You’ve got to see the show

Atwood Music Hall opening could mark the next era for Madison’s indie music venues

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“We try to keep music accessible,” Toffer Christensen says, his voice permeating the soon-to-open Atwood Music Hall. “We want people to go out and see as many shows as possible.”

Christensen, co-owner of the new venue at 1925 Winnebago St. as well as the Bur Oak, down the street, is in some ways sticking his neck out with the new hall, which, at its 700-seat capacity, will need to attract some national touring bands to fill its space. Yet, Christensen has spoken of his wish to be a resource for the community, and the opening slate of bands celebrates local music, from a tribute to the funky drummer Clyde Stubblefield featuring a host of local bands (and also a benefit for WORT-FM) to a 50th anniversary reunion performance by Spooner, an early Butch Vig project.

Unlike some other venues in the Madison area, Atwood Music Hall will accept cash and won’t be using Ticketmaster, with its expensive service fees, instead opting for the platform etix.com to help keep ticket prices down.

The opening of Atwood Music Hall in mid-June marks a turning point for Madison music venues. It’s a venue larger than a coffeehouse or bar that is unaffiliated with FPC Live/Live Nation Entertainment. Yet, it will still retain more of a club vibe, unlike larger theaters like the 1,000-seat Barrymore. It will need to attract concert-goers ready to take a chance on smaller national acts and local acts they may not have heard of.

Its presence underscores how Madison’s independent music venues are serving an important function by catering to lesser known acts and new bands — serving both playing artists and the fans who want to see them — and hosting community events.

For the people

An arched ceiling frames the large stage at the new hall. Concert-goers will be able to peer over a balcony opposite the stage, where below there’s room for a crowd to jam along to the music. The room has quality acoustics, says Christensen. Everything about the venue is curvy, from the bars to the seating areas with a palette of deep purples, oranges and off-whites. Bars both upstairs and downstairs do more than let people sip on their favorite cocktails — a lot of profits from the shows will come from liquor sales.

Christensen’s other venue, The Bur Oak, with its 130-person-capacity, was conceived of as a space perfect for singers and songwriters. The Atwood Music Hall, with its 700-person capacity, will fill a different void in the market, he says, and with a balance of national and local acts.

It will also be available for private events and weddings, as well as for community gatherings and educational events.

Christensen is aware of the challenges the venue faces. “At the Bur Oak, I’m not up against Live Nation,” Christensen says. “At Atwood Music Hall, I will be. They have hundreds of people in Los Angeles to put together a tour. I’m one guy. I do everything. I book shows. If a pipe is leaking, I have to deal with that. I don’t have that dedicated 40 hours per week to book bands. Maybe in the future I could have enough staff.”

In addition to those roles, he also has to keep an eye on potential audiences — what they want to see and what they can be persuaded to try. “Another challenge is educating the market about who we are,” he says. “There are a lot of people who like music and like to go out once in a while. What’s hard is to entice people to see the local bands…getting certain types of folks to take a chance on a band they have never heard.”

The benefits of being a dive bar

As Crystal Corner Bar’s event booker, Bobby Hussy says he tries to make opportunities for rock, pop, indie, metal, reggae and ska acts to perform in a room fit for 200 patrons.

Upcoming shows range from Madison-based Neil Young tribute band Shakey to a metal showcase headlined by Keys to the Astral Gates and Mystic Doors, to the third Tuesday residency by Madison-based David Hecht & the WHO DAT, a quartet that sings rhythm and blues, reggae, funk and Latin tunes.

There’s no shortage of bands, says Hussy, a punk rock musician of 20 years in Madison. He thinks the audience has “gotten a lot younger” in the last two decades. “[The scene has] flipped over a couple of times since [two decades ago]. New bands and new people are always making different bands.”

As Hussy sees it, a plus for the Crystal Corner is that it’s a beloved dive bar that people will come to on the weekends anyway; the show may just be a bonus. And the Crystal’s location at 1302 Williamson St. near Mickey’s Tavern, which “has it down” in terms of hosting live acts, Hussy says, can create a “two-fer” situation wherein patrons will take in both shows.

“The only challenge I have is finding a sound person,” Hussy says. “A good sound person is hard to find. The good venues have them snapped up.”

But the vibe Crystal Corner Bar has to offer is “unparalleled,” he says, where the staff are friendly and fun and the drinks are cheap.

Inclusivity is an issue

Gamma Ray hosts a slew of jazz groups, blues artists, country singers, hip-hop acts, ska bands, comics, open mics and artists generally looking to push the envelope with their bookings, says owner Kevin Willmott II. The 118-person capacity, Afro-centric independent music venue at 121 W. Main St. will celebrate its one-year anniversary in June.

Upcoming shows include Novel Folly, a self-described “genre-fluid” group based in Madison, with backgrounds in jazz, funk, Afro-Cuban and classical, and “progressive pedalcore” band Solshade, along with Madison punk band Kule, emo-post hardcore band Origami Summer, and Be The Young, a pop-punk band from Madison.

“Every day of the week I have a different type of entertainment,” says Willmott, calling Gamma Ray “a place where I feel like you can forget about your week.”

Willmott, who previously worked for High Noon Saloon and the Majestic Theatre, and who is part of Madison-based nine-piece soul band Don’t Mess With Cupid, says he “saw a void in the downtown scene. It was a time not just to bring independent arts to the Square but to elevate it and have a really fun vibe as well. And as a Black man, I feel like it’s one of my duties to create more inclusive art in all forms. An all-Black drag show. A queer and trans monthly showcase. I’ve been doing a lot of inclusive dance parties.”

He appreciates that kind of inclusivity. Willmott says his hometown, Lawrence, Kansas, nurtured the local arts and let him be on stage when he was young. In his hometown, “hip-hop was everywhere.”

That’s unlike Madison, where, Willmott says, he hears stories of Black Madisonians “never being able to be what they dreamed to be. For them, I want to make Gamma Ray Bar not just a space, but a place where everyone is going to survive.”

Willmott says the community has embraced Gamma Ray. Challenges come from the business end, with overhead costs. And, like Christensen, he notes that a music venue owned by a larger company might have a team doing what he’s doing mostly himself with limited staff.

Dwindling audience?

At 2201 Atwood Ave. there’s The Harmony Bar & Grill, with a 195-person capacity. It opened in 1990, and was purchased in 2022 by Pam Barrett, co-owner (with her husband, Mike Barrett) and booking agent with the venue. The Harmony is a neighborhood institution first known for hosting blues, both local and national acts, and that later expanded to include more genres, she said.

“As stewards of this neighborhood gem, we’re keeping it alive as a gathering place for the community with quality food and drink,” says Barrett.

Barrett feels the biggest challenge facing venues like Harmony’s is audience.

“The names of the venues that local bands can play have changed as the post-pandemic malaise has put a number of places out of business,” she says. “But, [bands] can still find places to play. The problem is, where’s the audience? The pandemic has changed people’s socializing habits and how they consume music. A lot of our older crowd never came back. And, there’s a whole generation of people who would rather listen to music through earbuds than hang out at a crowded venue with a bunch of people they don’t know.”

Barrett has observed that even established bands struggle to get their fans out to shows. “When the fans don’t come out, the bands don’t get paid. The venue doesn’t make money. We want to give newer bands a chance to play in a venue that cares how the band sounds. But, we have to balance that with booking bands that we know will bring people out to shows.”

For her part, Barrett makes sure that the Harmony, which has an “exceptional sound system and sound engineering staff,” makes its booked acts “sound spectacular.” Customers “feel safe in our space and know that, when they come to a show, they’ll be treated to quality sound, good food and friendly service.”

Steve Sperling, who has been general manager at The Barrymore for three decades, says that audiences may be dwindling because of “personal budgets” and lack of time to dedicate to seeing smaller shows, even though there’s something that’s always available for them to choose from. He views Madison’s independent music scene as thriving, but finding audience numbers is a “challenge we all face.”

The Barrymore hosts various live music acts, comedians, film festivals, dance and more. Overall, the venue puts on 80-100 events in a year.

“One of the most important things is the economic driver that music is,” Sperling says. “If you look at this whole east-side corridor now, music has become a really serious business. [Music] has dramatically impacted businesses that develop in [certain] areas.”

Banding together

While Barrett worries that Madison’s live music fan base has eroded over the past decade, the Crystal’s Hussy thinks that Atwood Music Hall’s opening may swing that pendulum in the other direction, creating more enthusiasm, with “a big room that could bring good acts that want to support a small city.”

Willmott, of Gamma Ray, is planning ahead. He wants to launch a nonprofit called the “Madison Independent Venue Association.”

“I’m building the board currently,” Willmott says. “It’s in the early planning stages, but the dream is that MIVA is a co-op support system for independent music venues in Madison.

“Madison has a strong independent scene again, and with the Atwood Music Hall opening it feels like before 2017 with High Noon Saloon and the Frequency working as thriving independent venues,” adds Willmott. “Now is a perfect time to band together and keep independent venues alive for another generation with the support and creation of MIVA.”

Niche niches

North Street Cabaret

Owner Alfred Rasho mainly books jazz and blues acts.

“I believe that we bring the best talent available to us in a beautiful room with great acoustics in a space where the performer and audience feel at home,” he said. “We are unusual in that we give 100% of the door to the performers. So, our only revenue comes from the bar sales.”

Lakeside St. Coffee House

“We host a variety of acts, mostly Americana, folk, country, jazz and singers/songwriters,” says general manager Miles Voss of the 60-person venue.“One of our most popular events is the Irish Jam Session, started by musicians in the neighborhood and has grown into a huge jam. We’ve seen travelers from around the country and other parts of the world stop in to play along with the Irish Jam.”

Voss says he has witnessed musicians meet fellow artists, write songs with a cup of tea and get to hear stories about life on the road. The coffeehouse’s bar room is “cozy,” and stylized like a club, and the cafe room “feels like a small concert hall with large windows that look out to the lake.” The venue’s biggest challenge: “We are a cafe first, so we don’t have the budget to hire a sound engineer.”

Communication

The nonprofit arts organization hosts live music acts from jazz to folk, but “we don’t have any particular parameters about style,” says event manager Michael Wojtasiak. The nonprofit’s capacity limit is 35 people, is volunteer-run and almost entirely funded by donations, he says. The venue is also open to all ages.

“Our main objective is to service underrepresented parts of the arts community in town,” Wojtasiak says. “We are always interested in finding minority voices. Local and touring acts come here because of the appeal of the do-it-yourself spirit of it.”

The Annex at The Red Zone

Booker Jake Olson is also CEO of Midwest Mix-Up, his company that promotes local, regional and national acts in Madison. The venue hosts rock, metal, hip-hop, country and electronic dance music artists and groups. Olson says it’s a challenge to balance the needs of a “divergent” audience with a limited budget to cover staff, advertising and operational costs.

“Everything has gotten more expensive,” he says. “Some bigger entities have a bigger budget for talent and advertising which could be the difference of us getting the show or not.”

The Red Rooster

In 2022, a group of local musicians returned the former Knuckle Down Saloon space (closed in 2020) to action as The Red Rooster. The reinvented space continues to provide a needed home base for the blues scene — including a weekly Thursday blues jam — and has proven open to all sorts of music and community events. With a house Hammond organ, drum kit and handmade bass amp available for bands, and excellent sound on and off stage, it’s as much a favorite stage to play for regional performers as it is an excellent listening room for music fans.

Liquid

Dedicated music venues in the UW-Madison campus area have been surprisingly scarce in recent years, but a big exception is Liquid and its sister venue, Ruby. The club’s focus is electronic dance music, and it’s hosted many of the biggest names in the EDM world during the past decade. It’s also notable for its concerts consistently being open to ages 18 and up, still an uncommon policy in Madison’s bar-dominated venue scene.

Cafe Coda

This creative music hub is devoted to showcasing both local and nationally-known performers, with an emphasis on jazz artists from the upper Midwest. The venue also hosts weekly open dance nights, Cool School free music lessons/jam sessions for kids, and other community-centered events including Stephanie Rearick’s monthly variety program The Human Show.