Marco Pogo, a legend in the Madison music scene, disdains the conventional world (2024)

At 68, Marco Kunin, widely known as “Marco Pogo” for his pogo-style dancing at rock shows, has never had a cellphone, computer, email address, TV or car.

He has a landline, but no answering machine. He has never used the internet, and in recent years that’s made it more difficult for him to learn when his favorite bands are playing.

Besides being a lover of music and dancing, his other passions are movies, books, walking, and donating the maximum amount of blood to the Red Cross as often as is allowed, something he’s done since he turned 18.

Kunin said his birth name, Mark Kunin, is merely a legal name that he associates with family. “Just a footnote.”

He said he named himself Marco Pogo around 1979 in relation to his passion for the legendary Madison band Spooner.

“And I like it,” Kunin said about the name. “Pogo has some secondary connotations. You know, John Wayne Gacy (the serial killer) was Pogo the Clown, and we have the comic strip ‘Pogo’ by Walt Kelly (that was syndicated to American newspapers from 1948 until 1975). And I don’t relate to any of those other Pogos.”

More recently he learned about Austrian musician, physician and politician Dominik Wlazny, 37, who started going by the stage name Marco Pogo. Wlazny is the founder and leader of the Austrian Beer Party, a minor satirical political party and was a candidate for president of Austria in the 2022 election.

Kunin said when he’s doing his thing up in front of the stage he feels somewhat invisible, and in his own world. “But I’ve found out that other people have either, you know, a positive or negative relationship to me and that I’m in their world, too.”

The music scene is a shared one, he said, even though the original reason he started his fast dancing was so he could get close to the stage and “sort of vanish into the music.”

Since the demise of the local band the Hussy, Kunin said he dances most often to one of Bobby Hussy’s subsequent bands, Wristwatch.

In 1969, Kunin took 10th place in the National Spelling Bee, and points out it was the same year Wisconsin spelling bee pronouncer Brad Williams competed.

Kunin moved to Madison from Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1970 at 14, when his father, a professor of medicine who specializes in infectious diseases, took a job at UW-Madison. Kunin did his sophom*ore and junior years at Memorial High School and was admitted to UW-Madison at 16.

His father, Calvin Kunin, 94, was hired away from UW to be chairman of the department of medicine at Ohio State University, but the younger Kunin stayed in Madison long after all his other family members moved away.

Kunin said he’s known for not talking about his work history. “I never wanted to sell my brains to someone who would use them for profit. I’m very against capitalism. I’m an anarchist. I’m against the government.”

He lives in an apartment on Bassett Street Downtown and gets around only by foot.

Why the name Pogo?

You might not know the definition of pogo being the punk rock dance and it has been since Sid Vicious (and the Sex Pistols) in the ’70s. And the pogo, it involves jumping and gestures with the upraised fist, not ever to be confused with the Hitler salute. My friends know me when they see me not on the dance floor — that’s how I greet them. (Kunin demonstrates by throwing his fist in the air).

When I ran into you recently I called you an iconoclast, and you weren’t sure if that was an accurate description.

I thought about that. And the two words that immediately came to me were nonconformist and anarchist. I get by, but I’ve never owned anything of particular value. When I was in college, I bought a stereo, but what I use at home is a boombox for my music. Yeah, cassettes and CDs.

You said you started college at 16. Did you graduate from UW-Madison?

I had senior status when I was 18, and didn’t find it a life priority or, you know, congenial. I didn’t like proving to people that I was smart.

Tell me how you exist in the modern world.

I’m a radio, newspaper and books guy. If you want to you can put WORT (FM 89.9) in parentheses. ... I disdain the commercial world and don’t want to participate in it. ... I like life to be simple and honest. And I like direct communication. Even the phone is a distortion and I can’t even imagine communicating with people with some kind of coded writing. ... To me, writing by letter is fine. It’s nice to hear people who are far away on the phone, but I think all that stuff is dishonest and it makes you dependent on things that are not really real. ... I don’t travel that much. I’ve never flown as an adult. The last time I flew, I was 17 and on a trip with my dad. I’ve never bought a plane ticket in my life. ... I’m just not oriented towards machines. I like films, but I don’t like special effects. I like guitars, I like electric guitars.

Your commitment to blood donation is impressive.

My next donation will be my 300th pint of whole blood. Which is going on 38 gallons.

What got you into it?

Because I knew it was needed and it was easy at first, and now I give because it’s difficult. One factor is recovering with my vegan diet.

Why was it easy at first?

Because it’s a contribution I could make with my whole self that didn’t involve money.

Why are you vegan?

I’m a vegetarian because animals are treated poorly and don’t deserve their fates.

Can you talk about your views on pacifism?

Technological advances are essentially military advances. The most important thing in my life is pacifism, vegetarianism, which I equate to veganism, but I call it vegetarianism because to me, real vegetarians are vegans, period. I don’t want the word vegetarian separated from my veganism, even though I’m stricter. I won’t even eat at a restaurant with meat on the menu. So, my greatest beliefs are pacifism and anti-military.