Thursday, September 25, 2025

Records Dedicated to the Milwaukee Brewers

There's a lot of great Milwaukee Brewers records already out there in the world--"Turnin' Up the Heat," "Brewer Fever," "Brew Crew All the Way," "Talkin' Brewers," "Selig's Sluggers," "Brewers Have It All," "Brewers Be Good," and others... But as of yet, nobody (to my knowledge) has gone out and released an entire ALBUM of Brewers songs. That all changes tomorrow! You can still pre-order your very own copy of Fear the Beer via bandcamp here:

https://nategibson.bandcamp.com/album/fear-the-beer-a-musical-salute-to-the-milwaukee-brewers

I'll have physical CDs in hand tomorrow morning! Woot woot!



Tuesday, September 23, 2025

Milwaukee Brewers Playoffs Tickets On Sale and Fear the Beer is off to the presses!

The Milwaukee Brewers clinched the NL Central and secured a bye in the first round of the playoffs this week. NLDS tickets just went on sale this morning. Also this morning, I went to Sooper Dooper and approved the final art and sound for my brand new Brewers-themed CD, Fear the Beer: A Musical Salute to the Milwaukee Brewers! As hoped, I'll have physical copies in hand and ready to ship BEFORE the regular season ends this Sunday!

This solo project was lovingly crafted from concept to physical object in just four weeks. I stayed up many of those nights writing new Brewers songs, singing and picking electric and acoustic guitars and upright bass, heavily editing the backing tracks, hiring musicians to play specific parts via Fiverr, and recording friends in my living room (many thanks again to Randy Finley, Andrew Harrison, and Art Stevenson for laying down some hot fiddle, guitar, and harmonica!!). My nephew Ethan spent his time recording my vocals, overdubbing his own guitar parts, editing everything together, re-mixing, and mastering all the tunes until we landed on something we both really liked. It's a total bedroom-project rush-job, and yet... I really dig these tunes and loved working on them with Ethan!

It's a labor of love project and is meant to serve as a soundtrack for the 2025 MLB Playoffs, to pay tribute to a team that has been an absolute pleasure to follow all season, and as a reminder to make time for the things that bring joy in life. Making this CD brought me a lot of joy and hopefully listening to it does the same for you! Should you wish to order a copy for yourself or any baseball/country music fans you know, you can do so via this Bandcamp link: https://nategibson.bandcamp.com/album/fear-the-beer-a-musical-salute-to-the-milwaukee-brewers Go Brewers!



Friday, September 19, 2025

Brewers Win Again and I'm Talkin' Bout the Brewers on the 8 o'clock Buzz w/ Andy Moore

Rachel and I went to the Brewers game yesterday and it was amazing... we loved the closing light show, the sausage race, the Beer Barrel Polka, the brats and drinks, the close-up parking, the gorgeous weather, the country music interludes (a LOT of Johnny Cash), and oh yeah--the Brewers' 19th straight win on a Quinn Priester start (one shy of the MLB record). The Brewers are now 35 games over .500 for the first time ever and their historic campaign continues to roll!

I was fortunate to follow up last night's game with an early morning interview with Andy Moore on WORT's 8 o'clock Buzz about my new Brewers-themed country music album coming out next week. Thanks again, Andy for the kind words of support and great questions! Should anyone want to hear the interview, it's available for the next two weeks on the 9/19 episode of the 8 o'clock Buzz via https://archive.wortfm.org/

And should anyone wish to pre-order the new record (many thanks to everyone who already has!!), you can do so via the Bandcamp link here (note: a portion of the profits from this project will be donated to the Wisconsin Humane Society in memory of Hank the Ballpark Pup): https://nategibson.bandcamp.com/album/fear-the-beer-a-musical-salute-to-the-milwaukee-brewers



Tuesday, September 16, 2025

Join us at Screamin' Fest 2026 [Calella, Spain] with Nate Gibson & the Hi-Fly Rangers & Special Guests

I am thrilled to announce that I will be teaming up with my good pals the Hi-Fly Rangers from Finland and several special guests at next summer's Screamin' - 50s Rock & Rhythm Festival in Calella, Spain [near Barcelona]. It'll be a celebration of 30 years of El Toro Records and there are lots of great bands on the bill (like Sweden's Country Side of Harmonica Sam and the Delta Bombers to name just two)! If you love beautiful beaches, rockin' '50s music (think rockabilly, doo-wop, rhythm and blues, rock'n'roll, classic country), and meeting new folks, you won't find a cooler festival. I'd recommend nabbing tickets/hotels early if you want to party with us!

More Details: https://www.facebook.com/ScreaminFestival
Tickets and Hotel links available here: www.screaminfestival.com




Wednesday, September 10, 2025

Welp friends, I officially let the bat out of the bag this morning on Back to the Country--I'm releasing a brand new album in just a couple weeks and it's entirely Milwaukee Brewers-themed. The project has been all-consuming these past two weeks because I haven't been able to stop writing Brewers songs. But this week I'm finally moving on from the writing/recording side of things and focusing on mixing, mastering, artwork, legal clearances, publishing, and more... And I'm super pumped to be doing this music project with my nephew Ethan behind the mixing board!


My goal has been to complete this project from conception to completion in just one month. I may fall a couple days short of that depending on a few final details, but it'll be close! I didn't want to wait until the Brewers won the World Series, but rather to create a fun and rockin' soundtrack for the upcoming playoff run.

If you love baseball and classic country music, I think you'll love this album (CD-only for now)! So, I've set up a pre-order on Bandcamp in case friends want to get in at the ground level. And if you know me, you can always order direct from me. I'll hope to be shipping CDs in just a couple weeks! https://nategibson.bandcamp.com/album/fear-the-beer-a-musical-salute-to-the-milwaukee-brewers



Tuesday, September 9, 2025

Favorite CDs on Back to the Country 9/10/25

Howdy Friends, I'll be back on WORT FM tomorrow (9/10) hosting Back to the Country and this week's theme is "Favorite CDs." I often tell people I'm a record collector and indeed a huge percentage of my radio shows are about records and the record collecting journey. But when the rubber meets the road, I'm really more of a music collector and I'm constantly looking for good tunes on ANY format.


I've recently been thinking a lot about CDs. There are a lot of great albums that have only been issued on CD and tomorrow's show will (almost entirely) highlight some of my favorite CD-only releases. There are so many--Jerry Miller, Sean Mencher, the Country Bumpkins, the Blackstone Valley Sinners, the Spurs, Honky Tonk Happy Hour, and many more! And I'll also include a couple tunes from my favorite CDs I've picked up this year (the Hens, Annie Dolan and Joel Paterson, Western Box Turtles, etc.)... and I just might also bring my guitar and sing you a song or two from my very own upcoming CD project (for which I will discuss publicly for the first time tomorrow morning). I'm so excited about it that I can't hardly think or talk about anything else these days! But these CDs will be a great distraction!

You can stream the show from 9-noon (CST) tomorrow morning (9/10) via wortfm.org or listen via 89.9FM in southern Wisconsin!



Monday, September 8, 2025

Green Bay Packers Star Donald Driver Promotes 101 Hodag Jokes!! Many thanks, Donald!!

Now that the NFL season is officially underway, I suppose it's a good time to share that beloved Green Bay Packers star wide receiver Donald Driver wholeheartedly endorses 101 Hodag Jokes, and so can you! Here he is photographed holding a copy of our beloved little joke book, as well as a hodag postcard he got from The Hodag Store up in Rhinelander. (With many thanks to store owner Ben Brunell for sharing the amazing photo!)


For those unaware, my colleagues Marcus Cederström, Anna Rue, and I wrote a hodag joke book several few years ago and the insanely talented Fred Chao made our insanity come to life with his cute hodag illustrations. Initially, I made just a handful for friends until my friend Lowell Brower convinced me to send some to the Hodag Store a couple years back. Ever since then, we've refilled order after order of them and they seem to be quite popular among joke enthusiasts. And, unlike those familiar with Tim Barney and I's earlier 101 Pirate Jokes book, this hodag joke book is actually appropriate for ALL ages!

As of now, there are only three places you can get 101 Hodag Jokes: In Madison, you can find them at Zip-Dang! on lower Monroe. They have a great selection of WI cryptid and monster art prints as well as rad small-batch clothing. You can also get them directly from me if you see me at a show somewhere. Or, you can get yours like Donald Driver did, from the Hodag Store: https://www.thehodagstore.com/product/101-hodag-jokes/715?cp=true&sa=false&sbp=false&q=true