A troubadour, not a one-hit wonder.

Byline: Serena Markstrom The Register-Guard

Too many interesting artists' new work gets lost in a dark shadow behind the imposing memory of a hit song.

In the case of pat mAcdonald, that large oak of nostalgia is the 1986 hit "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades," recorded with his wife as Timbuk 3 when he still spelled his name Pat MacDonald.

Two divorces and no hit songs later, it would seem perhaps he didn't need the shades after all. But mAdonald's in a pretty good place these days.

Critics and a small, loyal group of fans still appreciate him. And with royalties from that one song and the money he gets from small gigs and CD sales, mAdonald has subsisted on his art his whole adult life.

He even recently found a new way to channel his passion for music: using it as a tool to defend his community.

His new album, "Troubadour of Stomp," gets down to the essence of his solo style. He labels his dirty kind of rock, which features low-tuned, distorted guitars, "stomp" for the board he stomps on for percussion.

Although mAcdonald is not obscure to his fans, he's found something that's probably just as cool as having a million fans. He started a music festival to bring attention to a once-endangered historic bridge.

Through the festival, he's helping to revive the music scene in the small, working-class Wisconsin community where he lives.

Community forms around bridge

When reached by telephone at the apartment building in Sturgeon Bay that his sister Christie owns, mAcdonald is recovering from surgery and was on pain killers.

He insisted that he always talks slow, but the drugs have helped his thoughts and words align a little better. Normally, he said, his thoughts move much faster than he can spit them out.

The slow words spun an interesting tale of what can happen when people work together in support of a concept.

This will be the third summer that the steel bridge at Sturgeon Bay, originally Memorial Bridge, has been at the center of an effort to revive community spirit. The campaign began after mAcdonald got involved with his sister's decadelong battle to keep the state's paws off the historic bridge, built in 1930.

In the eyes of mAcdonald and other bridge saviors, the state's desire to get out of paying maintenance expenses by tearing it down almost cost Door County a local treasure.

"It's actually a historic landmark," said mAcdonald, who then explained the bridge's nostalgic value to him. As a child growing up in Green Bay, Wisc., he used to visit the area on family vacations.

`(It's) at the gateway to northern Door County," said mAcdonald, 44. "It always meant we were on vacation when I saw it."

Eventually, after a protracted lobbying campaign that involved attracting the scorn of people who would have profited from the old bridge's demise and the new one's construction, the state agreed to rehabilitate the bridge.

The Steel Bridge SongFest, which seems to be as much for the songwriters as the music lovers it attracts, is a way to keep attention on the bridge and its historical significance. It also reminds people living there that it's a symbol of the county's past, present and - more importantly - its future.

"People had to be aware of what an important part of Door County this is as far as its charm and uniqueness, and so we started this festival," he said. It's "sort of a 'love the bridge' sort of festival, and we got musicians from all over to come."

The weeklong event peaks this year on June 16 with an outdoor concert featuring more than 30 acts and headlined by Jackson Browne.

Over the years, the event has raised more than $60,000, money put in trust for bridge-related expenses.

Songwriting is the key nonpublic aspect of the gathering. Modeled loosely after a songwriting retreat that mAcdonald had attended at Copeland castle in France, where organizers paired him with Cher to write a song, the festival's first few days are dedicated to writing and recording.

The SongFest has a literal twist from the Copeland version, because in Wisconsin, the 30 or so writers get paired up at the whims of a spinning bottle. Yes, a big game of spin the bottle could one day be part of songwriting history.

"Last year, in three days, there were 60 songs written," mAdonald said, including "Steel Bridge Song," which appears on "Troubadour of Stomp." "Bridge Hater Song," from the album, also deals with some of the attitudes bridge lovers have encountered in the community.

"It's an ongoing struggle," mAcdonald said. "We decided at one point it was people's hearts and minds we needed to change."

The festival, he said, has gone a long way toward doing that.

His involvement in the community also has put him in a mentoring role with aspiring musicians.

"There's a great number of young local songwriters, and since we started doing the SongFest the open mikes around the area have been a lot more energized.

"The songwriters around here feel more connected with something larger than themselves, and we are pulling in the locals and they are getting to write with people from elsewhere and people of national prominence."

Reaching out to young writers

Recently, mAcdonald, his sister and Anna Sacks visited a Wisconsin high school to talk about the festival.

Sacks is a songwriter who decided to stay in town after attending the festival. With some investors, she bought the local Holiday Motel, where the artists stay and record steel bridge songs.

Eventually, mAcdonald will be creative director of this project, which will host songwriting events throughout the year.

At the high school, the three talked to music students.

"We're really trying to get some of the young writers out of the closet and pull them into this thing," he said. "I noticed I am the No. 1 friend on MySpace of this band called Bare Bottom Madness.

`They're just really excited about playing something that's more than just playing their little local party. They are excited about this place turning into a little bit more of a music mecca for them, not just a place that they just want to get out of.

"It's like the mountain might come to Mohammed, and that's exciting to them. And they are grateful to me for even trying to make it happen."

Most of the students are familiar with mAcdonald's hit-song past, but the message he gives them is that commercial fame should not necessarily be a measure of success.

"I basically tell them success is not having hits," he said. `Success is not becoming a pop star. Success is doing your art and making a life around it."

Commerciality "should never compromise what you are doing."

CONCERT PREVIEW

pat mAcdonald

The bill: After Kris Doty opens, Eric McFadden and mAcdonald do solo sets before their duo, Crack Daniels, headlines

What: Quirky rock

When: 7 p.m. Wednesday

Where: John Henry's, 77 W. Broadway

Tickets: $5

On the Web: Sample mAcdonald's work at www.registerguard.com /ticketfiles

You can reach Serena Markstrom at 338-2371 or e-mail her at [e-mail].