A night with podcast host's Sanity Lounge

When a podcast sits with another podcast to create a super fun pod.....                You get the point...

We had a blast hanging out with Sanity Lounge Podcast/What's Happening Baltimore host's, Leppo, Davis and Rachel Novac. We talked about their hit podcast, music, Edgar Allen Poe, sticky curtains and more, I think we laughed our way through this one!

Do yourself a favor and visit Sanity Lounge on all streaming platforms as well as their website for all things going on in Baltimore,MD aka Charm City. 

They're all about art shows, concerts, local and national music and you can learn how to become a sponsor and support this great podcast                   

sanitylounge    whatshappeningbaltimore

As always a big Thank You to Weatherly Productions for supporting and producing Sesh & Friends ✌️ 

www.facebook.com/seshandfriendspod

www.youtube.com/@seshandfriendspod

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:08

Another public subject.

SPEAKER_04 0:12

Session Friends. Weatherly productions. Hey, hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Session Friends Music and Art Podcast. I hope everybody is having a beautiful night. It is a beautiful 90 degrees here in uh Maryland. Sun's been shining, the skies have been blue. I don't know, man. I've been feeling really, really good lately. I don't guess the change of the weather. But uh really happy to be here. We're hanging out here at Weatherly Production Studio with the man himself, the chief engineer of the SS Weatherly Studios, Kyle Reagan here. How's it going, man? What's up, brother? How are you?

SPEAKER_06 0:53

Uh fantastic. I just got back from vacation, so I'm recharged and working on music again. Yeah. So, you know, had a week off, had a week of just decompressing, not being in the studio. Where'd you go for vacation? Uh, just down to Virginia, a guy's trip. You know, uh, it's all my buddies from high school that I graduated with, get together once a year.

SPEAKER_04 1:08

Guys trip.

SPEAKER_06 1:09

So man.

unknown 1:10

You know.

SPEAKER_06 1:10

Did you go fishing?

SPEAKER_04 1:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:11

Did you catch anything? No. No. So I got a bus. I go, oh, you know, that's always a good thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:18

Yeah, that's always a good thing. That's awesome, man. Um, you know, sometimes we all need to get away and get uh decompress, get away from things, you know what I mean? Absolutely. Especially nowadays with all the cratiness, craziness going on. But how have you been, man? I'm good, man. I'm good. You know, I'm blessed. Um, you know, I just had this conversation with my wife the other day. She says, you know, Mike, it seems like you're accomplishing everything that you set out to do so far. You know, I said I wanted my whole life to be wrapped around music for the most part, you know. And with uh with uh two open mics a month that I do at open at uh double group brewing and then point being in point break and then this podcast and just all the other stuff that I'm involved in, man. I just feel pretty blessed. So you know what? I'm very, very happy. And I've been on a really good track lately.

SPEAKER_06 2:03

So that's excellent to hear, man.

SPEAKER_04 2:04

Yeah, man. I'm really, really happy. I really am. Uh, how's kids?

SPEAKER_06 2:08

Oh, fantastic. They're uh finally over. Uh yeah, we're on a little bit of a break right now. Uh my weekends are the summer. I like that.

SPEAKER_04 2:16

As a dad of three, well, I have three adult children now, and I'm I'm a granddad, actually. It's even funnier. But uh as a dad of three, I remember them days, man, chasing the softball and the wrestling and then the soccer all over to play, sometimes on the same day.

SPEAKER_06 2:30

Three between fourteen and eight. That's a very busy time. I turn into dad taxi service a lot of times, you know, but it's all right.

SPEAKER_04 2:38

It's all good. Well, I've been looking forward to tonight.

SPEAKER_06 2:41

I'm very much looking forward to tonight.

SPEAKER_04 2:43

Yes, I think you guys out there uh in Seshland are gonna love tonight. We are hanging out with the masterminds behind the hit podcast Sanity Lounge and What's Happening Baltimore. We're hanging out with Brian Lepo, who wants to be known as Lepo. I was told earlier we're going by last name, so we're gonna go with Lepo, Davis, and of course Rachel Novak. How are you guys? Wonderful, wonderful, man. Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

I appreciate Brian is also a grandfather.

SPEAKER_03 3:12

Are you? Yeah, I was uh I I didn't want to interrupt your flow because you it was beautiful, but uh but yeah, man, I'm a grandfather too, believe it or not. Are you really? That's awesome. It's a great feeling, isn't it? It really is. Mine was a pretty wild run, though. I uh my son was 14. Yeah. Oh, okay. And so it was real interesting. That was one of those, oh shit. And so now my son's 20, my granddaughter's five. Right on. He got on the honor roll in high school, he worked every day of high school. Like um, he has full custody of the kid, and he's stepped up, and I'm I could couldn't be prouder of it. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 3:54

Our granddaughter is three, and uh, we have one on the um my daughter has another one on the way due in October. Wow, good. So we're gonna have two. I'm gonna be pop times two. I'm I'm really excited. Is that what they call you, pop? Yeah, I'm I'm pop. I like pop. And my wife is coco. They call her cocoa. That's a choice. Pop and cocoa. Pop pop pop. Pop and cocoa I like it. Coco pop. Coco pop. That's right. So uh what's new with uh Sanity Lounge, guys?

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Well, these guys just got back from uh uh Hella weekend. Tell us about what you did.

SPEAKER_03 4:26

Right. So we've been on we've been on a festival run as of late. Uh we've been trying to help promote festivals and stuff like that. And uh this past weekend we went to the Let's Go Festival in Crownsville, which was first Thursday first.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_03 4:42

Can I come to Hello Weekend? Yeah, I was saying that's here. I I have a bit of a potty mouth as it were. It's all good, bro. Uh I apologize, Miss Um, sorry. Uh yeah, right. So the first Thursday was actually the first festival we did, and we had a we have a presence at all the first Thursdays this summer. That's WTMD's event that they do at Canton Waterfront Park.

SPEAKER_05 5:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:07

Seven Teller. Dude, Seven Teller, have you are they on your radars? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah. I had no idea.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

It's the first time I've seen them, but I've been to a teller fest at Pool's Island, which is where I discovered Natalie Brooks. So it all came through a circle.

SPEAKER_03 5:21

Oh wow. She's been in studio.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

She played and Litz. Litz played there too.

SPEAKER_03 5:26

Now keep in mind the the whole night was was wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 5:29

Uh Seventeller, Happy Landing, and Fantastic Cats.

SPEAKER_03 5:32

Cats, right. And Happy Landing blew my face up. It was a great night of music. That's awesome. A lot of people came up to the booth and asked, you know, who we were. We started talking, you know, handing out flyers for next month's festival with a lot of our friends. Uh local guys. Yeah, like uh mutual friends are putting on Nate's woodshed.

SPEAKER_02 5:51

The woodshed at Nate's place. Okay. Do you remember that? So it it that went on for like three years and ended that's what I thought.

SPEAKER_04 5:58

It came to a hiatus.

SPEAKER_02 6:00

It came to a hiatus just because Ricky was Ricky Wise. It's Ricky Wise's thing and Nate McCoy down in Canton. Ricky Wise was getting he's just busy. That's it. I couldn't really do it. Um but July 26th, the Woodshed Festival is coming back, and um that's gonna be at the Baltimore Museum of Industry with pressing strings, Sweet Lita, Super City, Enslow, No Pierre, Wicked Sycamore, and then the finale is gonna be Ricky Wise. It says Ricky Wise and Friends, but it's gonna be everybody I just named. Right. Probably all on stage at once.

SPEAKER_04 6:33

It's amazing that you were able to name every single one of those pictures.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

I know.

SPEAKER_04 6:35

I've seen her going, he doesn't even have a was it written on the back of your hand or what? No. No, he's really good at that.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

He has like photographic, like inside.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

I have a memory of I would call it, I'd say useless knowledge, but what I just said was not useless.

SPEAKER_03 6:48

Oh, yeah, it's very clutch knowledge. And keep in mind that's now you're listening. For your listeners, most of those bands at that festival in July, the Woodshed Festival, has been on Sanity Lounge. So you can check them out if you don't know them and get excited for them. I've done stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

And then the Let's Go Festival. So I did discover there were three bands on day two at the Let's Go Festival, which we our current episode of Sanity Lounge is Liz and Chris, who own the Let's Go Festival. So they're real cool. Um, but it was Gabe Woodrow, who we talked about, who was fantastic, was metal band that I was not expecting.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

That's because I said, look for Gabe, and you're like, she's not gonna like that kind of band. It's probably some country kid.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

Right, which must be Iron Mind. Like just something. I mean, he kills it. He it was awesome. And then and Doug Segree, I don't know, I just heard of him, but Dan Ryan was his guitar player, who's in Super City. Okay. So I was like, holy shit. And then Cinema Hearts, which are DC, so they're not sure Maryland, but they're close enough.

SPEAKER_03 7:45

And just to give a little a little love and context to the Let's Go Festival, Thursday night was the Canton with TMD the first Thursday, Friday, and Saturday was the Let's Go Festival, which has ran six years. The brother and sister Chris and Liz. Yeah, I got it. Nice Chris and Liz, uh wonderful people. And if you watch the episode, they're just passionate about music, like like any other hippie or anything like that. But they're not hippies, but it's like they got their minds blown away in a San Diego festival a couple years back, and was like, we gotta do this for people.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

Yeah, and they do it right. Like it's a it was a national two-day with national, I mean, Sublime Headline day one, and that was the first time I've seen them with Jacob, and that was that was impressive.

SPEAKER_03 8:32

Yeah, they were really good with that.

SPEAKER_02 8:33

And apparently, I mean, apparently, they are still just straight gangsters. Like they they they took all kinds of shit when they left. They just went out of there and took everything. That's fun. That's what they were doing. Like Eric Wilson was just hitting DMT pens backstage. Like they were but they were good. It was it was good. It was a great show. They're Harvard County, or is that just a coincidence that their name's Harford Sound? I just assume they're from Harford County.

SPEAKER_03 9:03

Okay. I wonder if it's anyone I I know.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

Like, it's Friday. It's at the Ana Rondo Fairgrounds, so it's a big space. Yeah. 5,000 people. There was more people at first Thursday the night before than were at this festival, and it was pretty much sold out. They could go more, but they like they like it to be comfortable. Like Chris is like, I'm good with this, but I mean we we could always handle more, but he's uh they just like that you're not elbow to elbow, you're just there, you can wander around, you can go where you want. And then Friday, I think there was only 3,500 for that.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

Yeah, and I mean, well, what I liked is that you guys were there, and because you had the people in the studio before, you got to interact with all the all the acts, and people knew who Sanity Lounge was. Yeah, it was cool.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

Like we met Scott from 98 Rock, he was there Friday night, he came with his daughter. Um, so that was cool hanging out with Kirk McEwen was there. Um Carrie Evans, Bob Wall was there. So we're gonna get Carrie out, Carrie and Bob on because they're both working for WRR now as one-air DJs. Like Carrie does the 12 to 2 slot and Bob does a Saturday like specialized show, but we're gonna have them in um together. Because they're actually getting married. You knew oh, are they really?

SPEAKER_04 10:19

You know who else would be really cool to interview too one time would be Nisi from 990. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:26

I mean, she's wait a minute. So she was there. I think she's at R also. I think she was there on Friday at their booth.

SPEAKER_04 10:31

Dude, you gotta get Nisi in there. I can imagine the stories, all the HFS and all that men over the years, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:37

Well, I didn't realize Bob Woss started that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like that, yeah, they're gonna have some great stories.

SPEAKER_04 10:43

I wanted to touch base with each one of you individually.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

True.

SPEAKER_04 10:46

So just kind of pick your brains and actually let everybody out there that's listening, you know, let them in on who you guys are outside of Sanity Lounge, uh, Lepo. Um, I know you are a drummer in the band Making Waves. Is that correct? Yep. How long's that? How long have you been making Making Waves with them? Dude, the year.

SPEAKER_03 11:07

Yeah, I think we're 15 years deep. It's like this year will be the 15th year, I think. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 11:13

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, it's crazy. So I take it you've been drumming a long time.

SPEAKER_03 11:17

I oh yeah. I've been drumming since ninety four three, but seriously since 2001. Probably right on. Um, and then I'm in uh original band called Gravedigger's Biscuits.

SPEAKER_04 11:30

That's the other one I was gonna touch basically.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Or I can have a listening party.

SPEAKER_03 11:36

Apple Apple Music.

SPEAKER_02 11:37

Just so you know, you've been drumming longer than 1993. Is that right? Yeah. We've met in 1993.

SPEAKER_04 11:42

This is why they have to go to the drummer. Damn it. Like the merry couple.

SPEAKER_03 11:46

Michael, you've been drumming since the 80s. It might be, is it maybe 90, 89? I don't know. My time is really jacked up, Mike, but it's been a minute. It's all good. I've been drumming. It's all good. We're all there. I trust me, I know. I've been drumming a long time.

SPEAKER_04 12:00

That's cool. And um, I was also told that you are a movie aficionado. Yes. You are a data bank of movie knowledge stored in your brain. This is true.

SPEAKER_03 12:14

It's probably true. I'm Google before Google was Google. In fact, I resented Google from that year. Yeah, nobody needs me anymore. It sucks.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

So this is worth no, I've done this before. We we had a guest cancel on our show one time, and we had to call an audible. It was the week before the 4th of July, so we were like, fuck it, let's do the f jaws. Right. Do it. So I'm like, I like I love movies, but I can't just sit down and talk about one for two hours. I need to take some notes. Not like Siskel and Ebert. Yeah, that's how we kind of came up with the format. But I came up with a question that was, can you name Did I tell you the number? I think I did. I said, Can you name all 18 deaths in the Jaws? No, you said, can I name I said, can you name all the deaths in the Jaws cinematic universe in order?

SPEAKER_03 13:06

Or no, I didn't even say in order. I just said can you name the Jaws in Jaws 1.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

The deaths in Jaws 1. So he started there. He said what happened was he named He named every death from Jaws 1 to Jaws 4 by character by character name in order without looking at his phone. That's incredible. Or taking notes. I had them all written down, and he got the 18, and we ended it, moved on, and on the way home he called me. He's like, There's a director's cut with a deleted scene. So there's actually technically 19, and it's Mario Van Peoples dies in his character dies in the book, too.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

Yeah, you could argue of Jaws 4. There's an arguing for 19. Yeah, but okay. But I that kind of loserish knowledge is where before drums were my my life uh cinema. In the 80s, I was not. You say no way, Mike, but I'm not very athletic. And in the 80s, it seemed like you say no way.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

But he didn't know. You just said you wanted to go paddleboarding with me.

SPEAKER_03 14:16

That's because I didn't know what it was. But uh but that being said, in the 80s, I was leading the charge in the home video uh, you know.

SPEAKER_04 14:25

Were you at a movie working at a movie store?

SPEAKER_03 14:26

I worked in a video store in the Washing Blockbuster. No, no, it was a renotment video.

SPEAKER_02 14:31

No corporate independent, no corporate pigs here. No corporate okay. Rentertainment. Yeah, like clerks, right?

SPEAKER_03 14:38

Rentertainment video with a very hardcore uh X-rated section. I'm sorry, ladies. It was a curtain time. Was there a curtain? Yes, dude. I grew up with a curtain. There was a flaps curtain. I had to clean up to clean. I did that to clean, not just out of mere principle. Like it was it was part of my job. I had to clean the windows, the flaps, the windows. Oh, yeah, I'm sure. But it was wild.

SPEAKER_04 15:02

Uh that's awesome. Yeah, good stuff. And also, um, you are a uh film student or you're a graduate. I am with a degree in film, is that correct?

SPEAKER_03 15:11

Correct. I have an associate of science degree in film and television.

SPEAKER_04 15:15

That is awesome.

SPEAKER_03 15:15

And there was a minute between uh, you know, the movie Love, I thought I wanted to be an actor or a filmmaker, and I did, but umce you get going in it, it's a different kind of world than what I thought, and I kind of lost my passion for it. Like I love them still, but I don't want it like I thought I did, and I ended up hooking back to drumming, and then that just kind of really took my world over.

SPEAKER_04 15:45

That's awesome. But I mean you're still doing something you absolutely love.

SPEAKER_03 15:48

Yeah, absolutely. And it all comes back to movies, really.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

It's my love, and you know, and the cool thing about Rentertainment Video, this is for all the the the little kids out there that don't know, there used to be VCR tapes. Right. And we would get the premieres before they were before they went on shelves, he'd be able to get the new releases. They're called screen. But back then we had seen the movie like four months ago, so when it came out on video, we were ready to fucking roll it. Yeah, it was the movie.

SPEAKER_04 16:13

I miss those days though. Yeah, man. Walking in there, the smell of a of a tape store, video store, and it's just not the smell of the curtain.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

No, not the curtain.

SPEAKER_04 16:22

But it was just a specific smell of the plastic and the cardboard and just the art that was on them.

SPEAKER_03 16:27

And and setting up the the uh boards like you know, the movie companies would send you the the you know the posters and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

And the movie not being there. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:40

Where you're looking at watching it tonight. Rentertainment also had an ice cream shop. It was like an ice cream shop, a video store, a porn store, and uh and the whole rough. Yeah, I mean what could be right in Finksburg Plaza. There was a uh grocery store, a pizza joint. It was incredible. Massage parlor, jam page.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Close down the sound of the house. One of those.

SPEAKER_02 17:05

That's awesome. Finksburg Plaza in the 90s was great. It was Davis.

SPEAKER_04 17:10

All right, so when I first met Rachel, she was you were the first person she had uh talked to me about, and and I think it was because I l saw some of the stuff that you were making and you were putting on your Facebook page. Yeah. All right, so let's see. Um you are an expert in creating movie monsters, right? Is this correct?

SPEAKER_02 17:35

Yeah, I mean I mean, I've seen your art, brother. It's incredible. So, yeah. I mean, I will preface by saying, I think is that the right did I use that right? That I don't physically do the sculptures. Okay. I have a partner in the UK that goes by Reeve. He's a legendary master sculptor. He's he's done a lot of stuff. Um, but he he is we work in tandem together. I have done sculptures.

SPEAKER_03 18:02

Yeah, the reason why Reeve uh uses him as a wingman, as it were, is because Woe Davis does sculpt very well.

SPEAKER_04 18:10

I made the uh Poe Poe Edgar Allan Poe. Yeah, I was gonna touch that. You uh create the bodies for Edgar Allan Poe and Virginia Poe for the international Edgar Allan Poe.

SPEAKER_02 18:19

So that yeah, that was back in 2018, and that was basically the first thing I did. So I had friends, Jen and Greg, who volunteered back then at the Poe House. And they had a new director coming on named Enrique, who was kind of gonna start a festival which they hadn't really had before. So it was the International Ed Growl and Poe Festival, it was on the anniversary of his death every year, so it's around the first weekend of October. And they were they wanted to re reenact Poe's funeral in Baltimore because he was he did have a funeral in Baltimore, like five people came because he wasn't even supposed to be here. Such a Baltimore thing. Yeah, it was all such a all the everything are surrounding it, all the mystery and everything. There was nobody really here, none of his family really, because he wasn't even supposed to be here. Right. Um, and nobody knew who he was at the time when he died. At first. And um, so they were like, Let's put a mannequin in a coffin. They're like, Yeah, but it'll look like a mannequin in a coffin. They're like, Well, we can just hire an actor to like put Poe costume on and lay in the coffin, but he's gonna have to breathe and piss. So I was starting to dabble with like sculpting. Like, I made some predator hands. So they asked me, they're like, Can you do you think you could do this? Do you think you can make like a Poe bust? I'm like, I have no idea. So I kind of sat down and thought.

SPEAKER_03 19:39

This was an But he's always been very artsy, like he was an incredible painter when we were in school, and he always was an incredible model builder and sculptor. So I we all knew he could do it. Sure. He just was like, they it was official, it was a commission.

SPEAKER_02 19:55

I'm my own worst. So he was hard.

SPEAKER_04 19:57

So well, who did the heads? Was it just separate? I mean, you said the bodies. So for what? For the Edgar Allen Player. So I did.

SPEAKER_02 20:05

So I started sculpting. I just pulled out a I watched a video on YouTube. Most people do. It's amazing how good you learn on YouTube. So, okay, that's how you sculpt a head. So I got clay and I started putting it together. It started all, he started off looking like some like Pinocchio Dick Tracy villain. Like he had a big nose, like everything was right. So then I started kind of panicking, as I do. You could ask my wife, like, I'm just like, I don't think I can do this. Like that. So I started Googling like Poe Bus or Poe masks, and there were none. Like they didn't exist. So I'm like, well shit, now I gotta do this. This is July. The Poe Fest is in October. Right. Beyond sculpting, I've never molded anything or cast anything or use silicone or use. So I got the sculpt done, and I thought it looked pretty good.

SPEAKER_03 20:50

Yeah, you had a great pic, you used a picture, like one of the few pictures as a reference. And it was perfect. I mean, I thought it would look fun.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

So then I got a hairdresser, uh Molly, to do the hair and makeup and like attach the mustache, the eyebrows, the eyelashes. Sure. Christopher Schaefer made a s custom suit for it. So it was on like I mean it was on like for clothing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's one of our sponsors. Yeah, you can't. You can go to Christopher Schaefer's shop today and ask for the Poe. For the Poe. And it's a it's a purple suit. Like it's got all the he he made it kind of it was inspired by period. It was period specific, not period specific, but inspired.

SPEAKER_05 21:30

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

So it was awesome. It was on a mannequin. I made the head, my the hip Poe's arms and hands are mine. Like I cast them and Alginate. I'd learned how to mold, cast, sculpt, paint, everything with that. And then it laid on display. I got to meet Peter Green. We had an opening ceremony back in 2018, and Peter Green came because he was doing some. And Dorian from the Mass. Wow. He came because he was doing like an independent. Poe film that I don't even think ever happened. But he was nuts. And he just I happened to have a conversation with him. He's like, So what do you do here? And I was like, I made the Poe that's like laying in a coffin. This is at the Carroll Mansion downtown, which is haunted. 100%.

SPEAKER_03 22:16

Different podcast.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

100%. Episode two of Sanity Last. That didn't know the other person.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

But now the stuff that you paint for your partner in the UK is amazing. Yeah. So that's but Peter Green.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

Yeah. Oh, he's like, what do you do? So I'm like, I made the Poe Body. He's like, oh, show me. So I walk in, I show him, he like leans down. He's like, Oh, you did this? I'm like, Yeah. He's like, So he like put on his glasses and leaned in. He's like, So I was in this movie with Jim Carrey. I'm like, you're fucking Zed, dude. Like I know who the fuck you are. I know who you are. Like you don't have to like give me a resume. I appreciate the fact that you like it's an honor that you think this is great. Like this is awesome. So that was that was cool. I got to meet Peter Green through the whole Poe event. And then in 2022, on the um the by the uh anniversary of Virginia's birth, the what was it, the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of her birth, I made her. So they they were on display together in caskets at Carroll at Westminster Hall downtown, where they are both buried. Right, which was surreal. Very surreal, standing in this um event watching people sign like a funeral guest book and look at the bodies. And I also made her box of bones, which is part of her story, if you look that up.

SPEAKER_04 23:34

It's a beautiful place. I've actually been to a wedding in that church.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Yeah, it's it's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_03 23:39

And there's a legit bust that you have sculpted like.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Somewhere. Somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 24:00

Yeah, I was saying I remember it somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

But I know they just had some uh world-renowned sculptor do like a Poe sculpt this year recently. But yeah, I I got to meet Marty Bass a couple of times at the Poe House. He came and did stories for the Po Fest, and um Yeah, it was it was it was cool. But then moving into that, now I make predators and xenomorphs primarily.

SPEAKER_04 24:24

You have a company, right, called Polypops?

SPEAKER_02 24:26

Polyprops is yes, that is kind of it it's not polyprops anymore. I'm I'm operating under my own thing, which is Rambo 911's prop lab. Okay. But what Polyprops is, they it's all ultimately just gonna be Rambo was my was my first dog's name. Our me and my wife, our first dog, it was Rambo. He was a a mastiff boxer.

SPEAKER_03 24:51

Plus the greatest action hero of all time. Yes, of course.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

And then he was um and then my my first address, but now that's just who I am. Like that's my art name is Rambo 911. That's what people call me in that w weird world that I live in.

SPEAKER_03 25:05

And polyprops is just an application.

SPEAKER_02 25:07

Yeah, polyprops is a specific flexible paint that is used for cosplay foam armor, so it doesn't crack or or peel. It it's designed to adhere to EVA foam, so armor foam smiths, which is insane. The the things that these guys create. They I've they're even they're leaps and bounds beyond me. I've never crafted anything out of foam, and some of the things these guys make are are wild.

SPEAKER_03 25:32

But it's all the cosplay universe. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:36

But but um HexFlex, I'm the authorized US distributor of said paint. Very cool. Which I use for some of my stuff. But yeah, we have some really cool projects. If you go on Facebook, you can join a group called the Xeno Group, and that's where you can see like pre-orders and all the stuff at work at. And my Instagram, I'm pretty active. Uh try to be, because social media is important these days if you're if you're doing anything that you want people to see. This is true. And it could be the bane of your existence. This is absolutely true. Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_04 26:10

Because there's the algorithm. And uh Miss Rachel.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

Not the best for the last. No, thank you. No, I I love that you're asking these questions because I always say that we are artist-supporting artists, which makes Sanity Lounge who we are. And um, I protect our brand, and I think that's a big part of it. So I love that you're asking us about our personal art.

SPEAKER_04 26:28

Absolutely. Um I you know, it's funny, I always do a little research before I do any of the podcasts, which any podcast person should. Um and knowing some of them personally, I always make little notes, you know, and things like that. Like I have you down as the local networking guru.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

Thank you. I like that. I like that.

SPEAKER_04 26:47

Am I wrong? No, that's why. Yeah, that's perfect. So I actually have down people are my passion. She's a huge supporter of local music with the ability to be at several shows at once. I don't understand how she does.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

I'm a Gemini. I don't know how she does. And a shapeshifter.

SPEAKER_04 27:04

Yes. But she pops up at every show while they're all going on at the same time. It's it's like magic.

SPEAKER_02 27:09

Now, usually everywhere I am that she's not at, if I mention her name, the person I'm talking to knows who she is.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Absolutely. And I have a full-time job that has nothing to do with art or music. What do you do full-time? So tomorrow is actually my 29-year anniversary for my full-time job. But you're only 25 years old. I wish. I just turned 47 last month. Good for you.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

No, I think building IKEA furniture is an art.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

I mean, I've never done that. Well, so I work for IKEA. Okay. But I work for it's called Global Business Operations. So I work for their global organization, which is out of Poznan, India, Shanghai, and Baltimore. Right. Um, didn't start there. I started as a cashier when I was 17, but I just networked and worked my way up and did a bunch of jobs that I never went to school for until I was good at them, and then tried something else.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

Did you just say you've never built a piece of IKEA?

SPEAKER_01 27:53

I mean, I usually try to get someone else to do that for me, but I have to do that. Have you ever tried it?

SPEAKER_02 27:56

Because I've recently discovered that you need to come teach you how to use a little evidence.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

I'm really good at separating all the parts so that it looks organized and then saying, Can you do this? Here's beer. But yeah, so I've worked there tomorrow's 29 years. Um I'm also part of the IKEA Foundation, which is their philanthropical wing that um I get to travel around the world and see how they spend their money for good cause campaigns like Save the Children, Doctors Without Borders, um, Climate Action kind of thing. So I volunteer for that. That's a table I just sit at for free. But that's why I stay there for so long. But yeah. So I uh I actually gonna leave IKEA back in 2012 because I went back to school for chemical dependency counseling and human services, and I was gonna leave and be a counselor. Um, but I couldn't hack it, too empathetic. And I did some case studies that did not end well. Um, actually, my first case study, the girl committed suicide at Shepard Pratt. So it was not my fault she had issues, but um, I just I realized through that that I couldn't do it. So in your Yeah, yeah, I'm too too empathetic. So I just took all that as transferable skills to deal with, you know, family and friends, and still a big passion of mine. I do everything I can to help fight um addiction and things like that.

SPEAKER_04 29:08

You um no, you and I connected it's been a little bit now, maybe two years now, maybe. Yeah. Um and you one of the two of the things that uh outside of music you and I had in common was we're both science and we're plant nerds.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Yes, I love science. Yes, and we and you just gave me a plant when I walked in today. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 29:26

That's right. But uh we talk about plants all the time. Um I I've you've seen pictures. I mean my my dining room, it looks like a tropical forest at this point. My wife has got we probably have 80 plus any kind of crazy thing you can think of that's in there. But I know you are really into it as well.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

Yeah, I'm really, really into plants. Everything I do, I realize this year has come from my mother. She was an artist, she chased the music, she was a writer, she painted screens, and she was a huge gardener. So the only thing that I do that she didn't do is I have a tea garden, which I kind of fell into. I just started growing plants, and I was like, wait, all of these are medicinal teas, and now I mix and match herbs and make teas and then.

SPEAKER_04 30:04

Let me touch base on the painted screen thing. So I'm from Bal originally from Baltimore City.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

She's a Highland Town girl.

SPEAKER_04 30:09

See?

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_04 30:10

And that was growing growing up, marble steps and painted screens. Yeah, everybody had screens on their houses, whether it was in a window or on the door. Yeah. Some of them were like uh the Mother Mary.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

Yeah, she did like scenes of like houses and gardens and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So and we're also a hundred percent Polish. My family's Polish, Lithuanian, Czechoslovakian, so it's a big influence. Highland Town, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:32

There was a huge, huge melting pot in Highland Town back in the back in the good days.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

But as far as music, I mean, I've always just been really good friends with people that are running open mics. My good friend Josiah was in uh Tears of Mars back in the day, and you know, they opened for train and stuff, and they had a good run, and uh, they made an album and I got my name in the credits for supporting them, and then I just like love to be passionate about people that are following their passion. So now as as a writer and doing all the poetry these last few years, like my my heart's driving towards doing co-writing of songs.

SPEAKER_04 31:01

So that's what I was gonna say. You know, you're talking about having your name out there. Well, your name's out there a lot now. You are now nationally published, is that correct?

SPEAKER_01 31:10

Yeah, so my goal two years ago was I just want to get a poem published, like one poem. And I I uh put a couple out there, and now it's two years later, and I have ten, and two of them were this past month. And then I told my mom about it, who's in long-term care for um dementia. Right. And I said, Mom, I got my first poem published. This was like two years ago. And she said, You're lying, Rachel. And I was like, What are you talking about? She's like, I published your first poem in Reader's Digest when you were five, and I just forgot that that was a thing I did. And I'm I'm realizing this lately with her dementia, she's reminding me. So the just the other day was her birthday, June 6th, and I went to visit her and I said, Mom, I, you know, I really want to. I showed her Julie Simek from Sweet Lita singing me happy birthday. And I said, I really want to get with some of these songwriters and turn my poems into songs. I want my words to dance. And she's like, Well, don't you know you already did that? I said, What in the hell are you talking about, mom? And she said, Kindergarten graduation, you took a poem out of the Christian poems and turned it into a song, set it to music, and you and your friends sang it for the talent show. And I was like, We did. And I remember every word to that today. Yeah, like I was singing it in the car here because I remembered it.

SPEAKER_05 32:11

So a flashback.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

So I think I just am reverting to all the things I loved after some divorce and trauma and getting lost for a bit and just remembering who I am by watching her kind of forget who she is. But it's it's weird how it comes full circle. That is awesome.

SPEAKER_03 32:25

Yeah, that's awesome. And you do the poetry open mics.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

Yes, I've been doing poetry open mic at Manor Mill for about three years. Um they've published two of my poems through their books. We have a book coming out in September, Poets of Manor Mill, which I actually get to go to the press and watch it be printed. It's at Saltwater Press in Berlin, Maryland. So taking a day off work to go down there.

SPEAKER_04 32:44

I love that venue. It's a beautiful, awesome venue.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

Yeah, and I just I just did the coolest project that I've ever done with poetry, and I'll kind of shut up after that. But it was the biggest thing that I've done that meant the most to me was um I love equastic poetry, which is when you look at something and write, like you look at a painting or uh you're in nature and you write something, and it may have nothing to do with what you're looking at, but it inspires this whole like contemplative process. And I put I submitted a poem to this publication called The Light Ecrastic. And what they do is if they like your poetry, they pick you and they pair you with an artist. So I was paired with a painter who then submitted different paintings, and we mixed mix matched them. We didn't get to see each other's stuff, and they said, Okay, now you pick one of her poems and paint to it, you pick one of her paintings and write to it. So I just did that. So in May, they published the original original one I submitted to be selected, and then the one I painted or wrote to a painting, and the painting just happened to be on lichen, which is like something I love as a science nerd. Don't take werewolves. Yeah, yeah, don't boom. Um growing through the woods, like thewolves. Not werewolves. It is like the watch after them lichens. Yeah. So that was pretty cool. So that just got published in May. So that is awesome. Yeah, that's wonderful.

SPEAKER_03 33:54

What a great account. Yeah, that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

And a local artist that I know that was on Sanity Lounge, Matt Muirhead, who's actually um a good friend of mine, reached out to me and he said, if you want me to screen print that poem over the art, because that's what he does, he's like, I'll make that happen for you. So he's gonna do that for me.

SPEAKER_03 34:09

Yeah, he's a good dude. Yeah, great artist.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

I could talk about that all day. I'll be quiet.

SPEAKER_04 34:14

Were you guys part of Whiskey Feathers um video recording? Was that you guys at the Bromo Seltzer Tower?

SPEAKER_01 34:22

No, no, no, but I did so I they You did one there. You did your own thing. We went there after they recorded that there, and Whiskey Feathers are really good friends of mine. They're fantastic. Great friends. Um, one of my talks. Um, yeah, I go to their house and they make dinner, they put this big pot on a fire in their yard and make a soup and stuff. But they did a music video at Bromo, and I fell in love with what that looked like. So I went to a poetry open mic at breakfast. That's what I'm thinking. And then I was like, I'm going to the clock tower to take pictures.

SPEAKER_02 34:48

It wasn't a good thing. And then Callum Callan did a video.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

And she said, I want to do my tiny desk video there. So we've gotten so many people to the Bromo art district through Whiskey Feathers. It's been insane.

SPEAKER_02 34:59

Yeah. Out in the crowd. Like I was walking her wearing my meta glasses, holding the woodshed flyers. And like I walk the whole interaction I ever recorded because I walked up and I was like, Kendall, and she's like, How do I know you?

SPEAKER_01 35:12

Kendall's the fiddle player in Whiskey Feathers, and now she's doing some solo things with. It's like Whiskey Feathers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but so yeah. So poetry continues and songwriting, I want it to happen. So if there's any artists listening that need a phrase or turn around.

SPEAKER_02 35:25

You hear that, guys. Rachel has to write. We've got some writer's block going on. Rachel's got some more.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

I've had plenty of musicians that approach me and they're like, I have the the melodies, I just don't know the words. I'm like, let's get together. So actually, JD Sage and I wrote one song, Chris Diller and I are working on one, and then uh been talking to Jason Mullini a little bit and Ruben uh Montoya, who has a new song coming out this Thursday.

SPEAKER_04 35:48

So very cool. Every time I hear, every time I hear that name, like when Christian Owen does on the um the Harford County, he announces all the bands. When he does Montoya, I always think of Princess. Montoya. Yes. I always think of Princess. Every time he killed my father.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Now Ruben, Ruben's somebody we've talked about having on. He's a Baltimore icon.

SPEAKER_03 36:09

He's a yeah, we want to get Ruben on. He's a good dude, and he writes really good stuff.

SPEAKER_02 36:13

He's a great very well known. He did one of the sessions at Guilford that we when we were in the music series.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

This probably won't air before it comes out, but he had we'll have a single coming out um June 11th this week, and he's doing uh event at Cat's Eyes. So if you're if it's after that, look it up after. Nice.

SPEAKER_04 36:30

Wonderful. Very cool. Um, so as a collective, now you've been with the guys for a little over a year. A little over a year.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

Yeah. Serendipity.

SPEAKER_04 36:39

Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

That's how we met. Serendipitous.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

That's weird. Like me and Rachel have a weird story. Yeah. Crazy story.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

I found him on Instagram and just was like, hey, I like what you do.

SPEAKER_02 36:49

And I'm It was because of the whiskey feathers. Because of the whiskey feathers. I was like, those are friends of mine. I like what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 36:55

I said, one day um we're gonna be friends.

SPEAKER_02 36:57

And I just said hello to the friends I haven't met yet.

SPEAKER_01 37:00

Yeah, I said hello to the friend I haven't met yet. And I'm like, and side note, like I'm not flirting or anything.

SPEAKER_02 37:05

That was an Instagram comment on the whiskey feathers, like reel that I made.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

Yeah. And then we ran into each other randomly at Slate.

SPEAKER_02 37:11

Two weeks. Well, I mean, it's a little more insane than that. I just kind of like it. Whiskey Feathers came out. Whiskey feathers episode comes out, she makes a comment. Amanda sees it. We all see it. I'm like, oh, cool.

SPEAKER_03 37:26

Like Yeah, he's like, this girl said that she likes the show.

SPEAKER_02 37:29

Of course, I think I started following her right then. Like, I was like, oh, follow. And so I saw what she looked like, and then we're at my son, we live in Middle River, we're at Slate Farm, Slate Farm Brewery, which is like an hour away from Middle River at my son's soccer party. So I go to the bathroom and I'm there with Anthony Frugious who I didn't know who he was yet. So Rachel walks, I'm going this way, she walks by, and we just like look at each other, and I'm like, man, that girl.

SPEAKER_01 37:55

That's a beard.

SPEAKER_02 37:56

There's no way that's that girl from that Instagram post. So I go to the bathroom, but she's walking by me and she looks at Anthony. She's like, dude, I think that's the guy from that podcast that isn't too. So we did, I went to the bathroom, went back to the pavilion, and I text I sent her a message on Instagram. I was like, Are you a Slave Farm Brewery? And she's like, Yes. The story's more thematic. Sounds like good. Like two weeks after she made that comment, hello to the friends I haven't met yet. Two weeks later, we met an hour away from either one of our houses, basically, at a random brewery.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

And not long after we're at lunch talking about let's do business together, and everything's sold. That's awesome. Like, I want to be part of this. Yeah. That's awesome. That's perfect. And there's been several serendipitous moments since then through Guilford, through this church we're working with down in Mount Vernon. I have stories that go way back for that, and now we're a part of it. It's just crazy. It's just crazy.

SPEAKER_03 38:49

Right. The other thing that we did I wanted to touch on was that we developed uh an events calendar, and it's you know, it's it's called What's Happening Baltimore, and so it's like we've got the show on one hand that's we're trying to showcase just the artists in in Maryland and beyond, but you know, Baltimore has a bum rap, and it I feel like nobody realizes we realize, like the artists all realize, but no one outside of Baltimore thinks anything more of the wire or the ravens or the Orioles or or murder, and it there's so much more to it, and there's a lot of incredible passionate art, and so the show is one thing. The the second piece of our of our brand is called What's Happening Baltimore, and it's an events calendar, and basically we're trying to to do what this the old city paper used to do, and you know the dream is you come into BWI, it's the nineties, we remember the nineties, all the taxi cabs are out there with what's happened in Baltimore on the side, Sanity Lounge on the top of the cab, session friends, and sanity lounge on the top of the cabs, and and you get in a cab and they say, What uh what do I do in the city? And they say, Well, you watch these two shows and you'll find out who the great artists are, and then you go to what's happened in Baltimore.com, and wherever in the city they're playing, you can go see 'em. You know, and um and it's kind of incredible software because proprietary software. I'm not a I'm not a computer cat, you know, they they are, but or they're more than I am, but um, it's very user-friendly, and it's very easy to upload events and everything like that, and we're real proud of it. And we've gotten a lot of spots.

SPEAKER_02 40:35

It's basically a single entry shared calendar system.

SPEAKER_01 40:39

Between venues, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:40

Between venues, community calendars, all of that. So everybody promoting their gigs with the the Harford County community, like any calendars, and then the gig cancels or gets rescheduled, you can change it in one place and it'll update everywhere so you don't have to remember everywhere you're promoting your stuff. That's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 41:00

And artists can eventually get their crap off Instagram and Facebook because you know how much they hate that. Right. I say it all the time. So I mean it works, it's what they need, but this could be a dog.

SPEAKER_04 41:12

My band, I would never be on social media.

SPEAKER_03 41:15

Yeah, it's a weird poison that we all have to cut.

SPEAKER_02 41:18

So we're we're I mean, my personal goal is to alleviate that stress from the artists. Sure. So we let them use this basic I mean for free, essentially. But but you can you can throw an event on our calendar for six bucks because we're all everybody's self-funded. Like nobody's got money rolling in to be a way to make this. Yeah, and one thing, we are partners with TMD, so we run radio spots on TMD with the sole purpose of promoting bands. Like Talbot, I always use the Talbot Mayo example. I love Talbot Mayo, she's one of my favorite around. They don't play her music yet on WTMD, but they say her name an awful lot.

SPEAKER_01 42:02

Because they pull from that calendar, they'll look at the events and say, let's talk about these things.

SPEAKER_02 42:06

The calendar on our website is is she used our platform to add the calendar to her website. So everything she puts on our website goes to our website, then TMD sees that and they run radio spots.

SPEAKER_01 42:17

And this is why we're gonna be sponsors because we're doing all these things and we we have quite a few. We mentioned Chris Schaefer Co the Air, we have independent, we have Checker Spot, got a couple of things. Megan moves, Megan.

SPEAKER_03 42:28

Yep. Oh, we love Megan's.

SPEAKER_02 42:30

Megan's one of the sponsors of the Woodshed Fest, too.

SPEAKER_03 42:33

And she's a great realtor in the city. Like she really's bringing people back to the city. Yeah, she's got a great passion for it, and she she's great at her job. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:42

Um one of her listings right now is the two o'clock club that um that down on the block. That uh oh my god, what's what's the uh uh fla Blaze Star used to have a lot of things? Blaze Star. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 42:54

She actually had her own marquee for Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:57

Megan's I I'm pretty sure that is inside of the building. Is it really? Yeah, like it's it's it's a like if you buy it, you need to renovate it. But it's it's she's the she's listing it. That's awesome. It's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 43:11

Yeah, but that's you know, all we are. That's kind of what we're we're going for. It's a big swing, uh, but I feel like if it works here, every city needs a sanity lounge. And you know, if it works here, it can be Sanity Lounge, Philadelphia, Sanity Lounge LA, you know, whatever. It's your arts hub, you know.

SPEAKER_02 43:32

And through the through this, since we've been doing it now a little over two years, like I've discovered so many bands. Like it's it's endless. We haven't even scratched the surface.

SPEAKER_04 43:42

In the last two years, what would you say was the one of your most favorite shows? Not not Saturday last show, but like I know mine right off the bat.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

That you've got to big meadow release. The big meadow release that we I just went to with uh Shelby and Matt. Um that was at the Bad Ban. It's a new band they put together. They're amazing. What are they called? Big Meadow. Big Meadow.

SPEAKER_02 44:06

Ricky Wise, Matt Everhart's in the band, uh Shelby Ab. Um Mike Vance.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

Mike Vance, yeah. You're better at this part than I am. Like I just like the show of this album.

SPEAKER_02 44:20

Which listen to the album because there's only three people on it. It's Matt, Ricky, and Shelby, and it's insane. It's so thick.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

It's a story you have to listen start to finish. I actually pre-ordered it. When it comes in, I'll have a listening party.

SPEAKER_02 44:33

It gets heavy, like in a good way. Like Shelby, she has pipes.

SPEAKER_03 44:39

Yeah, it's a talent. She's she's a unique talent.

SPEAKER_01 44:42

Writer, voice, guitar.

SPEAKER_03 44:45

But she can sing in like in like every octave or something. Her range is ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 44:50

But you guys have been to a lot of different shows too. Yeah, I mean, I feel like the best I was hands down, my favorite.

SPEAKER_03 44:56

I mean, I I'm like weird because some of the greatest experiences of the past year has been in the lounge because half of these bands he's seen, but I haven't seen.

SPEAKER_01 45:06

Well, and the studio is a special place.

SPEAKER_03 45:08

We have a really nice studio out in Cockiesville that's um, and so it's like I get the this like unique one, you know, uh show of it's just us there, and I've never seen a band. And like, I mean, I'm talking Fitzky Brothers, lowercase blues. Yeah, you know, and all of a sudden I'm like, oh, that's what I was gonna say. Like what these guys are incredible.

SPEAKER_02 45:29

One of my favorite one of the funnest times I've had recently was uh lowercase blues at the Fenwick Pub was probably the most fun. That was last summer.

SPEAKER_01 45:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 45:40

I mean, no offense to any of the drummers out there, including Brian. We do have favorites, but Tristan is my favorite drummer.

SPEAKER_04 45:47

I just I just chatted with Tristan the other day um dude trying to work his name. Mm-hmm for us to play. Or I'm gonna have to head to Delaware, which won't make my own.

SPEAKER_01 45:58

You gotta check him out when he's playing with Lita because he has a new custom drum set that he has worked up. That uh I won't spoil it, but he's using it for his lead up. Yeah, for my birthday, but we made it my birthday.

SPEAKER_02 46:10

I'll tell you what too. I I'm an I'm ashamed to say, but I saw so Rick Farrell, he's he's a TMD, he has an open mic uh every third Thursday at Heavy Seas. And the June the May one was Madison Bailey. Oh wow. And I hadn't seen her perform in over a year, I think, until this night. And it's just wild watching because when she came on our show, she was 21, which is about two years ago. She's 20, I guess, 23 now. Just watching her evolve in those two years to what she can do now is incredible. And she did a uh she did gl port glory box into Edie Briquel's What I Am. Wow. And it was one of the most surreal things I've ever seen. And she did Steely Dan.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

I just I just went to a show Steely Dan? Yes, doing that.

SPEAKER_01 47:00

She just went to a show at Ramstead with Madison, um, Lita, and um Mama Black Sheep all together, and they all got on stage together.

SPEAKER_02 47:07

Oh, yeah, I saw Madison's one of them.

SPEAKER_01 47:09

She's a group of all these women. I was just like blown away, and then Jamie in the back.

SPEAKER_02 47:13

Yeah, even this girl, so this girl, Maisie Ray Kemper, have you heard of her? She goes. So she's uh junior at Carver, and she just got accepted to Grammy Camp.

SPEAKER_05 47:23

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 47:23

As she's a bass player, phenomenal. She's 16, I think she's gonna be 17 soon. But my son goes to Carver, he's in a visual arts program. So he's I've kind of I've seen this girl at pickups, but then I mean, she's been on T Izzy Bavis from TMD interviewed her, she's been on WJZ, but I didn't know what Grammy Camp was until this, and now everybody and nobody knew what Grammy Camp was until she got accepted in Towson, and now everybody in this area knows what it is, and it's apparently it's very prestigious. And it's um like you, it's it's basically it's like a seven-day summer camp, but it's ran by like Grammy winning artists, producers, engineers. What an experience that's yeah, it's highly competitive, highly selective. Like the process, she had to, I mean, just reading about what she had to send them, and then again, she was the only person that got ch selected in Maryland, and they only pick from 35 states. So that's gonna be pretty cool. We're trying to get and then I discovered from that her band Salt Box, who was a high school band, alt rock, fantastic. They have an album from June 2025 that I listened to from start to finish, and it is great. Really? Yeah, so we're naturally we're trying to get her on the show.

SPEAKER_04 48:34

See, this is what I love. We just want everybody on the show.

SPEAKER_02 48:37

So much music.

SPEAKER_04 48:37

I just learned about how many names of new new music. Let's keep going. It's endless. It's it's insane. I'm gonna want it messaging you sometime this week and be like, can you send me all those names again? Sammy Flavor. She's another voice.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

Oh, Sammy Flavor was amazing. I just met everybody.

SPEAKER_02 48:53

Opened up the Moncton Music Festival. Incredible vocalist. Like her band is Bobby's Blues Band, but she she does her own stuff. She does stuff with them. I've been messaging her to get her to come around. And that blues band was badass. Yeah, we partnered with the Moncton Music Festival as well. Yeah. Discover bands every day in Baltimore. It's insane. Like you think somebody was told, oh, Evan um um Evan from uh Corblum from Stage. No, he's not at stages anymore. He went to Magpie.

SPEAKER_03 49:23

Oh, yeah, he went to Magpie.

SPEAKER_02 49:24

Yeah. Yeah. He's happy. Good for him. I mean, not that he he didn't leave on bad terms, but he's happy with what he is. Well good for him. Uh no, we were talking about like Baltimore bands. And you said, or did was it you that said you like maybe I don't know, a couple of hundred in Baltimore? Yes. And he said there's five thousand bands. In the in between Maryland, like Virgin Virginia, Maryland, Delaware. I believe it. Five. He's like, the he's like, I know it. Like there are five thousand bands at least. And it's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 49:58

When the thing I love is the more we talk about them, the more the kids that are like just getting started, they're like, Oh, I want to do that too. And it's like encouraging people to try. You know, and we're giving them a platform to do things with open mics and different events that we're doing even at Double Groove. It just gives a platform for people to be a little brave and feel safe. And yeah, that's part of what we like to do.

SPEAKER_02 50:16

Absolutely. Open mics are cool. That's crazy. Like, I mean, I've I went to Feather and Flask's open mic, and everybody there was incredible.

SPEAKER_04 50:25

I um so I actually my five year anniversary of open mic nights at Double Groove Brewing in Forest Hill will be in two weeks. Nice. Five years, it's really it flew by really fast. But um you know, I was I actually made a post on Facebook earlier on my personal page about it, just an invite of sorts. And um you know, I was kind of thinking back and it blows my mind the amount of in five years the amount of musicians that have come through those doors and played the open mics. I some of them are still coming through, some of them have moved on, but there's two handfuls that actually cut their teeth on in that bar in that brewery on my open mics, and now are in big, huge, full bands now, like super popular bands throughout Harford County and and uh Baltimore. And right it's pretty cool. But yeah, open mics.

SPEAKER_01 51:14

You brought you brought Catbone up at the blues festival, and now he's he's those guys are catbone in the Charm City Centers.

SPEAKER_04 51:21

Actually, they just won the watchtower. The watchtower band contest they're gonna be playing at Hopkins. Phenomenal. What's the name of that festival at Hopkins, right? I don't recall Johns Hopkins? No, Hopkins Farm Blue. Harmony in the Woods.

SPEAKER_01 51:34

Harmony in the Woods. Oh, that's okay, that's right up here.

SPEAKER_04 51:37

Harmony in the Woods. That is Hopkins, is that correct? Hopkins, where is that?

SPEAKER_01 51:39

Well, they don't have they're not having that at Hopkins. That's the the field right behind it's on 924. There's a field back there. Uh at least that's where they had it last year, right across from the library in Abingdon.

SPEAKER_04 51:49

Oh, where the other one was uh last year. Maryland Center for the Arts.

SPEAKER_01 51:54

Yes, Maryland Center for the Arts. Thank you. Thanks, Chris. Yeah, so yeah, it's gonna be that's gonna be awesome.

SPEAKER_03 52:00

Yeah, Mr. Mike, I'm gonna have to head out.

SPEAKER_04 52:02

Yeah, dude, we're gonna ready to close it out anyway, brother. Well, we're almost at an hour, just about it at an hour anyway.

SPEAKER_02 52:11

You guys are all musicians too, right? Yes. Yes. I have I do you know the Rhythm Royale podcast? I got I'll give them a quick shout out at the watermelon room. I highly recommend to follow them and find out when their next event is because it's uh it's it's uh real quick. You go in and it's a you put you register your name and the instrument you play. They spin a wheel, they pick a band, they go up on stage and improvise a song from start to finish. They have five minutes to get the song ready because during that five minutes, I was the guest in May or April. So the bands would come in, I'd interview them real quick on video. While I'm interviewing them, I have a five-minute timer. The other bands communicate talk, and they're like, All right, here I'm gonna come up with some lyrics, you do this, you do this. Go down there and do it. It's it's a blast. Oh, yeah, yeah. You don't have to be a musician to go in there and watch. But any I can help them write. Like Ben Zul Cowan came through, he was there, Dan Wallace was there. The whole Natalie Brooks whole band was there, and she was there, and they just improvise. Like you can go up on a band twice, you can get picked twice, but you just go up and just you just bump out a song on the spot, dude. Love it. Yes, it it was real cool. It was real cool. Very cool. And uh, I recommend any musician go and do that whenever they do it. Rhythm Royale.

SPEAKER_01 53:38

Very cool.

SPEAKER_04 53:38

Well, listen, guys, I appreciate you guys coming out here and hanging out with us tonight. It's been a blast. Yeah, yeah, man. We really thanks for having us. Super laid back. That's what I said when we got here, man. Like, you know what? It's just a bunch of friends hanging out.

SPEAKER_01 53:50

And Mike, thanks for thank you for supporting everything we do. You've had us out several times to events, and you're always welcoming us to double group.

SPEAKER_04 53:57

Very welcome. Appreciate it. Um, I wanted to invite you guys back uh over to uh Beer Violin Vittles in August. End of August. I'd love to have you guys there doing your thing at the end.

SPEAKER_03 54:06

Hey, you mentioned that before.

SPEAKER_01 54:07

That's a good event. I got signed posters for a few years of that one.

SPEAKER_04 54:10

Yeah, nice. Appreciate you. Yeah, of course. I appreciate you guys from the studio too. How can everybody get uh contact you guys?

SPEAKER_03 54:18

Do you know it all? Of course, maybe uh sanitylounge.com, uh what's happeningbaltimore.com, and then Woe Davis will tell you the socials. Go.

SPEAKER_02 54:28

It's just at sanity.lounge on Instagram, Sanity Lounge Facebook. We are on TikTok, although I don't we don't post that much.

SPEAKER_01 54:35

Mainly Instagram and Facebook as well as follow us on Facebook because we can't tag the artists if they don't follow us.

SPEAKER_02 54:40

Yeah. What's happening Baltimore? Subscribe to our newsletter. Like we'll send out text blasts every now and then. We promise we don't like just spam you with unnecessary information. It's always what's happening and what you can go see at any given time.

SPEAKER_01 54:55

And watch the episodes. There's over 70 episodes of all your favorite bands out there.

SPEAKER_04 54:59

So next one. Big thank you to uh Colin Chris of Weather. Yes, thank you guys for allowing us to hang out here and do all of the magic that they do.

SPEAKER_02 55:08

This is I like seeing different studios around it. It's just cool. This is a great place.

SPEAKER_04 55:13

All right, guys, out there in Seshland. Uh we're getting into the lazy, uh hazy days of summer. Uh don't forget to uh relax, get some good music, kind of uh lay back and enjoy uh the summertime, man. Stay sane, Baltimore. See you next time.