Morning Notes explores Madison’s local music scene on WISC TV

you found Wisconsin's local music authority. This is magsync radio. We are local music.

Hey, rocker. I think somebody's here. That's right. Rob. Yes. Chris Bubba-Hawbacker. He's been

a photojournalist with WISC TV for 12 years. He works on news weekdays and planning weekends.

Often he's the man behind the camera asking the unheard questions. Then,

inspired the statements you see people give on the channel three news. But Chris has another

passion, local music, and he produces a show called Morning Notes featuring interviews and stories

on local music groups and personalities and Bubba-Hawbacker. He's here. Welcome back to magsync radio.

Thanks, rockers. Great to be back. Great to be back here. Thanks for having me. Oh, man. You know,

you came to Madison from Chicago in 96 to attend the Edgewood College. You couldn't leave.

Yeah, you have. No, it's such a great town, Madison. But you have retained your Bears fandom

fantasies on a Super Bowl. Are you a stranger in a strange land? I mean, I could call myself a

Madisonian. I think now I lived here longer than I lived and grew up in Chicago. But

coming up here in 96, it was, you know, had to kind of be a Bears fan because that's when the

Packers won the Super Bowl. Yeah. And all of a sudden, you know, Brett Farr was on my mountain

do cans. And I moved into a green and gold house. And it was just Packers fans everywhere. Gold

house. Oh, yeah, right on Monroe Street, right by Edgewood. Yeah, I was just Packers Packers everywhere.

So I had to kind of, you know, represent the Bears and being from Chicago. Oh, that's funny.

Tell us about Bubba. How did you get started? What's your backstory?

So, yeah, I started, you know, in Chicago as, you know, came up here for Edgewood and

always been kind of behind the camera, you know, shooting video or, or, you know, bands and

stuff here in town. And, you know, it was great at being at Channel 3 now, you know, being

able to cover the local music scene. Hey, you said you were with Channel 57? Yeah, I was at Channel 57,

for a while. CW Philia at the time and was just, you know, kind of doing everything,

match control and all these different things. And they didn't have a whole lot of production

there. They didn't have a news, you know, so at Channel 3, we have, you know, a full newsroom

and, you know, cover the local scene. A library of cameras, right? Yes. No van.

Do you name your camera? No, no, camera doesn't have any names. We're like, like, have a favorite

camera. Like, one camera is a little better than the rest of the camera. Number two, I mean, I

love my GoPro, honestly, you know, getting the GoPro and getting those shots, you know,

is a lot of fun. But, yeah, Madison is just such, you know, you guys know, you guys cover the

local music scene and it's just so vibrant here in Madison. I just love meeting the different

artists and covering all the different music in here in town. Now, you used to have a show,

I don't know, maybe some people might remember here, W-Y-O-U. Yeah, Channel 4, a cable access show,

when they had cable access. I saw the media. I saw media. Yeah, I saw media was like a comedy

sketch show. We did about seven episodes. What year was that? That was back when I was in college,

so 97, 98, 99 years, those, you know, and it was a lot of fun. We, you know, that remember Blair

Witch Project? Do you remember that? Oh, yeah, yeah. So we did the Abercambian Fitch Project where we

had all these frat boys, you know, which made these freshmen drink to death and it was just,

we camped out in the woods. That's a true story, right? It was just a lot of fun, you know,

we just did comedy sketch type stuff and and so that's kind of started behind the camera with

that sort of thing in college and it kind of grew to, you know, me being a professional cameraman now.

Oh, that's incredible. Where does your passion for local music come from? You know, I've always just

followed, I've never been a musician myself. I don't play any instruments, but I, you know,

follow the local scene as far as, you know, it's so vibrant and I'll tell you a story actually

of back in college. G love and the special sauce. You know, those guys are playing at the

Barrymore Theater. So here I was living on Monroe Street and this was before cell phones and

my friends came to try to pick me up for the show and

nope, couldn't get ahold of me. So they left for the show. So there here I am waiting for them

and they're not around. So I said, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start walking to the Barrymore.

So from Monroe Street. So it starts snowing and I, of course, get all the way, walk all the way

from Monroe Street to the Barrymore. I get there. I don't have a ticket. They had my ticket. So I

get in the show. And I was just like, oh, here's my moment. I'm gonna go and I'm gonna, I see the

bouncers kind of messing with this drunk guy. So I'm gonna see my moment. I rush and I get into the

show and I, you know, catch five or so songs of G love. It just, I just kind of showed my passion

as far as I just love seeing music, hearing music and, and, you know, experiencing, you know,

the music in Madison. I'm walking like three miles in a snow star just to see a show without a ticket.

Yeah, without a ticket. Oh my, Chris, you recently covered Rob DZ's Brush with Death and I was in

that story. That happened just a few weeks ago. Talk about working as a photojournalist for

channel 3,000 news in Madison and covering some of these artists like Rob DZ. You know,

that story was so cool to work with you and Rob DZ, because, you know, it's just

getting in those local venues like the Gamma Ray, you know, and, and meeting these people and

telling their stories is what is great. And getting my eye and seeing everyone seeing what I see,

you know, and meeting who I, who I meet is really cool part. Being able to tell the story, you know,

Rob had suffered something, but you guys are brothers now as far as you guys have. We're in the same

club. Yeah, and being able to tell that story, interviewing and putting it together in an edited

form for the news is a lot of fun for me. Are you the guy that actually kind of edits everything

together? So yeah, a lot of people think, oh, it's as reporters going around and, you know,

a lot of times the reporters are shooting the stuff themselves, but I'm going around as far as I'm

doing the interviewing myself a lot of times too. Yeah, interviewing the subjects and bring it

back and putting it all together for the news that day. That's that's that's a fun part of the

job for sure. Oh, that's what's something behind the scenes that you would never know unless you

work for the news? Well, you know, a lot of people think the anchors write and, you know, do all

that right? Just like Ron Burgundy, you know, but there's a lot of, you know, behind the scenes people

that, you know, put the news together. There's, you know, the producers actually write the stories.

They're the writers of our of our news group. There's, you know, the anchors help help them as far

as the writing, but, but there's the directors. There's the camera people. There's just so many kind

of helpers to kind of put it all together in a newscast. You don't think about when you're just

watching an anchor read the news, but it also isn't a lot of glamour. You know, there's nobody doing

these anchors makeup. Yeah. There's a box with a comb. Well, you know, you know, you know, what I

would say the one thing that I noticed is that some of the shorter anchors, they stand on like a

little box, like a little box. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we have, you know, tall and short people.

Right. Even amounts in time. So, you know, you cheat with a box or this. Oh, that's pretty funny.

Talk about your show morning notes and interviewing local musicians and how can we watch these

segments on channel three's media. So yeah, these segments are called morning notes. They

air on Saturday mornings on our on our on our station channel three W I see. And if you want to

see our old ones, you can go to channel 3000 and just search on our news bar for morning notes

because I've been doing this since 2019 and I've got about 20 or 30 different, you know, artists that

I've covered. And so you can see them online. But so last night, I went to metal fast and

so covered lords of the trident. And I will edit that this week for next week's air.

Oh, that's right. Yeah. We'll be talking that in a moment. What what genres of bands do you do

do anything? I mean, is there any kind of criteria or or stuff that you know criteria at all? Yeah,

I just love. That's what's so special. I think about Madison because you've got the singer

songwriters. You've got the bands. You've got, you know, all the different genres

throughout Madison. And so being able to cover, you know, anybody I'm asking today, you know,

that once their band covered would love, you know, for them to reach out to me and let me know

because yeah, just celebrating that local scene. Well, and I was going to say that morning notes

is looking for new and interesting artists, the feature on the show. How do artists contact you

to appear on your show? Yeah, best way is the email. Yeah, let's see Hallbaker,

C-H-A-W-B-A-K-R at channel3000.com. That's my email. So that's the best way to contact me.

I'm looking for you. Say that one more time so people can maybe get it. C-H Hallbaker, H-A-W-B-A-K-R

is my last name at at channel 3000. It would be the email. Oh, that's pretty cool. So,

hey, new bands out there. That's kind of like submitting to music to maxing radio. You can get

your story told on morning notes, give Chris a message. And you were just talking about last night,

you interviewed the most metal band on earth. Lord, they're trying to add the high new

saloon and the interview will air next Saturday morning. As you said, January 24th, talk about

fangvon rastine and the boys. Yeah, what was that like? Those guys were metal. Those guys

put on a show. They had costumes and just, you know, the thrashing of the hair and everything

that you would expect from a metal show. These guys were amazing. Kind of almost too loud for my

microphones as well. Because I haven't looked at the footage all yet, but it just was so loud

and the show was packed. So many people there. New fans as well as old, because they've been playing

for like 16, 17 years. A lot of great fans, they just had a new album, I think, live in Japan.

Oh, yeah, they've been there a few times now. Yeah, it's just amazing that this is a local band

in Madison that, you know, it's huge in Japan. Yeah, it's just amazing. They put on a great show

and can't wait to do some great interviews with Ty and the gang and can't wait to look at that

and put that together for next week. Were you able to talk to him about his love of Badez?

No, that's an important topic. Every bathroom in Ty's house has a Badez.

Yes, and he really got that love from going to Japan.

Well, yeah, I did interview him. He has a mad with power fast that he does.

Right. And he's the best man cave I've ever seen. Yeah.

The video games and yeah, just the, it was impressive. He is so awesome. Chris, thank you so much

for coming down to the studio tonight. We really appreciate it. And thank you for providing

a platform for local artists. It means a lot. Of course, no, I'm glad to support you guys. You

guys do it every, here's every Saturday, you know, just seeing and hearing all these, you know,

great artists here on this radio. I'm glad to collaborate and it's awesome to be here.

Thanks so much, rocker. Well, let's check out Lords of the Trident, who will be appearing on

the morning notes show on WISC channel three on Saturday morning, January 24th. This is Lords of

the Trident with Jetset City, Max and Credio, we are local music.