Crafting Joyful Experiences Through Music with Seth Casana

Brad Frost (2): Welcome to Wake Up Excited. In this episode, I talk with Seth Casana. Seth is an entertainment consultant at Bigwig Productions, a DJ and musician based in Fredericksburg, Virginia. At first glance, Seth is a very unassuming, normal looking guy. But that all changes when he's on stage. I've known Seth since our college days at JMU, and I've seen Seth built out soulful funk while wearing a moped helmet with bowling trophies, duct taped to it. I've seen him wrap while wearing samurai armor made from old computer keyboards and mice. I've seen him marching down the street with a brass band wearing old high school marching band uniforms. And I've seen him strut through town wearing a disco ball helmet with a DJ rig strapped to him. Seth was my secret weapon at my big Frostapalooza concert last year. Not only did he supply his incredible band, LB Brass to be our horn section, he was also our Bruno Mars, David Byrne and Thom York, equipped with a sousaphone. Everyone was like. What is going on here? But Seth's energy and creativity and originality is, is truly unrivaled. It's amazing. Seth and I have a great conversation where we talk about the power and the potency of live music. We talk about the importance of shared, joyful experiences, the arts as a profession versus as a practice, the immense effort that goes into creating a light and fun experience for other people. The role of levity, humor, and whimsy in these bleak times and real practical tips for cultivating your own creativity. Before we get into our conversation, I want to say that Wake Up Excited is a real labor of love, and this whole thing is self-funded. So if you want to support me and the show and my other endeavors, I'd really love it if you checked out our online courses about digital design and development, design tokens, design systems, atomic design, and you could check all of those courses out at bradfrost.com/courses. All right. Without any further windup, here's my conversation with Seth Casana.

Brad Frost: Hey Seth, how's it going?

Seth Casana: Hey, what's up Brad? Good to see you.

Brad Frost: Thank you so much for, for being on the show. I am very, very excited to talk with you. And we're just gonna jump right in with the first question, which is what has you waking up excited right now?

Seth Casana: Uh, live music, trying to make more of it and be part of the live music scene in Virginia where I am and helping more musicians get paid for doing it. that's really where I'm at these days. Uh, and it's been a long and winding road to get here. Uh, you know, the,

Brad Frost: wore my, my music shirt, uh, to,

Seth Casana: yeah.

Brad Frost: support you and to plug into that.

Seth Casana: Yeah. So big Wig Productions is my production company. I kind of build myself as an entertainment consultant. I think event consultant is a more common term, but I really just try to focus on the performance aspect of it. And that can be a lot of things. And there's a lot of administrative and promotional aspects that go along with that so it's really that particular strain. I feel like I invented that title for myself. I, I haven't seen other people out there with that specifically, but I think there should be more. Folks who provide entertainment consulting services. 'cause there's a real gap that a lot of businesses, restaurants, you know, maybe not music venues, they probably got that under control, but like almost everybody else who's not actually a music venue probably needs some help doing better if that's something that they wanna focus on. So just imagine, for example, you got a restaurant, they want to have live music, they've got the space to do it and maybe they know some people in town who play music who want to come in to do it there. But once you've burned through that initial, friend network, what are you supposed to do? Right? Like, you've got some bartender who like knows a couple people who play guitar to come in and play on Friday nights or something. But unless you want it to just be that forever, right? Like the same four people coming in week after week, right. You need to expand, you need to promote it. You need to maybe like up the infrastructure of what you got going on. Like sound equipment wise, space wise, lighting wise, and they are not necessarily set up to figure that all out, you know, especially you're running your own business at the same time,

Brad Frost: Yeah.

Seth Casana: you're trying to be a restaurant, right? And the music's not the primary spot in there, but it's a component of the overall experience. It brings in new people. And you want it to be fresh. You want it to be like a specific genre. You need it to provide a certain atmosphere, especially in a restaurant setting. And somebody like me, who's been a professional performer for over 20 years. Who has like always been like the band manager, the guy booking the shows, the guy promoting the stuff, the guy building the websites. I've seen a lot of stuff. I've got a huge network of local musicians who are all like, ready and eager to go and very professional and have all their own stuff and show up on time. you want someone like me to come in and be like, Hey, let me, let's talk about it. What are you trying to do? Oh, have you thought about this?

Brad Frost: yeah,

Seth Casana: you tried this other thing? You, you're gonna have some huge problems if you try going that route. You should not do that. this is what I bring to the table and I, you don't have to hire me as a full employee. You know, I can come in and just like the amount that you want. are you doing it once a month? Are you doing it once a week? Are you doing it 12 times a week? Like, what are you doing? Right. Let's talk about that.

Brad Frost: What's wild as you're saying this. So,

Seth Casana: Yeah.

Brad Frost: known, we've known each other for 20 years. you've been doing this in, in various capacities for that entire time. And

Seth Casana: Right.

Brad Frost: I'd love to pick at that because obviously like there's so much we can go into, I think that there's music a source of community, as a source of, weaving in between these different worlds and pulling different people together to create fun and entertainment and, and

Seth Casana: Yeah.

Brad Frost: and then you yourself emanate. That as, as like a performer. So, there's a lot of steps of like how I've always kind of, I think, perceived you as like somebody who, you're out there quite literally walking the walk, uh, in the form of a walking disco. And maybe we could sort of get into that, uh,

Seth Casana: Yeah,

Brad Frost: But you're out there radiating that kind of energy out there, but you're not just oh, look at me. You're like, here's the party and here's all these other people who do this, and let's try to utilize everyone your sphere to, to do good things and, and have things be Successful and, successful for sure the venues that are, that are putting this stuff on, but, but also sort of successful and equitable for the people performing. But

Seth Casana: absolutely.

Brad Frost: just kind of seems like. You, you have a real instinct for kind of going, okay, and who do I have to work with and how do we do something fun with that? like,

Seth Casana: That,

Brad Frost: resonate? Is That, accurate?

Seth Casana: that is a great way to describe my outlook on life. The entire time I've been an adult is walk, walking into a random room, any room, any space, anywhere, and be like, how can I throw a party here? That's just, I can't stop thinking about that. And that's why I'm doing this now, because it's really hard for me to turn that part of my brain off, I had day gigs, office jobs, I'd worked in it doing web development for a long time, different capacities, and through all of that I was still I let me throw a music festival. Oh, let me, like, I. Lemme start a band. Let me, you know, like, and eventually, I got to the point where I had to make some decisions about I can't just keep doing both, uh, I was having a daughter and somebody had to take care of this new person that was gonna exist in the world and couldn't have a day job and do all of that stuff and take care of a baby. And I had to decide like, is this working for a big company, making their websites what I want on my tombstone? Like, is this my life's work? You know? And I tried to think about it as like, what will I regret not doing more? That's a good metric. I've had close friends who've been through like hard decision points where you wanna do more than one thing, right? Like. It is easy to make a decision if everything's bad and there's only one clear choice. Like that's not hard. What's hard is when you have like lots of good options, very strong competing trajectories. but they're mutually exclusive. You can't do them all, especially not at the same time, you know, or maybe not ever. And so it's really hard, like if you try to think about, well, what's good about each one of them? You can come up with a big long list,

Brad Frost: yeah.

Seth Casana: you kind of have to do the opposite. You have to think about like, if I didn't do this one, what are the bad things that would happen? And that's sort of a little counterintuitive, but it, it can really put things in stark contrast of what's important to you. Because for me, I was like, if I never worked another day Building websites for somebody else that I thought were important. But if I didn't do that, would I be really sad? Like, would I be sad? Like I told my daughter, you know, I really gave up on my passion by not building generic websites for a big company that I worked for, for nine years doing the same job. that doesn't sound right, that's not, or or is it more like, would I be really sad, really regretful being like, you know, I had this shot to start my own business where all I was doing was like making new opportunities to play music, giving opportunities to my local musician community and like playing a lot of music myself and earning the same amount of money. But you know what, it just wasn't for me. I gave, I didn't do that. That sounds really bad. That sounds like not the way that I wanted my life to go. And once they framed it like that, I was like, cool, uh, guys, here's your laptop back. Here's my two weeks. Thanks for all the good times, but I'm onto the next chapter and I just haven't looked back and to, I mean, it wasn't as simple as that for sure, but making the decision was pretty simple, right? Like implementing the decision. Whole different ball of wax. but coming to that point where I was like, now I know what I'm doing. I can, I don't have to equivocate between all these different life options right now. I know what problem I'm actually trying to solve instead of deliberating on which problem is important to me.

Brad Frost: Yeah, that's great. And like with that decision comes with a whole host of, like you said, like the hard part of, of implementing it. But at the same time because you stepped out into your own vision, in the driver's seat, right? So

Seth Casana: Yeah.

Brad Frost: not necessarily like having to pad your enthusiasm or pad your vision. You just need to get to work and actualize the actual vision.

Seth Casana: Yeah. It can be scary because you don't always know what you're doing or you think you have an idea of what you're doing and it doesn't work, but it's also really liberating because you don't need to ask permission from anybody, you know, and especially when you're working like I am, where it's mostly independently, you also don't have a huge team of people that you have to coordinate with. I don't have bosses, I don't have employees. I just have clients, you know, and if a client starts to be really hard to work with, I just tell 'em that. And if they keep being hard to work with, I just stop working with them and I move on to the next thing. You know, there's a lot of people out there. And to be really honest, I kind of like glossed over a very hard beginning chapter because when I quit my day job, I did not immediately start Big Week Productions. I had a completely different, side hustle that I thought was going to become the main gig. And that was Work magazine, W-H-U-R-K, which was like a monthly print magazine, that we distributed throughout Virginia. It was the Virginia Cultural Review. And at the time, that was definitely like the most involved creative extracurricular. Activity that I had going on and when I was telling my wife Anna at the time, I was like, you know, I just, I'm going to, this is right for me and I'm gonna stop. And I just want one of my side projects to become like my main job. I'm not super picky about which one it is, but like, I think that would be a much better. Way for, for me to go. And now I've got some time to like, just think about that while I'm taking care of infant cocoa, my daughter, and a hundred percent right. Like, no doubt in my mind that it was like the magazine, obviously it's got the biggest upside, it's clearly the most, it entrenched right now. We were like several years in, we're distributing like 15,000 copies a month. We've got a whole team of like journalists and photographers and, advertising partners and a whole like, self built out, distribution network of like couriers and people and everybody's getting paid like obviously this is, this is the right one. We just need to like, figure out how to ramp up to that next step. That next step never came. There was no next step. We were at the plateau and it wasn't sustainable. And then like as soon as. my life and the other life of the co-founders changed. It was like the whole thing just had to come back down. And that was really hard. Unwinding all of that very hard emotionally, just feeling like you're letting everybody down. And also, like, I had staked my whole life on this. I had chosen that pimp it's all ending. What am I gonna do? You know? Right. Like, thank goodness that like my wife is there, she's a nurse, she is not trying to build like weird creative empires, you know, like, so that's cool. We still have health insurance and things, but it was through all of that work, the magazine work and the hard work of putting it together I, you know, 'cause I was driving all over the state, going to different cities, setting up these distribution routes. Meeting with advertisers, meeting with all the people that we wanted to write about. Musicians, artists, authors, working with music venues, working with promoters, working with festivals, right. Any kind of, anything culturally interesting. Like it was a very wide net, as long as it was in Virginia and was sort of like quirky and fun. Like we wanted to write about it.

Brad Frost: Beautiful.

Seth Casana: when that all ended, which was like 2019, what now I've I don't want this huge network that we've spent six years building up to just evaporate. Um, but I don't want to just, I don't want to do the same thing again. You know, I've always dreamed of opening a music venue. I have never ever been in a situation where that made any sense financially.

Brad Frost: I,

Seth Casana: even,

Brad Frost: most music venues would, would agree with

Seth Casana: yeah, they,

Brad Frost: ones. Yeah.

Seth Casana: they probably should have hired me 'cause I could have told them, I've got a bunch of spreadsheets that show like, this is a bad idea. You should not do this. I've been convincing myself for like 15, 16, 17, 18 years. This is a bad idea. You should not do this. And I still keep thinking about it. the nice thing about building out a business model, it won't tell you if you're gonna succeed. It'll definitely tell you if you're gonna fail, right? Like, there's no theoretical way this is gonna be profitable at all. Right?

Brad Frost: Yeah.

Seth Casana: So I've got a lot of those, so I was like, okay, back up. One step from that. Um, what is a way that I could work towards that, given where I'm at now, that points me in that direction. That's another good useful tool. If you're trying to think about, I have some dreams, I have some stuff I can't stop thinking about. I have some things that I think would be, make the world better, right? Like, how do I do that? that seems impossible, right? And it's like, okay, well what is it? Figure out what that is, make that really clear for yourself, and then work backwards from there. Well, if, if, if that's the thing that I wanted to have happen, what would've been the step before that? And then, okay, cool. That seems clear. What's the step before that? And just keep going backwards until you're where you are now.

Brad Frost: Yeah.

Seth Casana: Right. And then you got a really clear path. It's super easy. It's just to do all that stuff, right? but the point is, is that once you get back to where you are now you can go, okay, well what is the, what's like the smallest thing, what's the easiest thing that I could do given where I'm at currently, given my resources, given my time, what could I be, what's something that would put me on that path? Uh, 'cause if you're not doing any of it, then is it really important to you? Do you care about it?

Brad Frost: I think that's something that a lot of people fall into. When we talk about dreams and when we talk about lofty ambitions, it can feel incredibly distant and a lot of people that, that is definitely this self defeatist mentality because it's like, oh wow, this is so big. I, I could never get close to that. So I'm not even going to take that, take that first step. And I think that, that there really are a ton like pragmatic first steps that are very, very, very low risk. Like what you're describing, I feel like is like you, you kind of went for it. You like, you actually like did jump off the cliff. while You were working your IT job, you were building up of those connections, building up all of those networks, building up all those skills, building up like all of that stuff. So that what you did eventually make that hard decision. You weren't just jumping out into the void and. starting that, that work then, right?

Seth Casana: Yeah.

Brad Frost: that, that your, your journey started. I, well, hell, 20 years ago or, right. But, but

Seth Casana: it's a continual journey.

Brad Frost: Yeah, Yeah. As, as we all are on, but, but

Seth Casana: Yeah,

Brad Frost: like, I see like so many people that are just like, well, like I wanna, wanna get here, feel like I need to do this like, big dramatic thing in order to

Seth Casana: right.

Brad Frost: And, you might get to that point, like you said, like you, you gotta make a decision on like, do I still have the day job and pursue this? It's like eventually you need to make that decision. whether it's building a business, obviously like, kinda like startups and like other things like that and stuff like, follow this route. like the safest way to start inching your way closer to that bigger vision. that doesn't have you like screw it, I'm cutting the cord and whatever. Like, 'cause most people don't ever start because they're like, oh, it's so risky. It's like, well what, like you said, like kind of working your way backwards. Like what is that very, very low risk first step that you

Seth Casana: Mm-hmm.

Brad Frost: do that is like, it doesn't work, then it doesn't work.

Seth Casana: I, you know, it startup culture is a good source of inspiration. There's a lot about. Startup culture that I don't think is great, but, but, in terms of going from nothing to something, which I think I'm particularly good at, it, you can draw a lot from the ideas of iterating quickly, failing fast, you know, exper treating everything as like a little experiment and then building off of your successes with the goal of getting towards a minimum viable product, right? that part of it is really instructive for a lot of aspects of life outside of it. because what it does is it, it, if you have the opportunity to jump in big and you're really confident about your idea and you know that it's right for you, go for it, right? Like, don't pass up those opportunities. But what we're talking about here is that so many people I. Don't feel like they ever get that shot. Right? And they go through their whole lives feeling like I, I could have been a contender. Right? Like they, they know, like, they know they have something inside of them that's important that they wanna share with the world. And they have this narrative that like, if only I had been given the opportunity, I've been shut down my whole life. You know? And I can't do that 'cause I never got the shot to do it right? And what I'm trying to say is that you don't need to wait for that shot. you can think about it as these incremental steps and, and orienting yourself in a way that primes you. That if that shot ever comes around, which is no guarantee, you know, there's not a guarantee that some Daddy Warbucks is gonna come on and be like, you're really cool. Let me give you a ton of money so you can do your thing. Like, that's not gonna happen to everybody,

Brad Frost: right.

Seth Casana: you're not gonna be ready for it if something like that does ever happen. You will have prepared yourself to, to take full advantage of it. If you start making the incremental steps, the smallest thing you can do. So what's the, what's the smallest change that you can make right now that gets you a little bit closer, one step closer, you know, one day closer to that thing that you think is important.

Brad Frost: Yeah. Uh,

Seth Casana: how I approach all of it, right? Like, that's really instructive and, and just continually resetting that process anew at every time that it feels appropriate, right? So you did it and now you are doing your small little thing. Great. This feels good. Okay. Start over again. I, here I am. This is new day one. This is my new starting point. What is my big goal? Where do I want to be oriented? And if you do that regularly, then. In the worst case, you just did a bunch of cool stuff that you thought was important given the resources you had available. And in the best case, when that big opportunity came along, you were like, I'm the person who's gonna make that happen. And the, the person you're pitching that to will be like, huh, this, this person's right. You know, let, let's go sign the contract. You know, like,

Brad Frost: you're really hitting at, I feel like the premise of the show, right? Like, it's there on the tin. It's like, it's like, wake up excited and I feel like there's, there's this, like, this, the way I describe it is this, that, that moment of truth or that. this, this kind of instinct. It's this, it's this thing we, we hold for a brief sliver of time, often like, yeah, first thing in the morning.

Seth Casana: When I'm taking a shower is the best idea. If I need an idea, I go take a shower.

Brad Frost: there You go.

Seth Casana: get a little zen.

Brad Frost: that, But then you, the to-do lists and the calendars and the, you know, and the bills to pay and the everything else kind of like, comes in and, and kind of like, talks, talks you out of that. And I think. that

Seth Casana: Mm-hmm.

Brad Frost: what you're describing is like, here are these like very pragmatic and low risk ways of starting to pursue this stuff. That it, it's, these things are not all or nothing things and you, and you live that Right. Where you are able to sort of chip away at this and kind of like, I like how you're saying it, this, this kind of priming and this just kind of like building the muscles and building the, the, the connections and, and doing all of that. It's, it's work, it's labor work, but it's a labor of love. Right.

Seth Casana: It should be.

Brad Frost: Yeah, It should be. And and that's a, and that's a good, I think signal to, to listen to is it's like, am I enjoying this? Is this turning me on? uh, I love how you said it. It's like, well, I just did a bunch of cool stuff. And even if it's, that's all it ever does, then that's something

Seth Casana: that's still important, right? Like

Brad Frost: important.

Seth Casana: it's a sad reality, right? That like. We're not all trust fund babies. There's not some government program to give everybody a huge stipend to commit to their dream. That's just the reality of the world. but it would be too depressing to think that because of that, we should abandon our hopes and dreams. Right. Like, screw that. That's, that's dumb.

Brad Frost: That's, that's one of the things I, I'd love to ask you about this, because this, this comes up a lot whenever it's, you know, I, I have. I increasingly been wearing my, my musical self on my sleeve a bit

Seth Casana: Yeah.

Brad Frost: And when you do that, and I'm sure you encounter it as well, you get the people that say, oh, I used to play music. And,

Seth Casana: Sure.

Brad Frost: that's something that I, that I pick at all the time. 'cause I'm like, you, you still do, you still do play music. You just are not, know, actively doing that in any capacity right now. Yeah. You're on hiatus, but like, but, but people sort of build up these things of like, oh, here's what being a musician is. And, and, you have these songs, you have the, you know, you have the SoundCloud and the Spotify, or what's your band? And you know, how often are you playing out or these, these kind of shapes, right. Of what these things are. And I think a lot of people talk themselves out of different pursuits, creative pursuits, because. They have these kind of false or, visions of what being that thing is. And like to remind people that it's like, you still know how to play guitar. Just pick it up and play. And then there we go. You're and there's a step you could take. And, and this is my advice to people is they're like, if you do that, get the damn guitar out from under your bed and get a, $15 guitar stand and put it in the path of

Seth Casana: Yeah.

Brad Frost: it is you're, you're walking. Right? you're in your

Seth Casana: Put in your living room. Yeah.

Brad Frost: or, yeah. Like between the, the kitchen and the TV or whatever.

Seth Casana: Put it in front of the tv. have your unlock password. Be play the guitar, you know, like do something to make it pop. Top of mind. Right.

Brad Frost: I think that there's this, like, this, this thing that I think is really interesting when you talk about people who have the capacity for expressing their creative selves, whether, whether it's writing or photography or whatever, just get so fascinated by all of the reasons why they're not actively, you know, kind of doing their craft or, or sort of, practicing it, cultivating it, trying to move towards it. my antenna just goes up all the time whenever I hear people saying I can't, because.

Seth Casana: it's understandable. It's not, I mean, all the reasons are, are real reasons. It's not, they're not faking it. Right?

Brad Frost: like those are, those are big things,

Seth Casana: sure.

Brad Frost: be with my kids. I'm in a period of time where I gotta make as much money as humanly possible. Like,

Seth Casana: Yeah.

Brad Frost: the roof is leaking,

Seth Casana: My, my parents are dying, you know, like stuff happens man. And I, I don't want to downplay anybody's life circumstances or reasons, like it's hard, but compounding that in addition to the real challenges that people face on a day-to-day basis, there's also expectations that don't deserve as much credit as people give them. Right?

Brad Frost: Yeah.

Seth Casana: just makes it exponentially harder to overcome those day-to-day challenges because you think that unless I'm doing it a certain way, unless I am meeting some mark, like you're talking about, that it's not worth it to even try. Like, why would I waste my time

Brad Frost: Yeah,

Seth Casana: going to all the trouble? To do this thing when it's so hard in the first place and it's so unrealistic. So many people that I've done to be very creative lights don't pursue that aspect of themselves because they say stuff like, it's unrealistic, I need something more stable. This other thing that I'm doing that I don't like as much, it pays more money. There's just practical reasons like that, but

Brad Frost: yeah.

Seth Casana: trying to hold up the two things to saying, unless the thing that I'm doing creatively also pays my rent and puts my kids through college and stuff, it's not worth doing. And it's kind of dumb that's really dismissive, and like, by the way, for the most of all of humanity, like that was not how creativity works, right? That wasn't what it was for. That's not how it functioned in society. That's not what the cultural expectations were. Like. Musicians were broke and bouncing around from town to town, they were essentially carnies.

Brad Frost: yeah,

Seth Casana: only in this current blip of a moment in history that it's been anything else, uh, except for like the most elite people in the world, right? The few examples from history where this is like not the case, they are the dramatic exception, and everyone else was just bumbling along playing piano for their friends, uh, after dinner and everyone's singing off of sheet music because that's how you had fun, because there wasn't any other option, you know? And we have a lot more options now and options are great, but like you've also for, we've forgotten. A lot in large part that like, that's the function of it. The function of it is to be creative, not to like have a pension, you know? Uh, it's great if you can do both. I'm not saying don't do both, but it's also very valuable from a human aspect to pursue it in spite of that, you know?

Brad Frost: there's the, Slim reality that you're going to make a living doing creative work, uh, in any capacity. And, you know, some that there's the reason why the, the web design and development fields have so many musicians, the kinda littering the, the field is like, uh, it's

Seth Casana: Yeah.

Brad Frost: here's these like, adjacent things that can still sort of pay the bills and whatever. But, being in a a 15 passenger van traveling around the, the, the country is, is it's hard to raise a family in that environment and stuff. So totally get that. So it's like that decoupling is, is good. other thing that I think is interesting, 'cause I hear the same as well with the whole, here are all these reasons why I can't. Do this. And one of the things that, I've been trying to do has been to, to kind of break down again, that, that whole, here's what these expectations are when you say, oh, I, I used to be a musician, or in order to be a musician it, you need to assume a certain shape and do certain activities. You're a musician if you pick up the guitar for, for five minutes, uh, or you're a pianist if you sit down at the piano for for five minutes or you're an artist if you sketch on, on a napkin, you know? at lunchtime. what I found is in my own sort of reclaiming that my kind of full creative self and allowing me to do that stuff when I go through those really hard seasons of life with really challenging things and trying to figure those things out, those outlets that could sometimes just take the form of. 5, 10, 15 minutes. If I get longer. Once in a while, even better, like giving myself permission to, to activate that part of myself is the most healing and restorative thing that allows me to kind of like venture back into the, the hard thing. And, and, and that's that, that, that false binary of like, oh yeah, well I gotta earn a living and take care of my family, therefore this stuff is fully off limits. It's like, no, like there's the five minute? Version of practicing the thing that gives you joy, that that fills your cup, that connects you with your creative self and,

Seth Casana: Yeah.

Brad Frost: Yeah. just getting, getting rid of all of that kind of, just narrative that this, and I don't know like where it comes from, I guess, like it, that, that's something that I'm, I'm fascinated by. 'cause it's like, I think that there are a lot of like extrinsic factors, but like a lot of it really does kinda seem like this. We're just like logical creatures and they're like, ah, these things are big and important. things feel frivolous comparison, so therefore I won't pursue them.

Seth Casana: Some of it's the way that that, um, very successful people in any particular field are much more visible these days. So you have something else to compare to in a way that feels really visceral that maybe it hasn't had, been like that for a long time. And in terms of music specifically, I think that, music literacy was probably, more broadly dispersed, uh, in pa past generations where I. It was just more, natural to assume that somebody would be familiar and like, feel comfortable singing casually with other people playing an instrument, um, even if they didn't read music. But reading music was really the much more common being able to read music. 'cause that was how you shared music, right? That there wasn't recorded music up until very, very recently, in the human times scale. and once recorded music came around, now you have this whole other way to transmit music that wasn't actually people performing it or reading it, you know? what's interesting to me is that, music is one of the few things that makes humans, humans, like we're really good at it and we think a lot about it and everybody. intuitively understands it. It's, you know, you can understand musical stuff before you can walk, before you can talk. Uh, and so that spark is still there. but the ways that we're communicating music with each other are dramatically different. Um, and the tools to create music have totally shifted. Where now, like the computer is sort of the focus of how it's all supposed to come together, and the instruments are just kind of like ancillary players to help you get a particular sound. That that is a huge shift. And we're still sort of like feeling out what the implications of that are. They're not all bad. I'm not trying to, to downplay any of this stuff. I think it's great that you can actually hear recordings from a hundred years ago of how a particular piece was played or. what was popular back then? You know, go, go back to the, uh, charts. the earliest sort of like top 10 charts were from like the 1890s, when Edison cylinders were being sold and stuff, and it's stuff like John Phillips Susa was crushing it in the 1890s. There was a lot, like a lot of marches being sold. Um, the one one song that's like not instrumental, that like has words that we still know today is the, uh, hello my baby. Hello my dog. Hello Marta gal. That, that was very popular back then.

Brad Frost: the Charleston.

Seth Casana: yeah. but trading the technology aspect of it for the kind of, um. Cultural heritage of being able to perform music and feeling comfortable enough to do that by yourself in a public setting with friends. I don't know if it's a great trade off. I, I wouldn't trade the technology to lose the, broad cultural aspect of, of where performance is kind of a more implicitly assumed from the average person,

Brad Frost: It's, it's really fascinating. I've had like the, the, the privilege of traveling to a bunch of countries and there's real. Obvious differences and how in that comfort of performing, of singing in, front of other people and just how embedded it is. Like, Melissa's family is, is from the Philippines. And so I've been over there a couple times. It's like, they don't like blink an eye and they're like singing together in unison and it's freaking beautiful. and other cultures have that. But then there's also this, this reserved and, yeah, I, I like how you're describing there's this kind of barrier that has, many ways improved things and made music more accessible. But at the same time, there's been this kind of. factor where it's like the, it's the gathering of people in and around music and that transmission of energy. That what, whether it's a DJ setting, and this is fascinating 'cause you're both right. It's

Seth Casana: Yeah.

Brad Frost: you're, you can play music and you're out there singing and, and performing, but then you're also a dj and it's like there gotta be similarities and, and differences in the effect because you're ultimately talking about the exchange of, of, of music and you're bringing people together and people instinctively know what to do when they receive that, that energy. But I'm curious to get, like, do you feel there's like a fundamental difference in kind of a DJ situation versus a live band situation?

Seth Casana: No. And I actually exploit the fact that there's not a difference when I'm DJing, I take advantage of that underlying commonality. if you've been to a concert. that's large. You'll often hear people s singing along to the song, right?

Brad Frost: Yeah.

Seth Casana: And that's not cool in a lot of circumstances. Imagine doing that at an opera. You would be thrown out at a punk show. It's probably expected. If you're standing there very still, sitting quietly, someone's gonna check in on you and be like, are you okay? Is everything cool? so there's different cultural expectations about when it's appropriate to join in as an audience member. In the performative aspect of it, in it's singing lyrics, specifically I'm talking about here. But when you're DJing there, there is no, such expectation. You, nobody's ever gonna get like mad at you for singing along when a DJ is performing because you're not.

Brad Frost: Yeah.

Seth Casana: with them, you're building off of, what's happening musically and sharing your own excitement. and, and like being in the moment. And I can tell when I'm doing a good job DJing by the number of people who are singing

Brad Frost: Beautiful.

Seth Casana: for the kind of events that I do, which I do a lot of weddings these days, but even when it's not a wedding, you know, and this doesn't work for all kinds of music. Again, I wanna be respectful for the other DJs out there who I'm about to say, because not everybody, uh, plays songs that have words. Not everybody

Brad Frost: Yeah,

Seth Casana: trying to make everybody like lose their minds dancing. Right. Um, and, and I recognize that the kinds of sets that I do, the kind of DJ that I am does play a lot off of nostalgia and like shared. Cultural backgrounds and stuff. But even in circumstances when I feel completely, uh, foreign to whatever's going on culturally in the music, like I'm playing for a wedding that is not an American wedding, right? Like any other culture where they are spoonfeeding me what the set list is, and I'm just like, okay, cool, let's go. It's in a different language, right? even then, even in those circumstances, what's what I'm doing is I'm gauging not our people dancing, but are, are they like all out there on the dance floor singing along? Right. And like not just to the chorus, like the whole song, right? Like I would throw on Licious. Okay. And I want to hear every single person out there doing the entire rap, like from front to back. And just, just killing it. what that's tapping into is that innate human

Brad Frost: Yes.

Seth Casana: of music and the recognition that, like, we're part of a community, it's a communal activity. There's, what have we got here? We got a little DJ choir going on. It's amazing. And, and that's really what I'm like internally measuring. That's, that's the litmus test for me is, is my set working? Is am I in the moment? Are people feeling what I'm laying down here? You know, not, are they doing the Macarena, that's easy, are they singing along to the Macarena or whatever, you know? Um, and that wouldn't be possible if, if there weren't some kind of like common human musical experience that connects us all. Right? Like, 'cause Nope. I guarantee you if you asked. Most of the people at any of these shows, you want to get up and karaoke that song by yourself. You clearly know all the words. You want to get up in front of a room of people and get on a microphone and sing it. Hell no, you couldn't pay me enough money to do that, would be the the expected answer. Sure, you're gonna find some folks who are like, cool, but, but it's so much more common. to meet people who feel the exact opposite. They, is no way they would ever debase themselves by trying to sing that when clearly, like they could write down the lyrics. They know the song.

Brad Frost: Right,

Seth Casana: it's in there, it's not going away. Right. Like somewhere in their persona. Licious. they are licious. You are licious baby. Right? Like, and I want people to recognize that and music helps 'em do that. And then the communal setting, when everything clicks, they feel licious. It's so great.

Brad Frost: that is the, your gift and that is the service that, that you're providing and that, and that is the, the real power

Seth Casana: Yeah.

Brad Frost: all of this. And, and, and this is, I think what's really like fascinating. Is what I've found is that people need permission

Seth Casana: Mm-hmm.

Brad Frost: you are giving them that permission. You are,

Seth Casana: It's an open invitation.

Brad Frost: But, but it's like you're, you're out there and you're modeling that, right? Like, it's like if you weren't behind It, if you just like hit play on an iPod and like, you know, like walked away or whatever, like you

Seth Casana: it

Brad Frost: that

Seth Casana: could still work.

Brad Frost: for like a bit. It could it could,

Seth Casana: It could work.

Brad Frost: but I'm, but I,

Seth Casana: You don't need much. It's true that not everybody needs a big push.

Brad Frost: Yeah,

Seth Casana: get some people a little nudge and they're gonna let their light shine. Okay. But what I'm doing is really lowering the bar as low as possible to, to say it's even for you. Even the people who don't think they're good at dancing, even the people who feel really socially in inhibited, even the people who, again, don't think of themselves as musicians. Right.

Brad Frost: Yes,

Seth Casana: I'm, I'm not a musician. Even you baby are gonna be out there being part of the musical experience, you know, and, and, and that's hard to do. That takes a lot of deliberate thought. That takes, a huge amount of like practical implementation. I'm drawing a lot on intuition and being able to read the dance floor of like, who is here and what have they told me they wanna listen to, and what do I know works and doesn't work in this certain context. Uh, what have people requested? I do all of my sets live. I think about what I'm gonna do beforehand, but I definitely don't pre-plan out the set. Exactly. You know, it's very, the, the whole point of it is that it's in the moment and you're responding to what's happening in real time.

Brad Frost: Yeah.

Seth Casana: And when I. Learned, like I've been doing this DJing specifically professionally for about 10 years, you know, I started DJing back in college WXJM at 8.7 fm JMU baby, what's going on? And, uh, when I learned that there are people out there who prerecord their sets or that have exactly the whole set programmed out and there's no way to adjust and they don't take requests. I was like, what are you even doing? Like, why, why are we here? What's Yeah. That's not, what are you doing? Why? I. Work digitally. Uh, you know, but I've done vinyl sets before and if it was vinyl, okay, I get it. You know, can't bring the second van of vinyl like we used to in the bad old days. I know old DJs who said one van was for the gear and the other van was for the vinyl. And that's a lot. Okay? And that second van of vinyl, it's, it's only gonna have like the hits. You asking for a deep cut, it's not gonna be there. Okay? In that circumstance, maybe you can be a little more rigid in, in your set structure, but we live in a modern age, man. You have access to the entirety of recorded music. you can literally play anything. You can be programming beats on the fly. You can be. Sampling the crowd in real time and remixing it in front of a live audience and you're, you're pre-recording your sets. Go home, put it on SoundCloud, man. Like, give some space to somebody who actually wants to perform.

Brad Frost: you're picking at something that, that is like really That is, music is so incredibly powerful. So there's the, there's the transmission of, of music, right? But, like any good conversation or energy exchange, there's, there's a feedback

Seth Casana: Yeah.

Brad Frost: is, it is live and it is the, the, the ability to, react and, you know, improvise and, and create. a singular experience. And, and that was something that, it really took me, and I'm curious to, to ask you this, but it's like, it took me a long time actually understand that, that it's like, oh, okay, this is this real, like I felt it obviously, like as a musician and like we'd be playing shows and dynamics and you're going up and down and you're like, you know, starting and stopping any sort of like, change in the energy right? As we're performing has a reaction to the audience and, and you end up sort of beautiful cycle that is all part of the same musical moment. But it wasn't until after COVID kind of started loosening up and I was able to go back to my first. of proper con you know, concerts where I'm like, you know, paying, paying for a ticket

Seth Casana: Yeah.

Brad Frost: I'm in the crowd. And I like really understood how much I missed that, that even as part of the audience was participating. And I, and I, and I felt it and I felt the lack of that over the, a stretch of a couple years where I couldn't go to concerts.

Seth Casana: Mm-hmm.

Brad Frost: was, it was really through that kind of it ripped away from me for a while and then kind of coming back to, to realize that I understood my role as, as the audience in that. That singular experience and that, that's where we all want to get to because that's what, what creates the, the elevation, right? That's what creates the, the, the joy is in that sort of bi-directional nature. Uh, it's, it's a conversation even though You're the only person behind the decks,

Seth Casana: you're a participant as an audience member, you know,

Brad Frost: Yes.

Seth Casana: make, you help make the experience and, and if you want an analogy for that, because a lot of stuff is not in person these days, it's the difference between a. Watching a YouTube video of a concert or a live stream of a concert, what's happening in a live stream concert? You got the comment section, right? Like you got you. You know that the people are out there. It, it's happening in real time. Like there, that is special. And for a live performance, that's all that it is. There's not another thing you can watch, a recording of it. Not the same as being there, and playing to a room full of people who are not responding

Brad Frost: you know,

Seth Casana: versus playing to a room of people who are really dialed in. Oh my gosh. Everyone knows that's what's special about any performative art is that, uh, you know, whether it's working or not. Right? Then, you know, for a lot of creative pursuits, there's kind of a delay in the act of making it, and then the reception. Of it and the analysis of it. in when you are,

Brad Frost: It's like

Seth Casana: in that environment, if you're trying to like, get people to pay you to do things, or if you're a purchaser of those services, there can be a lot of buyer's remorse, right? Like, I work with a lot of wedding photographers.

Brad Frost: this song. Yeah, yeah,

Seth Casana: No, I, I'm talking about like the people who are not performative in, in the moment in some way, right?

Brad Frost: sure, sure. Yeah.

Seth Casana: I deal with a lot of wedding photographers and I've heard some real horror stories about people being upset with the photos that they saw like several weeks later when they're finally done. and I'm so glad that I don't have to deal with that because you know, right now in the moments whether what I'm doing is working and it's very hard to argue with a full dance floor of people going crazy. To be like, you're doing a bad job. And I'm like, well, they disagree with you, you know? And, um,

Brad Frost: Yeah.

Seth Casana: so, but that's, but that's a real, that's a real thing. You know, the, the simultaneous of it, the group experience of it, tho those are intangibles, but powerful. having that timeframe when, when it was unsafe to experience that, really, I agree. Put it in stark contrast, the co coming back those, I saw the killers capital Stadium, like in DC And I was like, oh my gosh. Like

Brad Frost: yeah.

Seth Casana: just ev that first year coming, coming out when you could go to concerts again, every person who came out on stage, there was a moment that when they first walk on, they took the first step on stage and they hear the crowd be like, yeah, right. And you could see on their face it's just like, oh my gosh.

Brad Frost: Yeah.

Seth Casana: know? Like,

Brad Frost: Yeah,

Seth Casana: it's crazy. It it's magical, you know?

Brad Frost: it, it real, it really is. It's, it's it's magic and it's powerful and everyone, I feel like should, go see more live music, I think because of that. Because, because I think what's, what's really fascinating, you know, in this moment in time, I feel like is particularly challenging on a lot of levels. I feel that hopelessness tends to take root there's this just kind of, there's just this daily bombardment with just. crap. Right? The world's woes and everything sucks, and we're all just trying to grind away. And we're, again, we're, we got the bills to pay, we got these like things to, to do. it can often just feel like there's just, again, like we already talked about with just our own personal creativity, it's like, ah, there's like just no room for exuberance or there's no room for joy, or there's no room for, for this stuff. And, and that's why like as time's gone on, I'm like, oh my God. Like things, things like live music, which historically I've always, you know, really enjoyed, uh, both as a recipient of it, you know, or, or sort of audience member, participant, or as a, as a performer. I've always really loved it. But now like I. I think I'd like really understand, like at, at a, I've developed a much deeper appreciation for it, for the role that it plays and really sort of tearing people out that, that hopelessness of that just kind of normal rut that, that like, here's the, yeah, we're all doom scrolling. We're all just getting like the, the latest, uh, You know, dose of whatever crap is is happening and there is just Yeah. Despair and hopelessness and normalcy. then you go to a show or, or, or to your DJ set or, or to, to anything that's, that's happening. And you're reminded,

Seth Casana: You get reset.

Brad Frost: you're ripped away from that and that, and that has a, that has a long tail that doesn't just end. The moment, the last note of the song is played right, uh, of, of the last song.

Seth Casana: Yeah.

Brad Frost: like, that carries you,

Seth Casana: It's restorative.

Brad Frost: carries people. Yeah.

Seth Casana: Yeah.

Brad Frost: Yeah,

Seth Casana: It's, um, it's a restorative process that help, that reminds you. Of what's good in life. You I, definitely felt the absence talking about the pandemic and its impact on, on live performances. You know, my band, uh, LB Brass play Tuba and sing, and there is definitely no way that you can get a bunch of horn players together in a room safely blowing, spit everywhere, shouting at each other like

Brad Frost: I,

Seth Casana: that. That's wasn't gonna work. We, we, over a year, we couldn't, we couldn't even practice. You know, we, we've been a band 16 years at this point. It's the one gap in the time when we weren't publicly performing, for over a year, that first part of the pandemic there. And then even getting back, we had to be real safe. We went to a, like a campground, a huge outdoor open walled picnic, awning, and we're, we're all standing like 20 feet apart, like. Eight people taking up the whole pavilion, playing with, we did whatever we needed to do to make it work. But, I really felt the absence of all of what we're talking about in my own life. that's when I, I made the walking disco. It was a project of desperation, you know, to overcome some of those challenges. which is a, uh, chest mounted, battery powered DJ set up. and, uh, it's, it's powered by a dead and prime go, it's the smallest DJ recorder that has professional, Outputs and all of the features that are needed. There's, this came out in 2019, if you can imagine. I don't know what, what the product designers had done and thought the market was for this. But when I saw it in 2019 before the pandemic, immediately my thought was, wow. I could like strap that to my chest and walk around with it, not thinking I would ever actually 'cause like it's not cheap, but, and how would I do that and why would I even do that? But, uh, you know, two years later I had a lot of compelling reasons of why to do all of that. So I bought one and I found a, uh, like a little speaker. It's and I bought those two things. vaccines are coming out and I'm like, okay, I, and I gotta do something. Right. I've been like, miserable, depressed, you know, taking care of my infant daughter. My wife's going crazy as a nurse, like dealing with everybody who's sick and, and I was like, this could work. And I, I bought the two things and before I even had all of the rest of the harness, I was like, plug them into each other and I'm holding like. You know, $2,000 worth of equipment in my hands. And I walked down to the bar at the end of my street. I'm like, Hey guys, look at this. It works. It did it. I'm gonna do it. And like, just play. They're like, great job, Seth. Go back home. You know, like, so then, um, you know, I had the marching band drum carriers and from the, from El Brass,

Brad Frost: is like the, the harness,

Seth Casana: like, you're gonna play snare. Yeah. You have the harness and the snare attaches. So take the snare off and put on my custom designed aluminum harness chassis that I had a friend of a friend fabricate out of aluminum for me. That thing is rock solid. And then strap all those pieces in together and then I can just walk around. Hey. And uh, and

Brad Frost: you're missing an important

Seth Casana: that came later. The disco ball helmet came later. At first I went it, Natural. But yeah, the, you know, but the vision was always that I would have a disco ball helmet to go with it. completing the, the package. but the concept of it was that I could just go out on the street, I could be walking around, I could be socially distanced from people, and I was essentially busking, but just really doing it again. uh, it's about that connection on the street with whoever is right in front of you really showing them that like their life could be a lot more interesting if they wanted it to be.

Brad Frost: Yeah, yeah.

Seth Casana: I get a lot of confused looks. I get a lot of people who maybe I. Are not into it, which is fine. That's the also the nice thing if you're not into it, I can just skedaddle, I can just go walk somewhere else, right? I don't need permission to show up, but I'm also not trying to punk people. You know, there's some, there's a few other people out there now, uh, who are doing similar things, at the time also. But, but some of them were very much in the vein of like, we want to cause some drama. We want to cause some controversy here.

Brad Frost: Okay.

Seth Casana: and again, getting back to like live streaming, talking about a little live streaming versus in person performance. The people who are punking folks are always live streaming because they're not, they're treating the, the individuals around them as like props. And the audience is some disembodied internet audience that gets a kick out of like, that's not me, I want what's happening. I want like the one person right in front of me right now to be like having a moment that's gonna change their whole day for the better, you know? just create some joy on the street. Marathons are great, you know, because you got 10,000 people

Brad Frost: Yeah.

Seth Casana: by doing something really hard. And then they turn the corner and I'm there in my getup, pumping some really upbeat, happy song, and they're like, whoa. And then they keep going, and then that happens like 10,000 times in an hour. It's great.

Brad Frost: Amazing. Amazing. Yeah. That is, that is like a perfect environment where

Seth Casana: Yeah,

Brad Frost: like literal, literal pump up music. you're, you're a weird milestone. they're probably like the finish line or after they've, they've vised their feet. They're like, did you see that guy?

Seth Casana: I've got people who come back. I've been doing it enough now. They're like, oh, remember me? I've got marathon friends who are like expecting me to be the walk disco while I'm out there. They're like, yeah, baby. I got my, get my selfie for the year.

Brad Frost: one thing that's interesting and, and this is something I think that we both share, the sort of intersection between, I feel like music, fun, But also like, like legitimacy and, and like originality. Like there's, there's this kind of like strange like brew of, know, 'cause obviously wearing a disco ball helmet, uh, is not something that everybody is doing.

Seth Casana: Granted,

Brad Frost: carry yourself a certain way.

Seth Casana: you gotta have a certain mindset

Brad Frost: As

Seth Casana: be cool with that.

Brad Frost: Yeah. But like, could you like, talk about like, that, intersection, I feel like between kind of like, I, I don't know if you wanna call it like humor, but like, certainly like, like whimsy or like, like some other sort of like lightheartedness that is like a pretty key ingredient in your creativity

Seth Casana: it talking about how does humor or levity or lightheartedness joy inform my creative work? You could contrast that with really important creative work that is not any of those things. You know, I think for a lot of people, the way that they're channeling their creativity is to express. Dark stuff that they're experiencing, you know?

Brad Frost: Yes.

Seth Casana: And that, that's important. That's valid, you know, but it ain't, it ain't me. You know,

Brad Frost: Yeah.

Seth Casana: even the things that, that are the hardest in my life, you know, they come out in a way where I want to work through it, it, I want you to experience me on the other side of it, not at the bottom. You know? That's not the, that's not the part that I want that be on the album I want other people to get there too. I want people to know that you can get there. Like, everybody's going through something. No, nobody gets out. Alive

Brad Frost: Yep,

Seth Casana: but it doesn't have to be a slog the whole way. And the things that, that I gravitate towards are the absurd aspect of it, the joyful aspects of it. I want people to be shocked into a smile when they see

Brad Frost: Yeah,

Seth Casana: I'm doing. 'cause I want them to know it can be better. Right? Like,

Brad Frost: yeah,

Seth Casana: knows it can be worse. I just want people to know it can be better.

Brad Frost: yeah.

Seth Casana: And I've got such a clear. Perspective that, that I feel fully confident of that. I don't mind being a little dorky or goofy to make it happen. I've got a very low anxiety level. it's, it's one of my superpowers that, that I wish more people had. 'cause it's not always good. It's, it's not, it gets me in trouble. Uh, and it, and it causes interpersonal problems when I have to remember other people feel a lot more anxiety.

Brad Frost: yeah,

Seth Casana: I have to like consciously remind myself that not everybody experiences the world the way that I do. But what that does allow me is to just like, walk out on stage in front of a big giant room full of strangers and be like, Hey gang, we're gonna have a lot of fun here tonight. And then everybody actually have fun. And I've been doing that a really long time. Like, I feel really comfortable in that setting. Not to take away from anybody else's creative expression, but the things that I want people to get out of mine is that you're allowed to enjoy life. And I wanna show you how

Brad Frost: Yeah. love that because there's, there's almost like a, there's like a contrast of the optics of it. and I feel like the, the deeper philosophical underpinnings of it, I feel that a bit in my own.

Seth Casana: the optics of it.

Brad Frost: feel like I'm like the optics. Yeah. I have seen you Where, uh, samurai outfit, uh, like armor built out of computer keyboards swinging a, a mace, uh, full of, computer mice on, on stage and, you know, a a, uh, a moped helmet with, with, uh, bowling trophies, duck duct tape to it,

Seth Casana: Yep.

Brad Frost: We probably should have just like, led with, with some of that stuff. But it's like, that's the thing that you're like, oh wow. in that, for as long as I've known you, it sets a stage for a certain type of, experience to happen. I love that there is, it's not just, don't know. 'cause it's fun. It, and it is that, but there's actually a lot of like depth in that. And I think that's the thing that I am trying to cultivate a little bit more and explore through the show and beyond is like, depths of fun and enthusiasm in humor and, and absurdity and all of those kind of more like positive qualities tend to be thought of as, frivolous or how could you be even entertaining this type of attitude when there's so much hard shit going on in the world and it, and it's like, it's like, no, no, no. Like this is actually really important, this is it. This is not like kids stuff. Like this is not frivolous. This is actually a really important part of the antidote to the, to the other end of the, the, the human spectrum. Yeah.

Seth Casana: You know, the DC punk scene is rich and like 40, 50 decades old, you know, that years old.

Brad Frost: Yeah.

Seth Casana: I, I'm not in it, that's not my scene, but I really respect, the community and for them, it's like the music is just the excuse for their community to get together. And they not to say that it's performing the kind of music that the bands in that scene perform doesn't take skill, but they don't care. It's like way less important

Brad Frost: Yeah.

Seth Casana: that you are technically proficient or, you know,

Brad Frost: Yes.

Seth Casana: using very odd chord arrangements or something, the concert is sort of an excuse to address real social problems and build solidarity and fundraise money for important causes. Like the music's just sort of the vehicle to make that stuff happen. That's the point of it all. If, if they weren't doing that, they would, could lodge the same, co complaints, you know, like, it, why are you doing this? It's so frivolous, and, and I think there's some validity to that, right? because you could, if you look at somebody who is a musician and they feel really hedonistic and there doesn't seem to be a lot else beyond that, you can say like, what are you doing? Right? And I even, I even, I, you know, in this moment, especially thinking to myself, what, what am I doing? Right? Like, come to my party please. You know, like it can feel really bad am I focusing on the wrong thing? Could I be spending my time better? Are there more important issues that, that my energy could be going towards? And like we've been talking about this whole time, once you actually get into that moment when you're really doing it, when it's not just simply hedonistic. But there is some deeper connection going on. It reminds you, oh yeah. Oh, okay. People, people needed this. I needed this. I feel that way after every time, but currently it's been a lot harder going in. it's easier to forget that that's how it's gonna feel on the other side. I found myself having to be that much more, regimented in just being like, you know what you gotta do? You know the motions you gotta go through. You gotta put all the pieces in place and make it happen. 'cause then when it happens, you're gonna feel better. That's been really hard recently.

Brad Frost: Yeah. that stark contrast is, is the hard that you're feeling is that like, this, this moment feels so incredibly rough again, to to to exist anywhere on the other end of the, the human experience feels like I don't, I don't know. And, and what I've like learned is that like, sort of what I'm, what I'm starting to pick at a little bit is that there are like people that really operate really well in that sort of, they're able to fight fire with fire, for instance, right? Like they're able to like show up. There, there are people, term I had it described, me by a, by a friend is, uh. Istic plurality. And what it is, what it, what it means is, is it's like there are people who fight by whatever throwing a brick through a window or something like that, right? And it's like, at some level it's like, you could be like, okay, that's one way to address this. There's other people that are like, get out the vote. There's other people that are, you know, sign these petitions,

Seth Casana: Yeah.

Brad Frost: money, do stuff like that. And none of these things are mutually exclusive, but they exist like along a spectrum, right? And there's like, I feel like what's kind of one, what's been the sort of predominant thing is it's like there's negative stuff happen. We all need to focus our energy and attention towards addressing that. We need to address that through this band of, of fighting, against the stuff. And I think what's fascinating is that there's this whole other. Aspect of human experience that actually is like, can be wielded in order to, to move things in the right direction. After all, the hell is it all for? Right? Like

Seth Casana: Yeah.

Brad Frost: we need to be able to show there are better ways of being, that there are better ways of existing. That we are all the same and we all can all sing the words of licious or, or, or to just be reminded of our, of our sort of, you know, humanity and our, and our sort of like shared human values, right? And, and it's like that party, right? That, that joyful, that exuberant experience is just as important and is an important part of the broader fight

Seth Casana: Mm-hmm. We all.

Brad Frost: a better place, right?

Seth Casana: we've got warriors and clerics, but we've also got Bards, you know, like every,

Brad Frost: Yeah,

Seth Casana: we each have our own character class and we each bring our own strengths and weaknesses to the table.

Brad Frost: yeah.

Seth Casana: And, and it doesn't have to be a single front battle. It's true. You know,

Brad Frost: and especially like when you think about what those bards are doing, like, and I see comedy in this way a lot. It's like there's just so much can be said in through these mediums that that literally can't be said any other way.

Seth Casana: Yeah.

Brad Frost: like you, you could just like read out the couple sentences of declarative, you know, just prose, here's this, here's like the logic or whatever. But it's really in those narratives, it's really through the, the lens of, of the arts and stuff that, that you get real potency to, to a message

Seth Casana: Humor is such an effective tool for pointing out absurdity, for pointing out hypocrisy, for speaking truth to power, you know, because it's really disarming in a way that a direct confrontation would instantly put up people's defenses. Um, you can talk about subjects if you do it artfully, that are taboo in a way that people, that really resonates with people. You can, really tap in to people's anxiety in a way that feels positive, you know, uh, that feels joyful. That, that says like, okay, yeah, things are really hard. But, uh, it, it's kind of silly, right? Like it, you can, when you, when you do it the right way, it can, it can really make a. a large enemy seems small. and, and music in the same way can help you process, uh, emotions, express emotions that, uh, in a, in a communal way that is really hard to rival. Um, and, and that's just as important to, to dismiss either of those aspects of the human experience as somehow, like lesser than or, or not, as,

Brad Frost: Yeah.

Seth Casana: not as critical to confronting real problems in the world would be to throw away some really important tools that have taken us, uh, eons to develop.

Brad Frost: Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it, it is really, it's like, yeah. When you think of those eons, it's like, yeah, we're a bunch of small tribes warring with each other out through things, and it's really only been through the, evolution of how we learn to cooperate with one another.

Seth Casana: the,

Brad Frost: we get to society as, as

Seth Casana: yeah.

Brad Frost: today.

Seth Casana: Music has been theorized to be one of the ways that information was transmitted in, in the earliest human cultures. The, you would sing a song and it would be something like, don't go over that mountain because our grandfather died when he did. You know? And then you would remember that, and then you wouldn't do that. Don't eat the red mushrooms because you will die. You know, it was probably a lot about like, what killed you, you know? Um, when you see the flowers bloom, it's time to go have sex. You know, like whatever it was, people ha that was a way before writing, before, you know, anything like that. It was a way to codify and transmit knowledge across generations. And so people who are able to do that well could, could build up a community knowledge store and, and, um, be more effective as a society that way. Uh, and we've just, I just hope we never lose that, you know?

Brad Frost: Yeah. Oh no, a hundred, a hundred percent. And, and, and, and like using music as a way, as we've all of been talking about in this conversation is like, it's like if you are there, if you are on that dance floor, if you are in that room, if you're in that venue, you're part of the the in

Seth Casana: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Brad Frost: so like that ability. galvanize a group of people to, to unify them under the same sort of experience, like emotional experience and

Seth Casana: Mm-hmm.

Brad Frost: is so incredibly powerful for, for doing this. And this is why, you know, like that, that, you know, music as a universal language, like reminding us of, of our oneness and stuff. Like, man, oh man, this is some potent stuff that we're talking about. And, and again, it's, it's to, to trivialize it or to diminish it or to see it as like less than, it's like I, I think that there's a real opportunity to, to kind of like shine the light on it. I feel like these, these more positive of being and, and positive aspects of the human experience to, to try to like really shine a light. On that and to focus that as, as a vehicle, as a way of, getting out, from this, like just kind of what feels like a really negative feedback loop there are different ways of doing things. There are ways of being together. There are ways of, living under like the same tent. There are ways to bring people together. There are ways to cut across differences. There are ways to get us all out on the dance floor and, and move into the same beat. get out there, go to go to Fredericksburg, Virginia and to go to a, a restaurant or, or a bar or a venue and, and, and listen to some music

Seth Casana: Yeah.

Brad Frost: people.

Seth Casana: I'd say

Brad Frost: do your soul some good.

Seth Casana: if you're feeling lonely, read an actual book and then go see a concert. it will, it will at least jog you out of whatever funk you're in. You know? If nothing else, if you don't make a friend or learn something about yourself, you'll at least like give yourself a reset, you know?

Brad Frost: no, it's beautiful. Ah, it's beautiful. I love it. a few things, uh, before we go, so, so we've talked about a number of your projects, um, but like, where could people learn more about you and, and support you and, and check you

Seth Casana: yeah. Uh, big Wig Productions is bigwig Live, LIVE and you can find my link to Instagram. That's where I posting most of the shows for the venues and the people that I work with. Um, uh, my band, LB Brass, ELBY brass.com. Uh, we're still playing, still playing Summa, still wearing the marching band uniforms. Uh, still out there. We're recording an album this year, so trying to get that out by the end of the year. New original stuff, for my dj. Steph Seth casana.com. Uh, if you're trying to book me or if you just wanna see what's interesting on Instagram, it's at walking disco. you can see my HTICs there, post little snippets from the shows. yeah, that's, um, that's most of it.

Brad Frost: Yeah.

Seth Casana: I'm out there a lot.

Brad Frost: de definitely, definitely check out all of all of SES music. And then the, the last question that I've asked everybody, uh, beyond, your own music, what music would you love more people to know about and listen to?

Seth Casana: I mean, I really love pec. Uh, I feel like they've become much more high profile over recent years, which I'm really happy for them. But if you haven't checked them out, these, these are some of the nastiest musicians that are just like doing their own thing and, and doing it their own way. It's really inspiring to see in such a good groove, um, if you're, if you want something that's a little bit more chill, um, the Band Lake, outta Washington, they did like the Adventure time, theme song. They've done like a lot of stuff with them. That, that's the band. Their band is called Blake. I have become obsessed recently with like all their albums. I never watched that show. Like I've seen bits and pieces of it here or there, but I wasn't like an adventure time fan. Uh, like some people are. I know that it's a really like meaningful show to a lot of people. So if it is, then you are definitely gonna love going into the actual bands albums. These things are. Like in heavy rotation when I come home and I just want to like, chill out and, and like kind of calm down for the day. It's, it's such, it's such a, a deeply connecting but, and, and quirky, musical corpus there. yeah. In Lake Street Dive, I love so much. I've seen them live a bunch of times. Uh, they, again, they are, I, I just really love, uh, the kind of joyful but also emotional, creative and, uh, brilliantly technically executed songs that they're writing and performing

Brad Frost: Beautiful. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. No,

Seth Casana: Few Lakes. How do we get two lakes in there?

Brad Frost: two Two lakes.

Seth Casana: to Lake and then go to Lake Street Dive. I like lakes. I do like lakes. I grew up with Lakewood of Pasa.

Brad Frost: there we go.

Seth Casana: Brad, it's been a joy. Thank you.

Brad Frost: Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you so much for, for being here.