Gig Gab - The Working Musician's Podcast

What happens when you sub out for a gig and your original member becomes available? A conundrum! Thankfully Paul and Dave have some thoughts — and recent experiences — to share. On top of that, what’s your band doing to stay connected right now? That’s perhaps the most important question to answer these days. Without the glue-of-gigs to hold things together, you need something else. Yo...

Keeping your band in sync is never an easy thing, and everyone knows it. Perhaps the most important thing is to make sure you’re all on the same page, and that doesn’t mean “like every other band.” It just means, “like this band.” Really it just means you all need to be approximately the same amount of crazy to make it work. Paul and Dave talk through and develo...

Dan Ray and Adam Johnson join Paul and Dave this week for a crossover episode of Cover Band Confidential and Gig Gab. Listen as your FOUR favorite weekend warriors talk through how they’re dealing with gigs during the pandemic, keeping their music lives alive (while prioritizing simply staying alive themselves!), and as they help a listener through finding a new gig. New for this week, you c...

Gear Gab is back! This time your two favorite weekend warriors are talking about Mackie’s new universal-fit in-ear monitors, microphone pre-amps (and devices to help them along), and a little bit about gain and mixing. And hey, Dave played a gig this weekend (two of them, in fact!), so he and Paul talk about how that worked, what measures were taken to keep everyone as safe as possible, and...

Try as they might to avoid it, sometimes your two favorite weekend warriors wind up talking about the pandemic. This week weaves conversations about performances, streaming, syncing video, and Hamilton (the show, not the podcaster) with related thoughts about what it’ll take to feel safe doing all the things we want to do on stage again. Listen as Kent and Hamilton (the podcaster, not the sh...

With David Shanhun , his smooth vocals and articulate guitar work are what you hear, but under the surface is an equal masterpiece of David’s looping and arrangements. It doesn’t stop there: David has taken his fantastic YouTube channel and begun using it to help teach other musicians how to integrate looping into their performances, increasing everyone’s game. Join us today to l...

Paul and Dave have been secretly working together on a project with their old band, and today that finally was released. Hear your two favorite weekend warriors talk about the process of recording (and coordinating!) a song in quarantine. Last night, Dave played the first pandemic gig of Gig Gab’s history, and he and Paul talk through the process that got Dave to the stage, as well as the ex...

It’s June, 2020, and your two favorite weekend warriors haven’t played a gig in months. As the reality of that “next gig” sets in—as the reality of interacting with society again sets in—it’s pretty clear that re-entry anxiety is alive and well. Both Paul and Dave are experiencing it in different ways and, as will come as no surprise, they’re happy to talk about...

We all love gear, and your two favorite weekend warriors have even more of it to talk about this week for you. Plus, Dave’s come up with a new addition to his woodshed routine to keep himself going during lockdown. Speaking of lockdown, listener Mike has some thoughts to share with us all about what the next gig or rehearsal might look like, and Dave and Paul take that and run with it, shari...

Dave Cook, long-time audio engineer and owner of Area 52 Studios joins your two favorite weekend warriors today with stories, advice, and more. Dave shares how he “accidentally” wound up engineering “Love Shack” as well as Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, what rules Bernard Purdie laid down (before he laid down the grooves!), how he started his road career with Carly Simon, and...

We know you want to play. We all do! What does that next gig look like? How will it work? When will you—and your band—be comfortable playing together again? Does that happen indoors in a rehearsal space or outdoors for a show? These are the seeds planted in the minds of Dave and Paul as they dive into this week’s episode. Listen as your two favorite weekend warriors talk through all of this...

Have you had YouTube or Facebook mute the songs on your stream because of copyright claims? There might be something you can do about it! Paul and Dave talk through their experiences with navigating these waters, and even share how you can make money playing your own songs from the various rights management companies, too! What are your thoughts about playing out this summer? Are you—and your band...

Brad Madix, Front-of-House Engineer for Rush, Bruce Hornsby, Shania Twain, Shakira, Queensrÿche, Jane’s Addiction, Mr. Big, and more joins Paul and Dave today to chat sound, mixing, stories, and Gig Gab! Brad’s tales and advice are endless – and endlessly valuable! Listen to hear Brad share stories about finding himself behind the console in an arena for the first time, tweaking Geddy Lee&#8...

Today it’s time to talk gear. And gain staging. And effects. And audio interfaces. And Microphones. Oh, wait, those last two are gear, too, aren’t they? And effects… that can be gear? Are effects considered “gear” if it’s a digital plugin versus a piece of outboard equipment? Oh the questions you have! Well, Paul and Dave have questions, too… and a few ans...

How do your fans feel? Do you know? If not, what can you do to find out? Well, Paul and Dave talk through all of this and more. The good news is you can be a fan now, too, and learn what it feels like when someone asks you to tip or share or visit or more. And you can apply that compassion to crafting your own fan environment. Are tips the right answer? Or are subscriptions a better model? Listen...

Paul and Dave start today’s show with a detour about… playing live! Sure, we can’t do this right now, but that means now is a great time to stop and think about some of the more overlooked aspects of your live show and setup. We’re out of the grind of playing every week (or every night), sure, and that allows us the gift of perspective. What things about our live shows can...

Steve Witschel returns to Gig Gab after four years to talk about the evolution of his Cover Band Central site and Facebook groups. Things have grown quite a bit for CBC since Steve chatted with your two favorite weekend warriors, and they go through that evolution together. Steve’s also spent quite a bit of time perfecting – and teaching – the nuances of live-streaming. He, Paul, and Dave ta...

As promised, Paul and Dave talk through what they know and have learned about setting yourself up to live stream from your house or studio. There are definitely some tips and tricks, and your two favorite weekend warriors share as many of them as they’ve found. Then it’s on to embracing the muse. Dave had an epiphany moment this past weekend when he broke through his sadness of sequest...

Dave watched the new “Laurel Canyon: A Place in Time” movie that premiered (virtually) at SXSW 2020 last week, so he starts us off with a review about that. Great stories and great memories abound. Online busking has become more a thing than ever, and Paul and Dave talk through some of what they’re seeing, what the future holds, and how the beginnings of podcasting give us some p...

Paul and Dave both had gig cancelations, as did many of you. Some of you figured out how to perform anyway, in a safe manner, and that’s inspiring to all of us. Your two favorite weekend warriors talk through some of the things they’re doing, and you’ll even get to hear a sneak peek at the Bitter Pill album Dave recently discussed recording. Always be performing, indeed! 00:00:00...

Mike Dias, long-time in-ear industry expert and now Executive Director of the In-Ear Monitor International Trade Organization, joins Paul and Dave this week. They chat about the history of in-ears, the future, solving problems, and more. They even touch on a few “hot button” topics, too, but you’ll have to listen to hear about that! 00:00:00 Mike Dias, a Lifetime of In-Ears – Gig...

One of the best questions you can answer before you start to do anything musical is: who’s driving the bus? Paul and Dave take this question through a few permutations. First, Dave laments some of the struggles he’s having getting his studio setup to the point where he can track some new Fling songs, and the question of who’s driving the bus of the recording project comes up. The...

Making the leap to in-ear monitors is one of the most difficult experiences any gigging musician can go through. From getting the right fit to getting the right mix to simply becoming comfortable with that new level of detachment, in-ears take dedication. The payoff is big, of course, in terms of being able to hear better and saving oneself from future hearing damage. Dave watched Trey Anastasio b...

Listen, sometimes running a band isn’t fun. Sometimes it requires thinking about accounting and managing people and employment law and all that. Today’s Gig Gab digs into some of that not-fun stuff, specifically about managing shared band expenses and another bit about California’s AB5. Really, this stuff isn’t fun, but it’s necessary to think about, and Paul and Dave...

Dave’s fresh out of the studio at The Noise Floor where he spent the weekend recording a new album with Bitter Pill . He’s got a lot of takeaways to share from that experience, and some new things to look forward to, as well. Then he and Paul dig into – and praise – the concept of a band. What does that mean? How do you define it? How do you protect it? Those are the questions they beg...