 Hello everybody welcome my show Friday p.m. My name is Luigi Scarcelli. We had a great show for you tonight We have the music of Jacob McCurdy. He does some great songs and we sit down talk a little bit as well as filmmaker Tayden George, I think it used to be brown. He'll tell us a little more about that But he won the best film at the winter challenge. So it's a lot of fun talking to him Let's get started with a song from Jacob and then we'll catch up to the film after that. Thanks a lot My name is Jacob McCurdy and this song is called Where Will. It's about how people change Thank you exactly so you're a Belfast you went to school You said I think you said at a University of New England School of communication. Yep Yep, New England New England communication So it's now a part of Huston College So I think technically I have a degree that doesn't belong to a real school anymore But they it really does but but I studied audio engineering and got a bachelor's there and I thought I was gonna just be in the studio recording other people's music and and I remember For my senior project, you're supposed to record somebody so a buddy of mine Matt Smith that I met at working at a summer camp he came up and and I recorded ten songs for him, but And there was a it was a fun project for sure But one of my classmates was like, you know, I think I'd like to record you cannot ride and I was like Kidding like I'm gonna work 30 hours a week go to school full-time record somebody else and then you're gonna record me as well He's like, yeah, man, it's gonna be great. Yeah, sure, but even at that time. I think he asked me over like It must have been the fall semester of senior year and over winter break My buddy Adam Hanson and I wrote ten songs together And we had no idea what we were doing, but we put them all together and I put out a record in 2011 I can't believe that I'm even telling you guys this because I don't even want anybody to go listen to it right now at this But if you do a little digging you can find it and and there are some of those teams that I'm I'm certainly proud of but But it was 11. Yeah, it was 11 years ago. You know, you Well, so you you graduated from there and then I think you were telling me that you packed your bags and made a trip I did I packed my bags and I and I drove out to LA Some of my classmates ended up getting jobs out there and I was like, yeah, that'd be fun Like I'm just want to go and be check out California and see what it's about That's where my parents are from before they moved here and then had me and so I had some family out there and We kind of took our sweet time getting out there like went to Nashville and Went to Bonnaroo and like spent some time in the Rockies and hit the Grand Canyon You know, it was a it was a fantastic trip But by the time I get to California I had had like no money left to my name and I'm sitting there like just trying to get a job at Starbucks and like nobody would even take me because I was over qualified because I had a degree so which is You know probably for the best because then I ended up moving back to Colorado for a little while I've got a half brother out there and he was gracious enough to let me have his couch for two months Well, I kind of tried to get on my feet and and then eventually a friend of mine was visiting from England Back here in in Maine and he was like Jake. What do you mean? You're not gonna be around When I get there like you have to come back and I was I don't even have enough money to drive back there, man like I but and I was like, but there's this gig that I finally booked for next week and Once I have that then I'll be able to like have enough gas money to get home And he's like, well, how much is the gig pay and I was like, yeah, it's just like a hundred bucks 150 bucks You know just like standard bar gig, right and and he's like, well There's a hundred fifty bucks waiting for you when you get here and I was like, oh my god So I'm sitting there in Colorado. I mean, that's beautiful. There's like I love it out there It was so sweet But that night I just like packed up my bags and I left I only texted my half brother. I was like, yeah, man I'm actually heading home and he's like, wait, what what happened? But anyways, I digress and I ended up spending a year up at Orno living with some some buddies of mine from college and started playing at like Woodman's Bar and Grill and The Bear Brew and you know just like to play in the college bars and put together a couple different projects while I was up there And it was a blast Because I think that you had said that that that it was this was the dilemma about Whether you write your own songs or you can get kind of stuck in being the cover guy exactly So you you had, you know written your songs and that's been something you really enjoyed Yeah, you're an artist But you started playing other people's songs and started paying the bills exactly that's exactly it And so then at that point, I mean it wasn't really in like until a year later when I moved to Portland that things started to Take off a little bit more because there's just more more places to play There's more opportunities, but then you play three or four or five shows a week and when you get home You're not gonna be like I'm gonna sit down and write a song and it's gonna be so much fun No, you're exhausted. You just want to go home go to bed So that leads me to the question of like what is there is there a different path nowadays as a musician? Then it used to be where it was like you try to get a record deal you moved to LA you get a record deal You sell a record now. It's you were telling me it's a really different landscape. I think I think it is there's I think there's still an opportunity to get a record deal For for some folks, but there's so many independent musicians that are you know You can make a good living doing it all yourself sure it's a lot more work but as as things become more and like as your your project grows and You have more fans and you're playing bigger shows and at that point That's when you can start bringing in a couple other people to help you run it, but there was a It's a great book that I read a few years back called How to make it in the new music business and it's by Ari Hurst and I highly recommend reading it There's some great information in there. Some of it might be Like stupid common sense things you're like well, duh, of course that makes sense But but there's a lot of different avenues that you can take if you're booking college shows Are you just self-promoting your own stuff? But at a certain point if you don't you know either you're gonna find out that you don't love playing the music and because you're not making enough money or or Or maybe it'll take off, you know, and and they're stepping stones, but there's also I feel like there have been so many bands that have taken record deals and then they get screwed over Right, you know, so it's you're kind of a slave to the label Right, and you don't you're not able to create the music that you want to so I don't know just take a day-by-day and and Try and enjoy what you do. Yeah, exactly right. So While I have you here, do you have any shows coming up? Well, we'll probably be you know playing this in early March. Do you have things coming up? Yeah? April well April 29th playing at the 1800 Club in Lewiston and then I just got confirmed that We're playing at the City Winery in Boston. Yeah On July 8th with the Eric Marks band, which should be super fun And that that 1800 Club show is with the Johnny Clay shanks band and and Xander Nelson Also, which would be a lot of a lot of fun to just I mean, they're all just like good buddies of mine So I'm sure we'll all just get to jam and have a good time But as of right now, that's the only big like original shows that I have in the books But you can always just check the website and see what's going on. And what's that website? Just Jacob McCurdy music This next song is for the weekend A lot of people tend to Save everything for the weekend. I just got our work. No, I'm tired. I don't want to do that thing let's just do that on the weekend and Sometimes the weekend doesn't show up. So Just live your life during the week. Just enjoy it Yeah, let's go for the weekend She said save it for the weekend. You know, I can't stay up too late Save it for the weekend More See that smile on your face and now She said save it for the weekend, you know, I can't stay up too late Same it for weekend We call the road She said save it for the weekend You know, I can't stay up too late Jacob McCurdy for the songs and sitting down talking to me Next up we're gonna see the film that won the winter challenge. Love is a dog and then talk to Tayden afterwards It's an interesting film and a very interesting interview. So I hope you stay for it and I hope you like it. Thanks Sadie first move we're using our arms. Yeah, we're going. Let's do that again. Maybe go Everybody welcome back. I want to thank Jacob McGurdy for playing a couple songs and talking to me right now I'm here with this Tayden Brown, correct Braco Tayden, okay. Yeah, it was Tayden Brown, but I got married a couple years ago and My wife and I changed our names to Braco really entered. This is an interesting story right here Is that an amalgam of the two names or a little bit? Greg and so it kind of sounds like it could be a combination, but it's actually I'm a huge nerd It's actually from the Lord of the Rings Yeah, so is it Grego with a G. Braco. Braco area. So we just had a chance to watch your film So tell us a little bit about this process of the winter challenge It's different than the 48 or film festival in the sense that it's a 72 hour or 72 hours Which is several more, you know, it's a few more days or twice as much time. I guess somewhere on there Yeah, so the 48, you know, you have Two days to write shoot edit and submit a movie And the 72 it's that that extra day does a lot. Yeah Pre-production having a little bit extra time to work on the script and to prep the set and art direct and rehearse with actors It's such a creative process compared to a lot of other film festivals that really want To be you doing everything on your own and then they come in and say up or down This is like hey, we're in it all together and it's totally different. So it's so much more collaborative in a sense Absolutely, I mean we started out. We have a we had a big writing team Everybody got together at my house and just kind of sat down like okay. What do we want to make this weekend? We have no ideas prior to this. Let's let's just start, you know, start stickballing. Yeah And so the film let's talk about the team because you told me it's a really big team And that's interesting by itself and then we'll talk about the movie. So the team how many people were on the scene? We had 23 people cast and crew included so it was myself my brother and sister We had Jeff Grichi is a local cinematographer He was the guy who shot the movie and his partner Mariah Bergeron with the lead. Okay. Yeah. Yeah Interesting, so it's a big group collaborative. You're all having fun How did you find a lot of locations you had these already lined up? Yeah, so well, we actually just shot it at my house Like let's keep it simple. We knew that the the snowstorm was coming that weekend. We don't want to deal with anybody driving in climate weather and and so we kept it simple My writer Ian Carlson came up with this idea of a woman who essentially decides She she needs to have this this person's dog. That's her And decides to break in and steal it. It's a very interesting concept in the sense of commenting on, you know, American social media American kind of capitalism Everybody kind of you know that this desire to have what other people have I mean, I'm sure it's a universal theme But it conceptualizes that in a very interesting way and then she wants her dog. Yeah, and she's gonna steal it Yeah, we pulled we pulled thriller as our genre like what's more scary than someone breaking into your home You know taking what's yours, right? I mean, I love dogs and so that would be you know Like what my worst nightmare is having my dog stolen. So like what is upcoming for you? You have any new ideas of what you want to work on in the future? Well, really I'm focused on finishing up some projects. I just wrapped my first feature Yeah, it's called from the morning to the night. Yeah, and that is currently making its festival Is there a way because we talked about that briefly is there a way that we could see a trailer online? Or is there any different? Well, maybe yeah, I have a trailer on YouTube. Yeah Sure, I'll post that link that the film it's gonna be coming up in the festival circuit Probably be able to see it at some point on Amazon from morning until night from the morning to the night from the morning To the night. Yeah, it's about a brother and sister who are struggling with heroin addiction and follows them over a three-year period Definitely very top. Yeah, I started making the movie in 2015 and It took me about three years to finish right right labor of love very much. So it was you know weekend here weekend there I Definitely called in every favor ahead Takes a village. Yeah, thank you very much for your time. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. We'll see you later. Good night