Just Press Record: Vic Ruggiero And Christina Garnett

Victor Ruggiero has figured out a way to keep a relatively underground band together for over 30 years (together here meaning: touring the world, recording new music, and getting paid just enough to still be worth it - except for maybe that one time in Italy, which is an amazing story you’ll have to listen for). 

Christina Garnett works has figured out ways to help mammoth tech companies get out of the clouds and back to their roots to talk to their true customers (puns intended) as a Chief Customer Officer (clouds/roots here meaning the bigger a company gets, the harder it is to get customer feedback that actually gets listened to, and she’s got a career of experience in getting questions asked and answers heard). 

It was the ultimate chance to get a “you don’t have to scale to survive” guest talking to a “even if you do scale you can’t do it without community” person. 

And they did not disappoint. 

A punk guy and a tech gal are more my people than I even realized before we just pressed record. 

Advice was exchanged. Dave Grohl stories were shared. Pop culture criticisms and hot takes were tooken, in and out of context, for better or for worse (you be the judge). 

We got into burnout. How it shows up in musicians and the tech industry in strangely rhyming ways. 

Christina coined the term badwill - framed as the opposite of goodwill - to explain how communities break down when you lose trust. 

Vic coined the expression deadlocked mediocrity - framed as the opposite of interesting art - to explain how post-pandemic especially everybody is so optimized to do the same things it’s no wonder it’s obscure punk bands and Taylor Swift with nothing in the middle. 

If you’re looking to bring a little more art into your professional life, this conversation is for you. 

If you’re looking to bring a little more professionalism into your artistic life, this conversation is for you. 

If you’re looking for what to do from the bottom up OR the top down to just stay in the game for the long haul, this conversation is for you. 

I’m so proud of making a conversation like this exist in a recorded form, because outside of an accidental run in at a bar, it’s easy to forget magic like this can happen. 

https://youtu.be/V3_W76mbYRg

BONUS STUFF! A few semi-obscure links mentioned in this episode, for posterity of course:

The Slackers’ Zombie Movie, “Dave of the Dead” (if you have ever driven a minivan, you especially need to see the end credits) 

Christina’s beloved Hozier song “Shrike” (delightfully easy to spell! And I love this album, putting this one was a reminder to go back to it - wrote about my jam from this album, “Nobody” here)

And a couple Slackers videos for the curious (starting with newer stuff because I think this is a cool video, but then, you know I had to go back)

And last but not least, here’s the post I wrote about The Slackers, From Punk Rock Conspiracy To Punk Rock Theory, h/t to Aaron Carnes and his In Defense of Ska book/podcast, that set this whole thing in motion.