There were only two channels on Dr. Marko Bastl’s television during most of his childhood in Slovenia; neither showed much from the outside world. Western media was prohibited behind the Iron Curtain, the metaphorical divide between democratic, capitalist Western Europe and communist Eastern Europe.
The Iron Curtain fell in 1989, and a teenaged Bastl — whose parents had just given him his first guitar — was exposed to the music that would shape the rest of his life.
“I had never seen MTV or anything like that,” Bastl, the director of Marquette’s Center for Supply Chain Management, says. “When I saw it for the first time, I was mesmerized.”
That’s how Bastl ended up using the guitar his parents hoped he’d play polka music on to play rock ’n’ roll with his band, Flood Victim — so named because he and his bandmates have had parts of their houses flooded at one time or another. Most of the musicians in Flood Victim live in the same neighborhood in Brookfield, Wisconsin. They gather in drummer Joel Harris’ basement every two weeks to practice.
“The name kind of sounds like a death-metal band, which is funny because we’re absolutely not a death-metal band,” Tim Krings, the band’s bass player says, adding that the name is meant to evoke survival and resilience.
Their style is a hard, guitar-driven rock drawn from the B-sides of popular bands’ albums; think “You Wreck Me” instead of “Free Fallin’” for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. (“People mistake them for our original songs all the time,” Bastl says.) Twice per year, the band gathers for a long listening session, wherein each of the five members proposes a couple of songs to add to the setlist.
Bastl often draws from the music he fell in love with as a teenager; bands like Aerosmith, AC/DC, Motley Crue and Whitesnake. Although Bastl is now an accomplished researcher and professor, there was a time in his life when the guitar was more important.
“I played in a couple of bands before this one, but my university performance as a student went in the opposite direction of my guitar skills,” Bastl says. “That gap was opening quickly, so my parents had to set me straight about where my focus should be.”
Even though the band members have schedules busy enough to keep them apart for months at a time during the school year, each session feels like picking right up where they left off.
“Most people join together because they’re like-minded musicians, but we joined because we’re neighbors,” Harris says. “It probably took us six months to a year to get our chemistry right because we were influenced by such different music, but because we’re neighbors, we already had a good relationship and that really helps.”
The group played its first gig two years ago in Bastl’s basement in front of 50 people. Last summer they also played at a local vineyard and have ambitions of playing Summerfest next year. For that to happen, they need to expand the setlist beyond its current two-dozen or so songs — at least enough to fill a two-hour set. Flood Victim has several more neighborhood gigs planned for this summer: a test run for a live performance at Milwaukee’s premier music festival next summer.
It’s a far cry from the members’ initial expectations in the band’s early days.
“When we started three years ago, all we wanted to do was play in front of our kids,” Bastl says. “Our confidence as a band is slowly going up.”
(Asked what his kids thought about his guitar playing, Bastl laughed and said, “Oh, they don’t care about my music at all.”)
Over the course of his lifetime, Bastl has gone from watching Western musicians play concerts on television to strumming their songs on a guitar in front of live crowds, living out a rock ’n’ roll dream decades in the making.
“My bandmates expanded my horizons so much; my musical portfolio has grown tremendously just by being here and playing with them,” Bastl says.
