John MacArthur is here. Hello, welcome John Uh. You of course are
from We met through NH Music Collective. We were at the Run Like Thieves
show in Conquered and tell us tell us a little bit about that. By
the way, we are going to play some of your music too, because
you are a musician in addition of course. But but tell us about the
NH Music Collective. Well, the n H Music Collective was actually started by
Brad Myrick a number of years ago. He's just a super accomplished guitarist from
the from Hillsborough, Okay, hillsbro Hopkinson Sorry Hopkinson, I can't even remember
Hopkinson answer. And it was sort of a side hustle business for him because
people kept asking can you help us find another talent as good as you for
to play some of the venues that it was playing, and so he grew
that. But it's was pretty much the side hustle business for him, Okay,
And he was working out his strings and things. He was one of
the first people that I met when I'm moved up here. He was actually
he was introduced to me by Mikey g If you know Mikey g Oh,
I think I do. Yeah. When I came up here, I met
Mikey. I saw him at the common Man and Conquered and I told him
what I was up here doing, and he said, oh, you got
to meet Brad Myrik. So okay, I met Brad Myrik. I worked
with him for a little bit on some projects at a recording studio we had
in Guildford, and then my wife and I liked Brad so much of what
he was doing. We decided to invest in in a music collective and so
we joined the team and it's been growing from there. I want to hear
more about all of all of that and what you do, but I also
want to play let's i'd like to give, because I want to talk to
you about that. But I also want to talk to about your music because
you're a musician and one of these tracks that you sent is pretty new,
I think right for these both knew they're both new. Actually, I just
I've had in my mind this album that I want to do called Friends,
Family and Me, Yeah, and so songs that I wrote, songs that
my some friends wrote, yeah, some family members wrote. So we just
started putting it together and the first two tracks were the simplest one, so
I put those out. We're going back in the studio soon to finish up
the others, which are a little more complex. Excellent, excellent. So
let's play this and this is really pretty. Uh how do you say?
This is a terza tizzas tisa? Yeah, okay, what does that mean?
Is that just a name or does well? It's a it is a
name, it's a biblical name, but it also kind of translates to my
delight. Okay, and so when I think of this song, it helps
me think of my delight. And is it just you on the song?
It's just me on the song. Okay. Yeah, let's give this a
listen. It's short, but it's really pretty. I like this a lot,
and then we'll come back and talk more with John MacArthur. But check
this out. O. I love that. That is really nice. That
is tirtsa? Am I saying it correctly? You are John MacArthur is here
with us live in studio. Do you do you fingerpick all of that or
yeah, it's all finger pick. I'm always really impressed by that when I
when I see people do that, I don't feel like I'm a bass player
and I and I play with it. I even play bass with a pick.
I don't because I just like to me, it's I can't imagine what
it must be like to use fingers to make all that happen. So I
love that. That is that is really remarkable. We have another one of
your songs too that we'll we'll play later in the segment, but very beautiful.
Where do you record? Well, actually recorded that up at the studio
Portland. Okay, a quick update on on my wife and me. We
just made a major investment in the Studio Portland, so oh congratulations, thank
you. Yes, I are the majority owners of it now. Excellent started
as a collaboration between NH Music Collective and the Studio Portland and oh Reve and
I liked the like the studio, and actually our son is one of the
engineers there. He's he was the engineer on this song, oh outstanding,
and so so we decided to invest in it. And so it's been great
And that must be cool too, to be able to work with your son
creatively like that, that must be amazing. It is he's actually producing this
album and so it's so he's the engineer and the producer on this and doing
a lot of the arrangements so oh, very good, very good. Now,
so getting back to NH Music Collective, what is what are some of
the things that you do? You told us a little bit about the history
of it and how you got involved. What what does the collective do?
What are the goals of it in terms of I mean, obviously it involves
New Hampshire music and perhaps musicians from other areas as well. But but tell
us tell us about the kind of the mission statement of NH Music Collective.
Well, it's really been evolving. So the you know, we started this,
you know, shortly after COVID hit HUT a lot of things down right,
I mean, well, our investment in it and our goal initially was
to get musicians work, just get as much work as we possibly could for
musicians and at better pay, with better experiences for the musicians and for the
audiences. So as we think about venues that we want to work with,
we want to work with venues that are investing in music, care about both
music and the musicians and the experience that it creates for the audience. And
so it's just been growing from that perspective a lot. We did fifteen hundred
events last year. Really wow, I had no idea. Yeah, that's
incredible, that's incredible. If for our team at three we did all right
from Maine down to Rhode Island. So we're not just New Hampshire, although
that's the name h Music, but most of our events are more of our
events are in New Hampshire. We're expanding into other areas as well. So
you did fifteen hundred events in a year. Yes, you don't look tired,
but you must be. I'm exhausted. I'm actually exhausted because we were
in Portland, Maine. Brad and I were in Portland, Maine and Riva.
We're all in Portland, Maine on Thursday night for a live audience recording
of six singer songwriters, some of them from Manchester, by the way,
drove all the way to Portland to be part of this. And then last
night I was at delivery and Sunopy didn't get home till eleven thirty. After
that, we had a duo from the UK. They were top ten finalists
in Britain's Got Talent Wow six years ago, Jack in Temps. They're actually
staying with my wife and May. This weekend we put it. We got
four shows for them, so that was one of them last night. So
I'm exhausted. Yeah, yeah, but I'm having but I'm having a great
time. Yeah, no matter, yeah, yeah, there you go,
there you go perfect, That's perfect. Yeah. And how long? But
so you told us, but I forget what when did you first get involved
in an h music collective? How long has it been raven I invested in
June? June? I think twenty twenty. Okay, So, now did
you expect it to get to this point where you're doing so many shows and
where you're doing so much like what was your what was your expectation have you
because I'm guessing the way things have gone may have exceeded your expectations or maybe
not. I don't know. But we've got big We've got big dreams,
and we're starting to get to some of them. You know, we want
to elevate the I have to be careful, I always say, but we
want to we want to elevate the experience for the audience, right, And
so that means the musicians have to take it seriously, the venues have to
take it seriously and where and create some real quality experiences for the audience.
So, yeah, one of my favorites that I started I started about I
guess two years a little over two years ago was at SAP House metiy And
Center Ocsipe, which is in the middle of nowhere, right, And it's
a tiny little place, small, not much bigger than this studio, you
know. And so we partnered up with them to create a meat tasting.
They make honeywines there and a three course meal, right, and a one
hour concert and the music and the food are paired. So we've had Indian
performers. We had ashkan as the Indian food. We had Sunny Hunt there,
which I'm sure you know. So we had Senny there, and we
had West African food. We've done Cuban, we've done Brazilian and all that,
so that that kind of an experience. We sell those shows out.
They're just they're fabulous, imagine. And then I don't know, like giving
some of the local performers an opportunity to be on some bigger stages. This
partnership with Capital Center for the Arts in the Canton Lounge. Yes, but
then we had and and and now the challenge goal is after Taylor Hughes show,
I think I told you about, Yeah, Taylor, Taylor, somebody
had never done a ticket a concert before. Oh, he's amazing. We've
had him on the show. He's amazing. And he sold out the Canton
Lounge and he said, but I got twenty five people who want to buy
tickets, and so they said, okay, we'll flip you to the other
side. So we flipped it to the three hundred seat side. Wow,
and he sold that out, no kidding in June. Yeah, that was
amazing. That was phenomenal. So we're going to do some more shows with
him. We're working with some other theaters. Yeah, so anyway, we
want to So that's a long answer to your question, but we want to
elevate the opportunities for the for the local artists. We also want to create
touring opportunities for national artists and international artists. So we're starting to do that
with some of these concert venues that we're partnering with. Okay, and we're
just starting to get into more taking things for us where we're actually almost acting
as a promoter. Okay, okay, how many how many venues do you
currently have partnerships with? I mean, is it is it quite a few?
Or yeah, it's a lot. I can't even I haven't counted the
Brad has a bunch that he works with. I have a bunch that I
work with and then we collaborate on some so I have a spreadsheet. Yeah,
I'd have to consult that. I have lots of spreadsheet. Yeah.
Yeah, well no, that's good. That's good. Yeah. We were
very impressed because when when Jenny and I met you at the Canton Room,
right Canon Canton Lounge, can I can't Yeah, okay, but you you
came for Run Like Thieves. Yes, yes, And we'd never been there
before and walked in and it was like, wow, this is really nice.
This is really nice. It was it was great. I'll tell you
that was an interesting one for me because I've known Dan Fallon, who's the
lead singer for that, Yeah, for a while. We started booking him
a few I don't know, a year or two agoing like that, and
then he put together this band he used to have the Dan Fallon Band,
and then he had the Run then Run Like Thieves. I knew the bass
player, I didn't know the drummer, but now I know him. Yeah,
And and so we hadn't done too many bands there, and I said,
Dan, let's I like him? And said let's let's try this,
see if you can sell some tickets. Yeah. Ticket sales are fascinating for
me. So so for Dan's show, I think we were a week out
and we sold thirty five tickets, yeah, and a whole seventy five seats
right, Yeah, And the day of the show, we were turning people
away. No, okay, that's so many last minute people. I wish
if I could do, if I could change one thing here, it would
be have people make a commitment early to get out and see live music and
bring a friend. Yep. Yeah, yeah, I have a new religions.
I it's like, don't go see music alone. Yeah. So anytime
you want to go back, Jed, you're game, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. So obviously in that situation, it was too late to flip him
to the the bigger room. Yeah. So that's the thing, right,
And then we had and then we had the same situation with Sennie. When
Senny played there, he was coming back, he's a big following, he
has a big following, and he was in the same situation. It was
thirty five or so, his ticket sold and luckily the person who handles the
box office was there that night and they let me bump it up to like
ninety two upstairs, but we couldn't flip it to the other side too latecause
you need more staff for that. Yeah. So anyway, it was a
great These are great experiences, but hey, message to your listeners please please
make a commitment early. Bring a friend. It matters to the venues so
they can plan better. It matters to the performers and and if you if
you, if you think you might not be able to come, something might
come up. Give the ticket away to a veteran. Yeah, that's a
great idea. Yeah, that's a great idea something. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, people probably don't don't think of that in terms of not waiting,
because in this social media world that we live in, you know, you've
got so many options of different things you can do, and it's it's probably
this hadn't occurred to me until until you, uh brought this up, this
subject up, But yeah, it's probably too easy for people to just kind
of wait till the last minute. And and they don't you know, of
course they don't know that that can cause a challenge for the artists and the
venue and whatnot if they don't If you don't know, it's no different than
if you're planning a party and you want to kind of have an idea of
how many people are coming, so you know how much food to get or
whatever, you know, and and if you don't know and you get all
these people showing up at the last minute you weren't expecting, it can cause
a problem. Yeah, I guess the great thing is if you turn someone
away at the door, Yeah, where'd we'll get out? You need to
start committing right, Yeah, there you go. Well, and it's a
good problem to have in the sense that you know, you're you're doing something
that there's high demand for. And and and this artist is obviously ascendant if
they're you know, they're building a follow and if people who want to see
them, so so that's uh, that's that's great. And now in terms
of the partnership with and I'm I'm familiar. I live in Manchester now,
but I grew up in Conquered so I'm very familiar with the Capital Center.
It's the Capital Center, right, It's capital Center for the artist. Because
the only reason I hesitate on that because when I was a kid it was
the Capital Theater and I don't remember when it changed, but at some point
when I was growing up, it changed from Capital Theater to Capital Center.
Yeah. Well, and I don't know the full history. I get.
I think there's a book about the history of the smaller venue. Oh that's
available at the at the bookstore across at Gibson's. Oh yeah, I met,
I met the guy who who's I think his mother or his grandmother used
to run them when it was a movie theater. Yes, I remember that.
I remember being really little and my dad taking me to that theater to
see Raiders of the Lost Ark. Okay, there you got there, you
go so so, and he would tell stories about sleeping upstairs at the theater.
Oh wow. Yeah. But yeah, so they acquired it. They
saved that building because they had the chub I think, you know, and
then they saved and renovated being H now it's being H stage. Yeah,
was Capital Theater, right, so the movie theater. Yeah, yeah,
right, it was a movie theater. Yeah, did a major renovation and
it's turned into a great flex space, meaning you've got the lounge upstairs,
which is a little bit like Jimmy's almost in in in Portsmouth, you know,
with the lounge seating and stuff like that. And then and then you've
got the very flexible other side, which is three hundred seat which can collapse
down to a dance floor and hundred seats or whatever. And then you've got
the Chubb for really big, you know, much bigger. Yeah, it's
great, it's just great. They've been and we've been able to get some
opportunities for some of our local performers to open for acts on the big stage.
And yeah, so that's important to me. They're not they're now going
to us for that opening acts, yeah, or to recommend opening acts.
That's fun. Yeah cool, yeah. Yeah. Do you play out?
Yeah, I occasionally play a farmer's market, or if we get a last
minute sub request and we and we've gone through four hundred and fifty, No,
we go through fifty. Sometimes artists can't find somebody else's pick the sub.
Sometimes I'll do it. Oh. I enjoy playing out, but I
I don't need to play out, and I don't really want to take work
away from other art honestly. Yeah, because a lot of our arts are
full time performers. Yes, how they make their living. Yeah yeah,
yeah. Yeah. When you do play out, do you just do you
do instrumentals or do you also single saying yeah, yeah, I'm a picker
and grannar. Yeah, I'm an old folky. Yeah, you know,
I used to play a lot of barke folkky like that, but I like
I you know, I grew up on Simon and Garfuncle, and I grew
up on you know, more obscure uh, more obscure stuff. Yeah.
So, but I'll play occasionally songs that people know. I'm also a big
fan of David Wilcox songwriting. I don't know if you know him, but
I love his little He's a baritone, which is nice for me because I'm
a baron. Yeah, so much music is for tenors, That's true.
Where are you from? Are you? You're not from here originally? Right,
I'm from all over. I was born in Miami Beach, grew up
in western Colorado, back to Florida, met my wife in Florida. Then
we moved to Minnesota where and then to Texas and then to Massachusetts and then
up here. Oh yeah, I've been all over? Yeah, yeah,
what what brought it up up here? Ultimately? Well, New Hampshire specifically,
or the northeast both Okay, the Northeast because my wife is a neuropsychologist
in addition to being a third of NH Music Collective and a major investor in
the studio. But she's a neuropsychologist, and she came up to work in
a head injury rehab facility in Boston and in the Boston area, And so
I was in Texas. I had left music at that point and I had
started working in it, and so so she got the job as a neuropsychologist.
I came up and worked an IT job up for a bank in Boston.
Yeah. We came to New Hampshire because our oldest son found his passion
in audio recording and he went to NESCA, New England School of Communications at
Huston University, and as he was getting ready to graduate, it was like,
okay, he's not you know, he needs a place to work,
and so we just we've stumbled on a property that had a studio on it,
so we bought it and then I came up here to help him grow
the business. When you I'm curious about this, So you were when you
were still living in Texas. So you left you say you left music,
Yeah, because I don't play country. I was doing really well in Minnesota,
and yeah, playing the college started get playing every every restaurant, every
every everyone had music in Minnesota in the early eighties. Everywhere where in minutes
wasn't Minneapolis. I was in Minneapolis, but music. But I would play
up to Bamidgie, you know, I would play out, I play across
Wisconsin down to Ia, Iowa. So I was playing all around that area,
playing five, six nights a week. Yeah wow, Yeah, so
you were full time. I was full time. Yeah. When when my
wife and I met, I was I was full time music. So I
did that for while. She finished her PhD and she did her first post
doc up in Minnesota, and then she got her first faculty position at University
of Texas. And I don't play country, and the money was lousy,
no kidding, the money was horrible. Yeah wow. So uh and with
and without playing country, there was really no There was really no opportunity at
that point. I mean there was a little bit in Austin, but not
a lot. It wasn't like it is today. Yeah, because I was
going to say today it's it's such a vibrant scene. For I had an
agent in Minnesota kind of like what well, the opposite side of the equation
from what anach music collected. But I had had a booking agency that was
my pretty much my sole representation. Yeah. And then and then in uh
in Texas, I got an agent down there, but the gigs were just
horrible. Wow. Yeah, drive two hundred and fifty miles because you can
in Texas without leaving the county. Yeah you know, yeah, get paid
fifty bucks in no hotel and gets you know, it's like, no,
was it was it difficult for you to make that transition or or it wasn't
It was time? You know? Yeah, it was it was time for
me at that point. Yeah. So a lot of musicians get burnt out
anyway and kind of need need a break. Yeah, well they do,
and I you know, I think, I mean, Texas wasn't going to
be my home. Turned out it wasn't my wife some me either. She
was ready to go within six months. So so we we only stayed in
Texas for about eleven and a half months. Oh okay, and then she
got this job opportunity in Boston, so so I followed her up there,
up up to Boston. Oh excellent. So once that happened, did you
did you jump right back into playing? No? I didn't get that point.
I'd already started down the its path, and yeah, got a little
more addicted to money, you know, right, And I knew that.
I knew as a musician, I wasn't going to blow up. You know,
I'm a songwriter. I like what I do. I liked some of
the songs I write. I don't like them all. I like what I
play, I don't like all that I play, so, you know,
and and I find it, found a sort of a more natural fit for
me in it. And so I did that for a lot of years.
And so what was it now? You talked about your son and buying the
property with the studio and everything. When that was happening, did you kind
of think like, did you know that that was really just the beginning of
you plunging all the way in like you have now. I had no idea,
really, I had no idea. No. I was I was working
as an analyst for an IT consultancy, Gartner Group, and you know that
was They're the probably the largest IT consultancy. And you know, I had
clients all over the planet, and I was traveling some, you know,
before COVID, I was traveling some. But we all worked remotely, so
I could work from anywhere. Yeah, you know, yeah, so,
but just gradually over time it just got more and more of you know,
Brad and Reeve and I started growing in a music collective. The studio.
The studio was not growing as fast as we wanted it too. I'm really
proud of some of the recordings that came out of there. Sam did a
fabulous job. Brad produced some of the music there. We actually did Brad
and Nicolas out one of Brad and Nicola's albums, which Nicole Chipriani is his
duo partner, who's fantastic from Italy. He was over and we did that
album. We did Eric Lendbergh's album. We did if you remember Victim of
Circumstance, I think so. Yeah. So they've all broken up as a
band, but they're all playing in great bands now. So so Harrison's playing
in River Saying Wild and and Cam is playing in a rumboat Chili. Okay,
sorry sorry Cam, if you're listening Rumboat Chick and and and Brad.
I don't know what Brad's doing right now. Brad Hartwick, he went off
to another band for a while. So anyway, yeah, but we did
that there ep and so really good stuff. Yeah, so we did He's
done. Sam's done all the cameos, the recordings if you know her,
and yes, actually yeah so anyway, but Portland is is a great place
now, so Sam moved. Sam came to us a year and a half
past a day. I want to go to Portland go always been a great
scene. Yeah, it's a great scene there. And there's more musical diversity
maybe yeah there, which is nice. Yeah. So yeah, so it's
just worked out really well. Is is the marketing of a recording studio in
this era? Is it? Is that a big challenge because there's so many
of them? Well not with you talking about it right there, Well,
you know, I think when you think about recording. So first of all,
this is the studio that we acquired is a commercial studio, meaning it
does voiceover, it does podcast, does a d R for for movies.
Oh wow, it also records albums. Yeah, it's a training program for
for aspiring producers recording engineers. So you've got a lot to offer. There's
a lot. There's a lot going on in that place. So and I've
only learned that recently since all the incoming calls now come to me. So
all of the phone. This is the oldest commercial studio in Maine and it's
had the same phone number since the beginning, and the building owner was getting
all the calls and I since we acquired, I switched the phones to come
to me, and it's just been remarkable. Yeah, that's great. So
anyway, it's uh but yes, you're right, because the big competition for
a lot of studios is not another studio, it's home recording. Yeah.
Yeah, we do the podcast at home. I'm going to record my ALM
at home. I'm gonna yeah, And there's nothing wrong with that, right,
It's a little more difficult to do a full drum kit at home with
proper acoustics. Yeah, absolutely. But anyway, you know, so we
also want to be a support mechanism for home recorders too. We'll help them,
we'll train them. Yeah. Oh that's really cool. Yeah. And
our competition there is Berkeley, that's what seventy eighty thousand a year. Yeah.
I did a summer program there and yeah it's expensive. No, So
that's great, that's great, And your son must be very happy. He's
very happy. He is very happy. He's working. You know, every
day is a different a different project, and your day's a different experience,
and he's super super technical, so that's good. He can handle all of
the surprises that come up. Yeah, yeah, because I would imagine in
the beginning there must have particularly been a lot of surprises going into a situation
like that. Well, he actually wired that studio for the for the for
the other producer. They're the one who sort of took over that business from
the prior operator. Oh so Sam has they call him soldering Sam. Yeah,
so he actually wired up that studio in the storage studio that he had
before that. So he and Ryan Ordway have a great relationship. Oh yes,
Oh what band was it I used to book? I was? I
worked as years ago? Jeez, this might have Oh my god, where
does the time go? I think this was twenty years ago? Years ago.
I was going to say Ryan Ordway wasn't a band that I used to
book? I did. I was a booking agent for a bunch of bands
and what the hell was the name of the band? I can't remember the
name of the band now, but Ran Ryan's amazing. I haven't talked to
him in so long, but wow, Yeah, but I used to see
him like a few times a month because I was booking his band pretty heavy.
I can't remember what the name of the band was, you know,
and I don't know, I've I don't I don't even know the name of
his band. But so he was operating the studio that was on the property
that that we acquired when Sam when when Sam was graduating from NESCA and we
were looking for a place. Actually, the first recording that Sam did after
we took over that space and installed a new console was in collaboration with Ryan
with you'll you'll probably you'll probably know this name, Alex Preston. Yes,
so Alex. So we actually recorded a couple of the songs Sam did of
of Alex when one of in one of the albums that he did after he
was third I think it was third place on American Idol or something like that.
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, very cool, very cool.
Wow, that's awesome. I think what we should do because I want to
play We've got We've got a little bit more time to talk, but I
also want to play this other song. I think it's willing, willing.
Anything we should know about this one. The only thing, the only story
on this one is sorry, the only story on that is that I had.
I have a fellow that I used to play with, Alan Gross,
down in Florida, and when I told him I was going to do this
album as I was going to include one of his songs, and I told
him I was going to put Tirtsa on it, he said, well,
you got to do this other song that I've got that I heard you play
once and I'd forgotten that I wrote it. He said, but I want
this on the album, and so I don't play it out because it's really
short, it's very simple and you need a real listening audience to play it.
So I need to say you got to put it on the album.
Set. So this is for Alan Gross, my former playing partner, that
I that I agree to put it on the album. All right, very
nice, and this is called Willie. I love the way that sounds.
Thanks. We were talking about Barke folks. So I used to listen to
a lot to John Renbourne. When I was in college. There was another
guitar player, Peter Angermeyer, that I played with some and he would play
these most remarkable things in dad gad tuning, and I didn't know dad gad
tuning d A d G A d tuning on guitar. He was playing this
song, It's like, how'd you do that? How'd you do that?
Asking him about it? So I sort of got addicted to that tuning.
Well. John Renbourne plays in that tuning a lot. Okay, he was
with a group called Pentangle back in the sixth seasons. Okay, yeah,
Yeah. I just love the way the way the guitar sounds and when you
can when it sounds so good that you can you can hear the fingers moving
on the frat board, you know what I mean. I love that because
that's not an easy thing to capture. Yeah, and and Sam, as
I said, recorded that and what I love about the way But it's the
same thing with Brad and Nicole Nicola's album. Yeah, if you get a
chance to listen to to that one, it was just the guitar sounds that
he's able to capture. He has a lot of microphones on the guitar.
It's not one, it's not one microphone, He's got a lot of Yeah.
Yeah, because the next the frendboard must be miked too, right,
It's not just put mic in front of the body of the guitar. Yeah,
you know, I am not an engineer. I don't even play one
on TV. I leave it to the experts. I'm always super curious about
that. But yeah, yeah, no, but we got to get him
on the show. But but yeah, the sound of that is is just
just really really good. Did you say, do you have an album that
you're working on? Working on it? We've got, uh, Sam's been
working on the arrangements. By the way, the rest of the album will
sound almost nothing like that, really, I have. I have two other
songs I'm going to do and dad gad tuning. Both of those are in
dad Gaid. But then I'm going to do a song that my brother wrote
called Sugarfly Mama, which is nothing like Yeah, any of these, and
I've got a few others. Yeah, very cool. If you're just joining
us. We have John MacArthur here with us live in studio, and John
is from NH Music Collective. And now getting back to that a little bit.
We had a few minutes left. What Jenny is here as well?
By the way, Jenny, Jenny was busy typing away on something, but
hello, Jenny, I'm president, Yes, yes, present Dan account In
terms of NH Music Collective, how do you how does that work, Uh,
bringing in artists to work with I mean, do do artists reach out
to you that want to work with the collective? Do you seek them out?
Is it both? Is it so? It's a little bit, it's
it's a lot of both. We probably get twenty inquiries a month wow of
hey, how do A lot of times the conversation will start like, hey,
I'm looking to play more in New Hampshire. You seem to be booking
all the all the venues that I want to play, so excuse me,
So you know, how can I become part of the collective? I started
running an open mic at Patrick's. Yeah, the sort of vet singer songwriters
bands are a little harder, Yeah you got yeah, hey allergies. Yeah
no, I was gonna say, I know the pain it's lack of Oh
okay, well I think I met three nights in a row of four hours
of sleep, so yeah. But yeah, So I try to get out
as much as I can. I mean, I'm out listening to music four
or five nights a week if if I can. Some of that's just checking
on our venues. But we're talent virus for venues. We're not agents for
artists and a lot of I think a lot of artists don't understand the difference.
So the venues hire us to book talent for them, right, I
tell people who who are looking for places to play, there are lots of
places to play. Yes, we book a lot of venues, but there
are lots of places to play. And I don't care how good you are,
we would never be able to keep you sufficiently full to fill your whole
calendar if you're a full time musician. I don't have enough venues, and
the venues want for some of the venues want a lot of variety. Like
I have several venues that they don't want to see the same person more than
once a quarter or once oh okay week, so two months. So like,
you gotta have a lot of venues. If someone wants to work,
I would take a guy like Colin Hart or Rebecca Turmela and if you've talked
to them. But yeah, actually, while we met Rebecca Turmel at the
Run Like Thieves show, Yes you did. Yeah, she's she's coming on
on my birthday actually in October. She's oh cool, she's booked on the
show. Yeah, but she also she plays like six nights a week,
yeah, sometimes she does double headers. Colin Hart's the same way. I
mean, I couldn't possibly they Yeah, you do the math. Okay,
yes, we did fifteen hundred events, but we worked with over two hundred
musicians. Well that doesn't the math doesn't work there to be their sole agent.
Yeah, yeah, so you know so, but we are adding,
we're adding some venues, you know, selectively, carefully. Yeah, we're
not right for everybody. Yeah, you know, the people who want to
pay an artist hundred bucks for four hours, We're not the right ag for
them, right, you know, Yeah, if they if they, if
they want to really invest in music, and then then then we might be.
And if want to invest in the marketing of their performances and create good
experiences for so, then yeah we might be. Yeah. Do you ever
have anyone approach you? And and obviously I wouldn't watch you to name names
or anything, but does anyone ever approach you where you have to say,
I'm sure delicately and carefully, but you're not ready. You're you're not ready
for us to work with you. You've got to work on your your craft
a little more. Yeah, I'm very I'm actually very direct about that.
Are you yeah. Yeah, and and and it doesn't mean that they can't
go out and get work. Like I said, there are lots of venues
out there willing to pay something for performance, and some of them will pay
fairly. Well yeah, yeah, go out and hustle it, get them
yourself for the What we focus on is matching what the venues tell us they
want with the artists that we have in our roster. Yeah. And sometimes
that means I may hire somebody like I just during COVID and my wife was
down in Massachusetts still and I was up trying to help the studio business in
Guildford. I started taking lessons from David Hamburger online. David Hamburger is this
great fingerstyle blues guitarist out of Austin, Texas. Okay, well I've now
hired him once. You know. I got him at one of the staff
House Meter concerts where we do the food pairing. Right, Oh okay,
yeah, David Hamburger, so you know what the what was the food pairing?
I love it that he plays slide guitarist. We had sliders and I
love Hamburgers. That's fantastic though, That's awesome, it's great and he's willing
to roll with that. He doesn't feel like you're making fun of his name.
Yeah, that's good. He's he stayed with us, he was,
he's a great guy. We will get him up here. Yeah again,
Oh that's cool, that's very cool. Yeah. I mean I only ask
because I know, you know, sometimes when you're when you're in that position,
because I used some years ago, like I said, I did booking
agent work and I was a promoter. I would do local shows and you
know, every once in a while i'd hear from somebody and I'd have to
say, you're you're not You're not ready for this. But but but you
know, I mean, we have us. We have a coaching program.
So if someone's serious about wanting to improve you, we will work with them.
And it's across the all aspects of their performance, style, their business.
You know, what they're doing from a business perspective, what they're doing
from a marketing perspective. We charge for it similarly to you would for a
good guitar lesson. Sure, Sure, And so we'll sit down, we'll
go over there, what their goals are, and we'll give them things to
work on and if they very often those are like one and done sessions.
We'll give them enough work for the next six months that they don't need one.
But some people will will come and you know, for some period of
time, they may come have a session once a month or once a week.
Dan Fallon was one because he really good performer, didn't understand certain aspects
of the business. The session paid for itself ten times over because he learned
how to file for his royalties. Okay, excellent. Yeah, yeah,
so we try to focus on the whole aspect of the three sixty of being
a musician in the do it yourself world. That's no, that's really cool.
Yeah, I had no idea that you did that, and and that's
something that is so desperately needed, you know, because yeah, and actually
coincidentally, you know, we had the band Stepsist in here earlier to that,
and we always end up in these conversations to about the music industry and
yeah, knowledge it's power, you know, And and I know a lot
of you know, a lot of musicians don't want to have to learn some
of the things that you need to learn to survive as a musician. But
but it's called the music business for a reason. And yeah, you know,
if you want to have a long career, you got to know,
you got to know this stuff. Yeah, and the places where we'll see
people fall down sometimes is I mean, is you can be as for example,
a self taught guitar. I can tell you if you're a self taught
guitarist and you go take lessons from Brad Myrick for a year, you'll be
a better guitarist. You just will, because he is one of the best
guitarists around and and and he will teach you stuff, you know, if
he can't. If you haven't figured out how to get out of the first
position right, or how to do chord and substitutions or inversions or whatever,
you know. And it's not like going to Berkeley, it's like very It's
about developing musicality, it's about developing knowledge. And so actually we have a
number of he has a number of students just around uh music and guitar,
not about so he's doing that as well. Yeah. I tend to focus
a little bit more on live performance and on some of the business sides of
things. Yeah, now that's great. Oh wow, it's late. We
gotta we gotta begin to wrap up. But John, I'm so glad you
came in. This has been a fascinating discussion. Thank you for the time,
absolutely, league, glad to do it. Where should people know to
keep up with everything that n H Music Collective is doing? Where should they
go online? Well? Facebook, we post every day all the shows that
we're doing at every venue. Right, so that's one place you can go.
Instagram, we have a website. We're going to improve it this year.
Okay, we have a website, but our full, full, full
calendars on the website, so you can look at that and see what we've
got there. Okay, and yeah it's and just come see us, come
to it, come hang out with us at a venue. Yeah, that's
the best thing. Absolutely, No, Jenny and I loved that that run
like the show. That was a lot of fun. And they're such a
great band too, they're so good. Well, come see Ian Gallipo and
Ian Archibald at PNAH Stage this next the first Sunday of July. Oh very
cool. Yes, okay, yes, So one of my quick discoveries is
that when I came to New Hampshire that it's a bunch of micro climates.
Yeah right, yeah, it's so. Both Ian's are from down south and
we're doing the show and conquered, so we want to see everybody come out
and support somebody who's not from Concord. There you go, there you go,
very good, very good, John, thank you so much. This
has been wonderful. Jenny, do you want to plug your website before we
go? You got it. You got a lot of a lot of stuff
going on, a lot of stuff going on. You can go to Gencoffee
dot com j E N N C O F F E y dot com to
find out more and find out information on my new substack. Very good.
Yes, and congratulations on that. Thank you, absolutely absolutely all right.
We gotta go. If you miss any part of today's show, it'll be
up in just a little bit at w m n hradio dot org and at
my website Matt Connorton dot com. Thank you Sepsis for coming in earlier.
And John MacArthur, thank you again, and uh, thank you again to
Hope the wrapper for this great track Problems. We'll play a quick snippet of
it as we go and we'll talk to you a little bit later. Bye
everybody, Bye, Problems Problem. We don't just stay to the money.
Come open this album open, so get into the bag and another one.
If you don't want problems, you don't you want to stay