Somewhere in between Ke$ha’s latest booze-and-glitter anthem and Rebecca Black’s nonstop reminder which weekday is the best, Madison airwaves have been giving listeners an unexpected but welcome taste of the local flavor lately, featuring one of UW-Madison’s established producers.
You may have heard UW senior Charlie Kim’s “Hot as a Pistol” on Madison’s 105.5 Triple M as part of their Project M, a half-“Top Chef,” half-“American Idol” competition that gives Madison songwriters rotation on the airwaves and a shot to meet with executives at Atlantic Records. 

For “Hot as a Pistol,” Kim was given the song title by Project M judge Kitty Dunn and then charged with writing the music and lyrics. A handful of other contestants, some of them UW students, were given the same challenge and face weekly elimination as determined by the judges and online voters.
The soft, sentimental tones of “Hot as a Pistol” are a display of Kim’s range and willingness to work across genres. He’s collaborated on a fair amount of hip-hop as well, his most recent work being a co-producer on Stereotype’s “Welcome to My Spaceship” mixtape. 

Kim was selected after submitting an audition video to Triple M and is now in competition with eight other Madison songwriters. Voting for this week has closed, but the next round of videos will be up on 105.5’s website on Wednesday afternoon. Although no record deal is promised, winners will receive a sit-down with Atlantic Records brass and, if nothing else, the promotional boost of airplay and video features on Triple M’s website. Last year’s winner, Jimmie Linville, was awarded with an opening set for Atlantic artist Marc Broussard. A similar prize likely awaits this season’s winner. 

Even without Project M, Kim has made a name for himself among UW’s aspiring musicians. Since seeing the Profits (a Mike Droho project) his freshman year, he’s collaborated with Madison staples like DJ Pain 1, Phonetic ONE and SMOKES. These artists have given him boosts into the genre. 

Although he’s not a member of UW’s First Wave Hip Hop and Spoken Word Learning Community, Kim continues to work with many of its students. You can also find him hosting Memorial Union’s open mic nights.
More recently, Kim has expanded his range of production skills to give him more independence in more genres and media. 

“I’m just starting to put myself out there as a producer, singer-songwriter, guitar player, a do-it-all guy,” Kim said in an interview with The Badger Herald. “I try to have control over every step of the process.” 

In an age where free platforms like Myspace and Bandcamp are becoming increasingly prolific, standing out from the digital masses demands more than just a lot of product or word of mouth. 

“If you’re trying to make a living as an artist, you can’t just rely on your songwriting or your music,” said Kim, who cites working with Mike Droho and studying economics at UW as major wake-up calls to the business of supporting oneself through music. “You have to push the whole package; you have to brand yourself.” 

But thankfully branding oneself doesn’t have to mean adjusting the aesthetic to YouTube fads or “selling out” in one way or another. At least not for Kim, who, in addition to promoting himself through the usual channels like Facebook and Twitter, has developed a YouTube video series that chronicles the day-to-day work of a student-producer.
Somewhat ironically titled “The Important and Awesome Life of Charlie Kim,” the series gives faces and personality to members of the otherwise unheralded creative community in Madison, without the stink of hype and self-aggrandizement. 

“I’ll go from class to a studio session to rehearsal and then back to the library,” said Kim. “While I’m capturing all that, I also get a chance to promote all the artists that I’m working with.” 

Kim splits most of his time by recording in a studio downtown and mixing at home, not only because it’s cheaper but because the technology is available. 

“Nowadays you can record at home without a bunch of fancy mics because all the software makes up for it. It’s a very low-key process,” he said. Regardless of how far Kim goes, he hasn’t put all his eggs in the Project M basket, making sure to stay vertically integrated over different platforms.
“The trick is to be able to put out as much material as possible through a variety of media.” 

Let’s all hope that Kim fares better in his competition than we in our NCAA tournament brackets, if, for nothing else, to give us a merciful detente from Rebecca Black.