Behold, the Hipster Culture Panel
Joe Engle
Randall Luecke of Crane Your Swan Neck
A while back a guy named Patrick Tilley, who is a member of the WUD Music Committee that books shows at the Rathskeller and other campus venues, invited me to appear on something called the "Hipster Culture Panel." This is a real event that is happening Thursday evening at Memorial Union (check the Union's "Today In The Union" schedule for the exact room), ahead of (in honor of?) The Death Set's show at the Rathskeller. I politely declined mostly because I suck at public speaking. Also, every time I hear the word "hipster" tossed about—especially in a discussion about music—I think, "Ugh, are we back in middle school again?" But I wanted to understand where Tilley was coming from with the whole idea, and he was nice enough to explain.
Panelists will include Bob Marshall, editor of UW's Emmie music mag; Randall Luecke, singer-songwriter and leader of local band Crane Your Swan Neck (yes, cue snotty comments about his facial hair and/or patchwork of thrift-store clothing, you're all incredibly goddamn clever); WUD Music Committee member Wyndham Manning; and Ryan Huber, co-owner of Madison's own Context Clothing.
So whatever in the great leaping fuck you mean when you say "hipster" (because everyone's got his or her own little definition these days, which is why the word is mostly useless and cynical), these folks might have it covered. But like it or not, the concept is out there, and Tilley says he hopes the panel will be "tongue-in-cheek... It's hopefully not gonna be derisive, but a little comical [and] hopefully constructive." He says there will also be some comparison between local "hipsters" and "hipsters" in bigger cities, where, according to Adbusters, they are some kind of apocalyptic scourge.
"I don't get hung up on the term too much, but I do have a kind of negative connotation with the word and the people who maybe umbrella under it," Tilley says. The panel will explore this vague muddle of musical and fashion concepts with a moderated Q&A beginning at 6 p.m., and will afterwards open up to audience questions. While many discussions involving this word seem like a pesky distraction from enjoying music, thinking for yourself, and putting our shared humanity over stereotypes and all that stuff, it sounds like Tilley and friends just might be able to turn this into something reasonable. Decider simply requests that the panel finish things by symbolically tossing the whole "hipster" thing on the scrap heap for marketers, clueless journalists, and other hyenas to gnaw on for a few more years.
