Making a Scene Presents

Making a Scene Presents - Build the Stack, Own the Fan: How Independent Artists Can Create a Sustainable Music Business
Stop Waiting for One Check to Save Your Career

Independent artists have spent decades being sold different versions of the same dream. There is always supposed to be one thing that changes everything, whether that thing is a record deal, radio airplay, a viral video, a giant playlist, a million streams, a soc...

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with the All Night Boogie Band

All Night Boogie Band is an award-winning blues, rock, and soul-inspired band from the Green Mountains of Vermont, built on big vocals, hard-driving grooves, gritty guitar work, and a deep affection for the sound and spirit of American roots music. Since forming in 2021, the band has developed a reputation as one of Vermont’s most energetic live acts, deliver...

Making a Scene Presents Gerry Casey's Interview with Gloria

In Ireland, the name Gloria carries a special kind of recognition. For generations of country and showband fans, it points to Gloria Smyth, later widely known as Gloria Sherry, the Navan-born singer whose recording of “One Day at a Time” became one of the defining Irish country hits of the late 1970s.

Born in County Meath in 1951, Gloria grew up in a musical fa...

The Platform Dependency Audit: Could Your Music Business Survive If One Company Disappeared Tomorrow?

There is a strange little habit in the music business that we have somehow learned to accept as normal. Artists spend years creating music, building audiences, selling tickets, gathering followers, uploading catalogs, collecting customer information, and developing relationships, and then they store enormous pieces of that business...

Making a Scene Presents - YouTube Changed Creator Music. Making a Scene Is Building the Artist-Owned Alternative
YouTube Changed the Store. The Bigger Lesson Is Who Owns the Store.

On August 10, 2026, YouTube crossed an interesting line with Creator Music. According to YouTube’s own current Help Center, the company deprecated paid Creator Music licenses and began shifting Creator Music toward gratis, or free, license str...

Making a Scene Presents - When YouTube Removes the Cash Register: What the Creator Music Change Means for Indie Artists

For the last few years, YouTube Creator Music offered independent musicians something worth paying attention to. A video creator could find certain songs inside YouTube’s licensing marketplace, pay an upfront fee for permission to use one of those tracks, and then use that music in an eligible monetized vide...

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Gabriel Mas

Gabriel Más is the spiritual and creative continuation of Gabriel Bondage, the 1970s progressive rock band that built its identity around ambitious compositions, mystical themes, and a restless desire to push music beyond ordinary boundaries. The name Gabriel Más, with más meaning “more” in Spanish, reflects both a return and an expansion: a new chapter rooted in the...

Making a Scene Presents Gerry Casey's Interview with Harrell "Young Rell" Davenport

How does a 19-year-old blues artist from Vicksburg, Mississippi play his first gig in Chicago and end up with 165,000 views and 4,000 shares of the performance on Facebook? In the case of Harrell “Young Rell” Davenport, the answer is simple: he is one of the most exciting young voices rising in the blues today.

Young Rell began playing h...

Making a Scene Presents - DI vs. Mic Recording for Guitars and Bass: What’s the Difference?
Two Ways to Capture the Same Player

Put a bass player or guitarist in front of a recording system and you can capture the performance in two very different places. You can take the electrical signal straight from the instrument before it reaches a loudspeaker, or you can place a microphone in front of an amplifier and record the s...

Making a Scene Presents - TREBEL Buys Sesh and the Race to Own the Superfan Layer Begins

For most of the streaming era, the music platform business has revolved around one basic action: getting someone to press play. The listener searches for a song, finds a playlist, follows a recommendation, or taps whatever the algorithm places in front of them. The platform tracks the activity, serves an advertisement or collects a subscription...

Making a Scene Presents - The Grammys Leave CBS for Disney: The Money, Media Power, and Politics Behind Music’s Biggest Move

For more than half a century, the Grammy Awards and CBS seemed permanently attached. The golden gramophone showed up on CBS every winter like an old relative who never needed directions to the house. Hosts changed, musical styles changed, television changed, and musicians went from selling records to ch...

Making a Scene Presents - Universal Music’s Stock Crash Is a Warning About Building a Career on Streaming Alone
The Music Business Had a Very Bad Day

On July 31, 2026, Universal Music Group had the kind of day that gets the attention of everyone in the music business. Shares of the world’s largest music company lost roughly one-quarter of their value in Amsterdam. It was Universal Music Group’s worst trading ...

Making a Scene Presents Gerry Casey's Interview with Billy Price

Billy Price is a Blues Music Award-winning soul-blues vocalist whose powerful voice, deep musical roots, and decades-long career have made him one of the most respected singers in contemporary blues and soul music. Known for his commanding stage presence and emotionally rich vocal delivery, Price has built a career defined by authenticity, consistency, and a lifelong ...

Making a Scene Presents - Your Distributor Is Becoming Your Storefront: Private Equity, Consolidation, and the Fight for the Independent Artist’s Customer

For many independent artists, choosing a music distributor feels like choosing a mailbox.

You upload the song, type in the title, attach the artwork, enter enough names and numbers to make your eyes glaze over, and then wait for the music to appear on Spotify, Apple Music, ...

Making a Scene Presents - Build a Content Strategy That Brings Fans Home

Every independent artist has heard the same advice. Post more. Make more videos. Be consistent. Feed the algorithm. Dance near the chorus. Point at floating words. Pretend your drummer did something shocking in the studio.

Some of that may help people discover you. None of it automatically gives you a music business.

A social media post can earn thousands of v...

Making a Scene Presents - Your Fans Are Not Portable Just Because Your Songs Are
Your Fans Are Not Portable Just Because Your Songs Are

On July 22, 2026, SoundCloud announced that it had acquired the remaining assets of Nina Protocol, an independent music platform built around direct artist-to-fan sales, editorial discovery, and blockchain-based ownership tools. The acquisition included Nina’s editorial archive and its g...

Making a Scene Presents - The AI Copyright Fight Will Be Won by Whoever Has the Best Records
Sony’s New Lawsuit Comes With a Very Long Song List

Sony Music Entertainment filed another federal lawsuit against AI music company Udio on July 20, 2026. This time, Sony’s complaint concerns more than 30,000 sound recordings that it claims were copied and used in connection with Udio’s generative AI models without pe...