The Musicians Guild with Steve Choi

So good to be back, and thanks for joining us again for another season of The Musicians Guild. We will be starting this new season off with a story about being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but still managing to find a way to get free so you can make the show and play. You are an important part of The Musicians Guild. Thank You.

Greetings earthlings. This week we are very happy to welcome someone with an enormous wealth of experiences and knowledge who is called Brian Diaz. Brian is a musician who has played in bands such as Edna's Goldfish and The Reunion Show but his main gig is as a guitar/bass tech for bands such as Fall Out Boy, Guns n' Roses, Garbage, Primus, Bush and many many more. In addition to being a top notch...

Welcome back. This week I get to sit down and talk with one of my oldest and closest friends, Aaron Nagel. In his previous life, Aaron was a musician and played trumpet in Link 80 and then guitar in DESA. Now, he is an acclaimed and revered painter/artist, devoted creative and all around fascinating human being. I really enjoy getting to find the connection between Aaron's musical self and his vis...

This week we welcome movie Director and old friend Matt Bettinelli-Olpin to the hall of discussion. Matt is the director of the latest Scream which is the huge horror movie franchise created by legend Wes Craven that is set to be released in January of 2022. Matt was also the original guitarist and one of the founding members of Link 80 who was on AsianManRecords. Matt and his 2 other partners mak...

The Musicians Guild is honored to have producer engineer Steve Evetts in our hall of discussion. If you're a fan of anything within the galaxy of punk/metal/hardcore then you already know Steve's work. He has made/worked on albums for bands such as Dillinger Escape Plan, Saves The Day, The Wonder Years, Kid Dynamite, Sepultura, Every Time I Die, Torch, The Cure and so many more. His sincere and ea...

Greetings Earthlings, and welcome back for another episode of this pod. This week we welcome Elliot Babin, drummer of Touché Amoré to the hall of discussion. I love Elliot's drumming style and his attitude towards life and it was great to discuss life on the road as well as life at home with such a fine musician and human. Among those things I just mentioned, we also discuss European punk squats,...

Welcome back! Good to be back. Good to have you here, thank you. I had to drop some heavy claims in my intro but you know how it goes. This week we are honored to have a very old friend step inside The Musicians Guild, a true musical craftsman and all around great human Ken Vasoli. You may know Ken(ny) as Vacationer or as fronting The Starting line. As always it was great to catch up with an old f...

This week we welcome Amber Carew to The Musicians Guild. Amber is A&R for Saddle Creek and if you don't know what that is we discuss the former and current meaning of that title somewhere in the conversation. I really appreciate the existence of people like Amber in the music industry as her ethos is informed by her coming from one of the most amazing places on earth; New Orleans. The sincerity an...

This week the Musicians Guild welcomes Brian Moss (Hanalei) to the hall of discussion. Brian is a musician from the Bay Area who now teaches high school but that hasn't slowed him down as he just finished a new Hanalei full length album which is set to be released on AF Records. Brian is a prolific songwriter as well as being a new father, surfer, and avid outdoorsman. In this conversation we disc...

Musical musings downstream of consciousness feeding the cascade of activity. Thank you for being a part of The Musicians Guild!

We are back in session and this week we welcome Porter McKnight who is the bassist of Atreyu as well as a photographer and graphic designer. Porter is a human of many talents that has been able to focus his high energy self into accomplishing many tasks and maintaining a very high creative output. We catch Porter on a fine Saturday in January from his family farm in rural Alabama to discuss our ap...

This week we are honored to invite Brendan Kelly into the hall of discussion. Brendan plays bass and sings in The Lawrence Arms and The Falcon and has other projects such as Brendan Kelly and The Wandering Birds. Brendan has also written for The Onion and creates some of your favorite articles for The Hard Times with this wonderfully dark sense of humor. We linked up on a Sunday evening during the...

This week we welcome Lucie Barinkova into the discussion hall. Lucie is a live sound engineer, tour manager, and production manager. Lucie has toured with Thundercat, Flying Lotus, The Hives, Refused, RX Bandits, Spoon, B-52s, The Knife, Spoon, Gaslight Anthem and currently is production manager for Usher and 88 Rising as well as working for many other bands that are not listed. Lucie is from Aust...

This week The Musicians Guild welcomes Joey Vannucchi (From Indian Lakes, Joe Vann). Joey is a musician and songwriter from California and after spending a while in Harlem after starting a coffee shop there, he returned to the land he grew up on to build his own tiny house and settle. We talk about that and also get into recording an album at Sound City Studios, his entrepreneurial ethics, his lov...

This week we welcome Peter Tsouras into The Musicians Guild. Peter is a guitarist from Washington DC and plays in Be Well and Fairweather among other bands. Peter is also a museum technician in the museum wonderland of DC, and his museum focuses on Byzantine and Pre-Colombian art. Among many other things we discuss his museum work, what he likes to listen to in his workshop, the Gibson Goldtop Les...

This week The Musicians Guild welcomes Charlie Saxton into the forum of discussion. Charlie is a musician and fronts his band Much Better. Charlie is also an actor and stars in Netflix's Troll Hunter Trilogy created by Guillermo Del Toro as well as being in production for the Troll Hunters feature-length film. In addition, Charlie has also starred/appeared in HBO's HUNG , New Girl, and Silicon Val...

This week's guest is my very close friend Vinnie Caruana. Vinnie comes from Long Island, NY but now resides in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. In addition to being in I.A.T.A. and The Movielife, he is also in Constant Elevation and is a bandmate to me in Peace'd Out. Vinnie was out in CA working on a project for some friends and I traveled to Bright Mountain studios where we caught up and had a good time ha...

Augusta Koch is a singer/songwriter based in Philadelphia. Her old band Cayetana opened for RX back in 2015 and I've enjoyed her vocal stylings ever since. We catch up from her studio/creative getaway in the Pocono Mountains and in this conversation we discuss being prolific out of insecurity, Gladie releasing 2 eps and a full length in 2020, her getting into making stained glass, feeling like the...

The Musicians Guild welcomes Jon Sortland. Jon is a musician and drummer extraordinaire and plays in The Shins, Broken Bells, Cigar, EV Kain and Hot Summer. When he isn't touring or recording he also makes amazing music videos . In this episode we discuss his recent heart attack, his surgeon playing The Shins on the stereo while operating on his heart, his early days in Grass Valley, his first ban...

In this Musicians Digest I chat about people who blast music in public spaces, my panic disorder, and becoming what I used to resent.

Kam Franklin fronts the band The Suffers from Houston, Texas. She got her start singing in the churches of Houston as she honed her gospel chops but quickly branched out into every aspect of music she encountered. When she's not on stage with The Suffers she stays busy working on music and all the business required to run a band. In this conversation we discuss how she and her band collected 70 (Y...

Ed Breckenridge is the bassist of Thrice and plays in many other bands you've heard of. He is an exceptionally kind and thoughtful human who takes pride being the best he can be in his many crafts outside of music. In this episode Ed and I discuss capturing our inner child when rocking out on stage, a twisty timeline of Thrice from beginning to hiatus to present, being socially anxious on tour, mu...

In this first installment of The Musicians Digest I began with intention of sharing some thoughts on tour and what I missed about it. I didn't get into the working parts or details so much as that is better done with my future guests and their expertise and experiences. However, this episode became a bit of a therapy session for me as I realize how much time I spent on the road not appreciating it...

For the first full length episode of The Musicians Guild I wanted to stay close to home, and there are few people I've shared my musical home with longer than my brother and bandmate Matt Embree. Vocalist, guitarist, songwriter, and deep thinker are just some of the many trades and titles he has collected over the years. In this conversation we discuss early touring days of RX, songwriting and cre...

I'll be filling you in on the guest for Episode 1 and engaging in some budget postulation regarding music and where it stands within humanity today.