June 28th, 2007
A small and no doubt tortured crowd turned out last night for the 4th MadInteractive Event featuring Madison music bloggers, including your humble narrator. Jesse Russell over at Dane101 has posted some highlights and co-panelist Hastings has also commented on the discussion.
Personally, I just thought it was great to actually meet some fellow bloggers as, until yesterday evening, I had only met one. The first was the event’s organizer, Todd Lekan of POST. Afterwards I chatted a bit with Ryan from Muzzle of Bees and Hastings. Plus I introduced myself to Jesse Russell as well. Everyone was downright hospitable. So are they all, all hospitable men.
Here are my observations:
1) I don’t understand how it was that I got invited. Kyle Pfister would have been a better choice. There’s a paucity of local content here and even less relating to indie rock. Still, I was happy to be given the chance to bloviate.
2) But since I was there, I had to take some exception to the practice of making “Madison music scene” with “the Madison indie rock scene”. The Madison music scene goes from the high falutin’ Madison Symphony Orchestra all the way to that basement on East [redacted] Street that Hastings mentioned which hosts shows. (He did not give the name of the street so that the joint may avoid being Albertonied.)
3) I am not young any longer. If memory serves, only Kiki and myself were able recall the days when indie rock was still called alternative. (On a side note, where is Ted Offensive these days?) Afterwards, The Dulcinea said that she was sorely tempted to ask a question involving age and race. Pale Young Gentlemen isn’t solely the name of a band here in Madison.
4) The music blogosphere in Madison is quite nebulous. Either Kiki or Ryan was the first to note that music bloggers tend to blog about the music they love as opposed to attempting to cover a scene generally. I alluded to this yesterday, but I really think that Dane101, POST, and The Daily Page, can help by segregating material by music bloggers into a space of its own. I think that some kind of central repository for Madison music blogs would be helpful for both fans and bloggers alike as things now are a bit fractured. Just as you can find lists of area bands, it would be nice to have a similar list of area music blogs.
5) I realized that I really miss Rick’s Café.
6) To reiterate something I said on the panel, I really do think that blogs often times provide better coverage of the Madison music scene than our dailies do. Not only better but in ways that the newspapers just cannot.
Lest I forget, I also got to meet Tag Evers of True Endeavors who is a promoter. I must remember to e-mail him.
Related posts:
It’s totally East Old Middleton Road. If there is such a thing. And The Dulcinea (who is still entirely The Dulcinea, because I can’t retain names) should’ve spoken up. Would rather’ve awkwardly talked about age and race vis a vis the blog-o-”scene” than awkwardly annointed the next “break-out artist” or whatever it was.
You mean the Owl Sanctuary at 637 East Johnson, right?
And here I thought it was 1440 Monroe.
I can’t speak for The D and dunno why she didn’t ask a question. You’ll have to take that up with her.