Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince of The Kills took to The Annex stage on Saturday night with an unforgettable aural assault of bone trembling rock and roll. She, in her leopard print top and Cousin It-inspired fringe, stalked the stage with a double dog dare stare that immediately demanded the attention of every pair of eyes in the house. He, covered in layers of dark attire and art-school-cool, mercilessly pounded his guitar until it seemed certain to shatter to pieces. Together, the duo delivered their distinctive mix of crunchy, dirty rock, electronica, blues, and plenty of attitude in front of a projection screen displaying footage of old punk acts to an obviously enthused mass of fans. Several songs from the band’s new album, Midnight Boom, were featured including “U.R.A. Fever,” “Cheap and Cheerful,” and “Sour Cherry,” as well as older favorites like the gritty, savage stomp, “Fried My Little Brains.”

Below is the complete list of award winners from the 2008 Madison Area Music Awards. A more in-depth write up coming soon...

GENRE AWARDS

Blues Song of the Year

The Mud Angels

Blues Album of the Year

Westside Andy/Mel Ford Band

Blues Artist of the Year

The Mud Angels

Classical Song of the Year

Ben Johnston-Urey

This week's "Get Out, Madison!" starts on Sunday and works back to today. Why? We wish to engage in a bit of shameless self promotion.

Did you know your mother loves storytelling singer songwriters? Well, she does so you should consider bringing her by the High Noon Saloon at 8 p.m. where Dane101 will be presenting an eclectic evening of storytelling. We’ve tapped John Statz, Justin Jehnke, Tamara Backus, Ariel McClain, Adam Schabow, and Shinky to play some of their favorite songs and tell you how those songs came into existence. This will be the first in a series of storytelling nights.

Canadian indie pop group Tegan & Sara played to a boisterous, sold-out crowd at the Barrymore on Tuesday night, proving yet again that they can bring both well-crafted, creative songs, and humorously endearing storytelling.

Despite a handful of overly, ahem, "enthusiastic" fans (see: having one-sided conversations with the performers), the sibling duo and their band played a great set, including quite a few songs from The Con, their most recent album, and So Jealous, their 2004 release, plus a few older pieces as well.

The Madison Area Music Awards return to the Barrymore Theatre on May 10 with a strong line-up of awards show performers as well as a new feature this year, after parties. Performers this year include the Pale Young Gentlemen, Motorz, Jessie Lynn, and others. The red carpet rolls out at 6 p.m. with the show starting at 7 p.m. and running until 10 p.m. At that time the after parties kick-off around Madison with shows at Mr. Roberts, the Harmony Bar, the Great Dane-Downtown, and the Brink Lounge. We asked MAMAs founder Rick Tvedt some questions about how the MAMAs are different this year and how he feels they are being received in the local music community.

What is the most important change about the MAMAs this year?

Two things:
We've instituted some rule changes that have opened up the nominations. We were finding that especially some albums were getting nominated in more than one category and that some artists were getting multiple nominations in the same category for different songs. We now scrutinize the results so that a single album can only get nominated in one category and an artist can only have one song nomination in any single category.

This new Dane101 monthly feature will reflect on the previous month of music blogging regarding Madison. We will highlight some of the most interesting music blog posts around these symphonic Internet halls from reviews to interviews to photos and so on. As this is our first foray into collecting the mass of music blogging that occurs each month we'd like to apologize for the messiness below. As soon as we completed this post we realized a much easier way to categorize all of this. Look forward to a more organized music blog smörgåsbord at the end of May. If you are a music blogger and we missed your blog, we apologize, please email using the contact tab to the left and let us know where you live in these vast Internet wilds.

Reviews:
Mixtapes|Heartbreaks: Colin Meloy, Barrymore Theatre, April 23, 2008
Dane101: Colin Meloy, Barrymore Theatre, April 23, 2008
Charz2K: New Pornographers/Okkervil River, Orpheum Theatre, April 21, 2008
Muzzle of Bees: New Pornographers/Okkervil River, Orpheum Theatre, April 21, 2008
Oh, Warfair & Therapy: New Pornographers/Okkervil River, Orpheum Theatre, April 21, 2008
Hey, There's a Bird in this Mirror: New Pornographers/Okkervil River, Orpheum Theatre, April 21, 2008
Donald Trump's House of Wings: Colin Meloy, Barrymore and New Pornographers/Okkervil River at Orpheum

When examining the current state of music, it’s a somewhat rare occurrence to encounter a band whose music is synonymous with a well-defined set of ethics and a clear sense of purpose. Unfortunately even more uncommon is encountering one whose members’ actions actually work in direct accord with those admirable ideals, but Black Rebel Motorcycle Club has always been one of those rare breeds. On the Henry Rollins Show last year, for example, guitarist Peter Hayes explained the band’s adverse stance on the modern marriage of art and capitalism and how they protect their music from being corrupted by it. "We haven’t figured out a way to take money and turn it around and do something good besides helping ourselves. We haven’t really figured out a way to do that quite yet, you know? It would be nice to take the 500,000 or 2 million that someone offers you for doing their car commercial and throw it back into whatever that company is destroying. We try to stay away from the beast."

Over the past few years the Wisconsin Area Music Industry Awards has built a reputation of not looking very far beyond Milwaukee County when nominating "Wisconsin music industry" folk for awards. The result was the birth of the Madison Area Music Awards, an awards show dedicated specifically to artists based in the Great Madison region of Wisconsin. When the WAMI nominees were announced this year it was nice to see a much better representation of all of Wisconsin and a number of Madison-based acts. This year nominees in various categories from Wisconsin's Capitol City included the Blueheels, .357 String Band, Moon Gypsies, Figureheads, Mighty Short Bus, Milwaukee and Madison shared ska band Something To Do, music paper Maximum Ink, and recording studio Smart Studios. The awards ceremony was held on Monday at Milwaukee's Turner Hall and a number of the above acts beat out their Milwaukee counterparts (the full list can be found here):

Well spring is here and I am on the road once again, and its time for another installment of the "Tour Blog". I am writing from Kansas City, MO at the moment, and as you can probably guess I am already a ways into this tour. The last time I wrote was back in January, when I went out west to Colorado, and I did a daily blog that time. As this is a longer (and busier) tour for me, I will not be writing daily, but hope to do 3 seperate installments to keep you updated! Now its time to start from the beginning, and fill you all in! A link to pictures follows at the bottom.

Tuesday, April 22nd - Chicago, IL

Friday

Trying to bottle Splitlip Rayfield is the equivalent of trying to bottle lightning, because that is the way the band plays their bluegrass; fast and unapologetic. Even a year after losing Kirk Rundstrom the band plays with plenty of fuel and fire. They'll bring it to the High Noon tonight with the help of the Javelinas.

The Klinic has a line up of pure power when Flat Atom assembles with Witch Beulah, Future Ghost, The Mother Hive Syndicate, and Gabriel and the Apocalypse.

Madison's female fronted metal band The Ottoman Empire will assault the Annex all night long with the help of Mors Mortis Machinatio, Erebus and Through Terror.

We’ve been neglecting Notes On A Scene for three weeks now. Plenty has been happening so we’ll try our damnest to get everyone caught up. Although, this also seems like it would be a good time to remind bands that if you aren’t telling us what you are up to, we can’t regurgitate it to the masses.

Review City

There has been a number of reviews for releases by Madison bands hitting the Internets over the past couple of weeks. Some for new releases and others for releases that came out last year.

Dear August received some nice accolades for their release Come In, Keep Dry from the influential Americana Roots. The Revolving Doors were given a 6 out of 10 by The Silent Ballet for their self-titled release. Michael from Sleeping in the Aviary is ready to release the album for his side project Whatfor. Dane101 just got our hot little hands (what does that even mean?) on it and so has It’s the Money Shot and he calls it a “delightful indie-pop-rock album made for the summer.” Rock Sellout also has a copy and says the release “is pointedly smart and crafty without compromising its levelheaded measure; the finest Midwestern gallantry tempered by the strong hands of wry humor and verse.” Release party is scheduled for May 23 at the High Noon.

Before Colin Meloy's show last night at the Barrymore, I was a little concerned about whether he'd be able to carry the Decemberists' material solo given how rich and detailed most of their songs are, well written for a large band with a lot of instruments. I needn't have worried. Meloy added a little reverb to his vocals to help fill up the room, but he could have gotten away with his stage presence alone.

The smaller crowd -- the room was only halfway filled -- and Meloy's informal demeanor made for a much more intimate show than I'd expected. Rather than a polished stage show, this concert felt more like a relaxed musician pulling out his instrument for a few friends who were over for the evening. Between songs, Meloy told stories and tinkered with the tuning of his guitar, and his complete lack of self-consciousness, exclaiming "that's not the right key" and going back to retune, allowed the audience to quickly forgive any slips.

Shows: The Medic Droid/Colin Meloy/Great American Taxi/Chicago Afrobeat/Split Lip Rayfield/The Acorn/EOTO/Lions/Foal and Worrier

Alright this is how it’s going to be, we got a lot of shows for you kids this week and it is so damned nice outside right now and the Brewers game is about to start that I was just going to post the shows and let you at it, but I am in a good mood so I won’t do that to you. What I am going to do is be brief. Most of these shows are national acts that the fans of their specific genre know and probably like so I would be burning daylight by trying to explain them. You know the rules, you’ve played the game meanwhile I'll be tuned to eleven on ICS channel one. Produced in co-operation of the Zone Core Department of Justice, all rights reserved. The Running Man, America's favorite game show.

Dave Kreisman sent in these images from the Okkervil River and New Pornographers show at the Orpheum Theater on Monday night. Click on the images to view larger. See more of Dave's photos on Flickr Read reviews of the show at the following sites:
Muzzle of Bees
Hey, There's a Bird in This Mirror
Badger Herald
Charz2k

After O'Cayz Corral burned down in 2000, Madison was left with a dearth of proper music venues that could give the frustrated Madison music scene what it needed to grow and expand. The void received a band-aid a couple years later when Mr. Blues took over the Anchor Inn and gave Darwin Sampson the room to book bands. Sampson, a member of the infamous Skintones and also Helliphant, was well connected to the local scene and opened the stage to local and smaller national acts alike. While not the best situation, it served it's purpose, nurturing the scene until some other venues, like the High Noon and the Slipper Club, could open their doors. Some high drama on the property management end of the Anchor resulted in the doors closing as a music venue and eventually as a bar all together.

When the Slipper Club closed on July 30, 2006 it led to an outpouring of regret from the local music and cabaret community. The small space at 121 West Main Street had built a reputation for being a strong supporter of local music and eclectic entertainment. It created a much needed venue for bands just starting out and also touring acts that were looking for a smaller space. After closing, the space would eventually rise again as a quaint jazz club, Adair's Lounge, but that too closed earlier this year.