Podcasts about making a scene

Making a Scene Presents - YouTube Changed Creator Music. Making a Scene Is Building the Artist-Owned Alternative YouTube Changed the Store. The Bigger Lesson Is Who Owns the Store. On August 10, 2026, YouTube crossed an interesting line with Creator Music. According to YouTube's own current Help Center, the company deprecated paid Creator Music licenses and began shifting Creator Music toward gratis, or free, license strategies. Existing licenses already in use remain in force until the end of their terms, but the paid licensing marketplace that creators and rights holders had been learning to use is being phased out. YouTube explains the current transition at https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/11273150?hl=en. That does not mean Creator Music itself has vanished, and it does not mean YouTube suddenly stopped caring about music licensing. YouTube's current Creator Music FAQ at https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/11610609?hl=en still describes Creator Music as a catalog that can support licensed and revenue-sharing uses depending on the terms attached to a track, even while the rights-holder documentation says paid license strategies are being retired in favor of gratis licensing. The important part for independent artists is not arguing over which button YouTube will move next. It is recognizing what happens when a useful business function lives inside somebody else's platform. A company launches a feature. Artists and rights holders begin building workflows around it. Creators learn how to purchase music through it, catalogs are organized for it, and then the platform changes direction because its business priorities change. That is normal technology-company behavior. It is also one more reason an independent artist should never confuse access to a platform with ownership of a business. http://www.makingascene.org

The Platform Dependency Audit: Could Your Music Business Survive If One Company Disappeared Tomorrow? There is a strange little habit in the music business that we have somehow learned to accept as normal. Artists spend years creating music, building audiences, selling tickets, gathering followers, uploading catalogs, collecting customer information, and developing relationships, and then they store enormous pieces of that business inside companies they do not control. That arrangement can work beautifully right up until it doesn't. A platform changes its pricing, removes a feature, sells itself, changes its algorithm, modifies its licensing program, restricts an account, changes ownership, decides your favorite feature was apparently not as beloved inside the quarterly earnings meeting as it was inside your business, and suddenly you discover exactly which parts of your career you actually owned. This is why every independent artist should perform what we might call a platform dependency audit. The idea is simple: identify the outside companies your music business cannot comfortably operate without, and then figure out what would happen if one of them vanished tomorrow. Not because every platform is evil. Not because the internet is collapsing. Not because you should unplug your computer, move into a cabin, and begin selling hand-carved CDs to passing hikers. Platforms can be incredibly useful. Some of them are responsible for enormous amounts of discovery, sales, distribution, communication, licensing, ticketing, and creative work. The problem begins when an artist mistakes access to a platform for ownership of a business. Those are two very different things. http://www.makingascene.org

The Bay Area comedy scene has given us many gifts: A robust improv ecosystem fostered sketch comedy for a national stage, and nurtured stand up comedians for generations, from Robin Williams to Ali Wong. Our area is blessed with a rich and diverse comedy scene, and it can be a lot to keep track of.To help folks get a feel for that scene, KALW recently hosted a group of local comedians at our Live Events Space in downtown San Francisco. Elizabeth Truong is an intern with us. She was there and has this report on their conversation.

Making a Scene Presents - When YouTube Removes the Cash Register: What the Creator Music Change Means for Indie Artists For the last few years, YouTube Creator Music offered independent musicians something worth paying attention to. A video creator could find certain songs inside YouTube's licensing marketplace, pay an upfront fee for permission to use one of those tracks, and then use that music in an eligible monetized video while keeping the normal revenue share from the video. For the music rights holder, the arrangement created something that looked remarkably like a small-scale synchronization licensing marketplace. It was not Hollywood money, and nobody was ordering a new swimming pool because a cooking channel licensed their instrumental, but it created a relatively simple way for music owners and video creators to do business with each other. Now that paid part of Creator Music is going away. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - DI vs. Mic Recording for Guitars and Bass: What's the Difference? Two Ways to Capture the Same Player Put a bass player or guitarist in front of a recording system and you can capture the performance in two very different places. You can take the electrical signal straight from the instrument before it reaches a loudspeaker, or you can place a microphone in front of an amplifier and record the sound after the amp, speaker, cabinet, air, and room have all changed it. That is the basic difference between DI and microphone recording, but it is not a contest between the “real” method and the “fake” method. Both are real, both have been used on successful records, and both can be either wonderful or awful depending on the player, instrument, song, room, equipment, and decisions being made. For an independent artist, the best method is not always the one that looks most impressive in a studio photo. It is the method that captures the emotion of the performance, fits the production, stays within the budget, and gives the artist enough flexibility to finish the record without creating a technical hostage situation. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - TREBEL Buys Sesh and the Race to Own the Superfan Layer Begins For most of the streaming era, the music platform business has revolved around one basic action: getting someone to press play. The listener searches for a song, finds a playlist, follows a recommendation, or taps whatever the algorithm places in front of them. The platform tracks the activity, serves an advertisement or collects a subscription payment, and sends a small portion of the revenue through the music-rights system. The artist receives a stream count, a royalty report, and perhaps a map showing where the listening took place. Everyone calls this engagement, although the artist usually still has no idea who engaged. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - Your Distributor Is Becoming Your Storefront: Private Equity, Consolidation, and the Fight for the Independent Artist's Customer For many independent artists, choosing a music distributor feels like choosing a mailbox. You upload the song, type in the title, attach the artwork, enter enough names and numbers to make your eyes glaze over, and then wait for the music to appear on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, TikTok, and the rest of the digital neighborhood. The distributor delivers the package. The stores play the music. Royalties eventually trickle back. Everybody goes home. That simple picture is becoming badly outdated. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - The AI Copyright Fight Will Be Won by Whoever Has the Best Records Sony's New Lawsuit Comes With a Very Long Song List Sony Music Entertainment filed another federal lawsuit against AI music company Udio on July 20, 2026. This time, Sony's complaint concerns more than 30,000 sound recordings that it claims were copied and used in connection with Udio's generative AI models without permission. That is an enormous number of recordings. It is large enough to make the average independent artist stare at their own hard drive, notice three folders named “Old Masters,” and quietly close the laptop. Sony had previously attempted to add 30,442 recordings to the lawsuit it originally brought against Udio in 2024. On July 2, 2026, U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein denied that request, leaving the earlier case focused on 333 works that remained in the original action. Sony responded by filing a separate lawsuit covering the additional recordings. Sony says it found the additional works after gaining access to information about Udio's training data during legal discovery. According to Sony's allegations, it then used audio-fingerprinting technology to compare that information with recordings in its catalog. Those words matter: according to Sony's allegations. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - What Sound Actually Is: The Science Every Musician Should Understand Before the Microphone, Something Has to Move Every recording begins with movement. Before the microphone, the preamp, the audio interface, the computer, the waveform, the compressor, and the plugin with the picture of a rusty spaceship, something must vibrate. A singer pushes air from the lungs past the vocal folds. Those folds open and close rapidly. A guitarist plucks a string, causing it to move back and forth. A drummer strikes a drumhead, which bends inward and springs back. A cymbal flexes in many directions at once. A piano hammer hits a string. A loudspeaker cone moves forward and backward. That movement pushes and pulls on the air around it. Air may look like empty space, but it is filled with tiny molecules. When a guitar string moves, it pushes nearby air molecules closer together. Those molecules bump into the next group, which bumps into another group. When the string moves back, it leaves a slightly less crowded area behind it. The result is a traveling pattern of higher and lower pressure. That traveling pressure pattern is a sound wave. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - The New Music Search Engine Is a Conversation The Search Box Just Learned How to Talk Picture a music fan driving home late at night. The road is empty, the dashboard is glowing, and the fan wants to hear something new. In the old days, this person might search for “blues rock,” open a playlist with a picture of a guitar on the cover, and begin skipping through songs that all seem to have been chosen by the same mysterious fellow wearing sunglasses indoors. Now the fan may be able to ask a much better question. “Find me a blues-rock artist from Atlanta with powerful female vocals, strong guitar work, and songs that sound good on a late-night drive.” That is not a normal search. It is a description of a need. The listener is not naming an artist or requesting a song title. The listener is describing a sound, a place, a voice, a mood, and a moment. This is where music discovery is heading. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - AI Training Royalties Are Coming—But Will Indie Artists Get Paid? Artificial intelligence companies have spent the past few years treating music like an unattended buffet. Recordings, lyrics, artwork, voices, performances, and entire creative styles have been pulled into giant data collections. Artists were often left wondering whether their work had been used, who used it, what it helped create, and whether anybody planned to pay them. Now the music business is beginning to move toward a different model. Instead of taking first and arguing about permission later, some companies are trying to build licensed AI systems in which creators can choose whether their work is included. That sounds better. It probably is better. But “better than unpaid scraping” is a pretty low bar. A raccoon with a stolen sandwich could clear it. The real question is not whether AI licensing programs will exist. They are already beginning to appear. The real question is whether independent artists will receive fair payments, useful reports, meaningful control, and enough information to know whether the deal makes sense. There is also another uncomfortable question. When an AI company finally comes looking for licensed music, will the artist be able to prove what they own? http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - The Music Industry Does Not Have a Fan Problem. It Has a Customer-Ownership Problem An independent artist sits in front of a laptop, staring at numbers that should feel exciting. The new single has passed 100,000 streams. A video has collected thousands of views. The band's social pages have picked up followers from several countries. Last month's show sold well, and the ticketing company scanned hundreds of people through the door. By every visible measure, something seems to be happening. Then the artist asks a question that makes the whole celebration go strangely quiet: Who are these people? The artist does not mean their average age, their general location, or which playlist delivered the most streams. They want to know which people came to the show, bought the shirt, played the album more than once, or might buy a ticket when the band returns. They want to know who prefers vinyl, who might join a membership, who would attend a house concert, who needs a producer, who might book a private show, and who has already supported the music three or four times. The artist usually does not know. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - How AI Can Turn One Song Into a 30-Day Marketing Plan Your Song Is More Than One Release-Day Post Independent artists are often told that they need more content. More videos. More posts. More stories. More emails. More reels. More reasons to dance in front of a phone while pointing at words floating over their heads. The pressure never stops. The problem is not that artists have nothing to say. The problem is that most artists do not have a system for turning what they have already created into a steady flow of useful stories, fan conversations, and income opportunities. A song may take months to write, record, mix, master, and release. Then the artist posts the cover art, drops a streaming link, asks everyone to listen, and moves on three days later because the algorithm has already developed the attention span of a caffeinated squirrel. That is a terrible return on the time, money, and emotion that went into the music. One song can support a full month of marketing without the artist repeating the same sales pitch thirty times. The song contains lyrics, emotions, production choices, personal stories, visual ideas, fan questions, live-performance moments, merchandise ideas, video clips, and reasons for people to join the artist's journey. Artificial intelligence can help uncover those pieces. It can organize them, rewrite them for different platforms, create variations, suggest visuals, draft emails, outline reels, and build a working calendar. But AI should not become the artist. The artist supplies the truth, personality, music, feelings, and point of view. AI helps turn that raw material into a usable plan. Think of it as a fast assistant who never gets tired, but occasionally says something ridiculous with complete confidence. You still need to be the boss. Most important, the goal of this campaign is not simply to create thirty days of social media activity. Social media should be the doorway. The artist's own website, email list, store, fan community, and permission-based fan system should be the destination. A like is nice. A direct relationship is better. A view may disappear into a platform report. An email signup, direct purchase, ticket buyer, Fan Passport follow, or membership can become part of the artist's real business. That is how one song starts doing more than collecting streams. It begins building the music industry middle class. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - The Breakthrough Myth Has a Cash-Flow Problem A viral moment can make an artist look successful. A durable mix of shows, merch, direct sales, publishing, licensing, fan support, and useful technology can help an artist stay successful. Week One of The Artist-Owned Middle Class replaces the lottery-ticket version of the music business with a system working artists can actually build. The Music Business Still Sells Lottery Tickets The music business loves a breakthrough story. It is simple, dramatic, and easy to sell. An unknown artist uploads a song, the right person hears it, the algorithm catches fire, the crowd arrives, and life changes before lunch. Roll the credits. Somebody call the documentary crew. There is only one small problem with this story: it skips the part where a career has to pay its bills. Attention is not a checking account. A packed comment section cannot pay for a van repair. A playlist placement does not automatically create a merch customer. A huge view count may look wonderful in a screenshot while the artist is still moving money from a day job to cover rehearsal space. http://www.makingascene.org

Modern audio mastering has shifted from a focus on sheer volume to a nuanced understanding of loudness normalization across streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. The provided text explains that LUFS (Loudness Units Full Scale) serves as a vital measurement tool for human perception of sound rather than a strict creative limit. Musicians are encouraged to prioritize mix density and dynamic balance over hitting specific numerical targets, as over-processing can lead to distorted or lifeless tracks. Key technical safeguards, such as maintaining true peak headroom, ensure that audio remains clear during digital conversion and encoding processes. Ultimately, successful mastering requires volume-matched referencing and a focus on how a song translates across various listening environments. The source emphasizes that the goal of the contemporary engineer is to achieve a professional sound that feels impactful and alive regardless of platform adjustments. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Maura Dunst Maura is a Minnesota-based multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and songwriter whose work moves with ease through bluegrass, Americana, roots, and folk. Known for her expressive fiddle and mandolin playing, strong harmony instincts, and sharp songwriting voice, she brings both fire and feel to every stage she steps onto. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - Transient Shaping: Controlling Punch Without Compression There is a moment in almost every home studio mix where the artist reaches for a compressor because something does not hit hard enough. The snare feels soft. The kick feels buried. The acoustic guitar sounds flat. The electric guitar does not jump out of the speakers. The drums feel like they are sitting behind a blanket instead of driving the song forward. So the first instinct is to compress it. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - Fender Studio Pro 8.1 Review: AI Finally Walks Into the DAW Without Kicking the Artist Out of the Room There are updates that add a few fixes, polish a few menus, and quietly move the version number forward. Then there are updates that tell you where a company thinks music production is going. Fender Studio Pro 8.1 is the second kind. This is not just a maintenance release. This is Fender planting a flag in the ground and saying that the next version of the home studio is not only about tracks, plugins, and editing tools. It is about having a creative co-pilot inside the DAW, while still keeping the artist in charge. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - Low-End Control: How to Get Tight Bass and Kick Without Mud Why the Bottom End Makes or Breaks the Mix Most beginner mixes do not fall apart because the vocal is terrible. They do not fall apart because the guitar tone is unusable. They usually fall apart because the low end turns into a swamp. The kick drum gets big, then the bass gets big, then somebody turns up the low knob because the speakers are not giving them enough chest punch, and suddenly the whole song sounds like it is wearing a winter coat indoors. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - The Collapse of Gatekeepers: What Happens When Artists Own Everything The Old Doors Are Still Standing, But the Locks Are Breaking For most of the modern music business, artists were trained to stand in line. Stand in line for the label. Stand in line for the radio programmer. Stand in line for the booking agent. Stand in line for the publicist. Stand in line for the playlist editor. Stand in line for the platform algorithm. Stand in line, wait your turn, be grateful, and maybe somebody with a desk, a budget, and a parking spot near the front of the building would decide your music was worth putting in front of people. That was the deal. The artist made the music. The gatekeeper owned the road. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - The Attention Harvest: Using AI to Capture Fans Before the Algorithm Takes Them Away Most Artists Celebrate Views. Smart Artists Capture Relationships. There is a moment that happens every day in the life of an independent artist. A song clip starts moving. A short video gets more views than usual. A live performance reel catches fire. A comment section wakes up. A stranger writes, “Where can I hear more?” Another one says, “Come to my city.” Somebody shares the post. Somebody else saves it. The artist sees the number climb and feels that little rush we all understand. The views are going up. The algorithm is smiling. For a few hours, it feels like the door finally cracked open. Then the feed moves on. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - The Real Bottleneck in Music Isn't Talent—It's Attention Why the Fight for an Indie Music Career Has Changed There was a time when the hardest part of building a music career was getting access. You needed access to a studio. You needed access to a producer. You needed access to a label. You needed access to radio. You needed access to a distributor, a publicist, a booking agent, a magazine, a record store, and somebody behind a desk who could either open the gate or slam it in your face. That world was brutal. It kept a lot of great artists out. But at least the enemy was easy to see. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Stacy Mitchhart Stacy Mitchhart's musical journey began in Cincinnati, Ohio, in a house where jazz guitar masters like Wes Montgomery and Johnny Smith were always spinning on the stereo. With that kind of soundtrack in the air, it was only natural that he gravitated toward the guitar. But it wasn't just the notes that grabbed him early—it was the performance. As a kid, he saw Little Richard on television and couldn't look away. Little Richard's style, confidence, and larger-than-life showmanship opened Stacy's eyes to a powerful idea: music isn't only something you play—it's something you deliver. That lesson became a lifelong part of Mitchhart's identity, and today he's known for a brand of showmanship that keeps audiences coming back night after night. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - Building a Self-Sustaining Marketing Machine: The AI System That Runs Your Career The Artist Should Not Be the Entire Marketing Department There is a dirty little secret in the modern music business. Most independent artists are not only expected to write the songs, rehearse the band, book the shows, record the music, mix the tracks, post the videos, design the merch, answer the messages, build the email list, study the analytics, pitch the playlist, sell the tickets, update the website, and somehow still have enough soul left to be creative. That is not independence. That is exhaustion wearing a DIY T-shirt. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - The Rise of Micro-Fanbases and Why 1,000 True Fans Is What Really Matters The Old Music Business Wanted Everybody. The New Music Business Needs Somebody. For decades, the music industry sold artists the same shiny dream: reach the masses, get famous, get signed, get played everywhere, and somehow money will fall from the sky like confetti. It was a beautiful story if you were the label, the radio chain, the distributor, the playlist gatekeeper, the ticketing monopoly, or the platform sitting between the artist and the fan. For the artist, it was usually a lottery ticket dressed up as a career plan. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - Phase Issues Explained: Why Your Mix Sounds Thin The Invisible Problem Hiding Inside Your Mix There is a special kind of frustration that happens in a home studio. You record the part. You play it back. The performance is good. The tone sounds fine by itself. The mic was not cheap. The interface is working. The meters are healthy. Nothing is clipping. Nothing looks broken. Then you push the tracks together and the whole thing suddenly sounds smaller than it should. The drums lose punch. The guitar sounds hollow. The vocal gets cloudy. The bass feels weak even though the waveform looks huge. You add EQ. You add compression. You turn things up. You widen the stereo image. You blame the room, the monitors, the plugin, the preamp, the guitar, the singer, and maybe the moon. But sometimes the real problem is phase. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - AI as a Bandmate: Where It Helps and Where It Hurts There is a strange new player walking into the rehearsal room. It does not carry a guitar. It does not complain about the van. It does not forget the bridge, show up late, drink the last beer, or insist the snare is too loud when the snare is clearly not the problem. It sits on a laptop, in a plugin window, inside a website, behind a prompt box, or buried in the “assistant” button of a mastering tool. It is artificial intelligence, and whether artists like it or not, it is already part of the modern music business. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - Panning Strategies: Creating Width Without Losing Focus Panning is one of the most powerful tools in mixing, but it is also one of the easiest to treat like an afterthought. A lot of indie artists open a mix, throw the vocal in the middle, push a guitar left, push another guitar right, maybe slide a hi-hat somewhere off to the side, and call it a stereo image. That is not really panning. That is decorating. Real panning is arrangement, storytelling, and space management. It decides where the listener's attention goes. It decides whether a mix feels wide and exciting or blurry and disconnected. It can make a small home studio recording feel like a real record, not because it magically fixes bad tracks, but because it helps every part of the song find a job and a place to stand. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - The AI Feedback Loop: Using Fan Behavior to Train Better Marketing Over Time Your Marketing Should Get Smarter Every Time a Fan Clicks For years, indie artists were told to market their music by guessing. Guess what time to post. Guess what subject line sounds cool. Guess which city cares. Guess which merch item might sell. Guess whether fans want vinyl, shirts, livestreams, private songs, acoustic versions, behind-the-scenes videos, house concerts, VIP hangouts, or just a simple thank-you email that does not sound like it was written by a corporate intern trapped inside a coffee machine. That old system was not really marketing. It was throwing spaghetti at the internet and calling it a strategy. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - Automation: The Missing Piece in Most Indie Mixes Why the Mix Does Not Come Alive Until It Starts Moving A lot of indie mixes do not fail because the artist used the wrong microphone, the wrong preamp, the wrong compressor, or the wrong $29 plugin they bought during a midnight sale while questioning every life choice that led them into home recording. Most indie mixes fail for a simpler reason. They sit still. http://www.makingascene.org

independent musicians must shift their focus from accumulating social media followers to cultivating a direct ownership economy. The author contends that high visibility on digital platforms is often a vanity metric that fails to translate into financial stability because artists do not own their fan data. To achieve true sustainability, creators should treat social media as a preliminary funnel designed to move audiences toward owned channels like email lists, SMS, and personal websites. By prioritizing direct-to-fan relationships over algorithmic reach, artists can transform passive listeners into a reliable customer base. Ultimately, the source advocates for a structural business shift where participation and participation-tracking tools, such as fan passports, replace the pursuit of viral fame. http://www.makingascene.org

a strategic manual for independent musicians to reclaim control over their audience relationships by moving away from platform-dependent social media. It argues that artists should build owned community forums using tools like WordPress, BuddyPress, and bbPress to escape restrictive algorithms and data silos. By establishing a central "digital house," creators can integrate direct-to-fan commerce, email newsletters, and membership tiers into a unified ecosystem. The guide provides practical steps for setting up these social layers, emphasizing the importance of data ownership and authentic fan engagement. Ultimately, it frames self-hosted infrastructure as the key to moving beyond viral trends and building a sustainable, middle-class music career. http://www.makingascene.org

Eleven Years of Making a Scene: Still Independent, Still Publishing, Still Building the Future A Milestone Worth Making Noise About On May 1, 2026, Making a Scene celebrates eleven years of continuous publication, and in the fast-moving world of independent music media, that is no small thing. Websites come and go. Blogs burn bright and disappear. Social platforms change the rules. Algorithms bury good work under noise. But Making a Scene has kept showing up, posting new content virtually every day and building one of the most active independent music archives on the web. For eleven years, Making a Scene has stood with the independent music community. Not just the stars. Not just the artists with major backing. Not just the names already sitting on top of the industry machine. Making a Scene has focused on the working artists, the touring musicians, the songwriters, the bands, the producers, the engineers, the reviewers, the interviewers, the fans, and the people who keep real music alive long after the hype machine moves on to something else. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - The Live Show Is Not Just a Night Out. It Is the Front Door to Your Whole Music Business. For too long, indie artists have been taught to think of the live show as a single transaction. A fan buys a ticket. The artist plays the set. Maybe somebody buys a shirt. Everybody goes home. The venue sweeps the floor, the bartender counts the drawer, the band loads out, and the whole night disappears into the fog of tired backs, ringing ears, and gas station coffee. That is the old way. The new way is different. The live show is not just a night out. It is not just a gig. It is not just a chance to play loud, sell a few shirts, and hope somebody remembers your name next week. The live show is the most powerful conversion point an independent artist has. It is the one place where attention, emotion, money, identity, and community all show up in the same room at the same time. That is rare. That is valuable. That is not something you hand over to Spotify, Instagram, TikTok, Ticketmaster, or some rented platform that lets you borrow your own audience in exchange for feeding its machine. A live show is where a casual listener becomes a real fan. It is where a name on a poster becomes a face, a voice, a laugh, a handshake, a story, a memory. It is where your music stops being content and becomes an experience. And if you build the right system around that experience, the show does not end when the last cymbal fades. It keeps working. It keeps earning. It keeps bringing people into your world. That is the real game. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - Ticketmaster LiveNation Court Decision -When the Gatekeeper Finally Got Dragged Into Court In May 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice walked into federal court and said out loud what fans, working artists, indie promoters, and venue operators had been saying for years: the live music business was not just frustrating, it was structurally broken. The government sued Live Nation and its ticketing arm Ticketmaster, alongside 30 state and district attorneys general, and asked for structural relief. That was not some polite regulatory slap. It was the government saying the company's grip on live music had become so deep that fans were paying more, artists were getting fewer real opportunities, smaller promoters were getting squeezed, and venues were being pushed into fewer real choices. The DOJ said the goal was to restore competition, lower prices, and “open venue doors for working musicians and other performance artists.” http://www.makingascene.org

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 the whole thing “building.” That story has made a lot of middlemen comfortable. It has not made a lot of artists stable. The next version of touring is going to look different. It is going to be less like gambling and more like infrastructure. Less like each band wandering alone through the dark and more like a network of artists carrying a flashlight together. And the artists who get there first are going to stop acting like their fan data is just a mailing list and start treating it like a shared economic engine. That is where the idea of a touring syndicate comes in. http://www.makingascene.org

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 working artists. The next fight is not just about a better royalty formula. It is about ownership, fan data, and turning streaming back into what it should be for independents: discovery, not destiny. The music business loves a clean rescue story. Piracy nearly burned the whole thing down. Streaming rode in like a hero. Subscriptions brought the money back. Everybody got saved. End of movie. Except that is not how it feels from the van, the home studio, the merch table, or the monthly distro report. For a lot of independent artists, streaming feels like standing in the middle of a giant city, singing into a megaphone, and getting tipped in pocket lint. The audience is massive. The access is global. The numbers look big on the screen. But the money that reaches the artist often feels weirdly small, almost insultingly small. And because the platforms are wrapped in the language of “access,” “discovery,” and “democratization,” artists are often pushed to think the problem is them. Maybe they just need more streams. Maybe they need better playlisting. Maybe they need to crack the algorithm. Maybe they need to go viral. That is the trap. http://www.makingascene.org

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 tiny choices that train artists to believe reach is enough. The message is always the same. Be everywhere. Post more. Feed the machine. Stay visible. Hope the platform keeps showing you to people. That sounds like opportunity. A lot of the time, it is really dependency. http://www.makingascene.org

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 is the same old gatekeeper story in new clothes: your art is not ready until somebody with more money approves it. That idea needs to die. A big record is usually not about having more gear. It is about making better choices. It is about knowing when to double a part, when to leave space, when to stack a harmony, when to pan something wide, and when to keep it dead center so the song still punches like a fist. The truth is that a lot of the size people hear on pro records comes from arrangement and layering, not from luxury. And that is good news for indie artists, because arrangement is ownership. Layering is leverage. The better you can build a big, emotional, competitive master in your own room, the more value lives in your catalog instead of leaking out to somebody else's studio bill. That matters for streaming, for sync, for licensing, for direct sales, for fan-funded releases, and for every other way artists are trying to build a real music industry middle class. Fender Studio Pro, the current Fender-branded evolution of the Studio One platform, is built for exactly this kind of fast, idea-first workflow, with tools like Channel and Arrangement Overviews, AI-powered Audio-to-Note conversion, Chord Assistant, updated samplers, Studio Verb, and built-in Fender guitar and bass plug-ins. Fender's own documentation also identifies the current platform as Fender Studio Pro 8. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Dave Miller Dave Miller has been writing songs, performing, and living the working-musician life for five decades. Over the years he's played everywhere a good song can land—taverns, dance halls, coffee houses, showcases, concert venues, and festivals—touring coast to coast across the United States and into British Columbia. He's the kind of artist who doesn't just collect miles. He collects stories, and then he turns them into songs with wit, heart, and a sharp eye for the human condition. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Don Arbor Don Arbor is an award-winning songwriter and video artist whose lifelong connection to music began before he was even born. As he tells it, his first musical influence was hearing his mother's beautiful soprano voice while still in the womb. Not long after, he started singing himself—and he has never really stopped. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Duke Robillard Duke Robillard is one of America's most respected guitarists, singers, songwriters, and bandleaders, celebrated for his mastery of blues, jump R&B, swing, and roots rock. Over the course of a long and influential career, he has earned a reputation as a true musician's musician—an artist whose deep knowledge of American roots music is matched by exceptional skill, taste, and versatility on guitar. http://www.makingascene.org

Pathfinder Church | February 18, 2026 | Dion GarrettOur society has largely sterilized the process of death—offloading the care of the sick and dying onto medical professionals. We even try to keep our pain and grief hidden inside, rather than “make a scene.” So why does the church publicly and messily focus on death and lamentation?Website | https://pathfinderstl.orgOnline Giving | https://pathfinderstl.org/givePodcasts | https://pathfinderstl.org/podcastsFacebook | https://facebook.com/pathfinderstlInstagram | https://instagram.com/pathfinderstlSt. John School | https://stjls.orgContact Us | churchinfo@pathfinderstl.org

CWU goes to POWER Football, Local hoops are making a scene all over the state and nation!!! 

This week we have chisme how our first day of kindergarten dictates the rest of our lives. The Pop Culture Pop Up has chisme on:- Diane Keaton (RIP QUEEN)- The Frauds of Potomac - Taylor Swift shenanigans Follow us on TikTok, Twitter, & Instagram @youmeandchismeSubscribe to our newsletter at youmeandchisme.comEmail us: youmeandchisme@gmail.comFollow Julie & Adrian on Instagram & TwitterJulie (@juliexplores): Instagram & TwitterAdrian (@djadriatic): Instagram & Twitter 

In this convo, Lee Heidel and Jamie Jones chat on the significance of HeroesCon — “Comic Book Homecoming” as Jamie calls it — the challenges and joys of being an independent creator, and the importance of community in the comic industry. Neighborhood Comics is a reader-supported comic shop. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.They discuss the evolution of comic book conventions, the role nostalgia plays in comic appreciation, and the innovative Power Pulp distribution coop that supports independent comic creators creators. Jamie shares insights on building relationships at conventions, tips for new creators, and the success of community-driven events like Drink and Draw. We also realized that Jamie's art is just like this podcast as “Moms are the target audience.”Follow Jamie over here → Jamie Jones and at artofjamiejones pretty much everywhere. Get full access to Neighborhood Comics at convo.neighborhoodcomics.com/subscribe

Evie Ashton reviews Sentimental Garbage, a podcast hosted by Caroline O'Donoghue about all the good stuff in life: film reviews, life observations, and travel notes.

Send us a textLike the Avengers all came back in Endgame (spoiler!), Mike Ganino is back for round 2 on the podcast! Mike joins Jason for a high-energy, no-fluff conversation on what it really takes to communicate with impact. Mike—speaker coach, improv performer, keynote director, and now author of Make a Scene—shares why storytelling, stage presence, and vocal delivery are critical skills for anyone looking to own their space in meetings, sales, and leadership.From bad advice about public speaking to practical ways to own your voice and physicality, Mike and Jason break down the five Stage Languages that make or break a communicator.

Welcome back to the IGNITE Your Dream Podcast!  I am over the moon excited for today's episode with the one and ONLY, brilliant + magnetic, Mike Ganino! We recorded this episode in real-time TODAY on his book launch day, and I can't WAIT to share it with you.  Mike is a storytelling expert, speaking coach, and creative director who helps bestselling authors, TED speakers, and thought leaders make unforgettable scenes on stage—and in life. He's the author of the new book Make A Scene: Storytelling, Stage Presence, and the Art of Being Unforgettable in Every Spotlight, a guide to showing up boldly and connecting deeply through the power of story and public speaking. A former TEDx Executive Producer and sommelier (because why not?), Mike has trained over 5,000 speakers using his signature Mike Drop Method—helping them craft messages that hit harder than a double espresso. His work has shaped viral TEDx talks, launched bestselling books, and transformed even the most stage-shy scientists into magnetic performers. We dive in to all things Make a Scene, Mike's own journey through this work and how YOU can show up more fully + become 'unforgettable', no matter what kind of stage you're on. I can't wait for you to listen.  Links Mentioned: Get your copy of Make A Scene TODAY!  Learn more about Mike and his work over on his website: mikeganino.com Follow him over on Instagram: @mikeganino   Take the quiz and discover your Entrepreneurial Archetype Learn more about the IGNITE Your Business Growth Collective Book your Breakthrough Call today! Tag me in your big shifts + takeaways: @amberlilyestrom Did you hear something you loved here today?! Leave a Review + Subscribe via iTunes 

Jesus makes his final stop before reaching Jerusalem, passing through the ancient town of Jericho. On his way out of town the cries of a blind man reach his ears, compelling him to stop. Our Lord's encounter with and subsequent healing of the blind man are full of Old Testament resonances. In our Gospel we see the fulfillment of many prophecies announcing the arrival of the Messiah, we find fascinating parallels between Joshua's entry into Jericho and our Gospel, and we discover a unique echo of David's encounter with the blind in this encounter of Bartimaeus with Christ on the road to Jerusalem.