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Danny Gray, Foundry owner Mike Olson, Karlen Ballen, Bob Janus, Andy Gray and Ian Kauffman (left to right) jam together. - Jacob Ela

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When you live in Cambridge, Wisconsin, it's pretty hard to keep a rock band going.

Ian Kauffman, 15, would know. He put together an "alternative, punkish" band with some friends the summer after seventh grade. They kept it going into the following school year, and then it fell apart because they couldn't get rides to the drummer's house.

Now, the Cambridge High School sophomore is getting back into a band with the Rock Workshop, a new eight-week program at Madison Music Foundry that gives teenage musicians a full band experience, including recording at Smart Studios and a live performance at the High Noon Saloon.

And that's what it takes for kids who live in smaller towns, are home-schooled or have four guitarists but no bassists in their social circle.

"You can't just put up a flier and hope someone will call. If you didn't do the program, it'd be hard to get a band together with the talent," said Ian, who's getting a scholarship for the Rock Workshop through his high school music program.

The Rock Workshop is the brainchild of Mike Olson, who opened the 7,000-square-foot Music Foundry in Fitchburg in the fall of 2006. Since then, he's had about nine teachers coming into the rehearsal/recording studios to teach lessons on a weekly basis.

He wanted to do something that went beyond the usual rock classes that music schools give kids (basically, throw a bunch of seventh-graders in a room and teach them to play "Smoke on the Water").

The Rock Workshop, which has its first meet-up on Thursday, July 10, accepts applications on a rolling basis and matches kids based on level and interests. This way, Olson said, you don't get a band with some kids who want to play classic rock and others who want to play ska. Then, "for two hours a week, you have to come to practice, just like baseball or softball, just like a real band."

At the meet-up on July 10, bassist Ken Fitzsimmons of the Kissers will be auditioning kids one by one, not in a big group. Kids can also sign up with friends.

Once that's set up, the eight weeks of practicing begin. At the end, the band can record a few songs at Smart Studios and perform in a twice-yearly "CD release" showcase at the High Noon Saloon.

Olson developed the program so that it connects with other local music businesses, like the High Noon Saloon, Sooper Dooper and Smart Studios, using what he's learned along the way as a hobby musician and rehearsal space owner (he ran 24/7 Rehearsal Studios five years before starting up the Music Foundry).

"These kids are going to get exposed to all these different resources. This new generation might not know the history of Smart Studios, but when they see the CDs on the wall there, they'll go tell their friends about it," he said.

Garbage, Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins have all recorded at the studio on East Washington Avenue.

Reaching out to other businesses strengthens the Madison music scene as a whole, said Olson. "We all work super hard in our little cells, and if we all helped each other, the better we all do," he said.

It's hard to believe that the Madison Music Foundry was an empty, concrete-floored warehouse two years ago. It's located in an industrial row off Fish Hatchery Road by the Beltline. Walk in the door, and the reception is a lick and a tail wag from Sandy, a pit bull-greyhound mix rescued from Hurricane Katrina.

"The kids get mad at me if I don't bring Sandy to work," said Olson.

The lobby has a retro feel -- colorful oil paintings that Olson's dad made in 1962, furniture from St. Vincent de Paul, a couple of ancient recording consoles and a magazine rack with National Geographics, Guitar Worlds and a couple "Short, Fast + Loud" fanzines.

The hallways are decorated with posters from local bands, and the rehearsal rooms are like comfy rooms in a coffee shop, a far cry from the concrete practice cubes that Olson dubs the "insane asylum" in the basement of Humanities on the UW-Madison campus.

After he built the walls and rooms, he got the whole place tuned by an acoustic vibration consultant.

"I can have all these rehearsal rooms rockin' and you can't hear anything in the recording studio," he said.

Olson's new general manager, Kendall Mann, has been helping develop the Rock Workshop with him using a background in marketing. She has been promoting shows since high school and, since moving to Madison eight years ago, worked as a stage manager at Cafe Montmartre, booked shows at the King Club and helped start music booking at Brocach Irish Pub.

What's been most exciting for her in the process, she said, is talking with parents. "Once people know about it, the parents are totally on board," Mann said. "Some of these parents don't know what the High Noon Saloon is. They tell me, 'Gosh, I've been waiting for this. There's nothing for them to do out here in DeForest.' "

Kauffman, the Cambridge teen, is most looking forward to performing on a Madison stage in the culmination show of the Rock Workshop.

"Anywhere in Madison would be cool," Kauffman said. "The Barrymore would be pretty sweet. I saw Buckethead there. He was awesome."