So this past weekend was the annual Johnsonville World’s Largest Brat Fest here in Madison.  There goal this year was for 200,000 brats to be consumed.  Unfortunately they missed that ever so slightly, coming in around 191,000 (give or take a couple hundred).  But don’t let that fool you.  They beat their record of 189,432 from last year.  So we’re still in the black.

Anywho, of course there are a ton of brats (the edible meat food product) but then again it’s like a giant daycare.  Lots of families, lots of kids (or you could just pronounce “brat” a little differently and sum up the entire thing).  But besides that, I guess Brat Fest is now officially the largest music festival in Madison, which after being there really doesn’t say a whole lot.  I mean they only had 2 stages so the one way they got there was that they had 50 or so local bands playing over 4 days.  I’m having a tough time digesting that (and this brat (the food), yummy).

For more details, you can check out www.bratfest.com

Well, at least it ran a little long between posts here on Jabloggy.  MY BAD!  I’m at fault.  Me and my Friday night party at the Inferno.  Me and my Saturday visit with the parental units.  Me and my Sunday sunburn at Brat Fest for 7 hours plus a great show by Felicia Alima (both CDs available on the Local Sounds Music Store … SHAMELESS PLUG!).  Me and my Monday of enjoying the outdoors and recovering from the weekend.  I think you get my point.
So yeah, this was a Memorial Day Weekend to remember.  Lots of fun, lots of new things, lots of familiar things.  Definitely a great time and it will be nice to try and top it sometime this summer… or probably not.

On a final note, do you realize we are less than 2 weeks away from the next Apple Keynote presentation?  That means new toys, upgrades to toys, and so on and so forth.  Mark your calendars for June 9th.  I’m sure it will rock in one way or another.

So I’ve had it. I’m sick and tired of whiny bitchy neighbors and decided to finally do something about it (no I didn’t have them killed, or wacked, or kidnapped, but nice thought).

I’m done giving in to them and not being able to practice my drums at home. Next week I am picking up my brand new electronic drum kit. Now I’ll be able to practice and no one around me will know!

Don’t get me wrong, it is nice to play every week or every other week in the practice space with the band mates, but I’m used to practicing a little more often than that, like a couple times a week to daily. Plus now I can actually work on the songs for band outside of the practice space. Imagine getting better at songs faster! WOW! (*cough*)

So yes kids, I’m bringin’ the beat back home. Suck on that you whiny babies that share our bedroom walls!

So on Sunday for Mother’s Day my brother and I took my mom out to brunch in Madison here, and then made a trip over to Best Buy for a bit. Please note that at this time I had no intention to buy anything.

Anyway, I walked in empty handed, and I left with a Klipsch 10″ 420-Watt Subwoofer for my home theater. Totally worth it. My lifelong goal is to drive all of our “shared wall” neighbors out so we can expand into this entire building.

Ta-da! As you can see by the pretty new banner above, I am giving my loyal and humble Jabloggy readers a hefty preview of the new Local Sounds Music Store! Click on it and gaze upon its humble beauty!

Officially it’s not quite open to the public yet, but this past weekend was the 5th Annual Madison Area Music Awards and I was pushing really hard to collect music and spread more information about what it is we’re doing to local artists. And since the awards show is probably the largest gathering of most of the artists in town in one night, I figured this would be a prime opportunity to preach the word of Local Sounds!

So technically speaking, the store is in its “beta” stage, where it’s open and running, but we’re not pushing it full force to the public quite yet until we have a little more inventory. But I do encourage you to check it out and take a look at our special, limited time section that has the 2008 award winners and where you can either buy their music on Local Sounds or where you can get more info on the new Local Sounds Wiki. From the store home page it’s the third (black) tab over. You can’t miss it!

Also exciting this past weekend was the fact that we had some Local Sounds t-shirts to give away! We had a small batch made the day of the show, so we figured it would be some quick and easy promotion. However we plan to make some more t-shirt runs in the near future and we hope to sell those online and around town to help us support our efforts!

Finally, congratulations goes out to all the winners (and nominees that didn’t win) at the 2008 (5th Annual) Madison Area Music Awards! Looking forward to what’s to come in 2009!!

If you’ve ever been the “victim” (or maybe founder is a better word) of a start-up company, you’ll know that when you make some serious progress or hit a milestone, you can feel pretty good about yourself and do a little dance to celebrate.

I’m here to report that I think this is a good time to have a small one of those little celebrations. As I type this, the soon-to-be-public Local Sounds Music Store is just shy of 250 tracks. I feel that’s a pretty good start for a one city music store that made a call for content to local artists, labels and content providers less than a month ago!

For those living in Madison, we will be launching the Local Sounds group of sites during the 2008 / 5th Annual Madison Area Music Awards on May 10th at the Barrymore Theatre.

I hope to report more good news in the near future! Thanks for (maybe) caring!

Time for a little shameless plug!

My friend Kimani is a hip hop / rap artist here in Madison who recently recorded a patriotic song in response to the political upheaval in Kenya, which is his homeland. The reason for the song is to encourage the Kenyans to unite and stop the violence against one another. The name of the track is “Huu Wimbo Ni Maombi”. I’m a fan of the track personally. I’ve been playing it quite a bit. The groove fits with modern music and culture while at the same time delivering a powerful message. Hopefully you like it too!

You can learn more, download the track, and donate to his cause by clicking here.