The Unstarving Musician Roberto R Hernandez

This episode's featured guests are Shannon Curtis and Jamie Hill. They're both alumni of this podcast, and were recently mentioned in my article Six Skills All Indie Musicians Need Today.

Shannon is the queen bee of house concerts in my world and is the reason I played my very first house show earlier this year, with Johnny Burgin. Jamie is Shannon's producer and faithful partner. We discuss the Shannon Curtis 2020 Virtual House Concert Tour, adapting to and pivoting for the pandemic and more.

Caleb Lovely is a multi-instrumentalist, incredibly talented and good looking to boot. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, Caleb is growing his music career while occasionally working on an Alpaca farm - how cool is that?

We discuss how writing about happy times can be even more challenging than writing about traumatic events. Relationships are a key aspect to his music. We also geek out on all things home-studio, EQ tricks for drums, experimentation with sound and much more.

In our final installment of the Today’s Indie Musician series, my guest is Lara Price who I know from way back when in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has a new podcast called In The Trenches with Lara Price where she shares about her own mental health, interviews friends about the Black Lives Matter movement and more. We discuss my various theories on what it takes for indie musicians to have a thriving career, building community, getting comfortable with technology, digital distribution and much more.

This is the second installment of Today’s Indie Musician series in which ’m talking with former guests of the podcast to do deep dives on the industry, what’s happening during these wild times and where we see it going.

Mawk Phoenix and I discuss my various suppositions about the important elements an indie musician must master these days. I share my experience recording drums at home and distribution. Mawk’s long career gives him a unique perspective on the skills indie musicians need today.

Today we launch a special series. I’m talking with former guests of the podcast to do deep dives on the industry and where we see it going. We talk about our need to be increasingly savvy about branding and community building, how we can elevate live streaming, recording at home and how the arc of a music career is longer than it used to be.

Our guest today is Ariane Cap from episode 141. Ariane is an accomplished musician, touring artist, online educator, and has worked with some of the greats.

In Chapter 9 of The Unstarving Musician's Guide to Getting Paid Gigs we talk a lot about subbing and to make yourself an in-demand musician. While it very much depends on live music, which is a challenge during COVID-19, I want you to think about these strategies as they apply to the future. If you think creatively you can apply the principles to live streaming, collaborating with venues and other artists, and subbing may even become the norm of the future.