Make Music Day VT & The Underground with Vincent Freeman

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What's new 802? I'm Becca Hammond and you're listening to Vermont Talks. Vermont Talks may include graphic or explicit content. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to the 68th interview of Vermont Talks. I am here today with Vincent Freeman. It is the oh what is today is it the 19th 16th 16th of May in 2026 and we are at the North Branch Cafe in Montpelier, Vermont. And Vincent Freeman, welcome Vincent. Vincent's the owner of the underground, the recording studio and listening room in Randolph, Vermont. He is a full-time audio engineer who's been working with and supporting musicians since moving to Vermont from Germany in 2012. Very cool. We're going to talk about that. The underground recording studio won the 2025 Seven Daisies title of Best Recording Studio and the listening room has been a Seven Daisies finalist for years in a row. And you are helping orchestrate, make music for Vermont, annual music holidays celebrated across the world on June 21st of this year. Welcome Vincent. Every year. Every year. Is it always the 21st? Always the 21st. Okay, good to know. We'll get to all that. Okay, this is really cool. There's so much to talk about. I'm really grateful that you drove up to meet me and I drove down to meet you and that we're making this work on the street today. So. On a beautiful spring day after yesterday it was cold and wet and unpleasant and here we are. Perfect spring day. Yeah, bright and sunny and we're getting to sit outside. I've never recorded outside this is the first time I've done this. So glad to be here for it. I think it's gonna be great. Okay, so let's start with you. This is because I didn't realize you came from Germany until I just read that right now. You came from Germany in 2012 and I'm guessing you were already working in music at that point. Well, so I graduated from high school in 2012. Okay. So working in music, not necessarily, but that was that was the start. So yeah, born and raised in Germany, went to went to school there. I was actually an exchange student to the Randolph-Vermont High School in 10th grade for a semester. And that kind of got me introduced to the Randolph community and also various musicians already at the time. But yeah, it was kind of around then actually that I started getting interested in audio and and recording and all that. I was in a ska punk band in like middle school, high school in Germany. Awesome. What did you play? First drums and then after that exchange semester, the keyboardist had switched over to drums to my dismay. And so I switched over to saxophone, which still works great in a ska punk band. We were in eight piece over many years. That's incredibly impressive for such a young group of people actually keep that together. We did. Yeah. And there were slightly different arrangements, but it was always eight people. So like sometimes we had two guitarists. Sometimes we had a four piece horn section. We never had all of those elements at the same time because like the bassists also played trombone and the pianists also played drums and so on and so forth. But yeah, that was like my my best band experience also played through the different like high school bands and orchestras at my school. But yeah, it was in like middle school, middle school, high school. I was blur those terms because in Germany, you don't really have middle school and high school. It's like sixth or twelfth grade. Yeah, that makes sense. I did a two week internship at a recording studio nearby that was extremely inspirational. And so I think that sort of really like jumpstarted the idea of I want to do this for the rest of my life. Oh, that's awesome. That's really cool that you're I find that a lot of people who love music as adults, they kind of so young. So I always have to ask like, like, you are already working with it. You might not have been officially working yet, but you are already doing it. Yep. No, I recorded the first acoustic EP in Germany, like probably in 2012, right before moving here. And so I moved to the States with one microphone and a four channel interface. Nice. And the rest is history. Okay, so the underground and the underground is mildly famous in Vermont circles. People talk about the underground like everyone kind of knows you guys, but they don't know you super well in Burlington. It's funny, but like everyone knows your name when I when I said, oh, I'm interviewing the guy who runs the underground. Oh, yeah, that place. I don't know him. But they all do of the place. I'm so happy to hear that. So with some music happening. Yeah, culture. Yeah. When did you officially like you moved in 2012? You're getting ready. You've got your interface, but it's not obviously you did day one. Have a recording studio. How did it come together? Randolph's an interesting so I went to a BTC in Randolph actually. So I lived there for two years. It's a it's such a cute little tiny town. There's really not a whole lot. I was surprised, honestly, that you had a recording studio in Randolph. Yeah. How did it come together and is it located right in town? I Yeah. So slight history there. So it actually started sort of in 2012 as Green Mountain Records. Okay. Because I always pride myself in that creativity with naming. Same. Green Mountain everything. Yeah. Vermont Talks. Exactly. Yeah, I guess Green Mountain Records is like the next best thing there, along with all the other Green Mountain businesses. And yeah, I mean, that was me taking myself slightly more serious than I maybe should have at the time. But I think we all did that and should do that. Because why not like dress for the job you want kind of thing. Yep. And I printed out a letter size logo and stuck it on the basement door of where I was living. Perfect. I had like the basement studio. Yep. And it was Green Mountain Records. That's awesome. So I started recording friends, mostly just like acoustic guitar and vocals at the time. With your four, four input interface. One microphone. Which then grew to four microphones after I went to the Quick Plug Guitar Center Grand Opening in Williston. That's funny. Dating myself there. Right. What it came, was it daddy's junkie music before? That I don't know. That was like pretty much when I moved here. I somehow like got an email or saw an ad about the Williston Grand Opening. Big deal. Yeah. I was like, I'm going to be there. And it was their opening day. And I got their deal for two condenser mics. I had the Rode NT1A, which a lot of people started with at that time. And I got two more that were great for recording like stereo guitar. Also ended up using them as overheads, but we don't need to get that technical. But yeah. And then the cool thing about like being a creative person, artist, freelancer, whatever, I didn't consider myself anything yet at the time is once you record someone and someone else hears it, they also want you to record them. Yes. And that is literally how I've built my business over the last 14 years. It's like ripples in a pond starting something, especially with creative people. There's so many in Vermont. And we're so happy to find other people who can help us out who are interested. Yeah, it's really it's a cool network. Yeah, especially that musician community in Vermont. Like I didn't really know at the time when I got started, but a really big project for me, I think it was actually then in 2013 or so, maybe 2014, was the band Coquette that sadly don't exist anymore. But they were Randolph based a prog rock band. And they played as a different like acoustic band at a bar in Randolph. And I went and brought my camera and a microphone to like film their entire set, even though I didn't know them. And afterwards was like, Hey, is it cool if I like post this on YouTube? And also do you want to record music sometime? And they were like, Well, we actually have this other band that we would love to record. And so like, I was so green behind the ears, if that's a saying, green to recording. That I think that's a German saying now. That's a wet behind the ears. In Germany, I think you say green behind the ears. But also I learned some green and wet behind the ears is a very gross image. I was gonna say something's growing my ears. Well, I also have a green thumb, but that's a whole different whole different conversation. But anyway, I think the fact that I recorded them and that like we like went ahead and did what I would call an album, they call it an EP was eight songs, like 40 minutes runtime. The lines are so odd. Yeah, it was an album. They just like didn't want to call it that. Yeah, we want to like be more professional when we record our debut album. That then was like the portfolio piece, I think that I got to learn or got to meet a lot more musicians through those releases. And they played out a bunch. And so a lot of people knew them and therefore them knew the work that I had done. But then it took a few more years until I transitioned to the underground as the business. And so it was like 2018 2019 when I did this rebrand. So up until then, I was working out of various bedrooms, basements, you know, wherever you could find, yeah, doing the home studio thing. And built my, you know, built my equipment base, my, my skills for sure. I didn't go to college for any of this all self taught. So I binged all the YouTube videos and read a few books and what do you use? I'm curious. I use logic. Okay, yeah. So like in 2020, 2010, I bought a Mac mini that came with GarageBand. And so I started on that. And yeah, then it was like, yeah, it was kind of in the, the maybe 2015 that I switched over to logic and have done that ever since. And yeah, it's very industry standard. That's it. It's one of the industry standards. Yeah, I never got the point to like pay a monthly subscription for Pro Tools. No, I bought logic once and I haven't paid for it since and I'm very happy with that. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Whatever DAW works best for you. That's it. If it feels intuitive and it feels good, I don't judge anyone for anything. Yeah, I know. I always educate musicians on that too. They're like, Oh, but like if I record in this different DAW, like, can you mix my music? I'm like, Yeah, I just need the multi tracks and then we're good to go. But yeah, so I think it was 2018 that I moved into the underground. So the underground is in downtown Randolph on 24 Pleasant Street. And it is the basement of the Trillion building, which is behind Weebird Bagel Cafe. Okay. So you are right in downtown? Right as downtown as you get. Just off of me in Randolph. I always call it downtown Randolph, just like I lived in downtown West Braintree, which is like just a road with houses on either side. But yeah, so that I started renting at first, which was like the super cool opportunity. It was like financially manageable and to have like my own space. The hang up was that my ex and I had bought a house, but there wasn't any room there for me to have that home studio really. Like I had like the bedroom, which was my mixing setup, but I couldn't even fit a drum kit in there comfortably. Yeah. And so yeah, it perfectly worked out that I got this space. And so the studio still to this day is a 400 square foot live room and a 200 square foot control room with like a giant window between the two that was already there. That's just what you want. Yeah, it's not two panes of glass, which is what you really want, but it gets the job done. It has gotten the job done for almost 10 years now. And yeah, and so then in 2021, I purchased this basement condo from the previous owner that I had been renting from. He had owned that basement for about 20 years, he and his wife. And they actually had like shows happening like community friend gigs down there. Like that's where this band, the party crashers who still exist to this day got their start. They played down there and they and their friends would invite people to the underground. And so again, me with my very creative naming ideas was like, what if I rebrand as the underground? So yeah, so I did that in 2019. It's a great name for something like that in rent. Like it feels and like in the music community too, because I didn't I really didn't think that far into it because again, I like basically just took over this name mostly because I wanted to keep the culture of the space alive. Kind of preserve that history. Yeah. And yeah, the previous owner was also a musician performing musician. But yeah, then I kind of like after that rebrand heard from people. Oh yeah, underground like, you know, not not on the top charts, pop music, edgy, you know, it's cool. It's cool to be in the underground. Yeah, for sure. Got a lot of hip hop requests that year. Yeah, I'm totally down with it, but not very proficient from an engineering standpoint, right in the genre. Though I like a couple years later mixed a full hip hop album and did a few like vocal recording. That's like whenever someone reaches out to do recording, I'm like, so you have beats so you want to record vocals, I presume, because there aren't any other instruments really involved. And that's definitely one of my strong suits is like recording live instruments. And so that's where I'm coming from a ska band. Yeah, all the types of instruments. Right. That's very fair. Hip hop said, just speaking of the genre difference, it's just such a different world. And you can't be everything everyone. It's amazing when audio engineers can just take any single any genre and make it work. Yeah, props to you. But also I could, I could also have no idea how to mix those things. But I feel like every new type of genre and everyone wants a slightly even just just splitting apart metal into a thousand different subgenres, they all want something slightly different way. So yeah, I could imagine jumping into a whole new world like hip hop. Yeah, I'll do a quick shout out to Zach Crawford in I don't know if you've heard of him. That name sounds familiar. But guy splitter Inc is his studio and he he is like the go to hip hop engineer mixer, mastering engineer and I've worked like I've sent projects his way. He taught audio engineering courses at Guitar Center as part of their grand opening series, which I partook in and made this like lifelong connection along with a couple other musicians, kind of bringing it back to that earlier conversation. That's really cool. What a what an important day for you. I know it's so ridiculous like corporate corporate Guitar Center. But it's still local. It is. That's it. It was the local people. It might have some corporate brand on the name. Are there jokes about like the people that work at Guitar Center? Oh, yes. I don't even know them, but I know that they exist. That's funny. Yeah. So, so it's also a venue. When did when did you revive the venue part of this? Yeah, even in the same space? That's so I can't ever give a straight answer. So I apologize for that. That's okay. In 2020, we all know what happened. I, much like many other people started a live stream concert series out of my studio. And it was called live from the underground. Again, what a great name I know. I know it was right on the nose. And so from I believe it was July 2020. I produced three years of weekly Thursday night live stream concerts out of my 400 square foot live room, which was quite a big feat. And I got to know so many bands and musicians through that, which is super cool. And then yeah, then in 22, I purchased the basement condo that, yes, the studio and the listening room are located in. It then took some time for the previous owner to load out. And for us to essentially build this venue, the underground listening room, though all we really did was built a stage and got a PA set up in there. And so then in 2023, if I have this right, it was actually, I said I would look at the the dates before, but I didn't. Don't stress about it too much. It's all a blur from 2020. No, no. So in 22, yes, good to see you. Amazing. I'm on a podcast talking about Make Music Day. No, good to see you. That's awesome. Even though we're in my failure. Hey, that's a great connection though. That was joy from the Vermont Department of Libraries that I spoke to on Wednesday about Make Music Vermont. So we'll touch on that somewhere. This is my fourth day in a row talking about making music Vermont. Hey, it's coming up. We'll have to maybe cut this around. That's okay. So in 2022, we opened the underground listening room and kind of the last half year of that, we did both Thursday night live stream concerts as part of live from the underground and Friday night live and person concerts. So you're doing both, which is that's a lot. That's for six months. Yeah. And it was like, that's we're not going to do that anywhere. At the time, we were also broadcasting the live streams to our local radio station, which at another level of complexity, because we had to like start right on time because otherwise dead air and nobody wants that. Yes. Yeah. That's funny to think about because I like making videos and stuff, but the live streams, you gotta be ready. Yeah. Like all things need to be lined up. Yeah. And then so since then, we were now in our fourth year of concerts at the listening room. And so yeah, it is all in the same basement. The listening room is about 1200 square feet and can fit 49 people. That's awesome. That's yeah, that's fairly big. It's great. It's just the right capacity. We sold out a fair amount of shows and that feels really comfortable. But since we don't sell out all of the shows, it's even better that it's not too big. Yeah. You know, well, I mean, it is Randolph. And it is Randolph. But don't not Randolph. Come on. It's just not a lot of people. That's it. Do the college kids come out ever? They don't. That's sad. That's it. The music scene in Randolph broke my heart as a musician coming in. So they were like, Oh yeah, we have a music club. It's like, sweet. I'm going to find other musicians. And then I met the guy and he goes, Well, we already have a bass player. I was like, Oh, so it's not a club. It's a band. And I guess I'm not invited. And that was kind of it. And I was in, I had no idea that there was anything going on. So I bet they're a little out of the loop. Yeah. Now, now there's a good amount going on. And I mean, people drive a couple hours to come to our shows if it's the right band, which is really awesome, like from the Canadian border or like New Hampshire, Massachusetts. Yeah, Randolph's in a nice spot. Like getting people up from New Hampshire. That's actually kind of a decent location for that. Yeah, like for the, for the venue and the studio, definitely to like to just be five minutes off of I-89. It's so convenient. Yes. So just hop on the interstate and then you're there. Yeah. Yes. And I do get a lot of bands from this is just a random aside, you got a lot of bands from out of state. Mostly they're based in Vermont. There are a few bands that I've worked with that like grew up in the area and therefore then brought their bandmates to the studio from like New York or so. Right. And then as far as performing bands, we do get some touring bands. But in the studio for now, it's mostly still Vermont bands. There's so many Vermont bands. Like that's it. You have an infinite supply of this. It's ridiculous. Like my parents were among the folks that were like recording studio in Vermont. Are you sure? It's like, yeah. I had a friend say, I still have to like fact check it, but that Vermont may have the most musicians per capita out of anywhere in the US. That one surprised me. Which, you know, our capita isn't that many people, but so it's even more impressive, I guess that like most of them are musicians, perhaps. And yeah, like I used to and still sometimes flip through the seven days album reviews. And most of the time I don't recognize the band names. And like, how have I not even heard of them? Again, like six years of live concerts and hundreds of recording projects. How are there still Vermont bands that I haven't even heard of? I don't you think you'd hear of them on tickets? I have that moment all the time though, where I'm like, they, who are these people? And then one of these guys told me they've been playing for 20 years yesterday. And I'm like, how did I not? Pilgrims. I'd never heard of pilgrims. Yeah, they're awesome. They were so good last night. My band played at Monkey House. Oh, cool. Yes. Yes. And I got to meet those guys. They're like, wow, you guys are awesome. But I had no idea you existed forever, apparently. I met the pilgrims or heard them. This is probably about 10 years ago when they opened for Coquette that I was mentioning earlier at the Listen Center in White River Junction. And they gave me a t-shirt that I wear every Thanksgiving because it says pilgrims, thanks. That's amazing. Random aside. Ironically. Yeah, that's funny. Random aside. But yeah, there's a lot of, there's so many bands that it's not something that you're ever going to have a lack of people who are working on some music. And some of our artists in town are so prolific, I guess is the right word to use because they make so much music and like they'll produce so much so quickly where it's almost overwhelming. And then they'll be in six bands to do their own solo projects. Wow, no wonder we have so many. That's definitely the Vermont thing too that I've, that probably everyone has established is like, if you're in a band, you can't just be in one band because it's not sustainable. Like probably most successful full-time musicians are solo musicians because it's manageable and navigatable, especially since the pandemic, I think. Yeah. But so if you are in a band, you're going to be playing in all sorts of different bands to kind of fill up your schedule that way. And you might also be playing solo on top of that. Yeah. And that, however, for like the industry, you could call it that I'm in, is also ideal because that means like, if I make great connections with one musician, now there are all these bands that they're in or familiar with that they will now connect me with, which is a wonderful thing. Hey, that that networking web that just keeps growing. Yeah. Yeah. It really does. I'm always shocked by all of the different groups because that's it. Everyone knows these like groups of people and it's like, all your friends know each other and we're all in bands together and we're all like, we all love each other's bands. But then you'll meet one person who's friends with somebody and they've got this massive network of people that you've never heard of, never met and there's about 40 bands in that group. And as soon as you make that connection now, you just like absorb them. Exactly. Your big web has now grown. Yeah. Exponentially. It's amazing. And that is how I'm also excited to like look at Make Music Vermont and thought we could segue into that direction. Yeah. Yeah. That's perfect. The I should let you lead the fun. June. Oh, no, this is exactly how this show goes. It's very casual. It's all about what we want to talk about, what you want to talk about and Make Music Vermont. Is it falling the June 21st? This is a fixed day every year. Every year. Is it it's considered like a holiday sort of, right? Yeah. I have a proclamation into our governor to, as most years have him, hopefully again, this year proclaim Make Music Day, June 21st as Make Music Day, which he has in past years, which is really cool. And so yeah, Make Music Day, which Make Music Vermont is a part of is an internationally celebrated holiday on the summer solstice, June 21st every year. So various days of the week, therefore, that started in Paris, France in 1982. So this will be the 44th Make Music Day, which is so cool and so exciting. And Make Music Vermont has been a part of it since 2016. So this is the 11th year. And so for the past 10 years, big, heavy world up in Brailington, our dear friends, Jim Lockerage up there, such a cool guy. Bob Calhoun, gonna shout out Bob and Ross, Abby and all of everyone involved. You were very intertwined in the, there's a lot of good people that kept that going for so long. Yeah. Yeah, I like so looping back. So yeah, so they ran it, they organized it for the last 10 years. And in 2019, my good friend James Cross, who you may know, and I, we put together a monthly music industry meetup at Biggie Heavy World for just like, yeah, music, music like minded people, whether engineers, musicians, anything like that. And so we met there, we did it for a while. And Jim one day mentioned like, Hey, by the way, have you all heard about Make Music Day? It's this really cool celebration of music. I was like, no, but sounds amazing. And I want to be involved. Again, this was like late, late 2019, I think. And so the Randolph Arts and Culture Committee had recently become a thing. And so I was like, Hey, we should put on Make Music Day in Randolph. And so we started organizing some things. And then March of 2020 came around. And the idea of a bunch of people gathering in Randolph. Right, it was the worst idea. It wasn't so great anymore. So sad. That was such a, the last years. Yeah, really. But, but no, but no, we said the show must go on. And so the Underground was one of six recording studios across Vermont that did a live streamed, I think we did about, I think it was six or eight hours of live stream concerts. I hosted three bands and then the other venues each hosted three bands. And we somehow all figured out how to make a continuous live stream from all across the state into one live stream work. That's awesome. I still don't know how we did it. I had a good tech friend that like had figured it out, probably maybe with a gaming background or something, but we did it. And so, so 2020 was Randolph's first Make Music Day celebration. And then ever since then, so for this will be our seventh year, we've hosted Make Music Day in Randolph with the last few years landing on Friday and Saturday. So our first weekend days that we were able to participate by the nature of it always being on the solstice. We had about 15 performances across the span of 12 hours in tiny little Randolph. Awesome. Which is really cool. We got the feedback this year that there may have been too many things going on. There's a lot to organize. Organizing bands and booking is a whole beast of a thing, which anyone who's done any party organizing kind of knows that it's there's a lot going on. Organizing bands in particular feels a little like- They're quite the folk. And I love them because they are my livelihood and my friends. But that's the cool thing about Make Music Day and Make Music Vermont, which I have become even more familiar with this year because with Big Heavy Worlds slowly disbanding, which is very sad, we were asked to take over the baton for Make Music Vermont and yeah, the statewide orchestration of the entire holiday celebration. Right. Because it's not just one town. This is all over the place really. This is all over Vermont. Any venue. All over the US. Right. The really wants to can be involved in that. Exactly. And not even venues, but businesses, storefronts, towns with parks, gazebos, sidewalks, spaces, people in their homes, on their porches, front yards, really whatever. But so the cool thing is as being a member of the Make Music Alliance here in the US, we received this matchmaking platform. And it's at register.makemusicbt .org, where both bands and locations or we'll call them performers and locations because it's, you don't have to be an established band or a trained musician. You can really be anyone that feels like making music. And we touched on how like it doesn't need to be a venue. It can really be anything. So you can sign up and register as, hey, I want to host a performer or, hey, I'm a performer and I'm looking for a place to play. So none of us are actually booking bands or really coordinating events in that way. We're just providing the systems, the infrastructure and like the promotional support for Make Music Vermont. For all the other venues. I'm sure you're booking it for your own venue, but. No, actually. So the last few years for the underground, I decided it would make more sense if I didn't host anything because I am on my feet for 12, actually 16 hours. On that day, making sure I go to every single performance that happens in town and checking to see if anyone needs help taking pictures, posting on socials. You're busy organizing. I'm busy organizing. Yeah. And yeah, this year I was like, oh, maybe I'll maybe I'll run sound for one of the events. But yeah, I think I'll be even busier because now you're running everything. Yeah. And so kind of where I see myself on Make Music Day is like really wanting to push and promote all of the other posts that we will hopefully get tagged in across the state. So if people tag Make Music BT, we'll get a ping. We'll share that on our platform to our network so that people know where to find performances and where to go out. And yeah, so we sort of did a little bit of a rebrand. We came up with a new logo for our organization to kind of show like, hey, this is a new group of people. We're really, really honored to kind of take this over and are very appreciative of what Big Happy World have done for the last decade and are really excited to kind of broaden the reach even further, improve or increase the support that we offer to musicians and businesses. And for that, I built a brand new website, MakeMusicBT.org. Oh yes. Yep. That is filled with information on what Make Music Day and Make Music Vermont are, how you can get involved, where to register. We have a ton of documentation of ideas for events or templates for wording of So, we have a lot of things that you might want to share. Our whole brand kit, if you want to use the logo and your marketing and all of that. And most importantly, we have the Vermont map that shows all the locations where performances are happening. Right. Because it's all over. You don't necessarily have to travel. It might be in your little tent wherever you're at. Yeah. And so, there's a full map with all these pins and you can zoom in and see all the different locations. You can also browse by all the different locations that are hosting or by musicians if you want to search by genre if you want to go that route. But, yeah, so it's very comprehensive in that way, which then in turn makes our lives easier because here we are providing the resources. Go run with it. Have a blast. Have a great Make Music Day. But we're available via email and phone number. And I should mention, so when I say we, it is our Make Music Randolph committee that has for years now consisted of the Chandler Center for the Arts, which is a wonderful arts venue in downtown. And the White River Craft Center, which is kind of an arts collective space. They house a ton of different types of artists in their different art studios. And they're celebrating their 25th anniversary the week before Make Music Day, which is really cool. So, yeah, we're a great team and all work really well together to make this happen every year. Yeah, it's a lot to, I don't think a lot of people really understand the concept behind it. Yeah. Who aren't already musicians who've kind of gotten into it. Hello, hello. Another musician. There's so many people who could be involved that just don't know about it. Yeah. And there's probably a lot of venues and venue owners who just don't know about this really. And it falls on a, is it the Sunday this year? So this year it's a Sunday. Which is nice. It's still a weekend. Yeah, exactly. Two years ago it was Friday and we were like, okay, at least like once people are out of work, like they'll really be down to celebrate and have a good time because they can sleep in tomorrow. Yeah. And then last year we were like, okay, like full force, full energy. Let's make this the biggest one we've done yet because, yeah, because it's a Saturday. Which coincidentally, my daughter's due date was four days after last Make Music Day, which therefore was like a nail biter of am I even going to be there on Make Music Day? But she was very patient and showed up two weeks later. Oh, wow. She gave you a buffer room. She did. She did. Yeah. And so both my partner and I were able to enjoy last year's Make Music Day. And this year's Make Music Day falls also on Father's Day. Oh, yes. Which will be like the most exciting Make Music Father's Day for me being my first Father's Day. Right. Right. That's fun. Shout out to my daughter, Anika. I love her very much. Are you going to get her some big earpuffs? We got the earmuffs like when she was born, before she was born from some friends. So she's set. But also, you know, it's going to be outside. There's going to be a lot of like singer, songwriter type performances. So she like in the first two months of her life, she probably went to more concerts than most infants that age. Oh, I'm sure. And she had a wonderful time from what I could tell. Yes. Oh, yes. That's it. She probably enjoyed Make Music Day last year. Yeah. Probably just a little muffled. No, she like, yeah. Because my partner at the time was still able to also go to our underground shows, which now our daughter, Anika, has a bedtime. And so therefore, they're no longer there. But yeah, she was bouncing around in utero when she heard that bass bumping. Hey, they say that babies can hear those things. I don't know how we proved this, but I believe it. Me too. Yeah. Let's say you can feel the bass. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. That's awesome. Okay, so I'm not sure how long we've been talking. I'm sure forever because. Okay, we got 51 minutes on this, but we were about 10 minutes. So about 40 minutes in. Yeah. That's a decent amount of time. Yeah. But this is such a cool thing. So the musicians, you already plugged the makemusicvt.org.org. Very important, not .com. Yeah. We ourselves aren't a nonprofit organization, but the Chandler Center for the Arts is our fiscal agent for this. So yeah, they've been a very crucial part in Make Music Day and Randolph in the past and are basically the leading organization for Make Music Vermont now. I wouldn't call myself a for-profit, but I don't make a lot of profit, but I'm technically a for-profit, especially with the listening room. Yes, the legal entities around all these things can really incorporate it for something like this because that's it. Is there any sort of, like the musicians go to makemusicvt.org, same with venue owners, but you go there, you put in your email, you put in your name, genre? Yeah. So on our website itself, you basically get redirected to the Make Music Alliances Matchmaking Platform, so we don't host that locally, but that's semantics. Yeah. So the Make Music Matchmaking Platform, you create an account and then at that point, you have the option to create a profile, either a venue profile or a performer profile. And then there are actually quite a few options that you can fill out there. So you have your name, your website, your bio, all of your social links. This year, they also added the option to add links to SoundCloud tracks or YouTube videos so that venues and then also people on Make Music Day can learn more about what you're all about before going to check you out. And they designate the time span during which they would like to perform that day. Yeah. Kind of their own availability. They can also say where they're based in Vermont. And so that way venues might see, oh, we might not necessarily reach out to a performer that's from somewhere completely else, even though as we know, musicians will drive. We're going to drive all over the states. And yeah, we have musicians that applied at five different venues all around the area because they want to play the whole day. So an hour here, an hour there, super cool. So they're doing their own Make Music Day tour. Nice. That's a great idea. You can do a mini tour. It's wonderful. I encourage people who will attend Make Music Day to go beyond their own community. It's difficult in Randolph. We're going to provide music for 12 hours, so there isn't really a reason to leave town. But we still encourage people to look around. Right. And yeah, and then for venues, for locations, they again can add a description about their venue, all of their socials and all of that. And then they designate a duration during which they want to post musicians, whether it's their business hours or they might extend hours or something. And then once you create those profiles, if you complete your musician profile, you then get the long list of locations that are looking for places and vice versa. If you create your location profile, here are all the performers that you could... That's awesome. That's really smart. It's like a very convenient way to do this. It is. It's wonderful. And I wish we would have access to that year-round. I feel like I might have to talk to the Make Music Alliance about, hey, can you white label this app that you've built so that we can use it for all of our booking in Vermont? Yes, because... We'll see. That sounds like just the right system already. The infrastructure is already in place. It works really, really well. And yeah, so as of today, we have 24 confirmed performances across the state. We actually still have to add a bunch of Randolph ones. There are over 50 performers that are still looking for a place to play, which is amazing. And sadly, only like eight or 10 locations that are accepting performers. So you can have a bunch of different performers at one location, for sure. Oh yeah, there's a lot of leg work and getting... Because this is almost something where you have to walk into the bars and talk to them about this. Because some of the bars would 100% do this, but that's it. They're busy. They're booking a normal gig. The gig is a lot of work. Just doing the normal day-to-day is a lot of work. And honestly, we're all so busy that a lot of people... We're not looking for something new, but that doesn't mean we don't want to support community, right? And if someone comes and talks to you, you're willing to do these things and think it's a great idea. You're not going to find it on Instagram because you're not scrolling Instagram. Yeah, and obviously this platform is yet another place where you have to create an account and create a profile and all that. But I've really been pushing the platform because it makes us organizers our job so much easier because we can just provide it and say, use this and have a blast. But yeah, definitely. So there is also an option where if you're a musician and you walk to your local place that you always play and are like, hey, can I play your music day? And they say good, then that musician can just create an event versus the two profiles having to match up and all that. Oh, that's awesome. And then it's good to go. I definitely would love this to exist all year round, right? Because then you could pick any random day, right? And kind of do the same thing. Exactly. And just having the map that shows like here are all the things happening. Like, yeah, that might be another conversation with corporate. Crossing my fingers for you because that's for the bookers and people, too. My friend Riley, who's the drummer in We're Here to Kill, she's doing all the booking for safety pin shows, which is very tied to the odd fellows in Burlington, which we which I've never been to. But that was like the episode that made me think, hey, I should reach out to you. And we should talk. Thank you for reaching out. And thanks to Riley. Just wonderful people and like that love of music to revive that. That was kind of as they used to do shows like a decade and a half ago when they just kind of fell apart. No one was doing the loss of every venue. Let's make somewhere for people to play and they can feel like 100 people in that space. So it's really nice to have that in Burlington. But bringing it back to the booking. That is such hard work to try and find bands to match up, especially because the touring bands say, I'm coming through this day. Here's my genre. Who do you got? Right. I have no draw. Right. Exactly. Like now you've got to find people who are willing to do this, but also try and match the genres so that the bill feels maybe cohesive. Yeah. It feels always fun when they're kind of random, but at the same time, you don't want half the crowd to walk out, which is kind of the risk of a split bill. I sometimes get compliments on like, this was a really interesting like arrangement of bands. And I'm like, yep, it's because it just happened that way. Right. That's what that's who was able to come today. That's who we were able to find. But that's so true is especially those touring bands of like, hey, we, we are, you know, they're the ones that like either they heard about the place because of some other band that they know locally or they googled venues in Vermont and it popped up, but they're not going to bring anyone. And so it is definitely a heavy lift to like find bands that will sort of guaranteed bring an audience. I imagine odd fellows might be similar to the underground in the sense that like we still four years and don't have a built in crowd, which is a bit of a bummer. But it's it's the nature of it. And so I always I'm very, very honest with bands is like, if you don't bring people, no one will show up to the show. You got to promote it. And so if nobody knows you in whatever radius that your fans are willing to travel, they won't. Yes. You know. And yeah, so so that's all all. Like as as that aside, that's a whole issue. Yeah, for everybody. You can try and put shows together. So I could see where this this sounds awesome. I really I'm crossing my fingers that we can. Yeah, the platform's awesome. But but so just yeah, make make music day and make music Vermont as a concept is so amazing. Like the the Alliance promotes it in a way too that like this these aren't curated events. They're not curated shows. Bands don't have to play their hits and their cover songs because that's what people want. Like, no, this is about celebrating music, celebrating creativity, celebrating the music community, really. That was something that like big heavy world I thought did such a wonderful job with is just advocating for music as like such an important part of Vermont. And I definitely want to help carry that message. Across the state. And so make music Vermont is such a perfect platform for that. So like, let's honor our musicians and our venues and our music community. And and also the the non musicians. I would love to. Will you be there? Jeff is going to be there. OK, I was just in for a second and David Crowd started. Oh, yeah. He mentioned that he's still there. I don't know. I will I will call. Yeah. Well, we're yeah. So you're currently on a podcast. Oh, welcome. Yeah. Nate from Magic User and Naive Melody here on Vermont Talks. This is Becca. Hi there. Talking about make music Vermont. Yeah. So yes. It's a great place to shoot your podcast. It's amazing how well I can cut out background noise. I this is a new experiment and it keeps working. I think the Walker buys to are you down with a quick. Yeah. Blur on this. Yeah. You're down with that. Yeah. I don't know if you have a seat. Make sure the mics actually pick you up. That's it. They do cut out background. Yeah, it's really well. But they're 32 bit float so I can bump you back up. And Nate's not background noise. You're not. Exactly. Welcome. Yeah, we're talking about getting bands and venues organized for make music Vermont. Just kind of promoting it because that's one month in a week way. Yeah. Thirty four days. But who's counting? Yeah. And Naive Melody has participated in past years. Yeah. Previous. We've only been open for a few years. But the last two years we've just had a really kind of basic outdoor open mic where people could kind of come together and play a few simple tunes together. But I think this year one is a little more organized now that we've got Vincent, who is also a personal friend of the store through his recording. It's awesome. Amazing. Say the name again. Naive. Naive Melody. Melody and it's right in. Right over there. Right in Montpelier. Awesome. Exchange. Instrument exchange. Instrument exchange. Let me get that right. Naive Melody Instrument exchange. That's awesome. So it's actually a small locally owned music. That's awesome. Punk band owned shop. The only one that I'm aware of. Yeah, that's great. Awesome. Great to see you. It's fun. Awesome. Cool. We should have like a recording signed here or something. That would be so funny. Or like can you get from the umbrella here? That is a way on air. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone who's walking by is like. But that that would be like that, you know, that would be the thing that goes viral on Instagram is, you know, the street side interviews that we were talking about before you hit record is like. What do you have to say to this? What would be amazing? I'm going to plug a task for you for Make Music Day that you definitely do not have to run with, but going out on Make Music Day with your mics and being like, have you heard of Make Music Day? Do you know what's going on? Did you know there's like something cool happening right down the road? Just a total. I might actually do that. I have done that. Not really only the one time was at Lilly's pad, honestly, where they had. Is that that's up in Burlington? That's up in Burlington. Yeah. Very, very small DIY venue. And it was just the sweetest, most wonderful people. And because it's just a basement and people come and basically have like a music circle together. Yeah. I would just kind of talk to everybody. I brought a handheld interview mic and yeah, and it actually sounded awesome. So maybe I can do that on Make Music Day. That would be really fun. I got to take where to go though. That's the hard part. Cause like everywhere. Yeah. That's I need stickers or something to hand out to people so that they some reference back to Make Music Day. Yeah. So I ordered a batch of Make Music Day stickers. What that just reminds me too. One thing that maybe your listeners would be into is I am urging kind of an Instagram YouTube reel campaign of musicians filming themselves. Saying this is why I'm excited about Make Music Vermont. I'm going to be playing here at this time. Go check out your performances at MakeMusicBT.org. Something like that. Like because especially for me for this year, it's all about spreading the word much like we were talking about with the studio on the venue earlier. It's like it's all about word of mouth. And the exciting thing is that the numbers are really high. And the numbers grow exponentially is like one person will tell two other people and they'll tell two other people and so on and so forth. And like you said, so many people haven't even heard about Make Music Vermont yet and it's existed for 11 years and I've been telling people about it for seven years. Yep. And still most people that I actually talked to have never heard of it. You know, but that's it. It hasn't been like on WCAX. Maybe it might have had a clip or something, but it wasn't. It hasn't been. That's it. You need year over year. Yeah. Randall has been featured on the news a couple of couple of years. Yeah. But if you missed that one, that one clip at that one news cycle and you missed it. Um, yeah. So with that, I don't know what your podcast policies are, but I'll just you can cut it out, plug our media sponsors for MakeMusic Vermont, Front Porch Forum. Oh, yeah. And Vermont Public, Great Eastern Radio. Yep. Also partnering with the Vermont Arts Council. Like these are all great organizations that are now helping spread the word around MakeMusic Day. So like Front Porch Forum, they were generous enough and made a post go into every subscribers inbox. That's 250,000 people that got the message about, Hey, MakeMusic Day is June 21st. Yeah, that's awesome. And then Vermont Public, they're going to run ads the week leading up to Make Music Day and Seven Days is going to write an article a couple of weeks prior. So like, yeah, we're so grateful for these organizations helping spread the word because again, there's there's nothing in it for us except for. Right. It's just community. Community. Right. It's community and music. That's all the matters. In my opinion, personally. Coolness. Well, that's kind of something that I was just thinking about when we got to get the bars involved in this. We're going to get like Monkey House because Monkey House has their windows open now. Yeah. They've got speakers out onto the store. Oh, amazing. In Winooski. Perfect spot. I don't know what their hours are though. So that's just the kind of thing where I'm wondering, I'm like, do they know about this? Would they be willing on a Sunday to open up a little early? Just let it go all day. Yeah. Because their sound people are actually pretty solid most of the time. Yeah. Yeah. No, and that's like, definitely it's encouraged to have music be outdoors or outdoor facing because that, again, it just, it makes your whole town or city come alive with music. Obviously, indoors totally fine too, but that's really like the idea with music, make music day is to be out and about. And yeah, like it means it can be busking like really, really anything. And parades too are like a super fun component. Oh, that's an interesting idea. Yeah. I always, the musicians, obviously marching bands, call out to the marching bands. Yeah. Most of them in Vermont are kids and are adorable and I love them. But then we also have the like the bagpipers coming through. Those guys are so cool. Then we have the bands that sit on an actual like truck, the flow or the truck or whatever. Yeah, for sure. You can have anything in a parade. Yeah. It's fun, right? Yeah, I keep talking about our parade this year, trying to basically manifest it. Last year we had a kazoo parade. Go down Main Street and ran off. Years ago, our first in person make music day, our intention was to have a parade go from each site throughout the day. We only had five sites that year, so it was manageable. But it rained after the second performance and the rest was indoors. So definitely having a rain plan for your performances is highly encouraged because it'd be a shame to have to cancel it. Well, that's why I was thinking some place with the windows open. That's absolutely perfect because all the music gears inside, it's protected if it rains. And even if it does rain, it's still safe. You know, like you don't have to stop and you don't have to change anything. Yeah. And if it's some light rain, a 10 by 10 pop up is plenty too. That year, that was dicey. It was thunderstorm, day loose, downpour. That's not good. And I'll tell you, the flooding we've had. Yeah. So it's going to be sunny and beautiful this year. I think our very hard winter, we're going to have just a beautiful summer. I think so too. Beautiful spring so far. Definitely. Especially today. Bringing it back to shout out to the weather beings. It's absolutely perfect. There's like no, there's some like puffy clouds over here, but this is over. My my view. Look at look at my view. Yeah, just perfect blue. Yeah. Yeah, this is where I think I mentioned we're at the North Branch cafe just on on the main drag and not Peeler. I feel States Street. States Street. Thank you. I was going to say that by the Capitol drove by the Capitol building and it's golden gleaming shininess. Glistening in the spring sun. Yeah, it's a beautiful day. And there's people all over the place. Yeah, really, really busy today. And yeah, I mean, we're just inching towards the longest day of the year. Solstice. Solstice. Make music day. Yeah, so cool. I love that it falls on the solstice. That's really it's just kind of sweet. Yeah, sweet idea. I like I hadn't thought of it until I read it maybe even just this year that like it really is the kickoff to the summer. Yeah. And like what a better way to start off summer than music. Celebrating all of our music. We might be biased. We might be, but that's it. When we have so many musicians in Vermont and we're artsy, we're weird. And I love even if you're not a musician, the amount of people who are best friends with musicians and the artists, love the artists and the artists collabs with the musicians. Yeah, and people and like people who don't like music period. I don't know that I've met that person, but I don't know that we would have anything to talk about. So what I mean to say is like everybody loves music. So like I talk to people sometimes, especially if they're like showing interest in my venue or my studio and I'm like, Oh, are you a musician? Sometimes it's like, no, but I love music. And so, you know, it doesn't matter. And so this holiday, like that was kind of an easy talking point to these businesses that are supporting us is like your audience that you will be reaching out to with your sponsorship and your logo is everybody. It's every age, it's every demographic. It's the entire state. Like, yeah, it's it's the perfect event in that sense. Again, very biased here, but yeah, it's it's such a wonderful, fun event. And it's family friendly. Like now that I'm growing my family, I'm just so excited to have my daughter be a part of Make Music Day and be part of the music community. And the scene, like, you know, we've also talked about all the other music endeavors that I've been involved with and plan to be involved with until forever. I will say when I was little, this is on this side, please. The music in the park, because there wasn't there's not a lot in rural Vermont for musicians. Like there's just not a lot and a lot of little families in rural Vermont who aren't directly involved in the music scene. They just I don't know, they don't the kids don't get to see music very often. But so many towns in Vermont have their concerts in the park every Sunday or whatever it is. They're good. They're nice. Yeah. And the gazebos and they're so sweet. And the kids, the little kids always dance. They're always just having like the best time. It's so important. Music is so important for children and all of us. Like it just kind of brings us together just like food, food and music. Those are the two things that I feel like can save all of humanity. That was exactly what I thought of yesterday. I was I watched this quick little news spot on YouTube where they interviewed a YouTube host that like hosts the food show and they were talking about how food brings people together. And yeah, so I had that exact thought. Food and music are literally like they break all language barriers, all borders. Yeah, it's the throw some dance in there with the music. Yeah, there's our trifecta. Right. I was like, you can't call food and music a trifecta. But if you add in dance, there's the right there it is. It is all and and that's then you throw the visuals in and you have arts, right? Here's your poster for the event with the food and the music. There's a quartet. Perfect. That's no one can disagree on that either. Like it's just like the love of being alive, right? Yeah, you need a soundtrack in the background. You need to eat some good food. Exactly. Have laugh with your friends and your family and you'll meet so many cool people. Like we were just talking about there's so many interesting people you'll meet and then you'll meet more of them. Yeah. And then you'll know half the state. And I mean, you're getting to meet so many through your podcast here. I I understand. Is it music themed? It really isn't, honestly. I love talking to everybody. Yeah, up that way. And kind of has. Well, maybe that's just the one that I've that's I started as a musician. I've applied for it. I was in bads in high school and I played bass when I was 11 years old. I've been playing bass for 22 years. Yeah. So I just love music and I feel like musicians love to talk about music. Yeah. Of of anyone when I reached out and I just said because I when I started the podcast, I said, I'm going to make a community podcast. If you have something cool to talk about, if you have an event, you have organization, if you have a business, art project, a band and all the musicians were like, I want to talk about my band. I want to talk about it. And I get handfuls of business owners. Some of the interviews I've done are so interesting that I did not expect to be interesting at all. I thought, well, talk for 20 minutes. We'll just go over the business details. And then we get into like the cultural aspect of the one that always stands out to me is the 802 hauling. So it's basically like a junk removal service. This man, I can't remember his name off the top of my head. The sweetest man, though, and we got talking about how he helps a lot of families who are going through either a loss of a family member or they had to move a family member into a nursing home. So like he's providing this service that the family is so stressed out and upset and he's willing to just come in and help you out. And he's doing it and loving like, just want to help my community. That's wonderful. Right. And he's not like, because some of these services can massively overcharge and this man does not come off in that way. He really, truly just wants to help you. And then he turns around and donates to Habitat for Humanity. Amazing. Right. And all of these, and I just do such a... So many cool bikers. It was such a just wonderful, unexpected, like, oh, wow, the community around this. It's, it might seem like such a simple business, but looking down the street here, all of these businesses talk to our lives in these ways and just meeting these people is so much fun for me. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. And getting to hear those stories, definitely. Like you wouldn't otherwise know. And... No, I never would have expected that to actually like hit me the way it did. Where, wow, this is a, it isn't just junk, right? Because I haven't gone through this personally where, oh, I have to clear out this house, but every single thing I pick up, it's just hurting, right? Because it's your family and he can help you with that. Which, wow, what a, what a shocking thing for me. So like the culture in Vermont and our community is so strong and people are just so wonderful here. So not just music focused. Anyone who has something to talk about. I wish I could get more visual artists. Yeah. They tend to be very quiet. I have found it's hard to find visual artists who really want to talk about their work. So if you ever know, you know, anyone, please let me know. The White River Craft Center would be a place to connect with because they've got like 20 something, I don't actually know the exact number, but lots of artists that are there and are 3D artists for there's probably a better term. But I would love to talk to someone who makes sculptures. Yeah, that would be cool. See, that's just the kind of thing. And I get so excited about this because I just love Vermont. And we're doing so many cool things. Yeah. And I know we're doing cool things. I just don't know who's doing that. So that's fun for me. That's what I just like. Oh, this is such a great way to to get a hold of those people and get them out of the woodworks and get them to talk more. Like I'm really appreciative that you squeezed me into your busy schedule because I had something important to say before June 21st. Yeah, no, I'm really glad we were able to do this right now so that we can get this out because I'll get this out on Tuesday. I'm amazing. It's the next Tuesday. So and promote it and send this to all the friends that I have who are musicians as well. So when you all hear this one month left till Make Music Day. Yeah. Oh, that's crazy. That's just one month. Well, one month and two days. Two days. Close enough. Close enough. I don't know if people tune in right then and there. All over the place. That's it. It's that's totally OK. Yeah. I'm appreciative of anyone who listens to any episode, even if it's just one, even if it's just half of one. I'm appreciative. OK, what's it? I think we're reaching a natural stopping point. Thank you so much, Vincent. Really fun conversation. I love that. I respect that. Let's run through your your list of the underground VT, which is the underground dot studio dot com annual just dot studio dot studio. Sorry. So that's my studio's website. That one. And then you also have your shows, which I'm guessing has an event calendar, probably, and that's the underground shows dot com on that one. And the big guy is make music VT dot org. So if you want to get involved in this, if you have a venue, which would be really awesome if you've got a venue and if you're a musician, you're all 100 percent welcome. Sounds like you could even play on your lawn if you live in town or something. Or even live stream. There's an option for live streaming from your living room if you want to. Oh, that's right. So you can get involved no matter what. If you want to be involved, you can get involved. And if you want to check out a show at some point, 24 Pleasant Street, Unit A, Randolph Vermont 0506O, which is also the studio space. If you want to record an album, if you're a musician looking to do that, hit Vincent up. Thank you. Anything else you want to say before we go, Vincent? I think I've said everything and then some. Thank you all for listening. I can talk a lot. Thank you, Becca, for listening. This was a really fun interview. So thank you. Yeah. And I'm glad we got to sit outside. This was such a great place to record. Great, great idea. That was Vincent's idea. Great idea. Thank you all. Have a great day, everybody. Thanks so much for listening to the end of the show. Subscribe to Vermont Talks on your favorite podcasting platform. You can find me on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, all over the web. Contact Becca at VermontTalks.com if you'd like to be interviewed or if you know someone who should be. Thanks so much to Jason Baker for creating the show music. The views and opinions expressed by the guests are those of the individuals and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Vermont Talks. Any content or statement is up to you. The comments provided by our guest are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual,