Madison, WI: a Tber's paradise

[olivier]

Visiting Madison, WI for a few days, I had the pleasure of getting together with fellow TBers CB3000 and Henry Boehm. CB3000 (Chris) is a gigging doubler, playing urban blues à la Littler Walter with the Cash Box Kings on an awesome New Cleveland strung with gut, and using plank with the Hometown Sweethearts, a highly entertaining trio covering a bunch of favourite pop tunes. Henry Boehm operates the Double Bass Workshop, a well stocked DB and accessories outlet and repair shop. Henry is classically trained on double bass and is currently gigging with the Tony Catañeda Latin Jazz Sextet. While in Madison I had the opportunity to listen (and watch) the performance of Big John Bate & The Voodoo Dollz, with slapping mistress Scare-oline on double bass. They had the Vibrochamps as openning band. I don’t know how much access you guys have to this kind of a show, but from my French point of view, rockabilly and spychobilly stuff is very exotic and I had a bal checking this out. Scare-oline is a darn good bass player too. Madison is also home of double bass great Richard Davis whom I tried to meet with. My efforts were unsuccessful as Dr Davis is an activist with several cultural and community oriented organizations on top of his teaching and performing schedule so that his time is very precious. All in all my DB agenda in Madison was really jammed pack and I can’t have enough appraisal on how well I was taken care of by everyone I met. I recommend the High Noon Saloon and the Crystal Corner Bar as nice places for hanging out at nite, although I’m sure there’s a bunch of other venues for live music in Madison. At the High Noon I ran into none other than Sybil Augustine, an old buddy of mine from when I lived in Detroit. She's music program director at WORT, a community oriented radio located in Madison. That town turned out to be a TBer’s paradise. Thanks everybody .

[Chris Fitzgerald]

SIR LAWRENCE,

Sounds like a pretty nice place to visit for being so far off the beaten track. I've not met Chris B (aka SHORTWAVE10-4 ), but we chatted on the phone a few times when I bought my new bass from him, and he seems like a great guy. For a town that size, they're also very lucky to have a DB shop of their own. I'd also sure like to hear more about Chris' Cleveland bass, as anything that would have caused him to sell the LaScala I ended up with must be one hell of an instrument.

[Marcus Johnson]

I love Mad City. I spent some very high-quality lost weekends there in my younger days. We used to call it "The Berkeley Of The Midwest", due to its general vibe of radical politics in comparison to the rest of Wisconsin. Great town.