Rick's Café plots return as Local Sounds Magazine

Tireless local music booster Rick Tvedt must have getting back on the horse down to a science by now, having run the Madison Area Music Awards since 2003 and shut down his local music magazine Rick's Café in early 2007 due to lack of ad revenue. He's announced his intention to re-mount once more, by channeling new Rick's Café-style content into the online Local Sounds Magazine, which has already posted a few recent updates on such topics as a possible crackdown on street musicians and a new improvised-music series coming up at Escape Java Joint. The main feature on the site right now is still an article about Knuckel Drager from 2006, but Tvedt tells Decider he plans to have a new "issue" up on the site by Wednesday. As for the future publication schedule, "We're thinking probably bi-monthly, but we're not too worried about having any real strict deadlines," Tvedt says. "I think it's gonna be an issue of how well this catches on, how good we feel about doing it, and how quickly we assemble new material." He's also hoping to obtain non-profit status for the Local Sounds company and branch out into such projects as a local-music wiki. It's also on Twitter.

LSM will also resume such Rick's features as local CD and live-show reviews, local musician and opinionated fireplug Blunt Rapture's "Blunt Force Trauma" column, and possibly the "Passing Through" column, which highlighted independent touring artists. Tvedt wants to have frequent web updates between "issues," but doesn't want it to be blog-style, "where things are changing so fast that the main story content just seems to be kinda here today and gone tomorrow." He's assembled a team of writers, but adds that "just about anyone" can submit reviews to rick@localsoundsmagazine.com.

Just about everyone's got a different perspective on what's interesting in Madison music, which is exactly why it should be covered by a variety of local outlets and reporters. Several do (anyone hear us clearing our throats?), but Rick's was different in that it covered only local music, so here's hoping that Local Sounds succeeds in bringing back that spirit.