On May 17, 2005, one month before Apple added a podcast directory to its iTunes Music Store, the Madison band Sunspot released the inaugural episode of The podcast gave Sunspot fans an audio window on the trio's antics as they logged van miles en route to gigs each weekend. Four years and 92 episodes later, Sunspot Road Mania continues to track the itinerary of Madison's most tech-savvy band. But in 2009, the band has moved onto the next frontier of cultural technology - real-time interaction with fans who use mobile web browsers and similar applications.
All in all, it's a new indie culture. And it's thriving.
Let the music play
Mike Huberty says podcasts have played a big role in the marketing success of Sunspot during the past four years. "It's been a great experience for us and has helped Sunspot connect with a lot of new people and strengthen existing relationships. There are no filters on podcasting yet, which means there's an intimidating amount of content out there. You're free to try whatever you want, and there's no preconceived notion of what people expect."
Sunspot isn't alone. More and more local musicians are using podcast technology to introduce their songs to audiences throughout Madison and beyond. Among them are regional figures like Jonathan Overby, whose Madison-made , at the Brink Lounge every Tuesday night.
Like many musical projects in this era of inexpensive recording technology, the Mad Toast Live podcast meets professional standards. Wagoner and Gaines host the shows, and they have invited artists such as Jentri Colello, Lucas Cates and Mark Croft. More than 40 episodes are available at The resulting Mad Toast Live recordings might not be so different from the mp3 files local musicians have long made available on their websites, in what already seems like a quaint practice. The difference is that Mad Toast Live is distributed as a weekly podcast, available to be automatically delivered to subscribers via computer - and, perhaps more crucially, via smart phone, a technology category that includes iPhones, BlackBerries and similarly sophisticated devices. It's this mobile aspect to local online culture that's new. Local podcasts may be niche content, but according to UW-Madison assistant professor of education Kurt Squire, that's what the mobile media experience is all about. Squire helps run the Local Games Lab housed in the Academic Advanced Distributed Learning Co-Laboratory at UW-Madison. Researchers at the lab study how people, especially young people, use mobile devices and engage in place-based gaming to make their surrounding community an interactive game board. "The thing we're learning from studies of kids with mobile media is that it creates a mobile media experience that is intensely personal," says Squire. "We see kids discovering niche bands through Pandora, consulting band web pages, downloading lyrics and guitar tabs, and learning to play songs they like, all within half an hour." Although the Internet's reach is global, Squire suggests it is local culture that's naturally, perhaps uniquely, suited to the mobile browser. And it's not just musicians who create local music podcasts. Music fans are also getting into the act. Aaron Veenstra is a journalism student at UW-Madison by day. By night, he's frequently at local clubs taping shows for his podcast, No, THIS Is What I Call Music. Veenstra has posted nearly 500 episodes to podfeed.net. Several recent episodes feature the Pale Young Gentlemen at last month's Marquette Waterfront Festival. They join a growing archive of Madison music that, thanks to musicians and fans alike, is available for download to mobile devices online. Talk talk Local podcasting isn't limited to music. The technology has also ushered in a new generation of spoken-word programs that, in their tone and in their niche focus, resemble latter-day zines. That's good news for fans of zines, the small-circulation pop-culture manifestos that were trendy in alternative niches of city retail outlets after photocopiers became widely available in the 1970s. Print zines have disappeared over the past decade, as many of the independent booksellers and record stores that once housed them have gone out of business. But digital delivery is revitalizing this phenomenon. Madison podcasts that follow in this tradition vary widely in their themes. In one, Kim and Jason, available at Branching out from the podcasts, the couple have become popular motivational speakers at churches, businesses and social service agencies, according to Jason Kotecki. "We've been able to sell about 5,000 copies of the book we self-published on this subject," he says. Elsewhere, Madisonian Mark Linsenmayer has created a philosophy podcast called "This podcast is our attempt to re-create the good old days when we'd meet up after a seminar to drink beer and talk shop or get some teaching yas out where students couldn't talk back," write Linsenmayer, Peskin and Alwan at the podcast's website. "We're recording it to share our joy in 'doing' philosophy with all who care to listen while ranting bitterly about the profession that we so long ago escaped." And in the great ranting tradition of zines, Elimination of the Snakes is a Madison podcast that brims with the social and political commentary of two fifty-somethings named Dan and John. Episode #160, which aired June 29, included a reflection on gang riots that broke out in Los Angeles after the L.A. Lakers won the NBA championship. "It's nice to be young and stupid and living in L.A. with no future," said Dan in his commentary. "We're getting more gang activity here in Madison," he added. "What the hell is the point, to stay in it until you shoot someone?" Call it freewheeling free speech or amateur local talk "radio." Podcasts provide a new way to circulate such thoughts on local culture.
