Welcome to How's Your Stool? Go where we'll pull up a stool and find out if things are really going. Not just the gig, not just the music, but what's happening when the apps and the lights get turned off. Because if you ask a musician how they're doing, you get one answer. I'm your host, Dave Randall, and today I'm sitting down with me. So let's get a stool sample. Okay. Well, uh, I'm gonna get this little thing uh underway here. Uh haven't done this before. It's just me today. I uh figured I'd take a few minutes and explain how this stool got here. I mean, uh, you know, I have guests on every week and um and they talk about uh their stool and what it's like to sit on it, and enough about that. But uh I came up with an idea of doing a podcast uh a little over a year ago, just as a project. Uh let me be straight up and honest and say I do not have any desire to be an internet personality or whatever, whatever, whatever. Um I'm a techie guy, and I'm gonna talk a little bit about how I became a techie guy and how that techie guy found the music guy and uh and how we ended up here. And uh yeah. So, well anyway, when I was a little kid, I I don't know, I was fascinated by science. I was one of those kids. Uh I wanted to be an astronaut, you know, like just growing up in the 60s, and the Apollo program was was you yeah, astronauts were superheroes, and I wanted to be one until it was pointed out to me that I needed 2020 vision to start, and you needed to be a test pilot for the U.S. Air Force, and since I was Canadian, that wasn't gonna happen. It would be another oh 30 years before the Canadian Space Agency started recruiting astronauts. So I was past my prime by then. But anyway, as a kid, as I say, I was um interested in technology, and um one of the ways that manifested itself in my life was uh just uh playing music, you know. Uh uh I was discovering music probably around I was maybe six, seven, somewhere in that that range. And my older sister Debbie had uh had her record collection and uh um yeah, she moved out west with her boyfriend to be husband at one point. Uh I was around eight when she moved out. So so we had all her records, in fact, all his records there. And uh a friend of mine um used to come over summer afternoons, nothing to do, and we'd pretend we had a radio station and we'd just play tunes, we'd spin records, and uh but the record player wasn't enough for me. I wanted it louder, so I used to go around to those big uh garbage collections, you know, uh once a month or whatever, whenever they had them, people would throw out kitchen sinks and stereos, and stereos back then were these massive furniture chunks of wood. Um, but they had big speakers in them. So I used to go around TVs, uh old stereos, whatever, and I'd just take out the speakers, bring them home, and wire them up. And uh yeah, I I thought I was making it louder, but I had no idea what impedance was in wiring in parallel or series. I I had just two wires, two wires had to go from here to there, from there to there. So it uh probably uh wasn't the best uh solution. Any in uh yeah, so that I mean, all of that. I remember I one Christmas I uh I asked my parents uh for a soldering iron, and uh up till then I'd been using an old uh iron from a wood burning kit, which was probably okay, but probably incredibly dangerous. And uh yeah, it was uh sort of the sign that uh I wasn't I wasn't a little kid anymore. I had aspirations and wanted to do things, so yeah, so I got uh I got a uh a soldering iron kit, and then yeah, I just experimented putting this, that, and the other thing together. Anyway, um moved on, went to high school, uh Lindsay Place High School, and uh pretty soon on, I I can't remember when, but I started working for what was called the IMO, the in intramedia office. It was it's where you went to rent projectors or whatever for the classroom and this, that. Uh it was also where the uh the high school radio station was, and after a couple of years of hanging out, I finally got the opportunity to uh to uh to run the the radio station, CFLP, broadcasting all the way to the afteria. And that was fun, and then along with that came um you know doing DJing for the school dances, sock ops in grade seven and eight, and then just later dances, and uh it was uh it was I just liked it. I you know, I mean I was a I was a good student in science and math and all that stuff. Um didn't really know where I was going, but I did like the sound aspect of things, even back then, even though I couldn't explain why I did or or or what drew me to it, but I definitely liked music. You know, back in those early days I cut my teeth on uh the monkeys, and uh yeah, I loved the monkeys back then, and but before I even discovered the Beatles, they were they were great, and then um yeah, my sisters had the the magical mystery tour album, and uh yeah, I I just w wanted to soak it all up. Um, my brother-in-law's mark, his record collection was a bit more eclectic for me, but it is where I did start seeing some more advanced music, Frank Zappa, Steely Dan, uh oh, many other stuff. He was he was a big blues fan, so there was Taj Mahal and uh all kinds of stuff that I still to this day don't really know at all. And um, but yeah, so that uh that's where that we started. I started with uh playing the records and then and then the music um in high school doing the radio station and just kind of I fell into like a 70s rock and roll kind of uh vibe. That was my that was my place, and uh I liked it and uh continued uh continued on and and then uh toward my latter years of high school is when I started getting into guitar just as a hobby, again, to kill time. Uh old old guitar in the closet, pulled it out, had a little booklet, and before you knew it, I was singing uh She'll Be Comin' Around the Mountain. And uh so anyway, well the music then and the tech sort of uh merged together in a sense because uh acoustic guitars were cool, but electric cool guitars were way cooler. So I uh it was soon to to get some um electrical instruments in and and through this time, this is like grade 11 through grade 11 and hanging out with uh my friend uh friends Tom, Pete, Bruce, uh non-musician Scott, but uh other non-musicians, but as musicians, you know, we'd we'd get together and and show each other what we'd done and what we were doing, and uh I remember whoa way back we didn't have any recording equipment, but I knew I wanted to get something recorded and and like so uh we didn't have any money or gear, so I I don't even know where I got this stuff from, but I had a some it wasn't meant for mixing instruments or anything or recording, but we did manage to pull together a system where we could record two guitars at the same time, and it was um rocket science. Um but anyways, anybody could have recorded two guitars at the same time. Just put a microphone in front of the two guitars and hit record. Um I clearly was thinking along the lines of multi-track recording, separate individual, individual tracks. Uh I was getting ahead of myself because I sincerely had no idea what I was doing. We were just having fun. Um, and I well, I will remember a session trying to get down. I can't remember what Neil Young song, what Neil Young's song song, Neil Young's song it was. But uh yeah, I remember we worked on that for a few hours in in in my bedroom. Um, and uh I don't even I if we got something down on tape, I have no idea where it is, but that'd be fun to listen to. Anyway, so moving on high school, uh graduated high school, you know. I mean, I'm I I did fine, got to CJEP and discovered a complete apathy for education at that point. And at this point, I was playing more guitar than than ever. Um I'd really leaned more onto the guitar side of things than and more music side of things than than tech. And I, you know, I was done at the radio station, I wasn't DJing or anything like that anymore. So it was just music, and then you know, before you know it, you're or um you're putting pulling people together to make a band kind of thing. And well, one of the requirements of a band is you need microphones and and speakers and an amplifier that you can hear hear the vocals through. And uh yeah, I didn't know anybody who owned one, and there was you could go rent them, so we had to go rent it. And Mike Petrie was the guy, he had a shop down in Lachine, and I don't know, uh I don't know what the store was called, but Mike Petrie was one of the sweetest, nicest guys in the world. He's he saw the full spectrum of us. I mean, he was really one of the only, I mean, unless you went way downtown, he was one of the only people out here towards the West End that who had music gear uh uh and he'd have musicians coming and begging and borrowing, and he was always very kind and and helped us out, and uh God bless him. Well, uh, so we started renting gear, and I think that's when I started moving into another level of like professional electronics. I wasn't wiring things together anymore, but uh I was still really intrigued and and um uh fascinated about how it all worked and how it went together, and you know, learned things through those early days and and that served well. Uh, you know, why does the sound distort when I turn this up like this? And so understanding about gain and equalization a bit, you're your base and your mids and your highs, and and you know, it was all all very basic, but uh uh that was sort of the next level of learning. And in the early years, uh we had generally had a sound guy working our gigs with us mostly, unless it was a really small room and there was like zero point to having a sound man. But uh yeah, Jeff Lewis did sound and lights for us for quite a while. Um this is back in the 80s, and um yeah, he was a fun guy to have around always good for a laugh. Uh anyway, so yeah, so moving on, and then um towards the end of the 80s, I'd reached a point where I, you know, basically a shitter get off the pot kind of thing. I I I didn't feel like music was gonna do anything, bring me anywhere, advance. And I I mean honestly, but you know, I'm not it's it's it's not it's not anyone's fault in there, not the industry's fault, not whatever, just me. I was impatient, I wanted to um you know move on. I was becoming an adult, and uh so I decided to go back to school and I really just put everything behind me. But what did I go back to school in? Computer science, which I realized in particular after I graduated and started working, how similar uh compute software programming was uh to creating music. Uh, I used to say this when we were talking about um quality control in software. I said for every engineer, or oh, for take an algorithm and give it to 10 engineers, and they will program that algorithm ten different ways. And it because there was this sort of license and freedom in in how you implemented the instruction set for the computer to do that particular thing. And I found that very and and then beyond that, then you get into like in music, you do arranging, you you write a small part, and then you have another small part, and how do you put those together? Well, that's arranging. Well, in in software, that's that's system integration. And I was I I just I just love that. I love uh the designing something to be part of something bigger, and and when it fits together properly and everything works just right, you know, that was uh that was really rewarding and uh as rewarding as it was um composing music and playing music, and it was like there it works, that's that's fantastic. Um yeah, so through the 90s into the early 2000s up to 2000, I'm gonna say three or four, maybe a little bit later, but I um the tech industry kind of took a left turn uh on everybody in the early 2000s, 2001. Of course, there was 9-11, then after that there was the dot-com bubble burst, and even though I wasn't directly involved in that, it it had a big impact. And though I had gone back to university to get a skill, to you know, get a uh uh something beneath my belt, something to quote fall back on, um, because the music thing didn't work, it was later on in life when that industry kind of sort of fell out from under my feet, and I found myself um relying on music initially just as a as a cathartic outlet for you know being unemployed sucked uh big time and especially with a family. Um but I found music again, uh like quite literally again. I I it had been so many years uh since I had um last really played, and I was out meeting people and playing, and and it's uh it's uh kind of like crack because once you get a taste for it, it draws you back in. And um, yeah, there's it it really it's it's really enamoring. Um playing music, I don't know, uh I'm sure there's all kinds of chemicals like dopamine and uh whatever brain other brain chemicals happen, but when music happens for me anyway, it's uh an exhilarating, um some people call it soul fulfilling. Uh I think it's just brain chemistry, but that's the tech in me. But whatever it is, it feels freaking fantastic. And uh I just yeah, I really got into it. Now coming back around, I I was sort of like reapproaching the the music scene, and uh things had changed, like uh technology had changed. Uh we were moving into a digital world of music. Uh I had grown up largely on analog gear, and in fact, as I was getting back into music, I was acquiring gear uh because I hated the idea of renting. So I was you know, got my first little sound system and then I built on that, and and it was all analog stuff, and that's the world I came from. The 80s, uh the 80s was everything was was analog, and and then as time went on, um started to get into digital, and uh uh well I so I I decided to make the leap and uh get myself a digital mixer. Now which digital mixer? I had I really didn't know, and obviously price and cost were were uh of fundamental importance. So I ended up I did my research and I found that the Behringer X32, and um if you're uh a sound guru or whatever, you're probably gonna groan. But I'll tell you that that that board over there is um it's worth its weight in gold. It's very inexpensive. Um some people laugh at it because it's got so many colors on it, like all the all the channels have different colors. It's a it's almost like an arcade game. Um but I'll tell you, like I've worked with other digital boards and they are gray to black, and every ch everything on every channel looks the same, and uh it it's a huge learning curve to to figure out the workflow on those things. So the Behringer board was a little bit easier. It it and this is probably terrible English, but it was an analogy of analog signal processing. Uh there were some new elements, but basically the board had ins and outs, and much like an analog board, you just you know run the ins and send them to the outs, and and that sounds pretty like duh. But uh the this board truly a digital board. So when I really got into it, it was it was an all-consuming uh uh adventure for me because I was learning new things, and and not just because I had to figure it out, but it was like, oh, this feels so good. Like I will I really loved school because I loved learning, like it I'm bringing all this stuff in, I'm incorporating it into my own thought processes and my own perspectives and and and and how I go about things, and learning about this board uh taught me about how you know how digital processing works. And uh yeah, so it was great. Um I would say though that this is this board is a full 32-channel input board um with uh a work uh a work surface that can control all all of that. It's uh it it's pretty easy to work with, but in I don't I can't remember the last time I ran the board as a board. I use software on the computer that connects to the board and can control it infinitely easier than leaning over a board. You know, it's just so Bear Enter does have what's called the X32 Brack. Uh and um I I I needed this because I needed 32 inputs. I was doing a lot of live sound and I needed to be able to process 32 inputs, and otherwise I would have had to buy a digital snake for the rack mount because it I think it has very, if at all, any uh very limited um mono inputs on on the back of it. I think maybe eight or something. It's designed to be used with a digital snake, and just if if you don't the snake is the part where all the microphone cables get plugged in, and then in the old days it was one big massive cable carrying copies of those cables to the mixer, but digital snake sends it out over a computer cable, Ethernet wire, and uh it's very simple, it's very lightweight. Uh, but again, another you know, like $2,500 for something like that. So I was all about you know keeping it, keeping the cost down because I'm self-funded. And um yeah, so that's that's the only thing. I have it now. I I'm not doing any uh external gigs sound or or anything like that. Um I I did for quite quite a few years. I did I worked the uh Big Brothers and Big Sisters uh of the West Island Rib Fest. I did that for nine years until it changed hands, and then I did it for another two years, but I just it's my first year I retired. And that kind of catches me up to uh where'd this stool come from? Um so I am professionally retired. I uh what is that? I in in ret. That's my term, in ret. So if you know what an incel is, that's somebody who's i involuntarily celibate means they can't get a date. I'm not laughing at you, just that's what it's. Says so I'm in ret. I am involuntarily retired. I uh I might have still been working had there been opportunities, but it was just such a slug after uh after all the years that I put in. I was like, uh I can't retire, so I will retire. And that was that. Um yeah, so uh, you know, I had like I said, I had Ribfest, that was a thing. I was still playing some music, doing sound for other bands in in in bars and stuff. I'd I'd stepped back a bit after COVID. I stepped back from performing myself, so I was more doing doing sound stuff, which which was very cool. And then at uh I can't remember when, uh maybe maybe two years ago, before I was like officially retired, I just I brought all my gear home and I started refusing gigs because I I don't want to, I didn't want to go out. I didn't want to want to do that. But at the same time, I had all this gear here and I I didn't exactly know what to do with it. Now, so I have a uh a music studio down here in the basement where I where I do this podcast, and um about you know again going back to to that like whatever 12, 14 year old, no, older than that, maybe 16-year-old trying to record uh two guitars on a on one tape. Um I'm still fascinated with recording. And uh so cool thing about that board over there is that it's uh it's got a um a digital interface, so uh via USB I can to send signals out of the board to my computer, and in my computer, then those signals get plugged into a DAW, and the DAW records it. And in fact, uh the capabilities of the mixer are probably beyond anything. I'll use it. I can I can send up to 32 independent channels to to the DAW. Um I haven't got it set up that way. It's set up for more personal recording where I have 16 channels, like vocals, guitars, whatever, can get sent out to the DAW, and the the other half of the board, the the next 32 channels, uh are receiving the signals back from the DAW. So um when I you know I when I've pre-recorded like recorded previously recorded a track, um, it it'll get sent back there so I can monitor it and lay down the new track. Anyway, I'm not explaining this well at all, but it's cool, it it can it can do it, and I have done some recording with it and it's fun and it's great, and it's uh it's a lot of fun. But as I said last year, I was uh the notion popped into my head that everybody's doing a podcast these days, and I listened to a few and I I do enjoy it. Um but again I reiterate my my objective was not to become uh some kind of internet personality or some sort of go-to guru like Rick Beato. Uh I was thinking, what what is what what is the common thread for me through the years from the 1970s to now that has to do with m music and my experience in music and um having some conversations with some people I know, I uh started to to think, huh, I know I have a lot of feelings, not all of them great, about music. A lot of great mus, you know, feelings, a lot of great times and memories. Um, but it can be it can be grueling to be uh to be a performer and a musician. Um when you think about it, when you go out to a club and and there's a band playing, those folks up there, but you don't know what they do during the day. Yeah, you don't know they have sit behind a desk all day or they've got six kids at home they're taking care of, or whatever their story. But they come out and they play and they are trying to do their best. And uh sometimes it goes great, sometimes it doesn't, and you don't always get to control how that turnout happens. Um and so I there's many other things, uh rejection. I mean, geez, I I think this is sort of a common thread with all artists in all domains of art that you know you're putting yourself out there, you're saying uh this is I I'm gonna represent uh how I'm feeling and express it in a way. If you're a painter, you paint. Uh yeah, as a musician, you play music or write and or play music. And um when it doesn't go well, it's tough. When somebody comes up to you and you're playing songs that you know you worked really hard on and you're you're proud of how you're you're doing them. And uh I mean I've had it happen to me. I there I was playing I'm not gonna say even where it was, but I was playing, it was an acoustic gig for me, and I was doing a beloved acoustic song. I I I I can't see what and this young woman in front of me was like fake slashing her wrists. I guess uh she wanted me to play Sweet On Alabama and I wasn't doing that, and I was I was floored by that. I thought, you s entitled selfish so-and-so. Like that was uh that was beyond rude, you know. Oddly enough, that person is now out there trying to perform themselves, and uh God bless them, uh, they've come a long way, and uh I've seen them and congratulated them. I certainly it did cross my mind to sit in front of them and pretend to slash my see I can't do that. But this is the thing. Um, coming home from a gig, yeah, there are nights you come home and you think, fantastic, that was great. I can't wait to go back and do that. Um, there are other nights that you don't feel like that. And if you ever wonder why so many musicians take substances or abuse substances, alcohol, drugs, um it's to help pad that feeling in your in inside you, in your heart, in your brain, to sometimes just to put yourself to sleep. And uh, I certainly became um a victim to that. I I I I didn't really get into the drug scene, but uh drank too much and smoked too much, and um yeah, it it's it's not a great it's not a great way of life. Um but then you overcome those things and you look back and wonder, huh, how did that happen? Like, so you know, as I as I say, starting out in the 70s and then playing in the 80s, um there was no talk of mental health. Uh you were if you showed signs of especially as a performer, you like you could you you you had to put on a brave face and go up there and smile and shake your hair around and and all that stuff, and um even no matter what you're feeling on the inside, and and uh it's just a tough gig. I I'm not a mental health professional by any means. I just know what I felt, and I know it's really sucked at times. And even uh to the extent of this podcast, uh, as it were, uh I was very fortunate when I, you know, I finally, as I said, I came up with a year ago, and then I, you know, it took me a while to like, what am I gonna do? And I had to like flesh out the idea. And then when I was ready to pull the trigger on it, I uh I just reached out to a lot of people that I know that I'd worked with, that I'd done sound for, one or or done something for in one way or another, and asked them all out. And those are the episodes that you can see on the on the site here. Uh great people, without hesitation, said, sure, do that. And uh I have been duly impressed at the honesty and frankness that these people have come to my little sit-down with. Um you know, the the the the title of the podcast is How's Your Stool? And yeah, it's a stupid pun on like so. As musicians, we often sit on stools on stage to do our to do our sets, particularly in an acoustic pub, whatever setting. Um, and then there's the other, you know, when you go to the doctor and uh he wants to find out what's really going on, you find out what a stool sample is. But anyway, it's it's just meant to get inside the musicians. Like, let's let's a bit more than the cordial, oh, it's nice to see you. Thanks for coming out to the gig. It's more the oh wow, yeah, it's tough. I haven't made anybody cry yet, but uh there's always the next one, you know. Um, but that's not my objective either. I don't I don't want people to cry. I want them to feel good, I want them to feel like uh they're opening up about things that they may not even know. I I I've been in touch with um a number of people who are reticent to come and sit down and talk, feeling like, oh, I I don't really have a lot to say. And I'm like, oh, you'd be surprised. So when I started this podcast, I I I you know, I came up, I where papers are, oh, they're over there. Um like I don't know, five, six pages of of segments and questions and so on. And what I found after like two doing two of them, uh I didn't need the paperwork, just the fundamental question. Uh who are you? You know, where were you raised? What's your background? When did you get into music? And I'm telling you, these folks, they just whether they knew it or not, they had it all inside them, and we talk, and uh, you know, the podcast world says, well, it should be no more than an hour. Um, but um, yeah, I don't I don't want to cut anybody off. Um, but they're all speak very freely, and it's really refreshing uh that that that these folks all have have something to say. But coming back to this week's episode, I uh I ran out of folks to to to do the episode, and I thought, no, I I in all honesty, I got bummed. I got, oh man, I've only been doing this for like two months, and yeah, it's it's it's getting hard. It it was remind, you know, it was reminding me of trying to get gigs uh as a musician, as a performer, trying to trying to get gigs, and you know, again, the whole rejection thing. It it it's uh probably a sore point for me, but I'm finding you know rejection is uh is a pretty tough pill to swallow for for most performers. And um, so I was I was feeling this. I'm going, oh, maybe I shouldn't have started this, maybe I shouldn't. Nobody's really caring. And then I thought, I re well thought, I reminded myself. Um you started this as a retirement project, a feel-good thing, to learn how to do something you never did before. And you're doing that. Whether you have a guest this week or no, um, I'm doing this now because just because uh I had the time and and everything's just sitting here. I just have to hit click and click and go. And uh yeah, it's um it it but really it caught me for a second. I I I was like, oh, these are these are those those ugly feelings. And then um when I sort of shook my shook it off and I said, don't worry about it. No one's no one's sitting there with bated breath. Uh, you know, there's no bar manager screaming over your back and and telling you I remember this one guy. Again, no names. Um it was a it was a terrible little venue, but it was a gig. And uh the owner was uh uh uh an older guy uh from from the old country. And uh so we we went in, a place was usually dead, and and uh um and except for the people who had their backs to you because they're playing the poker machines at the far end of the room. And so we did a set, even though there was nobody there, we did a set, and and then we went to sit down, and then the the the the guy who owned the place came over to me and he goes, uh David, uh uh you know, uh we we have people who are walking in the door. I I'm not doing the good accent, I'm just gonna, David, there were people are walking in the door. Uh, you know, like you should uh jump back up there and show them that there's live music. And I'm like, I'm not the piano man, you know, like yeah, I have to coordinate these guys and get back up there and make sure it's not it I and I was um excuse I was uh I was charmed by it in a certain sense, but I thought at the same time, you old fucker, fuck shut up. Uh why are you even having bands? I don't know how many times I've asked bar owners that why are you even having bands? Like clearly you don't want to pay for talent, and um, but I'm digressing. Um what this was all about was the now, and I am um, as I said, it it took a beat. I had to take a beat to um to come to terms, like none of this matters. So I hope you guys are enjoying it. Um I've purposely left comments off on uh on all the well, I think I think you can still comment on Facebook or whatever, but uh I I uh like uh on the on YouTube and stuff, because I don't know. I don't know, just uh I'm happy, I'm happy with it. My guests have been happy. They listen to their episodes and share it with their friends and family, and and uh they've all reported back uh that uh they thought it uh that it went nicely. And um that makes me happy because that's really when I sit down with the folks here, uh that's what it's about is that catching up, the commiserating, the yeah, we we we live through that and learning from their experiences excuse me, uh the many things I never did. Uh, you know, one of the things talked about with people is uh being sent to Newfoundland. That was a booking agency, talent management, I don't know what they were. Um I wasn't a big fan, but um yeah, their first thing, if they did get a band in, first thing they do is they pack you off to uh to Newfoundland uh staying in fleabag motels. And if you come back without diphtheria, then you can um then you you can get some gigs locally in Montreal. And I I thought, oh geez, that would have I I don't know, I just would have crushed my soul uh uh doing that. Um I love Newfoundland. Oh my god, I think it's the greatest place in the world, but that slog playing it late nights, sleeping in literally fleabag hotels. Um I heard stories of musicians coming home off the road with fleas. And uh yeah, it's I don't know. There's that's not paying your dues. That's just um yeah, that's just a talent agency or talent booking, whatever you want to call them, making money off your back. And uh there's better ways to do things now. Uh and I hope to get into some of those discussions. So far, most of the folks I've had on here, and with some intention on my part, most of the folks have been from the 80s. They they performed in the 80s, and um, and as I said, we've we've talked to the notion of how different things are from the 80s to now. The only thing that's not different is the pay. I mean, quite literally, musicians in the 80s were paid uh a hundred bucks a night, and today, yeah, a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty if you're really good and you bring out a crowd, but it's not there's there's no scale to to the compensation for for being an artist. You you have to love it. You have to love it. Um, a lot of musicians I know are also teachers to you know pay the bills and keep the lights on. And um that's uh that's fine, that's great. Teaching is great. I I tried it, I I couldn't do it. The hardest part for me was keeping the kids motivated um to practice and rather than just showing up and them wanting me to teach them some pop song, which they weren't ready for. But anyway, God bless you all you music teachers out there, because um it's hard, it's hard to to you know, there are some kids, you'll get kids, and and they're like they're just sponges, they're they're all about the music and they love it. Any they'll take whatever they can get from you. Um, but there's other kids, like there's obviously your your glorified babysitter at that point. Uh yeah, so uh where does that bring us to? Well, we're getting close to the end. I don't know what I've talked about here, but um yeah, I'm I'm doing something I really, really, I truly enjoy. I I um uh I've got all this stuff here and I'm glad I'm making use of it. There was a concern when I first retired that I'd never come down here and never use this stuff again. Like when I say retire, I mean retire professionally, but also retire from from playing in bands and whatnot. And um I I I I I like working alone. I I don't that sounds terrible. I like collaborating with people, but I like working alone because I'm um I'm a I'm a little picky, a little uh OCD uh in terms of like, you know, things I like things to line up. Um well hell, I was a computer scientist, so I'm all about zeros and ones, everything's gotta be right angles. Uh and that's um, yeah, that's where that's where my head is at, and that's what I'm doing down here. Um wrap it up right about here, cuz um that's about it. Um I hope you enjoyed it. Uh I didn't really talk about the podcasting um business, service, how it works. Uh it's really quite simple. I was actually quite intimidated. I'll just just finish off with that as I was uh I was quite intimidated. Um I just didn't again, it's it's for me it when I get into something, I go head first and 20 feet down um and and learn on the way back up as I'm trying to breathe. Uh and that's that's kind of what I did here is is just get into it. But remarkably, it's so easy. I'm not sponsored by anybody. I get no money for doing any of this, but I'll I'll mention a few names. So excuse me. Uh Buzz Sprout. So uh I did a lot of I did a lot of uh checking around and um a lot of strong recommendations for Buzz Sprout, uh, which is a service. So uh I record a show. Um just you know you could you could record a show on your phone, just just dictate into your phone, seal it up, and then you upload it to Buzz Sprout, you know, you've already created your account and and and your podcast name and everything, and they do a fantastic job of of uh managing all of that. So um I record it, I upload it, and then uh I select which so uh I there there's a they provide uh a web interface for your page, like a uh a personalized web interface. So your episodes are all listed there, and that's usually where I send people, but they also manage your installation on podcast services like Spotify, Apple, uh iHeartRadio, uh I don't know who I don't I don't know. That there's more than a dozen there. I just like click, click, click, click, click, click, and selected them all. Um, personally, I listen to all my podcasts on Spotify. There's no fee for that. Uh, I mean, I I I'm paying Buzz Sprout, uh, it's not expensive. It's like 20, 25 or 27 bucks a month, and that gives me the storage space, like they'll store up to so many hours of podcast material per month, and then you know, it and then it re-clocks for uh for the next month, and that's more than enough for me. I try to put out about um a one-hour episode every week, so that's like you know, four hours a month. So it's more than enough, but it's just so easy, like like I said, they manage pushing it out to those other podcast services, and um uh yeah, and what's the other the other part? Um, I will mention so we we do talk about AI in the show a bit in terms of how it's impacting the artist world and. Good, bad, whatever. There's lots of opinions on it out there. Um, I use Chat GPT. Um, you know, I first downloaded it when it was first became available on on the iPhone. I I I downloaded it and just played around with it. And I I post far too many AI joke images, particularly political, uh, on my Facebook page. And that's all it was to me at first. But then when I started you know bearing down on this notion of a podcast, I it it helped me so much just to formalize my ideas. I could just type in, okay, an outline, and then it would formalize it into like a document like this. You know, six chapters on how to do this episode. Notice I haven't looked at it once, but it it it helped me uh think, oh, okay, okay, I can I can talk about that and flesh this out here and there. And uh so chat GPT, so that's like 25 bucks a month. Pro Tools for recording is about 25 bucks a month subscription on that. Um yeah, Buzz Pro 25, that's 25. Chat GPT, so 75 uh what else is there? Not much, not much at all. I'm using uh retired uh iPhones to shoot video. Um as I mentioned, I had 90% of the gear uh ready. Headphones, mixers, speakers, the whole the whole here setup. Uh the only investments I've made since I started was hang on a second. 1499. This was the video factor from Amazon. Love it. Uh I think that's about it. But I have I have added some some gear. Um the lights I'm using here are old show lights. They probably look like crap, but they're whatever. What else did I get? Well, I guess the biggest investment I made, two big investments recently. Uh so I'm not a video guy, I don't know how to make videos. I video editing is is uh still a bit of a mystery. I mean, I mean, luckily there's a really good tool, Resolve, uh, by Da Vinci. It's free, it's very WYSI-wig. What you see is what you get. It with minimal knowledge, it's a great little tool to package things up. Of course, it can go into depths of technology that I don't even want to touch because again, knowing me, I'll just go over overboard on it. But anyway, um, yeah, so doing doing the video and resolve. But one thing is, um, so right now I just I got one camera on me. You people are just listening to it. You can always go over to YouTube. There's a House Your Stool channel on YouTube, and uh video for every episode is posted there. If you want to see what people look like, it's it's the same, it's the same content. Um so I got but when I do a podcast, I have two cameras, one on me, one on the guest. Um, I'd like to add a third. Uh I have all kinds of other ideas, but it's it's like I only have two hands, and and I I've got to be interviewing somebody and at least monitoring the you know the the recording. Um so I can't, I just but there are there's places I want to go. So I got a uh timecode generator for to put on Pro Tools, put on each of the cameras, so when I if I'm doing disparate segments, uh they're easily pulled together. You if you're interested, you can go look up typecode generators. I um I bought the one from Saramonic. Um it had the best features that I was interested in, and then the other big investment uh which was um these microphones. Uh, this is a sure SM7B. I bought two of them. Um I'm not one to just buy something because everyone else does, but uh it these microphones do sound great, they are designed, ideally designed, uh, for voice. Um, just the dynamics on them, the noise rejection, and so on. And um, if you see me on this video with this microphone, and then you go look at other podcasts, you're gonna see 90% of them use these SM7Bs. I had other great uh studio microphones, um high-quality dynamic microphones, but they are too good, they pick up everything, they pick up the fan on the on the the the central heating system here. They yeah, the they picked up too much, and these are these a little bit better, they focus on the voice, um, and they're not they're not too too boomy. And that's about it for today, folks. Uh I'm just gonna just leave it at that, and um I think I know who's gonna be on next week's episode, but we we will come back with a human being for me to talk to next week. And until then, um how's your stool? Mine's okay. And we're gonna wrap it at that. Thanks everybody, have a good week. Oh, it's La Fête Nationale today here in Quebec, so everybody's out partying and drinking Labat Blue and and whatever, and I'm sitting here in the basement. Uh there you go. But I got my exposed hat on, so I'm a team player. Um, have a good week, folks. Talk to you later. Alright, that's a wrap. Huge thanks to me for pulling up the stool and hanging out. If you liked what you heard, great, because I didn't have anything else for you today. Support local music, go to a show, buy some merch, make some noise. Before we go, one last check-in. How's your stool? I'm Dave Randall. This is how's your stool? Catch you next time. Spin up and moderate production.