We Had Fun and Nobody Died

"This is an authorized history of Peter Jest's career as a Wisconsin-based concert promoter and club owner. Jest has lived his whole life in Milwaukee. During his youth, in the late-1960s and 1970s, he was a gawky kid with asthma who got hooked on music. Around age twelve, he began calling local radio stations and winning hundreds of giveaway prizes-albums and merch, but most importantly, concert tickets. After seeing a transformational Bob Seger concert in eighth grade, he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life doing something related to that experience. Jest attended UWM, where he founded Alternative Concert Group-a student group dedicated to bringing national acts to campus. After college, he parlayed these skills into a short-lived gig as the tour manager for the Violent Femmes, then a job promoting and booking concerts for venues around the city and region, and eventually into owning his own venue, Shank Hall. Along the way, Jest developed his own unique business style-some associates and competitors have been known to call him a hardheaded jerk. However, he has also gained the trust of many musicians over the years by being fiercely loyal and devoted to those individuals who earn his respect. This devotion is exemplified in chapters dedicated to the artists with whom Jest developed special relationships throughout his career: Violent Femmes, John Prine, Leo Kottke, Leon Redbone, and Arlo Guthrie. The narrative, which ends in 2022, also details the experience of a small music venue during the COVID-19 pandemic. While this is memoir of Peter Jest's life and a book about the state's music scene from the mid-1980s through 2022, it is also more universal story about a person finding his place in the world and pursuing his passion to benefit his community"--