Conversations without words

For a few years now, my friends Barry Paul Clark, Devin Drobka, and Chris Porterfield have been gathering at a top-shelf Milwaukee cocktail bar called Boone & Crockett from time to time so that they can talk amongst themselves, musically speaking. As three musicians with an inordinate amount of ideas and an endless supply of inspired creativity, the trio had lots to say that could never be distilled to mere genrefication… “pop” or “jazz” or “indie songwriter.”

You may know them through their involvement in Field Report, a critically-acclaimed band founded/led by gifted songwriter Chris, and for whom I have produced, recorded and mixed a bunch of music in recent years.

They had been setting up for these conversations at Boone under the name Argopelter, and promoting these events on their own socials. Some Milwaukee area friends were aware and would show up to listen in. Frankly, it was a thing that felt like they were doing for themselves, sincerely, rather than hoping to turn it into a “Thing.”

I would listen in on these conversational, entirely improvised sets, and it was not uncommon for me to get goosebumps. I wanted to relive the experience later. I would ask them incredulously “why aren’t you recording these?!” They have their reasons (they are still performing at Boone from time to time), and they are genuine artists and humans with integrity and so would offer by way of response something along the lines of “this is just what it is, it doesn’t need to be something else.”

I respect that. Truly. But honestly felt like more people should be paying attention. I’d often tell peers and associates in Los Angeles, New York, or Nashville that if they had anything with these vibes happening in their Big City Music Industry hubs, there’d be a line around the block filled with fellow players and artists who would get it. It was—it is—worth getting.

So I finally convinced them to come by the studio and let me record a few sets. The vibe was just a tiny bit different, it wasn’t a tinkling-drinks-in-the-background and flirtatious-banter-at-the-bar kind of hang, and as such there would need to be adjustments… studio microphones, proper tones/sound check, etc. But we proceeded without headphones and without much else that one might think you’d need for a studio session these days. My only regret from these recording sessions was that we didn’t think to grab any video. Maybe it would have changed the vibes entirely, I dunno. But I smile now that we captured some of the expressive purity and sense of wonder that happens when these three friends get together to… talk amongst themselves.

Ok, we had some recordings… some really great moments on tape… er, hard drive. Now what? The ADD-addled entrepreneur brain in me is constantly swimming in ideas, all the time. A bunch of these ideas have worked, a bunch have failed, a bunch have never seen the light of day. But I wanted to find some way to bring these sessions to more ears. Where to release 30 minute improvisational sets that are exceedingly difficult to classify? We got to talking about some options while in the studio one day, and it came to us that these were really conversations, and what are podcasts but conversations (often, usually)? It didn’t make sense to simply drop these onto Spotify or Apple Music and wait for fractions of pennies to be paid out to these artists for a half hour of music. The entire effort seemed to deserve just a bit more intentionality than that.

As a company (The License Lab) we’d had people asking us for years to do a podcast. Well, we actually had created one… back in 2008, long before podcasts went mainstream. Consistently waaaaay too far ahead of the curve, we are. (Some of those episodes are squirreled away, deep online somewhere, I won’t be rehashing those here, but we did have our own theme song and recurring weekly features, ha!) Aaaaanyways, it occurred to us while thinking on these options… what if this project, these private sessions, were this new License Lab podcast? As in… we simply let the music do the talking. Which is what we’ve always tried to do as a company historically anyway.

So the idea for this podcast was born. It launches on Tuesday September 6th, the first of 10 weekly episodes this fall (kind of a “Season 1” sorta deal). I’m super proud of it, as it’s an example of what we try to do as a company every day… work with people we like and respect, make inspiring music, and find creative ways to get this music into the world.

I hope you’ll check out WordLess, and I really hope it’s as inspiring to you as it has been to me over the time it’s taken us to get to this point. Thanks for reading, for listening, and for sharing with anyone else in your circles you think might enjoy this kind of thing, too.

Let’s all keep listening to each other.