Madison Foodie creator Dan "Spiffy" Neuman on Max Ink Radio

Well, recently you played at Woodfest.

You played with the Funky Jbees.

You're playing guitar.

He was up there playing guitar.

And also, it really caught me when you played the guitar

solo from Purple Rain.

Oh.

They played the Funky Jbees play Purple Rain,

because of course, you know, Prince helped Clyde

Stubblefield out with his medical bills.

And they pay a tribute to that.

But that was just an amazing guitar solo.

I wanted to tell you that.

It brought tears to my eyes, literally.

But then you came backstage and you were hanging in our food

tent and Mama Rocker's band B-Stroll.

You posted these photos on Madison Foodie and it blew up.

People were like, I got so many messages

and people who saw that.

And it really introduced me to Madison Foodie.

Can I interrupt you again?

Yes.

Because that's not the first time I've played at Woodfest.

And every single time I've played at Woodfest,

and I told you this and I put this in the post,

but I'll say it again on the air.

At Woodfest has the best hospitality from musicians

wherever you go.

I don't care who you are.

And the great thing about At Woodfest

is everybody from the opening band to the headliner

to the people that are just volunteering, helping out.

Everybody gets great hospitality.

They get great food.

They get great snacks.

They get great beverages.

They get great swag.

They get treated like, you know, like, like, like,

At Woodfest is grateful to have them there.

Yes.

And I've toured all over the world

and I've done festival gigs in this country and others

where I've been with the opening band.

I've been with the headliner.

I've been with a big name.

I've been with nobody.

And my biggest pet peeve is when musicians

get treated like the help.

Yes.

Because I can be there with the headliner

and they'll just be like, here's your cheese sandwich.

Now get out.

You know, it's real.

And At Woodfest is, you know, I don't know if it's fair

to call it a small neighborhood festival anymore.

It's definitely substantial.

But it's, you know, it's not summer fest.

For what it is, it has the best hospitality

and it has the best hospitality

for festivals much, much larger.

And I know that it's specifically

because of you and your mother.

So thank you.

On behalf of musicians everywhere, rocker

for making sure that musicians are taken care of

and musicians are appreciated.

And you know, that's true.

We try and set the bar.

I think, you know, everybody should be like this.

But that you're absolutely right.

We started it out taking care of the musicians.

And that's what was really near and dear

to my mother's heart and still is.

Well, hey, before we hear more about Madison Foodie,

tell us a little bit of your backstory.

We heard a little bit.

Who is Dan Spiffy Newman?

I mean, I'm definitely a musician at heart

that comes first.

I started with the tennis racket and the ukulele

and then the guitar and then jumping on the piano.

And then I discovered the organ.

And I always wanted to do music for a living.

And I've done it for a living now for, you know,

my entire life and part of my childhood

and hasn't always been easy.

And I, like I said, I've been privileged to be

in some big places and some small places.

And it's not that different at the end of the day, you know,

going and playing at Atwood Fest and playing at, you know,

Cafe Coda or one of the other great local venues

we have around here is, you know,

is not that different from, you know, going out to LA

or playing around there or places in Europe.

And it's just, you know, when this gig's done,

you got to try to make money for the next gig.

And that's the great lesson that I learned

is that it's all pretty much the same

at the end of the day.

So I'm just a musician that plays music wherever I can.

I love gospel music and I grew up in church.

So a big part of what I do is music in church.

But then I also, like you mentioned, Clyde's double field

was, you know, I'm honored to have considered him a friend

because he's a true legend, a true Wisconsin legend

to music legend.

And so I, you know, love funk music.

And I've had my hand in plenty of other genres.

I'm also just kind of a bit of an eclectic nerd

when it comes to other stuff I've worked

in the ceiling fan and lighting industry.

I've done, I mean, you name it.

I've probably done it.

And it's all been chasing my passions

and chasing my interests, but it's also been

because sometimes you can't make him living

from music alone.

You always got to do other stuff.

And so I know it.

Everything everybody knows it.

And so like, it's always been OK.

I want to do music.

What can I do while I'm doing music?

And what can I do that is I'm also passionate about.

And I've tried to chase, you know, all of my passions

into careers or at least part-time jobs.

Now, to switch gears a little bit,

I remember back in the beginning of the pandemic,

you were one of the first people that I saw that had got sick.

It got me illness and it wasn't just, it got kind of bad.

Yeah, it was on life.

Tell us about this.

Absolutely.

I was one of the first people in Wisconsin

who was considered young and healthy to get a severe case

of COVID.

I got turned away from the hospital three times

because they said, well, you're under 40.

You don't have any pre-existing conditions.

You'll be fine.

I ended up on life support for two weeks

and ended up disabled.

And hopefully not permanently disabled.

I'm still actively working on my recovery

and working on getting better, but there's still a lot

people don't know about COVID.

And that definitely shifted gears from me as a musician

because before then I was touring pretty regularly

and I was not doing as much around here.

And I just was fortuitous that the year before of the pandemic,

I'd taken this full-time job doing music at a church.

And so that has kept me in sustainably.

And I'm gradually getting back out there

and doing some gigging.

I did a lot of wedding bands last summer.

This summer I'm doing stuff with the funky JB's

and a few other bands around here like we talked about.

Actually, they want me to go back on the road this fall.

Go back out to Los Angeles and do some stuff.

And I'm trying to work myself up into physically

being ready for it.

It'll be my first time doing that since getting sick.

And I don't know if my body's up for it, but we'll find out.

Well, now tell us about Madison Foodie, the Facebook group.

Why did you start this Facebook group

and what has it become?

So it's all kind of tied together.

Because when I used to tour, I was one of those guys

who always wanted to try to eat what the locals ate.

I'd go down to New Orleans.

Where's your favorite place?

Jeans Popeye.

OK, we're going there.

LA, where do you go for lunch?

You go to Rascals, Chicken and Waffles.

OK, we're going.

I hated being on tour and everybody wanted to eat McDonald's.

Everybody wanted to eat Chick-fil-A or KFC or whatever.

I remember being on tour in Europe

and they were looking for McDonald's.

And I'm like, we're in Italy.

Can we please?

And so get a McPita.

Yeah.

So when I took the job in Milwaukee,

you mentioned the church I worked for in Milwaukee,

which isn't that far.

I don't know if I really, I guess, technically it is a commute.

But I was in Milwaukee and I was saying,

well, I want to try some things I can't get in Madison.

I want to see what there is out there.

And there was some Milwaukee Facebook groups,

Milwaukee Foodie, and a few others

that had some really great recommendations.

And I started to use those every time I would go to Milwaukee

for church.

I'd say, where am I going to stop after church?

Well, let me check on Facebook and see what people are talking

about and see what people are recommending.

And then I said, well, why doesn't Madison

have something like this?

And I looked and we had several smaller ones,

but none that were really successful.

And I'm like, well, I've been doing social media

for my music and everything else for as long

as social media's existed.

Like, I know how to make a successful Facebook group.

That's, you know, like there's certain things,

you know, because you're also a self-motor

with your magazine and your radio showing everything else.

There's certain things that you have to do to be effective

in terms of, you know, getting numbers

and getting people and, you know,

it's not just starting a page.

And I know the people are going to come.

And so, and since I had some experience in that area,

I said, well, okay, let's do this for Madison.

But even I am surprised at just how quickly I'd say,

it's been around for a few years and it wasn't doing much.

And I was just staying consistent with it.

But then in the past year or so,

it's just really grown exponentially.

Well, you know, you're very active.

I mean, how many times you're on it?

You're like, on all day?

Not all, for sure.

I try to, I mean, at the very least,

I change the cover photo once a day.

So, there'll be at least that post from me once a day.

And there was a while when the group was,

what needed my engagement,

where I was posting once a day easily.

Because again, that's one of the things you gotta do.

Just like I do with my music, social media,

you gotta post once a day.

Yeah.

People gotta get sick of you in order for it to grow.

And, I love it.

Yeah, well, it's true.

Yeah.

And so now I don't have to.

I will try to post whenever I'm gonna be out

and about and going places.

And I do make it a point to like,

stop at both like local restaurants that I support as well

as like trying new ones and trying to do my part

as an individual in addition to as the group owner

in terms of like drawing attention

to these great local businesses that we have.

Because Madison is pretty spoiled

from some of the local businesses we have.

Yeah.

And it really can make or break a local business

sometimes getting good social media engagement.

So I definitely try to post as much as I can.

But I don't have to post as much now

because it's gotten to be the point where if I don't say

anything the group will still have, you know,

50 posts in a day.

That was like my next question was,

what drives people to comment and interact so much

with Madison Foodie?

Well, I mean, the first thing is food

is the universal language just like music.

Yes.

You know, food is the only thing that we really have

like strong preferences on that we also need to live.

You know, because like everybody needs oxygen

but like we don't really discuss like what kind of oxygen

we're going to breathe today, you know.

And you know, anything else that we need to live sleep,

you know, we can talk about our pillows and our mattresses

but that the reality of it is the one thing

that we need to live that's also like a recreational thing.

It's also a thing that you can have really strong opinions

about.

It's also an art is food.

So everybody has a strong opinion about food.

And so that's the number one reason why I think

that there's always going to be an opinion, you know.

Everybody has an opinion.

Yeah, and then it's passion, right?

It's it's personal.

You know, people always have an opinion

and it's not the same, you know, you can have a dish

and you rock or may love it.

I'm like, go, eh, you know.

Well, you know, my favorite is doughboys pizza

and they are big, they hit big on your page

and we get a lot of publicity both ways

on Madison Foodie, what's their secret?

What's...

So doughboys is a relatively new small local pizzeria.

It's a father and son operation.

And they're very active on social media, which is good.

And they, because they've been active on social media,

we've gotten to see kind of the genesis of their business

and if they've grown and as they've kind of gotten over

some hiccups and they've had some problems

because of the fact that they're posting

and people are posting about them,

we get to see kind of what things are going for them publicly.

So when something, you know, lots of things happen

in the first couple of years of a small business

that can go right or go wrong,

but they've been in a unique position

where people have seen those things

and then they also are very active in responding

to a lot of the posts and reviews online,

which can be a double edged sword as well.

But for the most part, it's good because it keeps your name

in front and it keeps the engagement.

And then, you know, for the most part,

their product has been consistently excellent.

They have definitely, you know, any new business,

any small business is going to struggle with consistency,

but they've had enough solid landings

that when people post pictures, 75% of those pictures

look amazing.

That's true.

And I can't speak for anybody else.

Me personally, I've met them, I've interacted with them.

I like, you know, interacting with small business owners

that we can just have a chat and like, you know,

even if we don't agree about everything

that like we can be asked back and forth and stuff like that.

And they're definitely that those kind of people

you can engage with them.

Actually, one thing I want to shout out about them

since you brought them up,

out of any of the small businesses

that I've seen posting in that group,

they have been more generous in terms of like,

when I have been there,

they're always giving away food to people

that walk in and say, I don't have enough money.

They've offered like anybody in the group

that has a complaint, they're like,

come by, we'll feed your whole family.

Somebody, who's an active member

of the same group lost their child

and then doughboys was like, hey, just tell them,

anybody in the family, if they need food

these next couple of weeks,

just place an order with us, it's on us, you know?

And I don't know if people see that,

I'd like to think that's one of the reason

they're getting so much engagement,

but it might not be,

but either way, that's good karma for them.

That is, and you're absolutely right.

I've seen that multiple times

that they've helped people out.

Hey, what is the future of Madison Foodie?

That's a great question.

And I don't really know,

because I'm not sure how much it can grow.

And I guess this isn't my first rodeo at social media.

You have stuff that keeps being more and more successful.

You have stuff that kind of plateaus,

and then you have stuff that kind of stops

working out the blue.

And I'm just kind of,

it's one of the many things

that I'm just excited to see what happens to it.

And it could be great.

It could be even greater going forward.

I hope it'll be one of those things

that kind of plateaus and becomes like a standard

around Madison that just is a thing

that people can reference like Ismas or like Maximum Inc.

Or like, you know, anything else.

Mechanic.

Yeah, but we'll see.

You know, there's really no telling,

especially because every time you have something

that's successful on social media,

then things change.

Like Twitter to X and all the things that's changed there.

You know what I mean?

Like all it takes is Mark Zuckerberg

to decide he's going to ruin it for everybody.

You know, and it's so,

so like I said,

I don't want to make any predictions,

but I hope that it will continue to be an asset

and a resource both to small businesses in the area

as well as people who are hungry.

Well, that is awesome.

I love the Facebook group.

Go to Facebook, look up Madison Foodie.

How do we keep up with Dan Spiffy Newman

in Madison Foodie Online?

Well, I mean, so for me personally,

social media is also the easiest way

and depending on what you look and see.

I've got an Instagram, I've got a TikTok,

I've got a Twitter, but I don't post much there.

You can follow my personal Facebook,

my music Facebook, or my ceiling fan Facebook.

So you can get whatever you want to get.

Although honestly, I think the social media

that I'm the most active on is YouTube.

I post a lot of music on YouTube.

I post a lot of other content on YouTube.

So just Dan Spiffy Newman anywhere on social media.

And then yes, absolutely.

If you want to join Madison Foodie,

that's all you got to type into Facebook.

I think it's like facebook.com slash group slash Madison Foodie

and join and everybody's welcome.

You don't even have to be in Madison

as long as you're posting something that's relevant

to the people at Madison, we'd love to have you.

Dan Spiffy Newman, Madison Foodie,

thank you so much for coming in to Maxine Gradyo tonight.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you, Rocker.

It's good to see you as always.

And you know what, we have a song for you

that you brought in and we didn't even know the name.

So we're calling it Go With Oregon.

Yeah, I tell us a little bit about this.

So I have a couple of production teams that I work with.

This is a production team out of LA.

And we will just make music and then we'll shop it around

to different artists or different people

that would be understood.

Like I said, we've had some on some movie sound tracks.

We've actually had a few songs that the Harris campaign

is using and just a few other things.

And so we just make music me and the other people

in this production team and then we shop it around.

And so the songs that I sent you are not like finished songs.

They're just music that we would shop around

to different artists or different, you know,

other people that would need music.

Like I said, talked about the movie directors

and things like that.

And then once somebody buys it,

then we would finish it with them in mind.

So this is kind of a rough track, instrumental track

that actually was intended for an artist

that went a different way.

And I really liked it.

So I just wanted to share it with you.

Oh, that's fun.

Well, we're going to call it Go With Organ.

This is Dan Spiffy Newman, Madison Fuddy.

You're listening to Maxine Grady,

a We Are local music.

Maxine Grady.

Wow.

Wow.