Third Gear Scratch

Apr 23 2024 70

Third Gear Scratch Podcast artwork

Musician/engineer/bartender Allen Epley talks with artists of all walks and at all levels of success about their own unique journeys and jobs they've worked in order to follow their passions. Many successful musicians, actors, filmmakers, composers, and comedians still have side gigs that afford them the ability to create their art for us. Some get to work in their chosen field and some work jobs that are convenient and make that buck. It is this unique hustle that's at the heart of this podcast. How exactly does the sausage get made when there are bills to be paid? And what drives these maniacs to make our desperate lives better with their art when the pay-off often fulfills their hearts but not their bank accounts?

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Episode 177 - Chris Enriquez

Apr 23 2024 74 mins

Somewhere in the late 00's, drummer Chris Enriquez felt the familiar and invetible societal pull of many artists to finally "get a real job" after over a decade with his bands On The Might Of Princes, Long Island hardcore/emo heros, and Gracer after Princes disbanded. He left it behind and began working as a brand rep for PBR at a time when that brand was making a major push to bec

Episode 176 - Conan Neutron

Apr 02 2024 87 mins

There was a point maybe 10 years ago give or take, in which bandleader, frontman, guitarist, singer songwriter, podcaster and outsized personality Conan Neutron had a reckoning or awakening of sorts in regards to his bands and the dynamic within, which had taken a not-good turn. The Conan Neutron of today reflects on those regrets and missed opportunities and how he turned that int

Episode 175 - AC Paterra

Mar 12 2024 82 mins

Deep into the pandemic, drummer AC Paterra and his musical partner in Zombi, bassist-keyboardist Steve Moore also went deep; deep into the sounds and songs that created who they have become today as a pillar of Relapse Records, a label often associated with noisy artists. However the songs that moved AC and Steve over these covid days were the yachti-rock based sounds of Gerry Raff

Episode 174 - Tristan Shone

Feb 27 2024 80 mins

Putting a band together for a younger Tristan Shone 20 years ago was not as easy as he thought it might be, so he used his knowledge of mechanical engineering and sense of tenacious autonomy to create his own instruments that would allow him to make live music on his own; Music without the use of traditional instruments like guitars and drums and backingtracks a single musician mig

Episode 173 - Tim Kasher - Live at Fitzgerald's

Feb 13 2024 71 mins

Singer/songwriter/frontman Tim Kasher has been such a prolic maker of music over the past 25+ years with his bands Cursive and The Good Life and his solo records as his vehicles and conduits of creativity, so busy in fact that he has released a new album almost every year since 2000. Tim traveled from Los Angles to Chicago on Wednesday January 31st 2024 to spill about all of the "h

Episode 172 - Jordan Zadorozny Pt Deux

Jan 23 2024 79 mins

Multi-instrumentalist/producer/mixer Jordan Zadorozny created his one man band Blinker the Star in the mid 90's and made a huge splash with his 2nd album August Everywhere with Ken Andrews (Failure) behind the mixer. 28 years and 12 full length albums later JZ has released Animal Math (self-released), a highly enjoyable, forward-leaning and ambitious record that has hints of Jeff L

Episode 171 - Jay Ryan

Jan 09 2024 92 mins

Artist and musician Jay Ryan remembers the moment that he began to create the animal-based characters that inhabit his hand-printed concert and event posters that have become ubiquitous in the rock world; he was just out of college at U of I in Champaign and was bogging down and unable to finish a painting because of undiagnosed ADHD, so he began to draw his living room automan, ov

Episode 170 - AE Holiday Wrap-Up Of 2023!!

Dec 19 2023 25 mins

Episode 170 of Third Gear Scratch, in which our hero, Alien Epilepsy waxes and wanes about this year of our Lord, Two Thousand and Twenty Three. It's been a year of triumphs and struggles which has seen AE release his first and only solo record 'Everything' (Spartan) and tour on it, create a new record with his band Shiner, their 6th, tour with his friend Ian Prince and their band

Episode 169 - Eugene S Robinson

Nov 29 2023 61 mins

Being a body-builder and MMA fighter, Eugene S Robinson was a bit of an anomoly as the charismatic front man for the band he founded OXBOW, and before that in Whipping Boy, a more traditional punk rock outfit in the early 80's. It's in his new book, A Walk Across Dirty Waters and Straight Into Murderer's Row: A Memoir (Feral House) that we learn how he navigated these sometimes mur

Episode 168 - Rob Zabrecky

Nov 07 2023 91 mins

In 1993, Rob Zabrecky was certain he'd seen his future and that future was as a rockstar and frontman for local LA rockers Possum Dixon, his band that had just been signed to Interscope Records for a 3 record deal. But life is complicated. Indeed they had, by all accounts, a pretty great career as an "alternative" band with big tours and big producers like Rik Ocasek of The Cars. B