Guest Blog

Apr 30
0

Behind the Board: Christian Heilman

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We are so excited to share some insights on this week’s Behind the Board from local engineer Christian Heilman. Christian is a live sound engineer at Seattle’s Triple Door, sound designer at Teatro Zinzani, and the recording engineer, consultant, and product specialist at Keith McMillen Instruments. Christian is known for his stellar reputation not only as a passionate and experienced engineer, but also as one of the most engaging and accommodating professionals in the Seattle music scene. Artists constantly request his presence behind the board, and for good reason. Christian shares some of his secrets on working in both live and studio environments and what has led to his success with so many artists, venues and producers. Heed his wisdom!

In my 25 years as an audio engineer, I have stumbled across a few key tips and concepts that have stuck with me and served me well. These small nuggets of wisdom I share with you were passed onto me and I will try to credit accordingly. One good piece of wisdom or advice can really change the trajectory of your life and the quality of your work.

In no particular order, my 8 gems of wisdom for audio folk:

1) “Learn to Fail Fast” – Steve Turnidge. Steve is a good friend of mine, and an ace mastering engineer. This is perhaps one of his best and most simple philosophical axioms. When trying things or experimenting, dive in big and quickly and “fail fast!” Especially when you’re working for others, find out as soon as possible if they’re not feeling some aspect of what your are doing. Related to this, I have always felt it takes about as long to try something as it does to argue about its merits. If it’s a good (or bad) idea, it will be obvious after trying it out. Engineer/Producer Oz Fritz has a similar point to add to this concept with this gem: “Be open-minded to what works and is effective, not just what you think will work.”

2) “You are making one sound wave”. Another Oz Fritz nugget, he sees a mix not as a number of instruments playing simultaneously, but as one force working together. Thus the individual tweaking of things should be in service of the net result: the vibe, emotion and message of the artist. Listen holistically as well as surgically. How does the mix make you feel?

3) “Performance is everything, sound is secondary. Spending time on headphone mixes is time better spent than listening to a kick drum for an hour.” – John Cuniberti. Hear hear, this is SO true. Whatever you can do to make the artist comfortable and hear them better will be reflected in the performance both in live performance and studio sessions. Prioritize the artists’ comfort and monitoring happiness above your own desire to move on to something else. If they can’t hear or are uncomfortable, you’ll be way less likely to get that killer performance.

4) “It’s better to sound new than to sound good,” – Dave Pensado. Wow, how true. Being creative is its’ own reward. In my opinion (and Dave’s) if you want to make a hit or something world-shaking, then maybe the best approach is to be bold, be unique and be audacious. Break the mold and avoid safe clichés or habits or trends. I believe modeling someone else’s currently successful style almost never results in lightning striking twice. Find yourself. When I get to produce, I try to steer people to make something unique and fresh but still appropriate to who they are as artists. If you’re creative and true to yourself, you’ll be much more likely to succeed, and when you do, you only have to play stuff you like every night. ; )

5) “Be prepared” – many sources. I always try to have things in order when I am captain of the ship for gigs and sessions. If clients can flow right into music making without seeing any heroic efforts to set things up or solve technical mysteries, it makes everything flow smoother. Be early. Producer Brian Eno always used to whip up a loop or have interesting sonic things going on when U2 arrived to work. I really feel creating a place of creative calm and order, like a temple for music is what really can foster great creation and capture. Have snacks and water and tea at the ready. Get instruments up and ready to use quickly. Be ahead of the artist.

6) “I’m just trying to make my favorite music. That’s how I work; I just do things based on the way they feel to me. I want to be touched by the music I’m making. Luckily, other people have shared that response to my work over the years.” – Rick Rubin. This statement, for me, really hits home. My ideal and vision for why I make music in a producer mode is simply so others can be affected by it like I was touched by my favorite music. A lot of harkening back to my childhood and teen years goes into music for me, we ingest all this great stuff and our tastes guide us. Sometimes standing on the shoulders of giants that inspired us can lead us into new territory as well.

7) “Don’t sign anything.” – Steve Albini. Today’s music business can allow you to do most of it yourself… so do it. Don’t give away publishing, don’t allow others to make business decisions that will influence your creative efforts in negative ways. It’s a new world for bands and artists, and the DIY stories of local artists blowing up such as Allen Stone and Macklemore, show us there’s many paths to success these days. Making great music is still the biggest asset to this goal. Educate yourself on what not to do in the music biz.

8) “Do anything, but let it produce joy.” ― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass. While not specifically a music quote this strikes at the heart of things. When we live and work we should be joyful. We should be around those who bring us joy, those who we can relate to. Pick work that brings you joy, life is short so be choosy in how you spend your time. For me, I can think of nothing more joyful than mixing a great show, or seeing an artist smile upon playback of a fine mix. I feel so fortunate to do this for my living.

So that’s a few of the axioms that have guided my career as a musician, engineer and producer. I still feel I have a lot to learn, and I suppose that openness to new things will always be something that is helpful in our “industry.” I hope I can retain that. The music and the joy within is what leads me on. Rock on.

Apr 23
3

Interns, Ludacris, and Discovering Music When it Matters

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Hey friends! Meet one of our intrepid interns, Maddie. Maddie came to us with a huge love of rap and hip hop, and when she told us that she bought a Ludacris album when she was barely old enough to know curse words, we knew we had to let her tell her story. The music we discover when we are young always makes an impression, and we are so happy hers led her to work with us.

It is the day after Christmas 2004 and I am sitting in the back of my parents car clinging onto my most precious possession. That year I had received matching Hello Kitty headphones and a Discman. This was the greatest gift of my young life because finally I could buy CDs to start my very own music collection. I had my parents up bright and early that day to drive to the store so I could buy CDs . As I sat in the car impatiently staring out the window I thought about what I wanted.

I did not grow up in the Seattle area, I was raised in the south, born in Atlanta before spending some years in North Carolina. This meant I was exposed to a different musical landscape growing up. I remember hearing rap and hip hop on the radio as far back as my memory goes. Not only were the southern radio stations simply playing hip hop, they included local acts and more experimental rap on their stations. The ‘Dirty South’ provided me with my first glimpse into the complexity and creative energy of hip hop. I was intrigued by this music, because unlike many other genres I had been exposed to, it didn’t feel stagnant or boring. It was alive and growing and creating sounds no one had heard before.

I already knew what CDs I had to purchase. The most important one I could think of was The Red Light District by Ludacris. Ludacris would soon become my favorite rapper, and today I still consider him to be one of the best. As a kid I was attracted to his style because it was outlandish, cartoonish, filled with humor, and his music was as catchy as you can get. I mean, have you seen the cover? I thought it was the funniest thing when I first saw it.

As soon as I got home I plugged in my headphones, plopped right down on my bed, and turned on Ludacris. I knew that many of the things he was rapping about were probably not things my parents would love, and of course that added to the appeal. But I was young, and if I’m being honest, I usually had no idea what he was talking about. My first experience with rap was listening to how the words resonated and played off the beat. I heard music in a different way from then on, focusing on how each part of the song connected to create the experience. The song that influenced me most from that album, even though it has an amazing track list, was “The Potion.” The production made it sound like something from the future. It sounded brand new and I loved it.

In 2008, when I was in 8th grade, I moved from the South all the way to the awesome Pacific Northwest, where I experienced some intense culture shock. A lot about the South was different than Seattle, but the biggest shock was that my friends weren’t listening to rap. They were living off a musical diet only of folk and indie rock. I saw that rap was considered incredibly uncool, the opinion being that it was too corporate and not relatable to at all. I was at the risk of not fitting in with the other kids in school, a fate worse than death at that age. I decided to immerse myself in the indie rock scene of Seattle. It was then that I first started listening to bands like The Lonely Forest and The Long Winters, and I saw that rock in Seattle was the same as rap in the South – it represented the community I was in. This was the last time I was going to exclude myself from any genre, and thanks to the musical diversity in Seattle, I listened to as much divergent music as I could find.

Thankfully, the opinion on rap in the alternative mainstream would change in the Pacific Northwest and around the country. Nowadays Seattle is quickly becoming a city with heavy influence in the hip hop scene. Rap is in an extremely exciting place right now. You can experience the best of creative collaborations between genres. You have Danny Brown working with Purity Ring, and Big Boi with Phantogram. You have rappers like Chance the Rapper and Vic Mensa, out of Chicago’s Savemoney crew, experimenting with live instruments and a plethora of influences in their music. We have even had some first hand experience of this in the Lively Lounge when Aer came to play their blend of rock, pop, reggae. It’s as exciting as it was when I first plugged in those Hello Kitty headphones and had my world changed when I was just discovering what I loved. I can’t wait to hear what happens next.

Mar 24
0

Tour Diary: M&O (Week 2: SXSW Recap Edition)

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Hey world, Otis of M&O here, fresh off 2500 miles of round-trip-to-Texas legwork*. Spent some quality time with a beautiful rain-drenched Dallas skylines, snowy Missouri plains, and turned-over tractor trailers…oh and four days of awesome Austin fun! Every South-By story is very different, and our virgin experience was determined not to disappoint.

After a long tough drive and not enough sleep, our first day included all three of our showcases back-to-back. Milo was sworn to a diet of silence and honeylemontea to protect her vocal cords from the dry air and a persistent cough. A quick acoustic** warmup at the Chicago

Made booth helped to sooth the nerves and get our musical zone ready for the Lively Manor. Which is good, because a 20 minute drive later we were blown away by the most gorgeous house*** I have ever seen, ever. I mean start saving the dollars I’m moving to Texas to retire. Wow!! Not to mention the band was setup over a pool with mountains in the background #musicvideo #instagramtime haha. It was so scenic that it was easy to have a great time. Shout out to the sound guys who made it work with patience and love!

After leaving the manor, we trekked back into Austin and took part in SESAC’s official showcase. Lambert’s was a great vibe with great sound, good drinks, and an a mazing crowd. Our last SXSW showcase of the trip ended with finally making some new musician friends – an awesome band out of Nashville called John & Jacob. Check them out!

It was a wild day and it was only the first of our four day trip. Day two was largely interviews, brunch, and a good 13 hours of sleep for the whole crew (much needed!!). We also snuck in a trip to a showcase of Chicago rappers in the midst of the SXSW main strip of bars, catching performances by No Name and Saba. Friday was more festival-goer oriented: we attended two artist workshops, caught the renegade craft fair, explored the now-packed main strip, and enjoyed Moses Sumney at Solange’s party. The night went on and on and on, eventually tumbling into just enough sleep to get on the road Saturday in enough time to make it to Tulsa around midnight.

Writing safely from Chicago now****, me and the team are prepping for a busy busy next two weeks as we prepare for our upcoming tour and the release of our new album, Almost Us. Keep an eye and ear out for us, we will be buzzing around as much as possible for the next few weeks

Cheers,
~Otis

* Not as much Leg in the legwork as usual, since we took an automatic instead of a manual vehicle! How, boring…
** Acoustic for us is – Bass guitar and Vocals! As in our song Entire
*** MANSION!!
**** In case you were wondering, yes it is below freezing. It never ends…

Mar 20
0

Tour Diary: Cumulus (Weeks 4&5 // Everything Blends Together)

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We finished up our tour with Graham Colton on January 3rd at the Work Play Theatre in Birmingham, Alabama. Traveling with the same group of people and hanging out every night for 3 weeks tricked my mind into a routine that was not meant to be permanent. Sometimes you become so close with people, the thought of not seeing them every day seems like an impossible alternate reality rather than an inevitable one. All of them made it safely back home to Oklahoma, and we have been continuing our trek playing shows in Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas. As I speak we are on our way to play some unofficial showcases and hangout in the crazy madness that is SXSW.

This is the point where everything blends together. People ask us what city we were in the night before, and I can barely recall. We have been on the road since January 30th, and the always changing scenery and wandering state of being is starting to feel very…normal. It’s starting to feel normal in a way that scares me because I know a week into relaxing at home, I’ll get restless from sitting still. I have a lot of personal goals I am excited to make happen once I get home though, and a lot of great people waiting for me. Home is filling our minds a lot these days.

It sounds so silly, but I really never fully grasped how awesome (and liberal) Washington state was until I found myself spending free evenings in-between Alabama and Arkansas. In Seattle, Sundays mean brunches and all day happy hour. Businesses are open and booming, and the streets are full of people taking full advantage of the weekend up until the very last second. In places like Little Rock, almost all of the business are closed for the day and you can’t even buy a beer from the grocery store until Monday morning. Weekends turn the cities into ghost towns. Even so, our experiences with North Carolina through Texas have showed us even more about the kindness of strangers. Friends of friends, people we have never met, have made sure that we have hot meals and warm places to sleep every night. “Southern hospitality” is a very real thing. Even when there are only 2 people in the audience, they are eager and hungry for new music. They buy records, they give hugs, they send us emails, and I’d like to think they will come back…

Side note:

While hanging out in Huntsville, Alabama we visited the NASA Space & Rocket museum, home of “Space Camp” and every little kid’s dream come true. My cousin who I have not seen in over 10 years happens to work there and gave us a full behind the scenes tour. It was an adventure we will never forget! We also stopped by the City Museum in St. Louis and wandered through hidden caves, slides, and ladders. It is not a museum, so much as a giant, amazing maze. If you have the chance to be a tourist for a day- just do it.

Feb 17
0

Tour Diary: Cumulus (Week 2// The Answer is Always Yes)

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If you ever find yourself driving for 5 hours through Arizona desert, and a tourist sign for a meteor crater creeps closer and closer, you may ask yourself “hmm. Is that meteor crater worth the detour?” The answer is always YES. You may approach the destination and find out that you can’t simply walk up to the crater, but you actually have to go through a museum dedicated to the wonders of space and pay $16 to reach the edge of the abyss. You may ask once again, looking at the few dollars in your pocket- will it be worth it? The answer is definitely YES.


When Lance and I spent $16 on a ticket to see a (very gigantic and mesmerizing) hole in the ground, it represented a shift in both of us. We are both pretty rational, and love to pinch our pennies. The first time we approached the ticket window, we walked right back to the parking lot and glanced at each other, laughing at the “suckers” who would pay that much just to see this tourist site. We sat in the van for a few minutes, and looked up at the giant hill of dirt that was the mouth of the crater, and we could not keep our curiosity contained. We paid, we took pictures with our thumbs up, we dropped our jaws in admiration of the natural beauty in front of us. We even got to touch a piece of the original meteor that crashed over 15,000 years ago in Flagstaff.

The night before, Lance and I found ourselves streaming the debate between Bill Nye and Kenn Hamm about evolution vs. creationism in the science world. Hearing Bill Nye talk about the wonders of our natural universe, the history of our planet shown in every overturned rock and pebble- I had a whole new appreciation for the vastness of that crater in the morning. My mind filled with images of space and the reminder of how tiny our lives really are. I am not frightened at the realization that my life is tiny in the grand scheme of things. In the moments that I am humbled by my size, I am reminded how important it is to allow myself to take the detours every once in a while and pull over the car, just for the heck of it.

That night our show in New Mexico was canceled due to circumstances beyond our control, but it gave us a chance to hang out with our friends and hosts in Santa Fe. The architecture and historical scenery on every street corner was so beautiful. My friends lived in a little bodega house that was over 100 years old. We stayed up all night drinking margaritas, eating delicious food, and catching up on our lives. My friend Marie who hosted us was someone who I worked with in college back in 2010. When looking for places to stay, I sometimes get nervous to contact people from the past. Will we have anything in common anymore? Will we be an inconvenience to their daily routine? Will they think I’m a big weirdo? Every time I find myself pleasantly surprised at the endurance of human connection. Marie and I had not spoken in 4 years but it was as if a day never passed.

(Next week will be more about music and less about sight-seeing. The whole band is back together and we are starting our first round of shows with Graham Colton, a whole new chapter! )

Feb 07
0

Tour Diary: Cumulus (Week 1// Waking Up Too Fast)

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Welcome to the very first Tour Diary, where Lively gives you a peek into what life is like on the road from our very favorite artists. With weekly notes from all over the nation, and capped off with a show at the Lively Lounge, this is a chance for the world to get to know the voice behind the vocals. Our first Tour Diary: Cumulus

Cumulus is an indie rock band out of Seattle, Washington venturing out on their 2nd national tour in support of their debut record “I Never Meant It To Be Like This.”

Alex Niedzialkowski is the powerhouse voice behind Cumulus, who we recorded down at First Night Tacoma. We were taken with her pop sensibility, overlaid with sweetness that is tempered by the heady substance under those easy hooks. I’ll let her take over now with Week 1′s entry. Follow along for the rest of the tour, until she plays the Lively Lounge in March!

——
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Lance and I spent super bowl Sunday making a 10 hour drive from Portland, Oregon to Palo Alto California. We turned on the radio at 3:00 pm sharp. Screaming and jumping in our seats over the first quarter, we pulled into the small town of Weed, CA and found the first sports bar in sight. It was a bowling alley and sports bar, with $1 beers and .25 cent wings. It was perfect.

As I was standing at the bar ordering our first round, a middle aged man next to me who at first glance resembled a WWF wrestler asked me what team I was rooting for. I glanced around the room and noticed Bronco fans outnumbered us. When I shyly replied “Seahawks” he gave me an approving smile and shook my hand. Turns out we found the only other Seahawks fan in the room, and we became instant friends.

Back track to a few days before- we were not supposed to be in Weed, California. On the first day of our 7 week tour, one of our band mates woke up with an injury that would change the whole plan. We had to work together as a group to figure out the best way to stick to our tour schedule and roll with the punches. This first round of dates, from Spokane to Denver, Colorado- Lance and I decided to strip down the set (2 guitars, 2 vocals) and take on the road just the two of us. While the band arrangement of a duo is less than ideal, there is a lot more flexibility in venue load in/sound check/travel, and it is much easier to find accommodations for two. We also get to connect with the audience in a more intimate way, and reconnect with each other as friends. This unexpected detour is turning out to be a beautiful reminder of why Lance and I started making music in the first place, and the joy that you can find in the most unlikely of places by just shaking a hand.

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Just before tour I wrote a song about the way that life changes in an instant. Pursuing music is in all honesty, an insane thing to do. Even in moments where it feels like a dream come true- there are still a million unknowns floating in the back of my mind. None of this is easy, but as I am learning every day- it isn’t supposed to be.

“Sometimes, Sometimes,
I get the feeling that this feeling isn’t going to last.
Sometimes, Sometimes,
I get the feeling that we’re waking, waking up too fast.”
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Jan 13
0

Recruiting for Lively: Lindzi Cox

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Lindzi Cox helps Lively find the right people to work in our wild Seattle office. And with her, we now have a growing, thriving, slightly weird team of talented people. We couldn’t help but wonder how she got involved with us, and how she finds such amazing people. So we’re letting her tell it with her words. Go for it, Lindzi!

—

I will never forget when Lively Founder and CEO, Dean Graziano called me with his contagious enthusiasm and said “Lindzi, I am putting together something HUGE”. He said some other things, I don’t remember what, but the point is; when Dean says something is going to be huge, mark his words, because it will. I have had the honor of watching Lively grow from a bright idea to game changer in the music space.

A little about my involvement with Lively: I work for a technology recruitment firm here in Seattle called Harvey Nash. Since the beginning of building out the Lively platform, my team and I have been lucky enough to partner with the brains behind Lively to recruit and grow out the Lively team. While Dean and co. were busy assembling a company from scratch, turning a former art gallery into an office/lounge for recording, getting people like a gentleman named Keith Urban on board (just to name a few notable achievements), they turned to Harvey Nash to find rockstars to join the team. We work with many hot start-ups, and finding the right people for them is essential to their growth. The easy part is finding someone with the skills that it will take to get the job done. There has to be that passion and enthusiasm that matches the foundation Lively is built on.

We talked to many people to narrow in on the best mix of culture fit, skills, and aspirations of candidates before introducing them to Lively. Candidates were immediately interested in Lively, from it being a rapidly growing start-up, that they’re doing something that hasn’t been done before, and it’s function as a music space. (I think it’s safe to say that every human, in one way or another, likes music.) But where this spark of interest caught fire was when these people went in to interview, meet the team, see the space, and how much success this company has had in under 12 months. And the better news, it’s just the beginning! The reaction to Lively from artists, record labels, fans, media, etc. speaks volumes to Lively’s accomplishments, and candidates really dig that. Besides getting to work for a company where awesome things are happening, every employee at Lively gets to make a huge impact on the direction of the company.

Watching and collaborating with Lively over the past year has been unbelievably exciting. I am so proud of everything Lively has accomplished and cannot wait to see what the future brings!

Jan 10
1

Lively App Updates

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photo
You may remember our intrepid developer, Adam Argyle, from his post about the HTML5 Developer Conference. He’s been hard at work updating our app, and once again, because I don’t understand tech-speak and tend to crumble when people ask me questions about 0′s and 1′s, I am having him make the announcement about all the new stuff you can find as of today.

What is up my Lively show enthusiasts!
Good stuff has been released today! Interested? Read below.

2 developers have pushed 383 commits to all branches, excluding merges. On master, 649 files have changed and there have been 22,443 additions and 8,885 deletions.

That’s 22,443 lines of code written! 8,885 lines of code removed! 383 code commits have been made to fix all the things listed below.

New Features

  • Welcome email for new users
  • Removing library items. Now you can remove shows from your Library but not delete them, you still own it.
  • Featured sections to comedy and talk
  • Playlist tracks are shared with their respective package space. You used to have to download them twice.
  • Vimeo player support
  • Social sharing updates, way sexier social sharing
  • Sticky video/audio switch (for those OS’s with this css feature)
  • New clear search button
  • Offline mode fixes
  • New options menu for all your actions
  • Back button fixes, way faster
  • Search, if you try to find a band that the content is promo access only, we tell you that’s why
  • Download all button fixes
  • Numerous performance boosts

Bugs Fixed

  • Android scroll issues
  • Android tour and app rating continuing to prompt
  • Android tap issues
  • iPad rotation fixes
  • Downloads stacking up from download all button
  • Double downloads for playlist items
  • Playlists can’t have the same name
  • Redeem code fixes
  • And more… 77 more =)

    • Thanks for continuing to support Lively! We LOVE you!

    Jan 08
    0

    Let’s Invest in Great Art: Modern Kin’s Jeremiah Hayden

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    Modern Kin L2R // Drew Grow, Jeremiah Hayden, Kris Doty

    In the new year, I’m going to do my best to maintain a positive attitude about music. My relationship with music has degraded significantly over the last few years, a downward trend that likely lines up exactly with my begrudging interest in the modern music technologies that artists, labels and fans are required to keep up with to survive in the current age.

    Last year I would have told you about how I feel music is becoming less meaningful as we sync it with everything we do. I would have told you that the robotic nature of a service like Pandora radio causes us to make little distinction between what is artful and what is lazy plagiarism. I would have said that our obsession with being “liked” rarely gives us anything more than a surface relationship with everything we take in, and that that degradation is why artists don’t create valuable music and why fans no longer value music; or that artists have lost their ability to communicate because the listeners have lost their ability to understand. I imagine that last year you could have overheard me talking about blogs and my belief that the lack of very knowledgeable gatekeepers in the music industry is why the music industry is dying.

    But this is a new year and with a new year comes new thoughts and changes in perspective.

    In the new age of music, artists are able to do so many things for themselves that were previously impossible without the help of a label or manager. The benefit of this is clear, but the difficulty comes when trying to manage time between honing the most important skills, and leaving alone the skills that are secondary.

    As a musician, it’s easy to get caught up in the music industry and less in the music. This year I resolve to spend far more time in the latter while maintaining a healthy relationship with the former. The tools at our disposal are great for musicians. We can write a song and let our friends hear it in a matter of minutes and get paid for it right away if the stars are aligned. We have an instant platform for our friends and fans to respond to what we made and in this new year I hope that we as a music community would spend much less energy concerning ourselves with whether or not our friends “like” what we do and more of our time focused on what we craft in the first place. Are we content with it? Is it right and ready? Can we be proud of what we’ve made, regardless of how others receive it?

    I think that music matters this year. I think it matters what we say and how we say it. It matters that we double check our work and give our friends something to sink their teeth into – but the onus is on us. The technology and the networking will keep on and so will the music if we put in the effort.

    Let’s invest in great art this year.

    Jeremiah is 1/3 of the Portland-based band Modern Kin, whose live-streamed album release “Hello, World” can be found on the Lively app. He also runs the independent label, Amigo/Amiga Records, and can grow a killer beard.

    Ready to rock? Download the app