Remember, Milwaukee punk rock fans, that line in the Violent Femmes' "Kiss Off," when Gordon Gano sings "I hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record"?

Well, four local musicians and writers have now created the most detailed permanent record to date of those do-it-yourself years here. And despite the struggles and casualties documented, it sounds like they were fun.

Brick Through the Window: An Oral History of Punk Rock, New Wave and Noise in Milwaukee, 1964-1984 builds on Steven Nodine's earlier book, The Cease Is Increase. For this new, larger and textually cleaner oral history, Nodine (Dark Facade) was joined by collaborating musician-writers Eric Beaumont (Eric Blowtorch) and Clancy Carroll (The Ones, The Dominoes) and longtime scene chronicler David Luhrssen, arts and entertainment editor of the ShepherdExpress.

For anyone who experienced part of this era, as I did, reading Brick Through the Window may trigger nostalgic memories of shows at Starship or Zak's, or the thrill of discovering new vinyl by the Red Ball Jets or the Haskels.

But reading this book also deepened my awareness of how different those days were, of how much effort it took in that pre-internet era both for bands to promulgate their music and for listeners to discover it.

-Jim Higgins, "New Book Evokes Prime Years of Milwaukee Punk Rock," Milwaukee JournalSentinel, Feb. 3, 2017