NEPA SCENE PODCAST: Managing bluegrass band Cabinet and organizing the Susquehanna Breakdown festival
Professionally recorded on Mondays at The Stude in TwentyFiveEight Studios in Scranton and released exclusively on nepascene.com on Tuesdays, the NEPA Scene Podcast is a free supplement to the website, expanding on the arts and entertainment stories covered on the site and going beyond them to discuss other news and entertainment topics.
Each week, the unedited and uncensored podcast features Rich Howells, NEPA Scene founder and editor; Mark Dennebaum, president and owner of TwentyFiveEight Studios; and Lauren Quirolgico, commercial and content strategist at Lavelle Strategy Group and editor at TwentyFiveEight. Every episode streams on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and nepascene.com.
In Episode 57, we’re joined by special co-host Jason Riedmiller, one of our photographers at NEPA Scene, to talk with Bill Orner, the manager of local bluegrass band Cabinet, about the group’s upcoming fourth annual music festival, Susquehanna Breakdown, at The Pavilion at Montage Mountain in Scranton on Friday, May 20 and Saturday, May 21.
We discuss how Bill transitioned from a musician into a manager, what goes into managing a band, how Cabinet has become one of the most successful bands to come out of Northeastern Pennsylvania, advice for other musicians hoping to make it, how the local music scene has changed over the years, the popularity of bluegrass and how the band has incorporated other influences into their music, photographing the band and building their brand through artwork and marketing, the importance of building relationships and keeping up the band’s social media presence, stories from the road and memories from previous Breakdowns, Cabinet’s best shows of all time, why the festival changed from the Old Farmers Ball into Susquehanna Breakdown, what goes into organizing the festival every year and how it has grown over time, and what the festival will offer this year for both dedicated followers and casual music fans.
For more information on the Susquehanna Breakdown, see this article or visit susquehannabreakdown.com.
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Photo by Jer Tobin/TwentyFiveEight Studios
