Madison

[jalapeno eyes]

Thanks, y'all! Glad to see there's some good stuff to do. I know Madison's no Manitowoc, and it seems like a lot of Termbro(ad)s are in Green Bay or Milwaukee, so it's encouraging that Madison's not all college life...though the last 7 years of my life have been spent in cities with universities (if not quite college towns), so I'm not sure why I'm all that surprised.

I've heard a little about supper clubs, but I'm not from the midwest. Do you actually have to join/become a member for these places? I'm in NC now, and any place that serves hard liquor but doesn't also serve enough food to qualify as a restaurant has to be classified as a private club (something like that. It's new to me). So basically a lot of bars here just charge people like, a two dollar member fee the first time they enter. Is there some nominal fee like that?

[Scrod Prickknee]

Nah, it's just a name that evolved to what it is today. Old Fashioned isn't technically a Supper Club I guess, it's a more "foodie" tribute to them. Or "brunch." Real ones generally aren't in a city, they're usually out in the country in a "nice" location, next to a lake, out in the woods, etc. They're usually a pretty good deal price-wise, but OF is near the capital and trendy and a bit more expensive.

There are books & docs & whatever about Wisconsin Supper Clubs:
http://www.supperclubmovie.com
http://www.wisconsintrails.com/food/Wisconsins-supper-club-culture-149711565.html

It's not a must-hit or anything, just wanted to correct the description. If you were out in the country somewhere, I'd definitely recommend a real SC. I'd never live in Madison again, but it's a good place to visit. For Madison's size, there's a lot to do downtown and it's very "walkable."

[jalapeno eyes]

Thanks for the tips, y'all. Had a great time. I didn't get much of a chance to explore restaurants because there was mostly food at the conference, and free food is hard to turn down. Went out to bars on State Street, mostly, which seems like it's probably overrun with college kids during the school year but wasn't too bad during the summer. And again, not gonna protest in favor of a hipper bar when the boss is paying.

Made it out to Strictly Discs on the first day because I got in early. They've got the bad record store habit of leaving lots of their stock--mostly seven inches--unpriced until you bring it to them, then looking it up on discogs and realizing that you've found something good in the cutout bins. Oh well--I still made it out with the Cheater Slicks 10th anniversary seven inch for about half of the cheapest I've seen it online, the second press of the first Home Blitz 7", the Bag of Hammers reissue of the Alan Milman Sect 7", and the Reds' s/t on Rip Off. Spent a few minutes in B-Side but had already dropped enough money at Strictly Discs at that point that I wasn't going to spend more unless I found something really amazing, which I didn't.

Nice city, and a good first time in Wisconsin. I'd love to go back and see the rest of the state.

[Scrod Prickknee]

Glad you had a good trip - hard to pass up free stuff for sure! I'm not really familiar with Strictly Discs, but if they do that "no price" bullshit I'm not ever hitting it.

[jalapeno eyes]

Glad you had a good trip - hard to pass up free stuff for sure! I'm not really familiar with Strictly Discs, but if they do that "no price" bullshit I'm not ever hitting it.

It's not everything in the store, it's mostly just the 7" racks. Most of the used LPs are priced. It pissed me off too, and I actually left without the Cheater Slicks 7" at first. A few hours later, I caved and went back for it. But yeah, I probably wouldn't frequent that store if I lived in Madison, at least not for its used stock. It's fine for a record store to know what their records are worth, but I want to know how much they're asking before I bring them up to the counter.

[aleatorick]

Man, that Cheater Slicks 7" was a good find! Their system for the used stuff is pretty annoying - generally overpriced, plus they have pretty terrible grading. Clearly thrashed stuff gets slapped with a VG+ all the time there. But, sometimes you get lucky if you're persistent... a friend of mine got the Country Teasers' Science Hat Artistic Cube Moral Nosebleed Empire 2xLP there for $15 about a year ago.

Glad you had a good time here!