Making a Scene Presents

Making a Scene Presents Gerry Casey's Interview with Eliza Neals Eliza Neals is a powerhouse in modern blues—an artist, songwriter, producer, bandleader, composer, arranger, keyboardist, and label owner whose self-written and self-produced music has been heard on SiriusXM’s B.B. King’s Bluesville since 2015. Blending blues, rock, and soul into bold, unforgettable songs, Neals has built a body of w...

The Receipts Era: Why SongProof Is Showing Up Right When Indie Artists Need It Most There’s a moment every songwriter knows. You’re in that glow right after the hook finally lands, the verse makes sense, and the demo is “good enough” to send. You export an MP3, you toss it into a text thread, you drop it into an email, you DM it to someone who says they can help. And then, if you’re honest, your s...

Making a Scene Presents - The Weekend Build: How to Set Up an Owned-Fan Machine in 48 Hours If you want Spotify to be the top of your funnel instead of the end of your funnel, you don’t start by chasing more streams. You start by building a place for listeners to land, a reason for them to stay, and a system that remembers them when they do. This is the part the industry skips past because it’s no...

Making a Scene Presents - Spotify is the Billboard, Not the Building If you’re an indie artist in 2026, you don’t have a “marketing problem.” You have an ownership problem. Most indie release plans still follow the same tired loop: post the Spotify link everywhere, chase saves, chase playlists, watch a bump happen, then start over next month. It feels like progress because the numbers move. But it...

Making a Scene Presents - Wingman (Mixed In Key) A Demo Accelerator Wingman from Mixed In Key ($79) is built for the modern reality: a lot of great songwriters don’t play piano, don’t play bass, and don’t want to spend three hours hunting for the “right” chord under a vocal idea. Wingman lives inside your DAW as a plugin and listens to the audio you feed it, then suggests chords and basslines that...

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Jordan Rainer Jordan Rainer is an award-winning singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Atoka, Oklahoma, bringing a bold rock edge to modern country. With a guitar on her shoulder and a no-nonsense stage presence, she’s been turning heads in both Nashville and the Texas country scene, building a reputation as an artist who hits hard, sings with co...

Making a Scene Presents Gerry Casey's Interview with Billy Bucklers of Billobucklers Billobucklers is a UK band built around the songwriting, voice, and restless musical spirit of Billy Bucklers, a Leicester-and-Nottingham original who writes like he’s lived it and plays like he means it. Rooted in the Midlands but never boxed in by geography, Billy brings a hard-earned perspective to every song—m...

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Erick Brandt Erik Brandt has been the ringleader of the award-winning Twin Cities eclectic Americana group the Urban Hillbilly Quartet since 1995. When he’s not on stage, he’s in the classroom teaching high school English in St. Paul, Minnesota—bringing the same love of language to both his students and his songs. Over the years, he’s performed in venues a...

Making a Scene Presents - Booking the Festival Circuit Isn’t About “Buzz.” It’s About Proof For a long time, getting booked on a festival felt like being chosen. You got the email, you posted the graphic, you told your friends, and you hoped the weekend would change everything. That feeling still matters, because it means you care. But the festival world has changed, and the artists who keep winni...

Making a Scene Presents - Why Ownership Beats Virality Every Time The day the internet “loves” you can still be the day you learn you own nothing Every indie artist has felt it. You post a clip and you don’t expect much, and then your phone starts buzzing like a broken snare. Comments show up from strangers, shares stack up, and somebody types, “How are you not famous?” and for a minute you can ta...

Making a Scene Presents - Why Monitoring Is the Most Important Part of Your Home Studio (And the Most Ignored) There’s a specific kind of heartbreak that only home studio people understand. You finish a mix at 1:30 a.m., tired but proud, because in your room it finally sounds like a record. The vocal is sitting right where you wanted it. The drums feel tight. The chorus lifts. You do that little h...

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