Music Human

I've always loved both performing music and collaborating with musicians, and so I developed a passion project that would let me capture studio sessions with local and touring artists.

Entirely self-funded, the only goals were to provide musicians with high quality performance content and to have fun doing it! I dubbed the project Music Human and set about drafting some simple branding.

After some location-hunting I partnered with a rad analog studio in Inglewood, All Welcome Records, that I knew would look great on camera.

Our very first session was with the amazing Steady Holiday (Dre Babinski), performing a couple of beautiful tracks from her debut album. I still love that performance and the videos we captured.

As we filmed more sessions, usually on weekends to fit around day-jobs, word started to spread. In particular, I formed great relationships with several music PR agents - they brought me recommendations and prospective artists and in return were stoked to have cool videos made featuring their clients.

Over 3 years we filmed about 50 studio sessions and a couple of live shows. I strived to showcase a diverse roster of artists - different backgrounds, genres, group sizes, instruments. We met some awesome people and incredibly talented musicians.

We broadened our scope beyond just Los Angeles locals. Touring bands like Taylor Phelan (of The Voice fame), Australian group Cub Sport, and Hollis Brown (of Queens, NYC) graciously treated us to late night sessions and performances at the tail end of their tours - rolling up to the studio in vans loaded with gear after months on the road.

Each performance is captured live for a genuine "live" feel. We would spend some time with each artist sound-checking and dialing in their sound, and then record a few takes of each song - just as many as it took until they were happy with their performance. 

Being a side project meant calling in favors for crew. Part of the fun and uniqueness of each session was having a different team of camera operator friends. Fortunately my wife is a professional broadcast operator and I could usually drag her in to run a camera. Every session has yours truly running at least one angle, and often dipping into some photography. And of course I was the editor.

Covid-19 and the need for social distancing put a halt to live performances, so we've been on a hiatus. Maybe I'll revive Music Human one day - or perhaps it's time to try my hand at the next creative outlet. Stay tuned...

In the meantime you can check out more of our sessions on the Music Human YouTube page.