The Wishniaks (Again)

I rarely re-post material, but I'm making an exception in this case. A few years back I posted a little story about my attempt to book the Philadelphia indie-rock band The Wishniaks at my college, and some of the, um, snags, I hit. I also posted one side of the band's 1988 double A-sided single "Wicked Pygmy Summer"/"Wishful Thinking." Since then I've noticed comments from people about how much they loved the band, gotten a few emails about them, and noticed a consistent number of google searches for the band leading to this site. So here it is again, back by popular demand and freshly re-ripped from 7" vinyl.

A track from the band's album Catch 33 was featured on the Little Hits blog, and you can find more information about the band there. I don't have a whole lot more to say about them than I did last time, other than that I wish they reached a wider audience than they did and I hope you enjoy these tracks. Oh, and I never did get to see them live.

The Wishniaks

The Wishniaks were one of the few indie-rock bands to hail from Philadelphia during the late 80s. Back in 1989 I booked them to perform at Dickinson College through WDCV, the student-run radio station. Unfortunately, the show never happened because it was blocked by some rather uptight fellow students who ran an on campus organization known as CAB (Campus Activities Board).

The nominal issue for CAB was that the radio station intended to let "townies" attend the show (although the deeper issue was that they didn't want their stranglehold on campus entertainment challenged). So they complained to the administration that the building we planned to use for the show--a new venue dubbed "The Lumberyard"--had been zoned for use by the College only. I pointed out that by that logic, CAB wouldn't be able to admit the mimes or ventriloquists they hired to perform into the building either, but to no avail. The administrator in charge of student life sided with CAB, and told me the show could only go forward if I agreed to refuse admission to non-college students. I had no intention of refusing admission to anyone on the basis of something so arbitrary, so I cancelled the show. In retrospect, I should have gone directly to the President of the College who would have been much more sympathetic to my argument than the low level key-swinger who ended up having the final say.

It's remarkable that so much fuss could have been made over such a charming, unassuming pop band. The people who objected to the show reminded me of the tyrannical preacher portrayed by John Lithgow in Footloose ("dancing leads to sin!"), except that their idea of good music was the Footloose Soundtrack. I have to admit, I thought these people were idiots at the time, but I imagine they are now fabulously successful, most likely working in the Bush administration inventing specious legal arguments as to why it's okay to torture people. And no, I don't think 18 years is too long to carry a grudge.