Eat the Brick

After a brief hiatus for IBMA and some personal business, we're back!!! Joel and Randy discuss the Halloween 2026 weekend, local bands, upcoming projects and navigating the artistic space between doing social media content and making music. Eat the Brick is a Chattanooga based music and lifestyle podcast hosted by Randy Steele and Joel Forlines and listened to by only the very few! Come hang!

I had a fantastic discussion with Chattanooga by way of Bristol by way of Chattanooga musician Teni Rane!  She recently released her new album 'Never Turning Back' and the lion's share of this episode rotates around that album.  We discuss writing songs and the best practices she discovered while creating her sound over the years.  We talked about the album's release schedule, what it took to make that happen and what she learned and so forth.  Go check her out  at www.TeniRane.com

I had a great talk with Adam Stone about Chattanooga Jazz Fest and about its second year coming up. Last year's event was wildly successful and the discussion hovers around what year 2 brings in both challenges and excitement. Adam goes through what that looks like and throughout this conversation you can really tell how much of himself he has truly poured into the fest & local Jazz scene. Find out more about the festival here https://chajazzfest.com https://www.eatthebrick.com 

This was a fun episode and one that happened just off the cuff when I had someone drop out last minute.  Jakey and I were talking about a completely unrelated project a few days earlier and he was fresh in my mind.  The great thing about Jakey in real life and in his artistic career is that it’s impossible to tell if he’s being serious or if he’s setting you up for something.  This entire podcast has this feel to me, we start off pretty hot but the coffee wears off and we settled down and got into some real discussion about music, cinema, and the the melding of the 2.  We had a lot of fun, big thanks to Jakey for being Jakey! https://www.instagram.com/heyholutsko/

Episode 42 'Glossy Grass' w/ Cuatro Cinco. We talk Chattanooga hip hop, Cuatro’s move from performing with a DJ to bringing out the full Gloss Family Band, and how that opened up a whole different world of gigs and audiences. He talks about supporting other Chattanooga hip hop artists, building the Glossy brand, the idea behind Stay Glossy, and bringing a positive balance into a negative world. We also get into where he sees himself fitting into the music world, where he wants to take his career next, and the big plans he has for the future. This one was a fun conversation. Cuatro’s building something, and it’ll be inspiring to see just how far it goes.

Surrender to the Flow with Maggie O’Connor, Part 2. In the second half of our conversation with Maggie O’Connor, we talk about Chattanooga’s music scene, local venues like Cherry Street Tavern and The Edge, and her work bringing people together through Third Place Productions. Maggie also takes us deep into her love of Phish — how she became a fan, what it’s like trying to bring your friends into the Phish world, and why one band can become such an important part of your life. We also hear about Maggie’s own complicated history as a musician. She talks about growing up learning to perform, the good and bad that came with it, and a difficult experience at 16 that ultimately took her off the stage. It’s a conversation about Chattanooga, live music, fandom, community, and the experiences that shape our relationship with music. Eat the Brick is hosted by Randy Steele

Episode 40: Surrender to the Flow with Maggie O’Connor – Part One Maggie O’Connor joins Randy for a conversation that ended up being too good and too long for one episode. In Part One, Maggie talks about moving from Atlanta to Chattanooga and eventually bringing the Porchfest concept with her. What began with Highland Park Porchfest grew through Third Place Productions into events including Southside Porchfest, Red Bank Porchfest, and other neighborhood festivals around Chattanooga. We get into how the first Porchfest came together, some of the hurdles she had to overcome, how the idea spread, and how putting bands on people’s front porches has helped neighbors, musicians, and music fans meet people they might otherwise never have known. Maggie also talks about Third Place Productions, TEDx Chattanooga, the artist residency program at 50/50 Wine Bar, and some of the other projects she has been involved with around the city. Toward the end of the episode, we begin talking about her newest role as Events Director for IBMA and how much has already happened in the short time she has been there. This is Part One of our two-part conversation with Maggie O’Connor. Part Two continues the story.

Mark Chester joins us for Episode 39, “Sixty-Eight.” Mark came up in the Atlanta music world and knew and played with both Col. Bruce Hampton and percussionist Count M’Butu. Mark brings us some great stories from those years — playing with the Col., the mythology and madness that always seemed to follow Bruce Hampton around, and memories of M’Butu and the Atlanta music scene they were all part of. We also spend a lot of time talking about something we don’t hear enough about: getting older as a musician without becoming finished with music. Mark talks about playing with younger musicians, continuing to learn, and why at this point in his life he’s having more fun playing music than he ever has. Funny stories, music history, Col. Bruce Hampton, Count M’Butu and a pretty great conversation about why you don’t have to age out of doing what you love. Episode 39 of Eat the Brick: “Sixty-Eight” with Mark Chester.

Eat the Brick – Episode 38: The Sand Bar with Mike Dougher Mike Dougher has been booking live music in Chattanooga for more than four decades, and on this episode we get into a whole lot of that history. We start with the early days at The Sand Bar and work our way through years of Chattanooga live music, including Mike’s time booking Rhythm & Brews and his work with Riverfront Nights. Along the way, Mike tells stories about Widespread Panic, Dave Matthews Band, Leftover Salmon, Medeski Martin & Wood, Derek Trucks, North Mississippi Allstars, Colonel Bruce Hampton, Hootie & the Blowfish, Reverend Horton Heat, The Fabulous Thunderbirds and a whole lot more. He even talks about a couple of shows he wishes he’d booked — including turning down The Dixie Chicks and The Mavericks. We also talk about the music business from a booker’s perspective: what musicians get wrong when they email venues, what catches a booker’s attention, and some of the lessons Mike has picked up after 40-plus years of putting bands on stages. We get into the decision to bring tribute bands to Riverfront Nights, why those shows work, and how they can help make room for Chattanooga’s original local music scene. If you remember The Sand Bar or Rhythm & Brews, grew up seeing live music in Chattanooga, or just want to hear some great stories from the road and the other side of the booking desk, this is a good one.

Joel is back from Alaska for the weekend, so we figured it was a good time to sit down, catch up and find out what he’s been up to. In Episode 37, South Point Higgins Beach, Joel talks about playing music in Alaska and what it’s like working as a musician in a place where so much of the economy revolves around tourism. We get into the good parts, the difficult parts, the shows he’s been playing and some of the things you learn when your job is providing live music for people who are traveling. We’ve both also spent a lot of time on the road lately, which gets us talking about touring, driving across the country, Kansas, heading west, and some of the differences between Western culture and life back home in the Southeast. It’s mostly a good old-fashioned Eat the Brick catch-up episode about playing music, traveling, touring and trying to make a life out of doing creative work. If you’re into bluegrass, jamgrass, Americana, jam bands, live music or the music scenes around Chattanooga, Nashville, Knoxville and Atlanta, this one’s for you. Especially if your playlists tend to wander somewhere between Billy Strings, the Grateful Dead, Phish and the rest of the bluegrass and jam-band world.