Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.
This is Night Light with Pete Schwabba.
Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.
And now, a guy who believes in an eye for an eye, but only if they're lowercase, Pete Schwabba.
Welcome to Night Light, ladies and gentlemen.
How are we doing in Wisconsin?
It is Monday night, middle of February.
On paper, you could not ask for a more depressing night.
A Monday, it's freezing, it's the middle of February.
There is nothing going on.
Except... Nightlight.
Am I right or am I right, Conrad?
Uh, you're right.
I knew.
I knew you'd say that.
We got a great show planned for you guys.
Hope you had a great day.
And if you didn't, we hope we can turn it around for you.
We're gonna talk a little showbiz like we do, some current events, some fun stuff that's in the news when it comes to entertainment.
All kinds of great stuff as we broadcast live from beautiful downtown Green Bay and extend our reach statewide.
So wherever you're joining us from, welcome to Nightlight.
Riding shotgun as usual is Conrad.
The voice you just heard.
How you doing tonight, buddy?
You know, it's it is a little depressing out there.
It's it's very cold.
Why do you why do you say that just because of kind of what I just said or particularly depressed tonight for some reason?
No, I think it's it's all adding up all that snow we got.
It's like feels like negative degrees out.
Just doesn't make you want to go outside.
It's brutal.
And I'm looking at my car right now.
There's like three feet, well, two and a half feet of snow.
You have to step through after you park.
Like I mean I could walk around on the street.
It's just it you're right It's just a pain and it reminds me when my kids were little and we moved to Wisconsin and they were trying to adjust to winter I Would make them really mad and I would say guys kind of glue me out.
It's kind of cold We got to bring our own sunshine to this day.
They would both look at me like they hated my guts I feel like dad never say that again So I'm gonna say that to you Conrad because I think you need a little bit of an attitude adjustment
tonight
Yeah, I don't like that.
I don't like that
phrase.
Even though I agree with you, I'm still gonna say you need an attitude adjustment.
I left here Friday.
We were supposed to have that snow and my wife and I drove from here to Milwaukee.
That was the plan.
Not a bad drive.
What is that, 100 miles, if that?
Something like that, yeah.
We pulled over and got a hotel room in Sheboygan.
You know how
depressing that is?
Sheboygan?
Yeah.
Well, not not Shaboygan, just we have 100 miles to go.
We were going to be there before 10 o'clock.
Yeah,
we're going to spend the week in there and hang out with my son.
And yeah, we had to pull over like the roads were really bad.
And if it was just me, I probably would have just kept going because I've driven through horrible weather before most of my adult life.
But at some point, you start like, like I was fine.
I wasn't going that fast.
I was in no hurry.
But it's these pinheads that go around you.
and spray snow in your car.
And you feel like they're almost gonna clip you.
I'm like, this isn't worth it.
I'm pulling over and we got a hotel room.
And then, you know, it's like 10 o'clock at night, you can't find food.
Your feet are soaking wet.
You're in a hotel room.
You're in Sheboygan.
You're 50 miles from where you're supposed to be.
It's like, how many hotel rooms can I buy that I'm not gonna use?
It's terrible.
But it was fun.
We went out to got a little dinner in Milwaukee Saturday night was lovely a nice little downtown Place downtown called.
What was it called a calderone club?
You ever been there
that sounds familiar I didn't go there though.
It's right across from
the higher kind of down by where all those
What is going on is the Bradley Center still used?
It was demolished was it?
No, no, sorry.
It wasn't wait.
No,
I don't think you what there's something called the Baird Center now
Maybe that's the old Bradley center.
I don't know, but you got Pfizer You got the Mecca, which is probably size the Panther arena now.
No, it was demolish.
Sorry.
I remember
was
it taken down?
Yeah,
the the one that's your scene I think is the EW Panther arena, maybe
no, but that's old I know that I know about that we used to play high school basketball there for the state tournament, but there's another huge Kind of convention center.
I was wondering if that was the Bradley center that had been renamed or something
the Bradley summer actually got um
The the Bradley Center got like imploded like you know
like they blew it up.
Yeah, they literally blew it up There's a party.
There's a video
on
YouTube.
You can see it get demolished.
Okay
Maybe we fire that up later in the show.
Let's see what happens.
Just just the noise.
Let's not go crazy.
Let's see what happens Yeah, so it was fun, you know, I don't know what you do this weekend.
Do you have a good weekend?
Well, what you just said about the people passing you I went out
in the morning on Saturday because I had this golf lesson.
And it was indoors, obviously.
Oh,
that's right.
You had a golf lesson
in
February.
I love that.
So my sister-in-law got my brother, her, and I golf lessons.
And it was just like a meet and greet with the coach.
But driving there was horrendous for my car.
It was your car you cut do you have like one-wheel drive or something?
You're always talking about how your car is so terrible in the water
I have front-wheel.
I have front-wheel drive
shouldn't be that bad if you have front-wheel.
I'm spinning everywhere.
Yeah, anyways Someone passed me and just kicked so much snow up on my car It made me go from I was going to speed limit, but it made me go down like yeah, cuz they can't see I'm like, okay cool
And then you slow down in a panic, you don't know what's happening behind you.
Why don't people just drive normally, especially in the storm?
Yeah, it was still snowing, roads not plowed at all.
I was like, I don't even understand why people want to go fast in this.
Right.
And part of it was my own fault.
We had this little hybrid, and then we have this big 1999 Lane Cruiser.
That's the most awesome car I've ever owned.
I'm never getting rid of it.
It's phenomenal in the winter.
But do I bring that to drive through a snowstorm?
Nah.
Let's take the hybrid.
There you go.
Hey, we got a really fun show tonight.
Matt Miller will be here at 635, the Milwaukee Film Critic who we have on frequently.
He's one of our favorite frequent flyers.
And we'll talk award shows.
There's a lot of hints that are being given about the Oscars that we can draw from other awards show.
We'll talk about that with Matt at 635.
And he is one, I think he has two films to see still before the Oscars March 2nd.
I have three, so Matt's ahead of me.
We'll see what he's been watching.
And then, folks, this is maybe the first time in radio history this has ever been done.
I can't confirm or deny, but Matt Harper will be here at 720 Live in the studio.
That's two mats on the same radio show.
Do we know if that's been done before?
I mean,
I haven't seen it.
I've never seen it before done.
I'm gonna plead ignorance.
I'm just gonna say, I don't think it's ever been done before, but we're making it happen here tonight on Nightlight.
We got two mats, both incredibly talented, and we'll have great conversations with both of them.
And Matt Harper is gonna perform live in the studio, so that will be fun.
We've had Matt on the show before.
He's a local Northeast Wisconsin rap and rock artist.
I love that genre combination, so cool.
And Matt will be here to perform at 720.
Our question, folks,
is brought to you tonight in honor of the Saturday Night Live 50th anniversary that aired last night.
They crammed 50 years of television.
You said you thought it dragged.
I've only seen half of it so far, but I thought it was pretty good and I think, you know, it better be.
50 years crammed into three hours.
You should be able to get a fat-free broadcast out of that, I would think.
And I thought it was pretty good.
I...
I mean, I enjoyed it.
I just think there are some parts I was like, okay, well, we can keep it moving.
Let me ask you something.
Do you not like the older stuff since you're of the younger generation?
Does that have anything to do with it?
I think they dragged too much on when they were asking the questions
to the
audience.
That felt like it took like an hour.
Yeah,
I wanted I wanted more sketches, but they like they kind of said they wanted to get everyone
who's been a part of the show some time on
the screen.
Right.
I thought the sketches were the best part, like when they would play the compilations.
But do that, oh, we got someone at the door, so get that and we'll do the question.
You know, I'm just gonna say the question tonight and then we'll play the montage music.
What is your favorite SNL sketch or character of all time?
What is your favorite SNL sketch or character?
of all time.
You can let me know at 855-752-4842-8555-CIVIC.
Let me know and you can elaborate as much as you want.
Folks, the phone lines are open too.
Feel free to call if you have a thought on last night's broadcast of the SNL 50th anniversary.
I know Conrad just started watching White Lotus season three.
I haven't even started season two yet, so I gotta play catch up there.
And we are getting down to the nitty-gritty.
The Oscars are right around the corner, two weeks away.
How are you doing on your Oscar films too?
There's 10 best picture nominees.
So let me know that too.
You can call our text 8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.
You can text me on the app.
That's very easy to use.
Nightlight is on statewide, so you can just click on any one of the stations and tune in as long as there is not a local basketball game going on tonight.
You'll get Nightlight.
And there's a little text icon.
So click that and let me know what you're thinking.
Conrad, I went ahead and did the question of the night anyway.
We can skip the music for one night.
You had to answer the door.
Who's here?
Well, it's one of our guests.
He's here already?
Yeah.
Oh my gosh, that adds pressure.
Matt Harper is in the studio, folks.
He will be along in the second hour.
We'll have a good time with Matt when he's here.
But what is your favorite SNL sketch or character of all time?
You have 50 years to choose from, folks.
What say you Conrad?
What are you thinking?
Oh, what I mean?
What do you think
Kate McKinnon?
It's the close encounters Kate McKinnon.
Yeah, that's funny,
but I also Pete Davidson is Chad with just the deadpan famer saw that there's I think there's about Seven or eight different sketches of him being a Chad.
Okay,
it's the funniest thing.
I'll
have to look that it's so
deadpan
I don't
watch it regularly anymore, but I see the highlights, or I'll look up the highlights at the beginning of the week and see what I missed, but I have never seen one of those.
I think I want to say, my favorite line the other night that I thought was so funny was when Kenan Thompson, who is the longest running cast member right now in the history of the show, and very funny, he was the host of Black Jeopardy, he said, welcome to Black Jeopardy.
the only game show where all the contestants understood Kendrick Lamar's halftime performance.
That's great.
That was a great lot.
Kristen Wiig was funny.
She had the tiny hands out again.
She always cracks me up.
Will Ferrell was great.
Will Ferrell was great.
Yeah.
Oh, that was the same skit, right?
Yeah.
Did you see the Debbie Downer?
I have not seen Debbie Downer yet.
I got about half of it to get through.
It
was so funny.
It
was Jimmy Fallon in it.
Debbie Downer hilarious.
What do you think of the Andy Sandberg thing where he was
song?
Yeah,
it was
fine.
But does that make the best?
I mean, the Lonely Island came from SNL kind of.
So
I'm talking about what he's saying about they all have anxiety.
I felt like it was a cute song, but I was like, eh, I could have done without that, but anyway.
That's our question of the night, folks.
Let us know what your favorite Saturday Night Live character or sketch is of all time.
Lots of pressure, 855-752-4842, 855-75 civic.
We will read your texts and have a brief discussion of President's Day and our own little tribute that's coming up next, and then Matt Miller at 635.
It's Peach Waba and Nightlight on the Civic Media radio network.
Welcome
back.
Anna in the 608 says my favorite SNL skit was Gilda Radner's Roseanna Roseanna.
I love that one, Anna.
She says I loved Gilda.
I think the close encounter skit would have been better with Melissa McCarthy instead of Meryl Streep.
Oh, that's interesting.
I think that would have been.
Yeah, I think I could
see
that.
Yeah.
I thought she was going to say without Kate McKinnon and then Conrad was going to storm off in a half.
That's a great text.
Thank you, Anna.
And I agree about Gilda Radner.
She, God, she was just, and I guess they honored her.
I didn't, I haven't seen that yet.
I got to play catch up on that.
But PJ checks into the stream and says, that's why it's called the dead of winter.
Yeah, you got that right, buddy.
He says, the Will Ferrell Eddie Murphy prison sketch was hilarious.
I laughed so hard.
I think I pulled a muscle.
That's a great laugh man.
You get that abdominal laugh going and it feels like you broke a rib Was that on last night or was that going back yours?
No, no, that was the the scared straight One from last from last night.
Okay, and it was
it was it started out with Eddie Murphy and Kenan Thompson And then will Ferrell came in later.
It
was it was hilarious.
All right.
I got to check that out like I said, I'm only like halfway through I did see the
Nothing compares to you.
I think that's when I stopped watching right to turn it off because I was running out of time But I will check out the rest of that Craig can it checks in on the stream and says Pete Chris Farley's motivational speaker will always hold a special spot in my heart No matter how much I or my buddies do that impersonation the original will always be dear to me Yeah, that was written by Bob Odin Kirk too that the what's his name Matt Foley, right lives in a van down by the river
Beautiful.
That's a great example of a brilliant writer like Bob Odenkirk with an amazing performer like Chris Farley.
And they might have collaborated on it, I don't know.
But I love the story that Bob Odenkirk was working at Ed DeBevix in Chicago, still doing second city classes.
And he wrote that and sent it in.
And he's waiting tables at Ed DeBevix and looks up on TV and sees Chris Farley doing Matt Foley.
Such a great story.
Craig says also Kristen Wiig was my favorite last night as well.
Yeah, she is hilarious We have a call.
Let's let's jump on the phone lines and get this party started.
Who we talking to here?
This is whistler from Richland Center
whistler.
How's it going?
Hey, it's going great man.
I'll tell you why it's been a bright sunny day here in Southwest Wisconsin Wow and last night's show I think in my own personal view
Uh, the old skit with John Belushi playing the samurai coffee shop owner or whatever.
Uh, anything with John Belushi in them.
Uh,
but the whole show was awesome.
Yeah.
No, it was.
I have to see the, uh, there are times, Wiz, where I will just Google or go to YouTube and pull up Belushi's old Saturday Night Live sketches.
I think my favorite is Little Chocolate Donuts.
Um, yeah, but I love it all yeah when he's doing cheap burger cheap burger chip chip chip and the bees all great
stuff
That's
great another one that I actually missed was George Carlin.
Oh Did they do something with Carlin last night?
They they had a little bit of a play back And I only saw it on advertisements
Okay
for the show, but yeah, George Carlin was always good.
He's great.
I'm excited to finish the show
Dan Acroy John Belushi dad Bill Murray Gilda Radner Jane Curtin
Jane Curtin.
Yeah, what a cast
you like
your original cast
Yeah, the original not ready for primetime players great stuff.
Have
you seen the
movie yet whistler?
Excuse me.
Have you seen the movie Saturday night yet?
No
That came out a couple months ago, and it's all about the lead-up to the first episode ever of the show.
I haven't seen it yet either.
I've heard it's great and I Recommend it based on what I've heard, but I haven't seen it myself, but it's on my list of watch
Okay, let me let me throw this out at you.
Yeah, all right Todd earlier in the day this summer was talking about them.
Oh Just a bit outside.
All right, I wanted to see that but it never came
close to me.
I'm 60 miles from any big theater here in Riston Center.
Okay.
The same thing now with the Green Bay Packer film,
Green and Gold,
that just came out.
I bet the farm on the Packers,
right?
Right.
You know, but hey, I love listening to you in the evenings.
I love listening to the radio.
And, you know, Todd knows me.
It's like, well,
Winsor is kind of weird, but that's okay
That makes for bet it's more fun when people are weird than when they're just sort of more vanilla So I I celebrate your weirdness and even though I didn't necessarily see it.
Thanks so much for the call whizzer keep listening and thanks so much
Hey, you bet you man.
Have a good
evening buddy you too He's talking about Todd Michaels, right?
Todd Alba.
Oh Todd Alba.
Yeah interesting
I'll have to do, we'll do a background check on Whizzler with Todd Alba.
Sounds like it might be warranted.
He's a self-proclaimed weirdo.
I love that even more.
I love people that are weird.
It's like the old Karowax saying, the only ones for me are the mad ones.
The people who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved.
Those are the fun people.
But I like it even more when someone says that about themselves.
How do you rate yourself Conrad?
Do you think you're weird?
Do you think you're a pretty normal dude?
Uh, I think I'm pretty in between
in between.
Okay.
That's a good way to play it.
Uh, Anna from Madison says, when Will Ferrell came on in the prison skit last night on SNL, it made me laugh so hard.
I already got to check that
out.
It's so funny.
Uh, Tyler from Wisconsin Rapids says, adventures with Bill, the claymation guy.
Oh yes.
Mr. Bill, I think, right?
Best musical guest was Ricky Lee Jones.
No kidding.
Okay, great text Tyler.
Thank you.
Do we have time for our Simpsons clip?
We do not we do not all right.
We have a little tribute We'll get to this at some point during the show folks.
It is Presidents Day after all Conrad how did you celebrate Presidents Day?
You know honestly, I didn't even
know was Presidents Day two you rolled in and saw it on the sheet It's also what are these old
Is it National Random Acts?
Okay.
How come we don't have President's Day on here?
I knew it was President's Day.
Because I didn't know it was President's
Day.
All right.
We have a Simpson's tribute.
Their song, We Are the Mediocre Presidents, great tune.
And we have Bart Simpson playing John Wilk's Booth, trying to take out Abe Lincoln with Homer cheering him on.
It's a beautiful thing.
We'll get to that at some point in the show.
After the news, folks, our old pal Matt, he's not old.
He's not even middle age, probably.
Matt's a young guy.
But he's coming up after the news.
We're going to talk movies and award shows and all kinds of great stuff.
With our pal, Matt Miller.
It's Pete Schwabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media, Radio Network.
Steve from Florida says the first season of SNL will always be my favorite.
They set the stage for everyone through the 50 years.
I thought Steve Martin did a great job last night starting the show.
I agree, Steve.
But I will say...
If I never see Martin Short and Steve Martin on the same stage again, I'm okay with that.
They're great.
I love them both individually.
I love them together, but enough.
They're like a married couple.
Tom from Jackson says, do you remember the Friday show?
Yes.
That was sort of an answer to Saturday Night Live.
And I was thinking maybe it was ABC, but Michael Richards.
Kramer from Seinfeld was an original cast member on Fridays.
In fact, there was a video that just surfaced recently of he and Andy Kaufman getting into it during a live broadcast of Fridays, which was great.
And upsetting at the same time, but they worked through it.
I do remember that, Tom.
I don't think it lasted very long if I remember correctly.
Keep those questions coming.
What is your favorite Saturday Night Live character or sketch from all time?
You can pick from 50 years, folks.
Let us know at 855.
752-4842-8557-5CIVIC or text us on the app or the stream, however you're listening.
It's great to hear from you.
Right now, it is my pleasure to welcome to the show one of our favorite frequent flyers who does great work as a film critic based in Milwaukee.
You've heard him before, you've read his stuff.
Matt Miller joins us now on Nightlight.
Hey, Matt, how you doing, buddy?
Hey, I'm doing well.
Staying
warm.
I was in your fair city this last weekend.
It was lovely.
Oh, wonderful.
I'm glad you enjoyed your time here.
What brought you to Milwaukee?
Well, my son lives there currently, and we hung out with him all weekend and just sort of wanted to get out of, you know, our town is pretty small.
And my goal was to go to Milwaukee and see three movies, and then I'd be done with the best picture nominee.
Films and of course I didn't go to any movies and we just hung out and shot the breeze and all that kind of stuff, but that was fun
How dare you?
I know see movies and spend time with your family instead.
What kind of a monster are you?
That's the when that's the problem like, you know, you don't talk so I drive to Milwaukee and watch nine hours of movie actually 14 hours in movies because I haven't seen the brutalist yet and You know, but it was alright.
It was still a fun time walk.
He's a great town.
So How you doing Matt?
I'm doing very well.
You know, we're ramping up Oscar season.
We're two weeks away still, which is probably too long.
I still think the Oscars need to move themselves comfortably.
into late February rather than drag things up to March.
But you know, obviously with the fires and stuff this year, it's maybe not the worst thing that they gave, gave some time between everything.
So but yeah, I'm ready for Oscar season to come to a close.
Yeah, no, I'm with you.
And I, although I still have three, three films to see, we'll talk about that.
I know I think you have a couple to see as well, we can, we can get into that.
But
Did I understand this properly on our text exchange earlier?
You were not boycotting Saturday Night Live, but you seemed like you were very indifferent, Matt.
Yeah, I am indifferent to the SNL 50 thing.
I feel like they just celebrated themselves 10 years ago, and I know
literally they
did.
But I don't know, I've kind of reached a point of I don't need, you know, everyone to congratulate SNL on being moderately funny, you know?
I watched the Saturday Night movie, and that was the same case where it was like this whole thing of like, we're about to revolutionize comedy.
Oh my gosh, can you believe the stakes of this moment?
And for a bumblebee.
Skit, you know, I don't know I'm done with SNL and I'm definitely done with SNL congratulating itself on being the most important TV show of all time
Well, it's interesting you say that because you're right.
They just did them.
I still haven't seen the movie Saturday night.
I saw half you don't have to I've heard from some people it's good and I've heard other people's who I am I'm gonna see it because I'm curious Did you see studio 60 on the sunset
strip
years ago, right?
Yeah.
Then
you saw Saturday Night Live because it's got the same vibe of that where it's this reverential thing.
Yeah.
Okay.
I
think that a Saturday Night Live movie would be funny, but it's not.
And yeah, unless you're like super into SNL's history, I think that movie is an easy skip for anybody.
I do think it's funny because I haven't watched it regularly in years.
But I do have fond memories as a kid watching it up at our, in our, like my grandma's cottage, all of us at, you know, you got two channels up in the North woods.
We were all gathered around watching Saturday Night Live.
I do have fond memories of it, but I don't disagree with you.
They've got a movie.
They've got the three hour 50 year anniversary.
I think there was a big music celebration.
It's like they're definitely cashing in on that brand.
And I don't blame them for doing that, but I don't envision myself watching all of it, I guess is
what I said.
Yeah, you put Donald Trump as one of the hosts.
You've had Elon Musk as one of the hosts.
You have.
repeatedly brought back Dave Chappelle.
You padded yourself on the back by giving Sinead O'Connor a tribute when you tossed her under the bus.
It's just not a show that I'm really in the mood to be like, congratulations, SNL.
And on top of all that, they just haven't been very funny in recent years.
I mean, I think it says a lot that they tried to anoint the music sketch that was popular this season and immediately put that into their SNL 50 sketch.
And it's like, that's been around for two, two weeks.
Like that's what you've got these days.
I don't know.
Conrad Matt is single-handedly trying to dissuade me from my love for Saturday Night Live.
And I hate to say it's actually working a little bit.
I'm starting to come down a little bit.
Listen, SNL is innocence because they gave us Bill Hader.
So, you know, they gave us Gilda Radner and lots of great comic.
For sure.
I think it's hard for someone my age and younger to have the appreciation of SNL because SNL's mostly been watched via YouTube.
Right?
Yeah, great
point.
And in a lot of cases, the best SNL bits in recent years, whether are normally either A people cracking on sketches, which is bad comedy.
Really annoying.
Yeah.
which is really annoying and becoming a shtick and in a sense of itself or it's the pre-recorded stuff.
It's the lonely island guys or it's the the new trio that does the the super hyper edited please don't destroy.
So I think maybe the younger generation for them it's it's kind of a comedy show that every time it shows up on Saturday night it's like congratulations you're a week late on the jokes.
We have
social media now.
So
it's
interesting.
It's the New York Times of comedy, you know?
It has a lot of flaws, but I'd be very, very sad, and it would be a sad thing if it was gone.
Oh, that's interesting.
Yeah, to me, the worst...
at that was Jimmy Fallon.
He would walk out in a sketch and he'd just start laughing right away.
It's like, why are you in this?
You know, everyone thought it was cute and oh, he's cute and he's laughing because he can't stand it because they're so funny.
It's like, I want to see what they're trying to do here.
I don't want to, I don't want the focus to be on him laughing.
And he, to me, he was like the worst one, you know.
Yeah.
When you had him and a ratio of sans on screen together, they were a real problem in terms of good, tight.
clever comedy.
It was a lot of just these two guys really think they've come up with something humor.
Exactly.
All right.
All of that criticism aside, Matt, which a lot of it is warranted.
I agree with you.
Do you have a favorite character or a favorite sketch from the history of the show?
In the history of the show, that's, that's a lot.
I, like I said, as a millennial, I do really enjoy the Lonely Island bits.
I also think John Mulaney is just a tremendous.
comedy sketch writer.
He's the guy who did the kind of musical numbers.
What was it the Brooklyn bodega and stuff like
that
show always takes a step up with his book.
He is the brainchild behind Stefan on weekend update.
So I'm a big fan of him.
Um, and I don't know, I'm going to cheat on this answer by saying that like
SNL's existence gave us 30 rock, maybe the best sitcom of all time.
So that's fine by me.
You know,
I
do think so.
I like those.
I think the original Tom Hanks Black Jeopardy sketch is very good.
It's very funny and very, you know, potent.
I don't know if anyone wanted to see that sketch
on SNL 50
last night, but the original was really good.
And even the one with Black Panther was very good as well.
So those are some of the ones that stick out in my mind.
that's great um so have you been watching the award shows matt have you been tracking all of them i know there's like a certain significance it seems like or people tie well they won this so they have a better shot at the oscar and that kind of thing it's hard to keep track of
Yeah, it is tricky.
So for people who don't know, we're in precursor season right now.
So you've got the producers guild, the writers guild, the directors guild and the screen actors guild, all these various guilds that make Hollywood movies that are a part of the Academy.
They're giving out their awards right now.
And unlike the Golden Globes, unlike the Critics Choice Awards, these are groups that actually vote for the Oscars.
So if you want to have an idea of where things are maybe tallying up and where things are going, you keep an eye on.
and these precursor awards.
And it's very interesting, right now it's looking like a Nora is your front runner, the Sean Baker movie about a woman who marries a Russian.
piece of piece of crap.
Like a
little wormy Russian guy.
And fine, and hopes that thinks she's in love and thinks that she's got, you know, her out of her life.
And it kind of turns into a crazy night out.
And it's it's all of a sudden kind of become a steamroller.
It won the writer's Guild Award.
It won the director's Guild Award and run the producer's Guild Award already.
And I believe the last time a movie won all
three of those and didn't win best picture of the Oscars, I believe was Brokeback Mountain in 2006.
And that was a huge upset.
That was a massive surprise.
And obviously there were a lot of other things going on in 2006.
We were not as LGBTQ, you know, sensitive and people were trying to find reasons to not vote for Brokeback Mountain back then.
So Crash came back, came from behind and won that.
best picture race and a kind of surprise.
We still have the SAG awards coming up this weekend.
And that'll be interesting.
Enora is up for best picture there.
If it wins there, I think we are free and clear to say Enora is your front runner to win best picture.
But a complete unknown could win.
Wicked could win.
Wicked is the most nominated movie at the SAG awards.
So it'll be very interesting where that takes things.
I will say, I don't think this is like an Oppenheimer year where everyone two months out was like Oppenheimer, no one else has to show up for the ceremony.
Oppenheimer's winning best picture, done deal, you know, white pans.
I feel like if we could see the vote totals, the vote percentages, I think we'd be looking at a very close race that Enora is just squeaking by.
I think there's a lot of people who like Conclave and like the Brutalist and like a complete unknown.
And it's just Enora is just maybe a tiny bit percentage ahead of them.
Interesting.
My guest is Matt Miller.
Check out his work at A Man About Film, Matt Substack.
He does great work there.
He's a Milwaukee film critic and joins us often here on Nightlight.
Matt, you, okay, so let me ask you about this.
Just your opinion, I saw Nora a couple weeks ago.
I liked it.
I think I would have liked it better if it weren't up for best picture.
I think people are in love with Sean Baker.
I'm in love with Sean.
The Florida Project is one of my all-time favorite films.
Red Rocket is
incredible.
I said, Tangerine.
I warmed up to Tangerine.
I really liked Tangerine, too.
I think the guy's a real talent, but I'm struggling with Enora being a best picture.
I thought it kind of dragged, and that's just me personally, but I know that it won.
I know the conclave won the BAFTAs, and supposedly there's a lot of crossover with voters, so now that's getting some Oscar momentum.
But is Enora worthy of all these awards in your opinion?
And I'm just asking that because I need you to set me straight.
Yeah, I mean, is it worthy of winning an award that Green Book won?
I mean, that's the question we're asking here.
Will it join the company of Crash and driving Miss Daisy?
But no, I think I'm very similar to you.
I like Enora quite a bit.
I think it's a good movie.
It would be one of those situations where winning best picture would be the worst thing to happen to it because people would
watch that movie and be
like, this was the best picture of that year.
Right.
Okay.
It's kind of like, you know, the best thing that happened to La La Land was not winning best picture because that movie is so nice and so light and fluffy that the mantle of the best movie of a year crushes it.
Right.
I think Nora's good.
I agree for a movie that's kind of going for kind of a after-hour
screwball, crazy, one crazy night energy.
I think it drags in places.
I also think Anora gets lost in that movie at a lot of points.
I think the perspective of the movie disappears from her perspective to other characters' perspectives.
And I think the ending would hit more if we knew more of what was going on in Anora's head in that movie.
She still kind of remains at a distance for a lot of it.
I do think the movie's a good time.
I think the movie's good.
don't think I it would not be my vote for best picture and it would be it would be a strange best picture win like a movie that small that prickly um that kind of
shapeless that these are not the kind of things that the Oscars go for.
I think maybe it's them looking at this movie and being like, we used to make more movies like this.
We mean, we used to make, you know, five easy pieces
and
these kind of and after hours and these kind of thorny, tricky
character
pieces.
Can we go back to these kind of movies?
Yeah.
Maybe if we give a Nora our prize, we'll see more of this kind of stuff rather than it being an exception.
Very cool.
Matt Miller's here.
We're coming right back after a very short break.
We're talking awards shows.
Oscar lead up.
We're going to talk about some of the films he and I have seen.
You're here on a great night, folks.
We got two mats on the same show.
First time in radio history.
It's Pete Schwabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Paula from the 9-2-0 checks in.
That's Conrad's mom for those of you listening at home.
Gilda Radner is Roseanne Rosanadana.
That's our second vote tonight for Gilda Radner as Roseanne Rosanadana.
Great choice, Paula.
Thank you.
AJ from the 6-0-8 says, Hey Pete, I will always have a soft spot in my heart for any Chris Farley sketch, but I also laugh every time at Dan Akroyd and Colin Blosk.
Some of these I forgot about.
I forgot about the colon blow thing.
And anything by Phil Hartman, I love too.
That's a great text, though.
Thank you, AJ.
And thank you, Paula.
Matt Miller is here with us.
He is a Milwaukee film critic.
Check out his work at a Man About film, his sub-stack.
He just Googled Matt Miller and a Man About film, and all Matt's work will come up.
Just to go back to Nora, just for a second, Matt, I loved the end of it, where they're married like a week.
And then the kid's parents come over and they're the biggest jerks in the world, obviously, because their kid is a jerk.
And they say, you know, you're getting in an element, whatever, without giving too much away.
She gets a backbone for a moment and says, no, we didn't sign a prenup.
I'm taking you to the cleaners for everything.
That would have made that movie.
Maybe I'm old fashioned and I like that plot point.
But then it just kind of fizzled after that.
I don't know.
But it's real.
It's very realistic.
And I think, again, it's just like if it weren't.
nominated for Best Picture, I would have liked it more.
I don't
know.
Yeah.
And like I said, that happens to almost every front-runner Oscar movie or movie that gets nominated for Oscars period is just there's always this weight of, oh, should you, do you deserve this mantle?
Yeah.
Again, I think it endures the kind of movie that could really get crushed by that.
I mean, this happened to Argo.
This happened to The Shape of Water, you know?
It happens to almost every movie that isn't a universally agreed upon masterpiece, like something like A Parasite or A Moonlight or A Lord of the Rings Return of the King, you know?
There are certain movies that escape that, but if it's divisive, people immediately are like, well, we've screwed this up, you know?
Conclave, now we talked about that at one best picture at the BAFTA's last night or this weekend.
And just based on what I've read, I think it was a variety set.
It gives it momentum for the Oscars.
I liked Conclave and I liked the twist at the end.
To me, that made it a more interesting movie and Oscar worthy if it is Oscar worthy.
What did you think of Conclave?
I enjoyed it.
I predicted that would win Best Picture probably incorrectly a few months ago.
It seems like the kind of movie in a year where there's not a lot of consensus on a movie that feels very comfortably Oscars.
It feels like an Argo Pick where it's just a
really
well-made, well-crafted
drama for adults with brains.
And that is something to be celebrated.
I think it's a good fun movie.
I do caution against the BAFTA hype for two things.
First of all, the Oscar voting period I believe is like done in 24 hours.
Okay.
So, so they're voting
right
now for the Oscars.
And so conclave, how much momentum can it get from this?
Who knows really?
And second of all, you know, the BAFTAs, the British Oscars for people who don't know, they don't line up very often with the Oscars.
I think when I looked up the numbers, I think the BAFTAs and the Oscars have only overlapped twice for best picture.
Oh, really?
In the
past 10 years, they tend to have, you know, kind of more British taste.
They went with 1917 over
parasite, you know, the
British in terms of their taste in things, a little bit more traditional in terms of what they give best picture to.
And so I caution, I still think Anora is your front runner.
I think Conclave is in the conversation and I'm still waiting for, I think a complete unknown could do something here.
I wouldn't be
surprised if that snuck in for a win at SAG Awards.
I think people really respect and like that movie.
It's a movie about artists, which Hollywood famously the Academy loves.
And, you know, even people who went into that movie being like, is this just going to be Walk the Line 2.0 came out of it being like, that's a well-made, well-acted, interesting movie.
So I'm waiting for the...
For that to equal an Oscar win or some at some point here, I I kept thinking that Edward Norton was maybe going to creep past Kieran Culkin for best supporting actor.
That doesn't seem to have that that isn't generating anywhere.
So maybe I'm just, you know, putting these things out into the universe and they are not the universe is not sending them back to me.
I'm not manifesting right now.
I agree with you like I, you know,
The complete unknown isn't Oppenheimer, but it really, the more I think about it and the more of these films I see, I could see it winning.
I feel like there's no weak link in it.
It's got great acting, great music.
It's a great story about a small piece of his, you know, career.
I just really enjoyed it.
I want to ask you before we get to the new open, I know you saw the new Captain America movie, but man, Matt, the substance.
I saw that and I'm still trying to forget it.
What's your take on the substance?
I really like that movie.
But the minute I saw that movie, I was like, there's no way this is in the Oscar conversation.
And here
we are
somehow.
That is a midnight movie.
That
is a
movie we watched at midnight with a bunch of weirdo gore hounds and people who want a crazy, weird time at the movies.
And I think it's great that the Oscars are recognizing the substance, that they're recognizing the craft of the movie, and that they're recognizing Demi Moore in the Best Actress category.
Because the more the Oscars bring other genres into the fold, the better.
The
more
that horror movies aren't immediately disrecorded because they are not a Oscar genre would be great.
The fact that the substance, a movie that
gross, that gnarly, that kind of blunt and in-your-face, that gruesome, is nominated for Best Picture and may win Best Actress is very interesting.
It's very exciting on some level.
I think that movie's a real hoot.
I think the movie's very attending.
I think that movie's very incisive about, you know, the pressure we put on people and women and particularly women that Chobhiz puts under women and kind of the
the age,
the
ageism that both sides feel that gets fomented in this, the rage that older people feel towards the younger generation, younger generation feels towards the older generation.
I think that movie is really smart, but also really silly in all the best ways.
Wild that that is the best picture.
Very well said.
Hey, can we keep you for a few minutes after the news, Matt?
I have a few more things.
All right.
We're having fun here with Matt Miller on a Monday night in the middle of February.
What could be better?
This is Peach Wabba Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.
This is Night Light with Pete Chihuahua.
Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.
And now, a guy who likes to talk trash, but only when he's at the dump.
Pete
Chihuahua.
PJ on the screen says of course all-time favorite is Madison's own the late Chris Farley Adam Sandler played a song with homage to Chris and says Chris Farley was living in a van down by the River sketches is one of the best of all time I think we've heard that from a few people at your favorite right Conrad Favorite sketch of all time.
That's what I thought you said.
No, I'd say close and the first close encounters was my favorite Who just
I'm totally confused somebody a couple of people have said the van by the
I can't keep track of my SNL genres, eras, whatever.
Matt Harper is coming up at 720, folks.
He is in the studio.
Northeast Wisconsin rap rocker Matt Harper.
It's gonna be fun.
He's gonna blow the roof off the dump.
Stick around for that.
Right now, we've got time, a few more minutes, with our other friend named Matt, Matt Miller.
Milwaukee Film Critic.
We're talking movies and award shows.
Matt, you saw Captain America.
And it got pretty mediocre reviews, but the numbers were crazy.
And again, I read today in one of the trade papers it said for February, that's a crushing opening of 100 million bucks.
Yeah, well, not yet.
The 100 million is what they're expected to get the four day Presidents Day weekend.
Right now it's at about $88 million, which, listen, I am not in a place to sniff at $88 million.
Some good
walking around money, yeah.
Yeah, but if you're Marvel.
And you've put approximately $300 million into this movie.
You need this movie to keep having legs.
You need this movie to keep performing.
And the word of mouth is bad.
The reviews are bad.
It's I believe the third worst rated Marvel MCU movie
of
this 35 year run.
It has the lowest cinema score at a B minus.
And if we just want to toss all those things aside, it kind of stinks.
It's a poorly made movie.
And I think even those of us who've had issues with the Marvel machine over the past several years and what it's done to Hollywood thinking in terms of, you know, what kind of genres deserve to be in theaters and, you know, what genres deserve attention, you know,
You always knew when you went to a Marvel movie that the quality was going to be good, you know?
Iron Man is a good movie, Thor Ragnarok, good movie, the Black Panther, good movie, you know?
And you don't really get that promise now when you go to see a Marvel movie.
I thought Captain America was really shoddily made.
It's clunky and clumsy and you can see the scenes in terms of, you know, the storytelling that's going on.
I can't imagine anyone going into this Captain America movie being like, I cannot wait to find out more about the characters from 2008's The Incredible Hulk.
I gotta find out more about what happened in that movie from 17 years ago that I forgot was even a part of this franchise.
But that's the kind of Marvel brain thinking that they have where it's like, well, we gotta tie up the loose ends.
With Thunderbolt Ross and no you don't tell a good Captain America story.
Yeah, and they don't unfortunately
interesting.
Okay Another film you saw I haven't seen yet.
It sounded really interesting was the companion with Jack Quaid and I think that's a Jack Quaid movie It's like a kind of a
funky
horror story love story.
It sounded really interesting.
I haven't seen it yet your fan
Yeah, I really enjoyed that one I'm not I can't I don't want to say too much about the premise of the movie because it is one of those movies that the less you know kind of going in the better but it is movie about a relationship between a man and woman Sophie Thatcher from yellow jackets and the heretic the Hugh Grant horror movie from last year She stars on that as well.
I had a really good time with it.
I don't know how many theaters that's in anymore But I highly recommend checking that one out.
I think that
one's a really fun time, especially like I said, if you don't really know where it's going.
I would also, if you're a horror movie fan, Hard Eyes was kind of the crazy story of this past weekend because here's the crazy thing, it was Valentine's Day weekend and Hollywood did not put a rom-com in theaters.
Oh yeah, you're right.
It's very weird.
Valentine's Day weekend in Hollywood was like, should we release a rom-com in theaters?
No, never mind.
And the closest thing to a rom-com in theaters was this horror movie called Hard Eyes, about a couple, a man and a woman who kind of meet cute as marketing experts.
And while they're kind of out and about on Valentine's Day weekend, they get stalked by a serial killer who kills couples.
And they're trying to tell the serial killer, they're not a couple.
And the serial killer is like too bad.
You seem like a couple to me.
I'm going to have to kill you.
And it's a very fun kind of mashup of romcom and gory, bloody slasher movie.
And it did really well this past weekend.
It did something crazy, which horror movies normally drop like a rock after.
for their opening weekend.
You know, the buzz wears off, the young audience sees it right away, then clears out.
This movie made more money its second weekend than its first weekend, which really cool, love to see it, very fun, charming, interesting blend of genres, but Hollywood, release rom-coms and theaters again, please.
Yeah, this got 80% on Rotten Tomato.
Okay, I didn't read much about this, Matt, but I love that.
That's a great, and was that a wide release, Hard Eyes?
Yeah, and it came out last weekend, technically, and it's a really fun time.
If you like slasher movies, if you like rom-coms, this is kind of the weird, bloody hybrid of the two.
I think the lead two cast members are very charming.
They have chemistry together.
I had a really good time with them.
I'm glad it's finding an audience.
how much of that audience was just desperate for anything resembling romance over Valentine's Day weekend, who's to know, but I'm glad that they had at least something decent to go see.
All right, last one, Matt, you saw Wolfman, age old story, classic character, reviews, okay, not awful, but what did you think of Wolfman?
I still haven't seen it.
Yeah, I believe this one's available on Peacock now too.
Hopped over to streaming pretty fast.
I was really looking forward to this movie.
The director is fabulous.
His name is escaping me.
His name is escaping me, but he did the Invisible Man remake with Elizabeth Moss from a few years ago.
And he did a really cool sci-fi horror movie called Upgrade a few years before that as well.
Unfortunately, this movie is kind of a bore.
I think the movie isn't very scary, which if you're a scary movie is kind of a big problem.
Yeah, I think it's thematic ideas are kind of muddled in the movie.
Huh?
Yeah, it's unfair.
I was really looking forward to this one.
It's one of the lesser movies.
I've seen this year so far, unfortunately.
Oh, that's too bad.
Yeah.
Lee Whannell by the way.
Lee Whannell, yeah.
Lee Whannell is the director.
I just looked it up myself as well.
All right.
Matt, awesome stuff.
Thank you so much, buddy.
Before I go, I know we talked a bunch of Oscar stuff.
I want to let people know starting this weekend.
I know a bunch of the best picture nominees are going to be back in theaters.
Just about all of them except for Amelia Perez because it's Netflix and Netflix hates movie theaters and wants them to die.
So if you want to see any of the best picture nominees other than Amelia Perez, you can check those out.
I know the Marcus theaters have a bunch of those coming back and I believe Nickel Boys is still at the Downer Theater right now.
And they have the short film nominees there as well.
So, if you're looking, if you're a big Oscar completist, you can find just about everything back on the big screen
soon.
Great tip.
Any prediction?
You got an outside prediction?
I know we're getting a couple weeks away.
What's your gut telling you for best
picture?
I'm stuck in this place where it's so obviously it's leaning so much towards the door, but I I'm gonna say conclave last-minute Conclaves weeks in for the win, but don't hold me to this I'll probably change my mind in exactly
I Would never do that, but we will keep talking.
I'm sure thank you buddy for your time tonight Always thanks.
That's Matt Miller check out a man about film Matt's up stack.
He does great work and Love his take on movies so
All right, so we got, what do we got here?
Oh, JB checking in on the stream says the Steve Martin sketch about if you don't have the money, don't buy stuff.
Was that last night?
I
don't remember though.
Doesn't sound
familiar, yeah.
See,
I would have thought it was last night, because I didn't see the whole thing, but thank you JB for checking in.
That's the guy behind the guy for those of you scoring at home.
From the 608, laughing.
deserves our strong appreciation for TV comedy and comedians.
During its 50 years, SNL has done very little except copy Laugh-In.
Oh, that's interesting.
I have not heard this form of plagiarism before.
608.
608 continues saying Gilda was my favorite.
Wow, a lot of votes for Gilda Radner tonight and very deserving.
Sandler was introduced.
Oh, I said that.
I meant to send you a message.
Steady Eddie.
Oh, I love it.
Steady Eddie says Pete.
Hate to be a Debbie Downer, but I have listened to Matt Flynn and Matt Rothschild on the same radio show on Civic Media.
Oh, he's shooting us down, man.
I didn't have to tell us that.
I'm sure we
could skirt around.
All right.
He continues to mass on the same radio show has been done already.
Wah, wah, wah.
You lose again, Schwabba.
Steady.
Steady Eddie's out to get me.
He says, PS, I like Dana Carvey as the church lady.
Oh, that's a great one too.
Well, isn't that special?
Church lady's favorite same.
PSS on the 50th anniversary show, the Debbie Downer sketch with Bob DeNiro.
Steady Eddie's on first name basis or calls him Bob.
Bob DeNiro, he insists I call him Bob or Bobby made me laugh.
Well done, Steady Eddie, great to have you back, buddy.
Bridget from the 818 says, one of my favorite characters and an iconic one in the history of SNL, Rosanna Zanadana, she is sweeping the awards tonight.
Yes she is.
Wow, good for you, Gilda.
Where's the Kate McKinnon, okay?
Well?
I'm on an island over here.
No, she's
represented.
Do we have time for our tribute to the President's Day?
The song?
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right, let's do that.
Here's our tribute to President's Day by way of The
Simpsons.
There's William Henry
Harrison.
I died in 30 days.
We are the adequate, forgettable, occasionally regrettable.
And take your presidents up to you.
I love that so much.
Can we play?
Do we have time to play the...
We do not.
Come on, man, you're bringing me down!
That cough gets me every... When he makes the joke and has nothing to do with it.
The Simpsons, that is their go-to thing, like they will say a joke at a school function or whatever and all that.
You hear in the background,
it's... Nobody laughs.
It's a beautiful
thing.
Matt Harper will be along shortly, folks.
He is a rap and rock artist.
Why don't you hear that more rap and rock?
You either hear rap or rock or rap and rock together sounds amazing.
Yeah.
Am I just out of the loop?
Maybe people say that all the time.
I don't know.
I don't hear it too much.
Too often.
Matt is going to come in here and blow the roof off the dump.
That's a figure of speech.
It's actually a very nice facility.
We're coming right back on Nightlight with Peach Wobble.
Great to have you with us on this Monday night on the Civic Media Radio Network.
sweeping our question of the night answers.
The front runner in our question of the night, which is what is your favorite SNL sketch or character from over the years?
We've probably got five or six texts that have said Rosanna and Dana, but there are no right or wrong answers, folks.
There are only your answers, so be part of the fun and let us know.
855-752-4842.
855-75 Civic, right now.
We are about to make, well I thought we were making radio history but apparently we're not.
Apparently even on civic media there have been two mats on a show before and it was all tongue and cheek anyway but our second Matt of the night joins us here in the studio.
He's a rap rock artist from right here in northeast Wisconsin.
Matt Harper is back on the show.
Hey buddy.
Hey how's it going man?
Thanks for having me back.
Listen, dude, it's great to have you here.
And you're very good at social media because sometimes I have guests on the show and I'm like, oh my God, why haven't we had this guy back yet?
And it's like all of a sudden I'm like, oh yeah, Matt.
So I applaud you for having such a great social media presence.
And that's why you do it, right?
Right.
I mean, it's the biggest part of it now.
I mean, even you guys know bad music gets popular all because of the promotion.
So I'd say mine's bad.
Right, no, I knew it.
It all helps it.
The brand is bigger than the music now.
Absolutely.
So, all right, I love this.
We were talking a little bit about this before you came on the show.
I said, and I don't have my finger on the pulse necessarily of all music.
I know what I like, but rap rock artist.
I don't
hear that a lot.
Is that a common crossing of genres?
If it is even crossing genres?
Yeah, so.
You know, back in the late 90s and the early 2000s, you had the new metal wave, which was bands like Lincoln Park and Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach, POD, Saliva.
A lot of those guys did that sound and it had a really good run for five or six years and became some of the most popular, you know, heavy rock music at the time.
You've seen that kind of taper off through the 2010s and now it's made a resurgence a little with bands like Falling in Reverse is a big one.
I prevail.
Bands that bring some of that rap hip hop.
electronic music into the rock and the metal scene and I just love the fusion of genres.
You see a lot of crossover now with the country rap artists like Jelly Roll and even Morgan Wallen to a certain extent.
You've even seen some
country metal crossover where Jelly Roll's done songs with Ozzy.
He's done a song with Falling in Reverse.
So I've always been a fan of mixing different genres of music together to make something unique.
I mean, not to get like too deep here, but doesn't that bring people together too?
Like when they see their favorite, like I would say maybe, and I'm generalizing, but let's say country fans might be more resistant to seeing their favorite artists doing rap or vice versa.
But doesn't that help people come
together?
I think it really does and it's been cool with music festivals like you look at the Harley Davidson thing last year and you had Friday night was was Jelly Roll and then Saturday night was Red Hot Chili Peppers and Offspring.
Yeah.
And you're seeing the same people you know that and even MGK came out with with Jelly Roll and his set and I love the crossing of all of it and I think it has brought some of it together and the way music is now I mean everybody
has any song at their disposal at their fingertips with streaming platforms.
So you see playlists and stuff that people curate has been such a popular thing in music.
And they're all over the board.
I mean, I've been fortunate enough to get on some pretty decent sized playlists before.
And, you know, I'm there with everything from old school 80s hip hop to classic rock to, you know, modern metal music.
And it's really neat to just see all that stuff come together.
That's so cool.
Can I just tell you one of the things I love about your
I don't know if I'd say your brand or how you present yourself is that there's plenty of white hip hop people now.
And now there's black country artists and I love all that stuff.
But even a lot of the white hip hop guys look like Eminem or they, you know, you look like you.
maybe just cut off a tractor.
You got these awesome boots on.
You got the beard.
And then you start pumping out these wraps.
And I just think it's so cool, because the first time I met you, I was not expecting that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I just, you got to keep it real, right?
There's a hip hop tour for you.
And, you know, I'm a blue collar construction guy.
I was on a job site today before I came here.
So, you know, I wear the car heart because I actually work in the trade, not just because it's cool.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and again, like even, even with my brand, I try to, I try.
to keep some of that blue collar which has really hasn't been a
song topic and a lot of metal songs and I brought that in the one I'll play later tonight and the motorcycle culture and all of that kind of stuff is is what I know so that's what I want to talk about in my music it's like any of the rappers do the same thing with you know their backgrounds and the subject matter that they sing and rap about and I do the same with mine
yeah before we get into you have a new album out people can stream we'll get into that you're gonna perform for us I want to ask you before we get up against the news here the Super Bowl halftime
Oh
killer.
Yeah, I I have to admit I watched it Matt and I was like this is pretty cool I thought it was a great presentation I thought the colors and the dancing was cool and I could tell there was some protest in there I heard 40 acres in a mule, but that's not my first
favorite music so I don't know Kendrick I know about the feud between him he and Drake and my son is like dad that was the greatest thing I've ever sounds like it was okay and that made me look into it more and now
I
love it yeah
what were your thoughts I've actually went back and probably watch it five times now because I didn't even catch all of it as I was watching it and and just when you
peel back all the layers of that performance.
You know, the Drake thing aside was incredible, but he brings out Samuel L. Jackson as Uncle Sam and does the, you know, you can't sing that song.
It's too ghetto.
It's not mainstream.
It's, you know, all of that.
And then he ties it back into towards the end of his performance where he does the turn the TV off song of his, which is a great song.
But he did that to kind of troll all the people he knew were going to comment on social media and say this is the worst halftime show I've ever seen.
And he had that platform to where he could say, look, I'm on the biggest stage of the world.
If you don't like it, turn your TV off.
Doesn't matter what you think.
Right.
And getting back to the Drake thing, I mean...
Rap Battles is such an integral part of rap music and hip hop and has been forever.
And some of the greatest songs have been diss songs.
And he's the first one ever when a Grammy on a diss song, which is like, it's unheard of.
And the awards and all the recognition that he's gotten recently and, you know, really capped it off with the halftime performance.
And I liked how he had really good production, but he kept it stripped down.
He kind of kept it old school hip hop.
Yeah.
I mean, he buried Drake.
There's no
I mean Drake came out with a new song the next day and it was called something like forget the rap beef I just want to party because he's admitting because he knows I mean even the lighting in the crowd they had you know people must have had had lights on them that spelled out game over when he was done yeah and it is I mean there's no coming back from this there's no bigger stage that Drake could come back against Kendrick than the Super Bowl halftime
he could probably just say you know
what I'm
doing okay
Matt Harper is here.
When we come back he's going to perform something off his new album and we're going to talk more about all cool things music with our buddy Matt Harper.
It's Night Light with Pete Schwabba on the Civic Media Radio Network.
I just have to say Matt Harper is here, a local rap rock artist from northeast Wisconsin.
I love it.
When we were talking about the halftime show and there's a comedian from Appleton named John Egan who's very funny and we were talking about the reaction and we kind of knew what it would be and Kendrick kind of knew what it would be.
Oh yeah.
So the first thing I did was go to Facebook to the usual suspects.
And I thought, well, I knew he'd hate it.
I knew he'd hate it.
But Egan and Appleton, he was the first post I said, and his post was just, nobody cares that you didn't like that.
Right, right.
Oh, it's so great.
Yeah, so true.
Um, so all right, let's talk about, oh, we got some texts here too.
Jameson from Pennsylvania.
So I want to hear your take on this.
He says there's two sides to wrap rock combo.
You have greats like rage against the machine or the Beastie Boys, then the horror that was limp biscuit into a lesser degree kid rock.
Yeah, I mean those bands in that time period, I see both sides of it, right?
And I do remember hearing, you know, Limp Bizkit was touring with Metallica back in 2002 or 2003.
Oh, yeah.
And
they were getting booed off the stage at some shows.
Really?
And Limp Bizkit is probably my favorite rap metal act of all time.
I think they're fantastic.
I've seen them in concert a bunch of times.
But that old school metal...
fan base was not as accepting to some of those
bands
like that in that time.
And I definitely get it.
I mean, they all sound different to me.
They all have their own, you know, their own little niche in the market.
And, you know, I like it all, but that's, you know, it's, it's any kind of art form.
It's all subjective.
You could sit here and argue for, yeah, forever.
Brady Zellner checks in on the stream and says,
Go Matt Harper.
He hates farmers.
Yeah.
Big city boy.
I
don't hate farmers.
I just don't like that farmer.
Shout out to Brady
Zollner from the big city of Luxembourg, Wisconsin.
Thanks for tuning in, buddy.
Yeah.
Thank you, Brady.
I'm going
to play your favorite song in a minute.
So
I'll pay it
back.
I love it.
All right.
So let's talk about that, man.
You have a new album available to stream.
Tell us about
it.
Yeah.
So it's a five song EP.
I've been working on it.
We we release songs every couple of like six to 10 weeks.
So they're all out there now.
The last one just came out the end of November that I'll play a little bit earlier or a little bit later.
I mean, in yeah, it's it's
Even all of these songs are a little bit different.
Some favor the rap side a little bit more.
Some are more rock.
Some are pretty heavy.
Some are more ballad sounding.
So I like to just really explore all different kinds of music when I'm creating.
And I'm fortunate to work with a great team of people that I'm not the most talented instrument player of all time, but I've got a team where I can
even do corny things like record melodies on my phone with my microphone and
then they can come
up with guitar riffs or other things for me.
So yeah, it's it's I love it so much.
It's such a great creative outlet and you know, it's my it's my channeling of
all the things we go through in life.
Yeah.
Does that keep it more interesting for you too, Matt, when you do different things like a ballad here, then more rock or more rap that gets your own creative juices flowing in.
Yeah.
And a
lot of the artists I really like, like, you know, say what you want about a band like Lynn Biscuit, but they've been all over the board too.
Made some, you know, they covered Behind Blue Eyes.
They did the Mission Impossible theme song in a metal version.
Oh, yeah.
You
know, they're they're all over the board and that's what I like about them.
You listen to their albums and there'll be one or two songs like the Significant
other album they did a collaboration with Wu Tang Clan that was just a straight-up old-school hip-hop song but then some of their big hits like Break Stuff and and Nookie were on that album that are you know more your hard rock hard hard metal rap type stuff and I love that it it's it's you know music is such a creative thing and you know
not every song I write or start working on comes out, you know, it's kind of like an art form, but it's fun to explore all that different stuff.
And, you know, sometimes you just come up with something that you're like, well, that that could be something right there.
Let's say you you got to a point where you could cover whatever you want it to or sample.
Yeah, what
would you what would you do?
What would
you
take?
I'm actually thinking right now of a song that I kind of want to cover because it's it's politically
almost coming back around is the Neil Young rocking in a free world.
Oh,
wow.
And I want
to do something with that.
There's been a couple covers of that that are a little heavier, but nothing in my space to where I could take that, make it real loud and maybe put my own verse, hip hop verse
into
that song.
So that's one that I'm kicking around.
But, you know, there's a lot of them that
you know, I could probably come up with, but that's one top of mind for sure.
That's excellent.
All right.
So you're going to perform something.
You got something off your new, uh, yeah.
Okay.
So this song is called pretend.
It's, uh, you know, a emotionally reflective song about when you're in a situation where you've got.
some tough decisions to make and it's almost paralyzing to an extent where anxiety and everything can take over and you're almost like can't make any decision even though you know you have to make one so
it's
a deeper song it's it's kind of in the middle between my heavier and my softer music so it's got some good hip-hop elements to it and um yeah this song came out
was one of the first ones released off of this in April of 24.
Sweet.
What do you need from us?
Are you good?
I'm good.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, Matt Harper, live in the studio at Nightlight.
Locked in my own mind.
It's like a prison cell cage like a rabbit dog.
It's personal hell Yeah, I'm fully messed up from the indecision paralyzed from these dark times past recognition I just don't get it.
I hear it.
I see it.
I live it But I cannot understand the thoughts under this black-fitted mind races and paces a thousand miles a minute close my eyes It's just faces and places and I'm still trapped I run away Every single day
to pretend this won't happen to me over again lost the words to say I'm not okay I try to pretend this won't happen to me again and again all the times I have the opportunity I let it pass now I'm stuck in this room with vivid moments of the past I know that I can't get it back but it's all I have I replay this every day I'm a wreck
Throw this beer bottle up against the wall For every single time you didn't return my calls Look at this, of course this is how it would be Try and blame you and we both know that it's me I run away Every single day I try to pretend This won't happen to me over again Lost the words to say
This won't happen to me again and again.
Chill with the noise.
Yeah, I just need space misguided mistakes thrown back in my face Overwhelmed by this place and I lost all faith.
Yeah, I did it to myself.
It's the bed that I made There's a butcher with a smile my heart on the cutting board.
I've been living in denial I could not take this anymore wait on my mind so heavy collapsed me stuck in one place so long life passed me so I try to build focus even when it seems hopeless I'ma and I know this you should quote it yeah
I built these walls around me then complain that I'm isolated knowing full well this is something I created so for months I stay faded and jaded and hope to go away trust I betrayed it became hated myself to blame drowning in Confliction and distance well in my mind I see this image but real life everything is so different I run away every single day I try to pretend this won't happen
It's awesome
dude.
Yeah, thanks man.
There's pretend
Wow there is like it's called pretend all right, so go to where can people if they want to
own that song or listen to it over and over where would they find
yeah if you want to own it Apple music any major streaming platform so Spotify Pandora YouTube music any of them it's on it's distributed through all of them so it's yeah it's everywhere that you have a great the composition is great who's behind you on that
So there's a couple of guys that I worked on that with one is Miko Marhol from Ghost Mob Entertainment Milwaukee Matt Browning did the drums and the guitar on that and then The recording mixing and mastering was all done by Dave Patella at Source Track Studios in Appleton.
That sounds great, dude Okay, so you can you can get the album.
Where can people see you live Matt?
That's what
that's what we're working on now.
So we
had to get this was the big one to check off.
I got to have material to perform live.
So
we got that.
I'm working on some new songs.
I'll probably mix some fun covers in there.
Just, you know, it's it's always hard as a original artist when you're relatively unknown to keep a crowd's interest for a whole half hour or 45 minutes set that you're doing if they don't know the words in your song.
So I've always mixed.
some covers in all of my live performances.
So we're working on a couple opportunities this summer, one potentially at stage one on Broadway here in Green Bay and another one at under the tracks on Broadway.
So we're going to start some smaller venues and maybe pull some guys together from the Milwaukee area and maybe a heavier band and have a set where we have a, you know, a straight up rapper, maybe a heavy metal group and then myself.
So
I'm looking forward to that.
You got to keep us posted and we'll see if we can
Okay, when you're writing something like you my guess by the way is Matt Harper and you just heard him perform pretend Check him out.
You can follow him.
He's very active on social media again.
Where can they get the
album?
Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, any of the string platforms.
We just heard pretend it was fantastic when you come up with a song like that Matt
What are you writing first lyrics?
And when do you decide it's more rap or rock or different genres?
Do the lyrics come first or the music?
A lot of times I get a melody and Chorus is always comes first for me So I like to try to make music a little bit catchier and and have a good melody with with the lyrics So I'll just you know, it's weird how
this works for probably every musician, but I'll just kind of have a, this is the melody I want to sing these words in and I'll kind of build out the chorus.
I play a little bit of guitar, so I'll send ideas to better guitar players of, Hey, this
is
what I'm thinking.
How do you
spice
this up for me?
Um, and then I kind of work backwards into the verses and like a song like that, when I came up with that chorus, it was just like, I have so much I want to say and get off my chest on this song that I almost need the rap where I have more words per minute during the verses than if I'm singing.
singing, singing a verse.
So
that's
kind of how that worked.
And, you know, again, Matt Brown and you did the drums kind of came in with some of the more hip hop sounding drums and parts of it.
And I'm like, oh, yeah, this is this is going to have rap verses and a rock chorus for sure.
That's excellent.
Morgan checked in again.
He says, whoa, go big brother.
Oh, yeah, it's my sister.
Shout out.
Shout out to Morgan.
Oh, Brady.
I'm sorry.
Brady also said, hell yeah, sounds good.
Okay, that's the one I was getting confused.
The mortgage your sister.
Oh, that's nice.
Yeah.
Is she musical?
Yeah, she actually took some music classes in
college.
She
knows
more about
music than I do, probably.
Who did you listen to?
Like, who are your influences in terms of finding your genre?
Like, you said you listen to Limp Bizkit and you had rock people and you said you started, when you first started, you did more rap.
Who did you listen to growing
up?
When I started growing up, I actually remember one of the first...
Cassette tapes I ever had was gangsters paradise by Cooley.
Oh, yeah
And I remember going to like ride my bike to the mall to the Sam Goody to buy that on
cassette And I remember I
wanted on CD, but they were sold out of the CDs, but they still had some on cassette So I started listening to that but then of course, you know, you listen to music your parents like yeah a lot of classic rock and things like that and I just I remember the day that
I saw the first Limp Bizkit music video probably 1998 on TRL and MTV and they fused those two together so good.
You know, you had Run DMC and Aerosmith did it.
You had Beastie Boys and all that stuff sounded cool, but they did it.
It was so modern.
It was so fresh.
They had a DJ in a metal band and it's like, just blew your mind.
Like, what is this right now?
So those are huge influence of mine, but my music range is so broad.
You know, I, I like everything from, you know, Hank Williams senior to
Bruce Hornsby and the range to Metallica to Kendrick Lamar.
I mean,
I
just I like all of it and I I like taking different parts of their music and Incorporating him to mine.
I saw one of the coolest Tic Tox the other day was Dave Grohl was talking to Pharrell Williams And he said everybody wants to make a big deal about how I'm the greatest drummer of all time or one of them And he's like I stole so much of the Nevermind album from the Gap Band.
He's like all that.
Oh
wow
You hear, he's like, that's all disco.
I
love the Gap Band.
I was in high school.
Oh, that's so great.
So I love that he can admit that too.
That's so great.
That's pretty cool.
You know who I'd like to see you cover?
Who's that?
Manolo.
Think about it, Matt.
Barry Manolo.
All right.
Matt Harper is hanging out with us here in the studio at Nightlight.
We'll be right back.
He'll help us close down the show.
And maybe we'll hear a little more of Matt's work after the break.
Here we go.
Stick with us.
It's Peach Wabba at Nightlight on the Civic Media radio network.
you
Hey, this
is John Greys,
also Uncle
Rico, and you're listening to Nightlight with Peach
Chihuahua.
Chicago-based stand-up comic Jim Flanagan is on the show at 635.
Very excited to have Jim on the show.
I've heard really amazing stuff about him.
He's absolutely hilarious.
Make sure you join us for that.
And then at 7.20 tomorrow night, veteran's advocate and founder of the Arizona Warriors, Jason Moon joins the show.
You know who introduced us to Jason Moon, Conrad?
The guy behind the guy.
The
guy behind the guy.
He's almost behind the other guy now.
The guy behind the guy behind the guy
he's behind so many guys I don't even know if I remember his actual name, but I was in I was at Potawatomi over the weekend with my son and my wife You know you can't play blackjack for less than 25 bucks a hand
And my son Joe's like, well, I'll do three hands.
I'll clean out in like 30 seconds.
He's like, oh, what the?
Inflation's
even hitting the tables,
I guess.
Exactly.
That's the voice of Matt Harper.
We've got a few more minutes with Matt here.
Matt is a local rap rock artist here in Northeast Wisconsin.
You can check out his new album on Spotify.
And he will be playing live soon.
We'll have more information on that.
You got to keep us posted on that.
But you have something else you can you can play for us here.
Yeah.
So this is actually the last song.
We'll play a little clip of it because I want everybody to go to your favorite streaming platform.
So we get we get the stats up
and they're
swearing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we
love.
Yeah.
So we can
we can play
the first first minute and five and then you know after that.
Well, uh, you'll have to go listen to it on your own.
R
rated.
This song is, uh, is called high octane.
And it's, it's actually about, you know, motorcycle culture, blue collar work, getting off work on a Friday blown off steam.
It's the heaviest, loudest song.
So maybe some of your listeners are going to get.
Kendrick Lamar by me right now.
What is this noise I'm listening to?
But this was probably the most fun I had making any song.
Really stepped out of my comfort zone and in the heaviness of it.
But it was a blast.
And it again has some of the rap element and some of the metal element.
And I think it fused together
pretty well.
What's it called?
It's called high octane.
High octane.
All right, let's hear it.
I got a chip on my shoulder, that's right.
I got that blue on my collar, that's life.
Work hard for a dollar late night, so when I pull up, we ain't stoppin' at no red light.
Middle class from nothin', yo, I need to make something, or I gotta take something.
I need substance, I love it.
Burning gasoline on my 1-14, so mean.
All black, everything, Johnny Cash.
Never change.
That's a
headbanger.
That's a headbanger.
Yeah.
And yeah, like I said, it's the most fun I ever had making a song in my whole life.
Really?
Yeah.
It was a blast doing that.
So, all right.
So that was like a teaser.
Yeah.
People should go to Spotify and download the rest of it.
Do that for sure.
All right.
High octane.
And check out Pretend, too.
That was a great song, too.
Yeah.
There's five of them, like I said, out there.
All a little bit different.
That's for sure the heaviest one, but...
Yeah, that song is my favorite.
And we had some really good success with some.
I have a song called Burn It that I actually played the last time I was here.
I performed live.
That one about a month ago just went over 80,000 streams on Spotify.
Nice, dude.
Yeah, I'm really proud of that.
I hope it hits 100, but I had to post about it at 80 because it was just too big of a deal not to talk about.
That's so cool, man.
Yeah, it's really cool.
Okay, so when you play...
Around here or northeast Wisconsin.
I wouldn't say rap is number one around here Maybe even not even heavy metal anymore when I was growing up when I moved here in junior high Everything was hard rock or classic rock
and had a great punk scene here for a long time.
That's what I hear Yeah, yeah, so do you have people that like what's the reception typically?
In other places where you're more well-received than others in the area
Yeah, there's definitely some some metal and hard rock friendly venues here stage one is done
a few, when it was still keggers, they did a lot of rock shows there, but the old gasoline that's now between the tracks is a great metal venue.
I love every word you just said, the old gasoline between the tracks.
That sounds so awesome.
Yeah, that venue's been super supportive.
So you've got to kind of find your area.
And honestly, when we do our shows, we're going to
kind of pander to our demographic, if you will, and put a good card together of bands that compliment each other's style.
I think our local music scene is, is great with all the cover bands we have.
I mean, you look at a band like, you know, obviously Dennis Peters, uh, who's around the station quite a bit with glam band.
I mean, they do numbers.
Like they draw crowds bigger than national touring bands
around here.
I've heard of that.
Yeah.
It's crazy impressive.
But what I'd like to see us continue to do in, in Green Bay and Northeast Wisconsin is to cultivate that original music.
And there's a festival.
I love the shipyard festival here.
Um, all the bars on Broadway in the fall do that's
all original music at all the different bars.
And it's like every 15 minutes, there's a different band
at a different bar.
And that's incredible.
And I hope we continue to foster that.
I mean, I have to give you a lot of things for giving artists like me a platform.
I know you have people from famous movie stars to lowly local construction workers like
me on this show.
Tell
me,
introduce me to more of your friends, dude.
I'd love to have them on.
Absolutely will.
And I just appreciate you and all you do for all of us up in Cummins.
I couldn't do this without guests like you.
So thank you.
keep up the great work and let us know anytime you have something new Matt.
Absolutely will do.
Excellent having you in the studio.
Thanks again for having me.
Anytime.
Thanks to the other Matt too.
Two mats on the same show Conrad.
That's all I'm saying.
I know
it's been done before.
My thanks to Matt Miller, Matt Harper and all your texts and calls.
Fun night here at Nightlight.
We'll be back tomorrow night to do it all again on behalf of the lovable producer Conrad.
Good night Wisconsin.
