Isthmus: June 1-7, 2017

J U N E 1 –7, 2 0 1 7

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VOL. 42 NO. 22

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MADISON, WISCONSIN

SONGWRITER

PAT MACDONALD

NOURISHES A COMMUNITY OF ARTISTS IN STURGEON BAY

K E L LY A V E N S O N

Madison Water Utility’s 135th Anniversary Celebration!

Sat. June 3rd • 110 S. Paterson St., 10am-1pm  Tour the newly-rebuilt MWU Operations Center on Paterson St.  Check out historic photos, design drawings, water mains, hydrants and more.  Free “Drink Local” water bottles for the first 100 visitors  Water main tapping team demos!  Cool drinks at the Water Wagon.

Save water and energy with every shower FOR KIDS: Climb into our big trucks & brand new backhoe  Build your own aquifer parfait (yum!)  Take home a toy MWU hard hat 

Madison Water Utility is giving away 1,500 high-efficiency, EPA WaterSense showerheads.

SAVE WATER AND ENERGY WITH EVERY SHOWER

Saturday, November Get your free19 EPA WaterSense showerhead* Warner Park Community Recreation Ctr. Stop by during our 135th Anniversary Celebration 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. and pick up a free high-efficiency showerhead

ISTHMUS.COM JUNE 1–7, 2017

June 3rd • 110 S. Paterson St., 10am-1pm Must bring proofSaturday, of Madison residency or HIGH SIERRA CLASSIC CHROME PLUS Madison Municipal Services bill.

Made in the USA, 1.5 gallons per minute, all metal construction

2

Retail value: $39.95. * Limit 1 per household, while supplies last.

Must bring proof of Madison residency or Madison Municipal Services Bill.

We did say our giveaway in March would be the only one in 2017, but the Badgers played in the Sweet16 at the exact same time.

So yep, we have some left over.

High Sierra Classic Chrome Plus Made in the USA, 1.5 gallons per minute Retail value: $47.95 MadisonWater.org

■ CONTENTS

■ WHAT TO DO 4 SNAPSHOT

GOT TO DANCE

Shruti Parthasarathy learns classical Indian dance from the best — thanks to Skype.

6-11 NEWS

JOLTING THE SYSTEM MARC EISEN

15 COVER STORY

15 COVER STORY It was the summer of 2007 and one of photographer Kelly Avenson’s first assignments as an intern with the Door County Advocate was to capture Steel Bridge Songfest.

At the time she didn’t know who pat mAcdonald was.

After the shoot, mAcdonald and some of the other musicians headed back to her house to listen to music on her roommate’s “sweet” 8-track player. Pat sat for hours with the group, talking about the music and life. Says Avenson: “Little did I know the people I was capturing would become like family to me over the next 10 years.“

BIKE WORKSHOP

Two operators have finally made proposals for a cycling center at Judge Doyle Square.

12 OPINION

TOSS IDENTITY POLITICS

The Democrats need a message that is truly about inclusion.

15 COVER STORY

THE BALLAD OF PAT MACDONALD The singer-songwriter runs a “dream incubator” out of a reburbished motel in Sturgeon Bay.

22-26 FOOD & DRINK

Chrome dreams

HAPPY AND HEALTHY

Madison’s first low-carb-only restaurant is anything but a drag.

Saturday, June 3, along State Street, 10 am-3 pm

READY TO TRAVEL

The best goodies from around Wisconsin are curated, boxed and shipped.

Those classic cars must feel mighty special when on display on State Street — a thoroughfare usually off limits to automobile traffic.

Take a break from the farmers’ market on the Capitol Square to visit what has become a spring tradition for classic auto enthusiasts.

Sponsored by the Greater State Street Business Association, this year’s event features six blocks of vehicles.

21, 28 MUSIC

ROOTS MISSION

Ankur Malhotra returns to his native country to record Indian musicians.

29 BOOKS

APPALACHIAN FANTASY

First step: understanding

Alex Bledsoe’s book series is inspired by traditional mountain music.

Saturday, June 3, First United Methodist Church, 9 am-4 pm

30 SCREENS ALLISON GEYER

4 SNAPSHOT In its most pure incarnation, a Snapshot captures the serendipitous, the unusual, and sometimes the small things in life. Staff writer Allison Geyer’s Snapshot this week fits the bill, telling the story of 14-year-old Shruti Parthasarathy, an aspiring Bharatanatyam dancer who lives in Middleton. To advance her art, Parthasarathy studies with a Bharatanatyam guru 8,400 miles away in Chennai, India. Geyer watches the lesson, conducted over Skype.

THE EXPERIMENT

The Seeker represents Cloud Cult’s foray into the filmmaking realm.

37 EMPHASIS

EVERY MARK HAS ITS MEANING Dave Nielsen opens Hand and Eye Tattoo on Atwood Avenue.

IN EVERY ISSUE 8 MADWEEK 12 THIS MODERN WORLD 13 FEEDBACK 13 OFF THE SQUARE 32 ISTHMUS PICKS

38 CLASSIFIEDS 39 P.S. MUELLER 39 CROSSWORD 39 SAVAGE LOVE

PUBLISHER Jeff Haupt ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Craig Bartlett BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Mark Tauscher EDITOR Judith Davidoff NEWS EDITOR Joe Tarr FEATURES EDITOR Linda Falkenstein ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR Catherine Capellaro STAFF WRITERS Dylan Brogan, Allison Geyer DIGITAL EDITOR Sean Kennedy CALENDAR EDITOR Bob Koch EDITORIAL INTERN Riley Vetterkind ART DIRECTOR Carolyn Fath STAFF ARTISTS Todd Hubler, David Michael Miller, Tommy Washbush VIDEOGRAPHER/PHOTOGRAPHER Justin Sprecher CONTRIBUTORS John W. Barker, Kenneth Burns, Dave Cieslewicz, Nathan J. Comp, Aaron R. Conklin, Ruth Conniff,

ISTHMUS is published weekly by Red Card Media, 100 State Street, Suite 301, Madison, WI 53703 • Edit@isthmus.com • Phone (608) 251-5627 • Fax (608) 251-2165 Periodicals postage paid at Madison, WI (ISSN 1081-4043) • POSTMASTER: Send address changes to 100 State Street, Suite 301, Madison, WI 53703 • © 2017 Red Card Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

Joanne Lee, who became an activist for transgender equality and acceptance after the suicide of her trans child, Skylar, in 2015, will lead a conference designed to build ties among youth, their parents and faith groups. TRANSforming Faith will include panel discussions; break out groups for parents, children and faith community members; and workshops. RSVP at facebook.com/ events/1609301079095164.

Greenhouse guests Saturday, June 3

It’s like a pub crawl without the alcohol! The Madison Nursery Crawl celebrates the city’s nurseries and is organized by the Friends of Allen Centennial Garden. The at-your-ownpace tour includes plant workshops and fun stuff like a giant sandbox, hayrides and a fairy garden. Among the nurseries on tap: Schönheit Gardens in Sun Prairie; Avant Gardening and Landscaping and Trees on Wheels in McFarland; the Flower Factory in Stoughton; and Stone Wall Nursery in Oregon. Full schedule of events at madisonnurserycrawl.org.

Road trip!

June 2-4, Mount Horeb area, 10 am-5 pm June 2-3, Schilberg Park, Milton

The Mount Horeb Area Arts Association’s Spring Art Tour is a free, self-guided jaunt to 21 artist studios in Black Earth, Blue Mounds, Mazomanie, Mount Horeb, Verona and rural environs. For a map and information on the artists, visit springarttour.com. Classic rock fans will want to head to Milton for Wally’s Music Fest, featuring nine cover bands playing everything from Aerosmith to ZZ Top ... and the Prince Experience (Saturday, 9:30 pm). The schedule is at wallyfest.com.

FIND MORE ISTHMUS PICKS ON PAGE 32

JUNE 1–7, 2017 ISTHMUS.COM

Michael Cummins, Marc Eisen, Erik Gunn, Mike Ivey, Bob Jacobson, Seth Jovaag, Stu Levitan, Bill Lueders, Liz Merfeld, Andy Moore, Bruce Murphy, Kyle Nabilcy, Jenny Peek, Michael Popke, Steven Potter, Adam Powell, Katie Reiser, Jay Rath, Gwendolyn Rice, Dean Robbins, Robin Shepard, Sandy Tabachnick, Denise Thornton, Candice Wagener, Tom Whitcomb, Rosemary Zurlo-Cuva ADVERTISING PRODUCTION MANAGER Todd Hubler ADVERTISING MANAGER Chad Hopper ADVERTISING ASSISTANTS Jeri Casper, Annie Kipcak ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES Lindsey Bushart, Rebecca Jaworski CIRCULATION MANAGER Tim Henrekin MARKETING DIRECTOR Chris Winterhack EVENT DIRECTORS Courtney Lovas CONTROLLER Halle Mulford OFFICE MANAGER Julie Butler SYSTEMS MANAGER Thom Jones ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT Carla Dawkins

JANICE CHUNG

KELLY AVENSON

Marc Eisen shares a piece of pat mAcdonald’s story that didn’t make it into this week’s cover: how grateful the musician is for the Affordable Care Act. mAcdonald had spotty health coverage over the years, and would often skip doctors to avoid the cost of out-of-pocket care or high co-pays and highdeductibles. In the ACA’s second year, mAcdonald upgraded his plan. Later that year he was diagnosed with lymphoma; he’s now in remission after a course of chemotherapy.

MGE shareholders want the utility to take the lead on electric transportation.

3

n SNAPSHOT

Virtual disciple

BY ALLISON GEYER n PHOTOGRAPH BY JUSTIN SPRECHER

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It’s just after 7 on a recent Friday night when 14-year-old Shruti Parthasarathy comes bounding down the stairs of her family’s Middleton home, barefoot and dressed in a bright blue and pink salwar kameez, a traditional style of Indian dress. She leads the way into a basement studio with a glossy wooden floor and floor-to-ceiling mirrors. The fuchsia walls match her sash. In one corner, there’s a small Hindu shrine, and in another, a shrine to Shruti — photos and newspaper clippings affixed to the wall, along with souvenirs documenting her blossoming career as a top-ranked Bharatanatyam dancer.

“I started at age 5,” she tells Isthmus, “and something just clicked.”

In another corner, there’s a computer with a monitor mounted high on the wall.

Right on schedule, the screen lights up at and the studio’s built-in sound system rings with the familiar sound of an incoming Skype call. It’s now 7:30 p.m. in Middleton, but it’s 6 a.m. in Chennai, India, home of famed Bharatanatyam guru Medha Hari, whose face appears on the screen, waving hello. Shruti greets her teacher and kneels before the computer, hands pressed together, singing a quick Hindu prayer. Then, she’s up and dancing, twirling through an impossibly complex sequence of intricate moves as Hari watches and claps along with the rhythm from 8,400 miles away.

“It’s a different way to learn, but it’s not that different from learning face-to-face,” says Shruti, who has been taking virtual lessons twice a week with Hari for the past two years. Instead of the hands-on assistance she would get in a typical dance class, Shruti learns by watching and imitating — and having Hari watch and critique. Learning remotely means there’s more pressure on the student to take ownership about corrections in posture and technique.

“It’s made me improve in a different way,” Shruti says. “It’s made me really mentally aware.”

Many of the top Bharatanatyam teachers are based in India, and their instruction methods are notoriously strict — “there’s no sugar-coating,” says Shruti’s mother, Hemalatha Parthasarathy, who introduced her daughter to the ancient art form shortly after the family moved from India to Madison a decade ago. Bharatanatyam originated more than 2,000 years ago in Tamil Nadu, a state in southeastern India. Its technique and philosophical foundations come from ancient Sanskrit Hindu texts.

“I wanted her to learn her roots,” Hemalatha says. “But I think she liked the makeup and the costumes.”

Shruti started taking lessons at the Mandir of Madison, the local Hindu temple, and later studied under guru Meenakshi Ganeshan, founder of Kalaanjali School of Dance and Music in Verona. Shruti had her Arangetram, or dance graduation ceremony, in Chennai in 2013, and after that

began studying with Hari with the goal of taking her skills “to the next level.”

“I never thought it would go this far,” Hemalatha says. “Now she’s one of the top dancers from the U.S.” Shruti thinks about dance constantly — she watches videos on YouTube between homework assignments and often retreats to the basement studio after midnight to practice.

“She stays up until 1, 2 a.m.,” Hemalatha says.

“I’m like, Shruti, go to bed!”

But the dedication has paid off. In April, Shruti placed third at the Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana, the largest Indian classical music and dance festival outside of India. She was also a finalist in the Overture Center’s 2016 Rising Stars contest and has repeatedly placed in international dance competitions. The pieces she performs tell the stories of Hindu gods and goddesses, but the narratives also contain messages on “how to be a better person,” Shruti says.

“Not only does it shape who I am,” she adds, “but it also helps me give back to my community.” n

BHARATA: A mnemonic whose three sounds translate to “emotions, melody and rhythm” NATYAM: Sanskrit word for dance 1910: The Madras Presidency of the British Empire bans temple dancing 1947: British rule ends, leading to a resurgence of Bharatanatyam

Watch a video of Shruti practicing at isthmus.com.

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5

■ NEWS

Flip that switch Group wants MGE to electrify the transportation system

BY JOE TARR

Steve Coleman has been fighting global warming on several fronts. A retired engineer and businessman, he installed solar panels on his Marshall home five years ago.

Three years ago, he leased a Nissan Leaf electric car. “It has limited range. But that’s okay, because most of our driving is right around the Madison area and the 80-mile range for it is fine for what we want to do,” Coleman says. “It’s quiet. It basically costs about a penny and a half per mile for fuel. So it’s really inexpensive from that standpoint.”

But Coleman knows he alone can’t stop global warming. So he’s taken another step, buying stock in Madison Gas and Electric.

Working with like-minded people belonging to MGE Shareholders for Clean Energy, he wants to nudge the company to take stronger action on climate change.

MGE Shareholders for Clean Energy, which formed in 2014, proposed a resolution calling for the company to study and develop a plan for electrifying the transportation grid.

But the company’s shareholders, following the board of directors’ recommendation, rejected the resolution by 93 percent in May.

Proponents argue that the company is missing a financial opportunity. As home solar panels and conservation become more popular, the company is losing market share. One way to help grow its business is by promoting electric transportation systems.

“A lot of utilities are facing flat or declining sales because of rooftop solar,” says Mitch Brey, project manager for RePower Madison. “Now that sales have flattened a lot of utilities have excess capacity. [Electrical transportation] would be one outlet for that.”

Last year, MGE Shareholders for Clean Energy had contemplated submitting eight shareholder resolutions all designed to prod the company toward more environment-friendly policies, says Don Wichert, one of the group’s members.

Wichert says the company talked to the group and addressed its concerns on all of the resolutions, except for the one relating to transportation. So it withdrew those other resolutions.

Wichert says that he has been “pretty impressed” with the company’s new CEO, Jeffrey Keebler. “I think he gets it.”

Nevertheless, the activist shareholders would like the company to be bolder when it comes to reining in carbon emissions. They

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want MGE to be a national model. Which is why the group went ahead and submitted the transportation resolution. In order to submit a resolution, a shareholder has to own at least $2,000 worth of stock.

Three members of the group submitted the same resolution. Although it was defeated, the activist shareholders are happy with the effort, which was the first time a shareholder resolution has been considered by the utility.

Because it got more than 3 percent of the vote, the group can resubmit a similar resolution next year.

With more than half of MGE’s power coming from coal power plants, is electrifying the transportation system a good thing for the environment?

Brey says yes, as long as it happens at the same time that the company also amps up energy production from renewable sources.

“The idea is that it’s going to take some time for this transition to happen,” Brey says.

“We can’t wait for all of our power plants to be renewable and then switch over our transportation. If we wait…it’s going to be too late.”

Because most cars are used for 10 years or more, Brey says it’s important that the ability to use electric vehicles is a realistic option now. Otherwise, people will continue buying internal-combustion engines that will be on the road, polluting, for another decade.

Coleman says transforming the network involves more than just private automobiles.

He’s like to see MGE working with local municipalities to switch to electric buses and fleet vehicles. Promoting and investing in a light rail or trolley system could do a lot to reduce carbon emissions.

“MGE can do more than just deliver power to your house. It can be involved in secondary businesses. It’s a perfect opportunity for MGE to grow,” he says. “Madison is an environmentally sensitive community. People get it. They understand the importance of

sustaining the environment. So it’s a great place for a company to take innovative steps.

In recommending against the resolution, MGE’s board wrote that the utility was already “aggressively pursuing and implementing electrification of transportation as a means to reduce our carbon emissions and pursue market growth.”

The statement notes that MGE has the largest network of electric vehicle charging stations in the state. It installed its first station in 2013 and currently has 27.

MGE also has a pilot project, Charge@ Home, where it will install a charging station in homes for $20 a month, not including the electric usage.

However, the board added that it “has neither purview nor decision-making authority over the transportation sector.”

Wichert wishes the company would be a national innovator on the issue. “They have a corporate perspective on this: go slow, do pilot projects,” he says. “They’re taking baby steps and we would like to see them be more aggressive.”

Brey calls the company’s response “really confusing,” adding that “They seem to acknowledge that electrified transportation is really important to their company’s future, but they’re not doing everything they can to make it happen.”

Ald. David Ahrens, who is active with MGE Shareholders for Clean Energy, says the utility is forced to walk “a tightrope” between customers and state regulators.

Its customers are concerned about the environment. But the state’s Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, is appointed by Gov. Scott Walker. Ahrens calls the PSC “essentially Koch-brothers controlled.” “[MGE is] pushed and pulled,” Ahrens says. “Fundamentally though, every major expenditure it makes has to be approved by this entity that is pro-fossil fuel.” ■

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■ MADWEEK WED. MAY 24

THUR. MAY 25

A student at James Madison Memorial High School launches an online petition urging the Madison school district to change the name of the school, which honors the nation’s slave-owning fourth president.

The state Legislature’s budgetwriting committee scraps the UW System tuition cut proposed

by Gov. Scott Walker in favor of a two-year tuition freeze.

Madison’s population grew by nearly 4,000 people from 2015 to 2016, while Milwaukee’s shrank by about 4,400 during the same period, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. Maybe intercity high-speed rail would benefit both metro areas?

In a literal “Jesus take the wheel” moment, a 27-year-old man runs a red light on South Whitney Way and strikes a van. He tells police he had to “go with God,” which is why he ignored the traffic signal. This is not a good excuse, even in Trump’s America.

THUR. MAY 25

FRI. MAY 26

Gov. Scott Walker REALLY wants state legislators to reconsider his self-insurance plan. His administration sends a letter to finance committee leaders saying state employee premiums would increase by at least 10 percent next year under the current insurance model, the AP reports.

The budget committee also approves Walker’s plan to drug test some Medicaid and food stamp recipients, paving the way for Wisconsin to become the first state to screw over the poor in this particular way.

Madison Children’s Museum & Rotary Club of Madison Present the Fifth Annual

SAT. MAY 27

TUE. MAY 31

Five separate fights involving middle and high school kids break out at Brat Fest, causing the carnival to shut down 15 minutes early. What a bunch of brats!

A 33-year-old man dies after being shot in a home invasion in the 500 block of Northport Drive. Madison police said the attack appears targeted, and three or four suspects are still at large.

Madison Children’s Museum 9:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Free museum admission

Rotary Stage

ISTHMUS.COM JUNE 1–7, 2017

10 a.m. –

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Free Activities & Performances!

Zhong Yi Lion Dance

11 a.m.

Black Star Drum Line, youth drumline

12 p.m.

Ken Lonnquist and the Kenland Band

1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.

V05

10 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Games, strolling entertainment, and activity tables with local community organizations

10 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Inflatable obstacle course

10 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Wild Rumpus “Try-It” Circus

11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Henry Vilas Zoo to You

Downtown family fun at Madison Children’s Museum

Live music at the Rotary Stage outside the museum

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Hamilton Street Block Party with games and strolling entertainment

MadisonChildrensMuseum.org | (608) 256-6445 100 N. Hamilton St., on the Capitol Square

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Hamilton Street Block Party

Saturday June 1p7.m.

New Exhibit!

Media sponsors:

Support from:

The Boy Band Night

Tribute to N’Sync, Backstreet Boys, Boyz 2 Men and more!

MMoCA Opening KAMBUI OLUJIMI: ZULU TIME

Friday, June 2 RECEPTION • 6–9 PM

Classical violin, hip hop, trap, jazz, and R&B from Alida LaCosse & Cooper Talbot, and hors d’oeuvres from Fresco

ARTIST TALK • 6:30 PM

Kambui Olujimi discusses the exhibition within the context of his larger artistic practice.

$10 / Free for Members 227 State Street, Madison MMoCA.org

thursday June 8 7-9pm

Capacity Limited

Gates and Bars open 5:30pm

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Free ticket does not guarantee entry.

If not sold out, tickets will be available at the event starting at 5:30pm.

#COR ONE JOHN NOLEN DR., MADISON, WI 53703 • PH: 608.261.4000 TTY: 771 OR 800.947.3529 • communityevents.mononaterrace.com

Kambui Olujimi, Untitled (detail), from the series T-Minus Ø, 2017. Digital print on cotton, aluminum pole, zinc pole mount. Flag: 24 x 36 inches; pole: 72 inches. Courtesy the artist.

Madison Gas and Electric Foundation, Inc.

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MMoCA OPENINGS are generously supported by:

9

■ NEWS

Pedal power City weighs options for Judge Doyle Square bike center

BY CAMERON BREN

Ald. David Ahrens has been a vocal critic of the Judge Doyle Square project, particularly calls for a subsidized hotel.

He notes that the numerous public comments collected by a consultant for the project’s master plan show very little enthusiasm for a hotel. But plenty of residents supported another idea for the project.

“Everyone was talking about bike facilities,” Ahrens recalls.

As Judge Doyle Square — which secured important city approvals in April — edges closer to reality, the city is on track to meet both goals. It is slated to include a 250-room hotel, apartments, retail and bicycle center.

Beitler Real Estate Services is the developer on the project.

The bike center part of the project calls for 3,500 square feet of space for storage, restrooms, locker rooms and a service and repair area. The city is providing the space and some buildout but wants the service and repair operation to be run by an independent business.

Despite the apparent excitement about a bike center, the city initially had trouble finding anyone interested in running it. “We did release a request for proposals and didn’t get any responses and then shook the bush a little more reaching out to who we thought might be interested,” says David Trowbridge, a project manager with the city’s planning division.

The extra outreach has since led to proposals from two groups: Freewheel Community Bike Shop and Roger Charly, owner of Budget Bicycles, Machinery Row and Motorless Motion.

Trowbridge says Freewheel’s proposal is much more detailed, while Charly’s is barebones. Charly did not respond to requests for comment on this article.

Freewheel was founded as a nonprofit in 2003 by a group of local cyclists to create a space for sharing tools, skills, and knowledge, and also to promote cycling as a vehicle for social and environmental justice. The group, which is in the process of becoming a worker cooperative, has a workshop and store at 1804 South Park St. Freewheel executive director Elijah McCloskey says in the past two years, the group has given away more than 1,000 bicycles, taught 700 people mechanical skills, diverted 30 tons of waste from landfills and sent hundreds of bikes to impoverished areas in Africa.

Freewheel also operates a for-profit bicycle retail business averaging around $120,000 in sales each year, which McCloskey says provides living wages for staff and funds more than 90 percent of the charitable and educational programs.

If awarded the contract at Judge Doyle Square, Freewheel would include a small retail area, but most of the space would be used for classes and workshops, including basic mechanics courses, safety education and classes geared specifically for women.

Freewheel volunteer coordinator Acadia, who goes by one name, is the instructor of “Fixing it Ourselves,” a bike Elijah McCloskey maintenance class for women and “gender rebels.” The class is geared for people who are not confident doing basic mechanical work.

With a central location, Acadia says, the group will be able to help a lot more people. “A downtown location would just feel a lot more comfortable for people to walk into and to be able to find and get to along well lit streets.”

Freewheel would continue operating its southside location if it wins the Judge Doyle con-

tract. “However, I think there is a lot of good that we could do with educating people who work, live and go to school dow ntow n and our south side location just really isn’t accessible for them,” he says.

Trowbridge says while Freewheel submitted a detailed proposal, the one from Roger Charly was vague, with just an email outlining some basic ideas.

That doesn’t necessarily rule Charly out.

Trowbridge says Charly obviously has run successful bicycle businesses and could provide an operation the city would CAMERON BREN PHOTOS like. However, one challenge with Charly’s pro- Nick Pastore works on a bike at the Freewheel’s Park posal is that he would Street location, where he is head mechanic. The collective not pay rent or utilities hopes to open a second location in Judge Doyle Square. for at least two years.

Freewheel proposes paying for utilities and also rent based on a “We definitely want something that percentage of bike sale revenue. is sustainable over time,” Trowbridge “Freewheel gave us an indication that they says. “We don’t want someone that’s have a proven track record of service and sales. just in there a couple years and then They have a for-profit model that seems to be pulls out the stakes and then we’re working and people take their classes,” Trowbridge stuck with a space.” says. “They came across as feeling their numbers Trowbridge says city staff will be were conservative and confident they could make making a recommendation to the Comthe numbers work to keep the facility open.” mon Council in a few weeks and from Finding a business that is committed to the there it may be referred for review by space is what Trowbridge says is important to committees. The bicycle resource center the city. will likely open in early 2019. ■

CLINICAL TRIAL The UW-Madison Department of Otolaryngology is looking for healthy volunteers without a known voice, swallowing, motor or cognitive disorders for a research study comparing measurements of pressure in the mouth and throat during swallowing to voice, finger-tapping, and walking.

ISTHMUS.COM JUNE 1–7, 2017

To measure pressures during swallowing, a thin tube is inserted through the nose down into the throat. Eligibility requirements: between the ages of 18-89, no diagnosed swallowing, voice, motor, or cognitive problems, and no allergy to topical anesthetic.

Risks include gagging or discomfort in the nose and throat.

10

Participation consists of a single two-hour visit at UW Hospital and Clinics and at the UW Natatorium. You will be compensated $60 for your time and travel.

If you are interested in participating, please contact Dr. Timothy McCulloch’s research manager, Dr. Suzan Abdelhalim, at 608-265-2470 or email manometry@surgery.wisc.edu.

See all of our courses at il.wisconsin.edu

Bicycle Rentals

Art project Madison officials hope a public art program can help “sell the city”

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“I’ve had a number of artists tell me that was a loss of work for them,” says Katz.

Wisconsin is one of the stingier states when it comes to arts funding. As Isthmus reported last year, the state ranks 48th in the nation for arts spending. Minnesota ranks first, spending $6.36 per person, while our state spends just 13 cents.

However, arts clearly have an economic impact. According to the 2012 study “Arts and Economic Prosperity IV,” published by Americans for the Arts, the arts generated more than $535 million for Wisconsin’s economy in 2010.

Philadelphia was the first to adopt Percent for the Arts at the municipal level, in 1959. At the time, it was seen as a vital tool in revitalizing underused downtown areas, and also as a way of combating modernist, “sterile” architecture.

“It’s another tool in the tool box,” Katz says. “Madison already has so many cool things happening, this is another way we can show off our creativity and imagination.”

Right now both Milwaukee and Eau Claire are bringing in art for temporary sculpture tours, Tzougros notes. “Why? They are tourism draws, but it is more than that. These tours also communicate that each community values creativity, which is important to the talent we need.”

The proposal is now going through various city committees. Wolf anticipates a vote by the Common Council on July 18. ■

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The city is considering an economic development tool with an unconventional goal: more art.

The measure, proposed by Mayor Paul Soglin, mandates that 1 percent of the city’s capital projects that are $5 million or more be set aside for public art projects.

“I’m optimistic that there will be support for adoption,” says Madison Arts Commission coordinator Karin Wolf, who has long fought for such a program. “I’m not sure if it will be adjusted here and there throughout the process, but this has been planned for a long time.”

Such programs, known as “Percent for the Arts,” are not uncommon nationally. “It is a part of the economic landscape,” says Anne Katz, executive director of Arts Wisconsin, a Madison-based advocacy nonprofit. “It enhances ways that people can ‘sell the city.’”

George Tzougros, executive director of the Wisconsin Arts Board, says funding arts is a competitive endeavor. “Madison is in a global competition to retain and attract the talented entrepreneurs and workforce needed to compete in the creative economy.”

In 2002 University of Toronto economist Richard Florida identified a “creative class” made up of populations highly sought by cities, such as young people working in technology. They tend to prefer living in the center of cities that offer cultural opportunities.

“These people evaluate communities by asking, ‘What’s here? Who’s here? And what’s going on here?’” says Tzougros.

“They look for creatives of all types, and diversity by every measure. They generally choose places with a vibrant arts scene that includes public art.”

The city of Minneapolis found that 80 percent of Forbes magazine’s most livable cities have Percent for the Arts programs, as do 100 percent of the magazine’s fastest-growing cities. Percent for the Arts is rooted in economic stimulus. It goes back to the era of federal works projects during the Great Depression. Starting in 1934, the U.S. Department of the Treasury required 1 percent of the cost of federal building projects be spent on art and decoration. The program continues today as the federal Art in Architecture program. “Public art programs are important because they guarantee that art is planned and paid for when a building is built, rather than as an afterthought,” argues Tzougros.

There are 29 states with percent for the arts programs. Wisconsin’s was “suspended” but not killed under Gov. Scott Walker’s 2011 budget.

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n OPINION

Next Dem party chair? Who cares?

The party needs to work on its messaging and start bringing people together

BY DAVE CIESLEWICZ Dave Cieslewicz is the former mayor of Madison.

He blogs as Citizen Dave at Isthmus.com.

The big question hovering over the state Democratic Party convention in Middleton this weekend is, who will be the next party chair?

The big question I have is, who cares?

You could make a case that incumbent chair Martha Laning should have fallen on her sword after the November elections.

Hillary Clinton became the first presidential candidate to lose Wisconsin since Walter Mondale. Russ Feingold lost a race everyone (including me) thought he could not possibly lose. What seemed like a decent chance to pick up a congressional seat in northeast Wisconsin failed. In a year when the Dems looked to have a chance to pick up at least a seat or two in the state Legislature, they actually lost a couple.

And, probably most egregiously, the party failed to so much as field a candidate against state Supreme Court Justice Annette Ziegler this spring.

But in Laning’s defense, it’s not clear that anything she could have done would have made a difference. Clinton and Feingold ran their own campaigns and are responsible for their own defeats. The same pretty much goes for the race in the 8th Congressional District where the Republicans fielded a very strong candidate in Mike Gallagher. And the state legislative seats got pulled along in the undertow that spelled doom to Clinton and Feingold. Arguably, if the top of the ticket had been stronger, the results down ticket would have been better.

There’s really no excuse for not coming up with a warm body with a law degree to take on Ziegler. Sure, she had lots of money, but the Democrats had a fired-up base and this would have been the first chance to lash out against Donald Trump and all that happened in the fall. Add to that the fact that the vote would have happened just as Neil Gorsuch was being installed in the U.S. Supreme Court

seat that should have gone to Merrick Garland and you had all the makings for a liberal win.

So, I suppose the Democrats could replace Laning on the strength of the Ziegler failure alone, but the truth is that the party structure, such as it is, just doesn’t really matter all that much. Democrats aren’t losing elections because of the technicalities of voter targeting, door-knocking walk lists or the like. They could do better at candidate recruitment, but their fundamental problem is that they are fumbling their message. The party’s brand is a mess.

For too many Wisconsinites the Democratic Party stands for a collection of interest groups, each of which is demanding something of society. On the 100th anniversary of John Kennedy’s birth, my party asks not what we can do for our country, but what our country has done to us and how we must be compensated.

Identity politics — whether it’s white, evangelical identity politics on the right or gay, black, Hispanic or gender identity politics on the left — is the very root of the problem. We’ve stopped thinking of ourselves as Americans or Wisconsinites and started thinking of ourselves as members of a tribe assigned by gender, skin color, or sexual orientation.

What I yearn for isn’t a new state party chair, but a party that has a message about inclusion that is truly inclusive. What it has now is a message that essentially blames straight, white guys for everything. And it pays the price at the polls for that. Mary Burke lost white men by 25 points when she ran against Scott Walker in 2014. Had she just lost them by 11 points, she would have won the election. As a party, you just can’t alienate a demographic group that large (white guys make up 44 percent of the vote in Wisconsin) and expect to win many elections.

So do I want a party that tries to appeal to white men? No. I would like a party with a message that transcends all identity politics and that tries to forge a new national and state identity around a common set of values and goals. I know it’s absolute heresy right now, but I think maybe we should turn up the flame on the Sterno under the old melting pot just a little. Deemphasize our personal identities,

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stop looking so very hard for ways in which we are being wronged, refrain from celebrating our victimhood, and instead define a positive common goal for our state and our nation.

That’s not really so crazy because it’s essentially what Barack Obama did in 2008. He ran on hope and he allowed people to define their hope in any way that meant something for them. It

THIS MODERN WORLD

was a brilliant way of melding distinct group goals into one overarching concept. Had the Republicans not set out to thwart and defeat him at all costs, there might actually have been a post-partisan politics.

So, my fellow Democrats, ask not who the next state party chair will be, but what we can do to bring the state together. n

BY TOM TOMORROW

SERVING DINNER Thur-Sat: 5pm to 9pm © 2017 WWW.THISMODERNWORLD.COM

■ FEEDBACK

Small acts of kindness Re “To wish upon a fish” (5/25/2017): She is a kind, caring person. We could all learn something from her. Occasionally she stops

by MELTED to chat, and leaves some money to “pay it forward” for another customer.

—David Rodriguez (via Facebook)

She’s ok Re “Tell All: I dread swimsuit season” (Isthmus.com, 5/22/2017): I appreciate your wanting “fleshy” to embrace herself, but if she’s not comfortable wearing a bikini, that’s okay! Maybe we should suggest her opening up about her insecurity with her partner, and expressing that maybe she isn’t ready for a bikini?! She can take smaller steps to learn how to love herself and feel more comfortable with herself if it’s something she wants to work on. I don’t like how you call it a “real problem” that she has insecurities. The real, true problem is that society pressures women to hate their own bodies.

—Leah Jorgensen (via Facebook)

Record reset Re “Exit issues: Workers protesting Kraft Heinz just weeks before Oscar Mayer closure” (Isthmus.com, 5/24/2017): It’s nice to see some corrective of the media mantra that Oscar Mayer is some kind of good mama and has always been to the community. It long ago ceased being a family-run business and has been a big

business interested in making money for many years.

Madison should focus on a substitute for this departure, using the building and land in a publicly held way to promote the food industry, arts and education.

—Francine Flambeau (via comment)

Recognizing outstanding volunteers for their work in our community

Lacinda Athen Sierra Club Foundation-John Muir Chapter

Traitor Tim?

Lacinda Athen has volunteered with the Sierra Club-John Muir Chapter since becoming a member 24 years ago, but she is especially admired for coordinating events that bring members together—such as the Cruisin’ for Cuisine series. She also supports the club with graphic design and website work, and has served as Chair for the chapter’s awards and events committees.

Re “Why Tim Cullen Bowed Out” (5/18/2017): Dave, you glossed over the fact that Cullen abandoned the Democrats twice.

Not only did he dump on his blue-collar constituents in 1987 when he joined Republican Tommy Thompson’s administration, he bolted the Senate Democratic Caucus in 2012 when he didn’t get his way. Only after he held his breath like a 4-year-old and got his committee assignments, did he return to the Democratic Caucus. He would not have been any Dem candidate savior.

—Karl Johnson (via comment) Corrections: In last week’s article on downtown hotel assessments (“Sticker shock”), the elements in the bar graph were mislabeled; the category labels for improvements and land were transposed. The corrected graphic is online. Last week’s SummerTimes’ calendar included last year’s listings for Capital City Theatre and Fermat’s Last Theater Company.

Also, the listing for Upstart Crows Productions’ performance of Burial at Thebes should have read July 27-29, not May 27-29.

Share comments with Isthmus via email, edit@isthmus.com, and via Forum.isthmus.com, Facebook and Twitter, or write letters to Isthmus, 100 State St., Suite 301, Madison WI 53703.

All comments are subject to editing. The views expressed here are solely those of the contributors.

These opinions do not necessarily represent those of Isthmus Publishing Company.

OFF THE SQUARE

w w w. c om m uni t y sha r e s. c om

BY ALAN TALAGA & JON LYONS

Backyard Hero Award

For more information about the Sierra Club Foundation or to volunteer, visit sierraclub.org/wisconsin or call 608-256-0565.

Timm Zumm River Alliance of Wisconsin Timm is passionate protector of local rivers who champions efforts that give everyone the opportunity enjoy our natural waterways first-hand. As president of the Friends of the Lower Wisconsin Riverway (FLOW), he’s an enthusiastic partner with and supporter of the River Alliance of Wisconsin and is a prominent participant in the Fools Flotilla each June.

Photo by John Urban

For more information about the River Alliance of Wisconsin or to volunteer, visit wisconsinrivers.org or call 608-257-2424.

Community Shares of Wisconsin supports and funds 66 member nonprofits.

Many people, many dreams, one community—Community Shares of Wisconsin.

Sponsors

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JUNE 1–7, 2017 ISTHMUS.COM

Award-winning author of the critically-acclaimed memoir, The Distance Between Us, about her life before and after coming to the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant at the age of nine.

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ART | DANCE | DESIGN | FILM | LITERARY ARTS | MUSIC | THEATER

JUN E – EARLY J ULY 2017 EXHIBITION

THROUGH JULY 23

UW–Madison averages 100 arts and cultural events each month.

CONCERT

JUNE 17

F E S T I VA L CONCERTS & WORKSHOPS

JULY 8–15

This is just a sample of upcoming events.

Visit arts.wisc.edu for more info.

Peter Krsko

Arts Institute’s Interdisciplinary Artist in Residence Krsko is a bioinspired artist whose approach combines science and art. go.wisc.edu/krsko

EXHIBITION

THROUGH AUG 6

Zoethica Olbrich Botanical Gardens 3330 Atwood Ave Hours Vary

Zoethica is an outdoor exhibition at Olbrich Botanical Gardens. This public installation will feature bioinspired art by Peter Krsko, guest artists and his students.

HARUTA SCHOOL (JAPANESE) HELMET, FIRST HALF OF THE 17TH CENTURY, STEEL, GILDED COPPER, LACQUER, GOLD, WOOD, SILK, LEATHER. MUSEO STIBBERT, FIRENZE

Samurai: The Way of the Warrior

T H E AT R E

JUNE 8–25

Chazen Museum of Art 750 University Ave Hours Vary (Closed Mon)

PHOTO BY HENRY ADEBONOJO

Terence Blanchard featuring the E-Collective

This exhibition presents a selection of over 90 objects from one of the most important collections of Japanese arms and armor outside of Japan.

FREE EXHIBITION

JUNE 5–AUG 25

Shannon Hall, Wisconsin Union Theater 800 Langdon St 8:00 pm - Sat

Almost, Maine Mitchell Theatre, Vilas Hall 821 University Ave 7:30 pm - Thur–Sat | 2:00 pm - Sat & Sun

Under the magic of the northern lights, residents of a small town find love. Perhaps.

Maybe. Almost.

FREE

$10–20 EXHIBITION

THROUGH JUNE 25

Middle Child: Photographs

by Alex Orellana Chazen Museum of Art 750 University Ave Hours Vary (Closed Mon)

ISTHMUS.COM JUNE 1–7, 2017

Orellana is the winner of 2017 Chazen Museum Prize for Outstanding MFA Student and their work is based on non binary gender identity.

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FREE

Wisconsin Without Borders: A Global Initiative Ruth Davis Design Gallery School of Human Ecology 1300 Linden Drive 10:00 am–4:00 pm - Mon–Fri

Products from coordinated microenterprises projects developed in partnership between traditional artisans in Mexico, Kenya and India and the School of Human Ecology Design Studies students and faculty.

F E S T I VA L

JUNE 16–17

Isthmus Jazz Fest Memorial Union 800 Langdon St Hours Vary - Fri & Sat

Celebrating 30 years of swing, groove and improvisation, the festival includes a commissioned piece by Paul Dietrich.

Free except for the Terence Blanchard concert.

FREE

FREE

Detailed Calendar | Parking | Ticketing

Blanchard is the headliner for the Isthmus Jazz Fest. He is a top-tier jazz trumpeter and composer who has recorded more than 30 albums and composed over 50 soundtracks ranging from Spike Lee movies, Disney and an album about police brutality. $10–42 ART EVENT

JUNE 22

Jim Dine’s Mural Unveiling Paige Court, Elvehjem Building 750 University Ave 6:00–8:00 pm - Thur

Join the Chazen Museum of Art at a special event for the unveiling of Jim Dine’s monumental new mural in the Ancient Gallery.

FREE

Madison Early Music Festival Mead Witter, School of Music Humanities Building 455 N Park St Hours Vary

This year’s theme for Madison Early Music Festival is Quixotic Musical Treasures from the Golden Age of Spain. Celebrating over 400 years of the novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, explore the wealth of references to the music, art and literature during the Spanish Habsburg Dynasty.

Workshop registration (register by June 15 for a $25 discount) and concert tickets currently available. madisonearlymusic.org $10–20 CONCERTS $575 WORKSHOPS ($250 STUDENTS)

Short-term summer art classes... continuingstudies.wisc.edu or union.wisc.edu/wheelhouse Costs Vary

n COVER STORY

Songwriter

PAT MACDONALD builds a community of artists in Sturgeon Bay — and beyond

BY MARC EISEN

OH, HE’S LOST A FEW THINGS during

➡ KELLY AVENSON

JUNE 1–7, 2017 ISTHMUS.COM

40-plus years of living the Bohemian life of a musician.

For instance: — That Mussehl & Westphal musical saw, the renowned Cadillac of musical saws. The young Pat MacDonald bought it in 1974 in Fort Atkinson from Clarence J. Mussehl himself, then a nonagenarian and long-ago vaudevillian, who tossed in a free lesson.

— That autographed album the great country tunesmith Billy Joe Shaver gave him in Nashville in 1973 after hearing MacDonald’s demo songs at singer Bobby Bare’s music offices: “To my friend Pat MacDonald: the last of the great songwriters.”

This scrawny long-haired troublemaker from Green Bay was all of 20 at the time, knocking around Madison, making music to survive after an unsuccessful try at drug dealing. His future was not yet clear.

At some point in the intervening decades of countless moves — including his 1984 journey from Madison

15

to Austin with wife and musical partner Barbara Kooyman in their soon-to-be celebrated band Timbuk3, and later his sojourn in Barcelona, to lick his wounds, after their marriage and band broke up — he lost the damn saw and his records.

But not much else, it turns out. “I’m kind of a pack-rat,” mAcdonald says over coffee recently in Sturgeon Bay, in picturesque Door County on Lake Michigan. “Who could throw out a Christmas card that was sent with love?” We’re at his 18-unit retro cool Holiday Music Motel, an improbable but genius choice as a base camp for a cultural shaman like him.

And, yes, note the typography of his moniker. Tired of the habitual misspelling of his last name as “McDonald,” he now labels himself pat mAcdonald.

Who’s to argue with this single-minded artist?

Especially when in the space of 24 hours I meet three musicians who, trusting their instincts, packed up from good lives in San Francisco, New York City and Madison to be part of mAcdonald’s creative circle in this out-of-the-way port city.

These artists — and a whole bunch more from across the country — will be front and center at the Steel Bridge Songfest June 8-11 that mAcdonald puts on annually in Sturgeon Bay. (For details see page 18.)

“This place is like a dream incubator,” bassist and longtime Madison blues stalwart Tony Menzer tells me. It’s late night, and he’s packing up after backing a powerful blues singer named Cathy Grier at the Stone Harbor Bar across the street from the motel.

Menzer put in 10 years with Clyde Stubblefield and 15 years with the Westside Andy-Mel Ford Band.

Three years ago, at mAcdonald’s invitation, Menzer bailed from Madtown and moved his music equipment business from a Madison storage facility to a rambling warehouse showroom that mAcdonald and his investors own next to the motel. But I digress....

It’s legacy that weighs on pat mAcdonald’s mind, and we eventually get around to the spook in the breakfast nook. It’s not just that he turns 65 in August, but that 2016 found him confronting Stage 4 cancer — non-Hodgkins large B-cell lymphoma — and 10 months of on-and-off chemotherapy that exacted its own toll on his body.

He’s now in remission and getting stronger.

That face-off with cancer — “It’s hell going through that shit,” he says matter of factly — has compelled him to not just put his creative work in order but to advance it, while there’s time.

ISTHMUS.COM JUNE 1–7, 2017

SHAVER’S OUTSIZED PRAISE of the

16

young songwriter’s gifts proved prophetic. mAcdonald has written more than a thousand songs — “maybe a hundred good ones,” he says. Hardly a name brand, save for Timbuk3’s unexpected 1986 break-out hit “The Future’s So Bright (I Gotta Wear Shades),” mAcdonald remains a cult favorite operating in the shadows of the music industry.

Not that he cares. While mAcdonald has licensed his music for movies like Chris Farley’s Tommy Boy, he’s turned down millions for commercials, according to various news accounts. This includes $900,000 for “Future” from a telecom and $450,000 from Clairol for the upbeat “Hairstyles and Attitudes.” Other big offers came from Ford, McDonald’s, the U.S. Army and, of course, Ray-Ban.

TY HELBACH PHOTOGRAPHY

n COVER STORY

Jackson Browne (left) at the 2013 Steel Bridge Songfest with melaniejane, Tony Menzer and mAcdonald.

Note that mAcdonald and his musical and romantic partner melaniejane (yep, she’s lowercase too) share the modest manager’s quarters of the motel. Anything but a rock star’s crib. “It was just a vow I had made,” he says. It upset him to see one of his heroes, Lou Reed, hawking Honda scooters in the 1980s while “Walk On The Wild Side” played.

“I knew I would never do that, because I knew how it made me feel as a young fan.”

Miles Copeland, head of his old label IRS, was never happy with mAcdonald’s attitude. “He needs $100 for groceries, and I tell him, ‘Do one commercial, and you buy a damn house and live happily ever after,’” he groused in 1998.

But artistic integrity — and his commitment to helping other musicians — are key reasons why mAcdonald has inspired such intense loyalty. When I went up to Sturgeon Bay to see the creative community he’s nurtured in this old shipbuilding city, I found a busy man who works late into the night and has his morning coffee around noon or 1 p.m.

He has a new tribute album in the works — Begging His Graces: The Songs and Sins of pat mAcdonald, Vol. 3 — performed by Steel Bridge artists and produced by admirers, and he’s launched a series of “Lock Box Babies” albums, plumbing his unreleased recordings dating to the 1970s, including Madison-era material.

“I have accumulated all these songs in an utter state of chaos,” he confessed to Third Story podcast interviewer Leo Sidran last summer. “Yeah, I’ve got a lot of unfinished creative business,” including beer crates full of old notebooks to be sorted out.

What he doesn’t play up is making new music, though the Steel Bridge schedule shows him pairing with his buddy Eric

McFadden, who’s toured with Parliament/ Funkadelic and Eric Burdon, in their provocative side project, The Legendary Sons of Crack Daniels.

The index finger on mAcdonald’s right hand has weirdly lost tensile strength in one joint, probably a consequence of chemotherapy. “It’s gonna be difficult to play guitar for a while,” he tells me. The surprise is that he doesn’t seem all that bothered.

“I’m not thinking so much about selfexpression anymore,” he says. “I feel more comfortable sometimes being submerged in

Timbuk3 (MacDonald’s duo with his former wife Barbara K.) had a monster hit with “The Future’s So Bright” in 1986.

the motel’s music projects.” This submersion includes producing 12 volumes of annual Steel Bridge songs — a huge legacy by itself.

MACDONALD’S RECENT

history is rich with the intangibles of collaboration and stewardship. He returned to Wisconsin in 2004 for his second wife to tend to a family matter. The marriage, in shaky condition, shattered. “I needed to do something that made me feel good,” he recalls.

So he threw himself into a political campaign led by his sister Christie Weber to save the 1931 steel drawbridge that carries traffic over the canal that connects Lake Michigan with Green Bay. In 2005, he organized a benefit concert starring his friend Jackson Browne. He also debuted two new songs he had written about the bridge — and was blown away by the crowd’s embrace.

“The songs were giving people in Sturgeon Bay a sense of place,” he says.

The import of this hit him with the force of a revelation. By the time summer rolled around in 2006 he had revamped the benefit into a weeklong collaborative songwriting festival. The 25 musicians he invited were put up in a rented motel, randomly assembled into three-person teams via the spinning of a Jameson whiskey bottle, and asked to write “bridge” songs. (We non-poets need to be reminded that “bridge” is a word ripe for many metaphors.) The freshly minted songs were quickly recorded and publicly debuted the closing weekend of the festival. Whew!

“The songwriters felt it was a life-changing experience,” mAcdonald says. A young San Francisco songwriter named Anna Sacks grabbed him after the finale and said the magic words: “Why don’t we buy a mo-

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From left: Eric McFadden, melaniejane and mAcdonald jamming at the Red Room in 2009.

tel and do this year round?” Six weeks later, Sacks had moved to Sturgeon Bay. By the following summer, after mAcdonald and Sacks had devised a business plan and assembled a team of investors (it helped that Browne was one), the old fading Holiday Motel was now the hip Holiday Music Motel, and the annual Steel Bridge Songfest was institutionalized. Two other smaller songwriting festivals — Love On Holiday, around Valentine’s Day, and Dark Songs, around Halloween — were launched.

And, oh, yeah, the Steel Bridge itself was saved, placed on the National Register of Historic Places and refurbished. mAcdonald is now among the insurgents battling a proposed mega-hotel that would sprawl across the waterfront on public land.

LEO SIDRAN,

MADISON WAS PAT

mAcdonald’s proving ground. He arrived here in 1970 at the age of 18. He spent 13 years here, interrupted by a year’s stay in Nashville. He came as a high school dropout interested in busking, fingerpicking guitar and old timey tunes, and he left as a cutting-edge artist who merged hip-hop and punk sensibilities with oh-so observant lyrics.

Along the way, as mAcdonald tells it, he fell in with a group of older radical filmmakers who were living in a cabin between Black

Earth and Blue Mounds. They were on the road promoting revolution, and he had plenty of time to draw and listen to their massive record collection. And occasionally wander the hills tripping on acid.

His move to Madison put him in a house with a bunch of drug dealers. This was not good. The cops busted them and he was holding. mAcdonald says he was charged with three felonies and wound up serving a month in the Dane County jail. He had his own Merle Haggard moment: He was not even 20 and behind bars.

This provided an important life lesson: No more drug dealing. mAcdonald doubled down on music. Got a regular gig at Millard’s when it evolved into O’Cayz Corral, the new music haven. Harmony Grits Country Jamboree became so popular it sold out Great Hall in the Memorial Union. Another of his groups, Jukebox Lunch, became the house band of the CC Riders motorcycle gang at the old Wisconsin Inn. (Certain anecdotes will not be repeated here.) And his group Pat MacDonald and the Essentials, with their shiny new locally produced album, seemed a good bet to break big.

Never happened.

Ben Sidran, who was so taken with mAcdonald’s songwriting that he recorded four mAcdonald demos to pitch to record companies, couldn’t land him a major label contract.

In the end, mAcdonald figured it out himself: He bought a boom box fit for a rapper, recorded a bass and drum machine rhythm section for his songs and headed to Austin where he and Kooyman became a two-person band.

Two years later, “The Future’s So Bright” was the coolest thing on radio. The great irony — and there’s always irony with pat

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JUNE 1–7, 2017 ISTHMUS.COM

the Brooklyn-based musician/podcaster son of Madison jazzman Ben Sidran, tells a quintessential story of experiencing mAcdonald’s music. He was a college student in Spain in the late 1990s when he came across the singer in a tiny Barcelona bar playing acoustic guitar and using his trademark stomp board for percussion. “The room was dark, but the music was way darker,” Sidran told his podcast audience. “I was stunned.

I was pinned to the wall by the haunted sound of his voice and the sharp painful brilliance of his words. That was a moment for me.”

I’ve had my own moments with mAcdonald in Madison. I casually knew his music back in the ‘70s when he did an upbeat R&B thing with Pat MacDonald and the Essentials and channeled the glorious Gram Parsons country vibe with his bands Harmony Grits and Harmony Grits Country Jamboree. Thirty years pass. I heard him again performing

as Purgatory Hill with melaniejane on keyboard, percussion and amplified cello at the Harmony Bar and the always-edgy Mr. Robert’s. It’s a freakin’ knockout! mAcdonald was leaner, meaner and darker than before. I was gobsmacked. How could he sustain that hard punk edge after all those years?

This was ferocious music. He was playing (mostly) a four-string cigar box guitar made by Johnny Lowebow of Memphis. It sounded like a high-powered boat motor exploding when the bow hits a rock pile. And the songs — about whiskey, fast cars, suicidal temptations and bitchy women — were equally incendiary. “Shut Up” may be the most poisonous break-up song ever written. (Guess what the refrain is.)

I kept thinking: This guy is channeling the dark id of the American male. I was also guessing he was “no day at the beach” to be around, as was once said of the troubled comedian Richard Pryor. But now, after interviewing mAcdonald and visiting his Sturgeon Bay domain, I realize I had made a chump mistake — confusing the artist with the art.

“Pat is the nicest guy,” says Sacks. “But he isn’t afraid to share his emotions, even the ones that don’t make him look good. He lays it all out. That’s what make him unique.”

17

TY HELBACH PHOTOGRAPHY

n COVER STORY

THE

ED G EWAT ER

SUMMER OF MUSIC

Bluegrass, Throwback Tributes and Wisconsin Favorites Live from the Heart of Downtown Madison.

Join us for a season of sips and sounds on The Grand Plaza BREWGRASS FRIDAYS with Door County Brewing Company June 2:

The Lil Smokies Classic Fish Fry at 5pm ____________________________

LIVE AND LOCALE SATURDAYS Wisconsin Bands, in partnership with seven local breweries June 3:

Pat McCurdy Summer concerts are free and open to the public, beginning at 6pm. ____________________________

ISTHMUS.COM JUNE 1–7, 2017

MOVIES ON THE WATER with Lakefront Brewery

18

Movie-themed trivia from America’s Pub Quiz 7pm, outdoor movie at sunset.

Free and open to the public June 13:

Finding Dory

1001 WISCONSIN PLACE • (608) 535-8200 THEEDGEWATER.COM

Saving the 1,420-foot steel bridge (seen in the backdrop) became a broader movement to build community identity in Sturgeon Bay. The bridge is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

mAcdonald’s music — was how so many people got the song exactly wrong. It wasn’t a celebration of Reagan-era optimism, but a satire of its delusional thinking.

He’s never had another hit.

“I DON’T BREED

well in captivity.”

That’s what mAcdonald told his label boss Miles Copeland in the early ‘90s when the music mogul kept pressuring him to attend the exclusive songwriting retreats he ran at The Castle, a fortified 14th-century chateau Copeland owned in France. mAcdonald says he relented in return for a new publishing deal. The surprise was that as controlling as he was about his own music, mAcdonald found he could turn the page and collaborate with songwriting companions, including Cher and Peter Frampton, as well as various A-list pop writers.

The Castle became the inspiration for the motel’s songwriting festivals, minus the music royalty and Cordon Bleu chef. While melaniejane is the master of operations, mAcdonald does creative. He issues songwriter invitations (balance is important, but young artists from northern Wisconsin get special treatment) and curates songs and approves recordings.

“Pat collects real good people,” says his friend McFadden in a telephone interview.

“I mean, not just for their musical talents but for the quality of their character.” The San Francisco guitarist has missed only one Steel Bridge festival. “It’s beyond most things I’ve experienced in music, and I’ve been doing this for 30 years,” he says.

“All these songwriters under one roof collaborating for one week — man, you make some serious bonds.”

He gets no argument from Josh Harty, a Madison singer-songwriter who was one of 54 Steel Bridge artists last year. “Fucking

awesome!” he says in a booth at the Weary Traveler, where he occasionally bartends. “It makes you work in a way you’ve probably never experienced before. You retreat to a motel room with your team, and you start pitching out ideas. You get shot down a whole bunch, and you pitch out more. And finally the three of you land on something, and you build on it. It’s fantastic!”

Harty says mAcdonald warned them last year that illness would keep him away. “You know what? pat was around until 5 a.m. every night. He just needs to be part of it. He’ll come in the room, listen to your song and say, ‘It’s great except for that one line in the middle — let’s work on that.’ Or he’ll suggest a tiny little change that seems like a real pain in the ass after you’ve already spent hours on a song. But then you do it — and it makes all the difference.”

Three weeks later, after my chat with Harty, I’m hearing the same story — with the same notes of awe — as I stand in the Stone Harbor Bar at closing time. Blues singer Cathy Grier is packing up her gear, talking about her first Steel Bridge festival last year. She was a busker out of New York who spent almost 20 years singing in the subways and periodically hitting the road with her two standard poodles.

“My very first song at Steel Bridge last year — I was scared,” she says. “I was worried pat would come in and tell us how to write the song. He had just come out of fighting a horrific cancer. He was in the middle of chemotherapy and he was very weak. Yet he was so strong.

“He sat down. He listened to the tune, and he said, ‘Now what in the third verse is not serving your song?’ He knew there was a problem, but he let us figure it out.”

Grier, who matches a great gritty voice with sharp, restrained guitar playing, says she was taken aback when McFadden, as one of her songwriting partners, casually announced he had to leave early the next day to fly to Los Angeles to play at a Bernie Sanders benefit. “By 3 in the morning we were done. We had writ-

ten and recorded the song,” she says, still amazed at their burst of creativity.

She took that as a signal.

Within a week, Grier bought a house in Sturgeon Bay and gave up on New York. “I was looking for a place where I could have an impact on my community,” she says.

New York was just too big for that. Now she hosts the motel’s Thursday night “Writers’ Night” open mic and is producing a July 29 Steel Bridge artists’ tribute to mAcdonald at the Door County Auditorium in Fish Creek.

“It’s all about cohesiveness, partnering and opening yourself up,” Grier says of mAcdonald’s creative circle, as she wraps up the microphone cord.

By the time I walked out of the bar (after one last shot of mezcal), I knew that mAcdonald’s legacy was secure. It’s not just all those great songs, but in the artists he’s encouraged and in the community he helps build. n

2017 STEEL BRIDGE SONGFEST The 13th annual Steel Bridge Songfest runs June 8-11 in Sturgeon Bay. More than 150 musicians will perform at nine indoor and outdoor venues, including Madison’s Chaos Revolution Theory and Wisconsin Area Music Industry award winners Sugar Ransom and Brett Newski. Much of the music is free.

But the Friday and Saturday night pub-crawls require one $25 ticket for both nights, available at Brown Paper Tickets. For details, go to SteelBridgeSongfest.org.

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FOOD & DRINK ■ MUSIC ■ BOOKS ■ SCREENS

Malhotra cofounded Amarrass Records in his native New Delhi.

International connection

Ankur Malhotra’s singular path to recording Indian musicians

BY ANDY MOORE ■ PHOTOGRAPH BY ASHUTOSH SHARMA

“He looked at us strangely and picked up his instrument and played us a tune. And then, basically, said fuck off.”

Malhotra, who splits his year between Madison and New Delhi (and is well known as one of the faces behind the Musique Electronique stage at Madison’s La Fete de Marquette), is telling the story on the front porch of his neareast side home. He has long, curly black hair, a sculpted face and a deep, smoke-burnished voice; he chooses his words with the precision of someone who learned the King’s English.

Malhotra came of age during the closed Indian economy of the 1980s. Very little recorded music flowed in from outside the country. Commercial music of his childhood was dominated by Bollywood soundtracks.

Lucky for the music-loving boy, his father traveled internationally and always left the house with a list of albums to bring back: Stones, ABBA, the Grateful Dead, Hendrix. It would be years before Malhotra immersed himself in the music of his own culture.

Malhotra earned an undergrad in mechanical engineering at Bangalore University and finished his master of business administration at UW-Madison in 2001, maybe the

only MBA candidate in UW history to quote Bob Dylan in a final thesis on entrepreneurship. Throughout those years he kept in touch with his old friend and future business partner.

“I’d bring back blues records for Ashu and it struck me that for a country the size of India there was still hardly any music being recorded and performed from India. Just Bollywood Bollywood Bollywood,” says Malhotra.

Malhotra says the sounds of Indian folk music surrounded him when he was growing up. He saw some musicians perform at festivals, giving him a base knowledge of the form.

But who were the old practitioners? Where did they live? He learned that some of them actually found their way to performances at venues like the Kennedy Center and Sydney Opera House only to return home and “disappear into the desert.” How could that be?

It seemed inevitable that Malhotra would take those questions back home to India, and set off to find answers with Sharma. In 2010, with two microphones and a Sony cassette field recorder on loan from a Seattle friend, they left New Delhi on the first of 10 expeditions.

It was clear that Lakha Khan was finished with his song, but the men were not satisfied

with his one-tune performance. They asked for more. They asked to record. “Maybe he saw something in us. Maybe something in our actions or our tone of words,” says Malhotra.

Khan sat in silence for a few moments. Then he sent them out to the truck to retrieve their recording equipment.

That night, beneath one, low-wattage incandescent bulb, Malhotra and Sharma captured the sounds of a thousand years. Khan is the master of the 27-stringed sarangi. “Sa” stands for 100. “Rang” means colors. They recorded multiple takes of a song, a tune that, in the tradition of Indian folk music, never really stops. At the start of a new take, Khan would literally start where he left off — not at the “beginning” of the song.

The New Delhi record label the friends founded right about that time is aptly named Amarrass Records: “Ama” for eternal, and “Rass” for the essence of things. Khan is among just under a dozen artists now on the label, part of a stable of talent that includes The Blue Infinity, an Indian ensemble that explores Persian/ African meditations; the multi-layered secular

CONTINUE D ON PAGE 2 8

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JUNE 1–7, 2017 ISTHMUS.COM

It was 8 p.m. under ink-black skies when Ankur Malhotra and his business partner Ashutosh Sharma turned off the SUV and walked to the door of the one-room hut. They had spent the last two days bouncing like beans inside the Mumbai-built Mahindra truck and now found themselves 1,000 kilometers from their New Delhi home and 400 dusty kilometers into the Indian desert. The road, says Malhotra, “disappeared into the sand” hours before.

There were no maps to their destination, a village called Raneri in District Jodhpur. “You’d stop at the crossroads and ask a person who was kind of sheltering under the slim shade of a scrawny tree how to go,” says Malhotra.

It was December 2010 and Malhotra and Sharma, New Delhi friends since preschool, were about to hit pay dirt in their odyssey to locate and record Indian folk music masters.

After several knocks, the door swung open and there stood 60-year-old Lakha Khan, one of the last living masters of folk music from the culturally rich Manganiyar region of the Thar Desert. “We introduced ourselves and how we came to learn about him — that other singers had mentioned his name,” says Malhotra.

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n FOOD & DRINK

Salutary effects The Good Food Low Carb cafe focuses on fresh and healthy dishes

BY AMELIA COOK FONTELLA

Almost hidden in a strip mall on Cottage Grove Road, the new Good Food Low Carb Cafe is an oasis in the midst of fast food joints.

Inside, it’s bright with a happy, earthy vibe.

Cheerful red walls are accented with turquoise blue. Customers order at the counter from a chalkboard menu and sit at sturdy wooden tables, complete with hooks for a jacket or bag (a small touch, but much appreciated).

The menu, much of which is locally sourced, is made up mostly of salads, zoodles (zucchini “noodles”) and gluten-free flatbread pizzas. It’s all served on cute mismatched vintage china.

Good Food began (and continues as) a food cart — actually, two food carts, now.

Since 2010, Good Food has been serving food with a healthy bent. This year, Good Food went even healthier with an entirely low-carb menu. The Low Carb Cafe is the brand’s latest endeavor; it opened in early April.

The cafe serves six salads, which can be served as lettuce leaf “tacos,” as a traditional salad or wrapped in a low-carb whole-wheat tortilla. (The tortilla is the only gluten/graincontaining item on the menu.) These are generous; wraps are about the size of the average fast-casual burrito and just as heavy.

In fact, if you’re craving a burrito, “Fajitas from Albuquerque” is a great choice. Grilled bell peppers and onions, fresh avocado and homemade pico de gallo arrive on chopped greens with choice of chicken or tofu. The lime chili ranch dressing that comes on the side is a perfect addition — creamy and tangy.

Another of my favorites is the Bravo. It’s a chopped salad with chunks of avocado and crumbly bacon with blue cheese buttermilk dressing. Sunflower seeds add a surprising, and delicious, crunch. The veggies in this, and in every dish I tried, are really fresh. There’s

MELANIE NELSON

The bolognese zoodle bowl doesn’t need pasta.

not a brown leaf of lettuce to be found. This isn’t fancy food, but it’s fresh and well executed.

The Greek Superfood called my name with its kale, kalamata olives, artichoke hearts, feta cheese, and citrus vinaigrette, but didn’t pack as much flavor as I’d expected. It was still satisfying, but a dollop of the cafe’s yummy hummus (available as an appetizer) would have added some depth.

Zoodle bowls are another pillar of the menu.

Here, pretty spirals of al dente zucchini and summer squash are served in lieu of pasta in versions of familiar dishes like spaghetti bolognese, macaroni and cheese and pad thai.

The “Bolognese” is especially delicious. A meaty tomato sauce is topped with fresh mozzarella cheese and plenty of parmesan. The flavors of zucchini and squash work well with the cheeses and sauce. It tastes almost like a deconstructed eggplant parmesan.

Carb lovers should think of zoodles as something other than pasta. Zucchini won’t trick you into thinking it’s noodles, but as its own thing, it’s a really wonderful way to eat veggies.

While the entrees are loaded with veggies and feel pretty healthy, appetizers are richer and look more like standard American fast fare. Chicken wings, jalapeño poppers and spinach artichoke dip all make the list. Here, the jalapeño poppers come hot out of the oven, not the deep fryer, though.

Six jalapeño halves are filled with a cheddar cheese stuffing and each is wrapped with a strip of bacon.

Lemon-tahini hummus had just the right balance of lemon and tahini. It’s so good it’s easy to finish the whole thing, even though it’s quite a large portion. And there are enough fresh veggies and gluten-free flatbread for scooping all the way to the end.

I love gluten, I’ll just say it. I’m naturally skeptical of gluten-free baked goods. Here, the flatbread is made from egg, cheese and almond flour. It’s a touch dry, but still remarkably good for gluten-free.

The flatbread is best utilized in the cafe’s “Fathead Flatbread,” a pizza-like dish that makes as good an entree as it does an appetizer. The Greek is a good pick, loaded with mozzarella cheese; kalamata olives and feta supply a salty kick. Other options include buffalo ranch and margherita.

For dessert, try a chocolate-topped peanut butter bar. There’s no sugar added, of course. The cafe uses stevia instead, which does have a slightly bitter aftertaste, but otherwise does its job in adding just the right amount of sweetness to the treat. Stevia also shows up in a beautiful ruby-colored hibiscus tea, though I’d like the option to be able to order it completely unsweetened.

While the low-carb message is clear, diners don’t have to subscribe to any particular diet to truly enjoy the simple and delicious food here. It’s low-carb, yes, but most importantly, it’s good. n

GOOD FOOD LOW CARB CAFE n 4674 Cottage Grove Rd. n 608-630-8400 n goodfoodmadison.com 11 am-8 pm Mon.-Fri., 9 am-3 pm Sat. n $1-14

Eats events

ISTHMUS.COM JUNE 1–7, 2017

Two-Cent

22

PINT Kyle Nabilcy writes about beer every Tuesday at

Isthmus.com

Gastropod Live!

Pirate-themed beer launch Wieners & Weiss

Sunday, June 4

Tuesday, June 6

Thursday, June 8

The acclaimed food podcast Gastropod is in town for a live recording. Guests include Jeanne Carpenter, founder of Wisconsin Cheese Originals, as well as Barry Levenson, founder of the Mustard Museum (who also teaches food law at the UW Law School). The event promises live experiments and interactive tastings. Tickets ($10) at tinyurl. com/gastropodlive. At Majestic Theatre, 115 King St., 7 pm.

The Vintage Brewpub is celebrating the launch of its Double IPA “Toy Boat Toy Boat” with a pirate party. There are prizes for the best-dressed buccaneers and face painting from Antsy Pants Paints; also, “walk the plank” by taking a turn in the dunk tank (proceeds benefit Clean Lakes Alliance). At Vintage Brewing Co., 674 S. Whitney Way, 4-9 pm.

The Robin Room is hosting a pop-up with Pretty Boy Dumplings. Chef Matthia Melchizedek is making Sai Oua lemongrass sausage served with grilled chile sambal, cucumber, mint, shallots and scallions ($7).

Tap beers are also $1 off. At 821 E. Johnson St., 7-11 pm.

LUNCH. LOCAL. Join us every weekday for Madison's favorite luncheon.

Our famous salad bar touts a wide variety of local greens, veggies, cheeses and house-made soups.

The menu, which changes seasonally and is crafted with local and organic ingredients, is inspired by the diverse individuals that define our community and is shaped by hardworking local farmers who embody the spirit of Wisconsin.

1 West Dayton Street Madison, WI 53703 Lunch served daily 11:00am - 2:00pm circmadison.com

HAVE YOU TRIED

MADISON’S FAVORITE CRAFT COCKTAIL OR

LOCALLY DISTILLED SPIRIT?

JUNE 1–7, 2017 ISTHMUS.COM

UNTIL 11PM

23

■ FOOD & DRINK

Ain’t no party like a scenting party The Soap Opera applies for a wine license

BY DYLAN BROGAN

There are worse names for a tavern than the Soap Opera. But the longtime State Street retailer isn’t turning into a bar. Owner Stacey Scannell is seeking a license to serve wine and beer at scent events in the downtown shop.

“We just want to be able to provide wine for people who gather in our beautiful garden area behind the store. Most people don’t even know we have it,” says Scannell, who bought the well known business with her husband, Sean, in 2016.

The Soap Opera is one of downtown’s longest-running retail shops. Since 1972, it’s been selling body care goods, perfumes, essential oils and other aromatic products on the 300 block of State Street. This year, Scannell has been booking custom scenting parties (sans the alcohol) at the store. Partygoers dine on cheese, veggie platters and other hors d’oeuvres while staff create custom fragrances for guests.

“People are willing to spend money on an experience,” Scannell explains. “If people want a custom perfume, they can come in and do that any time. But, throw in a little food, some atmosphere and yes, a glass of wine, it’s now an experience. I think it will increase our retail sales.”

Even with a license to serve alcohol, the events will remain family-friendly, Scannell says. She sees them as appropriate for birthday and graduation celebrations, bachelorette parties and for friends looking to share a fun activity with each other.

“For example, a bridal shower. You don’t want to just go bar hopping. You might have some younger kids or older people in the group who don’t want drinking to be the focus,” Scannell says. “People want to go out with their friends and have fun. They don’t just want to go buy something.”

The Soap Opera isn’t charging for private parties at the store. There will be an expectation that guests who create a personalized perfume will purchase the scent. Scannell says it’s a very individualized process.

“We first ask what kind of scents you naturally gravitate toward. Then we look at you, see what type of person you are and what vibe you want to give off when you enter a room. We’ll find a scent that you’ll absolutely love,” Scannell says. “We then figure

out how you want to wear it. It can be a roll-on, a lotion or a spray perfume. It’s up to you.”

Scannell says the Soap Opera, like many brick-and-mortar stores, is contending with more customers shopping online. In addition to hosting parties, the Soap Opera also recently overhauled its website to bolster sales. But as far as retail goes, Scannell says the Soap Opera is in good shape.

“We are fortunate because we have the best customers in the business. We have people who have been shopping here for 45 years,” Scannell says. “But like it or not, traditional retail is really suffering. So like a lot of businesses, we are adapting.”

The Soap Opera’s liquor license is scheduled for a hearing before the Alcohol License Review Committee on on June 21. ■

Will wine join hors d’oeuvres in the Soap Opera’s charming back garden?

State in a box The best of Wisconsin, themed, curated and shipped

BY JANE BURNS

GERMAN WINE DINNER

THURSDAY, JUNE 22 6-8 PM

ISTHMUS.COM JUNE 1–7, 2017

Elke Brendel of Left Bank wines will be presenting five German wines along with our four course wine dinner

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Kase-lgel Spargelfest Salat Grilled Duck Breast with Pinot Noir-Cherry Sauce Apfel Tarte Cost $57 • Limited Seating. Gratuity and tax included. Please RSVP by 6/18.

425 N. Frances St. • 256-3186 Check out the menu at portabellarest.com

When it comes to figuring out what gifts people might want from Wisconsin, a new company is thinking inside the box.

WiscoBoxes, which launched this spring in Mount Horeb, sells and ships gift boxes around a variety of themes and in a variety of sizes. No matter the theme, the boxes have the same overall mission — to bring smallproducer foods and other goods to people in Wisconsin and beyond.

“It’s part of that ‘Where does my food come from?’ or ‘Where do the things I love come from?’” says company founder and president Sarah Botham. “We want to be able to source products, goods and services that are local. It seems to be the most sustaining trend I’ve seen in a long time and I think it’s wonderful.”

WiscoBoxes offers 11 gift boxes with products from 45 producers. Goodies include candles, chocolates, cheeses, nuts, kitchenware, baby onesies and even bath fizzies.

Wine is also an option in several of the boxes, if shipped to any of 14 states where that’s legal. It’s from Botham Vineyards near Barneveld, owned by Botham and her husband, Peter. A non-alcoholic option is Wisco Pop, made in Viroqua.

“We chose some of our favorite products, and some of the less well-known ones,” says Botham. She also wanted the producers to be “spread throughout Wisconsin” for geographic diversity.

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“Enticing Vices” make nice surprises.

A “Culinary Queen” box includes a kitchen towel from Ghost Pegasus or Milkhaus Design in Madison, a wooden spoon from Nick’s Woodshop in Eau Claire and a bowl from Toast Ceramics in Madison.

The “Gentleman’s” box includes jerky from Wayne’s Jerky in Sobieski, Big Nuts peanut brittle made by Feed Mills in Barneveld and a shaving puck from Jangle Soapworks in Mount Horeb.

“No Place Like Home” includes items for around

the house and “Hey Baby Baby” and “Here Comes the Bride” target pretty much whom you’d think they would.

Boxes come in three sizes and range in price from $40 to $140. There’s also an option to build your own box from available items. Even the boxes are made in Wisconsin,

by Wright Brothers Paper Box Company in Fond du Lac. Orders can be shipped, or picked up at 305 E. Main St. in Mount Horeb.

“We mainly came up with the themes first, then some products we knew and loved,” says Megan Madsen, the company’s brand manager. “There were others where we had to look for the right item to include.

We found them at farmers’ markets, craft fairs, shops or Etsy.”

Botham and Madsen began searching for products in November, and launched in April.

Madsen had to work with some of the producers to familiarize them with selling wholesale instead of just at markets. Some businesses have sent WiscoBoxes samples, and Botham and Madsen will take suggestions.

The two women are the company’s only employees so far, but Botham foresees that potentially changing as holiday season nears. They also see room for growth with private, corporate or community clients, and by producing small-box versions for such special events as Concerts on the Square. More gift boxes will be on the roster, too, as time goes by. Says Botham: “There are limitless ideas because there are so many cool products in Wisconsin.” ■

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■ FOOD & DRINK

Taproom on the bike path Working Draft Beer Company headed to RP’s building The beer scene on Madison’s east side continues to become more active. The latest beer maker announcing plans to locate there is Working Draft Beer Company, which plans to take over the building currently occupied by RP’s Pasta at 1133 East Wilson St. The location is on the section of Wilson Street that is also part of the Capital City bike trail.

The brewery is the creation of Madison residents Ben Feifarek and Ryan Browne. Feifarek, 41, is the owner of Madison’s Wine and Hop Shop. Browne, 34, works there as homebrewing education coordinator.

“It’s every homebrewer’s dream to open a brewery at some point,” says Feifarek. Working Draft will join several other new breweries and taprooms that now call the east side home.

Earlier this month the Parched Eagle opened its new taproom at 1444 East Washington Ave. BarleyPop Tap and Shop, a craft beer bar, also opened this year at 2045 Atwood Ave. They join small breweries One Barrel and Next Door, both on Atwood Avenue.

Feifarek sees this as beneficial. “There are always worries that there will be one too many, but I don’t think so. There’s a lot of housing going up

in the area and it’s really the more the merrier.”

Feifarek’s plans are to open by the end of the year. The Marquette Neighborhood Association recently endorsed the project; the proposed brewery is expected to go before the city’s Plan Commission by mid-June.

Working Draft will make mostly in-house draughts. Feifarek plans to have 16 to 18 beers on tap (some will be guest taps and collaborations) and sell crowlers for takeout. Both Feifarek and Browne lean toward hoppy beers. Both will brew; however, they’ll also hire a head brewer. The goal is to install a new seven-barrel system and use a smaller one-barrel system for experiments. Feifarek hopes to eventually have enough capacity to sell select beers to other bars and restaurants.

The building is about 4,000 square feet.

Roughly half will be the taproom, with a capacity of 100 persons. There will be a limited menu prepared in partnership with Underground Meats.

Feifarek and Browne intend to keep working at the Wine and Hop Shop. “We hope we’ll create some crossover with people who come to the shop and those who will come to the brewery,” he says. “We like it when people bring their homebrew to the shop and ask us what we think.

We want to bring that sense of community to our new space too.” ■

Ben Feifarek (le ) and Ryan Browne will both brew at Working Dra , but plan to hire a head brewer, too.

Lemon aid

ISTHMUS.COM JUNE 1–7, 2017

Hop Garden’s Rising Son American wheat ale

26

The Hop Garden’s newest beer takes an American wheat ale as its base and showcases Sorachi Ace hops from Japan. Using these hops in a wheat beer has been Rich Joseph’s vision for a while. The owner and brewmaster of the Hop Garden planted Sorachi Ace on his Belleville farm for that specific reason.

Rising Sun also has a touch of Magnum hops that offer a hint of bitterness. About 40 percent wheat in the grist adds to its cloudy appearance. Joseph chose an American wheat ale yeast known for helping the flavor stay clean and somewhat dry in the finish.

Rising Sun is a fresh, crisp, citrus take on an American wheat. The Sorachi Ace hops give it a bright tangy lemon aroma and flavor. There’s still a nice background of yeasty, fruity sweetness that reminds drinkers this is a wheat beer, while the citrus notes brighten the overall experience. It pairs well with fresh, non-aged cheeses like feta, mascarpone and ricotta.

Lighter cheeses are great with the softer flavors of the wheat and lemon accents.

Rising Sun finishes at 5.9 percent ABV, and despite all its attention on the lemony Sorachi Ace hops, it remains subdued in bitterness at an estimated 10 IBUs (International Bitterness Units). It’s available only on draft at Hop Garden’s taproom in Paoli, House of Brews in Madison and a handful of craft beer bars. It generally sells for around $5/pint.

— ROBIN SHEPARD

ROBIN SHEPARD

CAROLYN FATH

BY ROBIN SHEPARD

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27

n MUSIC

Ankur Malhotra continued from 21

Manganiyar Seduction; and Milwaukee’s Painted Caves, the company’s first U.S.-based act.

Amarrass has the distinction of being the first Indian label to be cutting records on vinyl in the 21st century. The partners purchased the vinyl machinery in January from an old German ANKUR MALHOTRA named Ulrich Sourisseau who fabricated Amarrass Records’ storefront. the devices and has been making vinyl records in rural Bavaria for decades. Sourisseau trained them at his shop, called Souri’s Automaten, over the course of several days.

Two Ikea lamps now warm the poly vinyl chloride (PVC) blanks in the small, Amarrass storefront in New Delhi.

Malhotra and Sharma are in full record production, as well as touring with and promoting traditional and new Indian music performers. One of their most popular acts, global beats practitioners the Barmer Boys, was discovered in bits and pieces on that same 2010 expedition — all living within 50 miles of the Pakistan border. The band’s singer gave Malhotra goosebumps when he first heard him.

While ancient music from the Indian desert and beat/ electronic music seem, well, worlds apart, Malhotra’s American music preoccupation is beat and house music. It’s a genre he mines deep as founder — and current co-producer with Jason Van Nurden — of the Musique Electronique stage at La Fete de Marquette, which takes place in Central Park in July.

Malhotra says ancient music and beats have a common appeal: authenticity. As a listener or as a dancer, “you can be yourself even as you lose yourself.” And so, for the joyful Malhotra, it follows that there’s no distance at all between truths flowing from beats of inner-city Detroit and mystical sounds in Lakha Khan’s hut on a dark night in the middle of the Indian desert.

“He could make a grown man cry,” Malhotra says of Khan. “And that is like being in the presence of a sorcerer.” n

Songwriter rising Michael McDermott’s back on track after a disastrous flameout

BY ANDY MOORE

You’d think Michael McDermott’s best memory of Wrigley Field would be the time he took in a Cubs game with one of his fans by the name of Stephen King.

That Stephen King. But you’d be wrong.

Instead, the Chicago native’s most cherished moments there have been singing the National Anthem, something he does about five times each year, most recently in a daring, harmonized version with his wife/collaborator Heather Horton.

“It’s not an easy song to sing. It always comes with some butterflies — but no major catastrophes to speak of so far,” says McDermott.

McDermott knows a whole lot about catastrophes. More on that in a moment. For now, the 48-year-old is buoyed by the critical success of his newest record, a monument to despair and redemption called Willow Springs.

Glide calls it “one of his most pointed and provocative efforts yet.”

But McDermott, who rolls into the High Noon on June 4, has other reasons to feel positive. He recently marked five years of sobriety. And if there was ever a guy who needed to get sober, it was McDermott.

At 24, the Washington Post dubbed him, “the next Bruce Springsteen.” Rolling Stone and The New York Times also raved. Airplay and appearances on MTV are what grabbed the attention of novelist Stephen King, who quoted McDermott’s lyrics in his book Insomnia. King

SANDRO

McDermott’s album, Willow Springs, is named after his peaceful new home.

called him up at his home in Orland Park, Illinois, and took him to the Cubs game.

They even toured Graceland together.

McDermott washed down the star treatment with cocaine, crack, “a little heroin and, of course, alcohol just to mask it all.” His was a lifestyle of soused survival that included, among other emergencies, a reported run-in with a scissors-wielding stripper, Cook County Jail time, and alleged relations with assorted mafia types.

That was then. Now? Well, sobriety can bring stability but it doesn’t put life on hold. In the past five-plus years McDermott has taken the good with the bad: the birth of his daughter, the passing of his father, and a family move from the suburbs

ISTHMUS.COM JUNE 1–7, 2017

AT THE MINERAL POINT OPERA HOUSE

28

of Chicago to the country. Specifically, to a little town that is the new album’s namesake, Willow Springs, a spot McDermott says is “15 miles from 20 years back in time.”

Turns out it was the perfect place for someone like McDermott to take stock of midlife. Musically and emotionally, Willow Springs has the variety of Dylan’s opus Blood on the Tracks. You’ll hear why Dylan is often mentioned in the same breath as McDermott during such songs as, “Half Empty Kinda Guy,” a thank-you note for a life that is less complicated. “I can’t see the rainbow, I can only see the rain. I can’t see the heavens, I can only see the sky,” he sings.

Even as it parodies the genre, “Folksinger” is an ode to authenticity.

Still, like the best folk songwriters, McDermott’s stock in trade is introspection, as found on the seven-minute tribute to his late father, “Shadow in the Window.”

McDermott is getting used to things going well again, although he’s still surprised by the impact his work has on others. When a well-dressed audience member approached him after a Florida show, a dubious McDermott thought he looked “demanding.”

“He came up to me and said, ‘Can I hug you? I’ve never hugged something so honest,’” says McDermott.

McDermott’s reply? “Let’s hug it out, bitch!” n

June 9-11

Three concerts by young professional classical chamber music ensembles will be presented in the recently restored historic Mineral Point Opera House, an ideal chamber music venue with excellent acoustics.

Tickets and info: www.artsmp.org/chamber-music-fest/

PRESENTED BY

■ BOOKS

Grand Central RHAPSODY IN BLOOM 2017

Bledsoe (le ) is a Tennessee native who now works from his home in Mount Horeb.

Folk-inspired fantasy Alex Bledsoe’s Tufa series is based on Appalachian songs

Saturday, June 17, 2017 6:00-11:00pm

Diverse. Bold. Delicious.

New York City is an ever evolving culture mash-up of cuisine and creativity; come and explore a taste of the big city life.

ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN IN A NEW YORK MINUTE! Mingle through the Gardens and sample traditional New York food cart cuisine.

Proceeds benefit Olbrich Botanical Gardens.

OLBRICH.ORG

BY JANE BURNS

presents

Glow Motion Friday, June 2 // 6-10 p.m.

Celebrate the return of long summer nights with an incandescent dance party!

Artisanal pizza, appetizers, craft beer, wine, and a craft cocktail will be available for purchase from The Roman Candle Pizzeria. $12.75 advance; $15 day-of Ages 21 & up.

Special performance by the multitalented P-Funk Allstar Kim Manning!

media partner:

Play like a grown-up.

100 N. Hamilton St. | Madison, WI 53703 | (608) 256–6445 | MadisonChildrensMuseum.org

JUNE 1–7, 2017 ISTHMUS.COM

Bledsoe had wanted to write about hidden people in the modern world, and he drew inspiration from the true story of It’s a fiction writer’s job to create a new Iraqi soldier Jessica Lynch’s rescue. The world. Alex Bledsoe’s fiction does just that first Tufa book, The Hum and the Shiver, — with the added bonus of a soundtrack deals with a young female soldier’s return that drives the plot. home as a military hero. Four more books The Mount Horeb-based author has finished his fifth book for the Tufa series, which followed as the Tufa world melds with other worlds, including those of rock ‘n’ roll features modern-day fairies, vampires and and musical theater. Despite the mystery a “sword jockey.” All five titles are based on and evil that lurk, it’s a utopian society — songs by folk singer Jennifer Goree, who Bledsoe found online while searching the term in a culture that keeps to itself, there’s a live-and-let-live attitude where women are “Appalachian soul.” The fifth title, Gather Her respected and gay people are accepted.

Round, was released in March by Tor Books.

“There is a huge body of literature Publishers Weekly called the book “an atmoabout mountain folk and how bad they spheric tale” and said Bledsoe “comfortably are,” Bledsoe says. “That they’re dishoninhabits the space where rural fantasy and magic realism overlap and makes it his own.” est, uneducated, inbred, all that. So if you’re going into that you have to either The Tufa stories are set in the Smoky embrace that or react against it.”

Mountains of Tennessee, Bledsoe’s home In addition to basing titles on songs by state. The Tufa are a dark-haired mysterious people who have lived in fictional Cloud Goree, Bledsoe excerpts other musicians’ lyrics. Bledsoe introduced many of those County since before European settlers arrived. No one knows who they are, or where artists before they played sets at South Carolina’s Enchanted Chalice Renaissance they came from. Their power and magic Festival in 2015. He found kindred spirits come in the songs that have been passed in Tuatha Dea, a band that bills itself as down for generations.

“Celtic tribal gypsy rock.” He included With the blend of current culture and a them in a book, and the band in turn little bit of mystery, Bledsoe’s Tufa tales are genre fiction for people who don’t read genre recorded an entire album, Tufa Tales: Appalachian Fae. Bledsoe had a bit role in the fiction. He plays with the notion of being band’s video for “Wisp of a Thing.” disconnected from the world but unable to In September, Bledsoe will be part of avoid being pulled into it.

“That’s the overriding theme: When you a “Tufa Tour” hosted by Tuatha Dea. The can’t hide anymore, what do you do?” Bled- weekend bus tour winds through the Appalachian Mountains near Gatlinburg, Tensoe says.

Gather Her Round deals with the universal nessee, with book and music events.

“It doesn’t get much more flattering than theme of jealousy, a love triangle with the added twist of menacing feral hogs. There are that,” Bledsoe says.

Alex Bledsoe will discuss his work and brutal deaths, but are they murders? Once again, the Tufa have to let outsiders into their sign books on June 3, 1:30 p.m., at the Alicia Ashman Library, 733 N. High Point Road. ■ world to get answers.

Garden ardens DOWNTOWN

29

■ SCREENS

Film events Being John Malkovich: A mysterious portal in an office building transports you inside the actor; an unforgettable movie from writer Charlie Kaufman and director Spike Jonze. Central Library, June 1, 6:30 pm..

Hidden Figures: Biopic about a trio of African American women who worked on NASA’s mission to send John Glenn into space. Pinney Library, June 2, 6:30 pm.

The Avengers: Writer-director Joss Whedon finally brings the Marvel crew to the big screen properly in this entertaining franchise kick-off. Orpheum Theater, June 2, 7 & 10 pm.

Fantastic Planet: Rooftop Cinema: Innovative animation collides with politics in director René Laloux’s sci-fi tale. Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, June 2, 9:30 pm.

One Week Friends: Anime Club screening (RSVP: 608-246-4548). Hawthorne Library, June 2, 7 pm.

Back to the Future: Free Madison Parks screening: Comedy about a 1985 teen (Michael J. Fox) who must unite his high-school-aged parents to save his own existence after being accidentally sent 30 years into the past. Lisa Link Peace Park, June 3, 8:30 pm.

Zootopia: The film uses the classic tropes of anthropomorphized animals and comic references to pop culture touchstones to slyly puzzle out what it means to be “civilized.” Orpheum Theater, June 4, 11 am & 2:30 pm.

The Grand Budapest Hotel: WUD Lakeside Cinema: A concierge at a famous European hotel (Ralph Fiennes) and his recently anointed sidekick (Tony Revolori) try to recover a stolen Renaissance painting. This is a spry, sly spectacle, rich with detailed production design and tickling tributes to director Wes Anderson’s cinematic forebears. UW Memorial Union-Terrace, June 5, 9 pm.

River of No Return: A farmer (Robert Mitchum), his young son and a gambler’s abandoned wife (Marilyn Monroe) take to a raft to try to escape danger. Madison Senior Center, June 6, 1 pm.

Fantastic selection of mystery novels

Lakeside cinema — and a puzzle Movies on the Terrace are all connected, somehow, to Samuel L. Jackson

BY CRAIG JOHNSON

The Memorial Union Terrace becomes an outdoor cinema every Monday night at 9 throughout the summer with the Wisconsin Union Directorate’s Lakeside Cinema series.

It is that rare venue where you can enjoy alcohol, hot dogs and a sunset with your movie.

This year the audience gets a bonus: a puzzle to solve. The theme is The 15 Degrees of Samuel L. Jackson. This is not to be confused with a series that is all Samuel L., all the time. Instead, the Lakeside Cinema series features a daisy chain of movies, with each one connected to the last through one actor or another à la the sociological theory of six degrees of separation (meaning we’re all less than six steps away from everyone else), or the movie-related game, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

The program started May 29 with Jurassic Park, featuring Jackson as a doomed computer technician. June 5 is The Grand Budapest Hotel, a movie that co-stars Jeff Goldblum, who also got chased by dinosaurs in Steven Spielberg’s thriller. We then follow Tony Revolori, the Grand Budapest’s heroic lobby boy, to the coming-of-age

comedy Dope, where he plays the hero’s best friend. This chain continues from actor to actor until the series winds its way to the high school basketball drama Coach Carter starring Samuel L. Jackson.

Got it?

We’ll leave it to you to figure out the connections between the remaining titles.

Even as someone who kills time in waiting rooms playing variations of this game in my head, I was flummoxed by some of the links. Yes, it’s obvious that Eddie Murphy was in Dreamgirls and Shrek 2, but the tie between Rogue One and The Lego Movie is completely beyond me.

By my count, Samuel L. Jackson appears in three other movies in the series (Kingsman, The Avengers and Kong: Skull Island).

Oddly enough, there are no Kevin Bacon movies on tap; neither is the Will Smith movie Six Degrees of Separation.

Esoteric movie trivia games aside, Lakeside Cinema delivers a vibrant lineup of crowd pleasers from the last quarter century including 22 Jump Street, Everybody Wants Some, Spy Kids and The Book of Life. Check the Wisconsin Union Directory website, union.wisc.edu/getinvolved/wud/film/ for dates. ■

ISTHMUS.COM JUNE 1–7, 2017

30

Fiction & Non Fiction Bestsellers, Indie Next Picks & More 1863 Monroe Street 608-283-9332 mysterytomebooks.com

Grand Budapest Hotel.

Faith in the great unknown Cloud Cult’s audiovisual release searches for meaning in tragedy

BY LAWRENCE GANN

Delightful children’s section

Jackson in Skull Island.

Under a ceiling of dark clouds, fighting a deluge in open sea, a woman desperately bails handfuls of water from her rainbowpainted boat. As the boat sinks, orchestral strings swell in the climactic finish of “Three Storms Until You Learn to Float,” one of the closing tracks of The Seeker.

The Seeker is the most recent album and first feature-length film from the Viroquabased musical collective Cloud Cult. It falls somewhere between cinematic tone poem and concept album. The band takes The Seeker on tour this summer, performing live alongside screenings of the film. It plays at Madison’s Majestic Theatre on June 2.

Cloud Cult has a history of blending mediums — the band’s shows have often featured live painting or interpretive dancing — and The Seeker follows those impulses even further.

“Our writing process has always been narrative,” says Cloud Cult bandleader Craig Minowa. “Turning an album to film is a dream that’s been manifesting a long time.”

Directed by Jeff D. Johnson and starring Alex McKenna and Josh Radnor, the film follows a character named Grace through

The Seeker follows Grace (portrayed as a child by Lillia Gray, le ), who sees her idyllic life turned upside down a er the death of her father (Josh Radnor).

the death of her father, portraying her triumph over despair.

Much of The Seeker’s visual narrative is told in impressionist shorthand. The uplifting first act focuses on Grace’s childhood and leads up to her father’s death. But The Seeker is strongest when Grace begins her search for meaning after he dies.

As an adult, she builds a life-sized version of a toy boat her father made her, painted in matching rainbow, and sets off to sea. She weathers a storm, and eventually washes ashore, renewed.

The Seeker’s most pronounced tracks carry this act, especially “No Hell” and “The Pilgrimage,” and longtime fans, or listeners of emotional, folk-electronic acts

such as Radical Face and Beirut, will find much to enjoy.

The religious symbolism in the lyrics and visuals seem obvious. But the ultimate message is universal. “We had an intention to draw from religious backgrounds, though we wanted not to give an answer, but give respect to the search,” says Minowa. “We wanted to show witnessing tragedy and beauty like a kid — relearning how to live in awe.”

The Seeker succeeds at illustrating a poignant truth about loss: Suffering is inevitable, but it can be the crucible through which we find appreciation.

“Everything is magic ’til you think it’s not,” Minowa sings early in The Seeker. “It takes guts to give thanks for the things you’ve lost.” ■

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JUNE 1–7, 2017 ISTHMUS.COM

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31

PICK OF THE WEEK

Diana Krall

WIAA State Boys Individual Tennis Tournament: 10:30 am on 6/1, 9 am on 6/2 and 8:30 am, 6/3, Nielsen Tennis Stadium. $6/session. 715-344-8580.

Saturday, June 3, Overture Hall, 8 pm While jazz “rock stars” may be hard to come by these days, Diana Krall is the closest thing we have to one.

The vocalist-pianist is the only jazz musician to have eight albums debut atop the Billboard charts, she’s won five Grammys (three more than her husband, Elvis Costello), and gone platinum multiple times. Her most recent standards album, Turn Up the Quiet, was released earlier this year.

“One of the signature gifts of this most musically sophisticated of popjazz performers has long been the ability to make a giant venue feel like a shoebox jazz club,” The Guardian wrote of Krall’s 2015 performance at Royal Albert Hall. Let’s see how she does in the massive Overture Hall.

thu jun 1 MU S I C

Madison Mallards: vs. Lakeshore, 6:35 pm on 6/1 & 3 and 7:05 pm on 6/2; vs. Rockford, 6:35 pm, 6/7-8, Warner Park Duck Pond. Promotions: mallardsbaseball.com. 246-4277.

fri jun 2 MUS I C

Big Neck Records Fest

picks

MARY MCCARTNEY

COM EDY Bowl-A-Vard Lanes: Denim n Leather, ‘80s hard rock, 5 pm.

Friday, June 2, Majestic Theatre, 8 pm

East Side Club: Stand Up and Sing for Kids, Canopy Center/Dane County CASA benefit, with music by VO5, live band karaoke, auctions, refreshments, 6:30 pm.

Lisa Link Peace Park: The Pine Travelers, free, 5:30 pm.

Mickey’s Tavern: Mal-O-Dua, French/Hawaiian, 5:30 pm.

Monona Terrace Rooftop: The Screamin’ Cucumbers, free (tickets required: eventbrite.com/e/33026544283), 7 pm.

Maggie Faris

Nau-Ti-Gal: Riled Up, free, 5:30 pm.

Thursday June 1, Comedy Club on State, 8:30 pm

Olin Park: The Whiskey Farm, bluegrass, free, 6 pm.

A proud Midwestern native, Maggie Faris has carved out quite the niche in the comedy landscape over the past 15 years, and is renowned for brave yet relatable views on the current social landscape, especially LGBT topics. In 2008 she was listed as one of the Funniest Lesbians in America by Curve magazine. Come for the refreshing world view, and stay for the dorky non-sequiturs peppered through her set. With Spencer James, Ian Erickson. ALSO: Friday-Saturday, June 2-3, 8 & 10:30 pm.

Sprecher’s Restaurant and Pub: Ron Denson, free, 7 pm.

Thursday, June 1, High Noon Saloon, 8 pm

Matthäus, a chamber folk band from Chicago and St. Paul, drops its first EP, Trilogy, following in the indie-orchestral tradition of Midwestern staples Bon Iver and Sufjan Stevens. With Melkweed and LASKA.

ISTHMUS.COM JUNE 1–7, 2017

Dwarves + JFA

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Thursday, June 1, Frequency, 9 pm Dwarves started as garage rockers but soon grew into a sex, drugs and mayhemespousing punk outfit. Three decades later, they still rock hard and still love to panic the prudes. Skate punk pioneer JFA is similarly legendary, anchored by founding guitarist Don Redondo and singer Brian Bannon.

Madison vets Funrod are the perfect opener.

Sun Prairie High School: The Soggy Prairie Boys, with Sun Prairie High School & Cardinal Heights Upper Middle School ensembles, free, 6:30 pm.

Twist: John Christensen Combo, jazz, free, 5 pm.

UW Memorial Union-Terrace: Milkhouse Radio, bluegrass, free, 5 pm; Black Marble, Post Social, free, 9 pm.

The Wisco/Willy Street Pub: Hi/Jack, Moth Light, Billy Dreamer, Trash Panda, 9 pm.

T HE AT E R & DANCE Of Dice and Men: Mercury Players Theatre comedy about friendship and Dungeons & Dragons, 7:30 pm on 6/1, 8 pm on 6/2 and 4 pm, 6/3, Bartell Theatre. $20/$15. 661-9696.

ART EXHIBITS & EV ENTS

FAI RS & F ESTIVALS

Robert Pozner: “Havana,” photographs, 6/1-6/30, Health Sciences Learning Center. 263-5992.

Verona Hometown Days: Gates at 5 pm on 6/1-2 and 11 am, 6/3-4, Hometown Park, Verona, with carnival, sports & more. Free admission. veronahometowndays.com.

Bonfire Music & Arts Festival: 6/1-3, Driftless Music Gardens, Yuba, with Horseshoes & Hand Grenades, Charlie Parr & more. $100/weekend. driftlessmusicgardens.com.

Friday, June 2, High Noon Saloon, 9:30 pm; Saturday, June 3, Mickey’s Tavern, 10:30 pm The Hussy (pictured) celebrates their latest 7-inch release on garage punk stalwart Big Neck Records, and the first recordings with second guitarist Tyler Fassnacht.

Friday’s bill also marks the release of Wood Chickens’ album on LP by the label as well, and includes sets by Memphis punkers Fresh Flesh and Madison screamers No Hoax. The fest moves to Mickey’s Saturday for fellow Big Neck artists Fire Heads, Gallery Night (with Jimmy Hollywood, ex-Baseball Furies, Blowtops), D.C. pop-punkers Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and Pittsburgh’s sludgy T-Tops.

Cloud Cult

Come Back In: Teddy Davenport, free (on the patio), 5 pm.

High Noon Saloon: Lou Shields, free (on the patio), 6 pm.

Matthäus

S PEC TATO R S PO RTS

Stick Vega: Gunpowder works, 6/1-30, Yahara Bay Distillery, Fitchburg. 275-1050.

Christopher Priebe, Jennifer Peters: “Saint John Impressions” and “Nevaeh,” respectively, noon-4 pm Saturdays, 6/3-24, PhotoMidwest (reception 7-9 pm, 6/1). photomidwest.org.

Monumental music collective Cloud Cult brings their audiovisual concept album The Seeker for a special performance at the Majestic. The band, frequently accompanied by live painting and interpretive dance, performs the album live alongside a screening of the companion film of the same name, followed by a second set of material. See story, page 30.

Perfect Harmony Men’s Chorus Friday, June 2, First United Methodist Church, 7:30 pm

Madison’s gay and gay-friendly men’s chorus will celebrate 20 years of “singing to make a better world” with a concert, appropriately titled “Devotion/ Commitment.” Themes of devotion to community, family, work, God, country, liberty and self will be explored through the program selected by artistic director Kevin Hage. The chorus will premiere the commissioned work, “Twenty Years: in Celebration of Perfect Harmony,” by Margaret Cornils Luke, with lyrics based on submissions from chorus members.

Arts + Literature Laboratory: Pat Keen, Tippy, And Illusions, 8 pm.

Brink Lounge: Edi Rey y Su Salsera, DJ Rumba, 9 pm: River Glen, Elizabeth Moen Band, 9 pm.

FRI. JUNE 2

Chief’s Tavern: Frankie Lee, Chuck Bayuk & Tom Dehlinger, free, 6:30 pm.

Come Back In: Robert J, free (on the patio), 5 pm.

Crystal Corner: Hometown Sweethearts, 9:30 pm.

SAT. JUNE 3

Edgewater Hotel Plaza: The Lil Smokies, free, 6 pm.

Frequency: Xasthur, Johanna Warren, 8:30 pm.

High Noon Saloon: Warm Wet Rag, 5:30 pm.

Lakeside Street Coffee House: Madison Classical Guitar Society Showcase, free, 7 pm.

THUR. MAR. 30

Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Middleton: John Widdicombe & Cliff Frederiksen, jazz, 6 pm.

Sprecher’s Restaurant: East Wash Jukes, 7 pm.

Stoughton Opera House: Stoughton Chamber Singers, 7:30 pm. Also: 7 pm, 6/7, Cooksville Church.

Up North Pub: Lost Highway All-Stars, 8 pm.

UW Memorial Union-Terrace: Betsy Ezell Quartet, free, 5 pm Golpe Tierra, free, 9 pm.

VFW-Cottage Grove Road: Frank James, 7:30 pm.

The Wisco: Cribshitter, Something to Do, 10 pm.

Wisconsin Brewing, Verona: Moondance, 6 pm.

VS. FRI. JUNE 16

A DANCE PARTY TRIBUTE

“A whimsical approach to the joys and perils of romance.

T HE AT ER & DA N C E

Magical happenings bloom beneath the snowdrifts.

ALMOST, MAINE explores the thunderclap of love

SAT. JUNE 17

and the scorched earth that sometimes follows.”

THE NEW YORK TIMES (2006)

115 KING STREET, MADISON ON SALE NOW TICKETS AVAILABLE AT WWW.MAJESTICMADISON.COM, MAJESTIC BOX OFFICE OR BY PHONE (800) 514-ETIX

Dick Pix Montana Friday, June 2, Broom Street Theater, 8 pm An original Shakespearean cyber-thriller courtroom drama romantic tragi-comedy.

Simple, right? Based in Verona, Wisconsin, a modern-day Romeo and Juliet are banished by their parents and can communicate only through social media.

Richard (Romeo) accidentally snaps a photo of his masculine silhouette to his modern-day Juliet, except he posts it to his Snapchat story instead of the intended object of his affection. Everyone in town sees. What destiny awaits? Written and directed by Chris Holoyda. ALSO: Saturday, June 3, 8 pm. Through June 24.

As You Like It: Madison Shakespeare Company, 6:30 pm on 6/2-3 and 8-10 and 4 pm, 6/4 & 11, Edgewood College Amphitheater. $15 donation. madisonshakespeare.org.

INERTIA, OCULAR & MIDWEST MIXUP PRESENT

Amadeus: Strollers Theatre: The story of composers Mozart & Salieri, 6/2-17, Bartell Theatre, at 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays (2 pm on 6/17), plus 2 pm on 6/4, 7:30 pm, 6/14. $20. 661-9696.

THURSDAYS H 8:30PM H FREE

Tate’s Blues Jam

Vintage Brewing Co. celebrates Cinco de Mayo with PURRfectly uniquePARTY! cask-infused 4THfive ANNIVERSARY versions of their fave feline Scaredy Cat

COME DY

The Second City Friday, June 2, Overture Hall, 8 pm

➡

SAT JUNE 3 . $10 Adv Doors at 9

with WUBDEAZY B2B CHOPPEDUBZ,

ASTRALYZE, ANTI$OCIAL

18+ TO ENTER / 21+ TO DRINK

Paint Night WED JUNE 7 . 7-9PM 1212 REGENT ST. 608-251-6766

THEREDZONEMADISON.COM

The Blue6 . 11:30-3PM Olives SAT MAY

Powerhouse Funk, Rock, Come join the Madison American Outlaws.

Games will be played on PS4 H $7.

SAT, JUNE 3 HTUE 9PM OPEN JAM MAY 9 9 PM-MID Paint Night WED MAY 10 . 7-9PM

Tony Kannen

Sound Garden Crew

Createand art over cocktails guided by a professional artist and the Grab your friends and flex your creative muscles! party host.

2513 Seiferth Rd. 222-7800 KnuckleDownSaloon.com

JUNE 1–7, 2017 ISTHMUS.COM

Chicago’s venerable improv comedy powerhouse is in town for one night only. Its Summer Blockbuster show combines sketch with off-the-cuff hilarity.

Also: As part of Overture’s Get Social series ($15), come to the Madison Club at 6:30 pm for themed drinks and learn elevator speech improv.

FRI, JUNE 2 H 9PM H $7

AO Gamer's Cup IV

33

n ISTHMUS PICKS : JUN 2 - 6

:H[\YKH` :H[\YKH` Saturday, 1\UL 1\UL June 3, 2017 ! (4 œ ! 74 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM ! (4 œ ! 74 :[H[L :[YLL[ State Street :[H[L :[YLL[ Madison, WI 4HKPZVU >0 4HKPZVU >0

BOOKS/SP OKEN WORD Victoria Houston: Discussing “Dead Spider,� her new novel, 7 pm, 6/2, Mystery to Me. 283-9332.

Madtown Poetry Open Mic: With Gillian Nevers, host Ron Czerwein, 8 pm, 6/2, Mother Fool’s. 255-4730.

ART EXHIBITS & EV ENTS Bad Ass Women Artists: 6/2-30, Stone Fence (reception 6-9 pm, 6/2, with music by Ellie Erickson, refreshments). 238-4331.

Interiors: Art by Jan Norsetter, poetry by Blair Mathews & Donna Carnes, 6/2-7/31, UW Pyle Center (reception 5-7 pm, 6/2). donnacarnes@msn.com.

Spring Art Tour: Annual Mount Horeb Area Arts Association open studios event, 10 am-5 pm, 6/2-4, in Black Earth, Blue Mounds, Mazomanie, Mount Horeb & Verona. Free. springarttour.com. 437-5914.

[O[O @LHY VM *SHZZPJ *HYZ HUK ;Y\JRZ PU [OL /LHY[ VM +V^U[V^U th 11 Year of Classic Cars and Trucks in the Heart of Downtown!

@LHY VM *SHZZPJ *HYZ HUK ;Y\JRZ PU [OL /LHY[ VM +V^U[V^U

The Unknown Art Show: 6-9 pm on 6/2 and 5-8 pm, 6/3, Madison Enterprise Center-Common Wealth Gallery. maryjane@galleryninetynine.com.

Kambui Olujimi: “Zulu Time,� 5/6-8/13, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (reception 6-9 pm, 6/2, with artist talk 6:30 pm, music by Alida LaCosse & Cooper Talbot, $10). 257-0158.

FAIRS & F ESTIVALS Festa Italia: 6/2-4, McKee Farms Park, Fitchburg, with entertainment, cultural displays, bocce ball & more. $2 admission. iwcmadison.com. 258-1880.

Sun Prairie Fest: Annual event, 6/2-3, Angell Park, Sun Prairie, with music, car & bike show. motorsandmusic.net. 333-5132.

THIS SATURDAY!

JUNE 3 OVERTURE HALL

JUNE 20 • CAPITOL THEATER OVERTURE.ORG • 608-258-4141

Wally’s Music Fest: Classic rock fest, 6/2-3, Schilburg Park, Milton. $15/day. wallyfest.com. 868-6222.

SP ECIAL EV ENTS Attic Angel Sale: Annual fundraiser for Dane County reading programs, 8 am-4 pm on 6/2 ($10 admission until 11 am) and 9 am-1 pm, 6/3, Keva Sports Center, Middleton. 662-8900.

Conway Twitty in a crazy True Detective television series scene. He’s also the lead in a horror feature that begins shooting this month, so this might be a last chance to catch the peripatetic artist before he trades the stage for the screen — for good.

RSVP to righteousmusicmgmt@gmail.com.

Fareed Haque Trio Saturday, June 3, CafĂŠ CODA, 8 pm

Born to a Pakistani father and a Chilean mother, Fareed is a virtuoso guitar player who has shared the stage with Sting, Cassandra Wilson and our own Ben Sidran. He spent years working with Paquito D’Rivera.

For this show, he plays with Alex Austin (bass) and Rodrigo Villanueva (drums). You won’t want to miss his masterful melding of classical, jazz and world music traditions.

Alchemy Cafe: Sortin’ the Mail, bluegrass, free, 10 pm.

Bandung: Mideast Salsa, with free salsa lesson, 7:30 pm.

Bos Meadery: Imaginary Watermelon (CD release), The Fauxtons, free/donations, 6:30 pm.

Cargo Bike Shop: Casey Day, free, 9 am Saturdays.

Come Back In: The Blues Party, 9 pm.

Edgewater Hotel Plaza: Pat McCurdy, free, 6 pm.

Essen Haus: David Austin Band, polka, free, 8:30 pm.

The Frequency: ash_aria, Black Box Warning, Fall II Rise, Amberstein, Chewing Teeth, 8 pm.

Gray’s Tied House, Verona: Peter Kish, free, 4 pm.

Harmony Bar: Cash Box Kings, blues, 9:45 pm.

Hody Bar, Middleton: The Mannish Boys, free, 9 pm.

Majestic: DJ Josh B Kuhl, “Jock Jammies� party, 9 pm.

Mickey’s Tavern: Fire Heads, Gallery Night, Stop Worrying & Love the Bomb, T-Tops, free, 10:30 pm.

Ohana-Con: Family-friendly cosplay & gaming convention, 6/2-4, Monona Terrace, with Pokemon regional tournament, Yu-Gi-Oh! & Magic play, vendors, guests Veronica Taylor, Eric Stuart, Victori Belle. $25/ weekend badge. ohana-con.com.

Nau-Ti-Gal: Cool Front with Jon French, free, 5:30 pm.

Adult Swim: Enjoy the museum kid-free, 6-10 pm, 6/2, Madison Children’s Museum, with “Glow Motion� themed exhibits & activities, DJs Yorel & Phil Money. $15 ($12.75 adv.; 21+ only). 256-6445.

The Red Zone: Al Ross, WubDeazy, Choppedubz, Astralyze, Anti$ocial, 8 pm.

sat jun 3

Nomad World Pub: DJ Chamo, Latin, 9 pm Saturdays.

Overture Cente: Diana Krall, jazz, 8 pm.

Plan B: DJs Mike Carlson, WhiteRabbit, 8:30 pm.

Sprecher’s Restaurant and Pub: Retro Specz, 7 pm.

Tavernakaya: DJ Vilas Park Sniper, 10:30 pm.

Tyranena Brewing Co, Lake Mills: The Dang-Its, 6 pm.

UW Memorial Union-Terrace: Stone Arch Isles, Nate D, rock, free, 9 pm.

The Wisco/Willy Street Pub & Grill: Neu Dae, 9 pm.

M USIC

B O O KS / S PO K EN WO RD

Jake La Botz

Scott Turow

JUNE 21 • CAPITOL THEATER OVERTURE.ORG • 608-258-4141

AUG. 6 ISTHMUS.COM JUNE 1–7, 2017

CAPITOL THEATER

34

Saturday, June 3, Kiki’s House of Righteous Music, 8 pm

TICKETS ON SALE THIS FRIDAY AT 11AM AT OVERTURE.ORG, 608-258-4141, AND AT THE OVERTURE CENTER BOX OFFICE.

2017 TOUR

frankproductions.com trueendeavors.com

Traditional blues is where former roofer and boilermaker Jake La Botz begins. Then he makes the form even darker, creating haunted, musical habitats for his spooky poetry. When not making freaked out blues songs, La Botz is known to appear on camera as he did in a cameo as the late

Saturday, June 3, Central Library, 7 pm

Bestselling lawyer-author Turow visits Madison to discuss Testimony, his new novel about an investigator looking into the disappearance of a Roma refugee camp in the aftermath of the war in Bosnia. The first 75 people in line will receive a free copy of the book at this Wisconsin Book Festival event.

SEARCH THE FULL CALENDAR OF EVENTS AT ISTHMUS.COM

A RT EX H I B I TS & E VE N TS

Brocach-Square: West Wind, Irish, free, 5 pm.

Madison Art Guild: “Summer Salon,” 6/3-7/29, UW Hospital 2nd floor. 263-5992.

Chazen Museum of Art: Sunday Afternoon Live, Trevor Stephenson, free, 12:30 pm.

Jennifer Bastian, Jamie Ho: Dane County Emerging Artists Program exhibits, 6/3-30, Arts & Literature Laboratory (reception 7-9 pm, 6/3). 556-7415.

Essen Haus: Meet the Beetles, free, 4 pm.

CSArt Madison Studio Visits: Arts & Literature Laboratory community supported art program participants J. Myszka Lewis, 3 pm 6/3, 223 E. Mifflin St.; Katharine DeLamater 2 pm, Ariel Wood 2:30 pm, Bernadette Witzack 3 pm, 6/4, ALL gallery. RSVP: csart@artlitlab.org. 770-2052.

S POKE N WO RD

FA IR S & F EST I VA LS Dragon Art Fair: Annual event, 9 am-4 pm, 6/3, Market Street, DeForest, with 100+ artists, music, kids’ activities, dance performances, food, silent auction. Free admission. dragonartsgroup.org. 846-8891.

Fruit Fest: LGBTQI block party for all ages/lifestyles, 2-9 pm, 6/3, Plan B parking lot and 900 block of Williamson street, with music by Hailey Knox, VO5, Sailor Jake, Imaginary Watermelon, Tristan Freides, food, vendors. Free admission. fruitfestmadison.org.

radicalsultimate.com facebook.com/ madisonradicals

The Rigby: Madison Jazz Jam, free (all ages), 4 pm.

Gastropod Live: Podcast recording, 7:30 pm, 6/4, Majestic. $10. 255-0901.

S PECI AL E V ENTS Spring Fling: Annual Rhapsody Arts Center scholarship fundraiser, 4-6 pm, 6/4, Gray’s Tied House, Verona, with music by student performers, kids’ activities, silent auction. $20/family donation. 848-2045,.

mon jun 5 MUS I C

SP ECI A L EV EN TS Cows on the Concourse: 8 am-1 pm, 6/3, Capitol Square, with petting zoos, entertainment, food, kids’ activities. Free. cowsontheconcourse.org. 250-4257.

Driftless Historium Grand Opening: Mount Horeb Area Historical Society history campus/visitor center, 9 am-5 pm, 6/3, 100 S. Second St., with music, ice cream tasting, sculpture unveiling. Free. 437-6486.

2016 AUDL Champion Dallas Roughnecks take on the Madison Radicals for the first time in team history.

Cars on State: Annual classic auto show, 10 am-3 pm, 6/3, State Street. carsonstate.com. 512-1340.

Wisconsin Folks: Masters of Tradition: Annual showcase of cultural performances & crafts, 2-5 pm, 6/3, Stoughton Opera House. $10. 877-4400.

Burgers & Brew: Annual REAP benefit, 4:30-7:30 pm on 6/3 and 12:30-3:30 pm, 6/4, Capital Brewery, Middleton, with mini-burgers & beers featuring locally-grown ingredients, music. $35/day ($50 twoday pass). reapfoodgroup.org. 310-7836.

R ECR E AT I O N Free Outdoor Fun Weekend: No license required for fishing in all Wisconsin lakes & streams, 6/3-4; state park admission & trails fees also waived. dnr.wi.gov.

Wisconsin Bike Week: Wisconsin Bike Fed’s annual event, 6/3-10, with commuter stations 7-9 am Monday-Friday at various locations, special events and activities. Schedule: bikeweek.wisconsinbikefed.org.

National Trails Day: Friends of the Capital Springs Recreation Area events along the Capital City State Trail, 6/3: Interpretive tour, 10:30 am, at Lake Farm Road; birdwatching with binoculars/telescopes, 11:30 am-12:45 pm, Moorland Road; Gilman Mounds guided tour, 1 pm, Lewis Springs E-way. friendsofcapitalsprings.org. 224-3606.

sun jun 4

Sat. June 3rd | 6:00 pm

Alan Munde & Don Stiernberg Monday, June 5, Brink Lounge, 7 pm

Five-string banjo master Alan Munde and jazz mandolin maestro Don Stiernberg bring their finger-picking and toe-tapping tunes to the Brink Lounge. Both in the fifth decade of their musical careers, the duo will play bluegrass, originals, swing jazz and standards from the Great American Songbook. Chris Powers, host of WORT-FM’s Mud Acres Bluegrass Special, will emcee the concert, presented by the Southern Wisconsin Bluegrass Music Association.

Come Back In: Derek Ramnarace, free (patio), 5 pm.

Frequency: Sweet Delta Dawn, FlowPoetry, Cosmic Strings, BoJo’s Mojo, Dr Beatz, Jon Schinke, 9 pm.

Malt House: Grandpa’s Elixir, free, 7:30 pm.

Up North Pub: Gin Mill Hollow, Americana, free, 8 pm.

The Wisco: Rock Bottom String Band, 9 pm.

ART E XHI BITS & EV ENTS

S PECTATOR SP ORTS

Michael McDermott

WIAA State Boys Golf Tournament: 7 am & noon, 6/5-6, University Ridge Golf Course. 715-344-8580.

$55

ON YOUR LIFETIME MEMBERSHIP AND GET $95 IN PERKS

SPOILER ALERT:

THE VIEW’S AW E S O M E

tue jun 6 MUS I C Capitol Square at North Hamilton: John Chimes & the Natch’l Blues Band, free, noon.

Crescendo Espresso Bar: Danielle Ate the Sandwich, Hannah Busse, 7 pm.

A Wisconsin Union membership comes with all the perks Madison’s best backyard has to offer. Rent a paddleboard, soak up the sun, enjoy a scoop of Babcock ice cream, take in free concerts and more!

You Just Can’t Terrace Anywhere Else

High Noon Saloon: Woodrow (album release), King Leopard, Michael Massey & Francie Phelps, 8 pm.

Malt House: Cajun Strangers, free, 7:30 pm.

➡

Union.wisc.edu/membership and enter PERKS2017

JUNE 1–7, 2017 ISTHMUS.COM

McDermott is living proof that being dubbed “the next Dylan” at age 24 is not a good thing. Until it is. The songwriter burned through most of the next two decades addicted to drugs as he somehow continued to write and perform. Sober now for five years, he has reignited the comparison with his new record, Willow Springs, which has all of the musical intelligence of Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks.

With luck, his wife Heather Horton, who sings on the album, will join him on stage.

With Kari Arnett. See story, page 28.

JOIN BY JUNE 30 & SAVE

Wisconsin Without Borders: A Global Initiative: Microenterprise projects, 6/5-8/25, UW Nancy Nicholas Hall-Ruth Davis Design Gallery. 262-8815.

MU SI C Sunday, June 4, High Noon Saloon, 7:30 pm

at historic Breese Stevens Field

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n ISTHMUS PICKS : JUN 6 - 8 Ohio Tavern: Bill Roberts Combo, free, 7 pm.

Olin Park: The Maintainers, blues, free, 6 pm.

Up North Pub: The Lower 5th, rock, free, 7 pm.

The Wisco/Willy Street Pub & Grill: Spy Me, 9 pm.

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wed jun 7 M USIC

Toranavox Thursday, June 8, Frequency, 8:30 pm Brooklyn-based Toranavox is Japanese guitarist Ken Minami and Israeli drummer Eli Halfi; both sing, in their native languages and English. Their recordings feature tightly constructed high-energy hard rock, making a lot of noise for a duo. It’ll be fun to see how they translate that dense studio sound to a live setting. With Mhos & Ohms, the Central.

Middleton Community Orchestra Wednesday, June 7, Middleton-Cross Plains Performing Arts Center, 7:30 pm

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The Middleton Community Orchestra will conclude the season with a program showing its usual ambition. Steven Kurr will conduct the orchestra in the overture to Borodin’s Prince Igor and Tchaikovsky’s great Fifth Symphony.

Prokofiev’s beautiful Violin Concerto No. 2 will feature soloist Paran Amirinazari, the orchestra’s concertmaster and leader of the Willy Street Chamber Players.

Bandung: Louka, 7 pm.

Bowl-A-Vard Lanes: Trailer Kings, free, 5 pm.

Come Back In: Shelley Faith, free (on patio), 5 pm.

The Frequency: Karaoke Underground, 9 pm.

Malt House: The North Westerns, free, 7:30 pm.

Me and Julio, Fitchburg: Bob & Char, free, 6 pm.

Naples 15: Marilyn Fisher & Dan Barker, free, 6 pm.

Quaker Steak and Lube, Middleton: Vinyl Thunder, classic rock, free, 5:30 pm.

Up North Pub: The Pine Travelers, free, 8 pm.

Whole Foods Market: Northern Comfort, bluegrass, free, 5:30 pm.

THEATER & DANCE Suicide Girls: 9 pm, 6/7, Majestic Theatre. 255-0901.

ART EXHIBITS & EV ENTS From Coops to Cathedrals: Nature, Childhood & the Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright: Interactive exhibit unveiled, 5-8 pm, 6/7, Madison Children’s Museum. Free admission. 256-6445.

thu jun 8 M USIC

Ragged Roots Revival ISTHMUS.COM JUNE 1–7, 2017

Thursday, June 8, High Noon Saloon, 8:30 pm

36

The Revival is a weekend music and camping festival July 13-16 in Wisconsin Dells.

This show provides a local sneak preview of just a few of the performers, including Madison Americana masters WheelHouse; Beloit funk/rock/hip-hop hybrid Earth to Clark; Baraboo rock/soul outfit the Blacker Brothers band; and Old Soul Society singer/songwriter Derek Ramnarace.

Negative Example Thursday, June 8, Art In, 7 pm

Madison’s Negative Example is a hard band to pin down. The energetic genre-defying post-punk outfit features a Madison institution: guitarist Bucky Pope, who fronted the 1980s darlings the Tar Babies.

Negative Example’s first album caught the attention of New York Times music critic Ben Ratliff, who called Pope’s style “messy and generative, a bit more laid-back than before, grooving through all kinds of rough, peevish tracks.” With power-poppers Texas Bubble Gum Machine and Straka and Sphynx, a band whose frontwoman is a virtuoso of the bass ukulele.

East Side Club: Air Traffic Controller, Seasaw, 6 pm.

High Noon Saloon: Mal-O-Dua, free (patio), 6 pm.

Williamson Magnetic Recording Company: Jonesies, Holy Sheboygan, Glassmen, rock, 8 pm.

T H EAT ER & DA N C E Almost, Maine: University Theatre: 6/8-25, Vilas Hall-Mitchell Theatre, at 7:30 pm ThursdaysSaturdays, 2 pm Sundays. $20. 265-2787.

CO MEDY

Brooks Wheelan Thursday, June 8, Comedy Club on State, 8:30 pm

Chris Farley isn’t Madison’s only connection to Saturday Night Live. In 2014, Brooks Wheelan — who appeared on SNL from 2013-2014 — recorded his debut stand-up album, This is Cool, Right?, at the Comedy Club on State. Wheelan has returned to our fair city a few times since then, and the brutally honest and gleefully absurd stand-up has been hilarious each time.

With Adam Burke, Omar Nava. ALSO: Friday-Saturday, June 9-10, 8 & 10:30 pm.

n EMPHASIS

Atwood Ink Hand and Eye Tattoo opens in Atwood Studios

BY CHELSEY DEQUAINE

Dave Nielsen’s love affair with tattoos led him to open his own solo studio.

HAND AND EYE TATTOO n 2716 Atwood Ave. 608-957-2173 n handandeyetattoo.com

Dave Nielsen sits with his inked arms, hands and fingers in his lap, peering through his black-rimmed glasses out the front window of Hand and Eye Tattoo.

His love affair with tattoos began early: “I knew right away I wanted everything tattooed, before I even got one,” he says.

Hand and Eye Tattoo officially opened May 6 in the Atwood Studios building at 2716 Atwood Ave. The 750-square-foot space has 16-foot ceilings and exposed beams and is decorated with Nielsen’s artwork, action figures and a Felix the Cat Clock complete with roving eyes and swaying tail.

Nielsen says the most exciting part of owning his own business has been the freedom to come and go as he pleases.

Plus, he likes the sense of identity it gives him: “This place is me. It’s all me.

That’s really thrilling.”

Still, sole ownership is a responsibility and sometimes what he calls “obsessive compulsive” behavior kicks in: Nielsen says he might check the locks three times before he leaves at the end of the night and flip the light switches on and off.

“It’s good for me, as a tattoo artist, to be obsessive,” he says. “At the same time, tattooing itself has been one of my obsessions.”

Nielsen grew up in Sterling, Illinois. “I starting drawing before I started talking,” he says. “My mother kept drawing implements in my hands to keep me busy.” He was 16 when he got his first tattoo. Years later, he began an apprenticeship at Tattoo Blue and Body Piercing in Macomb, Illinois.

In 2001, a girlfriend — and the chance to work at Steve’s Tattoo and Body Piercing on Williamson Street — brought Nielsen to Madison. He worked at Steve’s, one of Madison’s pioneering tattoo shops, for 16 years. “Working at Steve’s shaped me as an artist,” he says.

Now, at Atwood Studios, his inspiration comes from his new neighbors. The building of individual art spaces is home to a photographer, a man who carves marionettes and puppets, four women who create jewelry and a metal artist who created the curtain rods and countertops for Hand and Eye. Nielsen signed the lease in December and spent nearly six months and $25,000 on renovations. He made frequent trips to De-

construction Inc., the architectural salvage shop on Walsh Road, for wood and doors, and hired Atwood neighbor Megna Painting for the walls. Nielsen even built the coffee table in the waiting room from repurposed wood (an old counter) he found at the Atwood Studios building.

Nielsen’s intention is to keep Hand and Eye Tattoo a solo affair. “I may occasionally have a guest spot, but for now I will enjoy it being me,” he says. “This is a little different from other studios. Customers have the option to have it more relaxed, more private,” with just one tattoo artist. “And for some, [that’s] maybe less intimidating.” n

Celebrate the 15th Anniversary WINTER/SPRING WINTER/SPRING Celebrate the 15th Anniversary Celebratethe the 15 th Anniversary Celebrate 15 th Anniversary WINTER/SPRING WINTER/SPRINGWINTER/SPR WINTER/SPRING Celebrate the 15th Anniversary Celebrate the 15 th Anniversary WINTER/SPRING WINTER/SPRING HIGHLIGHTS HIGHLIGHTS HIGHLIGHT HIGHLIGHTS HIGHLIGHTS HIGHLIGHTS HIGHLIGHTS HIGHLIGHTS of the Wisconsin Book Festival! of Wisconsin Book Festival! of the Wisconsin Book Festival! ofthe the Wisconsin Book Festival! of Wisconsin Book Festival! of the Wisconsin Book Festival!

PRESENTED MADISON PUBLIC PRESENTED PUBLIC LIBRARY PRESENTED

BY MADISON MADISON PUBLIC LIBRARY LIBRARY PRESENTED BY

BY BY MADISON PUBLIC LIBRARY

PRESENTED MADISON PUBLIC LIBRARY PRESENTED

BY BY MADISON PUBLIC LIBRARY LIBRARY BY MADISON PUBLIC PRESENTED BYMADISON MADISON PUBLIC LIBRARY In partnership PUBLIC FOUNDATION MADISON PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION InPRESENTED partnership with with MADISON PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION MADISON PUBLICLIBRARY LIBRARY FOUNDATION In partnership with MADISON PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION MADISON PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION In partnership with MADISON PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION

In partnership with MADISON PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION For more info events, For more info and events, visit: www.wisconsinbookfestival.org For more info and events, visit: www.wisconsinbookfestival.org www.wisconsinbookfestival.org For more info andand events, visit: visit: www.wisconsinbookfestival.org For more info events, For more info andand events, visit: visit: www.wisconsinbookfestival.org www.wisconsinbookfestival.org

JAN 17 JAN 17 JAN 17 JAN 17 JUNE IF OUR BODIES IF OUR BODIES

OUR BODIES IF OUR BODIES IF OUR BODIES JAN 17 IF OUR BODIES JANIF 17 COULD TALK COULD TALK COULD TALK COULD TALK

For more info events, For more info andand events, visit: visit: www.wisconsinbookfestival.org www.wisconsinbookfestival.org

MAR 13 MAR 16 MAR 13 MAR 16 MAR 13 MAR 16 MAR 13 MAR 16 3 TESTIMONY by SCOTT TUROW THE CONFESSIONS IN THEKITCHEN KITCHEN WITH WITH THE CONFESSIONS IN THE WITH THE CONFESSIONS IN THE KITCHEN THE CONFESSIONS IN THE KITCHEN WITH THE CONFESSIONS IN THEKITCHEN KITCHEN WITH MAR 13 MAR 16 THE CONFESSIONS IN THE WITH MAR 13 MAR 16 OF YOUNG NERO OF NERO OF YOUNG NERO OF YOUNG YOUNG NERO

A GOOD APPETITE A APPETITE A GOOD APPETITE A GOOD GOOD APPETITE

COULD TALK OF YOUNG NERO LIBRARY DOORS A GOOD APPETITE COULD TALK OFTHE YOUNG NERO A GOOD APPETITE IF OUR BODIES CONFESSIONS IN THE KITCHEN WITH OPEN AT 6:00PM, IF OUR BODIES THE CONFESSIONS IN THE KITCHEN WITH Margaret George Margaret George James Hamblin Melissa Clark James Hamblin Melissa Clark Margaret George Margaret George James Hamblin Melissa Clark James Hamblin Melissa Clark Margaret George Margaret George James Hamblin Melissa Clark James Hamblin Melissa Clark COULD TALK OF YOUNG NERO A GOOD APPETITE Central Library COULD TALK OF YOUNG NERO SEATING BEGINS A GOOD APPETITE AT 6:30PM. Central Central Library Library Central Library Central Central Library Library Central Library Central Central Library Library 7:00 pm 7:00 pm 7:00 pm 7:30 pm 7:00 pm 7:00 pm 7:00 pm 7:00 pm 7:30 7:00 pm pm Margaret George Scott Turow is the author of ten best-selling works of Margaret George James Hamblin Clark James7:00 Hamblin Melissaby: Clark 7:00 pm 7:00 pm pm pm Melissa 7:00 pm This special event7:30 is presented fiction including Presumed Innocent and The Burden Central Library Central Library Central Library of Proof, and two non-fiction books7:00 including pm One L, 7:00 pm 7:00 pm 7:30 pm 7:00 pm APR APR APR APR 3 3 APR 1414 APR 1818

Central Library - 7:00pm

his experience as a law student.

APR APR 14AND APR 18 APR 3 3 & about APR 14AND APR 18 HAG-SEED & KNOWN LUNCH FOR LIBRARIES HAG-SEED KNOWN LUNCH FOR LIBRARIES HAG-SEED & KNOWN AND LUNCH FOR HAG-SEED & KNOWN AND LUNCH FOR LIBRARIES HAG-SEED KNOWN AND LUNCH FOR LIBRARIES LIBRARIES HAG-SEED & & KNOWN AND LUNCH FOR LIBRARIES TECHNOLOGY STRANGE THINGS FUNDRAISER TECHNOLOGY STRANGE THINGS FUNDRAISER TECHNOLOGY STRANGE THINGS FUNDRAISER TECHNOLOGY STRANGE THINGS FUNDRAISER TECHNOLOGY STRANGE THINGS FUNDRAISER TECHNOLOGY THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS, STRANGE THINGS FUNDRAISER Margaret Atwood Teju Cole Richard Russo Margaret Atwood Teju Cole Richard With additional supportRichard from: Russo Margaret Atwood Teju Cole Russo Margaret Atwood Teju Cole Richard Russo Margaret Atwood Teju Cole WILL Richard Russo Margaret Atwood TejuLINE Cole Richard Russo THEHall FIRST 75 PEOPLE IN Andrew Clarkowski; Foley & Lardner; Godfrey Kahn; Habush, Union South Varsity Central Overture Center for the Arts Union South Varsity Library Center the Arts HAG-SEED KNOWN AND LUNCH FOR LIBRARIE Union South Hall Central Overture Center for Arts HAG-SEED & & ---- Varsity KNOWN AND LUNCH FOR LIBRARIES Union South Varsity Library Center the Arts Union South Varsity Hall Central Overture Center for the the Union South Varsity Library Center the Arts Habush & Rottier; Jackson Lewis; The Law Offices of Arts 7:30 pm 7:00 pm 11:30 am RECEIVE A COPY OF TESTIMONY. 7:00 pm 11:30 am 7:30 7:00 pm 11:30 am pm 7:00 pm 11:30 am TECHNOLOGY STRANGE THINGS FUNDRAISER TECHNOLOGY STRANGE THINGS FUNDRAISER 7:30 pm 7:00 pm 11:30 7:00 pm 11:30am am

APR APR 3 3

APR APR 1414

APR APR 1818

Margaret Atwood Margaret Atwood

Teju Cole Teju Cole

7:30 pm

7:00 pm 7:00 pm

Marvin J. Marvin J. Levy Levy Marvin Marvin J. J. Marvin Marvin J. J. Levy

Festival Sponsors

Richard Russo Richard Russo

Contributing Sponsors Event Supporters Contributing Sponsors Event Supporters Supporters Contributing Event Contributing Sponsors Sponsors Event Supporters Contributing Sponsors Central Contributing Sponsors LibraryEvent Event Supporters Supporters

Festival Sponsors Sponsors Festival Union Festival Sponsors Union South South-- Varsity Varsity Hall

Cheryl Cheryl Rosen Rosen Weston Cheryl Rosen Weston Weston

Contributing Contributing Sponsors Sponsors Cheryl Rosen

Dane County Cultural Dane County Cultural Dane Dane County CountyCultural Cultural Affairs Commission Dane Cultural Commission Dane County County Cultural Affairs Commission Commission Affairs Commission Commission Madison Arts Commission Madison Arts Madison Arts Commission Madison Arts Commission Commission Madison Madison Arts Arts Commission Commission

JUNE 1–7, 2017 ISTHMUS.COM

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In Kind Kind Sponsors Sponsors Media Sponsors Media Sponsors Sponsors In Media Media Sponsors Overture Center In Kind Sponsors Media Center for the the Arts Arts Media Sponsors Sponsors A of One’s Own Room of One’s Own A Room Room Room of ofOne’s One’sOwn Own A Room Room of ofOne’s One’sOwn Own Webcrafters-Frautschi Webcrafters-Frautschi Webcrafters-Frautschi Webcrafters-Frautschi Foundation Webcrafters-Frautschi Foundation Webcrafters-Frautschi Foundation Foundation Foundation Foundation

Event Event Supporters Supporters Dane County Cultural

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JONESIN’

n SAVAGE LOVE

“You Say You Want a Revolution” — it’s your turn.

Looking

22 27 28 29

BY DAN SAVAGE

I’m a middle-aged homo trying to figure out Grindr. Is it impolite to go on Grindr if you’re not looking for an immediate hookup? My preferred form of sexual relationship is the friend-with-benefits situation. I go on Grindr looking to make friends who could, at least potentially, be sex partners, but I like to do the friend thing before the sex. I’ve had guys call me an asshole because I exchanged messages with them for 20 minutes and then didn’t come right over and fuck them.

Do they have a point? Does logging into a hookup app like Grindr imply openness to an immediate sexual encounter?

Talking Online Repulses Some Others Always be up front about your intentions, TORSO. The best way to do that is by creating a profile — on Grindr or elsewhere — that clearly describes what you want and what you’re up for. Because good partners (sexual or otherwise) communicate their wants clearly. Adding something like this to your profile should do it: “My preferred form of sexual relationship is the friend-with-benefits situation.

I go on Grindr looking to make friends who could, at least potentially, be sex partners, but I like to do the friend thing before the sex.”

Grindr is an app designed and marketed to facilitate hookups, but some people have found friends, lovers, and husbands on the app (usually after hooking up first). So being on a hookup app doesn’t automatically mean you’re looking for “right now,” and it certainly doesn’t obligate you to fuck every guy you swap messages with. But if you’re not clear in your profile or very first message about what you’re doing there, TORSO, guys looking for a hookup on that hookup app will be rightly annoyed with you. (The time and energy he sunk into you could have been sunk into someone looking for right now.) If you are clear, guys seeking instacock have only themselves to blame for wasting their time on you.

Your timing could also have something to do with guys calling you an asshole. Are you exchanging messages at two in the morning for 20 minutes? Because most guys on Grindr at that hour are seeking immediate sexual encounters. If you’re just chatting in the middle of the night, then you’re probably wasting someone’s time — if, again, you’re not being absolutely clear about what you’re doing there.

culture novel like Harry Potter. I say something like “I’ve never read Harry Potter, but people rave about it. What do you like about it? I took an online Harry Potter test once for a friend, and it said I was a Slytherin.” At this point, things change. The girl I’m speaking with gets flustered. She says something like “Oh, I’m not good at describing things,” seemingly feeling pressured to give me an intellectual response, like I’m giving her a quiz. I’m not sure what to do about this. I am having trouble maintaining casual and fun conversations despite my intentions.

I come off as intense. I think I’m a pretty attractive person, but my dating life is starting to make me feel differently. I work out regularly and take good care of myself. How can I find a woman I jibe with?

A Lesbian Obviously Needs Excitement You’re doing all the right things — almost.

You’re getting out there, you’re not shy about initiating conversation, and you’re moving on multiple fronts — online, club nights, LGBTQTSLFNBQGQIA+++ groups. Join a women’s athletic organization — join a softball league — and you’ll be moving on every lesbo front. That said, ALONE, I’m surprised this hasn’t popped into your extremely analytic head: If Y happens whenever I do X, and Y isn’t the desired outcome, then maybe I should knock this X shit the fuck off. Your response to the mention of Harry Potter drips with what I trust is unintentional condescension. (“I’ve never read it… what do you like about it… I took an online test once for a friend…”) Don’t want women to think you’re administering a quiz? Don’t want women to get the impression you’re too intellectual for them? Don’t want to seem like someone incapable of keeping things casual and fun?

Don’t administer quizzes, don’t subtly telegraph your disgust, and keep things casual by offering a little info about yourself instead of probing. (“I haven’t read the Harry Potter books, but I’m a huge Emma Watson fangirl.

Who isn’t, right?”) And maybe go ahead and read Harry Potter already.

For more of Savage Love see Isthmus.com.

Email Dan at mail@savagelove.net or reach him on Twitter at @fakedansavage.

#834 BY MATT JONES ©2017 JONESIN’ CROSSWORDS

ACROSS

1 Like “der” words, in Ger. 5 “48 Hours Investigates” host Lesley 10 Bus route 14 Palindromic Italian digit 15 Jason who will play Aquaman in 2018 16 Ride-sharing app 17 “Va-va-___!”

18 Bring together 19 “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys” spinoff 20 Character on a cel 23 “Unleaded” drink 24 Maker of Centipede 25 Takes much too seriously, for short?

26 “Carmen” highlight, e.g.

30 Some Italian models 33 Third-generation actress who co-starred in “Jackie Brown”

36 “The Secret ___ Success” 39 “Fences” star Davis 40 “Back in the ___” (Beatles tune) 41 Did some birthday prep work, maybe 44 Bicycle shorts material 45 Sacred promise 46 Trucker’s compartment 49 Civic’s make 52 Like theremin noises, usually 54 Toys that are making the rounds in 2017 news?

58 Waitstaff’s handout 59 Crowdfunding targets 60 Moore of both “The Scarlet Letter” and “Striptease” 61 Baldwin with a recent stint on “SNL” 62 “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” author Mitch 63 Page for pundit pieces

64 Prior 65 Huge amounts 66 Cubs Hall of Famer Sandberg DOWN

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 21

Name in men’s watches Made amends Zeno’s followers “Girl, Interrupted” character?

Blue matter Quality of voice Enclosed in Labor leader Jimmy who mysteriously disappeared ___ on thick (exaggerate) Extravagant Portuguese, by default “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” star Leakes “___ Yes!” (1970s political placard) Way out there

LAST WEEK’S ANSWERS

P.S. MUELLER

JUNE 1–7, 2017 ISTHMUS.COM

I’m a 25-year-old gay woman and I’ve been looking for a girlfriend for the past two years. I post on dating websites, go to the lesbian club, take part in the LGBTQ+ scene at my university, and put myself in places where I might meet women. But I’m worried that my persona deters women: I’m extremely analytic, a doctoral student and university instructor. Whenever I meet a girl, our conversation always goes in the same direction: She thinks it’s cool I work with literature and then brings up her favorite pop-

JOE NEWTON

Angler’s spear Break apart “Oops! ... ___ It Again” Disco-era term meaning “galore” 31 Six-pointers, briefly 32 Saloth ___ (Pol Pot’s birth name) 33 Secondary result of a chemical reaction 34 Film director Kazan 35 The last U.S. president with a prominent mustache 36 X, of Twitch’s “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” marathon, e.g.

37 “Frizzle ___” (1990 Primus album) 38 Electric can openers and pencil sharpeners, e.g.

42 Guilty feeling 43 Nostalgic time, perhaps 46 Like porcelain dolls you just know are staring right at you 47 Fly guys 48 Compared with 50 “L’Absinthe” painter 51 Lagoon surrounder 53 “Return of the Jedi” moon 54 Afrobeat composer Kuti 55 “Quién ___?” (“Who knows?”)

56 “Call Mr. ___, that’s my name, that name again is Mr. ___” (jingle from one of Homer Simpson’s business ventures) 57 Unspecified philosophies 58 It might cover the continent

39

JUNE EVENTS

CHILL TO

THRILL

See for yourself why the Memorial Union Terrace is Madison’s ISTHMUS.COM JUNE 1–7, 2017

favorite place to come and play. Spending hours by the lake

40

morning, noon or night has never been so entertaining.

T E R R AC E S U M M E R . C O M

6/1, 5pm 6/1, 9pm 6/2, 5pm 6/2, 9pm 6/3, 9pm 6/8, 5pm 6/8, 9pm 6/9, 5pm 6/9, 9pm 6/10, 9pm 6/15, 5pm 6/15, 9pm 6/16, 4:30pm 6/17, 12pm 6/18, 5pm 6/22, 5pm 6/22, 9pm 6/23, 5pm 6/23, 9pm 6/24, 9pm 6/29, 5pm 6/29, 9pm 6/30, 5pm 6/30, 9pm

Milkhouse Radio Black Marble The Betsy Ezell Quartet Golpe Tierra Stone Arch Isles Northern Comfort Foshizzle Family The Anthony Deutsch Trio Forth Wanderers Varsity Sortin’ the Mail Remo Drive Isthmus Jazz Festival Isthmus Jazz Festival Classical Music Boo Bradley Soul Low Mal-O-Dua Limanya Dance and Drum Ensemble Phun Ida Jo Bronson Wisconsin The Goodie Two Shoes The Big Payback

6/5, 9pm 6/11, 9pm 6/12, 9pm 6/19, 9pm 6/25, 9pm 6/26, 9pm

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) Jaws (1975) Dope (2015) Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) The Little Mermaid (1989) The Lego Movie (2014)

6/14, 4 – 8pm 6/21, 12 – 2pm 6/21, 4 – 8pm 6/28, 4 – 8pm

Paint a Mini Masterpiece Summer Solstice Solar Prints Terrace Bandanas Terrace Keepsake Boxes