Trent and Aaron share a couple of their favorite Christmas tunes, and review some of the things they've learned in 2023: musical lessons, personal lessons, and of course, GEAR!

Merry Christmas!

Trent Jones

Email: trent@marmaladecream.com

IG: @marmalade_cream

Web: https://www.marmaladecream.com

Aaron LaBoon

IG: @aarondlaboon

Trent Jones

Email: trent@marmaladecream.com

IG: @marmalade_cream

Web: https://www.marmaladecream.com

Aaron LaBoon

IG: @aarondlaboon

The band Creed has become synonymous with butt rock and ham fisted power balladry, often mentioned in the same breath as Nickelback as one of the worst rock bands of the 2000's, if not ever. While this is a popular position on the internet nowadays, Creed's stratospheric album sales -- 53 million records sold worldwide, and 28 million in the US alone -- hint at a different story, that in fact, a whole lot of people liked them during their brief run from 1997 to 2002.

With nearly 20 years passed since the bands initial dissolution, how does Creed hold up today? Trent and Aaron attempt to answer this question, along with their friend Chris Haney, a regular Fort Worth Music Club participant and avid Creed fan. The conclusion? Creed was a much better band than they get credit for, and filled a melodic hole in an overly dreary post-grunge landscape with more range and songwriting prowess than most of their contemporaries.

Trent Jones

Email: trent@marmaladecream.com

IG: @marmalade_cream

Web: https://www.marmaladecream.com

Aaron LaBoon

IG: @aarondlaboon

What exactly does being a professional musician entail in 2023? In the modern era ruled by social media, streaming, and limited physical sales, making a living as a professional musician is a tall order, and it looks somewhat different from bygone eras. But as today's guest demonstrates, if you can write a good song, be a versatile player in a variety of musical contexts, and be bold and assertive in your promotion, you've got a great chance to do what you love for a living.

Trent and Aaron welcome Bubba Bellin, a Texas country artist with a deep love of R&B and funk (hence the "funktry" moniker he uses to describe his music) and a multi-instrumentalist. Bubba plays original music with his own band, but he's also an in-demand session player in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, playing pedal steel and guitar for a number of Texas country acts as well as gospel and soul bands. In this interview, Bubba shares how his session and sideman work feeds his original music both creatively and financially, what makes a great country song, and describes his philosophy to building a working musician's guitar rig.

You can listen to his latest single "Girls Bring Guys (Guys Buy Beer)" on Spotify here:

https://open.spotify.com/track/5ekPJRpI5VeC8liEPlHtmw?si=4b8b4f8ef7e74f06

You can also follow him on social media here:

IG: https://www.instagram.com/bubbabellinmusic/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/BubbaBellinMusic/

Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@bubbabellin

Web: bubbabellin.com

Making records is kind of like cooking. Timbre is our flavor, and rhythm is the seasoning... or something like that. The point is, that great recordings often create a sense of depth, a front-to-back, three dimensional quality of sound that envelops the listener, putting them into a world. Recordings can be highly artificial or very natural, but most of the best ones have this quality.

How do you achieve that? The key, Trent argues, is contrast. Just like a great chili has different textures, and layers of seasoning, great records have contrasting timbres, rhythms, and time-based effects to create the illusion of depth.

Trent Jones

Email: trent@marmaladecream.com

IG: @marmalade_cream

Web: https://www.marmaladecream.com

Aaron LaBoon

IG: @aarondlaboon

At one point in the not-too-distant past, live was the only way to experience music, and it remains the most primal, mysterious, and compelling ways to experience music. With the advent of streaming -- millions of recorded songs available at the click of a mouse -- live music retains the mystique of music. It's raw, human, and risky. Things could blow up at any moment. And sometimes they do. But when they don't, or even when they do, it's a special moment. Or at least a memorable one!

Aaron and Trent invite their first guest onto the show, drummer Kevin Nelson. Kevin shares his live music experience playing in childhood bands, returning to music as an adult with Aaron's own band Standard Transmission, and the Fort Worth Music and Social Club.

Fort Worth Music & Social Club

https://youtu.be/HHlD3D1Dibk

Get in touch with the show!

Trent Jones

Email: trent@marmaladecream.com

IG: @marmalade_cream

Web: https://www.marmaladecream.com

Aaron LaBoon

IG: @aarondlaboon

We love gear. Of course! There's something seductive about gear. But at the end of the day, the gear exists to make music, and in today's influencer-fueled internet chock full of the latest equipment and software, it's easy to forget about that in the din. Trent and Aaron discuss the merits of gear you know inside and out, their personal go-to musical tools, and why having more gear isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Trent's pedalboard (before the OD-808 got swapped out for a Nobels ODR-1, and a Rockaway Archer Klon-style pedal was added):

https://imgur.com/6MyyrsB

Get in touch with the show!

Trent Jones

Email: trent@marmaladecream.com

IG: @marmalade_cream

Web: https://www.marmaladecream.com

Aaron LaBoon

IG: @aarondlaboon

Trent and Aaron discuss everyone's favorite effects, reverb and delay. Like hemlines and facial hair, these time-based effects come in and out of style, and over the history of recorded music production tastes have swung from bone dry to soaking wet and everywhere in between. But unlike some creative effects, reverb and delay have their roots in the natural world, and thus are inseparable from the phenomenon of sound that we experience every day.

Trent and Aaron attempt to explain these natural phenomenon, why they matter when it comes to understanding reverb and delay, and how to maximize impact when using these effects in the production process. As usual, it's all about the song at the end of the day!

Get in touch with the show!

Trent Jones

Email: trent@marmaladecream.com

IG: @marmalade_cream

Web: https://www.marmaladecream.com

Aaron LaBoon

IG: @aarondlaboon