Cool Building Day vs. the gatekeepers of history

100 years of the Capitol, four years of the best tweet in Madison history.

It’s a shame that the most clueless tweet in the history of touring musicians marveling at Madison came four years ago. Had Megadeth founder Dave Mustaine gazed out his downtown hotel room and observed a “cool building” in the year 2017, it would have happened during said building’s centennial year.

Cool building in Madison, #Wisconsin out my hotel window. This is a fun college town! Can't wait for tonight! pic.twitter.com/08fcIpUJCc

— Dave Mustaine (@DaveMustaine) November 24, 2013

It seems to me a grievous oversight that the State of Wisconsin’s official website celebrating the Capitol Building’s 100th anniversary makes no mention of that momentous day—November 24, 2013—when a musician of some repute saw one of those dome-y type buildings where laws are generally made and failed to put two and two together.  Just as surely as the state bird is the American robin and the state rock is red granite, this tweet surely warrants recognition as the state’s greatest bizarro digital communication, or something.

Preeminent metal journalist Kim Kelly informed us last year that Mustaine is “done with drama,” but he’s one of those people who’s always kind of low-key surly with fans and fellow musicians on Twitter, so whatever. The past year has also brought revelations that Mustaine has battled Lyme disease (a malady that many here in tick-rich Wisconsin can relate to, and perhaps bringing him a little closer to our hearts), and that he apparently rubbed some Megadeth bandmates the wrong way with his ideas about clothing, so maybe drama just follows the man in spite of his best intentions.

And even though it’s still omitted from the official record of the Capitol building’s illustrious history, the legacy of the cool building tweet is only growing. Just a few months ago, a new Madison band called Cool Building began playing shows around town. Its members are Claire Nelson-Lifson (Proud Parents, good solo stuff too), Heather Sawyer (The Hussy, Proud Parents, Heather The Jerk), and Chris Joutras (Dharma Dogs, The Momotaros, Coordinated Suicides, probably like six other local bands since I last checked in). Nelson-Lifson recently confirmed to me that the band’s name is “completely and entirely because of ol musty Dave,” so there you have it.

The petulant golden-haired dabbler in the art of winemaking and dude who featured in the most insanely childish scene of Some Kind Of Monster just cannot seem to attain a normal quiet life, try as he might.