Makin’ Heady at Maker Studios!

If you didn’t know, we post our one of a kind music content on YouTube. Although we kill it on the Tube on the reg, we still love having help navigating it’s choppy waters. Enter our partner network, Maker Studios. They’re here to make sure we maximize our YouTubeness to its utmost potential.  So to signify our joining the Maker network we thought what better way then to pull the Jam Van onto their property and shoot some sessions.

Maker thought this was a good plan, so they gave us the gate code and ordered a bunch of tacos so that all the Maker employees, AKA the Makers, could have some lunch and listen to some music.  Apparently if you put “free tacos” in an email the entire office will show up.

It was supposed to be the biggest rain storm Los Angeles had seen in half a decade. It started out strong with thunderstorms all through the night, but as we all know, the Jam Van is kind of magical, and so the rain kind of magically took a chill pill for the bulk of the day, and only decided to return after we packed up our gear and called cut.

We were able to slide five sessions and three episodes of Cuz’s Corner into that rain-free window. Our friends from Ploom were on hand showing artists how to use their rad devices, the Pax and Ploom, and as always, there was plenty of Lagunitas to go around. Our sounds on the day were provided by our new QSC soundsystem, which has added a whole new type of thump to our productions. This concludes the sponsored portion of this blog entry…

Our first performer showed up with just a guitar and a smile, and that’s more than enough. Melissa Polinar is kind of a big deal in the YouTube world, and this shoot was kind of all about YouTube, so you know…

She was followed quickly behind by none other than Ms. Noelle Bean, an old favorite around these parts who now happens to live around these parts. Spud buttoned the top button on his shirt to see Ms. Bean again, and if black people can blush, he was doing it when she arrived. Her set was stripped down with just her and a guitar player, and damn, girl can sing. With only the guitar behind her it put an emphasis on her voice, which as you will see, is top notch. Spud got his one on one time with Bean during Cuz’s Corner. To be truthful, I never even realized the cameras were rolling during the interview, I thought they were just hanging out, then they called cut. It’ll be a good episode.

The middle set of the day was a man you may know from his several stabs at reality television, but Mr. Cisco Adler is also a musician with a melow vibe to his tunes. His music was easy going as was his session. No re-takes, no hassle, just a few jams, and a hang with Spud during which we learned that Cisco thinks highly of his basketball skills. He challenged Spud and myself to a game, so we can set that up, but Cisco, you might want to go watch some tape first, just sayin…

Cisco’s buddies Radical Something were in the four slot. This session will go out to all you heads who dig Sublime. They come with that vibe and they do it rather well. They also had the first combo bass/drum machine player. His name was Big Red. I think he got this name because he’s pretty big and pretty red.

They were the last to sit in Cuz’s Corner, and at the onset of the interview it seemed that Spud may have lost a bit of his zing from hitting his Pax all day. He tried to start with the line “Something radical is going down, with Radical Something,” but the band cut him off before he got a chance to spit it all out because they thought that he botched their name.  Spud was not stoked on having his line sullied, but he’s a professional, so he pushed on.  All went smoothly until a comment on how well the lead singer could use his pipes came off wrong.  Spud had what we’ll call an error of verbage when he said “this guy is blowing, everybody.” He meant “blowing” to mean singing, and he meant “everybody” to mean everyone take notice, but it came off sounding like this guy is blowing everybody. Spud didn’t take any mind of it, everybody else did.

Night fell, the intern crashed the drone, and the tacos were long gone, but we still had one more act. Rixton had come all the way from the UK, we like to think just to Jam in the Van, but I guess they might have had a couple of stops at some place called MTV or something like that before hand. Whatever, they made it to their most important destination, and although pop music is a rare occurence in the Jam Van, there is no rule against it, especially if it’s done well. And listen up, these dudes were blowing, everybody. I kid, I kid. Their harmonies were in fact very on point, and it was an upbeat way to end the day. If you ever wondered whether or not Spud can jive to Brittish pop music, wait til you see the reaction he gave to Rixton. I didn’t realize he had such a thing for boy bands, he apparently does, and as he puts it “good music is good music, and this was good music.”

It was in fact all good music. An entire day of it. Great to have made it with you Maker Studios, let’s do it again real soon…