Making a Scene Presents

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Melody Guy Melody Guy is a Nashville-based Americana singer-songwriter whose unforgettable voice and fearless honesty have powered a life on the road, with more than two million miles of touring across the United States. Blending rock, country, soul, and pop, she delivers songs with the kind of emotional clarity that stops people mid-conversation. Her voic...

Making a Scene Presents - Streaming Growth is Slowing And That’s Good News for Indie Artists. For the past ten-plus years, the music industry has sold indie artists one simple dream. Get your music on streaming. Get on playlists. Get the numbers up. Then, somehow, the money will follow. A lot of artists found out the hard way that this dream has a catch. Streaming is real. Streaming is powerful. S...

Making a Scene Presents Gerry Casey's Interview with Jamiah Denzel Rogers Deacon Denzel and Dirty Church is the kind of band that doesn’t just play a set — they build a room, light it up, and then invite everybody inside. Rooted in the sweat-and-soul tradition of rock, blues, funk, and gospel, their sound feels like a late-night revival meeting colliding with a barroom jam: gritty, joyful, and imp...

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Otis Walker Otis Walker was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and came up in the deep musical tradition of the American South. He cut his teeth in the music business in Muscle Shoals, absorbing the sounds, work ethic, and soul that have defined generations of legendary recordings. That foundation shaped both his playing and his approach to songwriting, grounding...

Making a Scene Presents - More Artists Need to Earn Enough Instead of a Few Earning Everything For most working musicians, the real problem isn’t that people stopped loving music. Music is everywhere. The problem is that the money stopped landing where the work actually happens. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Dana Maragos Dana Maragos is a Chicago-based singer-songwriter whose music is rooted in storytelling, tradition, and a lifelong relationship with song. Her journey began early, when her grandmother bought her a $25 guitar in Chicago’s Old Town at just six years old. Growing up on the city’s South Side, Dana learned her first chords from a teenage neighbor,...

Making a Scene Presents Gerry Casey's Interview with Austin and the Syd Experience Austin & The Syd Experience is a Columbus, Ohio–based funk rock ensemble delivering a fearless, high-voltage blend of hard rock, psychedelic soul, and raw, merciless funk. Known as “ASYD Funk,” their sound is loud, sensual, and deeply groove-driven, built to hit the body as much as the ears. http://www.makingascene....

Making a Scene Presents - Why Streams Don’t Build Careers (And What Actually Does) For a long time, streaming has felt like the finish line. You upload your music. You watch the numbers climb. You refresh your stats like they’re a scoreboard. You cross your fingers that the algorithm notices you, blesses you, and turns your song into a “moment.” And then you wait. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - How AI Can Turn Your Fans Into a Street Team (Without Burning You Out) For decades, street teams were built on chaos. Flyers stuffed into backpacks. Group texts that started strong and then quietly died. Friends-of-friends who swore they would help spread the word and then vanished the moment real life showed up. It was almost always unpaid labor, held together by enthusi...

Making a Scene Presents - Tracking vs Mixing: Two Spaces That Should Never Fight Each Other Most home studios don’t fail in dramatic ways. They don’t blow up. They don’t announce themselves as broken. They quietly stop delivering results. Songs take longer than they should. Performances feel stiff. Mixes never quite translate. Confidence erodes one small frustration at a time. http://www.makingasc...

Making a Scene Presents An Interview with The Long Honeymoon Minneapolis-based pop-rock band The Long Honeymoon has been filling venues and winning over audiences for more than three years with their high-energy live shows. Built around original songs packed with rich vocal harmonies, catchy pop grooves, and clever arrangements, the band delivers music that feels both familiar and fresh. Made up o...

Making a Scene Presents - Native Instruments’ Insolvency Shock What It Really Means for iZotope, Plugin Alliance, Brainworx, Kontakt, and Indie Artists Who Depend on Them Native Instruments is not just another plugin company. For many indie musicians and producers, it is infrastructure. Kontakt lives inside massive writing templates. Maschine defines entire beat-making workflows. Traktor runs live...

Making a Scene Presents - AI Writing Secrets for Musicians - Write Like a Marketer Without Sounding Like One The biggest lie indie artists are told about marketing is that it’s about tricks. Hooks. Hacks. Algorithms. Magic phrases that somehow turn strangers into fans. That’s not marketing. That’s noise. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - The Future of Fan Data: How Web3 and AI Empowers Direct-to-Fan Analytics The music industry has never had a problem collecting data. It has always had a problem giving it back to artists. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Joyann Parker Joyann Parker is an American roots and soul singer-songwriter whose powerhouse voice and emotionally rich songwriting have made her one of the most compelling independent artists in today’s modern roots landscape. Blending blues, gospel, jazz, R&B, and vintage Americana, Parker pairs raw vocal authority with deeply human storytelling. Known f...

The 10 Most Common Home Studio Mistakes (And How to Fix Them Without Spending More Money) Home recording has never been more accessible. You can buy a solid microphone, a capable interface, a powerful DAW, and professional-grade plugins without leaving your house. On paper, there has never been a better time to record your own music. And yet, a lot of home recordings still sound thin, harsh, muddy...

Making a Scene Presents Gerry Casey's Interview with Carrie Zavala Zavala Sol is a San Diego–based five-piece band blending blues, swing, Southern rock, and funk into a sound that feels both timeless and fresh. Formed in 2022, the group came together with an almost immediate musical chemistry, driven by powerful original songs and a shared commitment to groove, storytelling, and high-energy perfor...

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Terry Robb Some musicians collect awards. A rare few become so closely associated with excellence that an award ends up bearing their name. Terry Robb is one of those rare artists. Born in Vancouver and now based in Portland, Terry Robb is widely regarded as one of the finest acoustic blues guitarists on the international stage. His mastery of fingerstyle...

Making a Scene Presents - Tonalic by Celemony: Intelligent Loops That Actually Listen to Your Music There are two kinds of tools in modern music production. The first kind makes noise faster. The second kind understands music. Most loop tools fall into the first category. They give you sound, but not context. You drag something in, hope it fits, and then either force your song to work around the l...

Making a Scene Presents - Record Labels Aren’t Evil—They’re Just Optional Now For most of modern music history, record labels were not just powerful. They were necessary. If you wanted to record, distribute, promote, or even be taken seriously, you needed a label. That reality shaped everything artists were taught to believe about success. Get signed. Give up control. Hope for the best. But here i...

Making a Scene Presents - Fixing Weak Performances Without Re-Recording: Ethical AI Editing There is a quiet fear that sits in the back of a lot of recording sessions. It shows up right after the take feels emotionally right, but technically messy. The singer rushed a line. The guitar player dug in too hard on the chorus. The drummer pushed the fill just enough to make the groove wobble. Everyone...

There is a quiet problem ruining a lot of good music before it ever has a chance to connect with listeners. It is not bad songwriting. It is not cheap microphones. It is not even weak mixes. It is loudness. More specifically, it is the guessing game around loudness that happens in home studios every single day. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - What Actually Matters When Building a Home Recording Studio A no-BS guide for indie artists who want results, not gear lust Let’s be honest. Most home recording studios fail long before the first note is ever recorded. Not because the artist lacks talent. Not because the gear is cheap or outdated. They fail because the studio was built around shopping instead of decision-...

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Julia Eubanks of Agnes Uncaged Agnes Uncaged, formerly known as Creeping Charlie, has quickly become one of the most compelling voices in Midwest indie rock. The Minneapolis-based band has earned attention for their guitar-driven, cinematic sound that balances raw emotion with melodic beauty. Critic Chris Riemenschneider called Julia Eubanks “one of the Tw...

Making a Scene Presents - The DAO Label Model: When Artists and Fans Run the Business For decades, the record label model has followed the same harsh pattern. A small group at the top controls the money, makes the decisions, and sets the direction for everyone else. These decisions often happen behind closed doors, far away from the artists and fans who actually create the value. Artists write the...