With local pop-rock phenomenon Spooner on indefinite hiatus, guitarist and Mad City Music Exchange proprietor Dave Benton is focusing more time on the Madison-based label Boat Records, Tom Laskin reports. "After producing records and sending them to college radio stations for several years, Boat has established some name recognition nationally, and bands in the area realize that," says Benton, who has started a mail-order business to distribute recordings by the Cheeters, the Other Kids, the Waterdogs, the And, Emerald Choir, Java and other Boat acts. Though one former Boat act, Fire Town, has made the leap to major-label status, Boat remains a largely unremunerative labor of love, Laskin writes. "I'm a guitar player first," declares Benton. Still, he adds, "I think Boat has made the local music scene more visible." Boat is still afloat 20 years later, with a catalog that includes contemporary recordings by Blackstone Reggae AllStars, Eastern Son, Ka-Boom!Box, Motor Primitives and Squarewave.
Rocking the boat
From the Isthmus archives, Oct. 2, 1987