199 – Ian Olvera (Daydream Retrievers, The Sleepwalkers, Wire & Vice)

My First Band Podcast

This week's guest is Ian Olvera, whose work can be heard in a variety of ways. Beyond being a current member of Blueheels and the bandleader of Daydream Retrievers, Olvera has helped record and mix music from a wide variety of other musicians at Wire & Vice and Mystery Room Mastering (and on his own), and he's been a live sound engineer for a bunch of Milwaukee venues and some very well-known artists. Before he was doing any of that, Olvera was teaching himself guitar, recording himself with a Fisher Price microphone and making friends in the Green Bay music scene.

A day before heading out to Europe for a month to serve as a touring sound technician for Lucinda Williams, Olvera met up with My First Band host Tyler Maas at Milwaukee Record headquarters to talk about being on the road with a music legend, recent solo shows he played, and some recording projects he's taken on lately. Of course, the conversation also focused on his musical start. Olvera talked about being influenced by his dad's records, playing shows in Titletown as a highschooler, starting The Sleepwalkers while studying recording at UW-Oshkosh, moving to Milwaukee and getting more creative opportunities, and some surreal experiences from his varied career in music.

My First Band is sponsored by Mystery Room Mastering and Lakefront Brewery. The show is edited by Jared Blohm. You can listen to My First Band on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify and wherever else you get podcasts. You can also listen to rebroadcasts of previous My First Band episodes on WMSE every Wednesday from noon to 12:30 p.m. CST. Music used in this episode comes courtesy of Devils Teeth ("The Junction Street Eight Tigers") and Daydream Retrievers ("Living Hell").