The Venue Was Packed. The Check Still Bounced. | Cybele McGazi

Cybele McGazi is a veteran of the Greater Cincinnati music scene — singer, keyboardist, SCPA alum, and the woman running the live music department at Lytle Park Hotel. She wrote and produced her own album at 27, raised her kids through COVID while homeschooling for four years, and is now ready to get back in the studio. We talk about bounced checks, what it takes to sit down a venue owner at 23 and demand cash on arrival, and why the MoneyGigs calculator made her rethink variables she'd never considered.

0:00 - Intro & Cybele's background at SCPA
 1:30 - Musical influences: Jewel, Alanis, Whitney, Julie Andrews
 3:00 - Broadway dreams to gigging musician
 4:30 - Writing and self-producing her first album at 27
 6:00 - COVID, homeschooling, and the creative drought
 8:00 - Getting back to the studio — what's next
 9:30 - The bounced check venue: cash on arrival or I walk
 11:30 - How Cliff handled his own bad-pay situation
 13:00 - The courage it takes to confront a venue owner at 23
 14:00 - Trying the MoneyGigs calculator for the first time
 16:00 - The minimum rate goal and what it changes
 18:00 - How Cybele landed the Lytle Park Hotel gig
 20:30 - Becoming the live music director — surviving management turnover
 22:00 - Where to find Cybele live around Cincinnati

Show Summary:

💸 Bounced checks are a red flag: Cybele had checks bounce multiple times at the same venue — and at 23, she sat down the owners and told them cash on arrival or she walks. They obliged. The venue closed within a year.
🎹 Know your real hourly rate: Cybele had never tracked her true earnings per hour until she used the MoneyGigs calculator — and immediately started using it for multiple gigs.
🏨 Entrepreneurial musicians create their own roles: what started as a performance gig at Lytle Park became running their entire live music department — because she showed up with a list of players and a plan.
🎤 Creativity has seasons: four years of homeschooling through COVID meant the album waited. That's not failure — that's a busy season of life. The songs are written. The studio is next.

Find Cybele: http://cybelesings.com | Cybele Sings on YouTube
Where to catch her live: Jeff Ruby's Wednesdays 5–8pm · Oriental Wok on Buttermilk Pike Thursdays 6:30pm · Marble in Bellevue Fridays 5:30pm · Lytle Park Hotel

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