The Madison Music Project is an umbrella term covering a number of activities here at Isthmus that relate to the business of local music. We're proud of the music scene in our tuneful city and think it the rival, at least in terms of quality, originality and ambition, of better-known and larger venues like Nashville and Austin. MMP is our modest contribution to the cause of advancing that scene.
MMP resides on our website, TheDailyPage.com, reachable through the Mad Tools tab. It resides monthly live in local music places via the Charter Club Tour, presented by Isthmus/The Daily Page, Captain Morgan rum, WMMM (105.5) and, as the name implies, Charter Communications. This month's edition takes place Friday, Oct.12, at the Brink Lounge and the High Noon Saloon. And in print it takes the form of the supplement included with this issue of Isthmus.
We have a number of the musically inclined working at Isthmus, such as our circulation manager, Tom Dehlinger, slide guitarist extraordinaire, and singer/songwriter Kelly Pardekooper, who performs live daily in our inside sales department. While perusing the proofs of MMP/The Supplement, it struck me that all the editorial contributors are, or were, performing musicians in their own right.
The author of "One-Stop Shopping," a profile of the locally based online music resource company Broadjam, Inc., is James T. Spartz. A UW journalism intern with us this past summer, you may know him better as the lead in the local band Jim James & the Damn Shames.
In another MMP feature, we've gathered a panel of local performers to inform us on the uses and effects of the digital age in marketing and promoting their music. Presiding over the assemblage is Isthmus features editor Kenneth Burns, a fixture in the late, great Madison band the Junkers. He toils now, outside of his Isthmus hours, as lead guitar and singer for the World's Greatest Lovers.
One of the bands you'll be hearing if you join us Friday night at the the Brink/High Noon is the Box Social. (Also appearing are the Motorz and the Grizzlies at the High Noon, and the Lucas Cates Band at the Brink. See the ad on page 2 of the supplement for details.) Staff writer Tom Laskin, who also served as editor for MMP, does the interviewing honors. A few years back he also did time with Appliances SFB, a popular local ensemble.
Then there's the MMP Band Registry, a print rendition of the 457 local bands that populate the online registry. Interspersed through the registry are queries placed to local music folk about all manner of musician lore. The responses were gathered by Bob Koch, who, aptly, compiles our weekly Guide, including club calendar. He also spends a lot of time in clubs on the stage, currently playing guitar with the Runners-Up.
There you have it: MMP/The Supplement about the local music business by people who've been there and done that, and for the most part still do.
