Brainium Sounds Off
Local band Brainium tells stories about playing live (anywhere from bars to parking lots), recording music starting in the 80s (cassette tape) through today (DAW), their eventually-to-be-released stage musical, and more. Self-described (in the song “Our Kind of Town”) as “Two guys in disguise as a pseudointellectual music machine” Brainium is guitarist (and much more) Thom Ciezki and keyboardist (and much less) Gary Schmid. Both (especially Thom) have played in other local bands but only Brainium has endured through the decades. Weird, witty, and rarely dull, hear stories about music-making from local guys who haven’t made it big (yet) but have had a great time getting...nowhere. “Oh, that magic feeling...”
Episodes

15 hours ago
Playing Live vs. Studio
15 hours ago
15 hours ago
Sometimes bands play live, sometimes in a studio. (And with Brainium, sometimes "live" to tape in a basement with no audience.) What's the difference? Plenty, actually. The Boys of Brainium (especially Thom) discuss their own experiences with playing live vs. the studio.

Wednesday Mar 12, 2025
The Marquis: Brainium's legendary "other" guitar
Wednesday Mar 12, 2025
Wednesday Mar 12, 2025
While Thom's Fender Strat provided almost all of the guitar sounds for Brainium (to date), another guitar shows up now and then played by Gary--the keyboard player who can't really play guitar (or keyboards, but that's another story). It's old and cheap (like Brainium?) but recently had some work done (unlike Brainium) so it seemed like a good time to showcase this obscure instrument.

Friday Feb 28, 2025
Song Origins: Our Kind of Town
Friday Feb 28, 2025
Friday Feb 28, 2025
Another in our series discussing the origins of specific Brainium songs. This one might be considered the band's "anthem" as it includes "Brainium" in the lyrics. (It also includes "pseudointellectual" but that's irrelevant.) A snippet from this song is the outro for our podcast episodes. Now you can hear the whole thing!

Friday Feb 14, 2025
Running Sound
Friday Feb 14, 2025
Friday Feb 14, 2025
Big, successful bands have crews of sound people setting everything up and making sure it all sounds good during the performance. Most bands don't have that luxury. Brainium didn't. (Not yet, anyway.) So how do other bands (like Brainium) run their sound?

Friday Jan 31, 2025

Friday Jan 17, 2025
When Things Went Wrong
Friday Jan 17, 2025
Friday Jan 17, 2025
Believe it or not, things don't always go as planned during a gig. Shocking, right? In this episode, the boys of Brainium tell stories of some of their "uh oh" incidents. Unsurprisingly, this episode ran a little long even though we only hit the highlights (or lowlights) at Brainium and non-Brainium gigs.

Friday Jan 03, 2025
Favorite Non-Brainium Gigs
Friday Jan 03, 2025
Friday Jan 03, 2025
In a previuos episode, we talked about some of our favorite Brainium gigs. Now it's time to talk about favorite gigs playing in other bands. While nothing can truly compare to playing a Brainium gig, there were still some good times for each of us playing in other bands. Just ask Thom!

Friday Dec 20, 2024
Song Origins: I'm A Monk
Friday Dec 20, 2024
Friday Dec 20, 2024
Another Song Origins episode features the song "I'm A Monk." We discuss how the song originated and evolved into the new (for now) Brainium version. (The "new" version is from the late 1980s.) Hear the difference "Brainiumizing" the song made!
Note: This episode is a little longer than usual. We'll strive to be more concise in the future. We do tend to ramble...