Biff Blumfumgagnge's movie nights are a bizarre staple of Madison summers, usually pairing his music with silents like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. He'll come to Mickey's Tavern on Aug. 17 and Sept. 7 to wrangle his collection of custom-built stringed oddities into experimental accompaniment for films that will include The Wizard of Oz, Casablanca and Un Chien Andalou.
There's no standard path to blog glory. Madison's DJ Pain 1 got a boost last week when the hip-hop blog 2dopeboyz.com featured his mixtape Painkillers Vol. 2, which is hosted by Big Sean and shows off, like the first Painkillerz, the ostentatious, glitzy side of Pain's work. A few weeks before, the auto-goofs at Jalopnik featured the video for "Mint Car," in which Madison's ever-ridiculous Cribshitter sing the praises of clunky Buick station wagons and experiment with smooshy dubstep-style bass.
How to transition from "always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns" to "and I feel, and I feel, when the dogs begin to smell her"? Earl Foss' Brown Derby's Sept. 5 show at the Crystal Corner Bar will comprise one standard set of the band's impeccable country tunes and another featuring covers of oft-unfairly maligned 1990s rockers Stone Temple Pilots. Here's hoping it can top the band's annual coloring contest.
