Matt Connarton Unleashed: John McArthur

John MacArthur is here. Hello, welcome John Uh. You of course are

from We met through NH Music Collective. We were at the Run Like Thieves

show in Conquered and tell us tell us a little bit about that. By

the way, we are going to play some of your music too, because

you are a musician in addition of course. But but tell us about the

NH Music Collective. Well, the n H Music Collective was actually started by

Brad Myrick a number of years ago. He's just a super accomplished guitarist from

the from Hillsborough, Okay, hillsbro Hopkinson Sorry Hopkinson, I can't even remember

Hopkinson answer. And it was sort of a side hustle business for him because

people kept asking can you help us find another talent as good as you for

to play some of the venues that it was playing, and so he grew

that. But it's was pretty much the side hustle business for him, Okay,

And he was working out his strings and things. He was one of

the first people that I met when I'm moved up here. He was actually

he was introduced to me by Mikey g If you know Mikey g Oh,

I think I do. Yeah. When I came up here, I met

Mikey. I saw him at the common Man and Conquered and I told him

what I was up here doing, and he said, oh, you got

to meet Brad Myrik. So okay, I met Brad Myrik. I worked

with him for a little bit on some projects at a recording studio we had

in Guildford, and then my wife and I liked Brad so much of what

he was doing. We decided to invest in in a music collective and so

we joined the team and it's been growing from there. I want to hear

more about all of all of that and what you do, but I also

want to play let's i'd like to give, because I want to talk to

you about that. But I also want to talk to about your music because

you're a musician and one of these tracks that you sent is pretty new,

I think right for these both knew they're both new. Actually, I just

I've had in my mind this album that I want to do called Friends,

Family and Me, Yeah, and so songs that I wrote, songs that

my some friends wrote, yeah, some family members wrote. So we just

started putting it together and the first two tracks were the simplest one, so

I put those out. We're going back in the studio soon to finish up

the others, which are a little more complex. Excellent, excellent. So

let's play this and this is really pretty. Uh how do you say?

This is a terza tizzas tisa? Yeah, okay, what does that mean?

Is that just a name or does well? It's a it is a

name, it's a biblical name, but it also kind of translates to my

delight. Okay, and so when I think of this song, it helps

me think of my delight. And is it just you on the song?

It's just me on the song. Okay. Yeah, let's give this a

listen. It's short, but it's really pretty. I like this a lot,

and then we'll come back and talk more with John MacArthur. But check

this out. O. I love that. That is really nice. That

is tirtsa? Am I saying it correctly? You are John MacArthur is here

with us live in studio. Do you do you fingerpick all of that or

yeah, it's all finger pick. I'm always really impressed by that when I

when I see people do that, I don't feel like I'm a bass player

and I and I play with it. I even play bass with a pick.

I don't because I just like to me, it's I can't imagine what

it must be like to use fingers to make all that happen. So I

love that. That is that is really remarkable. We have another one of

your songs too that we'll we'll play later in the segment, but very beautiful.

Where do you record? Well, actually recorded that up at the studio

Portland. Okay, a quick update on on my wife and me. We

just made a major investment in the Studio Portland, so oh congratulations, thank

you. Yes, I are the majority owners of it now. Excellent started

as a collaboration between NH Music Collective and the Studio Portland and oh Reve and

I liked the like the studio, and actually our son is one of the

engineers there. He's he was the engineer on this song, oh outstanding,

and so so we decided to invest in it. And so it's been great

And that must be cool too, to be able to work with your son

creatively like that, that must be amazing. It is he's actually producing this

album and so it's so he's the engineer and the producer on this and doing

a lot of the arrangements so oh, very good, very good. Now,

so getting back to NH Music Collective, what is what are some of

the things that you do? You told us a little bit about the history

of it and how you got involved. What what does the collective do?

What are the goals of it in terms of I mean, obviously it involves

New Hampshire music and perhaps musicians from other areas as well. But but tell

us tell us about the kind of the mission statement of NH Music Collective.

Well, it's really been evolving. So the you know, we started this,

you know, shortly after COVID hit HUT a lot of things down right,

I mean, well, our investment in it and our goal initially was

to get musicians work, just get as much work as we possibly could for

musicians and at better pay, with better experiences for the musicians and for the

audiences. So as we think about venues that we want to work with,

we want to work with venues that are investing in music, care about both

music and the musicians and the experience that it creates for the audience. And

so it's just been growing from that perspective a lot. We did fifteen hundred

events last year. Really wow, I had no idea. Yeah, that's

incredible, that's incredible. If for our team at three we did all right

from Maine down to Rhode Island. So we're not just New Hampshire, although

that's the name h Music, but most of our events are more of our

events are in New Hampshire. We're expanding into other areas as well. So

you did fifteen hundred events in a year. Yes, you don't look tired,

but you must be. I'm exhausted. I'm actually exhausted because we were

in Portland, Maine. Brad and I were in Portland, Maine and Riva.

We're all in Portland, Maine on Thursday night for a live audience recording

of six singer songwriters, some of them from Manchester, by the way,

drove all the way to Portland to be part of this. And then last

night I was at delivery and Sunopy didn't get home till eleven thirty. After

that, we had a duo from the UK. They were top ten finalists

in Britain's Got Talent Wow six years ago, Jack in Temps. They're actually

staying with my wife and May. This weekend we put it. We got

four shows for them, so that was one of them last night. So

I'm exhausted. Yeah, yeah, but I'm having but I'm having a great

time. Yeah, no matter, yeah, yeah, there you go,

there you go perfect, That's perfect. Yeah. And how long? But

so you told us, but I forget what when did you first get involved

in an h music collective? How long has it been raven I invested in

June? June? I think twenty twenty. Okay, So, now did

you expect it to get to this point where you're doing so many shows and

where you're doing so much like what was your what was your expectation have you

because I'm guessing the way things have gone may have exceeded your expectations or maybe

not. I don't know. But we've got big We've got big dreams,

and we're starting to get to some of them. You know, we want

to elevate the I have to be careful, I always say, but we

want to we want to elevate the experience for the audience, right, And

so that means the musicians have to take it seriously, the venues have to

take it seriously and where and create some real quality experiences for the audience.

So, yeah, one of my favorites that I started I started about I

guess two years a little over two years ago was at SAP House metiy And

Center Ocsipe, which is in the middle of nowhere, right, And it's

a tiny little place, small, not much bigger than this studio, you

know. And so we partnered up with them to create a meat tasting.

They make honeywines there and a three course meal, right, and a one

hour concert and the music and the food are paired. So we've had Indian

performers. We had ashkan as the Indian food. We had Sunny Hunt there,

which I'm sure you know. So we had Senny there, and we

had West African food. We've done Cuban, we've done Brazilian and all that,

so that that kind of an experience. We sell those shows out.

They're just they're fabulous, imagine. And then I don't know, like giving

some of the local performers an opportunity to be on some bigger stages. This

partnership with Capital Center for the Arts in the Canton Lounge. Yes, but

then we had and and and now the challenge goal is after Taylor Hughes show,

I think I told you about, Yeah, Taylor, Taylor, somebody

had never done a ticket a concert before. Oh, he's amazing. We've

had him on the show. He's amazing. And he sold out the Canton

Lounge and he said, but I got twenty five people who want to buy

tickets, and so they said, okay, we'll flip you to the other

side. So we flipped it to the three hundred seat side. Wow,

and he sold that out, no kidding in June. Yeah, that was

amazing. That was phenomenal. So we're going to do some more shows with

him. We're working with some other theaters. Yeah, so anyway, we

want to So that's a long answer to your question, but we want to

elevate the opportunities for the for the local artists. We also want to create

touring opportunities for national artists and international artists. So we're starting to do that

with some of these concert venues that we're partnering with. Okay, and we're

just starting to get into more taking things for us where we're actually almost acting

as a promoter. Okay, okay, how many how many venues do you

currently have partnerships with? I mean, is it is it quite a few?

Or yeah, it's a lot. I can't even I haven't counted the

Brad has a bunch that he works with. I have a bunch that I

work with and then we collaborate on some so I have a spreadsheet. Yeah,

I'd have to consult that. I have lots of spreadsheet. Yeah.

Yeah, well no, that's good. That's good. Yeah. We were

very impressed because when when Jenny and I met you at the Canton Room,

right Canon Canton Lounge, can I can't Yeah, okay, but you you

came for Run Like Thieves. Yes, yes, And we'd never been there

before and walked in and it was like, wow, this is really nice.

This is really nice. It was it was great. I'll tell you

that was an interesting one for me because I've known Dan Fallon, who's the

lead singer for that, Yeah, for a while. We started booking him

a few I don't know, a year or two agoing like that, and

then he put together this band he used to have the Dan Fallon Band,

and then he had the Run then Run Like Thieves. I knew the bass

player, I didn't know the drummer, but now I know him. Yeah,

And and so we hadn't done too many bands there, and I said,

Dan, let's I like him? And said let's let's try this,

see if you can sell some tickets. Yeah. Ticket sales are fascinating for

me. So so for Dan's show, I think we were a week out

and we sold thirty five tickets, yeah, and a whole seventy five seats

right, Yeah, And the day of the show, we were turning people

away. No, okay, that's so many last minute people. I wish

if I could do, if I could change one thing here, it would

be have people make a commitment early to get out and see live music and

bring a friend. Yep. Yeah, yeah, I have a new religions.

I it's like, don't go see music alone. Yeah. So anytime

you want to go back, Jed, you're game, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. So obviously in that situation, it was too late to flip him

to the the bigger room. Yeah. So that's the thing, right,

And then we had and then we had the same situation with Sennie. When

Senny played there, he was coming back, he's a big following, he

has a big following, and he was in the same situation. It was

thirty five or so, his ticket sold and luckily the person who handles the

box office was there that night and they let me bump it up to like

ninety two upstairs, but we couldn't flip it to the other side too latecause

you need more staff for that. Yeah. So anyway, it was a

great These are great experiences, but hey, message to your listeners please please

make a commitment early. Bring a friend. It matters to the venues so

they can plan better. It matters to the performers and and if you if

you, if you think you might not be able to come, something might

come up. Give the ticket away to a veteran. Yeah, that's a

great idea. Yeah, that's a great idea something. Yeah, yeah,

yeah, people probably don't don't think of that in terms of not waiting,

because in this social media world that we live in, you know, you've

got so many options of different things you can do, and it's it's probably

this hadn't occurred to me until until you, uh brought this up, this

subject up, But yeah, it's probably too easy for people to just kind

of wait till the last minute. And and they don't you know, of

course they don't know that that can cause a challenge for the artists and the

venue and whatnot if they don't If you don't know, it's no different than

if you're planning a party and you want to kind of have an idea of

how many people are coming, so you know how much food to get or

whatever, you know, and and if you don't know and you get all

these people showing up at the last minute you weren't expecting, it can cause

a problem. Yeah, I guess the great thing is if you turn someone

away at the door, Yeah, where'd we'll get out? You need to

start committing right, Yeah, there you go. Well, and it's a

good problem to have in the sense that you know, you're you're doing something

that there's high demand for. And and and this artist is obviously ascendant if

they're you know, they're building a follow and if people who want to see

them, so so that's uh, that's that's great. And now in terms

of the partnership with and I'm I'm familiar. I live in Manchester now,

but I grew up in Conquered so I'm very familiar with the Capital Center.

It's the Capital Center, right, It's capital Center for the artist. Because

the only reason I hesitate on that because when I was a kid it was

the Capital Theater and I don't remember when it changed, but at some point

when I was growing up, it changed from Capital Theater to Capital Center.

Yeah. Well, and I don't know the full history. I get.

I think there's a book about the history of the smaller venue. Oh that's

available at the at the bookstore across at Gibson's. Oh yeah, I met,

I met the guy who who's I think his mother or his grandmother used

to run them when it was a movie theater. Yes, I remember that.

I remember being really little and my dad taking me to that theater to

see Raiders of the Lost Ark. Okay, there you got there, you

go so so, and he would tell stories about sleeping upstairs at the theater.

Oh wow. Yeah. But yeah, so they acquired it. They

saved that building because they had the chub I think, you know, and

then they saved and renovated being H now it's being H stage. Yeah,

was Capital Theater, right, so the movie theater. Yeah, yeah,

right, it was a movie theater. Yeah, did a major renovation and

it's turned into a great flex space, meaning you've got the lounge upstairs,

which is a little bit like Jimmy's almost in in in Portsmouth, you know,

with the lounge seating and stuff like that. And then and then you've

got the very flexible other side, which is three hundred seat which can collapse

down to a dance floor and hundred seats or whatever. And then you've got

the Chubb for really big, you know, much bigger. Yeah, it's

great, it's just great. They've been and we've been able to get some

opportunities for some of our local performers to open for acts on the big stage.

And yeah, so that's important to me. They're not they're now going

to us for that opening acts, yeah, or to recommend opening acts.

That's fun. Yeah cool, yeah. Yeah. Do you play out?

Yeah, I occasionally play a farmer's market, or if we get a last

minute sub request and we and we've gone through four hundred and fifty, No,

we go through fifty. Sometimes artists can't find somebody else's pick the sub.

Sometimes I'll do it. Oh. I enjoy playing out, but I

I don't need to play out, and I don't really want to take work

away from other art honestly. Yeah, because a lot of our arts are

full time performers. Yes, how they make their living. Yeah yeah,

yeah. Yeah. When you do play out, do you just do you

do instrumentals or do you also single saying yeah, yeah, I'm a picker

and grannar. Yeah, I'm an old folky. Yeah, you know,

I used to play a lot of barke folkky like that, but I like

I you know, I grew up on Simon and Garfuncle, and I grew

up on you know, more obscure uh, more obscure stuff. Yeah.

So, but I'll play occasionally songs that people know. I'm also a big

fan of David Wilcox songwriting. I don't know if you know him, but

I love his little He's a baritone, which is nice for me because I'm

a baron. Yeah, so much music is for tenors, That's true.

Where are you from? Are you? You're not from here originally? Right,

I'm from all over. I was born in Miami Beach, grew up

in western Colorado, back to Florida, met my wife in Florida. Then

we moved to Minnesota where and then to Texas and then to Massachusetts and then

up here. Oh yeah, I've been all over? Yeah, yeah,

what what brought it up up here? Ultimately? Well, New Hampshire specifically,

or the northeast both Okay, the Northeast because my wife is a neuropsychologist

in addition to being a third of NH Music Collective and a major investor in

the studio. But she's a neuropsychologist, and she came up to work in

a head injury rehab facility in Boston and in the Boston area, And so

I was in Texas. I had left music at that point and I had

started working in it, and so so she got the job as a neuropsychologist.

I came up and worked an IT job up for a bank in Boston.

Yeah. We came to New Hampshire because our oldest son found his passion

in audio recording and he went to NESCA, New England School of Communications at

Huston University, and as he was getting ready to graduate, it was like,

okay, he's not you know, he needs a place to work,

and so we just we've stumbled on a property that had a studio on it,

so we bought it and then I came up here to help him grow

the business. When you I'm curious about this, So you were when you

were still living in Texas. So you left you say you left music,

Yeah, because I don't play country. I was doing really well in Minnesota,

and yeah, playing the college started get playing every every restaurant, every

every everyone had music in Minnesota in the early eighties. Everywhere where in minutes

wasn't Minneapolis. I was in Minneapolis, but music. But I would play

up to Bamidgie, you know, I would play out, I play across

Wisconsin down to Ia, Iowa. So I was playing all around that area,

playing five, six nights a week. Yeah wow, Yeah, so

you were full time. I was full time. Yeah. When when my

wife and I met, I was I was full time music. So I

did that for while. She finished her PhD and she did her first post

doc up in Minnesota, and then she got her first faculty position at University

of Texas. And I don't play country, and the money was lousy,

no kidding, the money was horrible. Yeah wow. So uh and with

and without playing country, there was really no There was really no opportunity at

that point. I mean there was a little bit in Austin, but not

a lot. It wasn't like it is today. Yeah, because I was

going to say today it's it's such a vibrant scene. For I had an

agent in Minnesota kind of like what well, the opposite side of the equation

from what anach music collected. But I had had a booking agency that was

my pretty much my sole representation. Yeah. And then and then in uh

in Texas, I got an agent down there, but the gigs were just

horrible. Wow. Yeah, drive two hundred and fifty miles because you can

in Texas without leaving the county. Yeah you know, yeah, get paid

fifty bucks in no hotel and gets you know, it's like, no,

was it was it difficult for you to make that transition or or it wasn't

It was time? You know? Yeah, it was it was time for

me at that point. Yeah. So a lot of musicians get burnt out

anyway and kind of need need a break. Yeah, well they do,

and I you know, I think, I mean, Texas wasn't going to

be my home. Turned out it wasn't my wife some me either. She

was ready to go within six months. So so we we only stayed in

Texas for about eleven and a half months. Oh okay, and then she

got this job opportunity in Boston, so so I followed her up there,

up up to Boston. Oh excellent. So once that happened, did you

did you jump right back into playing? No? I didn't get that point.

I'd already started down the its path, and yeah, got a little

more addicted to money, you know, right, And I knew that.

I knew as a musician, I wasn't going to blow up. You know,

I'm a songwriter. I like what I do. I liked some of

the songs I write. I don't like them all. I like what I

play, I don't like all that I play, so, you know,

and and I find it, found a sort of a more natural fit for

me in it. And so I did that for a lot of years.

And so what was it now? You talked about your son and buying the

property with the studio and everything. When that was happening, did you kind

of think like, did you know that that was really just the beginning of

you plunging all the way in like you have now. I had no idea,

really, I had no idea. No. I was I was working

as an analyst for an IT consultancy, Gartner Group, and you know that

was They're the probably the largest IT consultancy. And you know, I had

clients all over the planet, and I was traveling some, you know,

before COVID, I was traveling some. But we all worked remotely, so

I could work from anywhere. Yeah, you know, yeah, so,

but just gradually over time it just got more and more of you know,

Brad and Reeve and I started growing in a music collective. The studio.

The studio was not growing as fast as we wanted it too. I'm really

proud of some of the recordings that came out of there. Sam did a

fabulous job. Brad produced some of the music there. We actually did Brad

and Nicolas out one of Brad and Nicola's albums, which Nicole Chipriani is his

duo partner, who's fantastic from Italy. He was over and we did that

album. We did Eric Lendbergh's album. We did if you remember Victim of

Circumstance, I think so. Yeah. So they've all broken up as a

band, but they're all playing in great bands now. So so Harrison's playing

in River Saying Wild and and Cam is playing in a rumboat Chili. Okay,

sorry sorry Cam, if you're listening Rumboat Chick and and and Brad.

I don't know what Brad's doing right now. Brad Hartwick, he went off

to another band for a while. So anyway, yeah, but we did

that there ep and so really good stuff. Yeah, so we did He's

done. Sam's done all the cameos, the recordings if you know her,

and yes, actually yeah so anyway, but Portland is is a great place

now, so Sam moved. Sam came to us a year and a half

past a day. I want to go to Portland go always been a great

scene. Yeah, it's a great scene there. And there's more musical diversity

maybe yeah there, which is nice. Yeah. So yeah, so it's

just worked out really well. Is is the marketing of a recording studio in

this era? Is it? Is that a big challenge because there's so many

of them? Well not with you talking about it right there, Well,

you know, I think when you think about recording. So first of all,

this is the studio that we acquired is a commercial studio, meaning it

does voiceover, it does podcast, does a d R for for movies.

Oh wow, it also records albums. Yeah, it's a training program for

for aspiring producers recording engineers. So you've got a lot to offer. There's

a lot. There's a lot going on in that place. So and I've

only learned that recently since all the incoming calls now come to me. So

all of the phone. This is the oldest commercial studio in Maine and it's

had the same phone number since the beginning, and the building owner was getting

all the calls and I since we acquired, I switched the phones to come

to me, and it's just been remarkable. Yeah, that's great. So

anyway, it's uh but yes, you're right, because the big competition for

a lot of studios is not another studio, it's home recording. Yeah.

Yeah, we do the podcast at home. I'm going to record my ALM

at home. I'm gonna yeah, And there's nothing wrong with that, right,

It's a little more difficult to do a full drum kit at home with

proper acoustics. Yeah, absolutely. But anyway, you know, so we

also want to be a support mechanism for home recorders too. We'll help them,

we'll train them. Yeah. Oh that's really cool. Yeah. And

our competition there is Berkeley, that's what seventy eighty thousand a year. Yeah.

I did a summer program there and yeah it's expensive. No, So

that's great, that's great, And your son must be very happy. He's

very happy. He is very happy. He's working. You know, every

day is a different a different project, and your day's a different experience,

and he's super super technical, so that's good. He can handle all of

the surprises that come up. Yeah, yeah, because I would imagine in

the beginning there must have particularly been a lot of surprises going into a situation

like that. Well, he actually wired that studio for the for the for

the other producer. They're the one who sort of took over that business from

the prior operator. Oh so Sam has they call him soldering Sam. Yeah,

so he actually wired up that studio in the storage studio that he had

before that. So he and Ryan Ordway have a great relationship. Oh yes,

Oh what band was it I used to book? I was? I

worked as years ago? Jeez, this might have Oh my god, where

does the time go? I think this was twenty years ago? Years ago.

I was going to say Ryan Ordway wasn't a band that I used to

book? I did. I was a booking agent for a bunch of bands

and what the hell was the name of the band? I can't remember the

name of the band now, but Ran Ryan's amazing. I haven't talked to

him in so long, but wow, Yeah, but I used to see

him like a few times a month because I was booking his band pretty heavy.

I can't remember what the name of the band was, you know,

and I don't know, I've I don't I don't even know the name of

his band. But so he was operating the studio that was on the property

that that we acquired when Sam when when Sam was graduating from NESCA and we

were looking for a place. Actually, the first recording that Sam did after

we took over that space and installed a new console was in collaboration with Ryan

with you'll you'll probably you'll probably know this name, Alex Preston. Yes,

so Alex. So we actually recorded a couple of the songs Sam did of

of Alex when one of in one of the albums that he did after he

was third I think it was third place on American Idol or something like that.

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, very cool, very cool.

Wow, that's awesome. I think what we should do because I want to

play We've got We've got a little bit more time to talk, but I

also want to play this other song. I think it's willing, willing.

Anything we should know about this one. The only thing, the only story

on this one is sorry, the only story on that is that I had.

I have a fellow that I used to play with, Alan Gross,

down in Florida, and when I told him I was going to do this

album as I was going to include one of his songs, and I told

him I was going to put Tirtsa on it, he said, well,

you got to do this other song that I've got that I heard you play

once and I'd forgotten that I wrote it. He said, but I want

this on the album, and so I don't play it out because it's really

short, it's very simple and you need a real listening audience to play it.

So I need to say you got to put it on the album.

Set. So this is for Alan Gross, my former playing partner, that

I that I agree to put it on the album. All right, very

nice, and this is called Willie. I love the way that sounds.

Thanks. We were talking about Barke folks. So I used to listen to

a lot to John Renbourne. When I was in college. There was another

guitar player, Peter Angermeyer, that I played with some and he would play

these most remarkable things in dad gad tuning, and I didn't know dad gad

tuning d A d G A d tuning on guitar. He was playing this

song, It's like, how'd you do that? How'd you do that?

Asking him about it? So I sort of got addicted to that tuning.

Well. John Renbourne plays in that tuning a lot. Okay, he was

with a group called Pentangle back in the sixth seasons. Okay, yeah,

Yeah. I just love the way the way the guitar sounds and when you

can when it sounds so good that you can you can hear the fingers moving

on the frat board, you know what I mean. I love that because

that's not an easy thing to capture. Yeah, and and Sam, as

I said, recorded that and what I love about the way But it's the

same thing with Brad and Nicole Nicola's album. Yeah, if you get a

chance to listen to to that one, it was just the guitar sounds that

he's able to capture. He has a lot of microphones on the guitar.

It's not one, it's not one microphone, He's got a lot of Yeah.

Yeah, because the next the frendboard must be miked too, right,

It's not just put mic in front of the body of the guitar. Yeah,

you know, I am not an engineer. I don't even play one

on TV. I leave it to the experts. I'm always super curious about

that. But yeah, yeah, no, but we got to get him

on the show. But but yeah, the sound of that is is just

just really really good. Did you say, do you have an album that

you're working on? Working on it? We've got, uh, Sam's been

working on the arrangements. By the way, the rest of the album will

sound almost nothing like that, really, I have. I have two other

songs I'm going to do and dad gad tuning. Both of those are in

dad Gaid. But then I'm going to do a song that my brother wrote

called Sugarfly Mama, which is nothing like Yeah, any of these, and

I've got a few others. Yeah, very cool. If you're just joining

us. We have John MacArthur here with us live in studio, and John

is from NH Music Collective. And now getting back to that a little bit.

We had a few minutes left. What Jenny is here as well?

By the way, Jenny, Jenny was busy typing away on something, but

hello, Jenny, I'm president, Yes, yes, present Dan account In

terms of NH Music Collective, how do you how does that work, Uh,

bringing in artists to work with I mean, do do artists reach out

to you that want to work with the collective? Do you seek them out?

Is it both? Is it so? It's a little bit, it's

it's a lot of both. We probably get twenty inquiries a month wow of

hey, how do A lot of times the conversation will start like, hey,

I'm looking to play more in New Hampshire. You seem to be booking

all the all the venues that I want to play, so excuse me,

So you know, how can I become part of the collective? I started

running an open mic at Patrick's. Yeah, the sort of vet singer songwriters

bands are a little harder, Yeah you got yeah, hey allergies. Yeah

no, I was gonna say, I know the pain it's lack of Oh

okay, well I think I met three nights in a row of four hours

of sleep, so yeah. But yeah, So I try to get out

as much as I can. I mean, I'm out listening to music four

or five nights a week if if I can. Some of that's just checking

on our venues. But we're talent virus for venues. We're not agents for

artists and a lot of I think a lot of artists don't understand the difference.

So the venues hire us to book talent for them, right, I

tell people who who are looking for places to play, there are lots of

places to play. Yes, we book a lot of venues, but there

are lots of places to play. And I don't care how good you are,

we would never be able to keep you sufficiently full to fill your whole

calendar if you're a full time musician. I don't have enough venues, and

the venues want for some of the venues want a lot of variety. Like

I have several venues that they don't want to see the same person more than

once a quarter or once oh okay week, so two months. So like,

you gotta have a lot of venues. If someone wants to work,

I would take a guy like Colin Hart or Rebecca Turmela and if you've talked

to them. But yeah, actually, while we met Rebecca Turmel at the

Run Like Thieves show, Yes you did. Yeah, she's she's coming on

on my birthday actually in October. She's oh cool, she's booked on the

show. Yeah, but she also she plays like six nights a week,

yeah, sometimes she does double headers. Colin Hart's the same way. I

mean, I couldn't possibly they Yeah, you do the math. Okay,

yes, we did fifteen hundred events, but we worked with over two hundred

musicians. Well that doesn't the math doesn't work there to be their sole agent.

Yeah, yeah, so you know so, but we are adding,

we're adding some venues, you know, selectively, carefully. Yeah, we're

not right for everybody. Yeah, you know, the people who want to

pay an artist hundred bucks for four hours, We're not the right ag for

them, right, you know, Yeah, if they if they, if

they want to really invest in music, and then then then we might be.

And if want to invest in the marketing of their performances and create good

experiences for so, then yeah we might be. Yeah. Do you ever

have anyone approach you? And and obviously I wouldn't watch you to name names

or anything, but does anyone ever approach you where you have to say,

I'm sure delicately and carefully, but you're not ready. You're you're not ready

for us to work with you. You've got to work on your your craft

a little more. Yeah, I'm very I'm actually very direct about that.

Are you yeah. Yeah, and and and it doesn't mean that they can't

go out and get work. Like I said, there are lots of venues

out there willing to pay something for performance, and some of them will pay

fairly. Well yeah, yeah, go out and hustle it, get them

yourself for the What we focus on is matching what the venues tell us they

want with the artists that we have in our roster. Yeah. And sometimes

that means I may hire somebody like I just during COVID and my wife was

down in Massachusetts still and I was up trying to help the studio business in

Guildford. I started taking lessons from David Hamburger online. David Hamburger is this

great fingerstyle blues guitarist out of Austin, Texas. Okay, well I've now

hired him once. You know. I got him at one of the staff

House Meter concerts where we do the food pairing. Right, Oh okay,

yeah, David Hamburger, so you know what the what was the food pairing?

I love it that he plays slide guitarist. We had sliders and I

love Hamburgers. That's fantastic though, That's awesome, it's great and he's willing

to roll with that. He doesn't feel like you're making fun of his name.

Yeah, that's good. He's he stayed with us, he was,

he's a great guy. We will get him up here. Yeah again,

Oh that's cool, that's very cool. Yeah. I mean I only ask

because I know, you know, sometimes when you're when you're in that position,

because I used some years ago, like I said, I did booking

agent work and I was a promoter. I would do local shows and you

know, every once in a while i'd hear from somebody and I'd have to

say, you're you're not You're not ready for this. But but but you

know, I mean, we have us. We have a coaching program.

So if someone's serious about wanting to improve you, we will work with them.

And it's across the all aspects of their performance, style, their business.

You know, what they're doing from a business perspective, what they're doing

from a marketing perspective. We charge for it similarly to you would for a

good guitar lesson. Sure, Sure, And so we'll sit down, we'll

go over there, what their goals are, and we'll give them things to

work on and if they very often those are like one and done sessions.

We'll give them enough work for the next six months that they don't need one.

But some people will will come and you know, for some period of

time, they may come have a session once a month or once a week.

Dan Fallon was one because he really good performer, didn't understand certain aspects

of the business. The session paid for itself ten times over because he learned

how to file for his royalties. Okay, excellent. Yeah, yeah,

so we try to focus on the whole aspect of the three sixty of being

a musician in the do it yourself world. That's no, that's really cool.

Yeah, I had no idea that you did that, and and that's

something that is so desperately needed, you know, because yeah, and actually

coincidentally, you know, we had the band Stepsist in here earlier to that,

and we always end up in these conversations to about the music industry and

yeah, knowledge it's power, you know, And and I know a lot

of you know, a lot of musicians don't want to have to learn some

of the things that you need to learn to survive as a musician. But

but it's called the music business for a reason. And yeah, you know,

if you want to have a long career, you got to know,

you got to know this stuff. Yeah, and the places where we'll see

people fall down sometimes is I mean, is you can be as for example,

a self taught guitar. I can tell you if you're a self taught

guitarist and you go take lessons from Brad Myrick for a year, you'll be

a better guitarist. You just will, because he is one of the best

guitarists around and and and he will teach you stuff, you know, if

he can't. If you haven't figured out how to get out of the first

position right, or how to do chord and substitutions or inversions or whatever,

you know. And it's not like going to Berkeley, it's like very It's

about developing musicality, it's about developing knowledge. And so actually we have a

number of he has a number of students just around uh music and guitar,

not about so he's doing that as well. Yeah. I tend to focus

a little bit more on live performance and on some of the business sides of

things. Yeah, now that's great. Oh wow, it's late. We

gotta we gotta begin to wrap up. But John, I'm so glad you

came in. This has been a fascinating discussion. Thank you for the time,

absolutely, league, glad to do it. Where should people know to

keep up with everything that n H Music Collective is doing? Where should they

go online? Well? Facebook, we post every day all the shows that

we're doing at every venue. Right, so that's one place you can go.

Instagram, we have a website. We're going to improve it this year.

Okay, we have a website, but our full, full, full

calendars on the website, so you can look at that and see what we've

got there. Okay, and yeah it's and just come see us, come

to it, come hang out with us at a venue. Yeah, that's

the best thing. Absolutely, No, Jenny and I loved that that run

like the show. That was a lot of fun. And they're such a

great band too, they're so good. Well, come see Ian Gallipo and

Ian Archibald at PNAH Stage this next the first Sunday of July. Oh very

cool. Yes, okay, yes, So one of my quick discoveries is

that when I came to New Hampshire that it's a bunch of micro climates.

Yeah right, yeah, it's so. Both Ian's are from down south and

we're doing the show and conquered, so we want to see everybody come out

and support somebody who's not from Concord. There you go, there you go,

very good, very good, John, thank you so much. This

has been wonderful. Jenny, do you want to plug your website before we

go? You got it. You got a lot of a lot of stuff

going on, a lot of stuff going on. You can go to Gencoffee

dot com j E N N C O F F E y dot com to

find out more and find out information on my new substack. Very good.

Yes, and congratulations on that. Thank you, absolutely absolutely all right.

We gotta go. If you miss any part of today's show, it'll be

up in just a little bit at w m n hradio dot org and at

my website Matt Connorton dot com. Thank you Sepsis for coming in earlier.

And John MacArthur, thank you again, and uh, thank you again to

Hope the wrapper for this great track Problems. We'll play a quick snippet of

it as we go and we'll talk to you a little bit later. Bye

everybody, Bye, Problems Problem. We don't just stay to the money.

Come open this album open, so get into the bag and another one.

If you don't want problems, you don't you want to stay