Although the official end of summer is still some weeks off and hopefully we have at least two months before the large sheets of ice move in, my tortured sinuses warn that it would be best to let go of my sandal-wearing ambitions soon.
It is time to bid these summer memories a fond farewell. Fall should not be spent recollecting the warm, relatively carefree months of summer, but in a frenzied, desperate orgy of activity driven by the knowledge of the coming of winter. With that in mind you may want to consider taking a trip to one of Madison's fine music clubs before snow, roving packs of timber wolves, and winterized cannibals make travel prohibitively dangerous.
In the next two months the Orpheum, 216 State St., plays host to both Iceland's Sigur R??s (Sept. 23) and history buffs the Decemberists (Oct. 20) while the New Pornographers will stop by Madison on Oct. 21 at the Barrymore Theatre, 2090 Atwood Ave. If you can find transportation, Nine Inch Nails swings by the Alliant Energy Center October 13 to smash keyboards and test the moshing prowess of southern Wisconsin. Much closer to campus, the Annex, 1206 Regent St., will host indie up-and-comers Clap Your Hands Say Yeah September 25th and for those willing to risk an attack (cannibals, wolves or Craig Finn, take your pick) the Hold Steady will be in town Oct. 29th, also at the Annex.
When the streets do freeze over it is comforting to know that we can all stay warm inside watching Fall's crop of music based reality shows. But if you're tired of \American Idol"" and the idea of watching Gene Simmons emotionally scar children on ""Rock School"" appeals to you even less then seeing Tommy Lee continue to put distance between himself and rock 'n' roll (not a bad idea for a member of Motley Cr??e) on ""Tommy Lee Goes to College,"" you may wish someone had taken the time to create a show to satisfy you, the discriminating viewer. No one did, but if they had we might have ended up with something like the following.
For everyone who found amusement flipping back and forth between ""Rock Star: INXS"" and ""Hell's Kitchen"" fast enough to make it look like Chef Ramsay was loading the band (and Dave Navarro) into a pot of angry lobsters, no show would combine entertainment and education as well as ""Radical Frontiers in Surgery as Applied to Rock Stars"" (presumably airing on Fox). The show's expert team of scientists and doctors would push the boundaries of modern medical science while allowing fans to see much more of their favorite stars than they ever would have expected.
The team's first challenge would be to create a robotic replacement arm for Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen. Though it might ruin everyone's favorite Def Leppard joke (since ""what has ten arms and sucks"" could easily be a giant squid) the procedure would ready the team for the much more difficult tasks of undoing whatever plastic surgery has been done to Axl Rose and finding a way (possibly with a very large laser) of removing the suck from John Mayer. I'm hoping the show gets picked up. If not, there may be little to do but brave the timber wolves after all.
Matt can be reached at Hunziker@wisc.edu
