Local music is getting more than its fifteen minutes of fame tonight at 6 p.m. as Bi-Fi Records, Ames Music Live and ISU4 combine forces for four hours of live local music in a groundbreaking event.

According to Patrick Fleming, co-founder and co-owner of Bi-Fi Records, an Ames music label, the show will be the first time that four continuous hours of live television will be shown on ISU4.

“Everyone’s really honored to do it. It’s a pat on our back and it promotes the local music scene,” Fleming says.

“Bi-Fi Records has a great set of bands and they have a lot of diversity,” says Aaron Fister, producer of Ames Music Live.

The musical extravaganza combines four bands from Ames and one musician from Iowa City in a mixture of live and taped performances.

Kathryn Musilek, a signed artist on the Bi-Fi label and from Iowa City, will kick off the show with an hour-long live performance.

A half-hour of never before seen taped footage of an Organ Donor performance will then air, followed by a live half-hour performance by Joe Terry Coloring Book Project.

An hour-long taped performance by Bi-Fi Records band Canadian Wheat Lords will then be shown, with Keepers of the Carpet finishing the production with an hour-long live show.

Fleming will be hosting “Ames Music Live Bi-Fi Records Night” and says that throughout the broadcast, he will be speaking with the performers, talking about a local music compilation cd Bi-Fi has in the works, as well as mentioning up-and-coming events for the fall.

Because of the running time of the performance, Bi-Fi Records and Ames Music Live chose the summer for their initial run because of the availability of the performers, as well as the open time slots for the station.

“We are the only show producing in the summer,” Fister says. “We have been thinking about doing this for a while and summer gave us the opportunity to do that.”

The program will be aired again in the fall and if all goes well, another show may be in the running.

“We are the guinea pigs in this experiment to see if it works or not,” said Fleming. “Hopefully it does.”