Make Music Madison Number One city in nation for worldwide festival.

You can also ask Alexa to listen to Mad Radio 92 7 here in Madison. That's always fun to go to people's house and ask Alexa to play

Some city media radio station. I believe it right there. Oh, I'm gonna try that. I know

All right Jimmy make music Madison is part of a worldwide make music day a festival that celebrates live music every year

In cities across the globe on the first day of summer June 21st

Madison, Wisconsin happens to be among the top cities across the globe

boasting nearly 700 live music venues that pop up around every corner in the city. We're number one

We're number one

Here to tell us about make music Madison and how you can become involved is director Mary Rose

Mary Rose. Welcome back to maxing radio

Thank you so much for having me on always a pleasure

We were talking about traveling earlier in the show and I know you're a traveler. She's going on trips recently

I did I just got back from Vietnam about five six days ago. Yeah, it was awesome. Where did you go?

Mostly northern and central Vietnam so bounced around quite a bit

But I had a wonderful time people were super friendly the food was amazing

I was just gonna ask you about the spicy food. Oh, yeah. I ate a lot of spicy food. She's still sweating. I ate a lot of noodle soup

I ate a lot of spring rolls. Yeah, it was great. How cool is that? Yeah, it was a really wonderful time

What was what was like the most memorable

Site you saw

So one of the greatest things we did was we did near ninbin

We went on a riverboat to our through through a cave system

So you actually are in these caves for like 20 to 30 minutes

And the the ceilings are so low you have to actually bend over or you will get hit in the face with a rock

And there's only like four of you on a little paddle boat with one guide

And it was absolutely beautiful

And we went through we were the first boat through in the day

So the water hadn't been disturbed so it was a perfectly reflective mirror surface

So yeah, that was that was breathtaking. Was there typical cave stuff like salag my select types or whatever they're called

Yeah, absolutely and we saw bats like bats swooping down and and but the caves are fully lit

They have like, you know, up lights through the whole case

Yeah, so it's so you're not like in the pitch black with a flash like that

I was wondering about that. I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah, yeah, but it was amazing

And did you go to Egypt as well? I did yeah about a year ago

I went to Egypt which was I wouldn't from you know all the way from Alexandria to Abu Simbo

Which is in the southern border and and saw you know

Did a Nile cruise did saw a lot of the country and that was a really really wonderful trip

And the first time that I'd flown that far and my first sort of you know non-European destination

So it was a big deal. Yeah, tell us something about riding a camel that we don't know

So they have to I don't know of you in this

But they have to lay down so that you can get on top of them

And you don't really interact too much with their face because they may try to bite you or or spit on you

Yep

You don't know um, let's see uh, they get used a lot by tourists

So they often say to try to avoid using like the more

Like the really pushy salesman because their camels are sort of not treated very well

So you should try to kind of go a little bit further afield to make sure that you're not using a camel

That's just having to get up and down and up and down all day long and working a lot

That's a great piece of advice you can use

Yeah, absolutely

Oh wow, so for those children trying to wrap their head around the whole festival world festival make music Madison

Um, tell us about it. It started here in Madison in 2013, right? Yep

Yeah, our chapter started in 2013

We're going strong. We were the sixth chapter in the United States to found but the organization

As a whole the concept of make music day was founded in France about 43 years ago now

So it's you know, it's a pretty old international festival

But in the United States it's only been around for you know 12 13 14 years

So we're um, we're really lucky that we have one of the oldest chapters in the US

There's over a thousand cities worldwide now that celebrate make music day um just in Wisconsin

There's more than 20 chapters now wow, so it's really grown that's cool real quick

Let's go through the so is there a chapter in wasa um maybe i'm not sure how about green bay

There's apple tin has a chapter has a chapter yet so nearby walkershaw?

Um, no Milwaukee has a chapter. Okay. Um, how about richland center or uh, race scene?

Nope, neither of those although they should um, these are all cities that they're civic media radio stations. Oh, that's oh

That's why you're asking. I'm like man. This is just a random

Yeah, a beautiful mind. No, I yeah, you know, I don't have the whole list in front of me

But if you want to find it, it's it's if you go to make music day dot org slash w i or Wisconsin

They list all of the chapter so any anywhere you are in the world

You can go to like a make music day website and find out like where are the other chapters

locally to like to Madison. I know that son prairie has a chapter

Um, uh, de force has a chapter middleton has a chapter and wana key has a chapter

So I know those areas do but yeah can't quiz me on the other you get and cats in here

She can list off all just 20 so much after he actually just had her 20 weeks ago

She was here two weeks in Russia so much to say. Yeah, the concept of make music uh, day is just super easy

We're celebrating uh summer first day of summer June 21st and music everywhere around Madison here

And last year was really successful for the for the chapter here in Madison

Yeah, we were really fortunate to find out after the event that we had the largest

The most number of events the most number of performances of any chapter in the United States

Um, and some one of the highest numbers of events outside of France in the world

Which is a really big deal because in France make music day is like a national holiday where people take off work and stuff

Um, and they told us we had the same number of events as Berlin, Germany

Because that's a huge city with like everyone, you know with a huge music history too

So yeah, you know, we're doing we're doing good

So we'll see if we can top that this year. It's on a Friday

Which I think is gonna help yeah, yeah last year it was on a Wednesday

So if we can pull out almost 700 shows on a Wednesday, I'm excited to see what we can do on a Friday

Nice, well like what are the requirements of being a venue and providing a stage?

That's a great question. So we try to keep it as easy as possible

So um because we are the Madison chapter the first requirement is you have to be within the city of Madison limits

If you want to um be a participant and make music day and you're not within the city of Madison

We recommend you find your local chapter or start one. It's really easy and it's very inexpensive to start a chapter

The second requirement is that the event has to be free and open to the public so you cannot charge an admission

People need to be able to just walk into your venue. So that means if you're hosting in your house, they're going to be walking into your house

Um, and then the last requirement is that you just have to make sure that you are not blocking like if you're outside on the street

You have to make sure that you're not blocking pedestrian

easeways and that people can still get through um, but we try to keep it really easy and we invite everybody to host

You know anywhere they they can think of so I went to one on somebody's porch a couple of years ago

I think it might have been during COVID during the heat of it

So a lot of things were outside and so we just kind of hung out at the park across the street

But literally it was like just this dude's porch. Yep, and it was great. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of fun

We used to have a requirement that events all be outside because

This is also you know the summer solstice

So we wanted people to be outside and connect with nature, but then we found out that

Sometimes because of the weather that poses a huge challenge

So why have that limitation? So now you can have them inside or outside?

Mary Rose Eckberg from Make Music Madison here on Maxine Caridio with us

You know the cool thing about the Madison chapter

I really the whole everything about make music is the website is almost like matchmaking, you know

Swipe white swipe left or whatever and it's you know

So venues could do the use it to pick bands bands can use it to pick venues

And then at the end, you know, there's a great list of where the artist are playing for the fans

Yep, it's an amazing tool. We try to make it super easy

You can input whatever information you have like if you have photos if you have links to your website

If you have you know a soundcloud page

You can build a nice little profile of your musician

And you can search for like if you are a musician that has to have a PA system

You can search by that if you need to only perform you know after five o'clock as you've got a day job

You can limit that and search by that

So it's really easy to use and once you make a match you can communicate

There's an online platform, you know messaging system

And then when each the venue and the performer confirm

It comes to the myself and my team of volunteers to review make sure that

You know you're meeting our standards

And then once it's approved you're good to go and automatically populates on our website super easy

And there's some important dates coming up here too for registration

And deadlines where we're just talking about deadlines KJ

People respond to deadlines

Yeah, what's the deadlines coming up here for make music Madison?

So registration will open for both performers and venue hosts on April 1st

April Fool's Day so it won't be a joke

It's actually opening that day and it will close June 1st

So if you're after June 1st, you can always reach out to us to see if you can still get in the system

But June 1st is the deadline for registration officially. That's awesome

I I can tell you right now. I think I did this last year

We're definitely committing to having a stage here for Maxine Gradio and civic media. Yeah. Thank you so much for committing

Did you hear that big commitment?

I can't believe we saw we we're witnesses. Yeah, we're witnesses. That's all that's been recorded. Oh

We're gonna have a huge stage. I'm excited

It's gonna be a good time to it. Thank you guys as usual for hosting. We appreciate the support

We appreciate your effort and your hard work in make music Madison, Mary Rose, Eckberg

Thank you so much for coming in tonight. Thank you for having me. Let's do some Kyle Henderson for a new chance on Maxine Gradio