A new wave of Wisconsin punk commentary

The Yellow Button, see/saw, and the shape of music coverage to come.

Media is impermanent. Every writer or documentarian learns this over the course of their career. Often, that development is harsh, unforgiving, or unexpected. Sometimes all three. Work goes up, work gets torn down and—if it’s not backed up or made physically available—can become permanently inaccessible with devastating swiftness. The tenuous nature of journalistic safekeeping is an ever-present force that underscores the profession’s urgency.

When any publication that has published my work suddenly goes under, transfers its digital library, or is ribboned by a hostile corporate takeover, I make sure to check for evidence of my contributions. In the early stages of my writing career, some 20-odd years ago, I lost a lot. The astounding grace of archival tools like Wayback Machine preserved a few pieces of that output, but much more was lost to the ether. After one too many losses, I became more militant about saving my work.

Preservation was top-of-mind for me when I launched the DIY punk-focused blog Heartbreaking Bravery in late 2013. I was still living in central Wisconsin at the time. A small handful of people around me were into similarly punk-leaning music, but we were few and far between. Most of us tended to congregate in the hallowed halls of WWSP 90FM, Stevens Point’s storied college radio station. Through that community, I began to understand the amount of dedication specific styles of music required: If I wanted to find new music I loved, I had to hunt. And if I wanted to showcase it, there had to be some kind of coordinated effort to get it in front of people. If nothing else, I wanted Heartbreaking Bravery to document an appreciation for music operating off the beaten path. In my mind, it was a communal act delivered through a personal lens.

Heartbreaking Bravery ultimately ran for over 1,000 posts and spawned a 100-track fundraiser compilation that included some heavy-hitters from the DIY punk community (while also including a number of Madison-based acts). It was far from a perfect venture, but people generally seemed to see the value in its existence. Maintaining it alerted me to the shifting nature of how journalism and music were dovetailing, especially as both mediums contended with music’s rapidly expanding accessibility. 

Part of the reason I let Heartbreaking Bravery go from an insistent roar to a faint, erratic whisper over the course of the past several years is because the realities governing its operation changed. Getting traction became exponentially more demanding, paywalling made accessing my list of sources significantly more expensive, and ad-based presentation models rendered once-seamless user interfaces into unnavigable messes. The demands on my personal investment became fundamentally incompatible with maintaining it at a level up to the standard it deserved. Music publications began disappearing in droves. Heartbreaking Bravery went radio silent. Media proved its impermanence.

But I never stopped looking or checking in for recommendations for the music I loved, even as it became harder to keep up. Thankfully, there are still people out there who have proven they have the ability, wherewithal, and saintly patience to adapt to the demands of modernity. Thanks to those people, I’ve been able to stay at least somewhat up to date. Among that select crowd is ex-Pitchfork news director—and Menomonie resident—Evan Minsker. His contribution to the growing pile of Wisconsin-based punk-focused publishing ventures, see/saw, is a multiplatform ode to the music he loves.

Minsker splits see/saw‘s operation between a main site, a Discord, radio programming, a newsletter, and the Punk This Week podcast, which Minsker co-hosts with Chicago-based writer Nina Corcoran. [Full disclosure: Nina and I have been friends for many years, and she was an occasional contributor to Heartbreaking Bravery.]

When I talked with Minkser over a video call in early March, our back-and-forth sparked discussion about how today’s music and journalism landscape continues to tilt towards niche preferences and community-building. “Pitchfork was my dream job when I was a teenager,” says Minsker. “I thought writing about my favorite music [was] the dream. That just wasn’t what I was getting paid to do.” Minsker was laid off from Pitchfork in January 2024. Two months later, he started see/saw.

The Yellow Button‘s creator—who goes by the mononym Kelsie—is a Wisconsin-based photographer who has gained an audience for her adept takes on a variety of music. Punk’s just one of Kelsie’s areas of musical interest, but it stands out as one of The Yellow Button‘s driving forces. 

The Yellow Button has an active following across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, Twitch, Discord, and SiriusXM. Coincidentally, Kelsie has also spent time between the stacks of 90FM’s library as a fellow former Stevens Point-area resident. (We are legion.) During a separate video call in early March, she weighed in on how she’s navigating a constant influx of change in music and musical conversations, and how it’s bringing people together. “Everyone just feels like a bunch of little friends,” says Kelsie. “It’s just this tiny little community that’s so wholesome, and I love to be a part of it too.”

Kelsie’s sentiments around community are echoed by Minsker, who cites a far-reaching communal bond as one of the most noticeable differences between see/saw and his time at Pitchfork. “At Pitchfork, my community was my coworkers, my community was the Pitchfork Union,” says Minsker. “And now I feel like my community is other people who are passionate about the same kind of music that I’m passionate about.” Both Minsker and Kelsie point to the high volumes of activity on their respective social media servers as energizing forces. 

Keslie is quick to note a growing favor for The Yellow Button‘s Twitch channel, in part due to the platform’s more ephemeral nature. She suggests that some things don’t serve a positive benefit by being preserved, especially when they’re comments that seek to harm. “Instagram and TikTok have just completely changed over time. There’s been, for me personally, a lot of negative stuff that I’ve been seeing lately. Just negative comments. It doesn’t make me feel great. And on my Twitch stream, it’s literally night and day difference. I love getting to go into my community and everyone’s so welcoming and kind, not even to just me, but also to each other,” Kelsie says. 

On his end, Minsker puts it as succinctly as possible at a late point in our conversation: “It is intentional that everything I do is focused on community.”

The statement is in keeping with Minsker’s DIY punk ethos. It also naturally complements his renewed focus on niche punk acts. “I don’t see journalism being done in this way about these [lesser-known punk] artists, and I definitely don’t see a lot of these artists being covered, period,” he says. “But shout-out all the people who do and who have been [doing so]. Maximum Rocknroll is still running reviews, and there’s so many amazing zines out there,” continues Minsker. “I think you’re seeing people turn to their communities because corporate media just can’t, [and] isn’t reliably going to show up.”

The Yellow Button and see/saw‘s creators are both painfully aware of how automation is subtly dehumanizing—and explicitly narrowing—the process of musical discovery. “It’s getting difficult in this day and age. I feel like everything is getting very algorithm—AI-driven to you, and curated for you. It just doesn’t feel great. So I’m trying to find the most humane ways possible to discover new music,” says Kelsie, alluding to automation’s removal of a more intimate emotional connection.

Minsker expounds on a similar point: “You’re going to inevitably kind of see [music journalism] become like what streaming music has become. Where [it features] a lot of the names that you kind of expect to see, whether that’s within indie rock or rap music or pop music or whatever. A lot of the same names are gonna start to rise to the top,” he says. Minsker then notes a genuine appreciation for the efforts of publications, including Pitchfork, that still allow for relatively young, little-known artists to be platformed in some capacity. “I do think that, inherently, there has been this sort of shift, in music media—in corporate media, period—to tighten the belt,” he says.  Minsker points to a lack of funding for the necessary infrastructure to support a broader commitment to those pieces.

Both Kelsie and Minsker have a complicated-but-content relationship with headquartering their music-based platforms in Wisconsin.

Kelsie’s assessment is immediately blunt. “[Wisconsin] honestly hinders where I could go with The Yellow Button,” she says. “Wisconsin is not the place for music. I love Wisconsin. I love living here, but if I wanted to make The Yellow Button even a tiny bit of a career, I feel like I’d have to be in either New York or LA. Even Chicago,” says Kelsie. “There’s not much for music here… but I don’t know. I’m happy with just my little corner.” Kelsie embraces the limitations of location with a knowing grace. “Being in Wisconsin, it’s fine for me, and Yellow Button‘s, honestly, just a hobby… I’m a wedding photographer full time. I do that, so that’s, like, a whole different life that I have. But The Yellow Button is just purely fun,” says Kelsie. 

Thinking about how being Wisconsin-based potentially impacts the future of The Yellow Button, Kelsie finds an extra piece of contentment. “I feel like I’m at kind of a standstill, because I could take the avenue of interviewing bands. I could do that, but I feel like it’s a very saturated place right now,” she says. “There’s a lot of people that do what I do that also interview bands. I don’t want to add to that, to be honest… I just feel like being in Wisconsin hinders that [potential popularity growth].”

“I’m comfortable with where I am right now, just because I don’t want it to turn into my job. I feel like that would put a lot of pressure on myself, instead of just getting to enjoy it, because music is something you want to enjoy,” Kelsie says.

Minsker’s outlook also allows for the unexpected duality of an ostensible negative that he sees as a positive.

“Living outside of the Minneapolis punk scene, living kind of away from Eau Claire… I’m sure it would be more convenient for me to go to shows and not have to drive a long time. To be a little more fully integrated into the scenes of either city,” says Minsker. “But I find that it probably keeps me grounded enough in my real life so that the music can just kind of remain the passion,” he says. “When I show up to things, I feel like it’s almost like I have more time to process things on the drives… I can kind of have my own rhythms, but also engage with it on weekends and go to the basement show when the time comes.”

Sacrificing direct access for that level of mindfulness clearly holds real weight for Minsker. And, once again, he’s found comfort in community. “I want to say [the] people in Menomonie have been so supportive of me, and it’s really meaningful to me. I like being a person in the Chippewa Valley, I’m really proud that see/saw is based out of here,” he says. 

To both Minsker and Kelsie’s immense credit, their efforts are resonating with audiences that are putting genuine care and investment into supporting their projects.

The Yellow Button and see/saw aren’t the only Wisconsin-based forces finding new ways to get their points on punk across to growing audiences. Taylor Nicole—better known as gothsconsin and/or kornsalsa—is a Milwaukee-based social media personality who partnered with the travelling punk festival Riot Fest last year. Riot Fest tapped Nicole to present an “Under The Radar” series that highlighted punk bands to seek out. While Nicole’s primary focus is Wisconsin’s relationship to the paranormal, she brings music to the forefront with regularity. (Her TikTok bio, “ghosts and music and midwest,” underscores this nicely.)

Kelsie, Minsker, and Nicole may only have select overlaps when it comes to how they convey their takes on music, but all three are united by way of impact. All three use a spread of tools they have at their disposal. I have quietly followed each of them over the past several years, along with several other upper-Midwest punk figures’ independently-operated publishing forays. (Chicago-based writers Josh Terry and David Anthony both author great newsletters worth mentioning: No Expectations and Former Clarity, respectively.) 

Even though Heartbreaking Bravery is all but nonexistent, I still enjoy keeping up. And keeping an eye on the evolution of other punk-focused authors and public figures’ various platforms has been instructive. Online communication about music has been experiencing a slowly-articulated adaptive shift that is increasingly time-conscientious, for better or worse. Even with impermanence as an unavoidable factor, there is reason to be optimistic about where different forms of music journalism can head, especially when guided by the right hands.

If the traditional, copy-first mold of music journalism ever fully collapses—and there’s plenty of not-too-distant evidence to suggest that won’t be the case—strengthening alternative approaches of communication may serve a genuine benefit.

Efforts to build and sustain community that stem directly from independent, creator/journalist-led projects seem to be the way forward. Legacy media is failing. Once-trustworthy institutions have eroded beyond recognition as a result of political and capital-based interests. (This may be a Microtones for a different day.) Arts journalism has felt the sting of that slow transformation for some time now. Championing smaller artists is more difficult than it’s ever been, at least at major publishers who have to rely on clicks to survive. But those same metrics have created an absence that has led to a general audience’s seemingly growing appetite for new and unfamiliar music. 

Minsker, Kelsie, Nicole, and plenty of other passionate, independent voices in Wisconsin are keeping the flame of shared discovery lit. It may be worth taking a few notes as they chart a path forward.