Man City Music is one of a handful of record stores that has survived the 80s, the 90s,
the 2000s, and now the 2020s. The legendary record store it opened in 1981. And that means
that this store has survived records, eight tracks, cassettes, CDs, the internet, and now
it's back to records. Man City Records is Madison's longest continuously running record store.
And in the late 90s, Dave Zero was hired at Man City Music. And in 2007, purchase the business
and continues to this day, Jimmy. Tonight Dave Zero is here with us in the studio. Dave Zero,
welcome to Maxine Gradio. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you bringing me on.
This is fantastic. Great to see you. I was pleasantly surprised with Rocker said,
Dave's is coming on the show tonight. I'm like, yes, we get to talk about music and media.
Stocks, y'all. I'm watching. I'm sure you can see this on the radio when I'm watching.
Exactly. Do you have any eight tracks in stock? I think there's a POCO eight track somewhere
around the store. We don't have too many, but I will say the eight tracks are still on the
solid novelty aspect. Everything else, cassettes, vinyl CDs, they are still there and they are still
relevant and people are still loving them. We love them and we're glad to see other people still
loving them. There's a few bands in Madison that release music on a cassette tape still.
Yeah, yeah. The cassette thing started, I'll say revival of cassettes tape started a while ago,
like a decade, maybe 15 years ago, it was just something, excuse me, just a little something that
a lot of the punk rock bands and a lot of garage rock bands just could have something to sell
at their merch table. And it's cheap. I mean, it's fun. It's cheap. I mean, it would come with
the download, but it was people just want to buy something from a local band. They want to buy
something from a band. So just having a little $5 or $10 tape at your merch booth is fantastic.
I remember doing some internet radio a little bit and all our spots or IDs and commercials would
be on cassette tapes. And I had a quick cue everything up in 30 seconds. Nice. Well then,
then you buy, you know, if you buy a cassette nowadays, then you have to go buy a cassette player.
You don't even have one. It's a labor of love, but it is a great love to have.
Dave Zero. Excuse me this time, a former WRT show host, Man City Records owner,
how did you get so involved with music? I mean, like, what's your backstory? How did I get so
involved with music? Well, I didn't get very involved with high school. So that was the first step,
which, you know, for better or for worse, it's, you know, I've, I've always, I don't know, I've
just always loved music and I've always wanted to be absorbed by music. Are you up to sponge?
Were you a musician? I, you know, I like, I think all fans of rock and roll want to be a musician
for a little bit. So I had my face where, you know, I just played my guitar as much as the next guy,
but I learned that I'm more of the, the other side of fandom where I wanted to be absorbing more
music. I want to learn about music. I love the knowledge I would get from music, learning
history through music and understanding what bands sounded like at a certain time and where the
genres were coming from. So I think I just wanted to sponge up a lot of stuff and just kind of a
music historian. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. You know, my own mind. I am. Now, you had a show for years on WRT.
Yeah. I think it was like eight years on WRT. I feel like it followed Ted offensive, right? That
was. Yep. Yep. Yeah. It feels like a generation ago. Yeah. Ted Rustin piece. He's still rocking.
No matter where he's at, he's up in the sky. You know, he's rocking right now. He's saying dirty
words in the radio. Yeah. I would have it no other way. Exactly. If we're all up in the sky,
doing our radio station with our dirty words, that's a win. Go back to your musical taste. Is there
a specific area in music that you're a big fan of like the eighties or the nineties, the grunge
or the pop music that I graduated high school in 94. So by default, I've listened to a lot of
nineties music. That's that's what I was growing up at. I don't know. I just remember, okay,
they're going to go prehistoricly back. I just remember being very young watching MTV,
seeing Eddie Van Halen play his guitar. I'm like, he's having so much fun. I want to do something
like that. You know, years later, you understand? You maybe drugs and alcohol had a little something
to come with it, but he was still having so much fun. And I just, I just saw so much fun to be
had through music. I just experienced in it being with it one way or another that I just,
I just followed that path. So, you know, I think you can really get a sense of a person by looking
at their music collection. Dave, what's in your music collection? What is in my music collection?
So I have, I try to keep a nice four, five thousand records, keep it bare bones, you know,
everything. It's something from my past, something from what I want to listen to. I try to keep
it to the, I don't, what is in my music collection? I've got, well, we know. And I will argue
anyone about the Hagar years. I still love Sammy Hagar. You know, everything I've, you can see
how my music tastes have grown like jazz is now starting to overtake a lot of everything.
I just find that more interesting these days simply because I know about it. I know less about it.
I understand less about how the music is put together. So I'm more intrigued. The typical garage
rock, the pop rock, I still love it. I'll still listen to it all the time, but I don't, I understand
how it's put together. So it's more easy for me to digest things like, well, moving backwards,
like I have always been in love with blues music. That's always been interesting to me. I love
finding these new obscure guys, not new, but finding new guys that are obscure. You know, they've
have five songs. I need to hear those five songs. Where did they come from? What's their history?
I'm, I'm still fascinated by all that. And then I've been listening to music for so long. So there's
everything. You know, I grew up in the 90s. So there's everything. There's, there's hip hop. There's
funk and soul. And there's actually a new phase of vinyl reissues that are happening where all
these great samples that used to be on hip hop songs. People are finding those actual albums that
have been out of print for years. And now they're reissuing with them. And honestly, that's catnip
for me. I love that stuff where you can find these fantastic soul albums out of print for 40 years.
If you find them on eBay or Discogs, they'd be worth like $500. But now you can get them for like
20 bucks, 30 bucks. I love that. I absolutely love that. And again, it's still the discovery of
everything. There's so much more. Every time you hear new music and want to experience new music,
everyone talks about what's new, what's hip. It's like, you know what, there's, you know,
close to 100 years of recorded music that you can just dig through and find your own path. And
I just, I've always found that fascinating. Well, I think if you dig through it,
then you have to be at a record store to do that. That is part of the part of the appeal. I mean,
you got to, you got to pay too. You literally have to dig through. And that's, you know, that's
another buzz people get to. The tangible feel of just literally discovering it. We can, we know
how the internet works. We're, we can all Google anything these days, but actually just randomly
finding something, the thrill of discovery that's never, ever going to go away. That's great. Dave
zero, excuse me, Dave zero from Mad City Records. All three of us have frogs in our throats tonight.
So Dave is 2007. You've been working at Mad City Music for a while there. Now you're buying
the store. Walk us through that. Why, why the decision? Hey, 2007. Yeah, I'm going to buy, I mean,
internet music was on fire at this point. You know what? And we've, I wasn't going anywhere.
I was anyway, I still loved it. I still love the store. I wanted to, I feel that was my next step,
just in growing. I mean, I was at the, I was 31 at the time. So I was just ready to, you know,
I want to take, I don't, I'm not scared of challenges. I like trying something new. I'm not
terribly scared of taking new steps, but you know, something new is always fun. What, what was your
approach to combating the online music sales versus the physical beating media sales?
Making it fun. Honestly, yeah, the record store has always been a social hub and a place for
people to come and just hang out and share ideas. And I've always felt that's one of the most
important things about record stores. So if you want to go online, you can dig around, but
you didn't buy yourself, you want to come and share ideas, you want to hang out. Granted,
we're hoping you buy things while you're there. But just trying to make it a social hub,
trying to make it a place where bands that come and hang out for random people just to explore.
Again, the tangible experience, you just, you'll, you'll never top that. Why, why is vinyl
resurging over the last couple of years? And there's really no sign of it letting up. Everybody wants
the physical media, media, especially on vinyl. Right. I think it's, it started a while ago,
simply as a reaction to basically being able to find everything online. Sure, you can find up,
you'll dial up your favorite streaming service. Everything's there. Right. Kind of. But that's not
fun. I mean, what's not there? I'm sorry. What's not there on the streaming that you could find on
the many things? Many, there's, there's tons of artists from the 90s that never had anything on
vinyl. And now they don't have their music on streaming services. So you actually had to find
the CD of this band. That's true. And I think it's just a natural reaction. People, people like
things and it really shows that how involved you want to be with your music. You can stream
anything all day. But if you really want to make yourself a fan, you want to bring it into your
home. You literally go and bring that piece of vinyl, that CD, that cassette. And it's, when you
bring it into your home, it's literally part of your life then. Well, and the interesting thing
about it is that's how the record labels for years control their distribution was by having a
physical record, right? Because you can't download that. You can't, you know, you, you can copy it,
but maybe it's to an inferior like a cassette. But get a tape man. The record is kind of really
coming back. And that's actually helping the independent musicians who aren't signed who don't
have millions of streams and stuff like that. Then they can start to get the money for those
products because you have to come to the show. You have to get the product from them. You know,
I mean, maybe you can order it over the internet. But even then, it's going to be shipped to you,
right? Yeah. If you order it directly from the band, that is as good as buying it at the store.
Some, some bands just don't have the distribution that get it into some stores. And if you buy
direct from the band, that's still fantastic because that band is making money off of it. The labels
not making money off of it. Right. The streaming service. Exactly. You know, there's, we all know
the big artists that can make a living off of streaming. There's a lot of bands and some bands
that are big and you'd be surprised that just, you know, they need that, they need those sales.
They need to sell those records. They need to sell those t-shirts. They need you to show up to their
shows. So it's, again, it's, the record stores are just part of the musical ecosystem these days.
They people have come back and it's kind of leveled off where everyone understands like actual
tangible music is part of the music ecosystem. I've, I've got a question. Let's say rocker and I
earn a band called, let's say rockers in a band called iron plow. But we, we have physical media.
All right. Right. We want to sell it in your record store. So how does that artist contact Mad City
and make that happen? Info at madcitymusic.net. Let me know what's up and we, you can bring it in,
we can either do a consignment. If you're a local band, I'm happy to buy it outright and grab a
copy here and there. If you're playing around town, we definitely will grab something. We put it right
in our local section. We have frequently, we have people just randomly coming into town and they
just want to buy something from the local section. Like what's something you, you've heard that's
local. They just want to, they want to, it's, it shows a little bit of flavor of what the town is
actually like. If you can, yeah, you can actually see what's in their local section and whether it
be vinyl, whether it be cassette, whether it be CD, they just, they just want to, again, people just
want to experiment with music and actually buying it in a tangible form is the best way to do it.
And real quick, what, what, what couple of bands are you really high on that are from Madison right
now? Right now. I, I have to admit, I am working too much these days. So I don't get as much as I
used to. Understand. What do I enjoy these days? Or is there something at the store that's selling
really well? Or are people are excited about? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we always, what are the great
band called Whippets in town? Good garage rock band. This is, this is a classic thing that happens
to me. Everyone will walk in a store like, Hey, what do you like right now? And I'm my, my, my
mind will go blank. So this is totally happened to me. Unfortunately, I'm already, it happens with
restaurants too. So if I say, where do you want to go here? Well, luckily, you could say
doughboys because there's a great blues band in town, cash box kings. They've been around for
many years and they've always been solid and they keep growing. Ask your small towels a great
heap. Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. Nate, there's a great country artist named Nate Gibson. Nate Gibson
in the, I'm forgetting the band name, but he's actually from Missouri originally East Coast. He's
that around town, but they're newer. They're country band. Fantastic. Good hockey talk. Pre,
pre rock and roll hockey talk sound. They've got going on. It's retro, but it's still pretty modern.
He Gibson. I wrote that down. Yeah. And they get them. Definitely check it out. Now record store
day. That's coming up April 20th. It's a really big day for Man City music. Tell us about
record store day and then what your four 20 plans are. Record store day. I, whoo, I have a wonderful
story. I remember buying the store in 2007, getting an email in January saying, Hey, you want to try
this thing called record store day? I figured I just bought a record store. Of course, I want to try
it. It has exploded to an international event. And at its heart, it's still a giant
who rave for independent businesses. It's, Hey, let's focus on, let's focus on record stores. These,
these are viable things like the things I was mentioning. It's, you know, it's a community hub.
It's a place to hang out. It's a place to meet your friends, you know, you go, it's just,
it's drawing attention back to the record store. And more importantly, independent businesses
in a town. And it's fantastic. It's a huge day. It's our biggest day of the year,
solid day of the year. And it's a lot of work. But it is completely worth it. I'm lucky right now.
I've got a great staff. We're already, we're all going to wear our good, you know, shoes that day.
And we have a line usually starting. Sometimes it starts the night before, but people camp out,
people camp out, depending on what the big releases last year. Of course, there was a Taylor Swift
release. So, you know, there were those people at six o'clock the night before camped out and
ready. It was cold last year. It's a pretty easy camp out because you got text talks right
actually. You know, you know, and then of course, is that what avenue? So it's nice and easy
and a great place to be, you know? Yeah, definitely. So it's a, it's just a huge day. It's a fantastic
day. It's busy all day long, but it's just great to see so many happy people that just like,
they get excited. They want to hang out and at your record store and they, they just come
for it. So it's fantastic. We just try to make it nice and easy for them to do that.
Dave is great to have you in the studio tonight to talk with you tonight. I've, I've always enjoyed
your record store. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. You do. And over the years,
I don't know how many times I walked in to drop off maximum music magazines. Hi, Dave.
What's up, guys? How are you doing? Thanks, Dave. Appreciate you. Mad City Music Exchange at
what avenue? Right of Chase corners, right next to tech stubs. What's the website? By the way,
madcitymusic.net. Nice. You can buy everything, shop on, figure out what you can find is where
it's a limited site, but you can find us on our socials like on Instagram and Facebook. And we
don't, we, yeah, a little bit of selling online, but feel free to find us on at what avenue, 2023,
at what avenue? Awesome. Thanks, Dave. Thank you. How about the flavor that kills? This is a
mad at span. I love these guys. These are great. Excellent. American Dream is Maxing on Civic media.
We are local music.