Men At Work Podcast - Inside the Music Industry with a Grammy Awards Voter

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

Kyle and Matt talk to Brian Cronin who helped bands market their group from CD's to now sites. We talk about who he's voting for at the Grammy's this year, the live music scene is dying, how streaming has changed the music industry, VR's impact on the music industry, the craziest thing he's ever had to print for a business, and how a vinyl record works. Check out Brian's site: https://newmirrorimage.com/ This episode is brought to you by Thrive Flower! Thrive sells real cannabis products outside of the medical system. They have 9 strains of flower, 6 strains of pre rolled joints, 4 strains of vapes, gummies, and lemonades. They are the first and only company offering same day cannabis delivery within Philly. Order your cannabis at https://thriveflower.com/ and it will be delivered in about an hour. Use code menatwork15 for 15% off orders. Simply choose “same day delivery” during checkout. This applies for Philly residents ONLY. About Us: The Men At Work Podcast asks one question: What do you do for work? After that the conversation flows from there. We’ve met substitute teachers, Bangladeshi t-shirt moguls, a real estate broker tight with LeBron James, and more. And we’ll record anywhere. Random sidewalks during an eclipse, a baseball game, a bar crawl, casino, and more. We like to find out what people do for a living. If you want us to come to your event email us at: [e-mail] Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMlLhOM6_fPAhFXjOMfkf0A If you want more bonus content from every episode check out our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/menatworkpod *If you subscribe to the Patreon consider subscribing on a desktop or website or an android device, NOT THROUGH iOS (Apple) APP. Apple takes 30% of every month you're subscribed (yea they suck). Follow Us: The Pod: https://www.tiktok.com/@menatpodcast https://www.instagram.com/menatpod/ Follow Matt: https://www.tiktok.com/@mattpeoplescomedy https://www.instagram.com/mattpeoplescomedy/ Follow Kyle: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kylepagancb/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kylepagancb Follow Vito: https://www.instagram.com/vito_visuals/?hl=en

Brian Cronin, graphic design and media professional. I know you've been in the business for a while, career professional. I want to talk about, before we get into it, you have a Grammy vote? Oh, no, no. Did we get bad info? No, no, no. No, no, no. So we are, I don't have a Grammy vote, so to speak.

Yeah, I am on the Grammys for the Philadelphia chapter. Oh, okay, okay. So when you have to get certain credentials, then anybody who's in the music world that actually gets nominated, like you have two or three people that actually put your name in a hat, and you go through a vetting process, and then eventually you get to be a Grammy member, and you just pay your monthly dues like any other membership.

But when you get to a certain plateau and you have certain credits, then you can become a voting Grammy member. So whenever you watch the Grammys on TV, so to speak, most of those people you see that are in the audience, if they're not up for a Grammy, they're all members. So they're not open to the public, so to speak. Right. And it's all anybody who's a voting Grammy member or even all the way in the back and the top, they're all regular local Grammy members. So no one will vote? You don't get to decide who wins Best Artist?

We all put our votes in. Like when you log into the, I guess we... Explain to me like I'm the dumbest person. No, I mean, it's just like any other. Because we are. We are. So whenever you're logging into a dashboard or any kind of membership website, you're hit with different things, what you can do and what you can't do, so to speak. So when it's up for voting, there's a certain time frame where you can go in and people are nominating artists for different Grammys. So a lot of things that's pretty funny with the Grammys is a lot of people look at the Grammys, what you see on TV. And that's something like, I think, the top 10 popular ones. But the Grammys itself goes on for the entire weekend.

And it's during the day. And there's smaller categories. Meaning, I don't mean by smaller, but different categories like foreign categories or world categories. It's like the NFL draft. Yeah. And it's all weekend. It's all weekend long. So basically when you get a chance to vote, you just, you log into the dashboard and they have you, they tell you who's up for what you just take a listen.

And then if you like who you like and use place to vote. Got it. So it was kind of like that. It's kind of like, Hey, here's four guys in the best new R and B, you know, category. You listen to four of their songs or samples that they give you and then right there you're placing the vote for the most part yeah yeah and that you first and obviously got guys you know too i mean i try to keep it all local if i can but yeah eventually i like it and i'm always looking for something that's more new and exciting as opposed to same old everything everybody else here i'm always trying to go for the obscure thing have the grammys happened yet no um it's gonna be the second who you vote for

yo hello kyle what are you doing nothing sitting here watching the game smoking some thrive are you all alone? Wazzup! Who's that? Yo, pick up the phone! Wazzup! Yo, Cheeto! Pick up the phone! Yo! Wazzup!

What you doing, son? Nothing. Just chilling. Killing. True. True. Can't tell you who I voted for. Votes are already done. Do they cast the ballots after?

Do they tell? All the things are already, the people who are winning don't know they're winning. Do they make the ballots public? I don't know if they make them public. I never followed that because all the voting

was done in november okay i always think like like because i always like when people vote for the hall of fame like in baseball this is a big one because baseball's probably the last hall of fame that people actually give a shit about a lot of the writers will now make their votes public and then like when they vote for like mvp awards and cy young's and stuff a lot of the writers will make their votes public you could do that i guess yeah i don't i. Yeah. I mean, I don't think anybody cares who I voted for. Well, I want to know who voted for Macklemore over J. Cole for Best New Artist back in the day, because that was the worst vote of all time.

That was me. Sorry about that one. Yeah. Or if you remember, the heavy metal, when heavy metal first came on the Grammys, the first person that won was Jethro Tull. Was it? And it was.

Really? Not at all. Wow. That was the biggest joke. It was up against Metallica and it was somebody else. J Really? Not at all. Wow. That was the biggest joke. It was up against Metallica and it was somebody else and Jethro Tull won. Yeah.

Even Jethro Tull was like, why am I in here? I don't know. Do you have any votes that you regret looking back on them? No. No?

I mean, you gotta remember, you like who you like in the moment, you know? I did a lot of Lizzo votes back in the day, but you know.

Lizzo was fucking good and she still is good. Oh, it's good. She's just got some shit going on. who doesn't right the stones are still in and he snorted his father's ashes so i mean yeah but that's always gonna happen you can't avoid that that's yeah par for the course but um that's awesome it's so funny how like you have how many people are in the are in the general voting? Like thousands?

Yeah, there's lots. I mean every major city has their own chapter, so to speak. So Philadelphia, New York, Nashville. And some people, I guess New Jersey comes over to Philly. They always want to come over to Philly. They always want to be in Philly. Yeah, I mean I don't really, it's only like the major cities. Houston has one. That's why to be in Philly. Yeah, I mean, I don't really, it's only like the major cities. Houston has one.

That's why we charge them $6. Yeah. Is there any rivalries? Like, are you guys, like in New Jersey, you're like, what does Little Rock, Arkansas know about the best fountain of the year?

Do you have any, like, kind of like, I don't personally. Nothing across here? Okay, yeah. I'm sure it exists. Do you remember voting for one and being like,

I made the right decision? Or like, what's your, do you have a voting story? Not really. I mean, I'm new at it. So, um, I've been a member for a while, but I'm class of 21. So, so it's all new for me. Like I've always been, I've been, you know, being a member is one thing,

but like being a voting member is a little bit different. So I'm very new at it. So I just kind of like follow. How'd you sneak your way into getting a vote? Just being there for a while? No, you have to be, you have to have like six accredited things where your name is part of something that actually was substantial. So that's how you... Like production-wise, or if you

played on the album, or you wrote something that would be somewhere. Like the magazine publications, I guess. Yeah, so that's how it works. And then, you know, it's really cool. So Mirror Image also has a digital distribution through Sony The Orchard. so we're like a white label in a sense for independent artists so having that statue and being able to um nominate

some some artists who i thought were really great that i can put out there i can actually have opportunity you know i actually have a way of nominating people myself now yeah and if i'm working with somebody and they're really good i can i have we're allowed to put two nominees in a year so so each person. And then if it goes anywhere, it goes somewhere. But that's how everybody gets nominated first, and then it goes to the voting. If you could get in front of the Grammy heads and there was a category that you were fighting for, would there be any category at the top of your head that you'd be like, this should be in?

No, but right now they just opened a new category. It's alternative jazz, which I thought was cool. So it's a little bit more of a rocking sense. It's jazz. There's an artist I'm working with for next year who'd be really great. He put out standard rock songs and jazz. Songs like Zeppelin, Back Door, all that style of music, and it's just all jazz. It's really, really good. What's his name?

Carl with a K. Carl Latham. Latham. Okay. Nice. check him out. He's got, it's the new record. We just dropped it last week. It's Living Standards 2 last Friday. What do you listen to now? My music palettes are already out there.

So I listen to anything from nu metal to singer-songwriters to some local hip hop. It all depends. Who's on the playlist right now? Like who's the big, who's the big good to you driving big go-to you're driving down? 76? I'm one of those

bad people where I'm always listening to Sirius. So I'm just listening to XM, Sirius. Who are you listening on there? Right now, I'm actually listening

to Octane. So Octane's playing a lot of the newer metal stuff that I'm more into. Were you ever in the metal? Yeah, I was a metal kid growing up.

I was kind of one of those weird, they were called like emo scene kids back in the day. We would listen to kind of just like punk rock with like our well-to-do parents and be like, nobody understands us. It's like, hey, everybody actually deeply understands us. There's nothing interesting niece and everything and they're like hey uh do you have any like you know boost or anything to go uh now we only got high tops by the way there's a punk show starting in about 30 minutes over there just this random brewery and i was like i think we're gonna take the one-year-old out and go but it's just it's so funny the amount of like new metal or

punk scene they'll just find where you had a story where you went one that one time was a hockey arena a lot of times doing comedy you just you know a lot of the comedy shows i did earlier on were just there would be a flyer that no one would look at so a lot of people like very nice people just sitting in a restaurant ready to eat their meal and they're like hey guys about 15 minutes we'll get the comedy show started and they're like i just wanted to sit here with my grandkids and not have some pale orange idiot yelled me for an hour but then i come in and i'm like look they're paying me to do this i don't know what to do with you guys so i think that sounds like what those metal shows were is like they just spring on you you really have no choice you ever seen the denny's video denny's video

which one you ready to fucking go denny's video it was a heavy yeah these heavy hitters are just going nuts and then people are in the stands are just like pushing over tables denny's waitress gets thrown out of the way grand slams falling's falling everywhere. So does that factor in? Do you go to a lot of live music to kind of keep your vote? Like, all right, I'm in the scene. I understand what's happening. The live music and the stuff that I do locally is not really Grammy-related, so to speak.

Sure. So I do work in the live music, the local music scene. I did a lot more up into the pandemic. Unfortunately, I'm not going out as much as I used to. And it's just because there's lack of shows. Really? There's a lot of shows that are going on in the same six or seven venues. But there's not anything.

A lot of it's touring. A lot of it's travel bands. And that's cool. I'm all about the travel. And sometimes I used to do a lot of showcases with my magazine. I would always feature. I have a music publication called That Music Bag with my magazine. I would always feature. I have a music publication called That Music Bag.

And we would feature a local artist. We would do a showcase with somebody. We'd bring in some traveling acts. I'm all about the travel. It's supporting the locals or the locals supporting the travel. So then you can do like a swap gig sort of thing. Right. But there's no real good venues anymore.

What do you think it is? It's a general sweeping statement. I mean, there's no more good things. I mean, there's a lot good venues anymore. What do you think it is? It's a general sweeping statement. I mean, there's no more good things. I mean, there's a lot of good venues, like meaning like if you go to like world cafe, a lot of it's a great show. Um,

if you go to transfer, yeah, but these are like, but there's nothing like real that States like a local act. And unfortunately a lot of the folks today don't want to go see anything new. Really? They only go out to see something they've heard or, you know, or what's big on Tik TOK right now, Tik TOK, whatever's trending, like as they're coming into town, they to go see anything new really they only go out to see something they've heard or you know or what's big on tiktok right now tiktok whatever's trending like as they're coming

into town they'll go see that but they will there's not that many people like when in my generation going up we want to go do something fun you just go out to a club and there's live music and if you like it you stay right you don't you go to another place so i always look for live music so going out now it's like you don't really just go out to look for live music. You kind of just have to see who's on the schedule and if you want to go check it out. And just nine times out of ten, it's nothing really. Do you think it's a lot like comedy? Are you afraid to try something different?

Or do you think that's... No, I think to me it seems like it's more like the bands now, the most popular bands that get booked at clubs and bars are just cover bands. So you really don't get exposed to actual new music really because... And I understand that it makes sense it's like let's play it safe we'll play the hits everyone in this bar likes this song even if i suck at singing at least they'll like that song yeah i mean it's tough like if they don't like your voice they don't like your guitarist they don't like your drummer they can tune it out right away so i think the bar who is also financially invested in this decision is like let's not branch out too crazy but i and i feel

like there's kind of been because of the internet there's less kind of live music venues because a lot of people are just like i'll just watch it online i don't really need to be there true for the most part but sometimes it can work if you do that if you have a good following online you can use that for something you do in local which i think is great yeah you should utilize that more unfortunately when it comes to venues and it's not like it's a negative thing i'm not trying to dig into venues because venues that you know they need to make money yeah so when it comes down to it's like if you have like joe and his rock band and he only brings his mom and like six people yeah you will

you're spending a lot more money having joe there right yeah then what was the difference back in the day because i feel like there are obviously these bands had to work for it so there was joe and six of his people and literally exactly the same thing but there was more people interested because we didn't have the internet so much. So if you wanted to see something new and exciting, go out. The internet, as great as it is, it also is oversaturated in a lot of ways. Podcast.

There's pros and cons. But there's pros and cons. Sure. Yeah, I mean, my dad talked about his buddies were in a band when he was in his early 20s. And he was like, as the friend, I just liked going there and getting fucked up with them and then it kind of just turned into like they would just do covers they'd slip in like an actual original the entire time

the guy still plays in uh cio now he's like a legendary dude i can't think of his name it's not like comp is it it's the comp is it the comp dude your dad was with the comp dave lecompte was best friends with one of my dad's best friends and so he would just go to shows and early on they were like we just go there as soon as you walk in

three shots of Captain three shots of Jaeger let's get this thing going and then eventually he started developing an audience and then kind of like spread out more and more

but yeah Dave LeCompte was my dad's boy back in the day he's the Mick Jagger of the North East I was at the Inlet down in Wildwood just a nice little happy

out of LeCom comps on the stage all of a sudden the comps up on the bar he's stepping over people's drinks stepping over people's food and just belting out the most beautiful solo you could ever think of and he got his walker over too he got that up there

you see this guy and the 50 year old women go absolutely nuts he's got one trick where he swings the microphone around hits every single thing dude he was setting up at a bar in Cape May and I saw my girlfriend's wandering eyes. I said, not over here, sister. Focus on the redhead next to you.

That's awesome, man. Like, Colin, what a legend. Yeah, man. Well, I mean, that's a good example of how music was. So people would go out just to go do that. Like your father said, you go and have a good time. Right. That's what it really was all about.

Especially if you were friends with the band. You're like, oh, you're always automatically in. You get to be on the VIP list. Right, right, right, right. And you get to hang out. And then you get to travel with them. Yeah, that was the coolest part, I think, it seemed like. You know, I've always been a person that just likes going for live music.

If I can find something new and exciting just to listen to. Every once in a while, I get like an itch that I want to hear something new, check out something new. And I'll try to find something. I'll go down to like Milk Boy has a lot of shows in the city, so I'll hit that up a lot. And then there's the Underground Arts is another great one. I want to go to Underground Arts.

Chop Soul Room? Yeah. And then obviously, you know, transfer, but they don't, oh, you mean the Trock. I always said Chop. Chop Soul Room is their job. No, there is a Chop. The kids with these parents are gonna need shop i'm part of the problem i don't go around the local music scene you show me what's big on twitter or on tiktok you show me what's big on youtube right now and i'm like all right i just discovered big x to plug it's been around

for two years dude come on now even veto laughs at that i mean but it's not just you it's to everybody i mean sure you have to have something to me excite you to go out and see it right you have something else to do or you can go down the street and hang out your friends at the pub sure you don't need to go out unless you're that person see it had that itch to go want to see something new not many people do that do you think live entertainment can ever be back what do you mean i mean like in a different way like would ai or virtual reality like would that bring back live entertainment? Because like you said, like it's tough with all these like these middle acts.

I feel like these middle acts are like where it's like you can't no one can be like an indie show anymore. Really, you have to be able to at least produce a couple hundred thousand streams on Spotify or show somebody like that's like us right now with like when we're booking guests or when we're trying to get indoors and stuff everybody just wants to know like how many TikTok followers you have or how many Instagram followers you have it's not and it's no different for the musicians because it's like oh if you want to how many people are really your real fans how many Spotify listeners do you have are they paid for streams are they not you know that's the thing you if you have such a following in a certain market you should utilize that market now there's a lot of local artists that are in philly that are still kind of they've been around for like 10 years so they still have their following but you know they don't play as

much they don't oversaturate the market which is smart they'll play like every three or four months and then they'll come back and bring more of the people out because people if you play a lot a lot of folks will be like ah i don't need to see them tonight because they're playing next week down the road i'll go there instead or so the exclusivity kind of it kind of makes it more the art grows fonder i think i think when the artist starts to come out and they get to know the venues which are really good at yeah they should make that their home venue so to speak and like just focus on that show every few months don't need to oversaturate the market because again like you're gonna just make your your fan base thinner yeah crazy though because like i feel like even with us like in content i'm in content full-time everybody just wants more they want more they want more they want

more and the algorithms want more and everything and this is different than music obviously i don't think a lot of fans are expecting well it's the same i mean the algorithms is the same when it comes to music too music streams but you can't put you can't put songs out every single day like we can put out videos well because the video i guess it makes sense that like the videos you're making are like literally made to be easily digestible it's like this here's obligate 60 minutes or 60 seconds i'll make you a video you can watch and then just move on where it makes sense that music is more of like you gotta take three to four to five minutes to lengthen the song to get a full understanding of it i always tell people

especially in marketing it's a three three three3-3-3-3-3-3-3. What's that? You got three seconds to grab someone when you're on the internet. You got three seconds to grab them to make them like you. If you get past that and you get to 30 seconds, you got 30 seconds, you hook them in.

And then by the time you get to three minutes, you got your point across. It's the whole 3-3-3-3. You try to get them within three minutes and you can sell them whatever you have. They can go to your website. They can go anywhere to buy your music, the three, the 3.30 and three. You try to get them within three minutes and you can sell them whatever you have. They can go to your website. They can go anywhere to buy your music, see what you're playing, just to read your articles

because that's the thing. What sets you apart from somebody else? Right. And I'm sure with even with content creating and being in a community, you have to try to set yourself different. You don't want to oversaturate and be like everyone else. But at the same time, you kind of need to oversaturate.

Yeah. It's like a catch-22 so with music so i i have a with mirror image we do um mirror image music group we're a distribution that we do for a lot of independent artists um lately i've been doing a lot of jazz music but it's like anywhere on spotify and apple music and wherever else you play your music it's constantly you have to keep it like the algorithm algorithm's going. And so I always tell artists, like, got an album? Okay, great, let's release three singles. And then we'll drop the album.

But we have to do it within like six weeks increments. Really? So that it's kind of playing with the algorithm so that when you drop something and then you have a lot of PR and a lot of press and you get a lot of radio play for the one song, people are gravitating to it. And then after a while, you sort of fizzle out on everyone else's feed.

Then you drop another one. And then boom, it's something new and exciting. People go back there again. It's all about playing with the algorithms. Wow. And do you think that's why people a lot of times think, at least in Hollywood, that what we're making now is just shit? It's just all Marvel movies, all big box office stuff and everything

because that's really like boom, boom, boom, attracts people and stuff. And you're not really getting into those small indie comedies or small indie horrors that were so huge when we came up and obviously you came up and everything. Could an Animal House be made nowadays? Probably not because it's not going to gross $100 million or $1 billion worldwide. Unless Jim Belushi comes back to life. Exactly. Please. I would like to.

We could maybe. I mean, some of that ai is kind of scary because it's it's legit like yeah go actually uh go off on that because like i felt like that was a big thing during the pandemic was didn't drake release like they made like an ai song about drake or something like that yeah drake put out like a diss song and he used the ai voice of i think snoop dogg and tupac yeah and that was his way of like really going at the guy he was going against. Are you seeing that? I mean, I imagine AI, if you're already worried about the algorithm and marketing,

I imagine AI is just another feat. Well, it's just another feat. You're figuring it out. I was kind of worried that it was going to be, even during the presidential election, I honestly thought that AI was going to really, like, all this fake stuff was going to come out. But it hasn't done it yet.

Right. And if it has, I mean, obviously, in your social social media you'll see some ai crap yeah and that's just get you to be stuck or to watch it for three minutes but i don't really see it being that big virtual reality i mean for instance there was that band abba that came out they put out a brand new record and abba's from like the 70s and what they did is they did these avatars of themselves from the 70s they performed backstage yeah but their avatars were on from the 70s. They performed backstage. Yeah. But their avatars were on the stage as their younger selves.

They're probably hot as hell too. Yeah. Which was kind of creepy and weird. Remember the Gorillaz? Weren't they kind of like ahead of their time? Remember the Gorillaz?

Gorillaz may be the original AI idea. I was listening to the Gorillaz the other day. They came on 104.5 and I was like, holy shit, the Gorillaz. How did they do it?

That's feel-good ink, dude. That's all it is. Pretty much, yeah. They were around like late 90s. Yeah. Late 90s, holy shit, the Gorillas. Like, how did they do it? That's feel good ink, dude. That's all it is. Pretty much, yeah. They were around like late 90s. Yeah, late 90s,

early 2000s. Yeah, it was right in our wheelhouse. I just saw a thing about the movie The Brutalist that just came out recently. The guy that won,

that directed it won Best Director. Adrian Brody is the lead in it and he just won Best Lead Actor for the Golden Globes and in between

the Golden Globes and the Oscars, which I just found out was like a ramp up process to the Osc Actor for the Golden Globes. And in between the Golden Globes and the Oscars, which I just found out was like a ramp-up process to the Oscars, the Golden Globes, and they just found out that to perfect, he's like Dutch in the movie, to perfect his accent, they added slight bits of AI throughout his dialogue. I'm not surprised.

And then now it's kind of like, well, we just gave him Best Actor for a Golden Globe. Should we rescind this? Technically, it's not his full performance. And then they used AI to capture some of like, well, we just gave him best actor for a Golden Globe. Should we rescind this? Technically, it's not his full performance. And then they used AI to capture some of, like, the brutalists. It's about, like, brutalism and, like, building structure. And I'm sure there's more to it, but I haven't watched it. I mean, if he's getting an award for his actual acting,

so his voice is a little bit altered. I mean, it depends on how. Yeah, but Leo lived in a bear. Yeah, if you're... Leo lived in a bear and he had to win. If you're Timothee Chalamet and you've been a sexy little boy playing Bob Dylan for a year, I'm going after that AI about the Bruins. That's going to piss me off, man.

I'm not going to like that. I mean, eventually, it's just a way of life now. Probably right, yeah. If you're going to do Winters in Cape May... You've earned it. You've earned it. I just went to a jazz music conference. It's called the Jazz Congress.

It lasts two weeks ago in Manhattan. He earned it. He earned it. I just went to a jazz music conference. It's called the Jazz Congress. It lasts two weeks ago in Manhattan. And there was a guy there with this VR headset. And he was showing off the capabilities that him in a studio does. So I put it on. It was the creepiest thing because it was actually live performance. People standing in front of you. And you're literally standing in front of the singer as the singer's standing and performing. And as you're turning your head and turning this way you see all the other musicians you see everyone else

you're watching the drum it was a live performance but like right and then at one point i even was trying to step back yeah i couldn't because i'm like i don't want to be that close to the singer right of course of course yeah that's going to mess the money up because like don't these musicians get the most money out of like touring and merch they do but that's also for royalties too so i guess what it comes down to the songwriters the songwriters make the most money when it comes to anything all that streaming stuff you get nothing i mean i feel really i mean i feel awful because there's i think every three streams you get a penny really exactly right it's like only like your top 10 people like in the in the world can like make legitimate money out of strangers exactly yeah and they're not even really doing it for them because unfortunately in the last i guess in the last 10

years that well even more in the last decade even you get merchandise like i still make the merchandise for artists people say to me you make cds though i'm like yeah i make a ton of cds all the time but that's not really for they're not using the cds for the sales of music they're using it for the merchandise now so now they doing, they're spending extra money and putting in like the old inserts back in the day with like 12 page booklets and all these photos because people want that stuff. Vinyl, I know. I just got a vinyl record player last year for my birth. It feels like there is a giant market for nostalgia now. People love feeling how they felt 20 plus years ago. So I don't know what was in the water that like it makes us want to return to that when i started my company um in 20 2005 so this is my 28th year

anniversary so mirror image is now in 20 years and we started it and i was kind of late in the sense where i've always worked for another company beforehand in manhattan i ran a company up there for 10 years before i came to philly um I'd say 05 is when we started. CDs and DVDs were always the thing to do. Mostly the CDs a lot. Every new artist would come out with, I need a thousand CDs. That was like the minimum where you could save money. Then you get stuck with them in your basement because you're not really moving the product. But then you're also playing the CD and you're getting your, every time you have a metadata that's like installed into the CD each track so whenever it's played on the radio

because they're playing it off the track you actually collect that's how you get your royalty do you remember how much like a play would be I don't remember what it was but it was better than three cents it was better than the artist actually got paid performing one songwriters always made the money because they broke the songs. How'd you guys get in the radio stations? Was there just some backdoor marketing in there? Oh, when I was doing it? Like when you were doing it, like, hey, scratch my back, I'll scratch yours maybe?

Well, what it came down to was actually I had a music publication. It was called Origivation. And I guess around 07 is when I took it over. It was already five years established. And I just wanted to just add more fun to just reading an article in the paper because we were a printed magazine so I would do like shows and do um I started out doing podcasts and we would do a live show and after each performance was done I would actually interview them live kind of like what we're doing now I

would do an interview live with the audience still there. And then we would use the recording for our podcast. Like a live podcast. I love that. That's nice. That's a great idea. That was like 20 years ago you used to do that? I want to say around 2008, 2009. It's fairly groundbreaking. Yeah, I mean, that's got to be. I think Rogan

was big on podcasts like 2006. Yeah, Bill Simmons was like right around that time too. Yeah, that's... Before he did that, I actually teamed up with a movie producer a movie director his name was oliver siren and he he came to me and said hey i got this idea because if you remember um the pods the ipod started doing video and this is before video actually launched so we were one of the first pioneers to do a video podcast wow so we did sort of the same thing where um he would do the direction i would find the artist we would do a song and he would direct the entire video anyone we know you did it with what's that anyone any artists we know that you did uh anyone though we did a lot of different

artists i don't know if any of them are still around maybe show and tell it might be one of them um i don't even think they're... That's what I mean. Unfortunately, these bands from... Just kind of come and go. Kind of come and go, unfortunately. And I still have them all. I mean, it's great. But when you had the interview, we would do like a live interview in the studio.

We would show the video that he created of the song, and then we would have a live performance of that, and it was over. And we were number one. I say we did like 35 000 downloads the first as the first one so you know the city paper put us on the cover of the city paper like the r1 claim to fame right right right right like it was it was i just got interviewed in the metro philly today so i'm kind of on cloud nine but it was one of those things where i didn't know where it was

gonna go there's this client of mine he put a movie together i did his dvds and say hey let's do a podcast together you know bands i want to make videos okay sure why not right right so we did it but that's really cool because like the groundbreaking thing like when dane cook did his whole like tour is a tour was a tourgasm and they sold to hbo yes so that was like ahead of its time yeah like yeah following around like a guy like now and then you see tara swift now she's putting in like, what, 100 theaters around the country and stuff.

People are allowed to go there and watch her entire era's tour now, which is, it's crazy how it's kind of like become mainstream now. Yeah. She was kind of one of those

people that started out. I'm not, not saying that I'm not a fan of her. Be careful. Well, actually, let's make some headlines. Let's make some headlines.

We'll send this right out to T-Swiss right now. No, but as a professional, I think she was great. I mean, what she did and she answered all her fans and, you know, having all these shows out there and having like, what, she came to Philly, three sold out shows. And 20,000 people sitting outside the link. That's crazy. She could have sold out another, like she could have sold out the Wells Fargo Center outside of the people who just.

Yeah, she could sell it for a couple weeks. Yeah. I don't see anybody doing that. I have seen an artist even artists that i love i'm not gonna sit in the parking lot and just sing but she's got this weird connection with her client i mean with all her clients her fans she has this connection which she's a great business person you know even now like i think with her going with jason kelsey um tickets even went up higher because you might get a chance with travis yeah that's jason i'm sorry either it's travis jason sorry guys but i don't give a shit

they look the same to me yeah exactly all the kelseys look the same to me yeah yeah that's a that's i kind of wonder about like so you started in cds predominantly and you still make them now but like technically you're in like a tech space is are you like forecasting okay this will probably evolve into now it's on ipods now there's the itunes store now the itunes store is a subscription based thing where it's the apple music like are you looking forward to that and seeing how you adjust i did adjust and i kind of went through it i realized when the downloads were first came out see from my perspective and the way i looked at it was like cds were always the way of doing things vinyl was always there vinyl supposedly went out but it got reimbursed in like 98 99 2000 the djs were using vinyl and they were cutting their own

remixes that's what we were doing in the studio in new York. So we would actually take these DJs and these producers that would come in with the vocal tracks of Whitney Houston and remix them. And then they were huge. Big hits. It was awesome. The vinyl records were the thing. Sure.

I have a follow-up dumb guy question because we're kind of famous for dumb guy questions. How the hell does a vinyl work? What do you mean? I don't understand how having something that just kind of follows for dumb guy questions. How the hell does a vinyl work? What do you mean? I don't understand how having something that just kind of follows grooves throughout makes noise. It's basically like the noise or the,

it's like, I guess it's being cut and grooved into it. The sound patterns? The sound pattern, it's all being cut. And it has to be done in like a specific, it's called the lathe. And the lathe cuts it all. So for instance, we still cut vinyl pieces all the time.

And it's basically that the sound is like, it's being cut into the grooves of the actual master lacquer itself. And from there, you take the lacquer and you make plates, metal plates. And then from metal plates, you fill it all up with the wax. Right. The vinyl itself. It's a messy, long, expensive process. Sure. metal plates and then from metal plates you fill it all up with the wax right the vinyl it's up the plastic it's a messy long expensive process sure it's very expensive and that's why some of these artists i think it's weird though they'll put out a vinyl record and someone will buy it

they'll never play it and they'll put it on the shelf and i'm like to be able to cut and do the techniques that these engineers do to make it sound good on a vinyl record is expensive. Right. It's an art form. And then I always see like, so your fan bought it and put it on the shelf and never going to play it. Right. So it's like, oh. Just sitting there.

So is the vinyl, like, I'm trying to get like a full understanding because I've always wondered about like the way you do nails on a chalkboard and it makes that sound. Okay. The vinyl is as if you're inscribing certain grooves to make the sound that replicates what the music is. Is that something similar? It's all done with the repetitions, the RPM, the speed and how it's being cut into it

and how it's being played. Remember, sometimes if you go too fast, it would sound like Alvin and Chipmunks. Or go reverse and Dark Side of the Moon and it would talk to you about the devil. The devil's here. That all stuff happened that never really was i sold like a million more records on dark side of the moon to the cult it was so funny because

when i was saying about um we were doing the cds and the millennials i guess you can say they they wanted to put they didn't want to carry cds anymore so they put everything and i they downloaded everything and we knew that the streams were going to happen. We knew streaming was going to happen eventually. But they downloaded everything. And then I had to do a change in my career in a sense where it's like, all right, so no one's really buying the CDs and the vinyl anymore. So I already had a place. I had artists that were working for me graphic designing stuff. And we were printing the inserts. So then I decided to like, all right, let's go to my neighbors and say, you need a logo do you need menus you need flyers you need this but business cards we'll

just go in that direction so then i went into the other direction and did all like corporate stuff so my business now is i see 80 corporate and 20 music okay started out 100 music right but i still work with the music and with the vinyl. I look at the younger generation. I guess it's Generation Z. Is that what it is now? The new one, yeah. You know what it is?

I think so, yeah. Just moved into a new generation. Gen Z. They were mad because millennials got rid of the products so they wanted

the products back. Yeah. So like my daughter at 12... So none of the products? They want more shit? They want shit. Like my daughter is 12.

She goes to Urban Outfitters every week and buys a new record really yeah my actually i did catch my girl she's getting me a new vinyl for uh for my work yeah i've done it a couple how do you like playing them though i'm i like playing them for about two weeks and then i'll forget about them and i'll just go to the alexa and say alexa play the song because it's easier that part's nice yeah because i because i don't like how there's only four songs on each vinyl i know you can probably get the luxe vinyl the ones that i've gotten are all four songs then you gotta flip it over redo it and all that stuff hit the right one hit the right mark and everything like i feel like i feel like i'm a a trad wife turning butter it's a total contrived version of what you think's gonna happen you think you're like the scene

cuts in where you're putting the vinyl on the whiskey on the rocks you're holding is in your hand your wife's got her glass of wine in reality it's like you being with your girlfriend you're both drinking miller light you're like i can't fucking figure it out i'm trying to hit the start of the goddamn song and i can't hear when it starts i like this riff and i want to hear this riff and we're gonna we're gonna find this riff yeah let me start all over again you gotta pick it up and see i do like the staticky though when it does hit. Warmth. I like that. Is that what they call it, the warmth? Yeah, I mean it's tube, it's analog.

So analog has a warmth. See that's the whole reason why everything switched to digital when it went to compact disc is because the players back in the day for the vinyl records weren't good. And so the players for the CD was better. That's why the CD took over. Even though the actual warmth, you lose all that warmth, that clarity. Going to a digital is too perfect. It's too in your face.

So the warmth, the only way you can get that back is if you have a good engineer that knows how to use a lot of tube compressors and stuff and try to warmth up the digital recording. So it fools you to think that a lot of engineers can do that. Sure. So that comes out really cool because you might think about you're putting everything in account like why it's called a compact disc is you're compressing everything to a little data so the laser can play over and over again. And then we compressed it more to put it onto our phones and onto our iPads. Yeah and then when you made your MP3s everybody would take those those CDs and then compress it again. So you know you're looking at your two biggest enemies of all time, right?

A couple nine-year-olds on LimeWire downloaded illegally. I had LimeWire. I'm innocent. Hey, fellas, I don't know what you guys did back in the day. I was on Club Penguin. Were you on LimeWire too? I had LimeWire, yeah. Would you call yourself a music executive when you were doing it?

Were you calling yourself a music executive? I wasn't an executive. I was just working for a company at the time. I was an operations manager for a mastering studio called True Tone in New York for a while. We had three locations. One location was a factory where they made cassettes and CDs. And the other location, they did this on-the-go shop where artists would come in. I need 10 CDs for a gig tonight.

Can you burn me 10 CDs? And we had these little robotic machines that would burn 10 CDs for the people. Come and go. And then he had the mastering studio suites. They had two suites. One was the analog and one was the digital where they make the compact disc master and one where they made the vinyl masters.

So did you make your money off of plays and streams or we didn't ruin your career, right? No, I wasn't part of that. I was really just the guy who said, hell, to come in i'll schedule you some time and yeah it's pretty perfect i didn't want this to go off the rails you know like you you literally ruined my career i mean well it's technology it's gonna happen exactly what do you think what do you think is next like what is what is like next if you can see kind of like five maybe ten years down the line i mean it's always going to be streaming i mean i think it's going to be more vr like you know seeing that guy at the jazz

thing when i was playing that headset i'm seeing it's going to be more of that kind of stuff surround sound the cosmos uh there's one in dallas and there's one in la and they're big sports like arenas but they're like high level 8k cameras and it basically feels like you're sitting on the sidelines watching a football game or something like that or a basketball i feels like you're sitting on the sidelines watching a football game or something like that or a basketball i know what you're talking about yeah have you seen those i haven't seen it but i know you're talking like i that it's basically like taking the sphere and being like uh being in a restaurant and being able to watch like you know the rolling stones play right in front of you and here's mick jagger just walking up and you pay 45 dollars for a

reservation instead of 120 200 for a ticket to the link or something like that well they said they were going to do that like during the pandemic if you remember um a lot of artists and maybe we're doing with your comedy they were all doing virtual house shows yeah so a lot of the house shows um you know you said home because you were bored so you would pay whatever the 10 cover it was so you could like watch your friend play for him or do some stand-up on because you need to support each other yeah you're stuck at home but they're in that time is when they decided they were gonna start doing that direction is like so you can go to the

show pay $300 for the big ticket be front row or you can pay $45 and watch it from your home and I think it's gonna be incorporated with the whole VR set where if you're home you can actually be45 and watch it from your home. And I think it's going to be incorporated with the whole VR set, where if you're home, you can actually be there watching somebody on stage. Yeah, with the new, what was it, the Apple Glass? Yeah, like the VR stuff. Those things, that was so cool. I don't know if it caught on.

It feels like it's made for people who want to stay at home for nefarious intentions. I hate to say. If you're sitting there with a VR set, something bad. I do agree with that. I feel like a lot of people nowadays just want to be at home all the time and that's got to obviously kill live entertainment i just feel like we got to get out we gotta get out i'm the opposite man like i always get yelled at because my wife's like you always want to go out i'm like tired it's my off day and we're recording a podcast right now it's like it's it's but it's like it's so much better than just sitting and scrolling an algorithm that's just feeding you videos and feeding you pictures and you're just like

trying to find this dopamine it's like why don't you just go out to a show or go out to a comedy show or go out to a live concert or go play some ball definitely true well it's human interaction we need it we need to you know eye contact when you meet somebody looking online you don't you think you're looking at them but they're over here but you're up here right you're not even really looking at each other, and you lose that, even for me. That's bad, though, because I didn't even look you in the eye, because anyone that knows, I showed up late today, and I couldn't even look Brian in the eye. It's like, hello, how are you? I just walked right into the guest room. You had a quest.

No, I was a dog. I was a dog who peed on the ground, and I couldn't look at you. You had the toilet paper around your lips. You're like, did you get in the bathroom? I didn't want the magazine to the forehead. No. Yeah. I mean, I wonder about like, as a guy that I guess we're like young adulthood into like

the early 90s, late 80s, when you could start burning CDs for ladies to tell them that you love them. How huge was that? The mixtapes. That had to be incredible. I thought you were like Steve Jobs. Yeah. I mean that was great. You hear so much, I made this for you. And then you see it at their house and it's scratched up and they're like,

you know, they're using it as a coaster. Oh! Now you gotta check yourself, they played it through the Walkman so much times that it's scratched up. She must have felt my love for it. She didn't even listen to it. She can just tell you. I don't know what the new, to answer your question about what the new technology is going to be. Because I haven't seen, I knew at one point Sony always came out with new things. And when Compact Disc was going out, they came out with this mini disc thing, which was like a tiny little CD inside a plastic thing.

And that was supposed to be the next big thing. But you couldn't put any art on it. And it was just more compressed stuff. You know you know everything that it's more and more compression you want and as you see that people really want that vinyl they want that love of the playing it like you're enjoying listening to the you said the warmth the crackling like that people want that again and everything's so compressed in your headphones and your pods it's like you need to, I don't,

I see right now it's going to stay the way it is for a while. I don't, and the only way I can see is bringing the VR to the corporate, incorporating it into the live shows.

Or making it affordable for customers, yeah. Yeah, I mean, nowadays you go to a show, you want to pay $65 for a t-shirt because that's how they make money.

The merch is out. Merch is getting crazy. Especially since I make it, I know how much it really costs. Yeah, we have a guest too, dude. I'm like, wait, and I get it at a nice wholesale price. I'm like, hmm.

A Gildan t-shirt with just like a print of Taylor Swift's face. It's like, yeah, it'll be $44. Yeah, it's like, I just bought that for $3. Yeah. My daughter's one of those people, though, because she's 13

and take her to her show. All she wants wants is she wants to support the artist she just wants to buy like 10 things of merch i mean it's like 500 bucks that's sweet but yeah it's tough to like try to negotiate that you can get two honey your heart's in a good place you want christmas presents though yeah i love that too like that's a nice kid's brain to be like i have to support the artist it's like honey the artist could buy our house 445,000 times. They're okay. They're a-okay. Don't worry about it.

I want to show my support and I get that. Of course. As a fan, you want to be like... You got to take her to Union Transfer as a truck. You got to take her to like grimy grunge bands

that need their 10 shirts for any... Because they might be able to get guests. Well, she's starting to get to the age where I can start doing that eventually. Yeah.

But yeah, to say your point, I think the truck closed like 10 years ago. Yeah, really? Yeah, it did close. It was pretty brutal. It was bad

toward the end there. They said it was pretty grimy in there. Yeah. But I heard someone might be buying it right around the whole time. Yeah.

With the 76ers coming up here. Who knows? I went there after it reopened very briefly and then closed again and saw John Mulaney live. And I remember the lower back of my back itched for two weeks.

So whatever's happened to those chairs, Troc, if you're listening, please just fix it. It hurt. I was just a small boy. No, there was always stuff like that happening. Yeah, I thought so. I kind of figured as much. What are some of your favorite stories from the 90s and the 80s from just going to shows and stuff?

What do you remember seeing? I guess it's more like the slam dancing. What's that? You know, when people were like mosh pits yeah I've always enjoyed doing that it's always a scene a little bit

seeing somebody new and see how far they go do you remember like you have any stories of like any bands that you're like these guys are next up they're gonna be huge

I mean I saw Alicia Keys perform when she was like just starting out at like a little thing like Manhattan and now look at her now like she has a Broadway show and that was something you could tell when you were watching her like at such a little thing like man and now look at her now like did you have a broadway show

and that was something you could tell when you're watching her like at such a young age you kind of you can i mean obviously it's hard to say like when you look at somebody and you see the talent somebody the raw talent you can tell they're going to go places but then unfortunately it's the science that you know whatever is going on in their personal life it doesn't happen for whatever reason but that doesn't say they're not successful. A lot of artists always think that they have to be a successful musician only when they make it famous.

And I know so many successful musicians that do music full-time, make a good living, and you've never even heard of them. And that's okay. You don't have to be a famous musician to make it as a full-time musician. and that's one of the like one of the things i started doing for i guess eight years ago i started helping out with different music conferences and then i would

start my own so last year i started with my friends and my partners i created play music conference and it was just like for two reasons play play or play. Play music. Right. And we did, during the day, we had educational moments for musicians. We brought in folks from distribution. We brought in producers. We brought in publishers. We brought the industry on panels and we did workshops so that musicians can learn. It's not just about how they can make actual money right doing their stuff and becoming an llc and just learning like how to do the right taxes and everything else

and and invest in their own career because if you do that you are if this is what you want to do full-time here let's let's show you how to make the money that's one of the things i like doing is i like to educate folks and i even look at that with small businesses doing the business stuff that I do I do a lot of business networking a lot of I'm putting together a small business expo in this in the fall and the idea of that is like we just wanted to show people how they can you know expand their own network how they can make money in different avenues not just having the same way of thinking yeah yeah's more important, I think, now than ever. You see so many of these big businesses just eating everybody

else's lunch and everything. I just feel like small businesses kind of just it's not really getting a chance, if that makes any sense. There's some small businesses that are definitely better than other ones just because of innovation or something that they've've it's all about their network i think yeah who it's it's all about your life who you know yeah you can go to school and get all the

degrees in the world you won't get a job right it's about who you know can get you that job and is it i kind of like i feel like there might be like maybe it's a misnomer about these like networking events where a lot of the interactions kind of seem like they might be inorganic and then how do you move to the next level past that? Do you feel like that's the case now where it's kind of more people like, hey, I'm a merchant kind of selling my wares. What do you have? What do I have? Or is it important to kind of-

It used to be like that. It's not like that no more. And when I run mine, I kind of make it more lackey loosey in a sense. For better terms. So the idea is you come, it's happy hour, right? Come after work, you're going to have a couple of drinks, you're going to meet somebody that you may or may not be able to do business with. That's okay. The idea is have an open mind.

You don't know who you're going to meet. I mean, I can't tell you how many, I've got the biggest clients in my life just meeting somebody randomly at a bar. You never know where it's going to turn. So it's all about not trying to sell yourself when you meet somebody because if i just sat here and talked about me me me me you'd be like turning off like i don't want to talk about you right like you just got to like listen to other people and do a follow-up and maybe you can have grab a coffee or a cocktail afterwards on another day when it's just one-on-one figure out if you can actually work that way um what i do at my events

you come in about an hour hour hour and a half into it. It depends on how many people I have. Usually I have anywhere from like 50 to 75 people at my events. So I try to break them down into like either two or four circles. And when you pull in with your friend, usually you grab your name tags together and I try to color. So make it the opposite color from your friend. You don't realize that when you're coming in.

Right. Because I want to separate you from your friend. Because your realize that when you're coming in right because I want to separate you from your friend because your friend is going to be in your ear the whole time and you're not going

to meet anybody new right so I get you into a couple circles and then we you know talk about who you are what you do

and then I'll come up whatever that night is I'll come up with like a theme or like tell us something fun about yourself or tell us

what you like to do in the summertime what's your favorite pastime like don't just be so much about work work work let's see who you are as a person right you know tell me something you never seen you can't find on Google about yourself like something simple like that and that breaks the ice because the people can actually sit and talk and and at least in that circle you're now gonna walk away with at least seven new people that you met rather than just being in a corner talking or being sold

something and then you're turned off and you don't want to go out anymore because that's the point. I like an icebreaker because I think icebreakers get most of the credit for like saying something positive that you align with but also an icebreaker would be if some guy says something weird as hell I'm like I'm steering the guys like i google i google the age of consent in every state i'm like yeah i'm not i'm gonna not talk to him if they get too much credit for just the positive i think there's a lot more negative that you're like yeah no thanks i'm good i do love an ice break do you have one on top of your head that you always use give me one i need a new one yeah mine is i google the age of consent

um i'm trying to think i i always did two truths and a lie when we were growing up like in college I googled the age of consent and I'm saying, no, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Freeze! I'm trying to think. I always did two truths and a lie when we were growing up, like in college and stuff. And it was like, ugh. That was a good one.

No, that's not a bad one. I haven't done that in a while. Yeah, that's a good one. Sometimes it gets a little weird, though. Two truths and a lie about yourself and you have to figure out which one's a lie.

Why don't you let a couple riff? Let's do it. No, I don't know. Let's do an extra. I don't know already. Handsome, tall as fuck, and, uh... Yeah, this game sucks huh um yeah what um do you think artists now have more control over their careers and their money

when it comes to like music executives now than they did maybe back in the 90s? Yeah, they do. I mean, because mostly nowadays is like they all created their own LLCs.

Got it. And they hire their own people, you know. So if I'm an artist, I'm going to hire someone to run my stuff. So I'm going to meet you.

Right. I like you. We interview. I'm going to hire you. Now you're part of my team. And then I'm trusting everything in you to like you the interview you're i'm gonna hire you now you're part of my team and then i'm trusting everything and you to go hire the rest of the people yeah that's nowadays all the independent artists are doing that and the bigger the bigger guys are trying to come back in and they did they did pretty well i mean i mean taylor swift's a bigger

person like she's on that yeah because back in the day they used to like give you a ton of money record and try to recoup all that money back, make the best album. And then you get these bands that were getting artists that were being signed that weren't all that great. And then they put out these records, and when you put them on live, it was like, they're not good. Because you want to have that live performance, man. When you go to a show, you don't want to listen to the record again. I get kind of annoyed like that with singers, too. You could be a good singer. If you're just standing there playing your guitar, you're boring for me. I want to listen to the record again. I get kind of annoyed like that with singers too. Like you can be a good singer.

If you're just standing there playing your guitar, you're boring for me. Like I want to be entertained. Like if I wanted to listen to the record at home or I wanted to stream you at home, I'm going to play you at home. I don't want to pay all this money to come see you live. So hear exactly what you sound like.

Yeah, you want to get your money's worth out of it. I want to see the singer like do something crazy. Yeah, Pink dude. I went to Pink in Citizens Bank Park. Lady was flying all around the stadium. Yeah! 200 levels and everything on this little trapeze kind of thing. It's amazing.

One of the greatest performances I've ever seen in my life. Stay off and listen to her sing. Yeah. Even to your credit, the guy down in Jersey Shore walking on the... Oh, come on! He's entertaining. You know what I mean? He is.

I don't know. That's one point. I feel like the sound pod era really muffled people's way to get to stardom. Now people think they can just look cool, make some music, and they can blow up before you have to go out and make fans. Exactly.

I know I'm not in the podcast, so you guys can cover that. No, you don't. I just always thought that the SoundCloud era was cool and all, but people think they can just record some songs, look cool on the internet, and they'll be famous. Which does kind of work work that's why they're going up a handful of works well tiktok kind of yeah the mumble rap generation is one of the worst things we've ever allowed to happen yeah i think i blame the pandemic because people were born anywhere on tiktok yeah that's

really what it is like you guys get too creative enough's enough it seems like congress said the same thing they said yeah shut the shit down and. To the point, the SoundCloud was good. People always thought that they had a SoundCloud. They had the opportunity to be like the next big thing. Or even like there's so many different cloud entity like Bandcamp's another one. And if you remember like the auto-tune, everybody was doing auto-tune. Like people who couldn't sing, they've had auto-tune since like the 80s. You just didn't realize it. And so,

then they use it all the time. When someone shouldn't be singing, is using auto-tune. Yeah, I know, I know Jay-Z made Death of Auto-Tune and went right to T-Pain,

but man, when T-Pain wrapped Wisconsin and rounded with Mansion, you just can't beat it. Unfortunately. Auto-tune won. The two big ones,

T-Pain and World of T-Shirts. The two big auto-Tune guys. But I kind of wanted to ask about, I was reading about you, and it seems like it's not just music. So you get into, I saw, lawn signs, any kind of business promotion. Yeah. Is that right? So in the past, obviously the past year,

I imagine there's a lot of lawn signs, especially over the election. Is that something you dealt with? Are you kind of juggling that? Not really. The local politicians, sure. But, I mean, the lawn signs you see everywhere. Any local artist. Not local artist.

I'm on the music world. Any business out there needs to have, you know, when it comes to marketing in general, and it's print marketing or even digital marketing, a person needs to see something like six or seven times before they actually keep it in their head so if you keep java buying you keep seeing that yard sign by the sixth time you're going to remember it okay it's like a repetition the same thing when it comes to digital like oh you saw it you forgot about it right you do if you do like with being a printer which is great you know door hangers is a great thing because it was an old thing from the 70s and 80s put a door hanger because it's illegal to put stuff in the mailbox put it on the door come home you're annoyed with it but at the same

time you like it because if you need that service you're going to keep it yeah it's going to go on the like on the refrigerator or something for whenever you need that person to get realtor magnets that had the eagle schedule on it one of the greatest one of the greatest adventures of all time have you seen them dude I used to I had like years on my on my fridge we never threw them out yeah I do that

for a lot of my a lot of my clients actually I have a couple unsure people that do that where there are little pictures on the top

and it has Philadelphia football and it has Philadelphia baseball and we use the same colors but we can't use the logo it is funny

my parents know when the Eagles played in 2009 in January. It stays up there. It's that and then also like Chinese food places. We have their menus from back in 2011. Everyone had a cupboard. Everyone had a drawer for it. The yard sign became really big again

I guess during the pandemic. They've always been around yeah for businesses but the pandemic when people wanted to support their kid graduating school oh my god i hate this your kid graduated high school dude you put their picture on there and you put in the front yard and it's great and and it's awesome it's personalized because you know jenny sue couldn't congratulations to j Jenny. She got a 2.6. She got a 2.6. She snuck by.

Some of them promote their high school graduation and what school they're going to. She's going to Delco Community College. They should actually just make signs that just say 2.6. And you're like, oh, so that's a community school. Got it. All right. Yeah. See you over there.

I love you, Jenny. You worked hard. But did you really? Yeah. You got a D in math. We'll see you in nursing school, Jenny. You worked hard. But did you really? Yeah. I don't have a next line. Yeah, you got a D in mass. We'll see you in nursing school, sweetheart. Yeah. You read on some things that are in the news right now.

Obviously, Drake is suing his label group, which is insane to think about. Because first of all, that's the biggest label in the industry right now and stuff. Second, you know. But it's not the first time an artist did something like that. No? No. To read on the situation i mean it i think you know he's trying to show he wants to have his creativity you know the label owns his entity in a sense he wants to try to grab hold of his entity and try to be himself also it shows that um he's standing up against you know the big guys in a sense it's trying to show show his fans are going to follow him no matter what.

I don't know if he's going to. I'll be there. I love what you're saying right now. These kind of things usually settle off behind the scenes if you don't really know what's going on. So you don't think this will have any change for the industry? I was kind of on board being like, you know what, maybe he knows it's over and that Kendrick crushed him

and that therick crushed him. And that, you know what, the last thing he's going to do going out since he has all this money is to take someone down with him. And maybe it sets the threshold for the next 20 years for an artist. If you remember, Prince did the same thing. So if you remember when Prince was around, remember he changed his name to the symbol? Yes. Because he wanted to get out of his contract. Because on the contract, this is whatever name you change yourself to. This is always is always going to be you know it's you no matter what your name is but he changed it to a symbol which whatever i think i forget what arabic or whatever it is

that actually stood for prince so he never actually changed his name that's why i thought it was pretty funny where people the artist formerly known as prince but right it was a great marketing point yeah but he oh yeah that golden like hieroglyphic looking symbol that was his name great marketing point to make the media the uh record company more money even calling himself a symbol because his name is an assembly so did he win that basically yeah he did oh and then you want to take him back all his own category oh because I thought you said because his name in Arabic was Prince he had to put he had to put I think one, one more record out as Prince. And then they owned the former stuff.

And then when his new stuff came out, it was the new stuff. And then he went up, throughout the years, he went up re-recording those songs with a new recording. So now he can get those songs back. That's what T-Swift did with Scooter Braun. Yeah, Scooter Braun. Yeah. That makes sense that it's more of like a kind of a tug in a pool

between not necessarily like Drake and the guy he's beefing against it's really like UMG I guess it is

Universal Music Group what do you mean beef it's not beef well he's kosher he's Jewish so it's yeah because it's over because Kendrick

murdered him well I wouldn't agree with that but I hear where you come from we can discuss that another time but yeah

it makes sense yeah I'm not broken hearted at all it's totally fine whatever dude i'll listen to him on vinyl i'll do that yeah but uh yeah as a fan you're still gonna listen to him anyway that's what it seems oh yeah once they stop putting his music on spotify he'll go to aubreygrand.com and find drake's new stream which i imagine like in the late 90s early 2000s a lot of those rappers created their own labels i guess to escape that kind of you know feudalism almost well they did yeah definitely especially like uh death death row right yeah all that yeah that's a tough label to come up with yeah to be like i just i just held everybody off the balcony by their ankles it was like we're gonna pay me royalties anyway

lucian you see that stoop now is it he Snoop now owns it? He just took it over the share. No way. So he owns Jethro Records now. Wow. That's so funny. That's why you see him everywhere now.

He's been popping up ever since he went to the Olympics last year. Now you see him on T-Mobile commercials. I follow him on Instagram. He's funny as shit. Wow.

Yeah, he looks like an inner city volleyball coach now. It's just crazy to see. Maybe you got some hobbies or something interesting about you and everything we just cut it we'll cut it and make it good oh okay i mean yeah sure i mean when it comes to um mirror image like you know when it comes to designing printing so i'm always doing websites and we're creating the digital platforms for a lot of the businesses out there um like home health health healthcare companies and plumbers,

your local roofing companies. We'll do, not only when we do their graphics and behind the scenes, but we'll run all the digital as well as the print market. Now I've got to ask you, do you let the plumbers come up with the creative or you just sit this one out and you take the pipes off? Depends.

Nine times out of ten, I need your content for us because especially I work with like four different plumbers, I don't want to be a person coming in with the same content because how can I separate myself from the other three? Right. So I want your content and then I want to be able to spin it so it sounds like it's coming from you and then we'll fix that. Maddy's got a friend who has a great company.

He's an exterminator. It's called Mug-A-Bug. Mug-A-Bug? Yeah. So it's just, it's basically like a robber taking a bat to a bug. Yeah. It's really my buddy who's loosely licensed to be an exterminator

who truly gets hired to go stomp on bugs in people's houses and then charge them X amount of money after two hours. So he might be giving you a call to kind of juice it up a little bit. Sure, it's fine. What's the craziest proposal you've gotten

for somebody to be like, I want it printed on this? Do you have one? I did. I had a ro bit. Sure, it's fine. What's the craziest proposal you've gotten for somebody to be like, I want it printed on this? Do you have one? I did. I had a roofer that wanted me to print. No, not a roofer. I had a bricklayer. He wanted me to print business cards on slabs of brick.

Like he was going to get the red brick. Because I'm all about printing different textures. I do wooden cards and I do metal cards and that's fine but he he was going to take you know

a big old red brick and he was going to slice them down to size business cards and the only way you can print on that is like silk screening which

fine but if you know anything about like masonry or anything there's holes and shit that goes in between there so every slice there's going to be

a different hole so when if you're using the same design like you're gonna lose letters I'm guessing the brick probably like it does like if you like it is malleable so it's like it will like kind of like break off a little bit oh yeah and I'm also like I mean I he was really about I mean I love the passion that he wanted to step out and be different you need guys like that yeah but at the same time I'm like can't we just do some kind of texture and make it feel like brick?

Because nobody wants to slam a brick in their pocket. Who gave me a brick? Then I got crumbs of brick in my pocket. I'm like, I'm not calling this guy. Get this shit out of here. So that was the most craziest thing I had. Yeah, that seems a little spooky. I did have a funny, I had a woman call me.

She did her own podcast. And she called me because my company is called Mirror Image. And she thought that because every time she saw herself doing videos, everything was reversed. And so I found out that she wanted me to make print. She originally wanted me to print banners to go behind her head that were reverse printed. And I'm like, yeah, I can print anything you want. And so me having a conversation, I'm like, why do you want it reversed? Just curious.

She's like, well, when I do my podcast, I want everyone to see my stuff. But every time I look at it, it's backwards. And I'm like, you do realize the people on the other side are seeing it the right way you're looking at it from back too many podcasts

there's too many fucking podcasts in this world it was great I got the account anyway she was like did you end up doing that

or was she like okay we're gonna no I actually what I did is I printed I did do it and I sent it to her and I said

before I print this I go print this out on a piece of paper and put it behind you and see what you think. Yeah. And she's like, it's backwards.

The word behind her is yay. She's like, I think it's backwards. It's like, it still works. Funny that she's actually got a top five podcast in the world.

Yeah, it's called Call Her Daddy. But I, you know, I talked her into it. We, we printed it the right way and she wound up being

a good printer. I mean, a good client. But she's all the way down in Texas. But the only reason why she found me is because of my name. So she thought I was going to be able to reverse. To mirror the image. OK, how about that? Wow.

That's pretty funny. A lot of blonde clients got it. Yeah. I literally put her on mute when I was on the phone. And I was laughing. I had a hard time. It's unbelievable. Our poor listeners that are watching this backwards right now.

Poor guys. If you could only understand what we're doing, dude. I'm actually totally handsome. I don't look like this on camera. This is totally reversed. Your face is reversed. My face is totally reversed. What do you do for fun?

Anything? A hobby of course. Obviously, I like to go see live music. I do anything outdoors. Matter of fact, I'm getting ready to go to Mexico in two days out of this cold. I like going to the beaches, camping, anything outdoors, hiking. I just like being out there. Will you do the music scene down there? New Mexico? Yeah, you ever go down there? I mean, I would love to, but no. It's kind of blowing up right now. New Mexico is becoming like

a whole new hotspot, it seems like. Where do you go to Mexico? Or Mexico City, I'm sorry, Mexico City. Oh, yeah. There's nothing else to do. There's no water there. It's not American. Yeah, you got to get the water there. You There's no water there. It's not American. Yeah, you got to get the water. You kind of need water there. There's a lot of dance down there, I noticed. Like, when I went there last year, I think every year, there was some kind of last December dance. It was like a dance festival going on in the same hotel I was at.

I wasn't part of it, but I was invited to because I was staying there. But it was crazy the people and things they were doing. Yeah. I've sniffed stuff that makes me dance, too, so I could totally see where they're coming from but it seems to be a big dance market yeah sure what's uh what's something in like the music scene right now like the localized music scene like who should people be checking out that you might have found i might have found um i mean there's there's an artist that's been around for a while. His name is John Fay, a really good artist. He's been in different groups, I guess about six or seven different groups since the 90s,

but he's still going out there. He's still chugging it. He just did a show at the Arbor Music Hall in December. Oh, wow. Sold it out. He's somebody I would look into. Any of your playlists right now, like new guys locally that people should be checking out? Like a new metal scene that you've out? Ah. Like a new metal scene

that you've been enjoying? A new metal scene. Or anyone in general? I don't have anybody that's actually new at the moment. That's in my regular playlist. That's why I need to go look for some more.

Sure. Yeah. How about you, Vito? You got anybody? Big X to plug? I got Big X to plug. Check out Big X to plug. Yeah, they already checked

about me, though. Chat, Ryan, go play. I like Mount Joy a lot. Oh, yeah, they're really good. Mount Joy's great. They've been around for a while, but I just discovered them like this year. Well, you discovered it over the Christmas. I'm very behind on the... No, Mount Joy's been around a while, actually, and they're really, really good.

The whole... And they're Eagles fans, which I always appreciate. Well, of course. Yeah. Kyle hit me some stuff. He's like, you're at a Lincoln Park before this new band? Yeah, I've heard the rumors. Well, they're back again. Of course. Yeah. Kyle hit me some stuff. He's like, you heard of Linkin Park before? This new band? Yeah, I've heard the rumors.

Well, they're back again with a new song. A new singer? Yeah, a new female singer. A new female singer. And you won't believe that their grungy early 2000s male fans are not pumped about it. Who would have thought about the reviews? I listened to the new song. I was like, eh.

Yeah. It's not great, but some of the reviews I've seen are like, all right, fellas, settle down. Well, you've got to understand, too, when it comes to bands, if you have a full band of like 4 or 5 guys, or women, in the band, if you change out an instrument, so to speak, you may notice a slight difference. When you change out the singer, that is the big main issue. Yeah, you kinda can't fix it. Jay-Z might go on the slammer. Linkin Park's got a

female front lead. It's just real common to. I mean, she's not a bad singer, but it's just not the new music. I mean, it's the new direction. But at the same time, it's like,

do you keep the same name? I don't know. Yeah, getting somebody like Chester Benningfield, the lead singer, the way he sang and how he was, where he's both

like screamer and singer, and he replaced it with what looks like a 22-year-old woman. That's tough. woman that's a tough big shoes which i did see uh i saw queen with um who that guy from american idol david archuleta no it wasn't archuleta they had like four different singers adam something yeah he was lambry adam lambry queen with adam lambert john mayer did it with the dead and stuff like There are some good... John Mayer kind of...

He finally only just left, but he pretty much was The Dead for a while. He wasn't even... And you never even knew... I didn't even know, other than his John Mayer songs. You knew him back from early 2000s. Then you listen to him.

He's actually a really good guitar player. And I had no idea. Oh, really? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah no he's a he's a great musician um but like those guys like and it's kind of good because like the young guys breathe new life into like i mean not everyone can be mick jagger who's like still killing it at this age yeah which is crazy it's my buddy was like my buddy was there he's sending me videos i'm like how is jagger still moving like this he's got the move i thought it was i thought it was great because he was sponsored by arp

which i thought that was a great sponsorship and it proves that you could be 82 and still rock arp and werther's originals were sponsoring this tool yeah it depends um anything else you want people to know where they can check you out you got a website or anything oh yeah of course um my website is newmirrorimage.com um and if you want to check out music we put um probably five or six different articles a month um we used to be more frequently but we're now amping up you're online are you like so online it's not online now it's called thatmusicmag.com was it was it hard parting ways with the magazine it was yeah i mean i feel like you like the ink underneath your fingertip i

do people always loved it because you know it was a something to read i was great when you walk in the city and you're on a bus and you see you see a magazine sitting on the seat yeah you knew that people were reading it you know sure you know and it was great but nowadays you don't really know because the attention span and we were and we're all part of it our attention span is like net like we're like like i said the three second rule like yeah yeah you get me you you send me an email over two paragraphs i'll read the first couple of sentences and then i'll come back to that later yeah it's something we're all trained to do now yeah i don't know why it's like how dare you think i have enough time on my hand it really is it really is unnerving i remember like back as a kid i used to just like sit with my thoughts now as an

adult i'm like i can't even conceive of the idea of just sitting and thinking it's unbelievable i gotta go outside i have to be distracted from myself at all times it's the whole time yeah i went 12 hours i went on reels and i was like i'm getting back on club penguin i can't do this anymore yeah Zanga back? MySpace around? Yeah. We're going to Tumblr. That was the joke I saw yesterday when they brought back TikTok.

Someone's like, I'm looking for my MySpace password. Get back on that line wire. Everything's behind a fucking subscription now, too, and a paywall. It's just so annoying. It's like, I do want to learn about, like, my buddy sent me an article that he was in. He works for the Eagles. He was like, hey, I in this article but i had it was behind a paywall i was like dude i'd love to read i'd love to read about you see what the inner workings of the eagles are like behind the scenes with the training staff but it's like i don't want to read it and pay a hundred dollars a year for a subscription yeah i just kind of want it if it's good content

i always believe like if it's good content you'll find a way to monetize it without a subscription base. I don't know if that makes sense. The Inquirer, I know nobody that reads the Inquirer anymore, and they're still raising their prices. I think Sunday is there. I think they only have the Sunday paper. But even that, the Sunday paper was like that. Yeah, but even online, I don't know anybody that reads the Inquirer. And they continually raise their prices every six months and everything.

And they make it absolutely, and they make it god awful to cancel it. It's like predatory in a way. Not in New Jersey anymore. They're making it so it's supposed to be as easy to sign up as it is to cancel it. That's a new bill that just got passed. Specifically like gym memberships where it was tough where if you want to cancel a gym membership, you have to go to the gym and show your ID to cancel the membership. When I signed up, I put two buttons it's so well yeah yeah yeah nobody had to go down here i'll have

to go down here and cancel and that's what i think it is i think they found a way to streamline thoughtless spending where like basically when you leave like you know like an old navy there's all those trinkets and like here's a soda here's this and that you buy it you're like i'm already spending 50 bucks what's two more dollars i think subscriptions are just being like they'll forget they're spending eight dollars a month that's exactly what it is I mean for a while people I mean I actually go to the plan of penance and use my membership but there was times I wasn't and it was just sitting there and I was like ah it's 10 bucks but I'll go there next month because that's I think most people's like I'll go back next month and then now I saw the new ads

they're 15 a month yeah so it's bad that also a really brutal, like capitalistic one of like, you're basically having to confront like your financially healthy self has to look at your desired healthy self. And you say, look, I'm not using this membership. And then the financially healthy one to keep me doing is like, oh, so you don't care about your body anymore. You're just going to give up. It's like, well, yeah, I never use it anymore. And it's like, well, so I guess you're just trying to throw it in the towel now

and then you just never cancel it. And then you have it for 35 years. I've got a membership. It's still here. I'm still paying for it. Well, I mean, that is actually affordable. And I think from my perspective, I go to the gym on there an hour and I'm out.

I don't need to socialize. But there's people that go to the gym in my town where it's $200 a month and they just sit there for hours. I pay $160 a month. And I'm like, why are you paying $200 a month? I pay $160 a month and I go 45-minute classes maybe three times a week. So that's part of it, though. It's an LGBT month?

It's crazy, dude. It's crazy. I don't know why. I like the place, but I don't know why I do it. I don't use it. You're doing hot yoga with goats, too? Yeah, dude. Go to medium yoga. No more, dude. Go to medium yoga.

No more hot yoga. Go to chilly yoga. Dude, if I was at a SoulCycle class and I saw your tall-ass peek up from one of the bikes, I'm calling the cops. Dude, I used to date a spin instructor never again. I hate spin. Yeah. Hate spin. Well, that's also why you can't date her.

Oh, you were trying to catch up with her? Yeah. I was always behind. Always behind. Always behind. Eating dust. That is a terrifying. All right. This might be your last one.

But like the idea of being in a spin cycle class and there's a woman in front of you and you're on a bike and you're trying to speed up. That's going to reactivate some not good parts of your brain. There's a woman on a bike in front of you and you're like, oh, I gotcha. We go to position two. It looks like I'm like trying to chase her. It does. It does. That's probably why they do does. That's why you keep going back.

Position two and three looks like I'm chasing this small five, two woman. And I'm just not getting anywhere. We're both not getting anywhere. Congrats. You called her. It's like, all right, I gotta, I gotta go back to plant fitness, I guess. Exactly. Well, Brad, thanks, man, for coming on. Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you guys. It was a lot of fun.