Third Gear Scratch

HUM guitarist / singer Matt Talbott is the celebrant for the live taping of the 100th episode of TGS at Fitzgeralds in Berwyn IL and it did not disappoint the sold out crowd who got to know about not only Matts work with HUM but about his bar/venue Loose Cobra, his studio Earth Analog, his solo career doing house shows across the US and how that has changed his life. We also get to hear from him about his drummer Bryan St Pere who had just passed less than a week prior. Matt is so funny and dry; an intellectual who's down to earth and so full of passion, pain and love for his music, his bandmates and his family. Not to be missed.

Bassist / Owner of Drugan's Drums Johnny Drugan was raised just how you'd think the son of a professional musician would be raised; surrounded by rock stars like Johnny Winters whose band his dad played bass in, soaking up the rich environment of smokey studios, life-changing guitar solos, and with off-days spent at flea markets learning to haggle and deal, gleaning the true worth of something before becoming a ripping bassist with bands like Beneath Me in the early 2000s and then ultimately focusing his talents on Drugan's Drums and Guitars about 10 years ago, turning into one of the regions most well-known purveyors of finely restored drum kits.

BlueMan Captain and Filmmaker Thomas "Boomer" Galassi has mastered the art of living the life he wants to live. He found BlueManGroup after moving to New York and surviving the rounds of soul-sucking auditions designed to tear the actor down and working temp jobs and got introduced to Chris, Matt and Phil, the original three BlueMen who subsequently put him through six months of training before finally informing him he'd been hired into his dream job, but it wasn't until a certain psychedelic experience allowed him to find his character: himself. To boot, he and his brother Adam are filmmakers and have three feature length films under their belts and scores of appearances in film festivals across the globe.

Punkrocker turned documentary filmmaker Eric Fundingsland first full-length film "Why Am I Doing This?" A Film About Touring is a funny and insightful look into the often undignified world of touring in a rock band that can be sketchy even on the best of days. He talks with rockers like Steve Albini, Tim Midyett, Joe Preston and many more about why they do what they do, and when asked why they continue to tour some are actually not sure why. We talk about how he made the film and what it took to edit over 500 gigs of footage together and why he undertook the whole thing in the first place. His band The Bismarck tell hilarious horror stories that are so relatable and familiar you'd cry if you weren't laughing. Hail Hail rock and roll.

Before Alianna Kalaba began playing bass in FACS with Brian Case (Disappears/Ponys/Episode 2 of TGS) she had been and still is Chan Marshall aka Cat Power's drummer for most of a decade playing festivals, touring the world and living the life of a working musician that can only be dreamed of. Now as FACS releases Present Tense (Trouble in Mind) their 4th record in 4 years, she talks about her life and how she's created this amazing career a reality, from her early Chicago band We Regazzi, her roaring '20s, the stability of her relationship with her partner, exploring the reasoning behind her never-questioned decision to become a full-time troubadour, it's a revealing rap with a prodigious musician.

Producer oddCOUPLE aka Zach Henderson had a revelation that his life is supposed to be about creating music and whatever has to happen will happen and has happened to make this a reality. His work with artists like Chance the Rapper, Jamila Woods and Joey Purp has helped to establish him as a producer to be reckoned with, pulling the best out of those artists to make their visions come to life. Now he's releasing his third album Reflections with features from Jamila Woods, theMIND and Kweku Collins and it's already making waves and is a powerful reminder of the creative talents of this man. Pitchfork and Spin and XXL mag already spilled the beans on oddCOUPLE. More proof: his hustle and ambition have led him into the role of Music Director for Oprah Winfrey's 2020 Vision Tour.

oddcouplemusic.com

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Cloakroom bassist Bobby Markos didn't realize his journalism degree from college would split him into his current state of existence as a touring musician half the time and as a racing speedway historian with volumes of knowledge accumulated through years spent with his dad Bob Markos they then turned into MarkosRacingMedia, a collaboration in which they've made 4 full-length documentaries about the race tracks of yesteryear. This wealth of info has led him into his current role as a consultant and buddying TV personality on a new NBC Peacock show called Lost Speedways starring Dale Earnhardt Jr and is now in it's second season, while his ground-breaking band patiently awaits their return in early '22 with a new record already in the can.

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Producer / Engineer / Mixer John Agnello is now a legend after having learned from other legends first-hand like Jimmy Iovine and Shelly Yakus in his years at the RecordPlant as an assistant engineer before launching his own career with bands like The Outfield and The Hooters. That work opened the indie-rock world to John as the go-to guy for bands like Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Kurt Vile, Jawbox, Chavez, Drive By Truckers among thousands. He's an aural chameleon and explains how he loves working with bands to help them find exactly what's missing, even when they didn't know it was.

Johnagnello.com

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Spotlights bassist Sarah Quintero delves deep and raps with Allen about, among other things, Liz Cheney, the ups and downs of being in a band with her husband Mario (turns out it's almost all ups), their time as a two-piece band traveling with backing drum tracks and how that helped them hone and shape their live show, the power of playing live, how silly and restrictive genre labels are for bands like theirs that successfully straddle several, why she doesn't care what anyone thinks about her career choices and we talk about when she realized she wasn't a part-time rocker who worked temp gigs; she had become a full-time musician and it was right.

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Composer Ian Hultquist quit his band Passion Pit in 2014 when they were at the height of their success, from spots on SNL to headlining Madison Square Garden to pursue his original goal of scoring for film and TV, specifically leaning into documentaries like Ivory Towers, Go For The Gold and First Monday In May and features like My Blind Brother (Nick Kroll/Adam Scott) before his current TV series Dickenson for Apple TV +. We wander around through his time at Berklee in Boston right as Passion Pit was blowing up on MySpace (yep) and went straight to the top, to his current life as half of the composing team with his wife Sofia as they literally write at the piano together, while also even more literally holding their newborn daughter, born at the dawn of the pandemic.

IanHultquist.com

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