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So Amanda has official left us. KIDDING! Only for this week! But I'm here so gear up for one helluvan ep

Legal Issues Concerning Covid-19 | C-Level With Amanda Farahany I think one of the biggest things too is communication. You know its communication. The employer and the employee need to be in constant communication of everything that's going on because it's you've got two sides here right and everybody's trying to figure this out but I think communication is the absolute biggest key especially when we are slowly bringing the country back to normal. So on today's episode a C-Level I'm excited to have Amanda Farahany managing partner of Barrett and Farahany and today we're gonna be talking a lot about the legal issues surrounding Covid. What to know as an employer and what to know as an employee. So Amanda welcome. - Thank you, glad to be here. So Amanda tell me... I'm really big on people's backgrounds. Tell me where are you from? How'd you get started? How'd you get started into law? That type of thing. - Hh I'm from Charlotte, North Carolina. I was just there this last week and getting to visit my parents which was nice. Definitely drove, this way even out of my home so yeah this was a big deal. I got to see them, which was nice and my sister has a baby who's 6-months old and this is the first time I got to meet her so a lot of exciting things there. I got into law really because I met somebody who I thought was super cool and was a lawyer and when I was 14 and he traveled the world and I love to travel and that was it. That was why I chose to become a lawyer.

This week we talk with one of gravel's finest; professional racer and event organizer, Amanda Nauman.   Amanda is a 2x DK100 winner and runner-up in this year's Mid-South event.   In September, health conditions dependent, Amanda and team are introducing a new gravel event, Mammoth Tuff in Mammoth Lakes, CA.  Episode Links: Support the Podcast Amanda Nauman Instagram Mammoth Tuff Gravel Event  Automated transcription: Please excuse the errors Amanda, welcome to the show. Hey, nice to see you, Craig. Yes, there, we have it. So Amanda, we all start off the show by learning a little bit more about your background. How did you come to gravel cycling A long roundabout way, but I can give you the short version is basically I grew up swimming and from there I was swimming in college. I started getting sick of it and then I started doing triathlons. And from there did a few collegiate bike races enjoyed bike racing, got a job in the bike industry at felt bicycles. All my coworkers raced bikes. They kind of said, Hey, you know, you should do some of this racing stuff. It's fun. Sure enough, I was kind of good at it and that's how cyclocross and like cross country mountain biking started. And then the next thing was all the gravel events that started coming up. And I was kind of using those events as training for cross. Cause it was a good time of the year to be doing all those longer events. And then yeah, I found success in gravel events and that's, that's the shorthand version. So where you start, did you start off with a road bike? Was that your first bike when you were doing triathlons? Yes. Yeah. Good question. But yeah, so I got a road bike first and then when I started getting good at triathlon stuff, then yeah, I got a triathlon bike after that. And then did you get a mountain bike to kind of just dabble in off-road riding? I think so. I, I had always had a mountain bike, which is funny because I grew up going to mammoth during the summers. And so my dad really liked mountain biking. So my definition of mountain biking growing up was like going up a chairlift and riding down. So I remember when I was, yeah, I remember when I was in college distinctly having a conversation with somebody that was like, mountain biking is so hard and I was like, no, it's not. You just go downhill the whole time and not, not having any idea, like actually what it was all about. But yeah, my first bike, like first bike under the Christmas tree that I can remember that was actually usable, was a mountain bike and that's how I got into it. And so when I wanted to get the road bike, my dad was riding road at the time and he was like, yeah, let's do it. And so it was something that we could do together also. Neat. So it's probably, it sounds like it, those early skills kind of left you with some great bike handling relative to the overall spectrum of triathletes. Yeah. Surprisingly, it's something that I look back on and realize that, you know, my dad taking me to ride mountain bikes at a young age was he didn't know he was developing all these skills I would need later. But yeah, I was lucky to, to have that True. And as you were sort of adding disciplines to your cycling career, were you living in Southern California at the time? Yes. Yeah. So I grew up here swam here, but I went to college in the East coast, in New Jersey. And so that was like indoor swimming, you know, dealing with winter and stuff during triathlons and all that. But I applied for a job at felt bicycles cause it was an Irvine, which is like 10 minutes away from where I lived with my parents at the time and I got the job. So after the summer before my final year at Stevens, I went and did an internship there and came back and they, they said, you know, if you finish the school year, you can have a full time job after you graduate. So that was how all that happened. So basically I lived on the East coast for five years and came back home and yeah, I'm still in pretty much the same area. Nice. So the leap from triathlon to cyclocross is pretty huge. How did that happen? Is there a big cyclocross scene down in Southern California? Yeah, so the triathlon stuff I was doing pretty good at, and the funny thing is like all my coworkers in the engineering department, it felt raced cross cause it was fun. Short. The Soquel scene was pretty good and there was like a local grassroots team that was sponsored by felt at the time. So I would go and watch the races first before I ever raced them. So I would go and watch them the first event that I ever went to, to like actually spectate was cross Vegas, cause I was working in her bike at the time. And so we all just went to watch it. And that was when I realized like this cyclocross thing is amazing. Cause if you think about my first introduction to like big cyclocross events was cross Vegas and I thought all of them were going to be like that and it was nuts. But yeah, so I fell in love with just watching it from there. And then, you know, I had some friends that convinced me to do it. David actually signed me up for my first race by just like telling me to show up to this event. And then he signed me up without telling me, and I just happened to have all my bike stuff cause we were gonna ride afterwards. Yeah. So my first cross race was like him just signing me up without telling me. And as it turns out you had some running skills from your triathlon career assets. Oh, barely. That was my worst discipline. I don't know if you'd call those skills. I would just, you know, yeah. I can get off my bike and trot for a little bit again. Nice. Do you remember the first gravel event that you entered that you'd consider kind of a gravel event? Yes. It was Belgian waffle ride. I, you know, jokingly, I still consider that a road race. But that was the first style of that event that I did. Yeah. and I don't remember if it was the second or third annual. But it was still when it was at spies headquarters. Like it still felt small. I remember like Jonathan Page and Nicole Duke were in the race. And so as a cyclocross racer, I was like, Oh, this is awesome. Like these pro cross racers are here. So then at the time it wasn't anything more than what felt like, like a really long cyclocross race. Really. Okay. Yeah. And you know, one of the questions I definitely wanted to ask and it may come up in the context of our discussion about mid South is as a female athlete in these mass start races. How do you kind of navigate that? Obviously, you know, you're on the trying to be on the front end of these things, but you're mixed in with men and women. How do you, how do you kind of navigate that as a professional woman? Yeah, it's definitely something that's evolved over time. I mean, I can remember the first two years of dirty Kansas still making the front group and that was totally normal at the time. But as the, the speed of the front got faster, you know, it's way less possible for me to be able to hang at the pace that Ted King's cruising net, you know? So I think what happens in the women's race is everybody just goes and hangs on for dear life. And for a lot of people, I mean that first hour is like across race, whether you're male or female. But I think specifically on the women's side too, it's like, we're trying to get in as fast as group of possible in the beginning and try to hang on with wheels as fast as you can. And yeah, I mean, even I was writing some notes down in my mid South race and like the beginning of it, we just, we were going so hard and it was so unpleasant and it's one of those things where like, I'm going to be out here for like eight more hours after this. Yeah. I got to imagine it's tack the tactically really interesting for you to kind of figure out because yeah, maybe you don't want to be on the Ted King, Peter [inaudible] pack. So killing yourself to be in that is not going to be in your best interests, but you do want it, you, you are going to finish relatively high obviously for the overall. So finding that right group to hook on with and hoping your other women competitors aren't hooked into the same group is that is kind of a tactic I suppose, right? Yeah, for sure. And I, it's hard to, it's hard to say which one is the better tactic because you think about like, Amedee, Rockwell's start at dirty Kensal last year, she came in, you know, maybe in the top 10 to that first checkpoint and she admits to not having a good start at all and not being where she should have been. But you know, at the same time there are events where like I can say I've won or did really well because I did make the fastest possible group in the beginning. So it's a trade off and I think the distance and the length of the events plays into it, you know, there's some where you absolutely have to be as far up as you can in the beginning or else, you know, it's almost impossible to get to the front. But yeah, I think it's very event specific for sure. Do you find yourself thinking about that in training to say to yourself, like I gotta be able to go full gas, but then back it off and you know, obviously make the distance. Yeah. yeah, you cut off a little bit, but I think, you know, you were asking if it applies to training and for sure, I think there's a lot of times where you that's honestly, how I think about it is the first hour is like across race and then you're just hanging on for dear life. Some of the training rides that I've done in the past have been like showing up to our local group ride around tears called Como street. And so I I'll go do Como street on my road bike, which can be like a good two, a little over two hours. I'll get back here and get on my gravel bike and then ride for another three or four hours. And that's the best simulation I've figured out how to do where I'm going, as hard as I can to hang on to this group. And then, you know, still being able to like fuel and drink enough to be able to ride for X amount of hours after that. That makes sense. Have you had occasions where you've made sort of made the group and maybe dropped off later in the race and you found someone else rode a wave forward and ended up bridging up to you because of the work of other athletes in the race? Like they bridged to me from behind. Yeah, because they just happened to sort of get involved with a simpatico pack. Yes. Yeah, for sure. My first mid South in 2018, 2018, yeah. 2018. I made a really good group in the beginning. I got to the checkpoint, I had to pee. So I had this like whole ordeal running to a porta potty. And so when I left, I was completely by myself and I was by myself for a while. And this group of guys along with Chi Takeshita showed up behind me and I was like, God damn it. Like, you know, you're going through this thought process of like, she caught me because she's in this group and I've been by myself and this sucks. But I ended up having a conversation with the guys in the group and I was like asking them, you know, cause there were, her teammates were in the group as well. And I was like, if you are just going to pull her, like let me know now, cause I don't want to play this game. The guy was like, no, I'm going to let you guys have your own race. And so he ended up attacking so that the group would split apart. And that was what happened. Like everybody ended up stringing out and we regrouped in different places and that was where I ended up dropping her. So yeah, there've been quite a few instances where all get caught. You know, if you're in a group of like five or six and somebody solo, there's a really good chance you're going to catch them without doing more like, less effort than the person ahead of you. So it definitely becomes a strategy tactic game for sure. Do you get the sense with your fellow women competitors that, you know, people are just like, it is what it is and sometimes it's going to fall in my favor and sometimes it's going to happen against me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, especially as these events got bigger and there are more women, there are more people period. Like there's just a lot of different variable speeds. And a lot of times like that, that just shuffles the board completely. And, and definitely, I think I'm more stressed now because in, in the early days of the gravel racing, like where you ended up in that first hour, there was a pretty good chance that was like where you were going to finish. But now with so many more people out there and a lot of different people who are similar speeds to you as well it's easier for that duck to shuffle a bit more. So yeah. It makes it more fun I think. Yeah. So I was excited to talk to you about your second place finish at mid South this year, I was watching the coverage and it was a bit of a bomber that the women didn't get as much camera time as the men did in that race. But clearly like you turned yourself inside out for that performance. So I'd love to hear just kind of how it played out. Yeah. Thanks. And it's funny cause like I then the night before, so Thursday night the night before the expo and all that I was hanging out and Ansul Dickie was there, the guy from Vermont social who does a lot of Ted King's videos, he does a lot of the, the wall wahoo stuff that's coming out now. And he was part of that group that was doing the coverage of the front of the race. And he said to me, he was like, yeah. Bobby brought us on to do the coverage at the front of this race. And I was like, Oh, that's awesome. But never, it didn't cross my mind at all to ask him like, Oh, what about the women? It just, I had assumed that it was only going to be the men's coverage and I'm kind of mad at myself now for even just thinking that way, you know, because I was just cutting myself short for one. But yeah, it was kind of a bummer that had happened that way. I know they learned their lesson and they've already addressed that. Cause people were pissed and I saw the comments afterwards and I was like, Oh God, this is, does not look good. But I know that he's gonna, you know, take care of it two fold next year for sure. But yeah, it was, it was a very difficult race and for a lot of reasons, I think the, some of it was like even emotional as much as it was physical. And everything was just stacked against us. I think from the beginning, like I felt guilty even starting the race. We were sitting in the car that morning and I'm texting people like, is there going to be a lightning delay? Cause it was thundering and lightning all around us. It just felt like everything was saying this event is not happening or it shouldn't be happening. But yeah, we got to the start line and it was crazy, you know, the usual jitters of the event and we took off. And I honestly didn't think it was going to be as hard as it was in the beginning and we it's pavement for a bit but not very long. And then there's a stretch of gravel, another stretch of pavement. And then it's pretty much gravel for a long time. And I knew that I had to stay ahead. Cause as soon as they hit that second stretch of pavement, it's they go pretty hard. Cause there's a little bit of a climb then it starts spreading out from there. But basically once we got into that pavement and then the next stretch of gravel, it was just full gas. And I was looking at my power and I went, there was like 15 minutes in that section where my normalized power was two 85, which is like a climbing repeat effort for me. Like I can normally my workouts, if I do that, it's like an eight, nine minute effort, not 15. And yeah, so like five minutes after that Hannah got away in a group that I could see, it was like, you know, you hit one little mud section wrong and all of a sudden you're like five seconds back from where you were because you come to like the screeching halt and I can just see her riding away with this group of guys. And I knew that if I wasn't going to get there, it, I knew it probably just wasn't going to happen, period. Which sucks. But that's the reality. That's the reality of it too. Sometimes unless I get in a group of guys or something happens to her, it's going to be very hard for me to close that gap and then suddenly it just that whatever group she was in just got away completely. And so I was kind of in whatever third group was hanging out behind that. And yeah, once we hit that bridge that everybody has those pictures of where people had to dismount and get across it, cause there were all those boulders. There, the other girls that had been around me at that time were no longer there. And I was kind of in no man's land knowing that I was in second cause I saw a hand and get away. And that was where I pretty much stayed for the rest of the race. Mine is going back and forth with Lauren Stevens for quite a bit of the first half actually. And then even into like miles 65 or so was when she finally, I think hit a little bit of a wall cause she had been traveling from Europe the day before. No big deal. And yeah, so yeah, she ended up fourth. I think her teammate pastor at some point in the second half and I was second. And to set the stage just to, just to set the stage a little bit more for the listener who may not have seen the weather conditions, it was absolutely dumping, raining cats and dogs before you guys started, did it continue raining through that first half of the race or when did that stop? It probably stopped about two hours in, so it wasn't too bad, but it was annoying enough for those two hours that I could tell from the condition of what we were riding through. Like I wanted it starting the race to be a six hour day. And I remember two hours in, I was riding with somebody that I know and I looked to him and I was like, I think this is going to take like seven and a half, eight hours. And it that's, that's how long it took, it sucked, but I just knew the speeds that we were going and like how muddy it actually was and how much it was slowing our, our regular average down. It was just going to be a really long day. But I, you know, I really like how that second half of the race was almost, you know, everybody kind of ended up in one place and everybody was either going super far backwards or staying kind of in that same area. Like Hannah was only three, a little over three minutes faster than me in the second half of the race. So had we been, had we left at the same time, it would probably would have been more of a race, you know, cause, you know, within three minutes you can probably see that, but because she had 10 minutes on me in that first half, you know, there was no way that I knew that she was going to be 12, 13 minutes up the road, so it makes it less of a race. But yeah, it was interesting how the conditions really just made it all even for everyone. Yeah. And what, what did you, what were you riding and any specific choices you made because you knew it was going to be a slop Fest? Yes. Good question. So the bike Niner RLT a nine RDO frame, it's just their gravel frame, but it's the new one this year that has all the extra mounting bolts and tire clearance specifically which I was very stoked about because last year with the older frame, I had less tire clearance in my tire choice last year in just the one stretch of mud that we had last year, brought my bike to a screeching halt and it was terrible. So this year I knew what kind of peanut butter mud I was dealing with. And because of that, I decided to bring an extra set of wheels with mud tires on it, the Panner racer, gravel King muds, which I've written in dry conditions before and really liked. So I know that they work well regardless of what the conditions had been. And yeah, so that was the big I guess change that I made knowing that it was going to be disgusting. Yeah. And inevitably, I mean, obviously mud did accumulate on your bike. Did you have some techniques preplanned to try to help you shed some mud? I bought Pam and I sprayed my down tube. I was considering spraying my wheels and I was sitting there at the front of the car hunched over with the Pam and David was like, do not spray your wheels. Cause if that gets on your rotors, you're not stopping. And I remember I was actually thinking to myself, like, there's this, there's going to be some point in this race where I'm not stopping anyways because I'm not going to have brake pads anymore as it doesn't matter. But yeah, I did. I bought Pam and sprayed me down too, but I don't think it made that much of a difference, but that's a little cyclocross thing there. Yeah. I'd heard a couple of stories about that kind of stuff, which is kind of interesting. And I was also, it was interesting hearing from paisan about him choosing a slick tire saying to himself, like I'm kinda kind of hosed one way or another, so I might as well choose something that's just gonna accumulate less mud. Yeah, I know. But I'm to, maybe I might be the only person to critique him on that. I don't think that was a good tire choice because it messed him up in the beginning and it ended up collecting too much. And I think had he had a little, just a little bit of knobs on it, you know, it's able to shed in a different way than like a completely smooth surface is just continuously collecting stuff sometimes. So I know, I mean it's pacing. He has the ability to ride whatever he puts on his bike honestly, and probably still do well. So he's like, Oh yeah, this is great. And I'm like, yeah, but stop telling people that, cause it's probably not great for everyone. Right. Like I honestly don't think it is. And I don't think people should be like, well, if paisan did it, I'm gonna ride this. Like and he can give me crap for that if he wants to. But I don't think it's a good all around her for everyone. Yeah. I think we're going to need a pan racer or IRC to do some studies on, on that before we take it to heart. Yes. Well, cool. I mean, I saw some of the pictures of you crossing the finish line and you just looked destroyed from that effort. How did you feel when you hit the finish line? Okay. Great relieved. I mean, it was, yeah, it's hard when you want it to be a six hour day and it ends up being an eight hour day. Like I said it's not that hasn't happened very often for me. Mutually in the events, you know, you have a plan a where everything's gonna go well, and you have a plan B when it's not in that you still plan for that. Like dirty Kanza for example, I always pack like extra clothes and, you know, brighter lights in my third checkpoint bag, knowing that something could happen, but I've never had to like dive into that Oh, crap stuff. And this event I had to, like, I knew it was going to take a long time. And so it takes a toll on you mentally. And it's one of those things where looking back, knowing that Hannah had issues with like nutrition and not getting enough calories at the end, you know, if somebody had told me that when I got to the halfway that that was going to happen, like maybe I would have dug a little bit harder, who knows, you know, it's just a lot of things that go on where it was just such a brutal day that I was like content with where I was honestly I'd hate admitting that, but it was like, I just wanted this to be over with seriously. Yeah. I mean just keeping the pedals going in those kinds of conditions is a huge accomplishment. So yeah, I don't blame you. It is interesting in these long races that notion, and I think, you know, anybody at your level obviously knows this it's it's you gotta keep going. Cause you never know what's going to happen in gravel. People could have mechanicals or as you said, they could have just had a bad nutrition moment and all of a sudden the wheels completely fall off. Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. And, and that is, I mean the same thing happens in cross. Anything can happen to the people in front of you. It's just one of those things where it's a lot more grueling, do it for an extra four hours or whatever. The one nice thing about this year's event was it's the same. It was pretty much the same course as the year before. And so I knew that they had like a secret, a wasteless thing around mile 80, which the year before I took maybe a shot of tequila or something, I don't remember what it was. I wasn't having a good race last year, so I needed to stop there. And this year I was like, I don't care if Hannah's a minute ahead of me, I need to stop and get a shot of something. So I stopped at this Oasis and the guy had like all these liquor bottles sitting out in front and these little plastic cups to pour into. And I was like, just give me a shot of something. He's like, well, what I'm like, I don't know. Just whatever. So he's like, here's some Jameson I'm like, okay, thanks. And yeah, right after that section, it's like really Sandy, even when it's wet, I don't know how it's still hard to describe sand section for about 20 or 30 minutes. And I knew like it was going to help me get through that. Nice. You heard it here guys pro tip from Amanda? Yeah. Make it fun. That's awesome. So, you know, pandemic aside, what would your year have looked like? Like what were your key events that you were targeting and what we'll talk about, like how the rest of the year is gonna play out, but what was your calendar looking like? So I would have been in Kansas last weekend for the DK camp and then I would have been at sea Otter coming up. And then I would have been spending some time in mammoth coming back for Belgian waffle ride and then pretty much getting ready for DK XL after that. And then in July I was going to go do the rift. That's probably definitely not happening. And then August I was considering going to grab a worlds for the first time, which is kind of a bummer. And then, yeah, I had a big plan actually the beginning of September to do this event called the caldera 500, which is a really small, underground backpacking thing, but it's in the Eastern Sierra and it starts and finishes and mammoth. So my whole goal this year was three 50, figure out how to ride 500 miles in the mountains and then, you know, get ready for mammoth tough and do that event for everyone. So, yeah, that was the original plan When you were, I didn't realize you were, you were doing DK XL, not just DK. Yeah. Yeah. How were you thinking, how were you thinking about that? Were you just sort of thinking, you know, you're at the point where your, your body's ready to kind of tackle some more ultra distance style stuff? No, I don't think I was physically ready for that at all. It was, it was honestly more of a mental thing when you finish five of the Kansas, you get this like grail cup thing and it's the, the thousand mile club basically. And so David and I both finished five last year and once you finished five, it's like, okay, now what, you know? And I think it was nice to have the option of the three 50 because the way that I look at going back in 2015, when I was thinking about doing dirty Kanza for the first time I wasn't concerned about winning. I honestly just wanted to finish it. And I had no idea if I could do 200 miles or not. And that was the biggest appeal to me, honestly, of going to do that because David had done it the year before, and I was like, you're nuts doing 200 miles. Like why would anybody do that? And you know, fast forward five and a half years, and it's the exact same thing I'm saying about the three 15, it's a fun place to be. I'm afraid to do something new. Cause that was the whole reason why we started doing this stuff to begin with. And I think it'll be interesting to see what happens over the next decade, if that is a natural evolution for some people or if it is the kind of distance that's a little too daunting. But the way things are looking with, you know, increased participation in that event, I think maybe it becomes the next step for people. Yeah. It is interesting to think about like, what is too much even like, you know, obviously DK 200 for the average athlete is that, you know, Dawn to evening kind of endeavor you know, much like an iron man distance triathlon. And once you start taking it fully overnight or over a couple of days, yeah, it does become this sort of rarefied area of athlete that is going to say, Hey, that sounds like a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a big commitment. And th the unique thing about it that I've heard people talk about, who've done it before is, you know, like a J Peter, very who does these ultra events and this really long distance stuff, sleep is a factor. And it's something that is a tactic in those events, but you go to a distance like 350 miles, it's doable in one swing, you take sleep out of the equation. And all of a sudden everybody's dealing with like sleep deprivation instead of strategizing naps, like they would for bike packing stuff. So it is something that makes, I think that distance unique because it's doable in 24 to 36 hours, so you can get away with not sleeping, but how does the body handle that? Yeah, I think that's the interesting thing. Like you, it's really hard to simulate that and to imagine doing many of them in any one year. So I feel like you're going to learn, you would learn a lot of tough lessons when you do it. Oh, I should have done this. Right. I could have saved myself hours if I had just made that one critical decision and it's going to be, you know, a multiyear process of learning like these guys, you know, like J Peter Barry that you mentioned have figured out, like they know where they can push the body where they need to turn it off and just take a break in order for the bigger goal of just moving forward. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And, you know I was talking to URI about it at DK camp last year, asking him about it and if he would ever do it again, and he said, never like, he doesn't want to touch that thing ever again. And that's so scary to me because it's like, I don't know. There's still a lot of hard things that I've done where you think like, I can do that better, or I want to try it again and try to do it better. And he's just like, I am not touching that thing again. And I'm like an emotional level. It was too much for him. That's really fascinating. So the other big thing, yeah. Obviously like for your fall this year is you, you guys actually started to plan your own event. Can you talk about how that came about and what are the details? Yeah. so it probably happened, I don't know, three years ago or so. David and I would go ride in Bishop, which is a little bit South of mammoth and there's a bike shop there called Arrowhead cycles. And these local guys just do these gravel rides out there. And we showed up to one, we did a couple cross races with them and it was so much fun. And we realized during these rides that they have like the most amazing gravel in that long Valley caldera and all the areas surrounding mammoth. And, you know, we had done dirty Kansas traveled across the country to go to all these races and here, you know, five and a half hours North of where we lived with some of the best gravel that we had ever seen. And we were torn between, do we want to keep this a secret and leave it to us only? Or, you know, as we started going to other events, we were like, no, we want to bring our friends here to do this and ride this area because it's so awesome. And yeah, that's kind of, that was the Genesis of it. It was just knowing that we had something so beautiful in what we would call her backyard. Cause we're up in mammoth so often. And we, yeah, we wanted to share it with people. So it started with doing all these adventure Ries and we were like, okay, well what kind of route could we do? And yeah, that was how it was all birthed was basically these knuckleheads that live in Bishop that know all the great roads down there. Right. That's awesome. And mammoth obviously has a story tradition in the, on the mountain bike side of the sport as being just this Epic destination for a race and all the pictures you guys have posted so far leads me to believe that gravel is just awesome out there. Yeah, yeah, it is. And it's interesting you say that because they have historically hosted those kamikaze games for a very long time and it does have a rich history of mountain biking. And 2019 was the year they canceled it. So they canceled kamikaze games, you know, just didn't have enough traction anymore for the mammoth and we're not making enough money, whatever the case may be. And we strategically picked that weekend to host mammoth tough because we, it would be nice to bring enough people back up to that area that, you know, maybe the kamikaze games could come back in the future. It would, that's like the big goal is to turn it into a nice bike festival of sorts. Again, whether that's, you know, gravel and mountain or whatever. But it's, it does have such a rich history in bike racing period. And so that was part of the reason why we wanted to go back there. And the nice thing about that weekend is it's still the, the closing weekend of the bike park. So it's the last time, you know, the chairlifts are running and you can still go ride mountain bikes if you want to. And your friends can do the gravel race if they're dumb enough to. So tell us the details. What's the actual date and what does the event look like? How long is it? What does the climbing look like? Yeah, so it's September 19th, 2020, if we're still allowed to be in mammoth at that time. Right now they're, you know, obviously trying to keep visitors away from mono County. And yeah, it is a short distance of around 41 ish miles and the long distance, I just went through the route again today it's 108 miles and it's going to be a doozy. And yeah, I would highly suggest if you're like concerned at all about the distance of doing 108 and eight miles at that elevation to start with the shorter one. Because if you're questioning it at all, I would rather have you finish the event and get a taste of what it's going to be. And that was kind of the way that we wanted to set it up anyways, to make it like a stepping stone of sorts to get into the, to be able to do 108 miles up there. But the cool thing is also a lot of the short course is most of it's actually going to use roads that aren't in the long course route as well. So it's a complete, almost a different event cause it's going to be in a different area. And yeah, so hopefully those two options are going to be good for people. The, that weekend is also the same time they do October Fest in the village. So we've partnered with them to know, you know, do food and beer and all that stuff at the end. So it's kinda nice that they have a party set up for us. Yeah. That's totally handy. And that the mammoth, the start lines at about 8,000 feet, is that correct? Yes. And that's pretty much as high as you'll get, cause you're going to go downhill from there and then back up to that elevation and you might match 8,000 at some point, but you're never going to be climbing over that. So it's not going to be anything crazy like Leadville. Okay. That's good to know. Cause I was thinking a couple thousand more feet of climbing at thousand feet. The lights are gonna turn off. Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, no, I mean, it's going to be hard though. It's one of those, like another reason why we wanted to do this event, I go and ride up there a lot because it's really great training because of the altitude. And it's, it's so funny riding up there consistently and knowing like exactly how much lower your power is than at sea level, because it's, it's so hard, but it's a lot of fun. It's pretty, it's worth it. Now. It's exciting that that type of event is now on the calendar because I think like Leadville and other sort of high elevation events, they just become this interesting thing, this interesting challenge in the community, just something different to target, right? Like I know I can ride 108 miles, but can I do it at 8,000 feet of elevation? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I think that's, that's one of the cool things that makes gravel so great period, is that everything about it and all these different events, there's something unique at all of them, you know? And they're like, I like to think there are, there's like the Midwest style gravel rolling Hills. And then there's also this like mountain gravel, which, you know, it's funny to call it that, but there is that separate discipline. That's completely different from a Kanza or a grovel worlds where there are sustained climbs. And that makes it a very different event than something where it's con rollers like the whole time. Some like lost. I'm glad you mentioned that because it's been something that I've tried to tease out over the last couple of years because it, when I got into gravel and I chose like a bike that maxed out at 38 C tire, actually less 36 see tires, I was like, this is just not the right bike for me, but it dawned on me like for the things I was reading about in the Midwest, it probably was a totally suitable bike. And for me, you know, I ended up in this sort of mountain style gravel here in Marin County and I won't shut up about six 50 B, 40 sevens and 50 tires. And I'd probably go even bigger if my current frame allowed it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And, and that's, what's so cool about it. Like I said, like, that's your definition of it. You have your equipment that fits that. And there are people that, you know, are on the complete opposite end of the spectrum where like their definition of a gravel of ant is doing Belgium waffle ride every year. And that's like, you know, a road bike with 28 seat tires. So, you know, you can find anything in between. I'm always surprised when people online will totally discount something, like take the Niner, MCR, the full suspension bike, like it does have a home unequivocally I'm prepared to say that like, that is a great bike for some writer. Whereas, you know, as you said, it may be totally unsuitable for some writers out there in their native terrain. Yeah, exactly. And That's the great thing about it is that there's something for everyone and it's, you get to define what you want gravel to be. That's the great thing is like it's not road racing or crit racing where there's a pretty good definition. You know, what to expect in those events. And gravel is like, well, you can get a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And like you can pick a small event that is 200 people, or you can pick a big event that has got 5,000 like and anything in between. So I like that it's up to you to define what you want it to be. Yeah. And then the other thing is like the personality of the bike can change with just the simple change of tire. Yeah, yeah. For sure. I was just talking to somebody. Yeah, Yeah. Go ahead Amanda. Oh, so I was just talking to somebody about you know, what's the, the, the easiest thing I can do to make like a gravel ride comfortable. And I said like tubeless tires and like wider tires and that's it. And it's so true how it's something very small and minuscule, but if you take the time to figure out right tire pressures and good sealant and all that stuff, it could make a world of difference and make the ride quality completely different. And like a lot of these bikes with the same, to be quite honest and, you know, but the difference between having 60 PSI and knowing that you can get away with 23 PSI in a specific tire and make it super cushy, that's a huge difference. And it's going to be the difference between rattling your brains out and like having a nice, smooth ride Totally. And having, just getting that skill set. I think of being able to change a tubeless tire is important as gravel cyclists, because you can really maximize your enjoyment. Like I, I have some sort of semi slick tires that I put on the bikes specifically to explore further routes that are, are gonna involve more road riding. And like, I, I would not take that route with my knobby tires just because I'm like, why would I do that? But once I put a semi slick on all of a sudden, I'm like, cool, I can ride 20 miles on a road and explore some gravel that I've never seen before. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And in that, in that same vein I started working with Rene Herse this year and on their tires and that's opened my eyes in like what's possible with a really fat wide you think is a slow tire and it ends up being super fast and awesome. And being able to like change tire pressures on a ride, you know, if you know, you're gonna have to be on the road for an hour, you know, you can pump it up a little bit and then as you get to dirt, take some out. But yeah, it's been fun. I've had the privilege of not having a tire sponsor for all the years that I've been doing gravel stuff and I've had the ability to just test whatever and ride a lot. I love there's like certain that I'll ride for certain events because I know that they have tires that fit that. And then, you know, I don't have like a deal per se with a Renee her's tires this year, but, you know, they're giving me the opportunity to test a bunch of their stuff and find out what I like in that line. And it's been fun cause I, you know, as a cyclocross nerd tire choice and pressure and all that stuff is huge in that discipline. And it's been a lot of fun to carry that over into gravel because you go from like four or five different tread options to like 400 different tread options. So yeah, yeah. Right on, well, as we close the podcast section of this conversation, is there any advice you'd give up and coming women athletes who are looking to gravel as kind of an opportunity in the cycling space? Oh yeah. That's a good question. I think the, the biggest piece of advice I have is like, don't be afraid to just try something new. I, I was lucky enough to have a lot of friends that wanted to go do these crazy adventure rides with me. And I think that that's a big barrier to entry for a lot of women is feeling uncomfortable to go do it themselves. But what I've found is that there are a lot of like really inclusive, welcoming people in the community that even if you go do one of them by yourself and you're afraid to go do it, I promise you'll make a friend when you're out there riding. And that's, I think my favorite part about doing these events is like, I'll go in it knowing six or seven people, my teammates, you know, guys that I want to ride with. And I ended up finishing the event with a bunch of other friends because, you know, stuff happens out there and you end up with people that are riding similar strength to you. And that's the best part it's like walking away at the finish and you're like, Oh, I'm going to find you on Strava. Or like, okay. Yeah, here's my Instagram. And you make new friends. And I think that's, that's the best part, but it is scary to jump in and commit to it. So that's my, my biggest thing is just try it. Yeah. I think that's great advice, Amanda. And I think that's a good place to end the podcast section. So thanks for coming on to report the record the podcast this week. And we had Amanda, we had one more, we had one more question that came over Instagram about the Michigan coast to coast. And just, I think just generally getting your feelings on that race About it, like should do it. Yes. Yeah. So I did, I've done the past two years when it including the inaugural year and that started because Matt Aker came up to me after mid South in 2018 and he was like, Hey, I'm doing this crazy 200 mile race in Michigan. And all I was thinking of was like, I dunno if I can do another 200 miles in the same year as you know, doing 200 for dirty Kanza, but they convinced me to go. And the, I knew mento Dijon was going to go and at the time he was writing for cliff and also writing for Niner. So I think we both were like, okay, let's just go do it and see what happens. And it ended up being awesome. It's this point to point race. And do you normally the like closer to the end of June? So you have like three or four weeks after dirty Kanza to get ready for it. I tell people if you don't get into dirty Kanza, you should do Michigan coast to coast because it's a good backup plan. You know, if you don't get in the lottery for decay. And it's a super fun, I like it. The, the fact that it's a point to point is a pro and a con the pro is that it's awesome to never have to see the same thing twice. And then the con is logistically it's kind of hard to plan for because you're, you gotta get your car to one end, you know, or whatever your transportation is. But there's a lot of people that will do the relay. So your, your partner does the first hundred and then, you know, you switch and somebody does the second hundred, which is pretty cool. Okay. And do they have, do they have like a bus or something that will bring you back if you have to get back to your car? Yeah. There's I think the service that they do is you, you park your car at the end and then they like take you that morning or something. I don't remember. Yeah. Yeah. But it's a lot of fun. It's definitely unique. The psycho crossers out there will enjoy it. Cause there's a ton of sand. So I know like a few people that did the event that weren't expecting that weren't very happy about it. Cause like you have to know how to ride sand and or else it sucks. Oh man. I'm, I'm all for it in events to throw different skillsets at you. Cause I think I want to see that, like I want to see the winner having good power on sort of flat, you know, the gravelly Rowley roads, but also have the technical skills to handle rock gardens and sand, sand pits, everything. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I mean, and that's, you know, not to throw too much shade, but that was why I was really excited to see how Stetten his year was going to go. Cause he's such a roadie that like how how's he gonna, you know, bike handle at some of these events? Yeah. I mean, clearly like anybody who's spent as much time on the bike to become a pro roadie, like they're going to have the handling skills, but I did notice like, you know, you were too busy racing, but I was watching that coverage of mid South. And when, when it got gunked up on the bike and he's like, man handling his derailer, I couldn't help. But think like here's the disaster waiting to happen. Whereas, yeah. Whereas Payson's like dipping his bike and, you know, shedding the mud and very carefully shifting gears knowing that like, if they've all falls apart, it's on him. So I thought that was fascinating. And I'm kind of with you, I don't want to throw shade, but I was kinda like, yeah, like you have to have experience in the dirt and grit and mud. I want, I want you to have to have that to win these races. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's not so much shade as it is. Like, that's what makes this stuff interesting. Like, you know, he's all in to try and win this stuff you're like, but should you have really written through the mud like that? And you messed up your derailleur. Yeah. And like looking at BWR, it's like, you know, okay cool. Like if, if I realized that, you know, it's going to be won and lost in the dirt, but it's a different skill set than a full dirt race, you know, I think that's interesting. You do see different athletes shining there. They're not going to make them shine at some of these other gnarlier events. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. Cause when I was talking to Renee Harris at the beginning of this year about doing the tires, you know, Ted King obviously rides those tires and I got her on the phone with him to talk about stuff and he's like, yeah, you know, I rode the 30 fives at Belgian waffle ride. And his thought process was hoping that Stefano was going to have a hard time in the dirt and that the 30 fives would be an advantage for Ted. And it's like, I love stuff like that. I love like the thinking and the thought process behind all of that. Well, that's definitely my jam. I'm just hoping it gets really, really technical if I'm ever going to get ahead of anybody. Yeah, exactly. Out of my way. All right, Amanda. Well, this was awesome. I appreciate you making the time to catch up with us. And it was, it was fun to see this and do this looking at you face to face. Yeah, yeah. For sure. You, you've got a lot of great podcasts and you know, as somebody that was trying to put on an event for the first time this year, you have a lot of great conversations with race promoters. And it's, you know, I want to say thank you for doing that because it's a different side and angle of this discipline that I don't think people talk enough about like, yeah, there's so many great events and stuff, but the work that goes into putting on an event, like you talked to Sam and you talk to the Mount lemon, you know, gravel grinder guys, like all those stories, it all comes from a love of the places that you ride. And I think that that's so cool. And it's great to see all these promoters, you know, wanting to share the great roads that they know about with everybody else. And, and that's something I think that's so unique to, to this discipline. So it's great to hear that side of the story and I, and I appreciate you taking the time to talk to those people, not just, you know, bike racers that are trying to go smash it on those roads. Yeah, yeah, no, I appreciate those kind words and absolutely. I mean, I think now more than ever, we need to be showering, love and respect on event organizers. And as we've talked about offline, like this, fall's going to be complicated in terms of there's going to be so many great events. And you know, my advice to people is just put as many on your calendar as you can possibly do and kind of spread the love around between different events. Because if we're not supporting the event, organizing community, they're not going to be around next year. No one is, this is not generally speaking of money, making venture for anybody. It's really coming out of a love of showcasing the great roads trails in their neck of the woods, as you said. So. Yeah, I think it's super important. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, what, what were you going to be at? Let's say we're allowed to start racing August. What was your August and September going to look like? Yes, it's a good question. So I had a little bit of a back issue over the winter, so I was kind of like personally looking towards the end of the year already. So, you know, not say the pandemic worked in my favorite cause it's been utter hell, but yeah, I wanted to do lost and found. I wanted to do Rebecca's private Idaho. I was thinking about the Oregon trail, gravel grinder, but worried, I might not have the time to spend a week up there, but I love what those guys have created up there. Yeah. Yeah. So those were the three that were on my mind. And then here in Marin County, we've got adventure revival. There's a bunch of the grasshoppers that are awesome. So like wherever they might fit into my life, I would love to kind of add those guys in because again, the community is great. They're mellow. Like the Miguel, the organizers just been, he knows how to do it. Right. And it doesn't feel overblown, but it doesn't feel under done as well. Yeah, so those are my thoughts. I still like super excited to go to Idaho. If that works out, I've got a podcast coming up with Rebecca and like she was preaching to the choir whenever she says things like, Oh, I wanted to put something more mountain biking in here. I'm like, yes, because I could, I could at least thrive in one section of the course. And I love, I love being in the mountains. And you know, when I heard about mammoth tough, I had a similar type reaction. I'm like, that's one. I definitely want to get on my longterm list because like, I just know when I'm looking around, it's going to be, it's going to just fill my soul with joy. And that's, I mean, that for me, that's what the mountains do. And those are the events that I'm generally drawn towards. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. And I know what you mean and yeah, it's kinda, I just wonder what's going to happen later this year. I know that look, were you planning on being a dirty Kanza Or no, I wasn't going to be able to make it okay. Yeah. Yeah. And that moving to September you know, I listened to the conversation with Jim and you know, all the weather and everything seems like it should be pretty similar to the conditions in June. But I, at the same time, like, I don't even know how many people are going to be comfortable traveling still at that time. And that's what makes me weary about all these events coming up. And you know, in two weeks from now, we can look back on this conversation and just laugh. Cause maybe it's not even possible at all. But I'd like to remain hopeful, you know, that some stuff keeps happening. Oh, I do want to take a minute and remind people to freaking quit riding in groups. Do you need to go on that rent? Cause it's still happening and I am. Yeah. I'm not happy about it. Every time I go out on the weekend specifically, I'm like, I know all of you don't live together. This needs to stop I'm with you as well. Yeah. Instagram is throwing up a timer that says I have one 48 left. So apparently there's a time limit on this thing. And we found it. I feel like super accomplished that we hit it. Nice. Nice. Alright cool. Well Amanda, thanks again. And we'll talk again soon. All right. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks everyone.  

Rhonda has exited! Offscreen! Uh, bye! So Amanda has moved in (to Rhonda's old unit, which we know was a studio?) and is busily making friends with her female neighbours. Jo seems to enjoy hanging out until it becomes clear that, with Amanda finally moving on from Billy, she has taken notice of Jake -- and just in time for Jake and Jo to have moved in together, too. Why isn't Billy still on Amanda's menu? Well, Alison's stalker has started getting more aggressive. He's even gone after Keith with a tire iron, just like he did Billy! Surprisingly, Billy starts to get suspicious of this report since no one ever told him he was struck by a tire iron (and, of course, we know Keith just hit himself on the corner of his hotel room TV, so how he passed that off as a tire iron injury to anyone who examined him, we are sure we don't know). Billy digs into this new crime, "stalking," and finds out that the people who do it have usually experienced a romantic rejection. But will he be able to convince Alison? Jane is ready to exit her marriage with a minimum of hassle, but Michael the diva can't even agree to a no-fault divorce due to the injury it will cause his pride. After the ladies' squad end up out for dinner at the same restaurant as Michael and Kimberly, however, Jane reconsiders whether she does want to talk to a ruthless divorce lawyer Amanda (who else) knows and try to get a payout in the form of Michael's future earnings. We discuss it all in our podcast on "Much Ado About Everything"! VISUAL AIDSVisual Aids S02.E02DISCUSSION & SHOW NOTESDiscussion and show notes for this episode can be viewed on this episode's page on AgainWithThisPodcast.com.SUPPORT AWT ON PATREONThank you to all our supporters! You can support the podcast directly on Patreon and get access to bonus episodes of “Again With Again With This” as a thank you from us! Check out AWT’s Patreon page today.SUPPORT AWT WITH A PERSONAL MESSAGEWish your friend a happy birthday or just call them a squeef with a AWT Personal Message. It's $50 and helps keep us going. Start on our ad page now!PRE-ORDER OUR BOOK"A Very Special 90210 Book" (Abrams, $24.99) hits stores September 22, 2020, but you can pre-order your copy right now! Buy it at Amazon or anywhere else books are sold! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

As many of us entrepreneurs do, Amanda felt isolated in the beginning stages of her business because no one seemed to “understand her crazy.” You know, when no one else seems to get your vision or share your yearning for something more out of life? She felt a shift in her spirit to be more and do more in the world in her late twenties, while all her friends were feeling content. So Amanda sought out to find other likeminded women. She never dreamed that this would be the beginning of SOWBO! She started a group on Meetup that met once a month at the local Whole Foods. Though she originally planned to discuss different topics such as marketing and finance, each week's discussion led to sharing business dreams and visions. The group went with the flow and allowed the meeting to turn into an inspiring mastermind!Shownotes are at www.joytolead.com/amanda-lairseyHelpful Links and ResourcesFor more information on the Leadership Academy, visit www.joytolead.com/academy!To learn more about the Dream to Team Hiring Course & Template Bundle, click here!Need 1:1 Hiring Support and Strategy? Click Here!

Chuck Clough  0:00  Hello, this is Chuck from Above the Basement Boston music and conversation. Hey, we have missed you all so much and hope to get back on a regular schedule. We are still working out some new projects and we will tell you about those very soon. But one thing we can tell you about something we are honored and excited to announce we have been nominated for a Boston Music Award for the 2019 Podcast of the Year and since I have personally never won a thing in my life, never mind a cool trophy. We would love for you to vote for us, or honestly whatever podcast you like and support as well as for you to vote for one of the many talented Boston artists nominated in their categories. Go to Boston Music Awards. com forward slash vote to make your choices. And thank you as always for supporting the Boston music community. This time around we finally got a chance to talk with singer songwriter and Boston native Matt York. Matt has been in the Boston music scene for quite a while now after stepping away from music to become aSecret Agent and family man Matt jumped back into music and has been quite prolific hitting the road often to perform and also released a few critically acclaimed albums, including Boston, Texas Between The Bars and just this month, his latest album Bruisable Heart. Right before we got a chance to see him play at lizard lounge and Cambridge with his talented wife on base for his CD release, we sat with him at Adelita's, his restaurant in West Concord, Massachusetts for a chat while the commuter rail would occasionally scream by us. We talked about his new album, his influences, the Boston music scene, and the dangers of mosquitoes. So here is our conversation with Matt York, recorded at Adelitas in West Concord, Massachusetts. They made bottled water illegal in Concord. It was like a big deal they have Matt York  1:55  Is Concord the town where they were talking about repealing it after they do cuz everybody saw like what a pain in the ass it was? Chuck Clough  2:02  I don't know maybe Matt York  2:03  it was a town do that I was just reading about in the Globe those that's trying to undo what they did because I Chuck Clough  2:09  look I'm all for not using plastic bottle but you can't make it illegal to use something a total legal product way they should have done is done a PSA to get people to get the stores to use give them the incentive to use this instead of making it illegal. . And you can have plastic bottles for Coke and Pepsi Yeah, it's just water bottled water. But you know, I mean, you know, we got over the hump and it's not really that big a deal anymore. And Matt York  2:39  I'll try to stop talking about this. But I'm not there yet.  what is it what is a what is a box of water cost? Chuck Clough  2:47  This was like $1 75 or something. Matt York  2:50  So my town they just got rid of plastic bags at the supermarket. And if I had a memory if I had the ability to remember to bring the ones that I have in the back of my car every time like The reusable ones. Yeah, it would be fine. But I just end up buying more and more and more reusable. That's what Chuck Clough  3:06  I was leaving the car and then Matt York  3:10  I'm all for the idea of it. Chuck Clough  3:11  So am I. But now I mean now that look it's it's, it's Ronnie  3:15  it looks like milk. Chuck Clough  3:18  Here comes a train. Box, a water box water is better. Ronnie  3:21  So, take it. You're from a town that doesn't care about box water. Matt York  3:27  I live in Pembroke Massachusetts. Yes. So Pembroke is the land locked town next to Duxbury and Marshfield on the South Shore? Ronnie  3:34  Really? You ever run into Steven Tyler when you go through there and I Matt York  3:37  No but I saw the drummer at breakfast maybe a year or two ago and he has like a Lamborghini or Ferrari or whatever. And we're like we're eating in Marshfield. And I like sound like they can only be a couple of guys in Marshfield that own that car. Chuck Clough  3:50  Well, you know it's also moving out there is Ari Hest you know already he's a great singer songwriter you interviewed him over the winter we have to wait fort the train to go by. His wife's family's out there and he's I guess he's moving out there now. He's fantastic. Ronnie  4:10  And Steve Carell was there too. Matt York  4:12  Yep. I actually he was he just came to visit. He owns a general store there. Yeah. And so he like once a year, he does this little thing where you can meet and meet him and he just raises money for something. Chuck Clough  4:24  We try to get him on the show. I was all right, just for the hell of it. And you never get back to me. There was Ronnie  4:30  Oh, you emailed him. I didn't know that. Chuck Clough  4:31  I emailed his sister. Yeah. Who runs the general store. Ronnie  4:38  He's from Acton. I know. His dad lives in Acton. We could go to his house .  We did that with Gary Pihl So Gary peel. He is a guitarist for Boston. The band Boston. So he was a guitarist for them since 85. He lives in my neighborhood, And so I drove I sat in his driveway, He was drive because I was going out to, you know, to the front door to knock on his door. I go in the car and he he pulls in slowly next to me he was out doing something.  I rolled down the window. And I'm like, you're probably wondering why I'm here. And you know, it was a little awkward. He humored us and came on. He came on one of our first like, first guest, I think, yeah, Chuck Clough  5:22  well, no, ever first, but he was in the first 50. I think he's very nice guy. Matt York  5:28  When did you start doing this? 2016? Chuck Clough  5:30  Yes, very good. Okay. Can you reached out to us pretty close to when we started Matt York  5:34  After after the globe article? When I saw the article on the globe, and then I started listening to it, Chuck  5:39  to be honest, you you're one of the first people to actually reach out to us to come on. . And so you've been on our list for forever. Yeah. And it's been like, I've been like, kind of putting, like all the people that we've been meaning that you have on there, like starred. You've been starred forever. So I'm so glad we finally got you, especially since we had booked Couple weeks ago and then I had some stuff to deal with and yeah so we did we can so I'm glad we it wasn't like another year so so it's happening right the sites have it's happening you've been started by Chuck more than once you were started here I am Here you are and we don't have enough you know white male singer songwriter zones yeah no that's that's a real major problem for us But but thank you for coming on and thank you for taking the trip I you know, I didn't realize you were from Pembroke that's a long Matt York  6:32  Yeah, no, I do a lot of driving my friends so let's Chuck Clough  6:35  I guess you used to it Ronnie  6:36  Want some bug spray stuff. I might put it right on your neck Chuck Clough  6:39  you guys getting a bit you get your hates that no, so far. I'm good. I'm not I saw a song right there but it's not gonna bite. Yeah, yeah, they're friendly around here. These are Concord mosquitoes. Unknown Speaker  6:50  The Sudbury mosquitoes only have to worry about with or with a AAA. Ronnie  6:55  AAA is bad.Have you ever heard of AAA? Chuck Clough  6:59  You can get sick from them but they're also change your tire. Matt York  7:02  So in our town like it all the other towns around us, they're all like banning swipe. Yeah, it's a sport like our town. It's like that hasn't reached that level. So they're still allowing it. Chuck Clough  7:13  Yeah, I think this is this is rock and roll right here. We are here. We're live surrounded by deadly mosquitoes. Okay, so let's actually talk about you. So well first of all you have your beautiful heart. Yeah, just came out. Yep. And you have a CD release coming up at the end of this month. Right? Correct. 28thof the lizard lounge. Right? Yeah, my favorite places to go. Matt York  7:40  Yeah, me too. It is. Yeah, I'm excited about it. My my wife and I actually met there 18 years ago. She wasn't musician and she's playing bass with me on the 28th Chuck Clough  7:50  what is what is her name? Her name is Beth. Her last name is York as well She's playing bass with me that night. We 18 years ago. We played a show together in a club in Worcester. I saw her and I was like, She's cute. I should invite her to open up for us at the lizard lounge. She came and did so. And we met that night. And, like, literally that weekend is the 18th anniversary of our first date. Ronnie  8:17  And what does she play other than she's now playing bass to play guitar before she blows us out? Matt York  8:22  Yes, she played bass years ago and, and she hadn't played in forever and I play probably 95% more than that of my shows just solo. I joke that it's too expensive to have her play bass because we have to get a babysitter every time. You know. Chuck Clough  8:40  It's it's sadly it's cheaper to get a bass player than it is to get a babysitter. Matt York  8:44  That's Amen. So do that every day. Yeah. So it'll be a rich Chuck Clough  8:49  it's a sad state of affairs. Yep. But at least you have a cute bass player that Matt York  8:52  that part is huge and and we get along Chuck Clough  8:55  How long you been playing in the Boston area for now. Matt York  8:57  So Chuck, this might be an interesting story. So I, I don't know if you know a guy named by the name of Rick Berlin who has been around forever. He was in a band called Berlin airlift. And yeah, I know that. I know the name of that. But yeah, so you had a hand in here recently many, many hands studio. Yeah. So I did an album with Dave and he did a bunch of Rick's albums and kind of back then in the 80s, late 80s and stuff Rick and Dave were in a lot of this that same circle. Rick wasn't really a punk though. He was more like talking heads. Lou Reed type world. Yeah. So I met him when I was in high school, and I started playing the clubs when I was a young kid, really young kid like 15. That's what many handed us playing when he was like, 15-16. Yep. So like places like the rat in the channel and been rowdies right when they were closing down. Yeah, I was like, the high school kid play in those places and played in a band called White Iris that was a popular indie punk band in the late 90s. For five or six years, we had a pretty good run. We played all over the East Coast, andAnd then I stopped forever. I stopped for 12 years. Yeah. And oh, and then I started back up four years ago. And I really didn't plan on doing much of anything more than just kind of recording and plan a couple songs in the studio. And this has been the third album now in four years. And I think I've played something like 13 states this year. So yeah, it's definitely not what I intended on doing. Yeah. But it kind of just took off. And really, when I was really young, my dad was just a huge, like, Lou Reed Bowie guy. And so I started off with that when I was like, seven, eight years old. And, you know, when I was a teenage kid, he was the one driving me to these clubs and, you know, unloaded my amp and stuff. And so he turned 70 a few years ago, and, you know, I think he was always a little bit bummed that I stopped doing music and so I really went in there to kind of record a couple songs for his birthday, and it just kind of happens, you know? Ronnie  11:00  It's very heartfelt to hear. And you could tell that that's important to you. And it's rare. My parents when it came to music were they're always supportive of music. But I think that getting back into it would have been tough, a tough sell. That's pretty noble that he feels that he wants you to be involved in that. Matt York  11:19  Yeah. And I think I mean, I, you know, I kind of went, I got away from music and was able to kind of, I have a regular job and I have a wife and kids and I have a mortgage and you know, I mean, I'm able to kind of balance the two things by not sleeping a hell of a lot, I guess. Chuck Clough  11:35  But what do you do for Matt York  11:36  it's a complicated job Chuck, but I worked for sprint.I worked for sprint, but I work I work in a fraud investigator. So I will stay companies that sell our product and try to defraud us and try to identify that and take action. Chuck Clough  11:53  That's pretty cool Matt York  11:55  Yeah, and I work from home so I'm able to kind of sit on my couch and do that and Chuck  12:00  Do undercover stuff and like, you know, it's more finance driven and kind of it's more spreadsheets and Chuck Clough  12:09  you know, I have a friend I went I grew up with actually he works for the FBI. Is that right? Yeah. Matt York  12:15  A few years ago, I was a licensed private investigator, but I let it lapse. So really, yeah, like somehow if you had been an investigator as long as I've been you qualified, and I went, and it was like so lame. I thought it was gonna be like a badge and they gave me like this Xerox piece of paper. Yeah, it was like faded and Chuck Clough  12:31  did you ever get into the the Spencer for hire books or ever be part? Matt York  12:34  Yeah, so I grew up like I loved Hawk. Chuck Clough  12:36  Yeah. And those are my books. I love I read every single one of those books. Yep. You read those books? No, Robert be Parker. Spencer for hire him a TV show. Ronnie  12:46  That's all I remember. Chuck  12:47  Based upon those books. Yeah, but the books were better. Yes. Ronnie  12:51  Maybe they can sponsor this podcast. This is this is Matt York  12:55  Yeah, we're merging with T Mobile. So Amanda, where are you? Really? Yeah. Chuck Clough  12:59  Is that Is that inside information? No, no, that's like, really? Matt York  13:06  I'm not smart enough to know, Ronnie  13:08  what type of fraud we talking about. Chuck Clough  13:09  And have you written a song about this? Ronnie  13:11  Let me answer the first question first. So yeah, is there a song about it? No, Chuck  13:16  my question was much better about it, right? Yes. But that my question was much better than your question. What would I say? You asked him. I like him about what he does for Ronnie  13:25  Well, I think it's interesting. I mean, like, I've never met anybody that does it. But your songs are a little deeper than that. They are. They're not just about iPhone fraud. No, you know, what i what i was taken by was some of the recent stuff you did the addiction song. It's not called that and you're going to tell me in a second what that is. But there's a few on the album, but I lost my baby to the needle to the needle, right? Yep. you put a couple stats on there that are very sobering not to give upon, but that 72,000 people died in 2017. Yeah, we had actually talked about that on an episode we did write music and recovery Matt York  14:32  somebody I think, in fact, I think that's how we reconnected because I forget who it was that you had on was the Maureen Cavenaugh, Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. The woman that's in the video for the last Yeah. She's very close with Maureen and really very responsible for Ronnie  14:46  because they're real people. Matt York  14:47  Yeah, so the people in the video are in both in recovery and they both run sober homes and there are a couple themselves now to me. Ronnie  14:55  That's amazing, because I think I saw it in Jed's article or was it Jed Gottlieb or something? Nobody wrote an article on you. Yep, that was really interesting. Because, you know, you can have these messages that are like really poignant. Yeah, about something as powerful as opiates and addiction, but at the same time, like you always think they're actors. And yeah, these people are like, a real real going through this real start how therapeutic it might, it must have been. I don't know. It was in the middle of that. Matt York  15:22  So a couple things is it was really funny because we literally met them in front of an Nantasket , the beach there. It was, like November. It's freezing cold in the morning. We met them in a parking lot. We spent maybe an hour and a half with them, and we've never seen them again. But we suddenly kind of created this thing together and that's evergreen. Yeah, totally. And you know, I sent them the song I actually just like put like a Craigslist I sent it a couple different spots trying to find people. And she the girl in the videos sent me the email saying listen, this I'm the person to do this. She had no acting experience. Right and I don't drink but my dad joined a when I was about eight, nine years old and, and he would take me to a meetings. So when I was like eight or nine I'd be hearing these people get up and tell these stories that I was like holy shit like Drinking crazy, right. And so I was kind of always aware of it. And, you know, I drank a little bit when I was in my 20s. But I was never a big drinker and ever, but I was, you know, if you do music long enough, you see this stuff, you know, you see addiction in all different forms. So the album that I put out before this was really about alcoholism, and just kind of having been away from the clubs for so long. And then going back in like, Oh, my God, like, I forgot how crazy this? Yes, yeah, every day, we recorded probably seven or eight songs that are really about addiction in that world. It's not a happy album by any stretch. But Chuck Clough  16:48  no, but I mean, you know, the thing is when you write when you go out to write songs about such a powerful topic, it can sometimes be contrived.You know, it's like the trying too hard to be, you know, to make this story into this song. I make one. Matt York  17:07  Just say one thing you said about how contrived. So I spent a lot of years away from music and literally years where I didn't pick up a guitar at all. Yeah. And my wife and kids and I were at the finish line during the marathon bombing. Yeah, we were able to kind of get out of there. And our kids were young, and whatever. That was six, six years ago.Again, and I remember, like, I went home, and like, within two or three days, I had a song about it like it all of a sudden, it just came out, you know, and it was such an interesting thing. And I had been away from music and Randy, who runs at woods and used to run TT to bears years ago. She was running Johnny DS at the time, and I was like, Listen, Randy, I don't do music anymore. I see you're doing a benefit. And I'd love to just come and play a couple. I want to play this song. So she was awesome. And let me do it. You know, it's kind of like the one time I started that I kind of came out and played in it. You know, I've never released it or recorded it or anything, butWas it made me realize I could still do it if I wanted to? Yeah. And Ronnie  18:05  so that was the trigger actually that part of it rushed back into music. Yep. Well, that's a powerful terrible thing that you know, it's always amazing to hear some of the little the silver lining come out of some of these awful things. Yeah, you know what I like about Matt's music is also the the harmonies that are double in some of the doubling that you do in the production of it. But I love the effect. I've always loved the effect in rock and and pop and others, similar genres. You connect the same melody and unison. Yeah. And the effect that that gives is really, it could be haunting, but it could also just be very cerebral and is very soothing. Is that something that you experimented with one day and said You liked it? Or have you always come from? Matt York  18:52  Well, it's funny because when I was younger, and I had a noisier band, we were just a three piece. There was no one else in my band that could sing So there really weren't harmonies in it. And then when I came back and started doing this, I didn't have anybody else to sing them. You know, like I was in the studio there was nobody else with me I was pretty much doing all the instruments. So I just kind of experimented with doing it myself and I would have preferred honestly to have had someone else do it. The album I did before this one I did with Dave Brophy, who's will Bailey's drummer and the Ruby Rose Fox album and he's done a bunch of stuff and so he and I have worked together on some of the harmonies I think, I can't remember he may have sang some of them actually, I love doing it and this is double though to you don't just do harmonies? Yeah, it's double vocal us in a lot of times. I'll split the harmony in parts. Yeah, yeah. No. And then it comes back to a unison Yeah, right. And then it's funny when I do them live because when I just have the one voice like it's, it's almost like you have two different melodies to choose from. Chuck Clough  19:49  So depending on how strong your voices at night, you can choose the lower one. Matt York  19:51  Yeah, exactly. I'm on the fourth night in a row then I'm going love the feeling. Chuck Clough  19:56  Yeah, you know, I always love to do this, but the whole Oh you sound like so and so. But and especially with I need my can reduce my readers. Ronnie  20:08  Those new again. Chuck Clough  20:09  Do you like them? Ronnie  20:10  You get new glasses every week? Chuck  20:11  Oh no cause I lose them. That's why I lose them and I Ronnie  20:15  just lost the $80 pair that you paid last night Chuck Clough  20:17  I lost these exact pair. Ronnie  20:19  No, they were tortoise shell type. Chuck Clough  20:21  That's what I have. I have those still. Ronnie  20:24  Those are great. Those last ones. Yeah. Glad you didn't lose those. Chuck Clough  20:27  I have those. Ronnie  20:28  But I really liked those and you look good in them. Chuck Clough  20:30  You don't like these? Ronnie  20:31  No. Chuck Clough  20:31  Why not? Ronnie  20:32  I don't like it as much as the other ones. Those are okay. Chuck Clough  20:35  Well, this is my Clark Kent. What do you think, Joe? No. Matt, what do you think? Matt York  20:40  I thought they looked fun. I'm not gonna lie. Ronnie  20:43  I think you're fine too. But the other ones he's he looks great. Like, yeah, Chuck Clough  20:47  so the Ronnie  20:49  know who he sounds like. Chuck Clough  20:51  Steve Earle, man, you've got that, especially especially that song a Permanent Crush. I really heard Steve It's almost sounds like a first take of whatever song you saying. It's just very natural True, which is what I reminds me of Steve. Oh, it's very raw that Matt York  22:03  Yeah, so I had never listened to him when I was younger. And then I found him maybe 20 years ago. And I was like, wait, well, how did I miss? Yeah, I know I missed on. I didn't get into late recently to like that I missed him. Chuck  22:15  But it's not even. It's not even just the voice which you know, you can kind of get that low register voice too. But it's also the guitar playing it's the entire song. And not only that, there was also the other side actually in a previous album on my own. Yeah. Was it was it Boston, Texas. Is that the one or no? No. Between the Bars between the bar Yeah, yep. That was like a little little Elliott Smith in there, too. I don't know if you know Elliott Smith. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but yeah, between the bars.Between the bars, Michael, I wonder if you did a cover. Matt York  22:44  I thought it was so clever. And then Chuck Clough  22:47  afterwards, but no, no, you know, Elliott Smith. Yeah, yeah. So I'm not well, he's a song calledbetween the bars, I guess you would say so I thought there was a reference to that bus. Different reference. Matt York  22:58  Yeah, it was just coincidence though, that I stole it by accident. Chuck Clough  23:01  He was such an influence on me. Yeah, he died. He was such a frickin talent. Yeah. Such a talent. Ronnie  23:13  So what is the story with Boston, Texas? So I'm just curious if it's not a town in Texas, right? Yeah, there is. Matt York  23:19  There is a tiny little town called Austin, Texas. But so when I was a kid, when I was about 10, we moved to Texas. We've grown up in Boston, and we moved to Texas as a family for about a year when I was down there briefly, I kind of got hints of, you know, back then there was no rock'n'roll music down there. And there was no country music back here. So, you know, I would start to hear like Willie and Waylon and people who I was, I was too young to know, but I just kind of would hear these influences. And then so as I got older and started writing, I kind of found that Boston music was was what I love the most. But I kept coming back to these kind of texts, influences kept kind of pulling on my songwriting like Steve Earle. And you know Townes, Van Zandt. People like that Billy Joe shaver so the songs that on that first album that Boston tech Selma really just kind of a mishmash. Yeah, Boston and Texas in Ronnie  24:08  that town is kind of very indicative of like that your whole experience with this song. September, Matt York  24:15  September is coming soon. Yep. Ronnie  25:00  It's one it's my it's my favorite month it's a tough month is some deaths in our in our my friends and family. But there's also some birthdays and some amazing celebrations too. Yep. So September is the start of school and just something about the, like just coming to America. Yeah. And actually I'm Jewish. So it's like, you know, Russia, China is the new year of September in October. Yep. And you celebrate the new year for that. Matt York  25:23  I feel like I'm a pretty normal person. Like I'm not a depressed person. I'm not an alcoholic. I don't have any of these types of issues. But I write about those things September's coming soon to me, just always many people are affected by the summer ending, especially here in New England, where you just prepare for kind of shutting down, you know, being stuck in the indoors for a few months. And Ronnie  25:45  I think it's a rebirth. Yeah, I like the weather too. Yep. I don't think his summer is that great. I mean, I think it's sometimes too hot. You know, like Chuck, don't you like like that make it start making that fire. Chuck  25:55  If I go on vacation in the summer, even if it's like for three days, like June I'm done. I'm done. I'm ready for fall so yeah falls in lov e the smell of like, yeah the smell the wood burning and and you wrote a song about that bring on the winter I did Yes, yes. Ronnie  26:13  he went past September and he wrote a song about bringing on the winter so you want Chuck Clough  26:17  I mean, I liked the winter but that was just really kind of I was looking for something that rhymed with splinter. I don't know. Ronnie  26:26  Sorry to Bring up the weather. But you know, I just like that freakin song. Chuck Clough  26:29  When you got back into playing music Did you get back into playing solo and doing acoustic guitar not getting back into a band? for a specific reason? Was it literally just now it's just gonna be easier to play by me. That's what I did. I mean, it was easier for me to play by myself. Pick up an acoustic guitar and try and get a band back together with two small kids, right? Matt York  26:46  Yeah, almost all of them I play solo. And if I had a bunch of guys that I was friends with that could just at the drop of a hat, play for next to nothing and just show up and be awesome. I would do that. I just don't you know, and so I mean, I Live on the south shore, my drummer lives in Manchester, New Hampshire, you know, so it's like, we're lucky to have a rehearsal before we play a gig. And I like to travel and obviously traveling on the road when you know, you're probably gonna lose money anyway. Yeah, to bring a band just ensures that you're not only going to lose money, but you're going to be very uncomfortable probably on the road, Chuck Clough  27:21  getting back into, or even starting for the first time being a solo artist. Yep. What was the most challenging thing for you? Because I started doing it myself. It was a learning experience trying to figure out where my strengths were. Yep. What did you do improve on, and plus my voice. And playing has changed since I was a kid, and especially my voice. Matt York  27:39  I don't have the higher range that I have when I was younger. But I was a big smoker when I was younger, and I don't smoke. So like I was just down in Nashville last week, and I did like four nights in a row. But that fourth night, I feel a little pull on my voice. But I feel like almost every time now I can go out and I'm going to give the same level of performance every time. So control to Ronnie  28:00  I've always been a piano player mostly and it's like I'm not going to lug around a piano and do a solo thing but I've always envied someone with it, you know a good command of their guitar and then they match their vocal to the chord the rhythm they're reading off the audience and Matt York  28:16  that's the biggest thing showing up in playing gigs and not knowing exactly what the audience is going to be especially like I opened up for a lot of national Acts where I joke all the time when I do that that I'm like there to just be like a good appetizer right you know like I'm if I'm a quality like clam chowder a buffalo wings to them then great right they're not there to see me they're there to have steak sometimes I'll come out and just based on the audience I can feel like you know I can do the kind of the listening room tender sad songs thing or they want more of an upbeat warm up and yeah, warm up the evening the ability to kind of just be solo and change on like, I don't write setlist I just will go out there and transition if I yeah. Ronnie  28:56  Well, do you find that like there's a part of you thatfeels that if someone's getting filled up on their clam chowder, they're going to taste it. It's going to be good. But if they if they find that they're like they don't need as much steak, because they filled up on the clam chowder, that's a goal of yours. Chuck Clough  29:13  This is right up Ron's alley. This whole food analogy. Yeah, he does this. Yes. With the ingredients. And the recipe. You're all you do all that. Ronnie  29:22  I think the fact that Matt came up with that analogy, Chuck Clough  29:25  I'm just saying it's right up your alley. You dont have to get defensive Ronnie  29:28  No, no, I'm not am I? Matt York  30:16  Well, you had Carissa Johnson on here at one point. We did yeah, rocks, man. She's insane. So we did the rumble together a few years ago and we played a few gigs together. That was when she won a couple years ago. I was in my band was in it that year. So I did the rumble in 2000. I did it in 2017. And oh, wow, really crazy. And Jed Gottlieb actually wrote this article with me and two or three others that had had this giant gap. Yeah, and yeah, what was crazy to me is when I think back, I was probably 20, early 20s. When I did it back then, the entire club was not only packed but it was packed with people in their early 20s. Oh, yeah. When I played it two years ago. Chuck Clough  30:57  These with you? Yeah. Matt York  31:00  like none you know and and even Krista who is that age? Yeah her fans Aren't you know i mean the show but they're telling that's it yeah they're people that love that Boston punk music that CO yeah she she's doing what we love, but it's not like you know a club full of 22 year olds You know, Chuck Clough  31:18  you're excited about your CD release I am and this came out just what August 4, right? It's just released. Matt York  31:24  Yeah. Yeah went up on Spotify. I think right around the time I wasn't sure what I was going to do for an actual release and that kind of fell in place to do the lizard Okay. Oh, Chuck  31:33  who's opening for you? Matt York  31:34  So we're actually starting the night because all of my friends are so old that I was like put us on early because Okay, the band old jack does they do a residency the last Saturday of every month so you opening for them? So they Yeah, they're playing in the middle slot and in a band called The I want your headline? The I want you I like those guys. Yeah, so that's good. That's cool. That's great. I ain't going to be my high school. 30th Reunion. Chuck Clough  31:56  Are you allowed back Ronnie  31:58  What's it? Yes, I am loud. Butyou're gonna have your CDs out. And like an actual CD release physical artifact, I will give you a physical CD. And then do you do you have like downloads and stuff like that or how does that work? Yeah, so usually Chuck Clough  32:13  you new to this music business right now Ronnie  32:15  I'm wondering what Matt is, Matt York  32:17  what I usually do is, uh, you know, I sell t shirts and then I'll give a download code or I'll give a CD and I'm gonna download card with it. So I sell more t shirts Chuck Clough  32:26  Do you ever do  vinyl. Matt York  32:27  I just don't have enough people I care about the make it I can't justify the upfront costs, Chuck Clough  32:34  you know, we have an album that we're waiting to get out for dead. And I want even if I do like, hundred pressing Yeah. So you thinking you want to do vinyl? Well, just like 100 friends you're having to be expensive, but it'll just be something to have. I'm never going to put an album out like IL So why don't we do that? We should. Ronnie  32:52  Alright, so back to Matt. So Matt York  32:53  So can I just get one final thing? Yeah, so I was not this last time but one of the times I was down in Nashville, I went into jack White's thing. Unknown Speaker  33:00  Man, he's got that that that little like phone booth where you can record in and then it automatically produces a vinyl. Right? Neil Young made an album that way and stuff. little teeny vinyl. Within like an hour. Like no was like within five minutes like what just makes it it presses i Chuck  33:16  is it? 33 and a half 33 1/3? Matt York  33:18  No, it's like it's like a 4045 not a Ronnie  33:21  45 but the Chuck Clough  33:21  78? Matt York  33:23  I don't even know what it is. Ronnie  33:24  It's a 62 Chuck  33:26  Well, it's got to be either 4578 or 33. Matt York  33:28  So I will send you I will text Ronnie  33:31  because you got to play it in your variable, but it's actually it's just it's a record. Yeah, Chuck  33:35  but you want to be able to listen to it so that Matt York  33:37  so I haven't been able to figure out how to listen to it on my record player, but I have friends. That is funny. No one can listen. No, Chuck Clough  33:43  but that's it's got to be one of those three. He wouldn't just make up. Yeah, Matt York  33:47  I'm sure it is. I just don't remember but well, we actually do young jack white went on I think Jimmy Fallon or Kimball and they brought the machine on the Ronnie  34:00  Fallon that's a Fallon thing. Matt York  34:01  Yeah, I'll send you the link to it. I have watched it but you have like two minutes and 20 seconds and then the machine shuts off. Like Chuck Clough  34:09  there's only one side to it. Yep. Unknown Speaker  34:11  That's so cool, man. Thank you for doing this. Chuck Clough  34:15  With us, and you play us a couple songs would be happening right. Cool. Hold on a second for a second. Yeah Unknown Speaker  40:07  We would like to thank Matt for his support of ATB over the years and for sitting with us you can check out Matt's music and get his latest album at Matt York music. com You should also check out the great food at Adelaide is in West Concord, Massachusetts Adelina is an organic and authentic Mexican restaurant brought to you from the team behind Woods Hill table much like their sister restaurant Adelina is pastured a plate serving only grass fed and organic meats from their own farm, the farm at Woods Hill for more information and for reservations, go to Adelaide a conquered.com. And one last plug for you to vote for a TB podcast of the year at the Boston Music Awards. Please go to Boston Music Awards. com forward slash vote and make your voice heard. Thank you very much. Finally, please go to above the basement calm where you can sign up for our newsletter. Listen and subscribe to our podcast later.our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter and look at all the nice pictures we post on Instagram. We are everywhere. On behalf of Ronnie and myself. Thanks for listening. Tell your friends and remember Boston music like its history is unique. Transcribed by https://otter.ai 

How did popcorn become the standard theater snack instead of say, soup? From the nickelodeons of the Great Depression to the multiplexes of today, what we eat in front of the big screen has changed a lot. So Amanda and Daniel are headed to the theater to pull back the curtain on food at the movies and find out why indie theaters and legacy players alike are installing professional kitchens next to the popcorn machine. Then, we get into the biggest food stories of the week! We've got a look at an icky restaurant dress code, the latest in weird tech v. restaurant dynamics, and thoughts on a wacky new canned alcoholic beverage. Also! We've got a survey out that'll help us make the Digest better and better. It takes no more than five minutes, and it really helps us out! Take it here. Stories: • This Dress Code Sucks • LaColombe and MillerCoors Enter the Canned Beverage Wars • Be Nice to Your Hostess, Ok? Featuring: Professor Jonathan Kuntz (@ucla_tft) Jessica Giesenkerchen (@nitehawkcinema) Jennifer Douglass (@AMCtheatres) Hosts: Amanda Kludt (@kludt), Editor in Chief, Eater Daniel Geneen (@danielgeneen), Producer, Eater Produced by: Martha Daniel (@martha_c_daniel) More to explore: Check out more great reporting from the Eater newsroom. Subscribe to Amanda’s weekly newsletter here. Follow Us: Eater.com Facebok.com/Eater YouTube.com/Eater @eater on Twitter and Instagram Get in Touch: digest@eater.com About Eater: Eater obsessively covers the world through the lens of food, telling stories via audio, television, digital video, and publications in 24 cities across the US and UK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ben:                          Hey there, everybody! Today we have something very, very special. We have a special interview with Amanda Dake who is not only a hockey mom, she is also a speaker, author and creator of the funnel attrition. So Amanda, thank you for coming on the podcast and really appreciate it. I love being able to talk with you.   Amanda:               Thanks Ben. I’m super excited to be here with you today. Ben:                          So really quick, everybody gets into this funnel game a little bit different. I know I came in back in, I came in officially in 2013 when Click Funnels started in 2014 this is when I came in. What was your story like? How did you get involved? Were you involved in this space before click funnels existed? What’s your story about why you came into this, this world? Amanda:               Well, something that a lot of people may not know about me was I was a high school science teacher for 12 years before I started this official entrepreneur journey. And after 12 years of that you know, I realized my purpose here is to have as much impact on as many people as possible. And while I was impacting, you know, people while I was teaching, it just wasn’t big enough for me. Right. I was only able to reach about 120, 150 kids a year. I knew that I just needed more. And not only that, you know, teachers just don’t make a lot of money and it takes a lot of time. And so there are a lot of other factors that came into my decision to just leave that career and start something on my own. In 2011, I started my own business and I was basically just helping different businesses with their social media.                                     Facebook was relatively new at that time. Twitter was brand new at that time. And WordPress was king really, uh, for website. Every, every website, every business had some type of WordPress something. So really I was self taught to master all of these systems and I started helping local restaurants and businesses like a fitness studio and other things with their social media management running very basic ads cause that’s really the only kind of ads you could run back then. Primarily for lead generation to make sales or anything online. And then updating their current websites, not building new ones. But I realized to these small businesses, we’re spending thousands of dollars for these web developers to be on retainer to go in and update, save their hours of operation or add a new photo or something like that. So my goal for these businesses was to help them save time and save money and maximize what it is that they’re trying to do in the community.                                     That worked out really, really well. And I just like with funnels, I was able to go out, like I set my intention, I went out and I got, you know, four or five clients and that replaced my income as a teacher and allowed me to have the freedom and flexibility that I wanted to have in my life. So one of my clients, his name is Seth Humphrey, he’s actually been my performance coach, uh, for the last four years. And um, but he is the fitness owner that I was helping with his social media and his lead Gen and everything like that. Well, Seth went through a program, much like Garrett White’s warrior training. In fact, his coaches were graduates of that training. So it was kind of like a level down from Gareth’s program. Well, Garrett white is a huge proponent of click funnels, right? And he’s been in since the beginning.                                     And in Gareth’s program, the only this he focused on, you know, your fitness and your family and everything else like that. He also focuses on helping you increase your business. And naturally he was telling all of the people in his program to use click funnels. So Seth said, hey, we’re getting ready to use click funnels. You need to figure out what that is cause we’re going to start doing it. And I was like, okay, this was back in 2014 when basically click funnels was just born, like very much Beta and maybe even just right out of Beta. So I was like, alright, let’s go. And so I taught myself the platform, relatively simple to use. Uh, it was the first version of it, which I think is called the classic editor. Now if you go in, you can see what it kind of looked like.                                     It’s, it’s just, it’s really spectacular how things just kind of have fallen into place. Um, I remember at that first funnel hacking live and all the other sense, but Garrett White was a speaker and really if we boiled it down and took out all the layers, Garrett is why I was doing what I was doing because he was coaching my guy on what to use. And so I remember I met him at in person at that event and I cried literally because it was like one of those full circle moments like, oh my gosh, you’re the reason that I’m here and now I’m here talking with you. I’m getting my picture with you. And it was a, it was a very powerful emotional moment, but it just made me realize how sure my path was. Like it was, it was really awesome. Ben:                          Garrett commands this presence and I love watching him speak every single time because it doesn’t matter if he’s on stage or you’re watching a video, the minute he gets on, he demands your attention and you listen because I don’t think anybody knew this. He was a PE teacher too. Yeah, he was a PE teacher. So when you hear him yelling and staring it up, I imagine myself as 11 year olds going on. So that’s really cool that everyone’s coming from an education background. I think it’s interesting too, the, everyone’s coming from the education background is trying to create a bigger education, a bigger movement, and a bigger change. You’re making, you’re doing the exact same thing, but you’re playing in the funnel space and helping people understand how to build funnels that will change lives. Right? Amanda:               And that’s the Funnel Kitchen! Yeah, I do, I help a lot of different types of businesses and people, but I love working with coaches and consultants and others that want to have like more massive impact on the people they’re trying to help. And, uh, what I’m able to do is really help them create more leverage in their business, uh, with online courses. And you know, I have a master’s degree in education and, uh, I actually started working on my phd, for awhile. And so my experience and education, uh, paired with their level of genius and their goals, it really helps solidify their product or offering that they can reach more people. So a lot of the people that I work with, they, and most of us had started out working one on one with clients, right? And there’s only so much of us to go around and one on one while it’s really important to have those types of clients, I think don’t, I don’t ever want to get rid of that part, but it’s really hard when you’re starting out to command the type of prices to make it worth it.

Is Surtex really worth the time, MONEY, and energy that designers invest? Surtex recently moved their show to February, giving designers only 9 months to design patterns, textiles, and prints for the show when they normally prepare for an entire year. .......................................................................... Check out the Blog Post by Shannon McNab: .......................................................................... https://shannonmcnab.com/blog/2018/7/1/surtex-announces-new-dates-for-2019 ..................................................................................... FREE 2019 Trend Guide: Get the PDF download! ..................................................................................... http://bit.ly/2La8B2H ..................... INSTAGRAM @LaurenLesleyStudio ..................... Be sure to subscribe for more design LOVE! Business tips + creative strategies: ................. http://bit.ly/2LGqRNE   .......................... READ MY BLOG: .......................... http://www.laurenlesley.com/blog #laurenlesleystudio ..................................................................... LISTEN TO THE DESIGN TRIBE PODCAST: ..................................................................... iTunes: https://apple.co/2xZIPsy Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LHe2TB ........................................... JOIN MY FREE FB GROUP: ........................................... https://www.facebook.com/groups/DesignTribeLaurenLesley/ .................................... Wave at me on social: .................................... Instagram: http://instagram.com/laurenlesleystudio #laurenlesleystudio Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/laurenlesleystudio Facebook: http://facebook.com/laurenlesleystudio   .................................... Transcript: .................................... Speaker 1:                    00:04                I'm Lauren, of Lauren Lesley studio and today I want to introduce you to special guest, uh, Amanda Brady and she's here to talk to us about her very first experience showing her pattern and designs at Surtex. So we're about to dive into 11 questions and Amanda is going to honestly answer all of these questions so that moving forward, if you're thinking about showing at Surtex, you'll have a great idea and know what to expect in 2019. So before we jump into the questions, make sure to like this video, leave a comment or question below and we'll try to answer those to the best of our ability and definitely subscribe to my channel if you haven't already. All right. So Amanda is a founder of Green Hound press and I'm at her very first Surtex show she was on print and patterns blog, which is incredible. Not sure how she did it, but she's very talented and amazing. So here's just a little snapshot at her Surtex, um, with her artwork. And um, I've been uh, rubbed designer for the last seven years and I'm excited to say that some of my rugs have ended up in anthropology, so that's like any designer's dream. Um, so that's just a little bit of my background and we will jump into the questions. So Amanda, can you tell us how did you become a designer in the first place? Speaker 3:                    01:27                Um, well in high school I was on our journalism staff and discovered photoshop and I loved it and I went into college, going to be a journalism major because I didn't really know graphic design was a thing, so I was like, I'll just be a journalism major and then I can lay out the like, newspapers even how little I knew about anything. And then my cousin is a graphic designer in Maine and she flew out for a wedding and she was like, oh my gosh, I'm a graphic designer because our families aren't really super close because we live so far apart and I'm. So yeah, she showed me all of her stuff, gave me all these magazines and I like changed my major the next day. So that's how I became, that's the very beginning of how I became a designer. Okay, cool. Speaker 2:                    02:19                Okay. So what inspired you to go to Surtex in 2018? Like how did you get from deciding to be a designer to ending up at Surtex? Speaker 3:                    02:28                So back to my cousin Aaron in college, I will flow out to her house and she showed me all of these patterns she had made and it never had dawned on me like, oh, people actually make these. I mean it's just one of those things you don't think about them because they're still part of our lives and I'm so I became obsessed with making patterns in college, but I kinda just did it as a hobby, you know, I'd have files in my computer and I did that for like four or five years and my husband was always like, what are you gonna do with those? I was like, uh, put them on instagram. Some, of course I'd heard Surtex. So I, in February of 2018, I emailed Surtex to ask about the 2019 show and the woman who runs the show called me and she was like, why would you wait til 2019? Why don't you do it for 2018? I was like, I don't know because I don't know. And she's like, you're totally ready. And so I just like made kind of like an impulse decision. It was like, alright, I guess I'll sign up for the 2018 show. Speaker 2:                    03:24                Oh that's so cool. I can't believe that happened. I didn't realize it was that spontaneous and Speaker 3:                    03:29                it was. I mean I've been kind of checking in on this show, like for a year or two, but like, oh yeah, I'll give myself a year and a half to get ready for the show and myself three months basically. Speaker 2:                    03:43                I know I would feel like I needed at least a year to get ready. So when you signed up kind of last minute, did you feel ready once you were there or were you like, that's okay. Like I could have had more, but I'm, I have enough. Speaker 3:                    03:55                No, actually I am glad that I didn't have a year because I think I would have waited till close to the last minute anyways, and since I had such a short amount of time, there was no time to really stop and second guess anything. It was just like I had to go on pure instinct. Like this looks good to me. This is what I'm doing. I like this, this is what I'm doing because I didn't, I didn't have the time to debate it. Really? Yeah. So, um, especially like with the booth design and stuff, because you have to have so many weeks to get that stuff printed and shipped to you. And then I wanted a little wiggle room in case something was wrong to get a reprint. So it was just boom, boom, boom. Speaker 2:                    04:33                I kind of love that Speaker 3:                    04:36                actually for me it worked really well. Good. Okay. Well, what can you tell us about art licensing? I'm still not that much. I didn't know what to expect when it came to the actual, like selling a patterns at the show. And I brought like order form sheets and I couldn't find anywhere in anyone's blog or anyone who had talked about Surtex about the actual selling of the patterns. Oh, okay. So I came prepared if people wanted to buy them. And then I just, what I've been doing now is I got, oh great number of contacts from tags. So I started like an e-blast basically that I send out when I make a new collection and I will send it to these people first so they get, before I even put it on instagram or anything, I'll show it to them to give them an opportunity. So that's just what I've been doing since the show. But I haven't actually done any licensing deals yet. So that's why I don't, I'm, I'm still not sure how that works. And I'm really curious to see in the future how that goes. Speaker 2:                    05:47                Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that um, sort of the path that you want to go down with showing your things at Surtex or do are you wanting to do more like client work? Work? Speaker 3:                    05:57                I'm really anything I, I would definitely love to get some licensing deals, but since I'm still so new I'm not, I'm not sure if like I'm going about getting the licensing deal the right way or yeah, I'm still, that's very murky waters for me still. I understand that side of stuff. I'm like, can someone else just take care of this for me? I know I think so many artists are like that and I think that art school doesn't really prepare you well for the business side of things or there's not like. I Dunno, I mean it seems like some artists out there have a agents and work with agencies and that seems like one way to do it, but you don't really even know how to make those connections in the first place. And so my next question was going to be, are you working with an agent? Speaker 3:                    06:49                I'm like, are they trying to get you licensing deals or are you still looking for an agent or are you going down that route at all? So the first time I ever even thought about an agent was at Surtex and an agent came up to me and was like, I would love to work with you, here's my card, um, and she's like, reach out to me at such date and it was a couple months after and I don't even think I've reached out to her yet because I'm still deciding if that's what I don't want to waste her time. So I didn't want to reach out to her until I researched more like, okay, this is what I want to do. I'm an agent or um, yeah, I'm still trying to figure out just where I want to take this and where I want to go with this. And I think I've been kind of waiting to see something that naturally happens. But since I'm probably gonna have to like really, you know, start working a little harder at figuring out which direction I want to go with this, you know? And so I would not be opposed to using an agent. I just don't know if that's like, I just don't, I can't commit to that yet. I got Ya. So always. Speaker 3:                    07:57                Okay, well my next question is how did you prepare for Surtex, and I think you kind of answered this with them, you know, just talking about how last minute everything was, but are there, um, is there any advice you would maybe give to someone who is thinking about going to Surtex in 2019 and what are some, like kind of practical steps they could take to get prepared for this show? Um, well I did a lot of research and I, I tried to track down any blog, anything on pinterest I could find of people's booths. Um, you know, what they did for Promo items, just anything I could get my hands on. So, and then I spent probably a couple weeks, you know, when you get in that zone where you, you're trying to, hard things aren't flowing naturally. So I was definitely there. So once I got through that and I was like, you know, just stop thinking so much in doing what I naturally know to do. Speaker 3:                    08:53                It went a lot smoother. But I um, I definitely looked at a lot of booths and was like, okay, what's, and I was really kind of harsh thankfully, like it was just in my head, but like what's working with this booth, what's working with this booth, how can I incorporate that into my booth, you know, and then I noticed like how did people actually showcase their patterns and a lot of people had that big portfolio books are like printed large pieces of paper and I, I don't know why I just did not want to do that. So I made an actual catalog of like a magazine spread of all my patterns and I took that and I made like 100 copies and gave those out so people could take my portfolio with them. I'm not smart. It worked really well. I was in um, yeah, the magazines weren't super expensive to print because that was one of the reasons like I didn't want to like print this super expensive portfolio or even like the sheets of paper. Um, because like they'll print like these big sheets of paper. Yeah. Speaker 2:                    09:55                Where did you use to print? Um, your magazine? I've heard of like blurb and I don't know, Speaker 3:                    10:01                I used a company called overnight prints. Okay. Yeah, it's decent quality, especially for what I wanted it for and it was pretty inexpensive. Um, and so yeah, that worked out really nicely for me. So yeah, was like, well was traveling. What's the question again? Speaker 2:                    10:23                I know I kind of got you off topic, but yeah, just getting or any advice to get people. I'm kind of like a checklist of things that they might need to feel prepared for their tax going into 2019, like obviously your, you did a lot of research on your booth and kind of what that is because like you could have all your designs, but if you don't have a way to showcase them then you're not really going to be able to show at Surtex. So you know, you can go in with an ipad and be like, here's my staff. Um, Speaker 3:                    10:52                I definitely think you have to think about the whole picture. Um, when I was at Surtex one woman, I forget who it was, she was a buyer and she goes, I love your booths. Set up and she goes, I love that you even matched your booth. Like, my outfit matched my booth. I didn't plan that. That's just colors. I'm kind of gravitated towards the details. Do matter so much. Like I would have never even thought to match my clothes to my booth, but it made sense if like, you know, you have a muted color Palette that's kind of your aesthetic, but you're wearing like neon bright clothes, like you're kind of like presenting yourself as a brand almost. Yeah. I would definitely say think about the entire package from setup to what you're wearing to what your promo items are. And then I also had printed fabric samples and I had pillows made. Oh cool. Brought them down. But um, yeah, my cousin made me these cute little pillows with my patterns on them and I had them up on the behind me so people had things they can touch and hold as well. And I think adding just a little element of like, oh this is where so people could see were these patterns could live I think really helped. And I got a really positive response. Awesome. Yeah, people want to go grab them. I can like pause our recording. Yeah, I'll go grab them real fast. Hold on. Speaker 3:                    12:19                I grabbed all my stuff. Okay, cool. They're up in my kid's room so I had to go track them down. So yeah. So I made this pillow while at my cousin made this fabric I just had made at spoonflower and then I had this little pillow and so these were like setting up on a little shelf so it kind of looked like a mini store. Love it. And then I printed off some fabric samples that I had hanging off my booth so people could come up and touch it and look at it and look through the fabrics. Okay. And that was a very um, especially for it because, you know, a lot of my stuff is very childlike and sew fabric would be like a very ideal. So, um, that was like created some huge talking points. So did all of the fabric you get printed on spoonflower and is it all digitally printed? Speaker 3:                    13:21                It is all digitally printed. I um, I actually just like made squares and then made this huge file of like each square and then uploaded that one file and then to save on costs and then just cut like each fabric. Oh, that's so smart because like, it's so expensive to go. So it's like you don't want to like, you know, break the bank on all this stuff, but at the same time you want to like, you know, the details do matter. So of course my little catalog that I made for the show did some mock ups, like I found some nice photoshop ups online and like, you know, because I really wanted to show people like here's what you could do with this pattern. So. Right. Um, but yeah, this was like a big hit because people could just take it and then, you know, like a business card gets lost. But this is like, yeah, you're not going to lose that. Yeah. So, and I'm sure buyers are meeting with so many different artists at Surtex that they probably have a hard time remembering who they met with or you know, it's like even with a business card, they're like a kinder, remember, but maybe not. But with that, they, there's no way they're going to forget like your style and. Oh no, because I put everything in here that I showed. So yeah, they were. Speaker 3:                    14:44                So yeah, it was um, this was like, like I said, it was supposed to be like a cheaper decision is why I initially it and then it just ended up, I had a lot of success with it. So that's awesome. Speaker 2:                    14:58                Yeah. There's only kids pillows. Okay. Did you focus on a particular medium when you were creating your patterns for Surtex? Like did you focus on more like digital drawing or like watercolor or. Um, and tell us a little bit about your, more about your style and kind of what you focused on and if you kind of noticed what other artists were doing as well. Speaker 3:                    15:22                Um, so I am very vector art. Like that's my thing. That's what I love to do. Um, so everything I do is vector. I'm like 98 percent of my work I do as an illustrator. So that's what I know. That's what I love and that's what I stuck with at the show. I noticed every style under the sun at the show you see a lot. I saw a lot of watercolors, a lot of, a lot of digital art. Just. Yeah, there was. I'm trying to think. Speaker 2:                    15:55                Any new trends that you noticed? Like in terms of like medium, I'm like, did you see more hand drawn? Things are more like graphic or modern style. It's got clean styles. Speaker 3:                    16:08                I would say watercolor was probably the style that I saw the most that it actually stuck out in my mind. Like, oh, there's another watercolor. Oh there's another water color. But they were still so different. So I'm, I'm guessing that that was kind of trending at this show a lot, a lot, a lot of Christmas art. Speaker 2:                    16:28                Oh, okay. I bet that's a huge. Um, I know, I just feel like, yeah, the seasonal businesses is really huge. I interviewed with um, international greetings at one point and I ended up deciding not to take the job, but they were saying that they would need me to come in like every week for their Christmas season and for Valentine's Day it wasn't like that all year, but it was an app like that enough where I was like, I don't know about this. Speaker 3:                    16:58                Oh, a whole booth. That was just Christmas. Like that's all he did, that's all these women did was Christmas stuff. And I mean I knew it makes sense that the holiday market is the biggest. But one of the big agents that I talked to, um, she told me that it's like 80 percent of surface design is florals or Christmas or like. Yeah, it was like, yeah. So that was, that was eyeopening. Speaker 2:                    17:26                Yeah. So then it's like, what do you do? Because you know, if that's 80 percent of the business you want to be a part of it. But then the competition, I'm sure it was also so high that you're like, you, I should focus on something more niche. Speaker 3:                    17:38                It is. Well, I think because like buyers know that that's the stuff that sells, like florals are always going to be in florals are always going to sell, so it's like a safer by to buy a floral as opposed to like a Llama were only like a few people like llamas or you know. Speaker 2:                    17:53                Right. It's funny though, I will say that in rags and this is so nice and specific, but I'm a rug designer for those of you who may not know. And I mean they have been like anti floral for like a long time. I think just because the lattice designs and even like Persian designs more like oriental, unlike traditional designs have kind of come back into style. Um, but I think we're just now starting to like get back into florals. Even an outdoor, like I design outdoor rugs and I'm like, come on, like I think we can do some florals now. Now that you said that, it's like, oh yeah, I don't ever see floral rugs anyway. Yeah, I think it'll come back, but it's like fitness. All right, well my next question is what kind of collection did you present? Um, and I know you just kind of showed us your products, but if you want to tell us kind of what was your thought process in terms of making a collection, like were you trying to focus on kids products or some other kind of audience or niche Speaker 3:                    18:58                market? So like I talked about earlier, I really struggled the first couple of weeks and I was just overthinking it over trying and just everything I came up with was like, so forced that you could just to me it read is like forest. So I went to a couple parents, I created a year or so before that I loved and never did anything with and it was a farm theme. And so kids, um, the kids stuff is what I really love and, but I, I try not to be too babyish. Like I like kind of like the kids stuff that like you could turn it into an adult thing and it still totally work. Um, like go for anyways. So yeah, so I kind of went with this whole, like farm theme farm. Like there's like a little farm truck and a cow in some corn. This was like a coordinate to go with it. And I had this little, I had this little pig everywhere, a little pin of him. And so yeah. So, you know, when I made these patterns it was just for fun. I didn't have any shows lined up. I was like, maybe I'll put this on instagram, but it's, I, it was just for fun. And so to me they appeared more natural of my style. Speaker 2:                    20:14                Yeah, yeah. That's interesting that you were able to kind of go back into the archives and pull out, you know, things that were just you like that you did for fun and they ended up standing out a lot and getting onto the print and pattern blog, which is incredible. Speaker 3:                    20:26                I mean, I'm a doubt. I didn't even know I made it up there. I just was like, because, you know, I check that blog all the time and I submitted my stuff and I was like, man, you know, good luck. Go out into the universe and about it again until I'm scrolling by and I see this armadillo pattern that I did and I was like, yeah, Speaker 2:                    20:44                oh Speaker 3:                    20:48                yeah. That was like that. I mean, that alone makes it worth going to certain texts. Like the fact that I made it on that blog. Speaker 2:                    20:56                It was crazy. It's amazing. Yeah. Congrats. Thanks. So how much did Surtex cost in total and do you feel like it was worth the cost? Speaker 3:                    21:08                Oh, this is where it gets tricky. So by the time was between flights, hotel food and the booth and all this stuff. I bet I spent between 4,505 grand. Yeah. So it was a very huge investment so far. I would say it has not paid off financially, but that being said, I also am so new to this world that I feel like I needed to take a very crucial step like this to keep going forward and to figure out, okay, this is what I need to do to make money at this. And so since the show, I've just been doing things to keep working towards getting a licensing deal and making money at this. But um, yeah, it was, it was very expensive. Speaker 2:                    21:59                Right. So yeah. My next question was going to be, um, did you walk away with any licensing deals, which we already sort of touched on? Um, yeah. So you're, you're not doing that yet, but it sounds, I don't know, I follow you on instagram and it looks like you are working on some, you know, client work, some illustration. Speaker 3:                    22:19                I did. I have one client that came out of nowhere and I think the fact we talked about me going to Surtex and I think that gave me a level of um, the word, um, my credibility. Credibility. Thank you. And so I do think it helped me get some other gigs but not in surface assigned, but yeah, so I have been getting a lot of um, I have been in client work, um, illustration client work, which is really exciting. So um, yeah, no it was, I wouldn't say it was a waste of money, but it definitely, it was a, it was a nice chunk of it Speaker 2:                    23:02                change. Yeah, it's enough to make you maybe second guess. Are you planning on going back to Texas in 2019? Speaker 3:                    23:13                No, and I was never planning on going back unless I like knocked it out of the park. I wanted to make my money and like double it before I would commit to going back because since I was a first time showcase or you get like an intro discount and you get a really small booth which is awesome because I mean the bigger the booth more expensive it is not only in terms of like it jumps I think from 3000, I think it was 3000 for the intro booth and it jumps up to $5,000 for one of those big boost. So not only did you have the $5,000 but then the banners and stuff to fill this space is more. And so I was never, like, it wouldn't have, I would have to make so much money to commit to going to Surtex 2019 because I wouldn't be a first time show buyer or show her. Speaker 2:                    24:10                Would you have gotten the same amount of space or would you have like you're required to be bumped up to that next? The bigger booth. Speaker 3:                    24:17                I mean they might've changed it because I think they changed a lot for the 2017 show. But yeah, you just had to go up to the next size. Like you couldn't get that intro space again and get like someone like me that's just because those spaces are really for like the agents who have like multiple artists. So it's really easy to fill. I mean because the blues are like the size of a room. They're huge. So it's like little old me in this like, you know, I just, I couldn't justify that yet. So yeah, I never had plans to go back as bad as that is. I like, yeah, I made like a ton of money but I didn't. So I was like, well, Speaker 2:                    25:00                yeah, I mean, I don't know, it makes me wonder, you know, like how many times would you have to go before I did start to pay for itself? Um, because I read some blog posts by some other artists who felt like they had gotten enough gigs out of it to justify the cost. But I mean at the same time, I don't know, like I have to wonder, I don't know, like you're still like, yeah, you're maybe justifying the cost, but do you really want to give that portion of your earnings to a show like that? And would you maybe still be okay without the show? Like do you really need this show? Are People gonna forget about you. Do you have those relationships with buyers where they're still gonna come back to you year after year, um, for work or maybe is it that you go every other year or something like that? Um, I don't know. Like what was the general feeling that you got from other designers at the show? Speaker 3:                    25:56                So that was really interesting because the general vibe, everyone was like super pumped. I'm hearing from people who had gone to the show multiple times that like there was no one there, like it was really slow show your buyers know, buyers. I think the show itself have how many designers were. There was so much smaller than in past years. And um, I heard from a couple people that were also went to the blueprint show. Have you heard of that? Speaker 2:                    26:27                I heard about it from you. You had mentioned it to me before. Speaker 3:                    26:30                Blueprint was taken at the time I last year. Blueprint took place. Like it kind of overlapped with Surtex like a day or two. So it was like Blueprint's show and then right into Surtex show and there was a ton of people that showed at blueprint and Surtex and they were talking about how much better blueprint was in terms of how many buyers were there. The atmosphere was different. So I signed up for blueprint show coming in May, you did a third of the cost and everyone was talking about how much better of a show it was. So it was like, well I hate to totally give up on shows yet, but I, you know, so I wanted to try this show before I, you know, make a final decision on Speaker 2:                    27:16                these Speaker 2:                    27:18                surface design shows. Yeah, that's really interesting to hear that. It's a third of the cost. So do you feel like Surtex is, um, I dunno, I mean, do you feel like they need to come down in price? Do you feel like the price is justified? Do you feel like they just need different tiers or different options because it's like can't get the artists to the shows and the buyers aren't going to come because what's the point? The buyers aren't going to spend a week or three days or whatever it is if they don't have a good selection of artists to choose from. Like their job is to buy the best artwork possible. Right. So it's just kind of a ripple effect. Speaker 3:                    27:55                Well, once I got there, you know, and hearing all the thoughts and people talking about shows in general, it's like people go to instagram to find new artists now and they go to flower to find new artists. So it's like these companies aren't paying to send buyers out when they can just have their buyers scroll through their phones and so that totally makes sense. I still think there is something about meeting the artists and seeing their work. Um, so I think there's still a place for them, but I wouldn't be surprised if in like 10 years there isn't any of these trade shows. Speaker 2:                    28:34                That's interesting. I've heard people say that before, um, just even in the rug industry, which you would think with their rug, you would need to touch it and feel it more so than maybe with a pattern because the pattern can go on anything. But that's interesting. Yeah, it is nice to have kind of a meeting place for, um, yeah, like you said, like for the buyer to actually meet the artist and cultivate that relationship. But at the same time, at the end of the day, like there's a little bit of personal in it, but for the most part it's business and they're just going to want the best artwork. Speaker 3:                    29:06                Exactly. And what I learned from, you know, like the big fabric companies like Birch and um, cloud nine they want. This is just like some things I've heard from the show, so this isn't like factor or anything but that I heard that they want to see that you have a following before they sign you to a big fabric deal. Oh, that's interesting. That totally blew my on instagram specifically. Grant, they want you, they wanted, you know, to. I don't, I don't even know what the magic number is. But before, yeah, they want to make sure you have so many followers, you know, because then they know it's safer, you know, because they're like, oh, they have fans already. So these fans. Yeah. So that really was eye opening and it was like, man, I really need to focus on instagram. Speaker 2:                    29:56                No, I'm fine. I mean, this is kind of a tangent, but I find instagram to be so difficult to, um, I guess to gain a true audience on because there's so many people using bots and like on follows and follows and like even when people comment, it's like, you know, I love instagram for the visual aspect of it. Like I'm being an artist. Like I mean I really do love it and I love stories. I love using it, but I don't know, like I went in terms of growth they say to like focus on one platform and I really liked the SEO qualities that pinterest and youtube have because people can search and then the content that you made is evergreen, you know, like as long as you have the key words in there, like it can be found over and over again. Whereas instagram, it's only really relevant for like a day. Um, and he just is so much work. How do people do it? I don't know. Speaker 3:                    30:50                I talked to one woman, her name was Erin and she was, I'm writing an article so we had like a nice little talk about this and she was talking about how like not only do they want like instagram followers, but they want to see how many likes. So because like anyone can, like I could go by in theory a million instagram followers, I'm posting something and there's two likes that's like, oh, there's something off here. And it was just like so many things that I just never thought about like that. And then leaving the show I was like, Oh wow, you know, so. But it gave me a good thing to focus on like you said, because it is hard to like which platform do you focus on? But Speaker 2:                    31:30                yeah, I mean I definitely think instagram is a good one to focus on because it seems like that's what buyers are going to be looking at more so than like they're not going to go to your pinterest and say like, oh, how many people are following her on pinterest? Like maybe they should. Because once you actually look like there are some people that have hundreds of thousands of followers on Pinterest, but it's just not as popular, especially on your phone. Um, as instagram is, Speaker 3:                    31:53                it's so funny because I feel like I use pinterest as a tool for myself and like forget that it is another, like it is another media platform like that. Speaker 2:                    32:02                Yeah. Well, if you're trying to drive traffic to your website, it's really good too. That's what I've kind of found with it is that it's slow, but it's very steady growth. So I feel like when I first got serious about my pinterest strategy, I had about like 300 followers. It was just like my friends from when I first signed up for it, like back in South Carolina when I still lived there and we first met. Um, I mean, yeah, that cod, that was like 10 years ago. I don't know, I'm so old, but um, yeah. But then I started to implement like a more serious pinterest strategy and now I have over a thousand followers on pinterest and it's driving traffic to my website which should lead to sales. You know, so Speaker 3:                    32:49                okay. Speaker 2:                    32:50                You know, but if, if a bigger buyer seeing your stuff on instagram and you get a licensing deal that way, I mean you can go about it obviously multiple ways Speaker 3:                    32:58                but can't hurt to have. Especially because pinches, I feel like it's like you can link instagram to pinterest so you can close on instagram posts on pinterest. Same time completely given up on facebook though. I will say, yeah, well the business, I was like no things. Speaker 2:                    33:15                No, they suck with their algorithm. I think that's what scares me too is that they own instagram. So that's a little scary for me. I'm like, what if they do the same shit? They did the facebook and businesses spent so much time trying to get people to like their business page and I mean facebook owns it and they just took away the. Took it away with the algorithm. It didn't even show up in people's feed. Even if they liked your business page. Speaker 3:                    33:40                I found that and I get annoyed just with like your friends and like you know, so because they did that a couple months ago with instagram where they changed it where it wasn't in chronological anymore. It was like based on what they thought you wanted to see. Yeah. So frustrating. Like I'll make that decision as a woman. Like I will make choices of who I want to follow. Speaker 2:                    34:06                No, it's, it's messed up. I don't really don't like it. You should at least be able to toggle, you know, whether you want to see things and like recent in like chronological order or if you would rather see it based on their algorithm. Like you should be able to choose I think. Speaker 3:                    34:19                Yes. Speaker 2:                    34:23                Yeah. So, sorry for the tangent, but my next question was going to be a, do you think February will be good or bad for Surtex because they, I think they realized that they need to change something. So they've changed it to February, but do you see it as like a good or a bad thing? Speaker 3:                    34:39                I can't Surtex, or not Surtex, is national stationery show moving to February as well. I don't know about that. See, that's the part I should have researched that because certain texts is in this huge, huge convention center and there's Surtex on one side. National Stationery show was right on the other side, so it's all in one big room. And honestly most of the traffic I got was from national stationery show. They didn't realize I had so many people were like, what do you guys do? Like, what are you selling? And they were like, oh, we're part of the like, what's that, you know. So um, I'm wondering if like they're separating them if that is going to hurt them, but it definitely tells me that something is not going right to make because it's been in may forever. Right. So, um, yeah. So I just googled that. And the national stationery show is February third to sixth in 2019. So maybe that does have something. So is that, is that when Surtex is the beginning of February Speaker 2:                    35:45                and I know it's in February. Let me see when the exact dates are because that is an interesting point. Did were any of the artists talking about. Yeah, the dates are the fifth or sorry, the third through the fifth. So they are overlapping. So that's good at their key to they're keeping them together. Yeah, I definitely thought that was interesting. Speaker 3:                    36:12                Um, but I kinda just ignored it because I already knew I wasn't going back. So it was like, well good luck. Hopefully it works out better, but I know there was a, a general vibe in the air of like the artists were not particularly happy Speaker 2:                    36:27                about February, have less than a year to like make their new collections. Right. Speaker 3:                    36:33                Just that like people were like, where is everyone? Like what is this like, you know? And so it was, it was interesting for sure. There's a lot of gossip going on. It was kind of like high school but with pattern designers. Oh Gosh. But that's it [inaudible] like I hate to say I had a bad experience because I didn't cause it was so cool to get to like hang out with likeminded people, you know, how many, how many times have you like hung out with like another pattern designer? Like not very often, you know, so Speaker 2:                    37:09                I will say like my best experience was probably when I studied abroad because I was only with other artists and it was so fun. I loved it and I like grew so much just from being in that environment. Speaker 3:                    37:20                You really do. So that's why like, you know, because people have, I've had people message me on instagram asking about would you do sir again? And um, you know, I never know what to tell them because it's like, oh, financially did not pay off, but personally and like Speaker 2:                    37:36                you just point them to this video Speaker 3:                    37:40                because like typing on the ground, like I hate that. So yeah. Um, Speaker 2:                    37:47                okay. Well, okay. So the next question which we kind of touched on is if you wanted to approach a career in art licensing without attending shows, how would you do it? Speaker 3:                    37:57                Social media. And I heard from several people there, spoonflower, which surprise me because there's a lot of, um, I guess I just never thought of using. I'm sorry, my dogs whining at me. I never thought of using spoonflower as a platform. I just always used it for my personal projects or stuff like this. Um, and so that was really eye opening to me, but it totally makes sense that if you're going to do a fabric collection, you'd go to a place like spoonflower to see. Speaker 2:                    38:31                Right. And I've heard designers also complained that they don't make a lot of sales from spoonflower, but if people are using it in a different way and it's more to get found, that's an interesting point as well. But I correct me if I'm wrong, but when you upload a pattern or designed to spoonflower, they technically own it. Like you can't then go put it on creative market or another platform. Is that right? Speaker 3:                    38:54                I don't think so. I think you still own the rights to it, but if you put it up for sale, like anyone could print that fabric and do whatever they wanted with it or a paper or, you know, make, make their own stuff from it. So that kind of, you know, it was a little unsettling way because you have no control. Right. Right. But yeah, so there's definitely some flaws with it. But like, I have so many patterns that are just sitting in technique, like I also heard at the show that buyers want patterns that nobody's seen. They want to be the first, they want exclusive rights. So basically it's like you put it on Instagram, it's like you, what can you do with that pattern now? Which is so discouraging because it's also how you get found. So it's like this weird double digits. Speaker 2:                    39:44                So much work. I like what you did, but now do something just for us and you're like, okay, then I don't know if you're going to like it. Speaker 3:                    39:52                Exactly. So um, you know, so I've been struggling with that as well because like, yeah, you're trying to build an instagram following but you can't post stuff on instagram because they want exclusive rights. And so a lot of my old patterns and when I say old, I mean they've been out, people have seen them, so they're not exclusive. I had been putting on spoonflower because they're just sitting in my computer. So you know, no one I know for a fact, no one seeing them in my computer. So if I can at least try to get them out, maybe it will lead to more licensing deals. Was my thought process. Speaker 2:                    40:25                Yeah. That's a really interesting point. So is it kind of stuff that maybe you've used as like a piece of a design back in the day and you're like, well I could actually use this and put it out there and like people can see it or maybe it'll sell on spoonflower. Um, is that kind of your thought process? Speaker 3:                    40:42                Basically? Like, so these, I waited, I waited until actually, like last week I started putting on still fire. I wanted to see if I got anything from the show for these particular patterns that I showcased. If I didn't hear anything I was going to put him on spoonflower so I hadn't heard anything. Um, so now I'm starting to upload them and sell them on spoonflower just to know, try to build that following. Yeah. Have you tried, um, pattern bank, just out of curiosity? I haven't. I think you told me about that awhile ago and then I think I looked at it and then it was one of those things that I never followed up on. Speaker 2:                    41:20                Yeah, I mean it, it's hard to, to know which platform to beyond like their spoonflower, which is kind of more for fabric and then there's pattern bank and they both want exclusivity to your work. Not that they own it, but just that you're not selling it on another platform. But it's kind of hard to be like, well, I mean if you're not attracting their customers, I should be able to sell it somewhere else. No, Speaker 3:                    41:45                I actually wanted to sell my patterns on create like places like creative market though for some reason, like, especially like the vector files would make me so nervous. Like if I think if I designed something with the intent that like, okay, this is a vector file, they can do whatever they want. But um, yeah, I. because I do have small fears of being ripped off even though like I had like no followers, instagram, but it's still a legit, legitimate fear when you put artwork out there that someone's going to rip you off. Speaker 2:                    42:19                Oh, they definitely. Well, especially like when you do get big and you will. I mean it's gonna happen. Like do you listen to the honest designers podcast? No. Okay. Well it's really great and I'm. Lisa glands is one of the designers and she's huge. She's like made a really nice living on creative market and kind of inspired me, but she's talked about getting ripped off is a huge problem and I think it's just kind of inevitable. I hate to say that, but unless you want to actually get a lawyer and sue people like Orla Kiely did and she almost went bankrupt to doing that by the way. Um, and she got her point across, but like, I don't know if it's really worth it. Like you could spend all that energy creating new designs rather than like being in court Speaker 3:                    43:06                all the time. A rifle, paper company sued Walmart to Ooh know I need to follow up because that would be a huge. That'd be huge if like she won that for all artists really because it is so, such a prevalent problem in our industry. Speaker 2:                    43:21                It is, it's a huge problem. Yeah. And sometimes like, I dunno, I'm the first drug company that I worked for, they didn't even have designers for awhile so they would just buy things from vendors overseas. So they were working with Chinese vendors, Turkish vendors, Indian vendors, Egyptian vendors, Belgian vendors, like vendors from all over the world. And so if these guys, the vendors you were looking on pinterest or wherever and getting inspired by some someone like rifle paper, Co, they may totally have knocked them off and the sales guy who is just buying stuff wouldn't even necessarily know that because they're not an artist or designer. So it's, it's a problem everywhere. It's hard to control. It's hard to control. But um, anyway, well, Amanda, do you have any kind of final thoughts on Surtex or any final advice for aspiring surface designers? Speaker 3:                    44:16                So I'll tell a quick story from Surtex, um, it was kind of slow afternoon and this woman walked in front of my booth and she was looking at my booth and I could tell she was like, you know, like she's not admiring, but she was definitely like intrigued by is the right word. And I kept looking at her. I was, I know this woman wired, I know her from and it was Elizabeth Olsen and I was like, oh my God, when I realized I was like forever, blah, blah blah, and she can't even talk to me for like 10 minutes. And it was amazing and she was like, she told me, she's like, the biggest mistake new designers make is they give up too easy. And like, I don't even really remember all what we talked about, but that has really stuck with me because, um, I could definitely see how it would be like it'd be so easy to quit after my first cert tech show. Like I think get any art licensing deals. So it'd be like, well, I guess I'm not good at making patterns so I'm going to move on. But it did the exact opposite. Um, and so that would be my advice I guess is a. Speaker 2:                    45:16                I Love that advice. Did you know that um, when I was at genealogy I felt like that because Michael, I don't think it was intentional but he wanted me to just recruit artists instead of like actually work on anything creative. And so I kind of felt like what? Like do I suck, you know? Um, but yeah, I dunno, I got some freelance gigs on the side and that kind of helped boost my confidence. But it is, I mean when you're an artist you're putting your heart and soul out there and it is really easy to get your confidence crushed if you don't have some kind of reassurance. But yeah, I mean you just have to keep going, keep working and you will get better. Like the more you do it, like with anything, Speaker 3:                    45:54                it's just practice especially like on instagram or you know, if like you post something that you really love and it gets like Ken likes this is how we make money. So like, you know, it sounds superficial but like likes are important because that means like, oh, people would be interested in buying us, people would want this. So it is so easy to like Speaker 2:                    46:12                get so discouraged. And then you also think, well, I mean on a platform like instagram, you're like, well, did I just posted the wrong time of day? Is that why nobody is. No one's seeing it in the feed or you know what's happening? Speaker 3:                    46:29                Yeah. So it's been A. Yeah. So don't give up because like you said, like you get better as you go along. You learn things and prove your skills and. Speaker 2:                    46:41                But Hey guys, I'm definitely leave a comment down below and let us know if you have any further questions about Surtex or about becoming a surface pattern designer. Um, we will definitely try to answer those as best as possible. Um, and definitely subscribe to my channel like this video and click the little bell so that you get notified the next time I come out with a new video, you can find me on my website at LaurenLesley.com. Lesley's with an E-Y. And also look into description for a little Freebie pdf that I have for you guys. Amanda, will you tell everyone where they can find you on instagram and on your website? Speaker 3:                    47:23                Yes. So I am at Green Hound press on both my instagram and website. So greenhoundpress.com. And My instagram handle is @greenhoundpress. And so awesome your thing. Speaker 1:                    47:36                And I'm @LaurenLesleyStudio on Instagram. Lesley's with E-Y and um, we're also going to have a podcast version of this video so that if you want to kind of listen along to the next episode, you can subscribe on itunes or spotify and that way you can listen in your car. You don't necessarily have to meet. We also have a facebook group. And thank you guys so much for watching. Amanda, thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. And thanks for sharing your experience. That's my girl. Have you have a good day? Yeah, you too.   .................................... Tags: .................................... Textile Design Textile Designer Surtex Surtex Portfolio Surtex 2019 Is Surtex Worth It in 2019? Surface Pattern Designer Surface Design Pattern Design Design Fabric Pattern Design Fabric Spoonflower Design Patterns Surface Pattern Portfolio Fabric Portfolio Textile Portfolio Textile Design Portfolio Textile Portfolio Examples Textile Portfolio Ideas Art Licensing Art Licensing Show Art Licensing Info Surface Pattern Design

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