Jamdemic | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: All right, that has live for live music. The band is jam Demic and we've got the guys in studio with us. We're going to speak with them in just a moment.

0:07 Speaker 2: But welcome everybody.

0:08 Speaker 1: We have entered our number three New Marrow trace of Matt Connorton Unleashed. We are live from the studios of wm NH ninety five point three FM and Glorious Manchester, New Hampshire. If you are listening live today is Saturday, August sixteenth, twenty twenty five. Jenny is here as well at the news table, present and accountball and let's see. Let me get these mics up here, because we got the guys here, we got a got a full room here, we got all five guys here. I think we should let's do this first.

0:36 Speaker 1: Let's start in the corner and we'll go around and have you each introduce yourselves and tell us what you do in the band, and we'll start with you over here.

0:44 Speaker 3: Sir, Hi, my name's Chris Volpi Elvin Hollis and I'm keys and blues harp.

0:50 Speaker 2: Okay, welcome Chris, and you.

0:52 Speaker 3: Rob McAlpine, Chester, New Hampshire, drums, vocals, percussion.

0:56 Speaker 2: Okay, welcome, and you. Hey, do what.

0:58 Speaker 4: I'm Joe Birch and I play lead guitar and the only guitar.

1:02 Speaker 2: Okay, all right, very good?

1:04 Speaker 1: And you, oh Eric, hang on, I'm sorry. For some reason I cannot hear you. Uh, what's mike? Let me turn this up? No, I gotcha, I guess got it. Why is this so quiet? We planned it that way.

1:17 Speaker 2: This is quieter than usual. Oh, I think I found you. Check one too, I gotcha. There we go, there you are all right. I'm Eric McIntyre.

1:25 Speaker 5: I'm also from Hollis, New Hampshire, and I play bass, lead singer and kind of band manager.

1:31 Speaker 2: Okay, Oh, you got your hands full.

1:34 Speaker 6: And you, sir Arthur, I play the tenor sacks and also alto and baritone.

1:39 Speaker 1: Okay, and from Hollis as well. So your name again, I didn't quite have Drew Arthur. Drew Arthur, all right, welcome Drew?

1:44 Speaker 7: All right?

1:45 Speaker 2: So well it was wonderful that. Now is there anybody else who's who participates in the band who isn't here?

1:49 Speaker 5: Or is it because we have a sound guy, Kevin Kirsted Okay, so he comes with us and helps produce our sound, comes to our practice every now and then typically in our rehearsal space at Big Bear Come Down in Brookline, we do most of our own mixing, yeah, while we're practicing and rehearsing. But for gigs, it's nice to have somebody out in the field.

2:08 Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, absolutely, Yeah, that's something a lot of bands don't have, is kind of a dedicated sound guy, because you know, you're you got to play. You go to play these places, especially if you're playing a new place, right you're kind of at the mercy of whoever's there.

2:23 Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean we do, like obviously we prefer to play places that have a dedicated sound system and a sound engineer to so we don't have to lug our pa.

2:32 Speaker 2: I mean, I think every band's dream.

2:34 Speaker 5: So as we grow, it's obviously one of the things that we like to do. But there's also gigs like Panucci's Alehouse in Nashaware where we have to bring our own stuff and we want to pay homage to that were the first ones to give us a gig back in the day, so we always make we always circle back there every year or two at least to play one Gigah. We just love playing downtown Nashville as well.

2:57 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely no, it's wonderful there, very good. So now tell us about that song Live for Live Music. How long has that been out?

3:05 Speaker 2: Well, we really oh well it's actually been out.

3:09 Speaker 5: It got released on June twenty eighth out into the streaming web, so it's pretty much available.

3:14 Speaker 2: Okay.

3:15 Speaker 5: We we wrote it this winter. I think we started on it in February, and it was really Dru's kind of vision to come up with it, and he wrote kind of really the chord progression and what we're gonna do, although it's I think it's a two chord song, so it's not a huge progression.

3:30 Speaker 6: Well, okay, it's it's started off as kind of a play for if if you ask Alexa to play a song on Spotify, yeah, if you ask her to play Jimmy Hendrix, it'll say live at Fillmore East. And so I kept feeling like, I love that play on Live for Live for Yeah, and so kind of we're riffing on that a little bit and then and then you know, this is the great thing about playing with this band is you come with just a couple of chords and it's there's really no predefined Hey, you've got to play this part, or you got to play that part.

3:56 Speaker 6: It's let's just see what comes out of it, starting with a riff, and so we we did that once and then then Eric and I just kind of hooked up on some of the lyrics and next thing I know, we had we had the full song.

4:05 Speaker 2: Oh that's cool.

4:06 Speaker 1: I always say, too, when when it when it comes easy like that, right, that's how you know you've really got something.

4:10 Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

4:12 Speaker 5: The music just tells me what to write, because I wrote the lyrics in this song with some of Drew's foundation, and the other guys really produced a lot of the music.

4:22 Speaker 2: Side of it. Yeah, we wrote it.

4:24 Speaker 5: It's actually a love story about uh, kind of our cheating rock and roll love story. I should say, Oh, if you listen to what I go to the show with my girlfriend, then I end up meeting this girl behind the stages in the band and then having kids and coming back in the circle. So my girlfriend, I didn't think, is very impressed with the song. But I didn't even realize that when I was writing it.

4:45 Speaker 2: It just flowed.

4:46 Speaker 5: The music told me what to put on paper, and we kicked it around at a rehearsal and practice a few times and realized, yeah, let's let's get this in the.

4:53 Speaker 2: Studio, kind of like your own version of uh love the one you're with right, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

4:58 Speaker 5: We like the Isisley Brothers version of Alwa's Got Killer groove to it right right? But yeah, speaking coming back to the Range, that's I don't know if you guys have ever been there before, but it's an outdoor venue in Mason, New Hampshire.

5:09 Speaker 2: I've heard a lot about it.

5:11 Speaker 5: It's just the place is magical. It's family run and we love playing there for their cruise nights.

5:18 Speaker 2: Yea.

5:18 Speaker 5: Our date this year got rained out, but we've been there a couple times in the past few years and I go to shows there a lot, and it's right down the road from my house in Hollis and it's in the middle of the woods. And like I said, it's magical. So we wanted to write a story. Yeah, I love story about it, and that's that's what came out.

5:36 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, very cool.

5:38 Speaker 1: So how long has jam Demick been around cause I assume it hasn't been the same line up the entire time the band is or maybe it has, I don't know.

5:45 Speaker 5: We've had a couple different iterations. We had a previous drummer, Chris McCartney, that kind of got us started. I think we started shortly before COVID. It was probably twenty nineteen and of twenty nineteen around. I always have parties at my house because I live on the lake in Hollis, Yeah, and I've always you know, Joe's played there several times with his band, So I was always hiring bands to come and play and selling tickets and having people in the backyard, yeah, tents and food trucks and it was just, you know, a big event.

6:13 Speaker 5: And every time I'd go to hire a band, it's more and more money for a PA. And I figured, you know what, wouldn't it be great to have my own PA and my own band. And I had dabbled with bass a little bit. And then after one of the open mics that we did kind of at my house gym parties during a Halloween, I think Chris came down and played some harp, Joe was playing guitar, there was the electronic drum kit in the corner, yeah, And I think that started the juices flowing. And then Chris's wife sent a message to me and said, hey, Chris had a great time playing music.

6:44 Speaker 5: You guys should start a band.

6:46 Speaker 2: Yeah, that was the end. That was the beginning of it. Oh wow.

6:48 Speaker 5: Yeah, and then Covid hit and you know, we really kind of had to take a year off.

6:54 Speaker 2: Yeah, talked a lot about what to do, but maybe not a year.

6:57 Speaker 5: But we we would separate in the backyard by fifty feet with you know, fifty foot XLR cables.

7:04 Speaker 2: It was a little ridiculous, and that's where the name came. So yeah, so I wondered about that. Yeah, to play on.

7:11 Speaker 5: The pandemic And our first actual band name was Covid Operations and that lasted about ten minutes and then we realized that's not something we ever want to have in a band, you know how band practices go.

7:25 Speaker 2: There were other influences in the room. I love I love hearing about rejected band names. That's allry. So yeah, that was it.

7:31 Speaker 5: That one that we thought that was pretty pretty catchy. And then our old keyboard player, Nick George's came up with jam Demic. We're just kicking ideas around one night and that was just in passing and I jumped on it and Facebook slash Jamdemic was available jamdemic dot com was available, so we just embraced it. And the nice thing about that is we're the only band in the world Jamdemic. You we show up no matter where you are, and it's nice to have something original like that.

8:00 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's important when picking a band name, is you know, coming up with something that's that's you're not gonna find out, Oh, you know, ten other bands already have this name.

8:09 Speaker 5: And yeah, I think the key to finding a band name now is to buy one of those magnetic poetry kits and you throw it on the fridge and you take all the connecting words off, and you put all the nouns on and you just pick three of them and run together, and there's your band names lying to Well, that's what Tom Petty did. I heard they wrote a whole album based on one of those magnetic kits.

8:30 Speaker 2: Relliant.

8:30 Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't know what album it was, but I read that somewhere recently online that they wrote a whole album based on one of those kits. Every song is based on one of those magnetic kits. Just by taking them interest shows goes to show you how much of a master Tom Petty was as a lyricist right to be able to write all.

8:48 Speaker 2: That, right, that's impressive.

8:51 Speaker 1: So when you guys you probably these songs, I would imagine they do they change when you play them live. Like a song like live for live music, if I were to hear you live, it's not gonna sound exactly like that, right, because it seems like it kind of gives you some freedom to you know, if you want to play it longer, if you want to extend the solo or something.

9:09 Speaker 4: Yeah, a song like that, definitely it has some space in the middle where you can take off and just kind of bring it to somewhere else. And that's what we like to do, kind of like as the name, like, you know, jam resembles, but we can just jam and see where it goes.

9:24 Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of improv I can imagine. Yeah, yeah, I can imagine. So a song like that. So obviously you know, the length that it is the studio version is good for radio, but I mean can that's like how long does a song like that get when you play it live?

9:40 Speaker 2: Does Does it pass like six seven minutes? Or it can?

9:44 Speaker 5: I mean I would say some of our extended cuts of different things can go up to ten minutes. Yeah, like we like a lot of Jerry band stuff as well. Yeah, like what that's what Leve will make you do, and that can just go solo after solo and just change your tone a little it on, you know, like Jerry used to do, or Drew will change his tone on the sacks and yeah, Chris will go round on keys and then he'll pick up the harmonica.

10:09 Speaker 2: Yeah.

10:10 Speaker 5: I just sit back and watch, yeah, and it's it's nice. But yeah, I would say it depends on also the gig that we're doing, Yeah, and looking at the crowd and kind of I guess that's all decisions that we make on the fly.

10:23 Speaker 2: Sure, sure, so you really know.

10:25 Speaker 5: It's it's kind of an open book.

10:28 Speaker 1: But it's important right to play with people who you kind of have. It becomes kind of intuitive right when you're I'm fascinated by it because I've been in a lot of bands, but I was never in a band where you kind of had that sort of freedom.

10:40 Speaker 8: To Yeah, so that's that's the tricky thing, right.

10:43 Speaker 3: It's it's this opportunity to express yourself and and to go on flights, but you have to do coordination too. You've got to be able to communicate, and I think it's something that a lot of bands probably aspire to, and I know we are constantly aspiring to be a better jam band. Yeah, it's not something that necessarily just happens. You have to You kind of have to plan for it and then sort of step away and let it happen. It's tricky. So yeah, you know, so writing a writing song like like like lib A live music, we we we knew that.

11:18 Speaker 3: Okay, we want this to be a jam song. We want to we want to build in areas where this can just take we can just take it for a ride. Yeah, and what Eric talking about passing around solos is great. But then sometimes there'll be a synergy and two guys will lock onto something and it starts. You can start taking it somewhere else. Yeah, and that's when it gets really fun.

11:38 Speaker 2: Yeah, I can imagine. So does it ever go wrong?

11:44 Speaker 2: Does it? Yeah? Yeah?

11:45 Speaker 8: It takes a lot of fine tuning.

11:46 Speaker 4: Yeah, but without taking that chance, you can't, you know, maybe come up with something great, right, right, And it's nice when it pays off and something really walks in.

11:54 Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's just fun too. It's kind of like what when it when it crash. If it crashes, you're kind of like, oh, well, it didn't work, but that was really fun trying, right, you know, Yeah, it's not the end of the world.

12:04 Speaker 8: Yeah, the song doesn't stop.

12:06 Speaker 2: Bob Ross's a happy accident, right, right, right.

12:10 Speaker 1: And if you're and if you're playing original music in front of a crowd, I mean, they don't they don't necessarily know, right exactly, they don't know. They don't know that didn't quite work.

12:18 Speaker 5: It is one of the best things about original music when you're paying playing a cover, you know, I mean I like to play covers the way they should be played, and Chris likes to add a personal flare to it, and I always like to stick somewhat rigid, so you know, we we bounce back and forth on that.

12:33 Speaker 2: But I think some of the covers we.

12:34 Speaker 5: Do, you know, people expect it to be that way, and any mistake is a glaring mistake. Usually you know, that was only a half away from the right note, right, you know, things like that. It just people will notice it. But then again, as a musician, most people.

12:49 Speaker 2: Don't notice it. In the crowd, right.

12:50 Speaker 5: They're drinking, they're chatting, right, You shouldn't worry about that stuff because it happens everybody.

12:56 Speaker 1: Yeah, I just feel like with covers too, I see, I like it if it's not exactly you know. My thing is if I want to listen to the original, I can go listen to the original, like I want to hear your interpretation of it, you know what I mean?

13:09 Speaker 8: More interesting?

13:09 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

13:11 Speaker 5: Sometimes I think as a as the lead singer or a singer, I want to sing it that way. Yeah, And it's it's because it's locked in my head. It allows me to produce it better because I've I've got that. And then the reason I like the song is because of the way they sang it. That little bass riff or whatever riff was in there, so I think paying make sure make sure some of that's in there for me. But again that's kind of what's nice about it. Chris is the the ying and I'm the yang.

13:39 Speaker 2: Yeah, and just the way it is.

13:40 Speaker 5: And then there's a compromise. We're a democratic band, so we vote on a lot of stuff. Right, is nobody's decision. You know, I might lay an idea out there, but we will vote on it and majority wins. Yeah.

13:54 Speaker 4: Yeah, something we're working on him, you know, he's coming along.

13:58 Speaker 1: Right, right? What what what do you guys do for covers? Because I always think, you know, you can kind of figure out about someone's influences by what they cover, right, Like, what do you guys?

14:08 Speaker 2: What do you guys do for covers?

14:09 Speaker 8: All right?

14:10 Speaker 3: My favorite cover is the other one by Grateful Dead. I just love that thing because it's so it's you can take that anywhere. Yeah, So that's my favorite cover to play.

14:21 Speaker 2: Well, what's yours one of my favorites as well. That has a lot of decent drums in it. Yeah, like that one.

14:28 Speaker 4: This is Joe speaking, but that one's way out in you know, left field. But which is which is fine to do that? So but I sometimes tried to ground it a little bit. My influences were like Hendrix and you know, bluesy guitarist things. But but you also use that type of style on top of a like a psychedelic groove like like that one. Yeah, and I think it kind of like homes honds it in a little bit and grounds it. Yeah, And but I can I could get out there too, you know, which is.

14:58 Speaker 2: A lot of fun.

14:58 Speaker 5: Sure, sure, Yeah, we play a lot of Dead covers. I mean I love trucking and things. But I think some of our favorite new recent ones that we've been doing is Light Up or Leave Me Alone by Traffic. Really enjoy that one. Yeah, it's just such a great song and I love to sing it. It's just something about Jim Vivaldi's voice on that. A lot of people think it was Steven Wynwood singing it, but it's not.

15:20 Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't.

15:21 Speaker 5: I don't think I even realized, Yeah it's Vivaldi, it's the other guy in the band, and it's just, uh, I love singing that song.

15:29 Speaker 2: Something about it, you know, you get to really get in on it. Yeah. We do A long Way to the Top by a c D. I mean, that's a lot of fun. We didn't played that in a year or two.

15:37 Speaker 5: I also really like one of the songs Joe brought in them Changes by Buddy Miles with you know, made famous by Jimmy Hendricks. Of course, it's just he's just such a good front front man, showman on that and great guitar work. It's just a lot of fun to play.

15:54 Speaker 2: Now.

15:54 Speaker 1: When you so, when you guys play out, do you do you probably do long shows right like you'll do I could right you play a long set probably like you you don't seem like a band that's gonna get up and do a thirty minute.

16:06 Speaker 5: You know, No, we'll go over an hour, hour and up to an hour and a half yeah, ye minute break usually play, Yeah, two long sets yeah, for the most part. Depends on really what the venue wants as well. Yeah, they'll dictate. Or we're doing a private party, we could play for two two and a half hours straight.

16:22 Speaker 2: Yeah.

16:23 Speaker 4: That's one thing. When I go in and see a band, it's just always inevitable that I walk in and the band takes a break right away. Yeah, and it's like they don't you don't see him for like twenty five minutes, yeah, and you know, and then then it's time, you know, we'll go on somewhere else. But it's nice when yeah, a band is there to play and they just yeah, deliver the oh absolutely in music, because when bands take breaks to it's never as long as uh, you know, it always ends up being much longer than what it's supposed to be.

16:49 Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, like, oh, we're going to take a ten minute break, and then you know, a half hour later, they're finally.

16:55 Speaker 2: Yeah, they're getting back up, there. Yeah, now tell us about this.

17:01 Speaker 1: So this other track, So we we played Live for Live Music to ope in the show. But you've got this other song that that I think we should play in a moment. But this is already getting some airplay on radio. You're already get in traction with this one.

17:13 Speaker 5: Well, we got traction with Live for Leve Music. As I said, it was played on another major station on Boston. But the new one has not been played. This will be a world radio premiere if you choose to play Took Me Down. And that's ironically, that's another love story. I think that's a whole nother story in itself, because I tend to write lyrics that are based on tragic love stories or just maybe how much I had to drink the night before old college, you know, just more drug sex and rock and roll. And Chris is the other writer, and he tends to write songs that are just much more in depth and thoughtful.

17:51 Speaker 5: Or you know how many mushrooms it takes to get to the fifth dimension.

17:56 Speaker 2: Right, how many?

17:59 Speaker 7: We don't know.

18:00 Speaker 5: We're still researching, okay, But so I think it's just it's an interesting difference, and that's I think also adds some variety, but took me down as a is a reggae themed jam love story that I wrote as well. Okay, these guys wrote the music I wrote.

18:16 Speaker 2: I wrote the.

18:16 Speaker 6: Lyrics, and you'll hear it in the song, right this, This is one of those songs when you hear you go, Okay, I can see where this this band can go in a lot of different directions on anyone given night. There's there's a lot of different places this one can take off or come back to. And and yeah, I think it's a it's a showcase for us of of like I said, Eric's Eric's writing of being able to come up with with lyrics to two different jams we do. I mean this was again one that we literally CHRISTI goes, why are we even thinking about covering another song?

18:43 Speaker 6: Like, let's make our own original? And within within I think five minutes, we had a good groove going going, we had we had a hook we wanted to do, and within another practice it was okay, we've got something.

18:53 Speaker 2: We've got something here. Yeah, Oh very cool.

18:56 Speaker 1: Yeah, I gotta ask you, is there is there an actual band named Tweezer?

18:59 Speaker 2: No, No, this is a fish reference.

19:00 Speaker 6: Oh, this is the you know, the infamous Tweezer Oh okay encore song.

19:06 Speaker 1: I don't know if there was a Weeezer covers that ask.

19:11 Speaker 5: Somewhere in the world a band is writing that down right now.

19:13 Speaker 1: That's right, I hope, so, I hope. So all right, so let's give this a spin. And so this is a World Radio Premiere, which means you get the special World Radio Premiere bumper, which I will use any excuse to play that.

19:28 Speaker 2: But let me make sure I got the track pulled up here? Where did it go? Where did it go? I had it?

19:34 Speaker 1: Oh ummm, took me down, took me down? There it is found it okay, So here we go. So this is the World Radio Premiere.

19:45 Speaker 2: I'm having trouble loading it up. There we go. I got it.

19:48 Speaker 1: This is the World Radio Premiere first time ever. You'll be hearing this on the radio on Matt connorton Unleashed here on WM and H ninety five point three FM. This is Jandemic with took me Down.

20:31 Speaker 9: Surely I was darling his beauty at the beast.

20:37 Speaker 8: He gave you a lave.

20:38 Speaker 9: It took me down to stole my heart with esil

20:54 Speaker 9: drag me in gear will hut opened.

20:57 Speaker 2: Up my eyes.

20:59 Speaker 7: You're my partner in this world. My heart is hypnotis for you. It tucked me.

21:19 Speaker 10: Down and tubbed me down.

21:29 Speaker 7: It tuk me down and turned me down. Don't it happened with you? It is the joy of my life. I love you so much, baby, I love you.

21:58 Speaker 11: When all my midel build this, join together the honey on this path of life.

22:17 Speaker 9: Take this ring, my darling girl, won't you say my wife?

22:22 Speaker 10: He tuk me down, the tongue me down, then turned me down, then tue me.

22:53 Speaker 12: Down, surely almost darning.

24:06 Speaker 9: He's mute at the beast. You gave your love, took me down, stole my heart with easel you here, wrap your arms around me listening and oom me also type wrapped your arms around me, dun and move.

24:34 Speaker 7: Me up through my life for years it took me down,

24:55 Speaker 7: had me don something told me.

26:02 Speaker 1: I love that I didn't even want to talk over the fade. That is called took me Down. The band is Jam Demick and we've got Jan Jam Demic here in the studio with us. And that is called took Me Down. And that is a world radio premiere here on Matt Connorton Unleashed very honored to play that, be the first ones to play that on the radio.

26:19 Speaker 2: So now a great job, guys. I love that song. Thank you so much. You really really good.

26:23 Speaker 1: Yeah, So tell us we're talking off here about where there was recorded and you mentioned a name that comes up a lot on the show.

26:29 Speaker 5: Actually, yeah, Boardhouse Productions out of Brookline. So Pete, Mick and Blake are the guys that head that place up and he's you know, in Brookline, New Hampshire. And you know, we are the resident band at a place called Big Bear Lodge, which is part of Andrea's Art Institute. It's an outdoor sculpture park and they have an event center up there and we've had an opportunity to come in and help them with their concerts, okay, and they're like, hey, you can use the stage every week for your rehearsal.

26:59 Speaker 2: So we it was great.

27:00 Speaker 5: We got all the gear out of my house and moved it up over there so we get to rehearse on a stage. And just turns out Pete lives right down the road from that and Joe's played there before. Aerosmith that apparently has played there. We're not quite sure. Roots of creation just a bunch of Jay Giles band, A bunch of different people have played there.

27:19 Speaker 2: Yeah.

27:20 Speaker 5: So having having that connection, Pete came in to help us with sound initially and donated a console, a newer console and all the rolland console to help the room kind of get a kick. We used our Pa gear for the band as the house stuff. Yeah, And it was just that relationship with Pete developed, and then when we were ready to start producing these originals, that logical choice was to go down the road to Pete's studio, Boardhouse Productions.

27:47 Speaker 2: Yeah.

27:48 Speaker 1: Yeah, Boardhouse, that name comes up a lot on the show. And you mentioned a couple again when we were talking off air, A Fox of the Flamingos have recorded there, right, and.

27:56 Speaker 5: Yeah, Cosmic Blosso he also does the sound for Bad Fish, which is a Sublime tribute band. He also does all their productions, or the majority of the man does sound on the road for Roots of Creation, which is a real popular and grateful dub God bless those guys have really made a big name for themselves and in this area and nationwide. Yeah, really making a difference out there. So I think what Cosmic Blossom, there's a bunch of other bands that have come in and out of there. That my apologies for not remembering them all.

28:26 Speaker 5: Sure, Pete has also worked I think with Peter Frampton, he did some stuff with He worked with Warren Haynes. Yeah, a long list of people, Yeah, Skinner and there's a long list of people that Pete's worked with. Wow, that's you know, it's just a logical choice to go there. And as you've heard it, we love it. Yeah, he really is a master engineer.

28:45 Speaker 1: Yeah, and tell us about that song and what happens towards the end there is that that's pretty cool, the.

28:50 Speaker 2: Little Gnome dance. Yeah, thank you Peter for inventing that.

28:53 Speaker 8: So, yeah, there's this is I think I'm guilty of the Dane I am.

28:57 Speaker 3: I always at least I love those like kind of psychedelic little like ditties that you sometimes hear old old psychedelic songs like some Floyd songs like for instance, you know, see Emily play there's that weird little harpsichord thing that.

29:12 Speaker 8: Goes on if you familiar with that too.

29:14 Speaker 3: But anyway, so I don't know that's part of like my musical DNA's these weird like renaissanceyse psychedelic things, and so I started doing that and Joe immediately hurt and fell in with that.

29:27 Speaker 8: And that's the magic that I loved.

29:29 Speaker 3: What happens when especially Joe Joel jo key into something and it becomes more than just a passing thought that I might have had.

29:38 Speaker 8: It suddenly becomes part of the song.

29:41 Speaker 4: Yeah, and it fits, you know, it fits a little breakdown fits perfectly.

29:44 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's really cool. Yeah.

29:46 Speaker 5: So in the studio when we played that, Pete got up from behind the console and did this little call. It called it the fairy Gnome Dance because it sounds a little you know, medieval, yeah, psychedelic, and it's it's a it's just a different on mix right into the reggae song.

30:02 Speaker 2: You know, it's weird, but it works totally.

30:04 Speaker 5: So it's just kind of funny. We talk about a week it's called the Nome Dance, part of the Fairy Dance.

30:09 Speaker 2: It's just funny. Yeah, that's awesome.

30:12 Speaker 1: I love it And you should tell us you more about your involvement at Big Bear.

30:16 Speaker 5: Yeah, so, as I said, with a resident band over there and we helped produce the shows. I mean, I'm the one of the audio engineers, if you want to use that term loosely. I'm fairly new to all this stuff really obviously mix it all with my band, so I understand how to get the best sound out. My ears tell me what to do, but Pete has shown me a ton Also Willie Walker from a band called the Mighty Colors. They've played with us at Big Bear. So we started an annual benefit over there for Earth Day. So we go in, we played for free.

30:45 Speaker 5: We pulled in the Mighty Colors, they played for free, and we sold tickets to the event and packed the room and made you know, Andrea's Institute, the nonprofit, a couple thousand dollars and beaver Brook as well made a little bit of money, which is an environment mental cause. So that was our goal, is to raise and we just wanted to play in the room. That opportunity of us setting that benefit up now was a yearly opportunity. So last year we pulled in a morphous band with one of the original New England jam band guys, Peter Prince and Peter Prince in.

31:18 Speaker 7: Moon Boot Lover.

31:18 Speaker 5: Moon Boot Lover wasn't there, but Peter was just an amazing guitar player, singer, just unbelievable stage presence, total rock star, and his list of accolades just goes on and on and on. So having us being able to pull that show off, we ended up being asked to, hey, do you want to help run shows and produce? So all we've done is try to help you push the technology over there, get better, get better console, better equipment, better lighting. So I install all DMX lighting, concert lighting, did all the got new parts of the stage really kind of the stage and sound manager and lighting guy over there, and it's been wonderful for networking the network with you know, the Soggy Pool boys.

32:02 Speaker 5: We're just st in there recently rely I have put you know, a feather in my cap from mixing them. And thank god for Willy from the Mighty Colors came in and helped me out.

32:11 Speaker 2: So he was lead.

32:11 Speaker 5: And I'll take a one engineer or stage hand that day. And yeah, there's other guys that are willing to help, so they come in and I'll either have them be lead on the console or or I'll be lead and they'll it's just a great relationship. No one gets paid, but being able to have the room and what it's done for just our stage presence and everything has been it's been instrumental.

32:33 Speaker 4: Yeah, it's an old ski lodge actually from oh really, Yeah, he's been Musket Mountain or Big Bear, really been a couple of different names. But I remember skiing there when I was a kid, and yeah, it's like an old you know, cathedral ceiling. It's a great hall, great sound in there and just a you know, very vintage feel too.

32:50 Speaker 2: Yeah.

32:51 Speaker 5: Probably one of the best sounding rooms in New Hampshire without a doubt, just because of all the wood. And we're looking at upgrading the PA equipment pretty soon so I can get my stuff out of there and getting a really really nice system that's going to arrival almost any PA in southern New Hampshire.

33:06 Speaker 2: Oh wow.

33:07 Speaker 5: So we have a really also close relationship with Metronome Studios. They're right in Brookline as well. We don't record there, but they also produce all the lighting and video up at Guildford for Bank of New Hampshire. Oh so having those guys and they've been coming to help us out with a little bit of sound. We just put a brand new Barringer Wing forty eight channel console in and digital snakes really upgrading everything, so it's got the best sound and they've come in and helped me configure it.

33:34 Speaker 5: Pete came in for five or six hours the other day on no charge at all to help us configure this stuff. So it's kind of like a family atmosphere. And it's because this place is in a nonprofit and it's a free outdoor sculpture park that anybody can come at any time, open three hundred and sixty five days a year. But the Welcome Center has this amazing performance venue and they run concerts to try to get funds in to raise money for their nonprofit. So it's a good yin yang relationship.

34:01 Speaker 7: I love it.

34:02 Speaker 2: Yeah, it really helped the band out.

34:04 Speaker 8: Yeah it has, and and.

34:07 Speaker 3: A lot of people don't know about it because it went from being this skilage and this entertainment, you know kind of venue that then switched to a more nonprofit and the artistic side the sculpture park is amazing. It's all outdoors on these trails and mountains on the mountain, and they have a residency program where these sculptures come from all over the world and spend whatever what like six weeks three weeks, and they're given a stone right or whatever medium they don't metal, and they create work that then lives at the site.

34:49 Speaker 3: And so what Eric's done is kind of brought this closer to the community by reviving the sort of local connection that Big Bear used to have for like local music and people just going there to enjoy music. So it's kind of a new a symbiotic relationship. I think it's been great for both parties.

35:10 Speaker 2: It really has. Yeah. Oh that's fantastic. Yeah, that's great. That's great. And where's that?

35:14 Speaker 5: So that's in Brookline, Yeah, Brookline, New Hampshire, right across from the Alamo, which is a little barbecue restaurant thirteen.

35:20 Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah, okay cool.

35:22 Speaker 8: Eric's done a great job decking the place out with video also, Oh.

35:25 Speaker 2: Really, uh yeah, it's really nice.

35:27 Speaker 5: So we have we just put in a ten ADP stage camera very much like yours there, so coming in the ceiling, and we Dave Peas, who's a volunteer over there also works for Pepper Community Media. He's our video guy. He comes in has four ten ADP cameras or three ten ADP plus the stage camera that I just installed, and we have a video aggregator. So for shows we'll actually record all the stems on the digital console, all the wave files from every every channel, and we'll also have all this awesome video and then we're pitching that back to the bands because it's great for promo, having really good quality all the different cuts, and that helps us defer our costs from every concert make a little bit of money back, so it's you know, really reasonable and it's so far it's been good.

36:17 Speaker 5: Some of the bands have wanted to do that for us. Every practice we get it for free, so I'm sticking the the SD card in we can record every practice. I then bring it home, pulled into to reaper our daw and then we put it up on Google Drive so we can hear our progress every week and our whole history is up there that we can go back on and look at our catalog.

36:38 Speaker 2: And run a spreadsheet of everything. It's you know, I'm I'm pretty anal about that.

36:43 Speaker 4: The technical guy.

36:44 Speaker 5: I do all the social media, I do all the booking, all the promo, everything that that is frontward facing is me because that's what I do for a living. I'm you know, I do digital marketing and SKO and websites and stuff.

36:59 Speaker 6: So if you've ever seen Semi Pro with Will Ferrell. He's a character in that called Jackie Moon. Jackie Moon is you know, the he's the he's the you know, star player, he's the coach, he's the owner. And so a lot of times I refer to Eric as our Jackie Moon because you know, he's in the band, he's our manager, he's you know, the number one the sound engineer.

37:21 Speaker 2: Right.

37:22 Speaker 6: But but you know, honestly that the breakthrough for us, right having that access to that space at Big Bear, having that as a space you know, set up and dedicated for us to be able to utilize that was I think a big breakthrough for us, and being able to work on original material because like we talked about, right, it's it's it's not the first idea that's the best idea, right, It's like Chris said, he puts that you know, idea out, Joe latches onto it, Drew latches onto it, Rob and it becomes something you didn't ever intend to in the beginning.

37:48 Speaker 6: And so just you know, by virtue of having some time and space in our calendars over the winter, Eric will always.

37:54 Speaker 8: Make sure everything we do is recorded.

37:56 Speaker 6: I hear it from him if I turn off that mic for ten seconds. I hear about it the next game, but then allows us to go back through and go, oh, that really worked.

38:02 Speaker 2: Oh we could piece these together. Hey, let's work on developing this one a little bit more.

38:06 Speaker 6: And you make progress in a really, you know, much quicker fashion than if you just try to you know, go in and hammer it out over over five to six hours, right, just kind of organically, let it build, come back to it each week and see what see what comes comes naturally too.

38:19 Speaker 1: Yeah that makes sense. Yeah, No, that's great. That's that's really cool that you guys have that. Now, what's what's kind of the Are you playing a lot of shows? Have you been playing a lot of shows over the summer, or what's kind of.

38:29 Speaker 5: Been Usually take a break in June July or really I think the end of June was our last show. Oh and then we usually take July off. Everybody's on vacation. It's a nightmare. Try to do all our booking in February, March, and April. Oh a year, oh really, and then we'll leave a couple of weekends open and some benefit or festival or something might come up. And we've done like last.

38:51 Speaker 2: Year we had a wedding and I think I can show this. This is the Camp Paul poster. So yeah, yeah we do.

38:58 Speaker 5: We do custom posters and stuf for special events. And these people wanted to have a jam wedding, isn't it, So they ended up hiring hiring us to play this wedding festival.

39:10 Speaker 2: Feel did you draw it yourself?

39:12 Speaker 6: But you.

39:14 Speaker 5: Guys talking about AI, right, I don't have a graphic artist, so we end up using some AI and then I'm a little bit I'm dangerous with the graphic arts. So I'll get in there and I'll do I'll touch up and obviously make all of the the.

39:26 Speaker 2: Wording and the lettering.

39:28 Speaker 8: I really do like how that.

39:30 Speaker 5: You can tell AI is amazing for drawing stuff, but it can't spell at all, Like it'll take me a hundred times to get it to spell this, even though I put it in quotes and tell it what to do. You know, obviously this is a Chris is an artist, right, so that we have this discussion all the time, you know, it is his art getting stolen and then if I ask it to paint a tar painting or something, is his art going to show up one day? On a poster. But yet for a band it we don't You don't know. We don't have any to put much towards this week.

40:02 Speaker 5: We have an expensive PA and we put everything we have in our time. But I can't hire a graphic artist at our small size forever doing Northlands or something we get picked for the side stage. Yeah, I'll hire somebody to actually draw a real poster. But AI has helped us out tremendously to get that promo out there.

40:18 Speaker 3: Okay, oh cool, all right, No, no shame, man. I think that AI is great for stuff like that. It's perfect, you know, because you're not asking it to replace, you know, a great artist. You just want an awesome marketing image. That's what he is freaking great at exactly.

40:35 Speaker 5: But who originally drew this, No, nobody, it's probably I don't know.

40:40 Speaker 8: No, it's a composite, man.

40:41 Speaker 2: So that's what I don't know if we know.

40:43 Speaker 8: No it is. It's not just taken from somebody.

40:45 Speaker 3: It's a composite that's been taken from many places.

40:48 Speaker 2: I hope.

40:49 Speaker 5: So that's the only thing that I worry about.

40:51 Speaker 2: What it will take everything eventually.

40:55 Speaker 3: Yeah, but here's the thing, It'll never be as creative as human beings out.

41:00 Speaker 2: Right, right, Yeah, no, that's true, that's true.

41:03 Speaker 3: You know, if it comes down to it taking my image and putting it on something, why does that bother me?

41:11 Speaker 8: Because I think I'm owed something for that image? I personally don't feel that way. Yeah, that's business. That's not art.

41:18 Speaker 3: That's what you do as a you know, for a job. I make images, But that's not really that's not great art. That's not pulling something from your soul. And AI doesn't have a soul to pull from, right, If anything, I wouldn't see it's not going to And what I would always see is that stuff's advertisement for my art. Like even people like putting their pictures of their paintings online and they put big copyright signs and stuff. Who cares, Right, that's somebody who wasn't going to see or buy your art anyway, And you're onto the next painting and you know, guess what, you've actually got free advertising?

41:53 Speaker 3: Right, I don't see a problem.

41:54 Speaker 2: That's you're an artist too, so you know what I mean?

41:57 Speaker 5: That means a lot, it does, Yeah, it does. I just don't want to steal anybody stuff. Yeah right right, I did plenty of that when I was a kid stealing from Microsoft and all all.

42:07 Speaker 2: Those downloads, those games. Oh didn't we all?

42:11 Speaker 1: Yeah, didn't we all? Well, so we are running out of time. I do want to make sure. So now do you have anything coming up? And we do.

42:19 Speaker 5: We have two gigs next weekend. We're doing the rout and Bush Community Block Party in Westford, Massachusetts.

42:26 Speaker 2: Okay.

42:27 Speaker 5: That's kind of a public event for the folks, the fine folks of Westford, mass Okay. And that's a benefits show that we're going to help them do. And then we're playing the Tiki Bar at Nashoba Valley on the twenty third from eight to eleven. And then we are the next show after that, I believe is Pinucci's on September fourteenth, excellent, and that's on the deck right downtown, which is going to be a fun show.

42:49 Speaker 9: Yeah.

42:50 Speaker 2: I play a lot of Grateful Day.

42:51 Speaker 4: We got a Manchester cuts concered, cockered, we do, yeah.

42:56 Speaker 5: H the Old Thursday's Underground Music Stage.

42:58 Speaker 2: It used to be a Manchester one yea.

43:00 Speaker 5: And then we're also playing Old Home Days in Hollis on September twentieth, and then I think October tenth we're doing a private party in Milford October eleventh. We're playing Milford Pumpkin Fest along with you know, Fox and the Flamingo, Yeah, and all these other bands that are local out of the area. Cosmic Blossom, I think is also playing excellent. It's just a great lineup that weekend of really good music.

43:24 Speaker 2: Yeah.

43:25 Speaker 5: And then I think Old Home Days that one good Thing Took Me Down. That's the release date for that song.

43:29 Speaker 2: It's perfect. It's kind of going to be your release party. Yeah.

43:32 Speaker 5: And there'll be a couple thousand people in the field, and we're getting the sound professionally, professionally produced by AE Events, so that's great. We don't have to lug our pa. We'll have a professional stage, professional sound.

43:43 Speaker 2: Yeah. But I was here here right. Yeah, we appreciate it.

43:49 Speaker 5: And again we appreciate everybody that's kind of given us the support, and Pete for helping us get to that next level, andres and Big Bear for giving us a little opportunity as well, and for you right for having us in.

44:00 Speaker 2: Oh, hey, wonderful. We're honored, happy to do it.

44:02 Speaker 1: It's great to meet you guys, and I love what you're doing so absolutely so much.

44:06 Speaker 2: Absolutely.

44:07 Speaker 5: We'll keep you informed with any new releases we have. They're coming out soon. We got two more in the works, so you do, Okayeah, So we'll be releasing two more probably in the next few weeks.

44:14 Speaker 2: Oh wonderful. Yeah, send them to us.

44:16 Speaker 1: We'll play well, we definitely will. We'll give them the world radio premiere treatment. Awesome, absolutely, one hundred percent. One other thing, where's the best place for people to go online keep up with everything that you're doing.

44:25 Speaker 5: You go to jamdemic dot com, okay, and that's pretty much the hub of all of our stuff. We'll be doing a new website for that pretty soon because now that we're out there on the streaming.

44:35 Speaker 2: Web, we've got to really re.

44:36 Speaker 5: Rethink everything with these you know, the radio shows and the radio event the other day.

44:42 Speaker 2: There's a lot of new stuff that we've got to put up there. Yeah.

44:45 Speaker 8: Of course, we do have a pretty active Facebook page though.

44:47 Speaker 2: We do, and we're on Instagram.

44:49 Speaker 5: We're on band camp and jam base and bands in Town pretty much everywhere. Yeah, you know, you got to keep up on all that stuff.

44:57 Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, it's a lot to keep up with, Yeah, but yeah, you gotta do it. You got to It's part of the deal.

45:04 Speaker 5: If you want to grow and you want to get better gigs, and you want to market yourself, you've got to market it. And I think that's that's something that I'm starting to get into helping other bands out with my digital marketing experience. Yeah, and seeing how we've grown this. Yeah, there's a lot of opportunity for me to help other bands that just don't have a guy in the band that can do this right, So I encourage them to reach out to me. I'm more happy to guide them and give them some free advice or hook them up with an invoice if they want me to help them out.

45:31 Speaker 8: Yeah, seriously, it's it's makes all the difference. You know. We've come very far.

45:36 Speaker 3: We feel in three years, you know, yeah, or three to five years, you know that we never expected. And a lot of it's Eric's talent and dedication to getting the word out and to collaboration. He's kind of a collaborative marketer. He doesn't try to shove anything down your throat, but he finds the sweet spot where everybody benefits.

45:54 Speaker 2: Yeah.

45:54 Speaker 1: That's good, worth, excellent, excellent, Well guys, thank you so much, jam Demiic This has been wonderful and we'll definitely do this again in the future. And like I said, you know, send us your music as you got and we'll play it.

46:06 Speaker 2: Thanks Matt, thanks Jen, thank you and