"I would much rather have the milkman at my concert."

Play It Like It's Music 021: Earspasm

Good morning! In today’s edition:

Michael Lowenstern of Earspasm

[Photo by Peter Gannushkin]

It's Wednesday, January the 8th of 2020.

This is Play It Like It's Music, thank you for listening *

*and if you like the show, please tell a friend!

We're hanging today with a totally unique, and uniquely advanced player and citizen.

Michael Lowenstern, a completely world class Bass Clarinetist. And a thriving corporate executive in the field of advertising. The guy has stories for days, a fascinating Ableton rig where he can loop a ton of stuff and - most of all - a beautiful, charismatic tone on his instrument.

Oh and he's also a pilot.

I hope you all are bringing it like champs out there! For those of you who asked, yes it's true. I've suspended my campaign for president. Maybe a couple more go-rounds I'll try it again but for now I'm gonna stick to things I'm good at, like looking out upon the ocean at sunset, making guacamole and trying not to read the rest of the news.

We got an incredible musician with us today, so I'm gonna jump right in.

Michael started in on Harmonica at age 2, growing up in the south side of Chicago. He played with Orpheus and did a whole slew of other “wish list” gigs.

Then he started a family and moved over to doing grown up jobs where he also thrived and eventually bought himself a plane. (A little one, that he flies himself around in on the weekends.) We don't talk too much about that, but suffice it to say that the man is not just some hippie.

And he still plays out, quite successfully.

Mike puts a lot of full time pro players to shame with his solid stage prowess, but he shares the wisdom quite generously. We got to talking about the kind of music he likes to call "Post Ugly", becoming a popular bass clarinet guy on YouTube, knowing who your audience is and playing to them… as well as maintaining two successful careers.

You'll also hear some incredible sounding tracks of his as an underscore to parts of this interview.

Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you like it, tell a friend? Let's grow this thing.

Go and find Mike and all of his brilliance at: https://www.earspasm.com/

Look at his youtube channel, lots of action up there: https://www.youtube.com/earspasm

This show is for you!

We're all contending with a mutating professional landscape, jacked revenue streams and a lot of noise out there in the culture. But you gotta keep playing.

It’s exciting times. Music isn't just content, it's a connection.

We don't draw any lines here between scenes or styles. As always, thank you for listening and remember to play it like its music.

Big love to your ears.

Trevor

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