Overeducated and underemployed. I'm Fedden. This
week we have Jason Neesmith, who is a member
of the Shut Ups. He's also part of the Pylon
Reenactment Society, if you're familiar with
the band Pylon. Check that out. Also known as
Casper Fandango of Casper and the Cookies. And
we had Ben Spraker on a couple weeks ago, who
is also in the Shut Ups. Ben was also in a band
called The Arcs with Kevin Lane, who was on the
show last week. So I've decided to call this
little three -part series here The Shut -Ups
Arc. Anyway, so he's the mastering engineer at
Chase Park Transduction Studios in Athens, Georgia.
And I think really just reading his bio from
their site is a really good way to introduce
him. After graduating from the Berklee College
of Music with a degree in music production and
engineering, Jason joined 100 bands and recorded
100 more. His clients kept asking him to master
their records until he accidentally got good
at it. Now he masters projects for international
or local artists in any genre of music. Recent
projects include work for the Allman Brothers
Band, Roy Buchanan, Magna Pop, Fred Schneider.
and the superions and rat babies also the complete
decoration day that just got announced this week
for those drive -by truckers fans out there we
did not talk about that because it had not been
announced yet we only talked about it off of
the podcast i'm really excited for the rest of
this box set jason neesmith and i wish we Had
more time to talk about his music. Because we
didn't get into that as much as I would have
liked. But we got into stuff that we haven't
really talked about with anybody else on this
podcast before. And we did talk about his music
some. But I'm really excited for you all to hear
this conversation. Here's Jason Neesmith and
I. Check it out. Hey, Jason. So do you go by
and you like to be addressed as Fenton? On the
podcast and on stage, yeah. If we're just hanging
out, you can call me either one. I'll give you
a little background about why I go by that. I
started doing improv comedy in virtual reality
during the pandemic, and I wasn't even doing
stand -up comedy yet. But that was my, like,
online name, my gamer tag or whatever. So that's
what everybody was calling me when I did that.
And then there was karaoke nights, and I'd go
to karaoke. And it started to become a thing
where people would call me by that, and I'd respond,
you know. I get it, man. Yeah. I had a name given
to me by somebody, Casper Fandango. Oh, okay.
And when I moved to town, people were calling
me Casper. Because my band was Casper the Cookies.
But I never wanted to be Casper, even though
I said it. That's how nicknames work, right?
No, man, call me Bartholomew. That's not how
it works. Yeah. Maybe I've cheated the system
a little bit. You can make your name whatever
you want online and then perform there. That's
a good cheat, yeah. They're letting me get away
with it so far. We're on overeducated and underemployed.
I'm here with Jason Neesmith, who... I don't
even know where to start with you. Member of
Pylon Reenactment Society. You're the senior
mastering engineer at Chase Park Transduction.
Member of the Elephant Six Collective, if I'm
not mistaken. I would put myself in the outer
orbits. Yeah. I feel like everybody says... I'm
going to be the Pluto. Yeah, no, unless you're
Will, Bill, Jeff, or Robert. John Fernandez has
been around those guys for a long time. Whatever.
That's a whole other, that's a very deep. But
yeah, I am involved in that. You've mastered
a lot of those records and stuff like that. Yeah,
I've played in a bunch of those bands off and
on. Oh, cool. And sometimes I've been in bands,
like the Casper and the Cookies project was one
that some people consider to be part of it and
others do not, and that's fine. We'll let them
decide. Yeah, it's not for me to claim or explain.
So those are just some of the highlights. We'll
get into a lot more than that, but I want to
start with the question I ask everybody off the
bat. And what's the first song that you remember
loving as a kid? It was probably, it was definitely
going to be a Beatles song. Mine was. Yeah, I
don't know exactly which one it was, to be honest,
but I'll give you, I'll give you. Two answers.
One's a Beatles song. I'll give you three. Sorry.
She Loves You. Because it starts deceptively.
It starts on the relative minor. And you don't
know where you are for a minute. The ground keeps
shifting below you. And then you hit that verse
and you feel like you've arrived somewhere. And
I just thought that was a great trick. For some
reason, it just seemed like such an important
moment. And that stuck with me, that little,
give them something they don't expect and then
resolve it. Yeah, resolve is the word I was just
thinking. Exactly, yeah. When I was a little,
I think I'm Not In Love by 10cc came out when
I was two or three. Nice. And I did not understand
what I was hearing, but I knew it was just like
sonically magic. And that's been a little bit
of a siren song too. And Rubber Band Man by The
Spinners was around the same time. And that's
just such a kinetic song. So you asked for one
and I gave you three, but pretty good three.
At what point do you think you realized that
you were just really into music and not just
into this song or this artist is interesting,
but you just love music? I don't remember not
being really into music. It just was that way
the whole time. Were you like creative with it
off the bat? I was just talking to Kevin. And
he was like banging on Cool Whip containers.
And that was like the beginning of something.
It wasn't like something he did and then stopped
and went back. He almost feels like there was
never a time where he wasn't creating. Do you
relate to that too? I do. Yeah, I had to. like
a toy drum set when I was a little kid. And so
I pretended that I had a band, but it was just
me. I didn't really have any songs yet. There
was like a poem in the beginning of a children's
book called Annie's Rainbow. I can't remember
what the words were, but okay, that's my first
song. It's this little four lines right here
in the beginning of this book. And that was,
I was probably four or five, something like that.
That's awesome. That's great. Yeah. So that,
everything, done. It's almost been predestined
in a way. It's weird now that I'm an audio engineer
that I don't write as much as I used to because
I thought that was my destiny. I'm actually in
a different place. I guess I've fallen off of
that rail, that predestination rail, but that's
okay. But it sounds like you knew what world
you belonged in from a very young age. Yeah.
And that's something that's rare, I think. I
think so. When I hear some people talk about,
you know, you get into music so that you can
meet women or whatever, meet men, whatever it
is. Everybody does that. Anybody who says that
is lying to you. I didn't know what any of that
was about. I just loved music. I loved music
way before I cared about girls. And my career
in music is not. It did result in me meeting
the love of my life, but. i didn't have a lot
of conquests along the way you know what i mean
it's that's just like when you're doing what
you're supposed to be doing yeah then you meet
the right people exactly what was the first so
when was the first time you like wrote a song
instead of just stealing a children's poem let's
see so the first song that i wrote that i didn't
steal i guess maybe the first decent song that
i wrote I think I was 11 years old and I wrote
a song called I've Had Enough. What had you had
enough of? Of people being mean. Was that something
you dealt with a lot? Were you dealt with bullies
and stuff as a kid? Yeah, I was bullied as a
kid. I definitely was too. Yeah, no, for sure.
I had friends. At least a couple of times I had
a friend who turned into a bully, but whatever.
Yeah. i had a lot of or some i had a few very
close friends most most of my life yeah so was
like dealing with that what kind of drove you
to write that song in the first place or yeah
did it just happen and i think i felt like i
finally had a topic i knew something about i
had a feeling i needed to get down and it was
a way that you could almost like maybe not totally
super publicly but It's not just like a letter
you're writing to yourself or something. This
is something that potentially you could use to
tell them to fuck off with. Yeah, I didn't have
anywhere that kind of confidence. I don't think
I played that song for anybody. I think I copied
it for one friend two or three years later, and
he copied it for somebody else, and it felt like
a betrayal. That was for you, nobody else. I
got over it, obviously. It was a pretty private
thing. I needed the Beatles to write a song for
me, but they weren't going to do it, so I did
it for myself. I love that. Something like that.
That's awesome. So at what point did you start
feeling more comfortable starting to share some
of your songs? Because it sounds like you were
pretty private about it. Was that always the
case, or was it unique to that first song? I
had to really gently... dip my toe into sharing
it with other people. I had a next door neighbor
who, he was five, he's still five years older
than me. And he wrote some songs and he didn't
mind hanging out with somebody who was like a
preteen when he probably was interested in like
meeting girls or whatever. But we hung out and
we wrote songs together. He would bring in some
stuff and we didn't, we weren't good, but. Did
he need a bass player? Is that what you're? i've
got a tape of that because you don't want to
listen to it but it's fun like it's pretty funny
to listen to this guy who's already got a deep
voice in this little kid like that partridge
family record and then i met this guy named christopher
snell and i went to a new school and where did
you grow up in in town atlanta okay which is
weird that's a whole subject because i know that
a lot of people that you talk to are southerners
And Atlanta is arguably in the South, but not
entirely of the South. Yeah. And that's a deep
subject. There's a lot of Florida that's like
that, too. Uh -huh. And a lot of it is, I'm sure
much of Atlanta is Southern, but not where I
was necessarily. It's where a lot of people in
the South didn't feel comfortable outside of
in -town Atlanta. Oh, so it was like one of the
white flight kind of... suburb areas or no no
it was like next to piedmont park okay okay there
was i know what you're talking about yeah there
were there the neighborhood i was in was very
upper middle class i think but there were gentrified
yeah i don't know maybe before that was a thing
even possibly i don't even know if this was a
neighborhood that had ever been anything other
than upper middle class i see okay the houses
were all nice yeah yeah We were near Piedmont
Park and Ansley Mall and Midtown Atlanta. And
there was a large gay population. There were
a lot of Jewish people around. And I'd gone to,
before that I'd gone to a school where there
was busing back and forth between the affluent
neighborhoods and some of the poor neighborhoods.
Right. And so I met a lot of different people
from different backgrounds that way. I had a
lot of black friends of different economic households.
And it was a really good way to meet a lot of
different kinds of people, I think. And it's
really hard to develop any kind of class consciousness
if you don't start meeting people that, and I
think that can be a whole other thing, but class
consciousness, I think, is really important to
understanding and being empathetic. I don't know
about you, but I'm pretty sure like most artists
are like seeping with empathy, even if they don't
want to admit it, right? Yeah, it's, I've had,
I've got a, I've developed a theory that some,
I don't know how to tell them apart until you
meet them. But I think there are some artists
who appear to have empathy, can write from a
place of empathy, but don't actually possess
it. Not in the quantity that you might think
by listening to their lyrics. And do you think
that they sing those songs convincingly? Yeah,
yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. And I don't think
every artist has empathy. Not every artist displays
empathy. But yes, I agree with the main point
is that most of them probably do. Because you're
absorbing, it's not just your own history, but
the histories of people around you and talking
to them and getting their feelings. And I guess
what I was pointing out, too, was that even though
you grew up in this upper middle class neighborhood
where there wasn't a lot of economic diversity,
you had already developed some class consciousness
by being on those bus to schools. Yeah. So by
the time you weren't, it was like you were aware
of it. Yeah. You were very aware. It sounds like
you were very aware of the fact that you weren't
in a super diverse. situation anymore. Yeah,
but I could walk out my door and walk down the
street and see diversity and be in it then or
go visit. I had friends at school who lived in
the projects and I would hang out with them sometimes
on the weekends and be like, wow, this is really
different. But I couldn't write. I had to write
for me. I couldn't be. I couldn't put myself
in that. I have empathy, but I can't assume somebody
else's. Yeah, there's some songwriters who, and
I think even very authentically so sometimes,
write from the perspective of a character or
something like that. Yeah, yeah. And you're saying
that's not something you ever do. Your songs
are always from your point of view. I've tried
it. I guess I have written some songs from characters,
but it's not a super strength of mine. Yeah.
The guy that I was talking about that I met at
school, Christopher Snell. Snell, yeah. He goes
by Don Condescending in The Shut -Ups. And he
was writing from a character perspective from
a pretty young age. I think he was also writing
short stories, had other aspirations for his
writing other than songwriting, and was able
to. work work from a character perspective from
a young age and that's served him well i think
and that's why why i'm gotcha i've stood by him
for decades because i because nobody else is
doing this what what were some of the first times
you started to find your voice and i think we're
always maybe you never fully find your own but
you get what i mean where you stop trying to
be the Beatles and write this song or stop trying
to be something else or trying to be like someone
else and been like, no, this is how I sound.
This is how I feel. Yeah. That's a damn good
question. I don't know what the answer is to
it. I think you just, I've tried various ways
of writing to see what that'll result in. And
if it doesn't sound like somebody else, it must
sound like me. And you can hear little hints
of things like, OK, that's a big star harmony
change right there or whatever. But but if it's
not too much like somebody else, then, OK, that's
it came out of me. That's me. Do you think as
you started to find your authentic voice or whatever
we want to call it, the ability to speak your
to be you in your songs instead of what you.
thought other people wanted to hear or something
like that do you think that correlated with like
your comfort level in releasing your music and
sharing it with other people maybe i so here's
the i played with richard lloyd of television
for a year and one of the things he said to me
and he said this he said it on he was often gruff
and one of the things he said was like uh if
you don't have your own style get one But he
didn't know me that well. And the thing is, I'd
had my own style. My own style is variety. I
don't go from, I write this kind of a song. Now,
certain kinds of songs come out of me, and mostly
they are more melody -based. Whether it's on
one chord or 24 chords, I'm a more melodic writer.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It didn't correspond with me
releasing music because I think I was doing that
the whole time. Like writing, I want to, I feel
this kind of way, I'm going to write this kind
of song. It's for somebody else to say whether
I have a genre. And I think that's been probably
an issue, the genre issue for me. You mean in
terms of like marketability or something like
that? Yeah, like I appreciate artists who, some
would say that's a challenge. I'm not talking
about almost Costello where, okay, this is a
record. This is my country record, and this is
my string quartet record, and that kind of thing.
It's not necessarily like that, but a lot of
people do like consistency, and that's not what
I ever offered. Do you think that you struggled
with that within the same albums or more over
time, album to album? I think it's... i think
it's been i think inconsistency has been consistent
for me not in terms of quality necessarily but
like in terms of style and part of it is that
i i always liked artists who took something that
you were familiar with and gave you discomfort
and then resolved it like she loves you yeah
on a small scale so i heard a steve reich record
when i was Probably 13 years old. And it changed
a lot of stuff in my brain. And from that point
on, I think I was trying to find things that
were outside of the comfort area of pop music
and bring them into pop music. Gotcha. You might
not even notice that it was an influence from
something like that. But that's how I arrived
at the place where I felt this is original enough
and I like it. So I'm going to. I'm going to
present it to people. Have you ever released
music you didn't feel like you liked? No. I'm
not sure of any. I don't know. I'm sure people
have with big label deals and things like that.
Yeah, we never had that kind of pressure. There's
definitely stuff that I've recorded and didn't
release because I didn't like it. I've gotten
close. That's not bad. And maybe there's stuff
that I've put up on the internet. for free and
and then didn't push it as a release because
i'm not so sure about that one yeah yeah you're
writing songs at an early age you're not sharing
them but when did you form a like when did you
form your first band who did you start playing
with all right so chris and i in sixth grade
started to get together you were in sixth grade
Yeah, both of us were. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Chris
was the same age as you. Yeah, yeah. The other
guy was, yeah, sorry. So Christopher Snell, a
.k .a. Don Condescending, we had a band called
The Bad Habits, spelled with two Bs, because
you spell badly, and that's a bad habit. Anyway,
that was the low -level joke that kept this project
going for a while. We would get together at lunchtime,
and it took us a long time to play out in front
of people, but we did. The real project was to
show your song to somebody that you trusted to
give you critical feedback on it. So it was school.
It was just another form of school. And that
made me a good enough writer or a confident enough
writer to then get into situations where I was
putting myself in front of an audience. I had
eventually, so my family moved to, it was West
Germany at the time. okay and i met some german
kids who needed a lead singer and me being an
american was a big plus for them that's a novelty
over there yeah they still that they probably
still do it like to listen to rock and roll in
english so get this kid so then i had they had
they'd already been a band for a little bit they
had an audience of german kids that would come
to see them so i was writing and performing songs
for a built -in audience and these guys wild
it was weird because they i their music style
was much more they dug starship and the scorpions
and things that i didn't listen to oh yeah very
commercial sort of stuff but i was gonna write
for this music okay here we go anyway so that
was the first live band that i was in did you
find it hard to to share songs that at that point
or had you worked past that or was that like
the trial by fire that was yeah part of it was
like there was a little bit of pressure off because
they weren't going to criticize my lyrics they
weren't necessarily speaking English they just
wanted to listen to it yeah yeah I was actually
still singing some of the old songs that their
previous singer had written in English which
were like You're hot as sun like that kind of
that level of writing in English. I'm gonna sing
this broken English anyway Wow But it still was
like a good it was a confidence boosting experience
to be on stage Yeah with an audience and it's
an audience of people that you weren't it's not
like it was all the kids you grew up with Yeah,
it's not like it was the kids that were that
lived down the street. There was You might see
these people in Germany, but it wasn't like your
hometown. I wasn't going to see him at school,
even like my school friends didn't go out. So
it was a really different friend group. Anyway,
it was cool. I came back to the States, went
to college at the Berklee College of Music in
Boston, and then moved back to Atlanta after
that and had different experiences. And what
did you focus on in college, in music? Was it
what you're doing now, or was it more composition?
It was. They try to make you as well -rounded
as possible. We had a lot of music theory. We
had arranging classes. But my focus was music
production and engineering. So there was an acoustics
class, so you could really get what's the reflection
coefficient of this plaster wall over here. I
was told there would be no math, but it was math.
But yeah, it's just a, and then you would have
to turn in recording projects. So this is what,
propose a thing. This is what I'm going to do.
This is my budget. These are the people that
I'm going to get to play on the session. Here's
the songwriter, here are the performers. Okay,
book a session at the studio and turn in your
song, turn in your recording. All great experiences
that really didn't prepare me. for the real world
where nobody's giving you a budget at all. And
everybody just suddenly bought home recording
studios of their own. And the world of pro recording
is getting much, much smaller. Yeah. But mastering
is still very important. And that seems to be
where you saw that almost a little bit. It's
funny. I thought I was going to be... George
Martin or I think Steve Albini yeah Mitchell
Froome I think was a big guy at the time that
I liked I still like him a lot but those people
are all well connected and know how to get money
so you can't really be a producer at that level
unless you're already in you're already in that
system somewhere I wasn't I start I tried to
be a recording engineer I was a recording engineer
it's pretty good but I went to mastering partially
because the a lot of the bands i was working
with didn't know what it was and when they weren't
gonna get their records mastered they were just
gonna somehow plop it on cd i'll be honest i
i only in the last five years really feel like
i started to understand what the importance of
mastering an album really was yeah and even what
remastering is and i know you you did like a
lot of the allman brothers reissues if i'm not
mistaken right yeah A lot of live recordings
and one really big comprehensive box set. How
do you approach mastering an album for the first
time versus mastering a reissue or a re -release?
I think a lot of how I... Okay, so mastering
an album for the first time, you're thinking
about the market that record is going to try
to meet. So if it's a rap record or a new pop
record or a hard rock record or a folk record,
The person listening to it wants certain things.
And I guess you're trying to put yourself into,
what does this person expect? And how can I,
has the artist gotten close to that? Or do I
need to help them push it over there? And it
might even be like, where are they listening
to this music? And things like that too, right?
Yeah, for sure, yeah. So the artistic part of
mastering is that, is judging how close the team
got to their goal. the sonic goal and and seeing
if you can find what's really of merit what's
beautiful about this recording and get it all
the way to the finish line remastering a lot
of times what you're doing is maybe correcting
past sins if there are any sometimes it's not
too often but sometimes remastering is pointless
to be very honest he's done the job well before
i feel like the only time i've heard it and i'm
not even who it would have been remastered for.
But I feel like there was a lot of times over
the years where people used to listen to this
a certain way. Now they're listening to it over
earbuds. And so that might be the main kind of
adjustment that somebody might make on a remaster.
Yeah. So when CDs first came out, a lot of those
CDs were made from tapes that were prepared for
cutting vinyl. So they were... compressed a certain
way, EQ'd a certain way. And maybe they didn't
sound so bad, but they weren't really what the
producer and the artist intended. And they were
at a certain loudness level. Like I said, there
was no consistent loudness level, and there still
isn't. Anyway, that's a big... Big subject. We
could do a whole episode on that, I feel like.
I almost asked you about loudness. And I was
like, I don't know if I want to open that can
of worms yet. There's a really good book by David
Byrne called How Music Works. I love that book.
It's really cool. David Byrne's one of my favorite
people on the planet. Yeah, he's really interesting.
Really interesting mind on that guy. And he describes
pretty well, I think, how the loudness war is
ramped up. And now we're deflating from them.
And so... the previous sins you might be correcting
our role somebody took the entire talking heads
catalog and limited the fuck out of it yeah it's
no dynamic range at all i'm not going to touch
that of course but that's the kind of thing that
that you might be fixing sometimes artists remaster
their own records and they totally fuck them
up too yeah they're like oh this is how it was
supposed to sound and Or remix them like that.
We've already heard it, dude. Sorry, you're wrong.
Man, Iggy and the Stooges, Raw Power. Yeah. I've
heard the two versions of that. Definitely. Neither
one of them sound good. But the Bowie version,
to me, is by far the superior version of a bad
-sounding record. It's more creative. I don't
know. Anyway, yeah. So when did you move to Athens?
25 years ago, almost exactly. And what was it
like you graduated or had you out? I don't want
to I don't want to I don't want to miss anything.
But so if there's anything between graduation
and moving to Athens that you want to plug in
here, let's go. But sure. So I moved back to
Atlanta and I was trying to find I didn't have
high school or middle school friends to go hang
out with from the previous time that my previous
Atlanta era. They were all off somewhere else.
So I started going to open mics and playing songs
there and meeting people there and found some
friends. It was a guy named David Dalt and he
needed a drummer and he needed a recording engineer.
I joined his band and I recorded his songs and
I met another guy named... Zeus Henderson, and
he was in a pop band called Orange Hat, and I
joined his band and played drums for him. Well,
at this point, you were getting a two -for -one
deal from you, right? Yeah. So I bet you were
super popular. Yeah, they put up with my spazzy
drumming. Anyway, I met Kay Stanton through one
of those bands, and as we got serious and started
to talk about getting married and buying a house,
realized that we couldn't. afford anything in
Atlanta. And the traffic in Atlanta will kill
you faster than anything. I've met Brian Poole.
I've never experienced traffic that's bumper
to bumper and also going 90 miles an hour at
all times. It's the most terrifying fucking thing
in the world. It's the only place I've ever experienced
it is Atlanta. I lost my license a couple of
times in Atlanta because I learned how to drive
there. It's a terrible place to drive. I'm a
much better driver now. But he wasn't kidding.
You're not kidding. It is probably one of the
fastest ways to die in Atlanta. Yeah. It's scary.
If it isn't a traffic accident, then it's just
the level of anger that you're in every day.
The years of your life that you can't get back.
Yeah. That's rough. So David Dalt. who introduced
me to Kay Stanton. Previous to that, he had introduced
me to a friend of his from Columbus, Georgia,
named Brian Poole, who lived here in Athens and
would commute into Atlanta to play bass in the
band. When he left, that's when Kay came in,
but I stayed in touch with Brian, and I'd met
Ben Spraker. He'll be here in about 45 minutes.
Want to wrap it up? Oh, no, we got time. We're
good. That's funny, like Kevin. Yeah, no, it
just worked out like that. It was funny. I was
like, oh, boy, sometimes you're like, hopefully
these guys like each other. It's like, oh, shit,
what have I done? I'm not from here. I don't
know all those. Black eyes, scheduling. Yeah.
So Ben was another super nice guy that, like,
he's calling me up, just telling me like, hey,
I really liked your band and I liked your guitar
playing. I'm like, nobody ever says that. Wait,
are we friends? Cool. Okay. So I moved to, Kay
and I decided we'd moved to Athens. We'd looked
for a place and the Elephant Six thing was going
here. Let's get there. And as soon as we moved
here, all those bands were breaking up or like
having big lineup shifts or whatever. So we missed
the main era of that. We were big fans and some
of it was still going on. So we, we started,
we continued our band here, which was Casper
and the Cookies. And just. plug ourselves into
this scene are you a fan of alliteration is that
important to you because it's important to me
and i like yeah yeah i like alliteration but
it's like puns to me it's like a cheap literary
device but a very to me i like junk food too
yeah but especially when you're talking about
like a band name or something like that where
it's got to be something that punches somebody
immediately yeah our band name is a whole other
story i don't like it but if it works for other
people that's fine i was just thinking about
the alliterative the alliterative nature of it
i thought for some reason that because will oldham
was able to get away with changing his project
name for every release that means anybody could
do that so i was going to go buy a new name for
every record And I was going to put Casper Fandango
on the knees. It was Casper Fandango and his
tiny, sick tears. And then it was Casper and
the Cookies, and it was going to be Casper Fandango
and Soft Rhombus. But as soon as I got other
people into the band, they were like, no, keep
that name, man. You got outvoted in your own
band. That sucks. Oh, man, I was right the whole
time. So you meet Ben, and you move to Athens.
Got an internship at Chase Park. I did the time
-honored tradition of getting a job at Dial America,
and then I worked at Belgium. Are they hiring
right now? Because I am looking to relocate,
perhaps. I think they're always hiring. Oh, sweet.
Okay, good. Yeah, so yeah, I did that. The reason
I really ended up in mastering was because I
got really burned out recording other people's
music. It's a if even something that you love
if you've got to spend way more time It's like
being stuck in traffic in a way like I could
be doing something else right now. Yeah, yeah
Even if you love it, if you don't love it, it's
even worse We're good. I'm just checking everything
out right on Yeah, yeah, we're in good shape
One of these mics is on that's okay anyway so
the the reason I like mastering was because you
still get to to interact and improve music that
you're working with, but you only need to spend
a day, two days max. So if you hate a record,
it's only a day. If you love a record, you can
spend all day with it. And then I figured I actually
had some facility in the art of mastering, so
that's... What were some of the first records
that you mastered where you felt like you were
really starting to... it was clicking and it
started to feel natural and like you were doing
the right thing that's uh let's see i one of
the i'm not sure what the first one was but when
the when i started to work with vanessa from
pylon in her super cluster project i didn't master
that record but i'd started to master records
by the time that she was talking about doing
a pylon reissue campaign on vinyl i said talk
to me about it i'd love to consider me for the
project knowing you could get anybody great to
do it and she put me forward and everybody agreed
to let me master this four lp box set and that
was a big risk for them i think and i knew that
i needed to rise to the challenge that when i
did that's when i was like okay i know that i
can do this now if i could Make this goal. Don't
disappoint this great band. There's this moment
in Cameron Crowe's last documentary about Tom
Petty that they're like sitting on the bus and
they're like, Tom's got a guitar, but I don't
think he's not playing it at the moment. And
they're just having a conversation and Cameron's
like, and he's like 25 at this point. I'm not
a director. I've never directed anything. At
this point, he's just interviewing Tom Petty
and on the road with him. And he's like, pick
up that camera. And he picks it up. And then
Tom plays a song. And he's like, now you're a
director. And it was like one of those moments
where it's just like you get put into the right
position by the right person. You rise to the
challenge. But then that builds the confidence
to keep going. Yeah. So my actual transition
to mastering is like that. I had been working
at Uber Prints, the on -demand T -shirt printing
company that's here in town. And the way that
their computer system was set up, you go to work
and you see how many jobs there are in the hopper,
basically. You try to do as many easy ones as
you can. But if there's like a room full of people
on computers, some of them have figured out how
to look at a different list and scoop these easy
jobs so their numbers look good. And the people
that are running the company are looking at those
numbers. And if you don't make those numbers,
then you're not a good employee. Meanwhile, there's
somebody like wanting to print T -shirts of some
Polaroid from 1976 that they've scanned badly.
and it's going to make a terrible -looking shirt.
Somebody's got to save this shirt. And that's
the only one in the queue that nobody's choosing.
Why are there three shirts in the queue, and
it's just this one crappy -looking shirt? I guess
I'm going to have to do that job. It's going
to take me an hour, and it's going to look bad
on my numbers. So I basically got fired because
my numbers were bad because everybody was stealing
jobs from a different screen. And I got fired.
I was like, what? Ain't that a kick in the pants?
My first... We have min -maxed our way out of
everything good in this country. I was like,
it's really crazy. So my mindset is I'm a very
detail -oriented person. So I was fine doing
those jobs, but the fact that I was reprimanded
for doing them just didn't make sense to me.
You need somebody to do this. Yeah, I worked
with a team of graphic designers for a while.
We had our production artists that would get
out the quick and dirty jobs, like the ones that
are clean and they just needed to get done. Sure.
And then we had the artists that would actually
create something. And they were just different
roles. They were both important, but they were
just different roles. That you can't see that
you need somebody to do that is just weird to
me. Yeah, that is wild. Fuck that place. Don't
get your t -shirts there. Fuck Uber Prince. I
don't even know if they're still around. I'm
sure they are, and they are still hiring. Sorry,
guys. Always hiring. So my first contact was
to David Barbie. I was like, look, this just
happened, and I'm looking for any opportunity
at all. My dream job would be master engineer
at Chase Park, but you've got somebody doing
that, I know. So just if anybody asks. for anybody
let them know i'm around and david said actually
our mastering engineer i just moved out of state
and we're looking for somebody so within i was
it was really meant to be in a way and i've been
there i've been there almost 10 years now what
are some of your if you don't want to pick favorites
that's fine but if you if you do want to share
what are some of your favorite records that you've
mastered over the years oh i should have prepared
that this list Because there's a lot of records.
I also, I'm one of these guys, too, where I can
tell if I asked you the same question tomorrow,
it might be a different answer. Yeah, it really
might be. Pylon Box, that Allman Brothers, it's
like a, what is it, a 12 or 14 LP box set. Those
are major undertakings. There's another Allman
Brothers project that's going to come out. There's
not a date set for it yet, but it's... it's going
to be like the best of the unreleased live. When
you're doing something of that caliber in terms
of, instead of just something that isn't already
being followed by like millions of people, is
there pressure? Oh, for sure, man. That, that
is. Yeah. And then you've got some records don't,
nobody reviews them and other ones, everybody's
got an opinion. So we did this record. The last.
The final note, I think, the last recorded concert
that Dwayne Allman played, he did two sets, and
somebody recorded the first set on a Kmart cassette
in the back of the theater with an ambient microphone.
And it sounds like garbage, and I worked on it,
and it sounds like slightly better garbage, but
it's historical. But somebody's going to go to
the store and put their money down and buy this
thing and get it home and be like, who mastered
this shit? You know, it's this guy. Do you lose
sleep over those people? I have before. I don't
anymore. I did what I could, man. You should
have heard it before. But there's even like Bo
Bedingfield is a great songwriter that I've done
a little bit of work for. Gosh, he was playing
in Eye Candy for a while. And they came through
Tallahassee a few times. That's how John Neff
and I first started hanging out. back then was
i'd known him from the truckers a little bit
here and there but man wow we got into two live
crew on the destin beach and oh wow i will never
forget that night man i've ever heard two live
crew on a walkman in the back of the school bus
you could say that he is a claw i don't even
know how true this is because it might have just
been that one night but john neth loves two live
crew i believe It's just a rumor I'm starting.
That's hilarious. Totally, I bought it. We really
did watch a shitload of 2 Live Crew videos that
night. The reason I said, wow, Neff, was because
he's on this new record that Mike Richmond of
Love Tractor has got a record that's currently
in production, I think. It's not been announced
what label it's going to be on or anything, but
it was recorded with Matt Tammeson. Somebody
else you should talk to. And the band has got
Joe Rose on drums. David Barbie's on bass on
some of the songs. Ben Hackett's on bass on other
songs. And I'm going to miss some people. John
Neff is laying down some pedal steel on a bunch
of things. There are other folks I'm forgetting.
I'm sorry. I love watching him play, man. He's
such a beast. He's just the tastiest. Really
is. And I love that if you're a pedal steel player,
you're trying to you're working on a on an orb
you're trying to like dance on an orb there are
no frets you know what i mean and intonation
is so hard to do on those things i've never touched
one because it's frightening as hell and if you're
just a little bit out then you're ruining things
but if you're on right it's this whole beautiful
yeah it is very delicate So the guy who's the
biggest 2 Live Crew fan anybody's ever known
is actually like the Buddha. He's just in the
moment, just so calm. Yep. Yes. Very precise.
Very precise. Yeah. But not in a... Mechanical
way. No, in a very fluid way. It's just so beautiful
to behold. Yeah. Yeah, he really is just absolute...
I don't know. I just get goosebumps every time
I see him play. Too bad he's such a jerk. Yeah.
No, I was supposed to interview him. I don't
want to give him a big head. We call him Pajama
Neff on this podcast because that's how he likes
to record most of his sessions, apparently. That
was something slightly famous somebody started
when they were on. But he was actually, he's
not feeling right now. He was actually supposed
to meet with him yesterday, but that asshole
canceled. I think he's faking sick. When you're
mastering something that is being released on
multiple formats, streaming, CD, vinyl, let's
say all three same release, how do you approach
each one of those formats differently? Is it
like a totally different thing or is it the same
exact thing or somewhere in between? To me, it
is not a totally different thing. It's a matter
of if I am actually... So to master something
really means you're fixing it to its final form.
So if I'm doing digital files, yeah, I'm mastering.
If I'm doing a CD master, I can create an image
of that CD. That's the master. And those are
very similar mediums as far as what kind of dynamic
range you're delivering, what's going to happen
to them later. And people are listening to them
in similar settings too. You're not mastering
a record for a car stereo. Exactly. But a CD,
you're going to listen to it in your car probably
if you're old. Or you're going to listen to files
streaming on earbuds or in your car. So you've
got road noise, certain things. You still have
to have it loud enough to get over some obstacles
like that. But an LP, somebody else is going
to, unless you have a lathe, and I don't yet,
although if you have a lot of money and you would
like to give it to me, that's what I'm going
to do with it. Give me a lathe. When I buy two,
I'll let you know. Thank you. Yeah, do that.
Two. So somebody on the other end of that lathe
is going to decide what their equipment can tolerate.
So I'm going to give them something with more
dynamics. Not a ton more, but I'm going to let
them do the job to the best of their equipment's
ability and their knowledge. So sonically, they're
going to sound very similar. Like to the point
that if I AB'd them and they were the same volume,
the same loudness, you probably wouldn't really
be able to tell the difference which one was
which. But different things are going to happen
to them so that they are technically they're
different. But it's just me trying to make it
sound as beautiful as possible. Like I want to
hear the space around the instruments to the
degree that is the intent of. It's always just
trying to. grab the intent i don't know what
do you what do you think is going on like with
the future of vinyl press i think lathe cut is
gonna have to be a big part of it because there's
only one company making the lacquer plates anymore
this is a very this is like actually like a big
deal in music and if you're not paying attention
to this and care about vinyl you absolutely should
be yeah so for two years now i've gone to this
conference called making vinyl And it's a lot
of people who manufacture, they press records,
a lot of record pressing plants, a lot of people
who supply those plants and things like that.
So those people are thinking in numbers of millions
of units. And you can, they've made formulas
of more bio -friendly, to some degree, material
where they can press records without keeping,
without taxing the... petrochemical reserves
or whatever and that stuff's really volatile
too like it's dangerous yeah those plants are
very dangerous but the lacquers that you're talking
about that happened earlier in the process those
are volatile and dangerous and it's very hard
to it's very hard to come up with a recipe for
those things and hard to keep that from blowing
up and i think it's even it's really hard to
build a new plant Yes. Two, because of all the
regulations. Might be a little easier now, but
not for the right reasons. Let's not get into
that. We're a very leftist podcast, but we don't
do a lot of politics here. Unless I'm interviewing
an activist or something. Sure, but it's just
not why I'm here. I'm not here for the entertainment
division of the military -industrial complex.
Yeah, I heard you mention Zappa. We could get
into some Zappa. Anyway, so look. Issues there
are myriad. We don't have a lacquer manufacturer.
So lacquer, if anybody doesn't know, lacquer
is the standard way that records get mastered.
If somebody cuts the record into a lacquer, the
lacquer then gets plated and turned into stampers
that become the records that you buy. And they
only have a certain number of pressings before
they have to be replaced and redone. But the
lacquer gets used once. Okay. The lacquer itself.
See, this is actually, this is a part of the
process I don't think I realized. Yeah. So the
lacquer gets, I'm going to get this wrong because
it's been a few months since I reminded myself
what the whole process was. So the lacquer, it's
taken to the electroplating plant and they cover
it with a layer of silver, like 100 microns thick,
I think. And then they put it in a tank. And
they put it in there with an electrical charge
and a bunch of nickel. And the nickel gloms onto
the silver. And then they rip those things apart.
And that's the first step of the plating process.
And then they replicate that first one until
they can get as many stampers as they think they're
going to need. And each one of those stampers
is good for whatever, a thousand records. Okay.
But you can make a whole bunch of those fathers.
Or converted. The stampers? Yeah. Talk to me
later after I've reviewed the process. I'm going
to want to embarrass myself. Anyway, so yeah.
But the lacquer that starts that whole process
is the thing that is the most difficult to manufacture.
And nobody's stepping up to the plate successfully.
They've tried. No pun intended. Good one. That's
it. I'm coming back to you. Improv. So. There's
a couple of ways to get around it. One of them
is direct metal mastering. The process used to
be called DMM, but it's basically just copper.
It's using copper instead of lacquer, but you
have to set your lathe up differently. It's a
whole thing. Nobody in America wants to do it.
People in Europe do it sometimes. Does it sound
different? Yeah, it sounds a little different.
I think it sounds good. I think a lot of people
have preconceived notions about it. how it sounds
and maybe they had a bad history with buying
a dmm record back in the 80s and the fact is
we've all got those records yeah i've gotten
records that are pressed now that like maybe
they tried to cram too many songs onto a side
right so the grooves yeah anyway whatever like
yeah exactly that's just how it goes but there's
so my point is like they found a way to to make
the material to press records more bio -friendly
and find other materials to do that with. But
they haven't, because the scale is so much smaller,
exponentially smaller, they won't put the money
and the resources into developing another kind
of compound instead of lacquer to cut masters
into. It's just not rewarding. Meanwhile, the
entire record industry, or like 95 % of it, is
dependent upon this one factory in Japan to not
blow up. So it's crazy, and I want somebody to
fix it, and I wish it could be me. Well, I think
it's another example, and this comes up, it's
almost become the theme of this fucking show
at this point, where it's like maximizing efficiency
and profits and diminishing, returns and all
this shit at the end of the day that's what kills
that's why everything sucks now that's why everything
sucks it's not covid covid was the excuse they
used to just fast track a bunch of that shit
i mean i call it min maxing which is like in
gaming if you're not familiar i'm not familiar
okay so like in in like gaming like They might
try. Min -maxing would be like if you're doing
the minimum, you're trying to get through a game
without upgrading your equipment or something
like that throughout the game as efficiently
as possible. Oh, I see. And maxing would be the
opposite. It's like you're trying to, I want
to do as much damage even though it's pointless
or something like that. Even though it's like
way more than it would ever be needed to beat
the game. The game becomes how much damage can
I do? And this is just an example, but this like
minimizing and maximizing efficiencies and profits
and it's been applied to everything now. And
now if it's not profitable and things have to
be somewhat, even if it's a labor of love, like
it has to be something that like maybe the person's
not going to lose everything on. Like it's got
to have some kind of return on investment, right?
The idea that it's just it's not gonna make them
enough money To make it worth their time the
it's not gonna make enough of a difference To
them in their profit margins to invest in this
thing. That's actually going to preserve music
in a way that We're seeing it now with CDs like
they're the ones that were sold in the 80s and
90s. They're starting to oxidize meanwhile You
can listen to records from 100 years ago, and
I don't know about sound good, but they'll sound
the way they did then. Yeah, yeah. And so the
historian in me is panicking because then you
think about the universal fire. Yeah, yeah. You're
like, well, tape is a very stable format until
you flood it or set it on fire. We're trusting
the same people to preserve this stuff. Yeah.
And that's terrifying to me. Yeah. At some point,
everything is temporary. So that's not, I'm not
trying to sound like that senator who's like,
we're all going to die. I guess what I'm saying
is like, some things are going to get lost. I'm
thinking about my conversation with Kevin, actually.
He talked about how important it was to him to
have the physical record of his dad's music.
And then how that became what drove him to make
sure all of his music comes out on vinyl. So
even if it's not about preserving it forever,
maybe it's just preserving it for... My point
is, I just think we lose this medium. We lose
more than just the snob's way to listen to music.
We're losing something way more substantial than
that. It's a complicated thing to do to play
a record, but it's not so complicated that you
can't... Put one up in space with instructions
for an extraterrestrial life form to follow.
Play it back. Whose record are they playing?
Is it my copy? Aliens stole my fucking records,
man. Yeah, but that's my thing, too. I'll trust
somebody to play their own records all day long.
Oh, yeah. For sure. My instructions to play my
records are going to be a lot more detailed.
That is true love. Not only did Kay and I get
married, wear rings, buy a house together, we
merged our record collections, and we play each
other's records, and that's just as intimate.
That might be the most intimate thing I've ever
heard about a couple ever, actually. Not just
the merging. It's the playing. No, like emotionally.
I mean that as somebody, and I can tell we're
the same kind of nerd when it comes to that shit.
The fact that you trust somebody else to just
have free range of your records is wild. Well,
beyond that, we merged. They're not even your
records anymore. And then we got rid of the doubles.
Yeah. Fuck. If we break up, who's copy of Stereolab
Dots and Loops? That's why you got rid of them.
So now you'll have to stay together. That's right.
Yeah. That's a true commitment. Man, I feel like
I could talk to you all day. what have you i
feel like we haven't talked about your music
very much at this point and i'd like to sure
it sounds like it's something you had to put
on the back burner at times and you're focused
more on the engineering stuff and mastering stuff
now that you've been i've changed just writing
but i feel like we like got to a certain point
like okay you're singing for this band in germany
yeah what happened then what was like kind of
the next stage in your songwriting performing
evolution i had bands the whole time i guess
can you just name drop here's the name dropping
portion of the show okay yeah let's see i had
a band in college called the blossoms these bands
didn't release records it was just like we wanted
to but and then in atlanta i played with a band
called fire robin and orange hat and my buddy
From the Bad Habits, we had a band called Mangled
Duck, and then when I moved back to Atlanta,
our band was called Lana Becomes a Man. And then
he started The Shut -Ups, and I started Casper
Fandango and his Tidy Sick Tears. Let's see.
The list of bands that I've played in is crazy,
but as far as who I've written for is pretty
much Casper and the Cookies from that point out
until that ended and Pilar Reenactment Society
was starting up, and we started to write songs
together. It was a very different process. Were
you playing with them? before you did that box
set or was that kind of did that kind of come
together at the same time or they they were the
same time but now the prs record didn't we didn't
start to make that until 2021 we but we've been
writing for it the box that came out in 2020
we've been writing for a record that was going
to get made and then covet happened and blah
blah blah but yeah 2015 is when prs started in
earnest that so prs is a democratic band much
like pylon was but casper the cookies it was
more on the beatles or xtc one of those gotcha
a different kind of political system where like
songwriters the person who tells you how the
song's gonna go but and they also sounds like
they sing it typically yeah unless they want
unless they ask somebody else to sing it So with
PRS, it's much more of a... The way that Casper
did it and the way that the shut -ups do it is
great. It's the way I was brought up, but I really
like the sort of democratic form of songwriting
where sometimes it can be more like a Ouija board.
I don't know what we're doing, but something's
getting spelled out. Suddenly there's a song.
Somebody's going to have to work on it. true
collaboration that you don't really hear about
very often yeah it's like that people might write
their parts sometimes and things like that but
things get refined too sure some kind of a free
-form jam somebody's gonna have to say that part's
good and that part's not right you know what
i mean but the raw materials came from a group
improvisation one thing kevin said he ran into
when he was trying to do like the remote recording
was that like Without any kind of feedback, like
you just start going down like a rabbit hole
before anybody can pull you out of it. Yeah,
yeah. And it sounds like this is almost like
the opposite of that. The mindset that's really
been important for me to develop is the ability
to, I can go down a rabbit hole, but the reason
that a project gets done is when you learn to
discern what's important and what's not. Otherwise,
you can spend forever and never get anything
accomplished. So when do you know when a song's
done? I don't know. I've written a song in an
hour. I've written a song that I've never finished
writing since I started. I rewrote I've Had Enough.
Did you? I'm still rewriting it. Fuck yeah. Fuck
yeah. I'm 53. I wrote that song when I was 11.
Tell them, Steve Dave. So the important thing
is to be able to zoom in and zoom out and be
like, okay. This is as good as it needs to be.
Nothing is ever perfect. Maybe you can get a
perfect song. Good for you. Fucking congratulations.
But there's a tolerance, there's a percentage
level where it's as good as it needs to be. Sometimes
an artist, it's like they don't realize it's
done and then they spend too much time on it.
And being able to let go of something, like a
balloon. there are records that might be a little
bit better if somebody had just not thought of
three more things that they thought had to go
on it exactly what do you have going on coming
up that you is there anything you want to talk
about and promote is there anything you yeah
yeah the shut ups have a new record coming out
in a month yeah i'm excited it is i love that
new song oh cool thank you it rocks man it's
a crazy record it's it's called proverbs it is
two cds it is 27 songs or something like that.
And it's quite long and quite comprehensive and
really good all the way through. PRS is writing
right now. I'm working on the Olivia Tremor Controls
third and final record. And those are the main
things. I'm going to be starting a new record
with Vic Varney. He's being very patient with
me right now. What else am I forgetting? I'm
doing a lot of stuff with Henry Owings. having
to do with Barbecue Killers and Limbo District
and a lot of more historical kind of Athens and
Atlanta musics. So a lot of exciting stuff going
on. Do you consider yourself a preservationist
when it comes to music sometimes? Untrained,
but yes. I can feel it. I feel like we're the
same way in that respect. You're like, oh, these
bands never put out records. I was like, I still
think it's important for you to tell people what...
they were called you know what i mean that's
very i see that i get it yeah yeah now i was
always the guy that like okay so chris and i
started working together as kids and he's written
a ton of songs i haven't written quite as many
he has no interest in learning how to record
i do so i've got the equipment now i'm keeping
the tapes and this just started a way of life
yeah yeah so yeah preserve the audio organize
the audio be able to find the audio when you
need it again don't crash your hard drives etc
etc back everything up back everything up three
two one yeah and that's so yeah i'm trained in
that way and i and because i get because of the
pylon box set because everything henry's given
me i've had to i've had to develop ways to organize
my work You create your own systems. Yes, exactly.
And I'm sure that they're not as good as they
could be. But they work for you. They're yours.
Yeah. I think there's a lot to be said for that
because you know who Hank Green is? I don't know
how to... He's done so many different things.
He's all over the place. I'll hear about him
as soon as I leave. Oh, yeah. That guy. He just...
He just put out a video the other day that was
really inspiring to me. He's like, I don't really
have goals. I just have my tool set, but the
most important part of that tool set is me. And
so your systems being for you, I think is, that's
the beauty of doing something for yourself instead
of working like a nine to five and being a, like
being a. a wage slave or whatever the fuck where
you're not getting to build systems no matter
what they're for in a way that works for you
yeah it's a weird world because while i might
paint myself as the response the more responsible
party in some situations where i'm the archivist
and i'm recording the songs or whatever because
that's unpaid i have to admit that like i am
more than fortunate i'm i don't know the luckiest
son of a bitch on the planet that i am married
to somebody who loves me enough to be a wage
slave now she likes her job and everything but
she's got to do this thing every day until she
can retire so that we can have health care so
that we can have a roof over our heads yeah and
that's no it's no fun she wants to be it she's
an artist too and i don't take it for granted
for a moment but in every if you look at Every
failed great artist, failed in terms of like
numbers, sales numbers or whatever. Sure, sure.
If you want to use that as a metric. Yeah. If
you could avoid drug and alcohol abuse, keep
yourself out of the gutter and still not manage
to sell enough records to buy your mom a house
or whatever, then you probably have somebody
in your life that's helping you get through.
Yeah. And at great expense to them. Well, shout
out to Kay. Absolutely. She still kicks ass on
stage and writes and does everything that I do.
I would love to talk to her next time I'm in
town. Let's set that up. Yeah, let's do it. Hey,
I feel like we could talk for another hour. Yeah,
there's a lot of people I meant to mention. Gregory
Sanders, for instance. But yeah, thank you so
much for giving me your time. Yeah, this has
been great. We'll have it up in the next few
weeks. Anything you want linked in terms of promo
that you didn't already mention, anything you
mentioned, I'll put links in the description.
But if you think of anything else, just let me
know. You've got a couple of weeks before it
comes out. All right. I have one in the can before
leaving town, so whatever I record here is at
least 10 days out. That's still pretty quick.
I try. I'm a one -man operation, so if I sit
on it too long, it... I literally, from booking
to marketing, I do every step of the way. I do
a little bit of AI for transcripts and shit like
that, right? Like the stuff that I think is okay
to use. Like the stuff that nobody wants to do.
This is the last thing I'll say before we wrap.
Why the fuck is AI making art instead of doing
our laundry? For real, man. There are good ways.
I have worked on a couple of AI records for a
friend of mine. Yeah, yeah. That are great records.
Cool. I'm not anti anything universally. That's
stupid. Right, but I know I've got other friends
who are just as close who fucking hate anything
to do with AI. So we're in this weird tender
moment right now. Yeah, it is. I don't think
I land either side of that. I needed some way
to help me manage projects, manage my time. Jason
Neesmith, this has been awesome. Much obliged.
Thank you very much. Thank you. That was my interview
with Jason Neesmith. I had a great time talking
to him. What a really smart dude. I feel like
we could have talked for hours and hours. I feel
like that was just the tip of the iceberg of
his knowledge. I feel that way with everybody
I sit down on. this show with, to be honest with
you. I've been very fortunate to be given the
time with some of these people and with all of
these people. And I just want to express my gratitude
to everybody that's been on this show so far
and that has agreed to do it already too for
future episodes. Next week, we're going over,
we're going to do something a little different.
We're going over to the Suwannee Kids Music Camp.
And I'm going to find out a little bit about
the history of it, how it's operated. The Suwannee
Kids Music Camp is held at the Spirit of the
Suwannee Music Park, which is where the Allman
Brothers held their fest for years and years.
It's where a lot of music festivals happen. And
the Kids Music Camp was always part of the plan.
So I sat down with a few of the teachers, a few
of the organizers, and had a really... great
time out there it's something that i took my
daughter to when she was a kid anyway so look
forward to that thanks for tuning in this week
make sure you check out the shut ups at record
proverbs also the arcs album athens avenue just
came out yesterday so check that out as well
make sure to go pre -order that decoration day
box set because it looks sweet as hell. What
I've heard sounds great. And after talking to
him, I trust that he did a great job. He's just,
he's brilliant. Anyway, thanks for tuning in,
y 'all. This is Overeducated and Underemployed.
Click that like and subscribe and all that jazz.
Take us out of here, Sloan.