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Tone Madison

Madison-focused arts and music conversations you won't hear anywhere else, from tonemadison.com.

Communication greets the neighborhood

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It’s been just shy of two months since a group of artists and musicians signed the lease on a space on Milwaukee Street and announced plans to launch a new venue and arts space, Communication. Its goal is to offer an all-ages, sober atmosphere for everything from music to artist residencies to children’s programming. The venue had an […]

Hannah O’Hare Bennett’s feral materials

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Artist Hannah O’Hare Bennett takes familiar objects and materials and makes them feel wild. She creates pincushions with unruly tufts of fur, books that turn into messy spirals, and embroidery that looks rough and brittle. The work draws a lot of inspiration from the materials  that people source from the natural environment. In a way, Bennett’s […]

Johannes Wallmann on celebration and struggle

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Johannes Wallmann’s latest album, Love Wins, draws on a couple of pivotal moments in the jazz pianist’s personal, political, and creative life. Wallmann and his husband Keith Borden were among the people who sued the state of Wisconsin to overturn the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. That lawsuit of course succeeded, with a federal court ruling […]

A Tone Madison audio extra: The torment of pedal pub season

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The high for today is a balmy 68 degrees (so close!), which means winter is finally fully on its way the hell out the door. The other side of that coin, though, is the return of pedal pubs, scourge of Madison’s moderately respectable drinking establishments. One of the most popular pieces we’ve ever run on Tone […]

A Tone Madison audio extra: A Rocky Rococo eulogy from 2016

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One of the classics of Tone Madison‘s short existence so far would have to be Ben Munson’s February 2016 piece about the man who portrayed Rocky Rococo, the suspiciously Leon Redbone-esque mascot for a Wisconsin chain of pizzerias. Munson, who used to work at a Rocky Rococo location in La Crosse, set out to interview […]

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