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DaneCast May 8, 2008 Part One: Discussing the Brittany Zimmermann call, the MAMAs, and what else is happening around Madison

Current | DaneCast
This is the first part of the Dane101 Podcast for May 8, 2008. Contributors include Emily Mills, Bessie Cherry, Jesse Russell, Michael Donnelly, Adam Schabow, and special guests Scott Gordon from the Onion and Mad Rollin Dolls' announcers Bob Noxious and Baam Baam. In this first part we discuss the Brittany Zimmermann case, what's happening around Madison this weekend, and the Madison Area Music Awards. In part two, which we will be posting tomorrow, we talk about the Mad Rollin' Dolls finals scheduled for Saturday, the capacity adjustment, and what it means to be a derby announcer. If you can't see the player below, hit reload on your browser.


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Notes On A Screen: Madison Area Film, TV, and Gaming News 2008: Week 20

Arts | Film | Television | Gaming

smallpublicenemies.jpgWe haven't produced a "Notes On A Screen" since the week of the Wisconsin Film Festival, apologies. We blame complete silver screen burnout. With all of the hoopla regarding Public Enemies being filmed around the Capitol earlier this week this seems like the best time to fire up the weekly round-up of TV, gaming, and film news coming out of the greater Madison metropolitan area.

Johnny Depp wasn't in town for this shoot of what has come to be known simply as P.E., but Christian Bale and Billy Crudup did strut up the steps of the Capitol building as Madison doubled for Hoover's fledgling FBI headquarters. Bale is playing Melvin Purvis, who was Dillinger's pursuer, while Crudup is portraying the young Hoover. The results are photos and coverage galore.

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BIY, Bike-It-Yourself: Creating a One-Stop-Shop

Regular Feature

madvelocity050808.jpgThere are a great deal of things happening in this community related to bicycling, which is one of the reasons that I started this column. When you love bicycling, and think it can save the world, you want as many people to bicycle as possible. And part of getting more people to bicycle is making them aware of all of the varied opportunities to get on a bike or do something bike-related in our fair city.

Another effort to get the word out which I am peripherially involved in is www.madvelocity.com.

I've seen how Dane101 has grown over the last year that I've been reading it and writing for it, and I'd love to see the same kind of success with a bicycling-specific site. I know it can be done, it just will take the will of the people. Right now there are only a handful of us providing content, and we'd like to see that increase.

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A Strange Case: The Zimmermann 911 call and the stories told afterwards

Current

No one seems to be able to get their stories straight. Just over a month after UW-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann was murdered in her Doty St. apartment and a week after the initial revelation about the 911 call from her phone was published in an Isthmus article by Jason Shepard, no one seems willing or able to set the record straight.

Union representatives from Local 720, which represents Dane County 911 dispatchers, are saying that the person who took the call from Zimmermann’s phone claims not to have done anything to violate protocol. According to a recent channel3000 article, “The dispatcher said the 911 center policy says operators should call back a disconnected call if they have time.” This contradicts what the public has been told by Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk and others, who indicated that protocol is to always return 911 calls, regardless of any other factor. Also, in direct contradiction to what officials have been saying, the dispatcher adamantly denies having hung up the call.

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Tegan and Sara at the Barrymore, May 6, 2008

Music

ts8.jpgCanadian 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.

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Soundcheck: What to expect from Madison Area Music Awards 2008

Music | MAMAs 2008

mamas030308.gifThe 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.

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Spring Tour Blog - Finale: Texas to Mississippi

John Statz Blog

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Wednesday, April 30th – Austin, TX

The 3-hour drive from Dallas to Austin was mainly marked by the unfortunate realization that I had left my main debit card at the Absinthe Lounge the night before. While a bummer, it was by no means a disaster, as I had other cards, so with Dallas at my back it was time to delve into Austin, Texas’s liberal oasis! I met up with my friend Justin (who used to work at Ward-Brodt in Madison with me) at his place, and he became my “tour guide” for Austin, as he lives there now. I’ve been to Austin once before, last year when I played there with the Flame Shark boys, but had seen little of the city that time, so Justin took me to Mount Bonnell, which is a great park high on cliffs overlooking downtown Austin and the Colorado River (different one). The views were great, and Justin used the opportunity to take some pictures for a class, so I’ll have a new photo shoot posted soon (I’m thinking of leaving folksinging to become a model). We headed over to the Iguana Grill, where I was playing that night, in time to get some delicious Tex-Mex and take in the views, as the I.G. is also situated high-up, overlooking Lake Travis. My 2 and a half hour set was mostly a wall-paper gig, though some people listened, and the owner is a super-cool Minnesota ex-patriate. You meet a lot of people from our part of the country down south that never want to live through snowy winters again. I think that they’re crazy, I couldn’t handle summers that hot! Again taking up the “tour guide” position, Justin directed me downtown, where we walked around 6th Street and the state capitol. I crashed on Justin’s floor after discussing airports and photo shoots with him and his dad.

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Tuesday Tix: Mad Rollin' Dolls, DeVotchKa, the Avett Brothers

Adventure

mrdfinals051008.jpgMadison promoters must have been very busy this weekend because they all missed the Tuesday tickets notification deadline of 5 p.m. Sunday. Thankfully, our friends at Furthermore Beer are making sure we aren't empty-handed. If you don't mind the non-stop action of roller derby or a drive to Milwaukee for some quality music, the below passes can be yours (if you are the first person to comment below). UPDATE: WE HAVE TWO PAIR FOR DERBY AVAILABLE.

May 8: DeVotchKa at The Turner Ballroom (MKE)

During the past three years DeVotchKa had been hard at work making Madison a second home by consistently playing well attended shows and building a strong fan base. You would be hard pressed to find someone in the city who isn't familiar with Eastern European folk roots fusion act. This time they regretfully decided to skip our fine city for a turn at the Turner in Milwaukee. You can catch them by being the first to comment for these tickets.

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Who would you put in Wisconsin's Hall of Fame?

Arts | Advocacy

ericheidenhalloffame.jpgPop Quiz: What two things do Yogi Berra and Bruce Springsteen have in common? Both are Hall of Famers in their respective fields and both hail from New Jersey. On Sunday night those two distinctions merged as Berra and Springsteen joined 15 others to become the first Jerseyans to be inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame. The goal of the Hall is to help improve the reputation of the Garden State by highlighting prominent individuals who have lived there for at least five years. When accepting the award on Sunday, Springsteen said, "Rise up, my fellow New Jerseyans. We are all members of a confused but noble race. Even with this wonderful Hall of Fame, we know there's another bad Jersey joke just around the corner."

As the Wisconsin Historical Society rolls out an exhibit dedicated to Madison native Chris Farley this week I wondered why Wisconsin doesn't consider a Hall of Fame? Wisconsin, like New Jersey, is often the butt of many jokes and our stereotyped culture is one of beer, Packers, and cheese. One night each year we could showcase the innovation and celebrity of prominent Wisconsinites by inducting them into a Hall of Fame. It would not only earn the state national headlines, but would serve as an example to young Wisconsinites.

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Breakfast Links: May 6, 2008

Breakfast Links

Hindenburg.jpgMay 6 is the 127th day of the year. On this date in 1937 the German zeppelin Hindenburg catches fire and is destroyed within a minute.

* Dusty: Ogg Hall, a decades-old Madison institution in what - they - haven't - torn - that - thing - down - yet - ingness, is going to be an unfortunate feature in Madison's skyline for at least another handful of months.

* Mayor Osterhaus: Johnny Depp will be back in Columbus for filming on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

* WS: Expert calls Dane County 911 staffing inadequate

* TCT: Falk apologizes to Zimmermann's family, fiance

* BH: A city committee gave the go-ahead to a new apartment building in the Bassett Street area Monday that some see as an asset to the neighborhood and others view as an assault to the architecture and fluidity of the community.

* LetterFromHere: Reinforcing gender stereotypes in Madison

* PeepMyWords: Madison is a bit of an enigma - a city where people as smart and conceited as Northern Chi-sters still enjoy vomiting, Brett Favre, and self-deprecation as much as their fellow Killwaulkians is hard to define...

* Eisen: Ald. Brenda Konkel probably caught the prevailing vibe at city hall when she headlined her post on the IZ report with the casual summary: "Inclusionary Zoning Didn't Ruin the World."

* ForwardOurMotto ...if he would have read the blog entry that he referenced, it's right there in the first paragraph. So yeah, even if you don't like IZ, you can clearly see that Alder Konkel wants results (and she cites them in that blog entry too), and not just some nice sounding policy.

* Dane101 Better Living: Make Windows More Productive Without Installing a Thing

Public Enemies hits the Capitol

Arts | Film

Take a trip back to Depression-era gangster times, when the Wisconsin state capitol was ostensibly located in Washington, D.C., a privileged few apparently had plastic water bottles and modern film and lighting gear, and everything was a kind of warm black and white tint.

A total of 14 pics from the filming of Public Enemies shot from the Pickney and East Wash side of the Capitol:

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Madison Mentions: The Newspaper Report Weekending May 5, 2008

Current | Madison Mentions

Madison_Mentions_newspaper_0_0_4_1_0.gifMadison had a busy week when it came to coverage in media outside of the state of Wisconsin. A South Dakota paper and the Christian Science Monitor both take aim at Madison liberalism, the UW invents nanotrees, Madison gets a Second Life, Chris Farley receives a high grade in literature, and much, much more.

The online Universe, Second Life, continues to make headlines, but recently a bit of Madison in the virtual world was mentioned in an article on MSNBC.

Quote:
Architect Jon Brouchoud has used Second Life for about two years to help clients of his small Madison [Wis.] firm, Crescendo Design, visualize what their homes might look like. Clients can use the virtual model to test paint colors, material types, furniture layouts, and landscaping options. Brouchoud has also met with builders inside the virtual model for real-time discussions and has collaborated with a British client to design a project he was developing in the U.S.
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