly going on that feels intentionally evil that trying to make something beautiful feels like a radical act ,” says Dabice. “The ethos of this band has always been to bring people together.” Their latest I Got Heaven, which is out March 1 via Epitaph Records, is the band’s most fully realized LP yet. Over 10 ambitious tracks which abruptly turn from searing punk to inviting pop, the album is deeply concerned with desire, the power in being alone, and how to live in an unfeeling and unkind world. It’s a document of a band doubling down on their unshakable bond to make something furious, thrilling, and wholly alive.

Following the 2019 release of their critically acclaimed third album Patience, Mannequin Pussy returned in 2021 for their EP Perfect. They toured that release relentlessly and added guitarist Maxine Steen to the band’s official lineup. Where the band members’ personal lives were in transition with breakups, changing living situations, and periods of self-reevaluation, their time together on the road was a grounding and clarifying force. “There was so much going on in our lives that it was the perfect opportunity to recalibrate who we were as people and musicians,” says Regisford. The band changed their entire formula, choosing to write together in Los Angeles with producer John Congleton over slowly crafting tracks at home. “When I’ve written songs, it’s usually a very solitary process,” says Dabice. “So this was shedding a lot of those hermit-like qualities to do something intensively collaborative. Your best work comes when you allow other people into it.”

By December 2022, the band had 17 new songs written with Congleton in Los Angeles. “Everyone felt empowered to speak up about their own ideas to make this thing the best it could possibly be,” says Regisford. New member Maxine Steen, who has made music with Dabice for years including their side project Rosie Thorne, was especially essential to the writing sessions. The album opener “I Got Heaven” initially started as one of Steen’s demos. “When she showed it to me I knew it was going to be fun because the verses have this hard-hitting and aggressive approach but the chorus allows for a really soaring melody,” says Dabice. The result is electric. Over walloping guitar riffs, Dabice defiantly yells, “And what if I’m an angel? Oh what if I’m a bore? And what if I was confident would you just hate me more?

The song with its righteous lyrical blending of the sacred and profane is an unapologetic look at Christian hypocrisy. “I don’t think there’s ever been anything in need of a spiritual revolution more than modern-day Christianity,” says Dabice. “It sickens me the way that people use it as a way to do the worst things imaginable, say the worst things imaginable, and pass the worst imaginable legislation that directly harms people.” Instead of judgment, greed, and avarice, the songs on I Got Heaven ask what it really means to genuinely care about the people around you and help your communities in ways you can. “The world that we live in is heaven,” says Dabice. “We live on the most beautiful planet in the solar system, just by a chance and we are continuingly destroying it.”

This sentiment is mirrored by the album’s cover art: a figure and a pig in nature. There’s an intentional ambiguity there that makes you wonder if this person is leading the animal to slaughter or its protector. “We should really be the shepherds and the protectors of everything that we have and the world we live in,” says Dabice. I Got Heaven is an album that understands the stakes of its message: there are countless references to fire, hunger, and holiness. Here, teeth gnash and bodies are temples that ache with desire. On the yearning single “Nothing Like,” which is anchored by a dancey, shuffling drum beat from Reading, Dabice’s voice eventually morphs from a coo to a roar as she sings, “Oh what’s wrong with dreaming of burning this all down?”

Even when the songs on I Got Heaven don’t deal with fundamental human questions about how to live, Mannequin Pussy still finds ways to add urgency and resonance. Just take the buoyant and playful single “I Don’t Know You,” which slowly builds to a hair-raising peak with Reading’s brushed percussion, Steen’s enveloping synths, and a thoughtful groove from Regisford. “On that song, I changed the tuning last minute which transformed the song but everyone instinctively knew what to do,” says Dabice. “It was really cool to watch a song come alive in real-time. It’s such a gift to meet other people who are creatively on the same wavelength as you, where there’s no judgment in sharing ideas.”

The lightness of this track pairs perfectly with the rest of the tracklist, even when it’s snarling rock like “Loud Bark” or punishing hardcore punk with Regisford sharing lead vocal duties on “OK? OK! OK? OK!” “If you’re a Mannequin Pussy fan, you know that we’re going to have some rippers,” says Regisford. “We’re gonna have something that’s going to be in your face. But we’re also going to give you something that’s going to be light to the touch with its own version of aggression.” The loud and uncompromising single “Of Her,” finds Dabice screaming, “I was born / Of her fire / Of sacrifices That were made / So I could make it.” It’s a song about living life without regrets and understanding the sacrifices that you and your parents, especially your mother, made to allow you to live the life you want.

I Got Heaven is a visceral and stunning album for people who aren’t content with the status quo, made by people who challenged themselves and got out of their comfort zone. ”We’re supposed to be living in the freest era ever so what it means to be a young person in this society is the freedom to challenge these systems that have been put on to us,” says Dabice. “It makes sense to ask, what ultimately am I living for? What is it that makes me want to live?”

Keep Flying

Keep Flying

 

BAG POLICY

Bags (max size 12″ x 6″ x 12″) are allowed and will be searched upon entry. Exceptions will be made for necessary medical equipment and bags for nursing mothers. We encourage you to pack light with only the necessities to make the entry process as smooth as possible.

PAYMENT POLICY

We are a cashless facility meaning that we are unable to accept cash as a form of payment. Our Box Office and Coat Check will only accept credit and debit. Our Bars will only accept credit, debit, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Please note that artist merchandise sales are separate and may still accept cash.

 

Keep Flying is a 6 piece band hailing from the Northeast USA. Punk rock with horns, thats right, horns. The band mixes a combination of sounds from emo to pop punk to punk adding a splash of saxophone & trombone to lead the march. Add in the vocal stylings with the transparent yet relatable lyrics and you’ve created something fresh and new. With a unique sound, honest songwriting, and an explosive live show, the band has been able to turn heads of fans and bands alike, touring and performing with such acts as The Bouncing Souls, Bowling For Soup, Real Friends, Reel Big Fish, State Champs, Four Year Strong, Less Than Jake, Big D and the Kids Table as well as multiple appearances on the Four Chord, Vans Warped Tour, SXSW, Great South Bay, So What?!, The FEST, and many more.

The Pimps

The Pimps

 

BAG POLICY

Bags (max size 12″ x 6″ x 12″) are allowed and will be searched upon entry. Exceptions will be made for necessary medical equipment and bags for nursing mothers. We encourage you to pack light with only the necessities to make the entry process as smooth as possible.

PAYMENT POLICY

We are a cashless facility meaning that we are unable to accept cash as a form of payment. Our Box Office and Coat Check will only accept credit and debit. Our Bars will only accept credit, debit, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Please note that artist merchandise sales are separate and may still accept cash.

 

Off With Their Heads

Off With Their Heads

 

BAG POLICY

Bags (max size 12″ x 6″ x 12″) are allowed and will be searched upon entry. Exceptions will be made for necessary medical equipment and bags for nursing mothers. We encourage you to pack light with only the necessities to make the entry process as smooth as possible.

PAYMENT POLICY

We are a cashless facility meaning that we are unable to accept cash as a form of payment. Our Box Office and Coat Check will only accept credit and debit. Our Bars will only accept credit, debit, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Please note that artist merchandise sales are separate and may still accept cash.

 

Off With Their Heads’ new album Be Good is available now.

“All the other records were about moping around and feeling sorry for yourself,” says frontman Ryan Young. “This one is less about feeling sorry for yourself and more about accepting how goddamn miserable you are.”

Young and the band members—bassist Robbie Smartwood, guitarist John Polydoros, and new drummer Kyle Manning—holed up at The Hideaway in Minneapolis with additional recording at Pachyderm Studios, a mid-century mansion where Nirvana recorded In Utero, to make Be Good. Young produced the record himself, and it was the first time he enjoyed the process, or at least tolerated it. “I don’t like how the old records sound, and I hate recording so much,” he says. “You could just hear all the dumb shit on them where I was like, whatever, just let it go, I want to get out of here.”

Forced acceptance is a big theme of Be Good, though it’s a hard-learned one, often emerging in the form of primal screams in the band’s trademark style of gruff-punk. “Hands up to the sky and shout at the top of your lungs, ‘til the floor falls out!” Young yells on the title track, sounding somewhere between motivational speaker and hard-nosed therapist.

Much of the self-deprecation that defined the band’s previous work has been adjusted. It was the years spent out of the van, developing a life at home in Chicago, that gave Young his newfound, slightly more positive perspective. “Not being on the road 250 days a year, actually trying to develop some sort of life outside of playing shows and drinking, you’d be surprised what that does,” he says.

If ever there was a time for Ryan Young’s distinct brand on cautious optimism, it’s now. “The title is an answer to that question of what you’re supposed to do now that the world is so awful and the climate of this stupid country is so shitty,” he says. “Be good, be loud—that’s sometimes all you can do, I guess, as cheesy as that sounds.”

Mad Summer Scorcher

Mad Summer Scorcher

 

BAG POLICY

Bags (max size 12″ x 6″ x 12″) are allowed and will be searched upon entry. Exceptions will be made for necessary medical equipment and bags for nursing mothers. We encourage you to pack light with only the necessities to make the entry process as smooth as possible.

PAYMENT POLICY

We are a cashless facility meaning that we are unable to accept cash as a form of payment. Our Box Office and Coat Check will only accept credit and debit. Our Bars will only accept credit, debit, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Please note that artist merchandise sales are separate and may still accept cash.

 

Sorry Machine

Sorry Machine

 

BAG POLICY

Bags (max size 12″ x 6″ x 12″) are allowed and will be searched upon entry. Exceptions will be made for necessary medical equipment and bags for nursing mothers. We encourage you to pack light with only the necessities to make the entry process as smooth as possible.

PAYMENT POLICY

We are a cashless facility meaning that we are unable to accept cash as a form of payment. Our Box Office and Coat Check will only accept credit and debit. Our Bars will only accept credit, debit, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Please note that artist merchandise sales are separate and may still accept cash.

 

Sorry Machine

Artsy punk quartet from the madison area with high energy riffs and jazzy chords.

The Nile Club

The Nile Club is a group who writes and self records music for all people. Named after an abandoned pyramid-shaped nightclub on the backroads of Wisconsin, The Nile Club is: Sam Walters, Malachi Kaehne, Chai Devlin, Samwise Baker, and Jack Lusk.

EMWAY?

Madison, WI based Midwest Emo

Our Last October

Alternative rock band from Madison

Weaker Youth Ensemble

Weaker Youth Ensemble

 

BAG POLICY

Bags (max size 12″ x 6″ x 12″) are allowed and will be searched upon entry. Exceptions will be made for necessary medical equipment and bags for nursing mothers. We encourage you to pack light with only the necessities to make the entry process as smooth as possible.

PAYMENT POLICY

We are a cashless facility meaning that we are unable to accept cash as a form of payment. Our Box Office and Coat Check will only accept credit and debit. Our Bars will only accept credit, debit, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Please note that artist merchandise sales are separate and may still accept cash.

 

Weaker Youth Ensemble formed in August of 1991 in Madison, WI, bonding over a mutual love for 2-Tone and traditional ska. The band built a regional following playing throughout the Midwest, and DIY released a s/t record in January 1994. Weaker Youth also appeared on two nationally distributed compilations, American Skathic on Jump Up! Records, and Skarmageddon, a Moon Records release.