Making a Scene Presents

Making a Scene Presents Gerry Casey's Interview with Mike Guldin Mike Guldin first picked up a guitar at age 15, and he’s spent the last 45+ years turning that spark into a road-tested blues career built in roadhouses, clubs, festivals, and theaters. A guitarist and vocalist with a deep respect for tradition and a serious love of groove, Guldin’s sound blends Chicago blues grit, Southern rock fire...

Sassparilla is a Portland, Oregon–based “punk-Americana” / roots-rock band that plays like a bar fight with a backbeat—in the best possible way. Led by singer-songwriter Kevin “Gus” Blackwell, the band blends the stomp of old American traditions with the bite and speed of punk, creating a sound that feels like hill country blues and old-time string-band music dragged into a loud, modern room and t...

Making a Scene Presents - The Suno-Warner Deal: When Big Music Stops Fighting AI and Starts Designing It Something important just happened in the music business, and indie artists need to pay attention. Warner Music Group and Suno announced a partnership built around licensed AI music. Under the deal, the companies will work on next-generation licensed models, Warner artists can opt in to AI exper...

Making a Scene Presents - The Artist-Owned Ecosystem: Replacing the Label, Distributor, and Platform The night the old deal stopped making sense It usually happens after the show. Not onstage. Not in the comments. Not when the playlist adds hit. It happens when the room is half empty, the drummer is packing hardware, somebody is folding shirts at the merch table, and the artist is looking at a pho...

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Alexis P Suter Alexis P. Suter is a three-time Blues Music Award nominee—recognized in major categories including the Koko Taylor Award and Best Soul Blues Female Artist—and one of the most commanding voices in modern blues and soul. Raised in Brooklyn in a musically gifted family, Alexis grew up with the belief that music is not just entertainment—it’s an...

Making a Scene Presents - AI-Driven Fan Journeys: Mapping Every Step From First Listen to Lifetime Fan There is a quiet tragedy happening in the modern music business, and most independent artists have been taught to call it normal. A stranger hears a song in a playlist. They like it. They tap through to a profile. Maybe they watch a clip. Maybe they save the track. Maybe they even tell a friend....

Making a Scene Presents Gerry Casey's Interview with Aleksandra Josic of Here and Everywhere Fronted by Aleksandra Josic, a vocalist audiences regularly describe as “one of the most powerful and emotional live voices in the world today,” the band has earned a reputation for performances that feel raw, immersive, and unforgettable. There’s a rare kind of honesty in what they do—no posturing, no man...

Compression in Context: Why Soloing Tracks Is Killing Your Mix There is a little button in every DAW that has wrecked more home studio mixes than bad microphones, cheap headphones, and internet “preset culture” combined. It is the Solo button. That sounds dramatic, but not by much. Every indie artist knows the move. You are deep in a mix. The vocal feels uneven. The bass feels wild. The snare is j...

Making a Scene Presents - A Buyer’s Guide to Recording Interfaces The Box That Decides Whether Your Studio Feels Fast or Feels Broken There is a certain kind of gear mistake that musicians make all the time. They obsess over microphones, plugins, monitors, and shiny rack toys, then they treat the recording interface like a boring utility purchase. That is backward. Your interface is the center of...

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with the Avery Set The Avery Set began in the early 2000s in Frankenmuth, Michigan, growing out of a close friendship between Chris (lead singer) and Jake (drummer). What started as two friends making noise quickly turned into a real band with a shared sense of purpose—writing songs, chasing shows, and building a sound that felt honest and lived-in. In 2006, th...

Making a Scene Presents - Subtractive EQ vs Additive EQ: The Secret to Clean Mixes There is a reason so many home studio mixes sound busy, cloudy, and weirdly tired even when every track is “exciting” on its own. It is not always the mic. It is not always the room. It is not always that you need some expensive boutique plugin blessed by a guy on YouTube wearing a beanie in July. A lot of the time,...

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Christina Crofts Christina Crofts is a singer, songwriter, guitarist, and slide guitarist—and a true veteran of Australia’s blues and rock scene. Known for her uncompromising bottleneck tone and a “big sound” that far exceeds her small frame, Crofts has spent years building a reputation as one of the country’s most commanding live performers and distinctiv...

Making a Scene Presents - Creating a Touring Syndicate for Increased Leverage For years, indie artists have been told the same tired story about touring in America. Build your streaming numbers. Pray for algorithm luck. Hope a promoter notices. Spend money on ads. Guess which city might work. Book the run. Drive the miles. Cross your fingers. Lose money in three towns, break even in two, and call...

Making a Scene Presents - Predictive Touring: Using AI to Decide Where You Should Play Before You Book the Show There used to be a standard indie-touring ritual. You stared at a map, circled cities you had heard were “good markets,” texted a few friends, checked which clubs had an open Thursday, and called it strategy. Then came the long drive, the half-full room, the weak merch table, the gas bil...

Making a Scene Presents - Stop Sending Fans Back Into the Machine There is a bad habit all over independent music right now. An artist works hard to get attention on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Threads, or X. A new fan finally bites. They click. And what do they find? Another stack of links, another rented profile, another platform asking them to wander off and forget why they came in th...

Making a Scene Presents Gerry Casey's Interview with Jamie Williams and The Roots Collective Jamie Williams & the Roots Collective are a roots-driven live band built for one thing: a great night out. Fronted by singer-songwriter Jamie Williams on vocals and rhythm guitar, the band also features Dave Milligan on lead guitar, Jake “The Dude” Milligan on bass, and James Bacon on drums. Together, they...

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with the Badrock Blues Band Shadows, the debut album from The Badrock Blues Band, is a record built on perseverance—three decades of hard-earned chemistry, a sudden global shutdown, and the heartbreaking loss of a bandmate who helped define their sound. Formed in 1992 by Gerald “Mercy” Schuldenzucker (guitar, vocals), Siegfried Horvath (bass, vocals), and Franz...

Making a Scene Presents - Your AI Twin: Building a Digital Version of Yourself That Markets While You Sleep There used to be a simple rule in the music business. If you wanted more reach, you needed more people. A label. A manager. A publicist. A radio plugger. A street team. A content person. A marketing assistant. Maybe even somebody whose whole job was just following up on emails you forgot to...

Making a Scene Presents - The Real Reason Streaming Pays So Little, And Why It Was Designed That Way Streaming did not become unfair by accident. The dominant payout model was built to make giant catalogs easy to license, cheap to sell, and sticky for listeners. That helped platforms grow and helped major rights holders protect old power in a new format. It did not build a healthy middle class for...

Making a Scene Presents - The Music Industry’s War on Ownership Platforms want access. Artists need ownership. There is a war on ownership in the music business, and most of it is happening in plain sight. It is not being fought with lawsuits or angry speeches. It is being fought with product design. It is being fought with dashboards, autoplay, pre-save buttons, short-form feeds, and a thousand t...

Making a Scene Presents - EQ-Based Gating: The Smart Way to Leave Space in a Mix Without Killing the Music There is a point in almost every mix where the fight starts. The vocal wants the center. The guitars want width. The bass wants weight. The kick wants authority. The toms want to sound huge for three moments in the song and then politely disappear before they turn the whole bottom end into a...

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Dida Pelled Dida Pelled walks into a room with the kind of cool confidence that makes people pay attention—and then she backs it up with the musicianship to keep them there. A jazz prodigy with a wide-open musical imagination, Pelled is a Brooklyn-based guitarist, singer, and songwriter known for her playful personality, laid-back charm, and fierce dedicat...

Making a Scene Presents Gerry Casey's Interview with Gina Coleman Gina grew up in the South Bronx, New York, surrounded by rhythm, grit, and the kind of life experience that eventually turns into real blues. Her musical story began early. At five years old, her grandfather gifted her a piano and lessons, planting the first seeds of a lifelong relationship with music. In middle school, she joined t...

Making a Scene Presents - Layering Tracks Like a Pro: Building Big Sounds with Minimal Gear There is a lie floating around home recording culture that has probably cost indie artists more good songs than bad microphones ever did. It says big sounds come from big budgets. Big rooms. Big mic lockers. Big consoles. Big plugin folders. Big racks of preamps you can barely afford and barely explain. It...

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Geoff Newhall from Farmhand Long Hollow Blues may be Farmhand’s debut album, but it doesn’t sound like a first step. From the first track, it feels like you’ve been dropped into the world of a band that’s been doing this for years—tight, confident, and completely sure of its voice. That sense of history comes from the players themselves: Farmhand is built...