Matt Connarton Unleashed 6-29-24 hour 3

I can find no spok can taking a streams. Are you going back roll?

You don't want problems? You don't want problems. Were gonna just stay to the money comes open this album get into the bag. Then another one. You don't want problems, don't We gonna just stay till the money comes open. The solve them open the so get into the bag. Then another one. This is to make them gold by the first sober how they heat it up a whole off the coach shoulder fact check really out. Next all I saw me like really nicess everything they watch no best way, he's trapping steak shots all and see a straight bullets the body, don't drop, don't trot.

Who's hot? Who's not? Like it's Me's a puff round here, brock tempkins dat rug. You don't want problems. We gonna just stay till the money comes open. This solveum open, so get into the bag. Then another one, you don't want problems problem, We gonna just stay to the money cash open the solve them open, the get into the bag. Then another I break for being on the scene. I had to get my bag ragged Vinson nor twenties rubber bend in mad take control the flower runner, rather live a fast life. Hold my wife grating, say the same as my fast life spending before Jillian never came into our language.

I can called a crody music because he on the same issues, say train, moving, gang, lifestyle, danger, sugar finger. Is it kind of looking like I'm saying this? Sh fly lego bird and spend the world like the refleet, stumba back and lose your whole gang trying to beat me last year shot they got the clipbom repeat funny funny with your shade on shop seen me. I shout like I'm a diamond, but I'm still in the rough. I'm so this is about all work like I live in the color man. I can tell these chiga cross and they thinking they something and he on the shirt r P hit us her fake.

I hope they gotta play finising it. Don't make me with this mask on and going say fenigga socca na Man's your operation be a staging and they rather shoot it out whom me. They ain't know the beating last years. You don't want problems, don't we gonna just stayed till the money comes open. This solve them open, So get into the bags, and another one you don't want problems, You don't want problem. We gonna just stay until the money comes, hoping the song on the bag, and another one you don't want no static, you don't want no staging, pistol packing the store.

Don't make him do the mathematics. Mathematic don't make you disappear like magic. My gang gonna make you go poof like the magicians, while flecho is some money back, go getting the until we got the cash. With some of them stops. I'm shooting like I'm never missing. All lives on me like I'm pop. I don't want to kill me. They don't want me with the pock. That's too bad for me. And I never stopped gangle, make him pop, stay a lot. I give him the drop ticking tough of um then, but when we see him, they just shook one.

We ain't my beat, but I know you ain't gonna crooks. Treat the booth like it's a kitchen. Go ahead and cook some about to do it. Big got the recipe from Brooklyn. Others been I swag out know we about to cash out all up in this session. Little so they got our sass out We're gonna stay lay, stay paid till we crash out. He's still trying to funny because getting a mission the straps, you don't want pro We gonna just stay till the money comes open this solve them, get into the bag. Then another one.

You don't want problems, you don't want problem. We gonna just stay till the money comes helping to solve them open. Ye, get into the bag. Then another number wouldn't have been this race. I know they dreaming about passing me up the damp position, or they wishing they get captured me shot them with them lean. It's got some killers in my faculty and with a mean one up, we're gonna turn them to a castle grinding just to chase my dreams. To get to miss by any means, try to take it. We're gonna beat your face up, like me believe talking like you're against saying your raps.

Just just make believe. Go to tan it on my body. But I'm skimming it off beats because they like the act up to they ask it wrapped up out here beefing when you again, bro go get your cash shocks falling like an MVP. You know I got my stats up the clip long. We're gonna get them going. If we mastered up, they laughed when I was Rokes and I was I'll be a humble body better pushing away. This is the muscle for the love of the hustle. Y'all the work making double y'all a dog win no muskleiggan. I came from the struggle.

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command God, don't get super maxill Welcome back, everybody. This is Matt Connerton Unleashed and we are live from the studios of wm NH ninety five point three FM and Glorious Manchester, New Hampshire at our Canal Street location. Today is Saturday, June twenty nine, twenty twenty four. And by the way, thank you to our wonderful guests Sepsis for joining us in the second hour. Always great to talk with them. And we'll share more about Swarmy Fest as it gets closer. And also we did play again to Hope the rapper the world radio premiere of his brand new single Problems, really really good, very catchy.

Love that quite a bit, let's see. I do want to let you know too if you are listening live, if you're looking for us on Facebook, the Facebook feed is down today the streaming software would not connect, so sorry about that. But of course you can stream the show. You can stream the audio from anywhere if you go to wmnhradio dot org or of course my website Matt Connorton dot com, slash live and if you're local in the Manchester area you can just listen at ninety five point three FM, so we encourage that as well.

We have joining us in the studio right now John MacArthur is here. Hello, welcome John. He Matt, 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, and by the way, we are going to play some of your music too, because you are a musician in addition, of course, but tell us about the NH Music Collective. Well, the NH Music Collective was actually started by Brad Myrick a number of years ago. He's just a super accomplished guitarist from Hillsborough.

Okay, Hopkinton, Sorry, hopkind I can even I've continued to answer. And it was sort of a side hustle business for him, uh, because people kept asking can you help us find other talent as good as you for to play some of the venues that he was playing, and so he grew that. But it was pretty much a side hustle business for him, and he was working out his strings and things. He was one of the first people that I met when I moved up here. He was actually he was introduced to me by Mikey g If you know Mikey g Oh, I think I do yeh.

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 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 in what he was doing, we decided to invest in in in a music collective and so we joined the team and it's been growing from there. Excellent, excellent.

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 are a musician. And one of these tracks that you sent is pretty new, I think right for these both new, they're both new. Actually, I just I've had in my mind this album that I wanted to do called Friends, Family and Me, Yeah, and so songs that I wrote, songs that 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 other switch a little more complex. Excellent, excellent. So let's play this and this is really pretty. Uh, how do you say? This is a terzaa tisa? Yeah? Okay, what does that mean? Is that just an 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, helps me think of it?

And is it just you on the song? That's 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. I love that. That is really nice. That is tirsa am I saying it correctly, John, John MacArthur is here with us live in studio. Do you do you fingerpick all of that? Or 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 a I even play bass with a pick.

I don't because I just like, to me, it's I can't image. What it must be like to use fingers to make all that happen. So I love that that is that is truly 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 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.

Actually that started as a collaboration between NAH 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, sort shortly after COVID hit shut a lot of things down, right.

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 a 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. Yeah, for our team of three, we did all right, from Maine down to Rhode Island. So we're not just New Hampshire, although that's the name NH Music, but most of our events are more of our events are New Hampshire, but 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, 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 Sun of you didn't get home till eleven thirty. After that, we had a We had a duo from the UK. They were top ten finalists in Britain's Got Talent, Oh wow, six years ago. Yeah, Jack Intemps. They're actually staying with my wife and and maybe 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. YEAHNT matter, I don't care. 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 n H Music Collective. How long has it been even 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? I guess I'm guessing the way things have gone may have exceeded your expectations or maybe not. I don't know. But you know, we got big we 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 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 we're and and create some real quality experiences for the audience.

So one of my favorites that I started, I started about I guess two years a little over two years ago was at sap House Metery and Center, Osipe, 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 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. Oh, I can 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 with Capital Center for the Arts and 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's 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 risk taking things for us where we're actually almost acting as a promoter. 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, the right Canon Canton, Canton Lounge, Canton ro I can't yeah, okay, but you you came for a 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, for a while. We started booking him a few I don't know, a year or two ago like that, and then you 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, 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.

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 go. It's like, don't go see music alone.

Yeah yeah, So anytime you want to go back Jen Kidd, 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 SENNI 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's tickets 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 there, but we couldn't flip it to the other side too late.

You need more staff for that. 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 or yeah that's a great idea, that's a great idea something, Yeah, give it us a friend. 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 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 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 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 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 go, 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. It 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 seats which can collapse down to a dance floor and one hundred seats or whatever. And then you've got the Chubb for really big, you know, much bigger shows. 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 opening acts or to recommend openings.

Yeah cool. 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 you know, we go through fifty sometimes artists and can't find someone else's pick this up. Sometimes I'll do it. 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 sing? I sing? Yeah, Yeah, I'm a picker and Grenner. Yeah, I'm an old folky. Yeah, you know, I used to play a lot of broke folk and okidd like that, but I like I you know, I grew up on Simon and Garfunkle, and I grew up on you know, more obscure, 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 hist.

He's a baritone, which is nice for me because I'm yeah, 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, no kidding, 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, was a psychologist. I came up and worked on I teach 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 NESCAM, New England School of Communications at Huston University.

And as he was getting ready to graduate, it's 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. Yeah, playing the college, start 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 a Minneapolis but I but great music scene. Yeah. But I would play up to Bmidgie, you know, I would play out, I play across Wisconsin down to Iya, 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 so, 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 king 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 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 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 there. 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 and 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 in to play it? 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. Yeah, 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, 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 to. 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 Nicola's out, one of Brad and Nicola's albums, which Nicola Cipriani is his duo partner, who's fantastic from Italy. He was over and we did that album. We did Eric Lindbergh'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 uh Rumboat Chili. Okay, sorry sorry Cam if you're listening Rumboat Chili 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, but we did that there EP and so really good stuff. 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 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, so 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 dr 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 yeah, and I've only learned that recently since all the incoming calls now come to me. Oh really yeah, yeah, so all of the phone. This is the oldest commercial studio in Maine, and it's had the same phone number since the beginning, kidding, and the building owner was getting all the calls and I since we acquired, I switched the phones to come to me.

Yeah, and it's just been remarkable. Yeah, that's great. So anyway, it's u But yes, you're right, because the big competition for a lot of studios is not another studio, it's home recording. Yep. Yeah, Well do the podcast at home. I'm going to record my album 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's very happy. He's working. You know, every day is a different a different project, and your day's a different experience, and 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. 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 was in 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.

Yeah, 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 bands. But so he was operating the studio that was on the property that we acquired when Sam when when Sam was graduating from NESCA and we were looking for a place. Yeah. Actually, the first recording that Sam did after we took over that space and installed a new a 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, uh 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, Oh very cool, very cool. Wow, that's awesome. I think what we should do because I want to play uh, 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. 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 just 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 willing. I love the way that sounds. Thanks. We were talking about broke folks. So I used to listen to a lot to John Renbourne. When I was in college.

There was another guitar player, Peter Angermeer, 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 tar. 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 Six 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 fret 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 fredboard must be miked too, right, it's not just 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. I'm working on it. We've got Sam's been working on the arrangements. By the way, the rest of the album will sound almost nothing like that. Really. I have two other songs I'm going to do and dad Gad tuning.

Both of those are in dad Gad. 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, 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 present, yes, yes, present, and 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 that Pat Tricksy to sort of vet singer songwriters. Bands are a little harder. Yeah, yeah, hey allergies. Yeah no, I was gonna say, I know the pain. Okay, 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 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. Yeah 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 didn't have enough venues, and the venues went for some of the venues want a lot of variety. Yeah, 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 yeah, two months.

So like, you got to have a lot of venues. If someone wants to work, I take a guy like Colin Hart or Rebecca Turmel. I don't know if you've talked to them, but yeah, Actually, while we met Rebecca Turmel at the Run Like Thieves show, Yes you did. Yeah, And she's she's coming on on my birthday actually on October. She's, oh cool, she's booked on the show. Yeah. But she also she plays like six nights a week. Sometimes she does doubleheaders.

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 one hundred bucks for four hours, We're not the right for them, right, 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 talent, 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 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's out there willing to pay something for performers, and some of them will pay fairly. Well, yeah, go out and hustle it. Get him 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. 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. Well. I've now hired him once. You know, I got him at one of the saff House Meter concerts where we do the food pairing. Right, Oh okay, 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 a 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 not You're not ready for this.

But but but you know, I mean, we have a we have a coaching program. So if someone's serious about wanting to improve, 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 and you very often those are like one and done sessions, we'll give him 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. Yeah. Yeah, Dan Fallon was one because he really good performer, didn't understand certain aspects of the business. Okay, the first 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 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, was listening to that and we always end up in these conversations too 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 gotta know this stuff. And the places where we'll see people fall down sometimes is I mean, is you can be as for example, as self taught guitarist. 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. Yeah, 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 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. 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 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 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 do it, come hang out with this at a venue. Yeah, yes, that's the best thing. Absolutely, No, Jenny and I loved uh 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 to see Ian Gallipo and Ian Archibald at p and each stage this uh 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, and 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 Concuer. 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 wmnhradio dot org and at my website Matt Connorton dot com. Thank you, uh 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. You don't want problems, you don't want problem. We gonna just stay till the money comes open this album Get into the Bags and another You don't want problems. We honest

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