Getcha Some Productions Podcast Episode 77
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A podcast covering all things related to music production: from the first note to the last fan and everything in between. We create music and inspire others to do the same. Every episode is a live business meeting between me and Dan (me and Keith) as we build this media empire right before your very eyes/ears.
In this episode we discuss:
Introducing Andy Marcinkowski! Andy is a longtime friend and collaborator since high school. He was in a band with my good friend Justin Wertz and we often hung out in the mid to late 90s and early 2000s. Andy played a critical role in the production of the handshake’s 2012 self titled album. Andy has also helped with many of the Getcha Some Guitar jam tracks.
We start off just by chitchatting. I talk about how I want to buy a van and Andy says that reminds him of Clown Core.
Andy says that it’s an open secret that Louis Cole is the drummer in keyboard player of Clown Core.
Then, we get into the meat of the episode. I do the intro and then discuss with Andy what the topic of this particular show is going to be. We had initially discussed doing a book club thing together where we read a book in advance of the show and then discuss on the show. However, today, I want to just do an interview of Andy because even though I’ve known him for a long time I don’t really know his full story in music. I ask him whether this is acceptable on the show and he says OK. And off we go.
When Andy was younger, he was a big fan of very cheesy pop music. He says he was a sucker for Melody.
“The first thing musical that I really latched onto was good vibrations by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. So, it wasn’t even the good Good Vibrations.”
He also highlights CNC Music Factory as a specific touchstone for his musical development but also to say that it was that general error when he really started getting into music.
His sister was a bit older and used to carpool to high school with a friend who is into more grunge type stuff. One day, due to this other girl’s influence, his sister came home with Nirvana Nevermind. When Andy heard that he ran that tape into the ground. He also mentions the Nine Inch Nails Wish album.
“1994 was my musical awakening.”
Nirvana is like, sure Kurt is screaming at all but, the musical elements have a nursery rhyme element to them.
“Nirvana at its core - sure Kurt screaming and all that stuff - but here’s a certain nursery rhyme/elementary nature to it. It just hooks. It’s really great catchy hooks.”
I tell a story about how kids today are into Nirvana as well. My daughter is 11 and has been through a Nirvana phase. In fact, I listened to Nirvana more in the past two years that I did when I was a kid, when it came out.
We spent a good bit of time talking about the contrast between hair metal and grunge. I think ultimately we were very grateful to grow up in the grunge era. There was a realness to it. It was also liberating. The celebration of freak culture was very liberating.
Andy used to spend his Summers upstate in a little town called Glenns Bay (Glens Falls?). At least I think that’s what he said. And they used to drive back-and-forth and he was exposed to Andy’s mixtapes. His dad’s name is Andy as well. They were called Andy’s Awesome Mix Tapes. His dad is also named Andy. Confirmed later it is Glen Spey, NY.
His dad would have awesome stuff like the Moody Blues, King Crimson and Vanilla Fudge playing on the car rides.
He was into grunge for about two years and that was kind of the gateway for him getting into more progressive rock. It also coincided with him starting to learn guitar and he quotes “I got tired of Barre chords.” So, he was exposed to Prog rock around the time that he started to feel like he wanted to expand his musical abilities as well.
That was when he turned into the more, King Crimson and Tool phase. This was also when he got into effects. Like, making your guitar sound not like a guitar. Robert Fripp was a huge influence on him.
King crimson to him (to Robert Fripp) was probably one part of a cult as well.
And he remembers looking through the pages of Musician’s Friend. That was a catalog that all guitarists got in the mail in the 90s. It was an exciting day when that catalog arrived.
Andy’s first guitar was a Charvel CX 290 which was a super strat. It had a had to single coils and a hamburger in the fridge position. Humbucker in the bridge position. He still has it. He put stickers all over it and he broke bike reflectors in glued them to it. So it’s not quite in the same condition that used to be in.
He also got the Kurt Cobain Jag-Stang. Single coil in the neck position and humbucker in the bridge. To Andy, it was an approximation of the telecaster vibe. He got a Les Paul a couple of years after that and it made his Jag-Stang seem like a toy.
He also just remembered how he really admired and was inspired by Tom Morello. This reminded him how how he broke his Jag Stand pickup selector many times trying to emulate the on/off stutter sound that folks like Tom Morello used a lot.
“OK Computer hit me like a ton of bricks. Johnny Greenwood was super influential to me.”
Andy talks about the trio The Smile with Johnny Greenwood and Thom Yorke and the drummer is from a band Sons of Kemet (Tom Skinner)? Sounds like Gypsy music with Afro Cuban vibe. The Smile is like a power trio or Radiohead-Lite.
There’s one song that Andy particularly likes. Thin Thing. He’s doing a deceptively simple/difficult thing on that track with a delay pedal that makes it cool.
I tell Andy about the Tone Mob podcast. I should’ve mentioned the Pedal Movie to him in case he didn’t see it. Andy says that he really likes a channel called Knobs on Youtube.
Andy talks about the Red Panda Particle 2 as his most recent pedal purchase.
We talk for a while about digital effects and amp emulation. Fractal Audio. Line 6. Fender ToneMaster. He’s still playing through his Marshall JCM 900 Combo (1X12). Heavy as hell.
I ask Andy if he has anything to plug:
He’s got a quartet brewing and a record which should start recording mid January 2023. It’s a culmination of things going back as far as 20 years ago. They have 10 songs planned. Thanks of which have lyrics. They have a zany concept.
Takes place in a dystopian future. The earth is completely trashed. We’re sending spaceships of garbage into the sun piloted by genetically engineered monkeys. One monkey is on his way into the sun (all one way trips) but he evolves past the point of his predecessors and figures out how to make the trip 2-way. Record ends with him crashing back to earth.
The music is adventurous and mostly in minor keys. It’s not very light-hearted.
Andy gives me an assignment to drop fan theories on reddit.
Look out for Andy’s record when it comes out.
We get on a sidetrack talking about vinyl and whether we can hear the difference in quality. Or, whether there’s any point to making physical media when you release a record.
Now we’re talking about a blind sound test of different quality audio files. Andy says that there was such a test on NPR’s website. Would be cool to check the internet to see if this still exists.
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