subvocal to Release New Live CD; New Studio Album Due This Fall

subvocal will release their 2nd CD, “subvocal LIVE,” on July 30, 2010. This five-song EP includes four live tracks recorded at the Brink Lounge during an appearance on the  Mad Toast Live! show hosted by Chris Wagoner and Mary Gaines  in June of 2009.
The show was recorded by Andrew LaValley of Bear Sound . Also included is a  bonus track, a studio recording of ”Esoterica.”

This CD is a precursor to the long overdue second full length studio release coming this fall.

subvocal’s first release, Nikkis Room,  won Unique CD of the Year at the 2005 Madison Area Music Awards.

subvocal LIVE will be available online at most digital retailers including CD Baby and Amazon.

Local Sounds Magazine Reporting for Duty!

After what turned out to be a spring hiatus, Local Sounds Magazine is proud to be back, defending our local music country from ignoramists!  Be ready for a new onslaught of local music coverage as we re-kick this thing off. There will be some new faces shortly and some familiar ones.

So, a little thing called the Madison Area Music Awards snuck up and bonged the editor on the head and it took several weeks (and several more bongs) for him to remove his head from arse and get back on the stick.  Look for an overview on that (the MAMAs, not the head removal) to be posted shortly.

We have tons of CDs to catch up on but any of you who haven’t submitted a disc for review should send one to us pronto.

If you’re a writer with a decent grasp of the English language, we could use your help. Drop us a line.

We’re back… because we love you.

John Statz to Release new Ghost Towns CD at the HIgh Noon on August 12th

Madison-based singer/songwriter John Statz will release his third full-length CD entitled Ghost Towns.  He’ll celebrate with a CD Release Party on August 12th at the High Noon.

According to his website, Ghosts Towns was “inspired by grimey, war-torn Balkan towns and dying, broken down American cities and is the direct result of several years of hard touring around the United States, Canada, and Europe.

This is the first band-based recording from Statz, whose band includes Blueheels/Blake Thomas drummer Adam Cargin and songwriters Jeremiah Nelson and Whitney Mann.

Ghost Towns will be released for digital download, compact disc, and vinyl on August 12th, 2010. And is available from his website .

You may also find John online at:
  » www.myspace.com/johnstatz
  » www.audiostreet.net/johnstatz
  » www.sonicbids.com/johnstatz (Electronic Press Kit)

Atwood Summersfest is July 31st

Atwood Avenue, between the Barrymore Theater and Schenk’s Corners, is once again the site of the Atwood Summerfest. The street celebration benefits the Goodman Atwood Community Center and features ethnic foods, local and handmade goods, games and art activities and, of course, live music. Here’s the lineup:

Maximum Ink Rock Stage
The Shtetlblasters (Electro-Klezmer)
Kingtown Rockers (Reggae)
VO5 (Classic Disco)
Soul Shaker (Blues-Rock)
Beatallica (Beatles meet Metallica)
 

Harmony Bar Blues Stage
Kristy Larson Honky Tonk 12pm
Piper Road Spring Band 1:10pm
Alex Wilson Band 2:20pm
The Midwesterners 3:30pm
Altered 5 4:40pm
Jim Schwall/Andy Ewen Band 5:50

Madison Music Foundry Announces New “Plugged In” Program

Madison Music Foundry is excited to announce a new program called “Plugged In” that will be held at the Frequency on the last Monday of every month from 5:30-7:30 pm.  Plugged In is a multi-faceted and FREE event that is open to the public and includes demos from local music businesses, musician networking opportunities, a Madison Music Foundry student jam (along with a jam open to the public) and educational workshops.  The goal is to have a good time talking and learning about music, playing music, and networking with other musicians. The event will be emceed by Ken Fitzsimmons (MMF Education Director) and Adam Gregory Pergament of Venice Gas House Trolley.

The debut event will be held on July 26th starting promptly at 5:30 and is open to those 21 and up (but those under 21 are welcome to attend as long as they are accompanied by a legal guardian).

Partnering in the July 26th event will be US Masters Guitar Works (www.usmasters.com) based out of Middleton, WI along with Sooper Dooper , CD/DVD manufacturing and packaging design. US Masters will be bringing an array of their guitars and amps to try out. Sooper Dooper will be on hand to answer questions on navigating the world of optical media. The process explained with Q&A, visuals and samples to check out

Each event in the Plugged In series will host different local music businesses, workshops, and themes.  If you would like to help out or have ideas to share, please feel free to contact the Madison Music Foundry at info@madisonmusicfoundry.com or 608-270-2660.

Ken Fitzsimmons

If you want to contribute to the local music and arts scene and have writing skills send an email to: rick@localsoundsmagazine.com

As a reminder, we accept live show reviews from the public at large. Just type up a brief review, snap a few pics and send it all to  submissions@localsoundsmagazine.com.

Tony Brown in Rare Madison Solo Performance

Reggae maestro Tony Brown will make a rare solo appearance at the Brink Lounge on Thursday, July 29th.

The event will feature Brown performing his original songs and original arrangements of other artist’s songs. Reggae, R&B, Soul, Funk, Blues, Jazz, Folk, Pop, Rock,Latin, Caribbean, Afro-Cuban styles can all be counted on.

Brown’s recording  Prisoners in Paradise was just named by the Isthmus as one of the 25 Best Local Albums of all time.

His latest album, Freedom Beyond Recognition, was released earlier this year.

Nick Venturella to Release Local Music Book

It’s not often – in fact never! – that a book gets written on Madison’s local music scene. Local musician and entrepreneur Nick Venturella sought to change that a few years back when he began interviewing and researching his book project. This summer the book will finally be released. It’s entitled The Local Music Journey:  Thoughts, Advice and Inspiration for Your Independent Music Career.

Quote from the book website:

The Local Music Journey:  Thoughts, Advice and Inspiration for Your Independent Music Career offers practical advice and tips for those beginning their indie music career and for those veteran indies who need to refresh their indie music drive. 

Beyond the useful advice that you’ll be able to apply to your indie music career immediately, the book is full of insightful interviews from independent musicians and music professionals.  The interviews offer positive encouragement and camaraderie, which is needed among our growing indie music community. 

The idea is that even in this internet-age by being a resourceful, entrepreneurial independent musician success on a small level will build toward successes on a larger level.  That said, by starting one’s indie music career locally it can allow for some immediate successes that become steps toward regional and even national successes–start locally, and then take over the world.

The book started because indie musician, Nick Venturella, was searching social networking sites admiring some of the internet marketing successes of his fellow Wisconsin indie musicians, and he realized that others may do the same thing.  The question became:  Why not use social networking to capture interviews of some of these indie musicians to share with a larger indie music audience who could benefit from the information shared?  Hence, The Local Music Journey book began.

There will be more on this book release as it becomes available.

Mix Magazine features Randy’s Recording

Randy Green and his Randy’s Recording studio were spotlighted in the April edition of Mix Magazine. Check the article here (flip to page 12).

Green was also featured in a recent two-part interview in the Americana Gazette.

http://digital-edition.mixonline.com/?iid=8144833c

United Sons of Toil Working on New Album, Record Deal

Negotiations between The United Sons of Toil and Cincinnati’s Phratry Records are underway. While a deal has not been finalized, both Phratry and USoT are looking forward to a mutually beneficial arrangement. According to the band, Phratry is a shining example of aesthetics and virtue and should be a role model for all indie labels.

Basic tracks for the next USoT recording were completed at Science of Sound Studios in March with additional recording  at Flannel Jammies Studios. Anticipated release date is now scheduled for fall.

USOT bio:

The United Sons of Toil are a collective deeply rooted in the grinding noise and math rock that bubbled up from the Midwest during the mid ’90s. This is not to suggest that the Sons are a retro band in any sense, simply that the hoarse vocals, guitar damage, starts and stops, and sometimes-convoluted arrangements and time signatures hark back to a time when labels like Touch and Go, AmRep, and Dischord lorded over the indie-rock landscape.

A number of other influences reared their ugly heads during the course of the first USoT record, 2007′s Hope Is Not a Strategy, notably the angular post-hardcore of outfits like Hoover and Unwound as well as the decidedly socialist bent of the sparse lyrics. Indeed, songs that compare family dynamics with political systems put the Sons squarely in the Gang-of-Four school of populist deconstruction.

Within less than a year, the Sons released their second full-length on May 24, 2008. Until Lions Have Their Historians, Tales of the Hunt Shall Always Glorify the Hunter is even more unrelenting than Hope with faster, more ferocious, songs and vitriolic diatribes about the exploitation of indigenous peoples. Lions billows in scope with wiry post-punk screes giving way to more expansive compositions, eventually culminating in epic layered guitarscapes.

Grizzled post-punk vet, Russell Hall, all but abandoned rock and roll in the summer of 2003. Having grown tired of the indie-rock careerism of his noisecore-gone-heartache touring outfit Pound WI and then exhausting the creative possibilities of P’elvis’ instrumental post-rock, he holed up in his basement outside of Madison creating sample-based electronic soundscapes under the name Bell & Circuit.

For almost two years he sustained himself on a diet of nothing but electronic and dub music. There was one exception: Madison’s precision brutalizers, Colony of Watts. Discovering a shared love of Touch and Go bands, Hall and Colony guitarist Chad Burnett soon became friends. After a year of cajoling, Burnett was finally able to coax Hall out of retirement. Initial rehearsals, with Burnett now on drums, resulted in six skeletal songs and five months later, local bassist-for-hire and man-about-town, Bill Borowski (Knuckeldrager, Atalanta, King Salmon, Charlemagne) agreed to join the struggle.

Burnett moved to San Francisco in the summer of 2008, leaving the Sons without a drummer. By fall, long-time fan and commrade Jason Jensen had offered his efforts to the collective and the struggle began anew.