30-Minute Music Hour

A back-porch musician for the digital age, Burkhart performs a set of mountain-side tunes.

Sturgeon Bay's Pat MacDonald is best known for his 1980s band TIMBUK III, which hit it big with MacDonald's song The Future's So Bright (I Gotta Wear Shades). An active member of the Sturgeon Bay community, MacDonald is converting part of The Holiday Motel to studio space so musicians can stay and record. His latest album, released in January of 2008, is a solo effort called "Troubadour of Stomp."

The "alt-country hillbilly giant" brings his irreverent stage antics and lyrics to WPT.

Milwaukee-based Willy Porter is among the country's elite finger-style acoustic guitar players. He's opened shows for performers ranging from Jethro Tull to Tori Amos. Frets Magazine calls him "a genre defying maverick," one who the Guild Guitar Company is proud to sponsor. Porter's also a gifted songwriter with a lengthy discography of original albums.

Tani Diakite (tan-NEE JAH-kee-tay) is a native of the Wassoulou region of Mali and now lives with his American wife and their child in Madison. Diakite plays a Kamele Ngoni - a stringed, long-neck gourd instrument outfitted with an electronic pick-up made from old radio parts. His music is a mesmerizing mix of traditional melodies from Mali, blended with traditional American delta blues.

Singer/songwriter melaniejane performs solo in a set that showcases her talents on guitar, cello, and piano. melaniejane is a past recipient of the Wisconsin Area Music Awards, "Female Vocalist of the Year." In addition to her pop music composition and performance, she's also is a cellist with the Racine Symphony Orchestra and teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Music.

Milwaukee-based John Sieger and the Subcontinentals are one of the best alt-country twang bands in the Midwest. While Milwaukee is his home, Sieger is a recovering full-time Nashville session player and songwriter for hire. The band, including Sieger, is a five-piece oufit that includes three electric guitars, bass and drums.

Irish rock purveyors the Kissers are one of Wisconsin's best-known and hardest-working music exports. The rowdy five-piece group is led by bassist/lead singer Ken Fitzsimmons and includes banjo, mandolin, fiddle, drums and electric guitar. The Kissers started out nearly ten years ago as a Pogues cover band. Their latest album, "Live Candy Ratz," was recorded over a two-night pub stand.

The Irish Times calls Peter Mulvey the most original and dynamic of the U.S. singer-songwriters to tour Ireland. Mulvey cut his songwriting teeth busking the streets of Dublin before moving back to his hometown of Milwaukee. His talent on the guitar runs the gamut of styles - from slack-key to jazz to precision finger picking. His songs revolve around, as he calls it, "the small facts of living."

Poi Dog Pondering ("Poi Dog" is Hawaiian slang meaning "mutt") has been making music since the mid-eighties when members began composing and performing in their hometown of Honolulu. At one point, Poi Dog recorded soulful compositions for Columbia Records before executives decided the band's sound was too eccentric to market. Now based in Chicago, Poi Dog is a perfect fit for fans of The 30-MMH.

In the fall of 2002, Lis Harvey completed a record-setting fifty-states-in-sixty-days-tour. Yet, Harvey's music isn't just about quantity She began classical piano lessons at age five, and was poisoned by the Fender Strat years later. Her music explores the border of romanticism and road-hard realism. The Washington Post says, "she's a romantic, all right, but not the empty-headed kind."

"One of the purest musicians touring the country today," according to the Pittsburgh Tribune, Baltimore's Victoria Vox is a recovering rocker who now puts the four string ukulele front and center in her music. At the time of this performance Vox was touring with songs from her new album, "Chameleon," a tour that took her from all over the East Coast to Madison and to the Paris Ukulele Festival.

Blake Thomas was especially generous to come in on a moment's notice and perform a solo set of folk tunes. Highly regarded among Madison's singer/songwriter community, Thomas' music has been described as "contemporary folk goes to honky tonk heaven." He's a trickster lyricist and a beautiful, emotive singer.

From Los Angeles, Dengue Fever creates psychedelic surf-rock overlaid with traditional Cambodian melodies that Paste Magazine calls, "the maturing, polyglot sounds of America's urban future." Cambodian Chhom Nimol fronts the band and sings mostly in her native language. She's backed by a hurricane ensemble that includes guitar, farfisa (a small, Italian-made organ), bass, drums, and saxophone.

Montreal's most ferocious garage band rocks the Badger State while proving Americans haven't cornered the market on guitar distortion. The lyrics are all in French, but you hardly have to understand the lyrics of Les Breastfeeders' songs to appreciate the band's colossal grip on rock's fury. The band's colorful, irreverent videos are among the most popular in Canada.

"Existential party rock designed to make you think about the head you are banging," is how Awesome Car Funmaker describes their own sound. One of the hardest working punk-rock-dance outfits in the state, Awesome Car Funmaker is at the top of Madison's very active indie-rock heap.

The pride of Neenah, Wis., The Blueheels proudly defy description. Blueheels co-founder Robby Schiller - son of an airplane mechanic - grew up in Neenah listening to his father's Merle Haggard records. While his music with the Blueheels is more rock (with a bit of dance) than country these days, you can still hear the voice of the low down working man in Schiller's lyrics.

For 13 years Natty Nation has been glorifying, adapting, and spreading the music of the Rastafarian movement to audiences all over the country. Based in Madison, Natty Nation has become known as our state's most talented ambassadors of reggae, funk, dancehall and dub. The five-piece brought the same intense energy to our sound stage that they're known for at festivals and clubs.

The Daredevil Christopher Wright is one of several Eau Claire-area indie-rock bands rising in Midwest and national acclaim. Brothers Jon and Jason Sunde form two of the band's three corners, though they didn't begin making music together until they left home to attend the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Their friend Jessie Edgington completes the trio.

From Iowa City, Iowa, Pieta Brown is the prolific daughter of folk music giant Greg Brown. In addition to her own work, Pieta recently supplied vocals on a new album by Calexico - the sensational border music band out of Tucson. On the 30-Minute Music Hour Brown performs with her trio which includes guitarist Bo Ramsey.

Josh Harty is a Madison-based singer songwriter who is part of a growing clutch of traditional country songwriters bringing national attention to Madison's alternative music scene. Performing solo, he's also one of the fastest finger-style guitar pickers in the Midwest.

At the center of a rising group of nationally recognized Madison musicians is Pale Young Gentlemen. This five piece dances and dices the lines between indie-pop, chamber-rock, and high gloss Americana.

From Chicago, Dietrich Gosser has been quietly amassing a Midwest underground following with his lush - sometimes haunting - compositions. He plays and records with percussionist Dan Kuemmel who also accompanied him for this performance. The Onion AV Club describes Gosser: as "folk-y bedroom pop that sounds big and inviting, often with the help of drummer and avant-percussionist Dan Kuemmel."

From the Twin Cities and in the tradition of the late Gram Parsons and Uncle Tupelo, the Get Rites make twang with a bang. With Snare drum, cymbal, guitar and double bass, the stripped-down trio makes a big country sound. Dirty Linen Magazine describes the group as, "masters of the no-excuses, no-holds-barred, folk-blues-roots, Americana music."

"Put Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, St. Francis, Amelia Earhart and Earl Hickey in a blender," Marques Bovre says, describing his band. "Shake with fire and ice. Pour into the broken vessels of humanity (salt on the rim to taste). Drink." Eclectic, yes, but full throated rock 'n' roll as well. Bovre's precision guitar style is complimented by another Madison icon, the legendary Jim Schwall.

Two-time Grammy nominee Loudon Wainwright III has performed in virtually every nook and cranny of American popular culture. For all his artistic versatility, music is Loudon's bread and butter, and his knucklehead-savant lyrics have set him in a class all his own. He performs solo on guitar and banjo in a set that draws from his 25-album career, including songs from his latest, "Recovery."

From the Twin Cities, it's our great pleasure to share the wit and warmth of singer-songwriter Haley Bonar (BON-are). Minnesotans have adopted the talented, 25-year-old singer/songwriter/producer. Her new record, "Big Star," is an incandescent mix of laments, country stomp, and guitar-crunching folk.

The Urban Hillbilly Quartet has played together for over a decade in Minneapolis theaters and bar rooms gathering a loyal, un-combed fan base of hipsters and grad students who crave old-school country music that carries the listener past the obligatory bender, break-up and murder. The 30-MMH set features rousing tunes from UHQ's most eclectic album yet, the brand new "Bring in The Sails."

"Upstream" is Madison-based musician Ritt Deitz's fifth release of original roots rock and mountain music. Deitz is an accomplished songwriter and performer who is known for richly textured story songs. The Kentucky native often performs with his sons and daughter but he appeared solo for his performance on the 30-Minute Music Hour.

Multi-instrumentalist Chris Wagoner and his wife Mary Gaines are masters of string swing music. They call it "cafe jazz," but that seems too calm. Their music is equal parts Hawaiian luau and Parisian wedding party. The love they bring to their music is as apparent as the precision with which they make it. The Stellanovas also feature veteran drummer Jim Huwe.