Music Notes The MAMAs 2011 get ready to announce the nominees

Our music scene is a busy place with lots happening. If you don’t obsessively visit the local blogs, alt-weeklies, and other outlets, you could miss something important! That’s okay—we’re here to help with a weekly roundup of some of the more enticing music news happening around town.

• The first round of voting has officially wrapped for the 2011 Madison Area Music Awards, and now comes the part where the organizers announce the nominees. Be at the Brink Lounge on March 26 at 6 p.m.; pay the $10 admission price at the door; check out the silent auction, raffle, appetizers, and music from Anna Vogelzang, The Daze, and VO5; and find out who made it past the first round of voting.

• Bell Monks have released the third preview track from their upcoming album. Check it out and download the first two as well as the band’s debut album, Lullabies, for free right now.

• Get a look at the process behind Screeching Weasel’s new First World Manifesto, recorded at Blast House Studios in Madison, courtesy of footage shot, in part, by local videographer Ryan Heraly. No punching involved.

• Finally, strap yourself onto a Klezmer rocket and blast straight through the heart of an 8-bit wormhole with a couple of new, impossibly funky tracks from Madison’s The Shtetlblasters, “Eileh Chamda” and “Doha,” available for free on the group’s Bandcamp site.