30 MINUTE MUSIC HOUR

In response to the thriving independent music scene, 30-MMH offers a free-form stage where artists from around the state and country perform music that might otherwise go unheard. "Colonel" Andy Moore hosts.

Contact us at 30mmh@wpt.org

Featured Artist
March 12, 2012 | Farewell Milwaukee
Alt-country and honest lyrics define this five-piece that now call Minneapolis home.

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30-Minute Music Hour

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PREVIOUS STUDIO RECORD SESSIONS

Farewell Milwaukee

Farewell Milwaukee

Recorded February 21, 2012
From Minneapolis, Farewell Milwaukee serves up achingly beautiful new indie rock. This five-piece rumbles in and out of tough Jayhawks-style alt-country, honest lyrics and vocally hypnotic work. In addition to their energetic live shows, they've recorded in Nashville with Brad Bivens (Kings of Leon, Norah Jones).

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Icarus Himself

Icarus Himself

Recorded February 21, 2012
Southern Wisconsin is getting to be known as a birthplace for brave, new independent rock. Icarus Himself is a Madison-based, hard touring four-piece that is helping define that trend. Their sound rolls live tracking, loops, diamond hard singing--and the occasional trumpet note.

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Nick Brown

Nick Brown

Recorded February 21, 2012
With the ink still wet on his diploma from Kalamazoo College, Nick Brown moved to Austin to see if he could make it as a singer/songwriter. It was a move to Madison, though, that helped his music career take shape. Known locally as the bass player for Brown Derby, Brown appears solo on the 30-MMH, acoustic guitar in hand, to perform songs from Slow Boat, his first album of working man songs.

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Freedy Johnston

The German Art Students

Recorded November 14, 2011
The German Art Students have been playing punk, pop and rock music in the Madison area for more than a dozen years. Known for their sense of humor as well as their musicianship, GAS have a loyal following that clamors for their satirical songs including, "Civil War Re-enactor." We're excited to have them on the 30MMH performing songs from their brand-new EP, "The Power and the Trust."

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Freedy Johnston

Corey Hart

Recorded November 14, 2011
Corey Hart's voice has been compared with Ray LaMontagne and Jeff (and Tim) Buckley. He can go from a growl to a soft falsetto in a flash. The perfect voice for the lush songs on his new EP, "Winter Bones." Hart is joined by fiddle player/vocalist Ida Jo.

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Freedy Johnston

Bandallamas

Recorded November 14, 2011
A collection of friends and family from across Wisconsin - and the nation - gathers together several times a year to make world music with a jam sensibility. Enjoy this rare session, which we were lucky enough to be part of in November 2011.

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Freedy Johnston

Freedy Johnston

Recorded June 21, 2011
Freedy Johnston is a flamethrower of a songwriter and vocal stylist who splits his time between Madison and New York City. When it came out in 1992, Rolling Stone and Spin hailed his first record, Can You Fly, as "a masterpiece." His latest release is "Rain on the City." (It's an album of covers!)

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Katie Powderly

Katie Powderly

Recorded June 21, 2011
Katie Powderly is a Madison-based singer/songwriter who spent the past winter in Knoxville, Tenn. That's where she crafted and recorded the lovely songs on her forthcoming CD. Her music is remniscent of 1970s country music, but with a power pop thrust that comes compliments of a killer four-piece band and their arrangements.

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Cris Plata and Extra Hot

Cris Plata and Extra Hot

Recorded May 10, 2011
A South Texas native, Cris Plata has been stirring up original Tex-Mex music in Wisconsin and the upper Midwest for 25 years. The veteran singer/songwriter is a storyteller who blends together norteņo (Northern Mexican border), conjuto (European-influenced) and ranchera (Mexican country) styles of music into a form of his own.

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Jeremiah Nelson

Jeremiah Nelson

Recorded May 10, 2011
Jeremiah Nelson is an exciting part of a vanguard of independent songwriters who have adopted Wisconsin as home in the last several years. His newest record, Drugs to Make You Sober, represents a shift in his sound from haunting folk pop to haunting rock fusion. It's a catchy, hook-laden soundscape.

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The Jimmys

The Jimmys

Recorded May 10, 2011
Fifth-generation dairy farmer (180 Swiss cows) by day, menace on the Hammond B-3 organ by night, Jimmy Voegeli is a bona fide blues/funk hero. He's one of the most sought-after sidemen in the Midwest and has shared the stage with luminaries such as Pine Top Perkins and Guitar Shorty. Voegeli recently surrounded himself with his own band of talented musicians, which he named The Jimmys.

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Carolina Chocolate Drops

The Carolina Chocolate Drops

Recorded April 9, 2011
In February, The Carolina Chocolate Drops won the Best Traditional Folk Album Grammy Award for 2010's "Genuine Negro Jig." The band has been a one-band revival of a twice forgotten art form: North Carolina Folk music in the African-American tradition. Rolling Stone describes the band's music as, "dirt floor dance electricity."

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Count This Penny

Count This Penny

Recorded April 9, 2011
Count This Penny performs self-styled "Appalachian Pop" - a blend of country and mountain soul. The core of the band is husband and wife team Amanda and Allen Rigell. The couple moved to Madison last summer from Johnson City, Tenn. when Allen began his medical residency at UW Hospital. They'll be performing cuts from their new cd, "Gone." They will be joined by John Ray on five-string banjo.

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Optometri

Optometri

Recorded April 9, 2011
Madison-based Optometri is a band that started in the former Soviet Union. Not. Or did they? The story goes that they disappeared from the Soviet Union after the fall. The six Russian immigrants reappeared in the Midwest about six years ago and picked up, musically speaking, where they left off. This tongue-in-cheek outfit is one part performance art and one part rock music awesomeness. The band is an all-star cast that features some of the best players in Madison.

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F. Stokes

Ida Jo and the Show

Recorded Jan. 29, 2011
Madison-based Ida Jo began playing the violin as a seven-year-old in her hometown of Duluth. She took her classical training at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and turned it on its head by updating an old mountain fiddle technique called "chopping," a percussive, intense style of playing. This has become the core sound of her original repertoire, but her range is vast and aggressive and includes Texas swing as well as most Celtic genres. Ida performs with her three-piece band, which includes string bass and drum.

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F. Stokes

JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound

Recorded Jan. 29, 2011
Described by MOJO Magazine as one of the hottest soul acts in America, Chicago's JC Brooks is a sexy soul man of the highest order. He and the Uptown Sound are among the new vanguard of groups reacquainting an entire generation to the music of James Brown, Otis Redding and Curtis Mayfield. They're not a revivalist act, though. "Think Otis Redding fronting the Stooges," is what Brooks says. Brook's soulful cover of Wilco's "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" went viral last year.

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F. Stokes

Kings Go Forth

Recorded Jan. 29, 2011
From Milwaukee, Kings Go Forth has just returned from a European tour. Newly signed with David Byrne's label, Luaka Bop, the Kings have become the country's standard bearer for all that is hip and soulful. The band was the subject of a New Yorker profile last spring and their song, "High on Your Love," was one of the Washington Post's picks for the 25 best singles of 2010. The band's energy is featured in their energetic video for the song, "One Day." Watch it here.

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F. Stokes

F. Stokes

Recorded Dec. 8, 2010
Rapper F. Stokes was born in Chicago and moved to Madison at age 12. He began rapping and making videos in Madison before moving to New York City "with fifty dollars in my pocket." Despite the extreme circumstances of his youth, or perhaps because of it, Stokes is a generous, positive, intense poet.

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Primitive Culture

Primitive Culture

Recorded Dec. 8, 2010
The band's leader and founder, guitarist David Hecht, is one of the state's most accomplished musical exports, having shared the stage or opened shows for artists including Elton John and Los Lobos. In this set, Primitive Culture will feature special guest, Jimmy Voegli, a Hammond B-3 organ player.

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Anna Laube

Anna Laube

Recorded June 22, 2010
Anna Laube creates beautiful music at the intersection of folk, indie, and country. A product of Iowa City and Madison, Wis., she's also lived and performed in Belgium, Minnesota and California. NPR calls her songs "intimate and heartfelt."

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Dorothy Scott

Dorothy Scott

Recorded June 22, 2010
East-coast-based but with deep Wisconsin roots, Dorothy Scott has shared the stage with performers including Carole King, Joan Osborne, Jeff Buckley and Joan Armatrading. Scott can bellow and blast, mellow and amuse, all the while showing her strengths as a first-rate guitarist.

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Whitney Mann

Whitney Mann

Recorded June 22, 2010
Willie Nelson knew what to do when he heard Madison-based country singer Whitney Mann's recordings. He booked her to open his two Wisconsin shows this year. Whitney will appear with her full band, featuring some of the best country players north of Nashville.

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Rob DZ

Rob Dz

Recorded June 22, 2010
Madison/Beloit-based rapper Rob Dz creates hip-hop with a heart of gold. Rich production, provocative rhymes, and glorious effects blend, all fueled with the artist's passion for life and justice.

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