Marta Makes the Moves

el Goose Chicks Interview with

Marta Goedde

written by Lisa Governa

During her freshman year of college, she went to her first music festival. “I went to Electric Forest for the first time and absolutely fell in love with it. I already loved music, but when you go to your first festival, it just hits you like a ton of bricks. You're forever changed.” Driving home from college, she told Andrew about her first Forest, 

“I was on cloud nine. He did go to the festival the following year. After that, we would see every live music show we could. Then Andrew started getting into lighting and that's when we both decided we would love to get into all this.”

Freshly inspired by the incredible production value of Electric Forest, Marta and Andrew started buying and renting equipment to experiment with in their mom’s garage. 

“Andrew and I learned it all together. I recently found this lighting diagram that I drew out when we finally figured out how to wire lighting. We were such nerds about it. We'd read everything we could. When we went to shows, we would totally geek out on the gear and the venue and then go home and read more. We started seeking out people in our area who were working in the industry, but we really didn't know anybody going into it.”

Marta graduated from Indiana University in 2015. She began working with a media finance magazine while Andrew was making good money in a sales job. They were successful, but undeniably unfulfilled. “I'll always remember when Andrew called me and said, ‘I want to do an equipment rental company but I have no idea what I'm doing in terms of the administrative business side.’” Marta decided to apply to a grad school program at the University of Indiana Kelley School of Business to help bring their dreams to fruition. Only 38% of applicants are typically accepted, and you better believe this amazing lady was one of them.

Armed with business knowledge and emphatic passion, they established their LLC, Goedde Sound and Light, in 2017. Their first official show was at Kilroy’s Sports Bar in Bloomington, IN. “We were so freaking excited! The bar had no speakers. There was just a stage. They asked us to bring two small speakers, but we brought everything we owned at that point. We had pretty decent sized speakers and set up all the lighting. They were blown out of the water. We were getting paid practically nothing, but we didn’t care. We were just so stoked to be able to set up our stuff for an actual event. Ever since then, we've always gone above and beyond to put on the best production, even more than we were contracted to provide for a show. Being so impacted by live music, one of the best things about what we do, is hearing people’s reaction after a show. There's so much that goes into it, but it makes it so worth it to know that we can bring that joy to other people.”

After a year of bringing epic production to the local Indy music scene, their friend and show buddy, Danny McDonald, was added to the crew. “He was really into it too. He offered to help us whenever we needed it, and he's been with us every day since. He is the glue for the whole crew. Things would not happen day in and day out if Danny wasn’t there. He can fix anything. He's so smart. He's been Andrew’s lead lighting tech since the beginning.” Danny helps create the lighting design for tour and has built several components to the rig that hold the lights.

With Marta holding down the business, Andrew and Danny honed their skills and continued to expand the rig. GSL was gaining momentum and establishing themselves as a production force in the Midwest. They landed their first touring gig with Dizgo. This is the band responsible for GSL’s romantic, cosmically ironic, introduction to Goose. “It was Valentine’s Day at Woodlands Tavern in 2018. Goose was opening for Dizgo. 

Before the show, Andrew said, ‘Hey, I'm here so I can run for you guys too.’ Peter said, ‘Really? That'd be awesome!’ Afterwards, we were talking to the guys, and they were so intrigued that we owned our own lights and were touring with a band like Dizgo. We kept in touch with them.”

Fast forward to summer 2018, the universe reinforces fate, bringing Goose and GSL together for Resonance. “The people who put on Resonance hit us up to be the equipment supplier vendors for the event VIP stage. Goose played two sets that weekend, late night and VIP, so we ran into them again.” Shortly after that, Goose made the first move and asked Andrew to come on tour. Marta stayed home and continued to run the business and produce shows with Danny. “But I'll never forget Andrew calling me at the end of a night with Goose, and it sounded so amazing! I was working other shows here, but I was always thinking it would be so cool to tour with them.”

With confirmation the attraction was mutual, Goose and GSL entered their official relationship, a match made in jam band heaven. It’s been incredible watching them grow together!  “It’s been challenging, but in the best way. This whole group has been so motivated. Every time something bigger and better would happen for Goose, we were stoked to level up and deliver the production.”

Marta and Andrew were always close growing up. Their yin and yang relationship created a harmonic business partnership. “He has such a creative mind and so much motivation for production. I think one of the reasons why we work so well together is because I love his ideas, and I figure out the logistics and map that part out. I've always been the one thinking through the details so we can execute his vision…

 Having that sibling trust in a crew member is huge. Anytime I have a random thought about something, I can call him to just talk and nerd out about it. I mean, we went from figuring shit out in our mom’s garage to being at Radio City Music Hall this year. Moments like that are how you get over the fact that you're working with your brother every day.”

Marta’s day to day operational planning begins months before the actual show. She works closely with Tour Manager and fellow bad ass Goose Chick, Sam King, to iron out all the details. “We get the venue's contact information from our managers or agents who are so great. They do so much for us and are just so awesome. So we reach out to start what's called advancing. In the advanced process, advancing where we talk with the venue about tech specs. We figure out what they have in house, let them know what we’re touring with, what the lighting rig like looks like, and what we need audio wise. If they have video walls, we talk about logistics of how we can get our video up there. Then we hit on the business side — if we’ll need help unloading the truck, working with budgeting and sorting out costs for everything that goes into putting on every show. It is a business at the end of the day so that's important.”

Then comes show day. Hours before the rail riders and poster collectors begin lining up, Marta is already hard at work. “Sam King and I do a walkthrough with the venue. They'll show us the green room and the stage. Then Sam, Andrew, Danny and I unload lighting from the truck before the band gear, because lighting load in can take hours. Then we start on rigging and hanging lights . An hour or two later, the rest of the crew will start loading in all the band gear and setting all that up. Once it's time for load in, everything comes off the truck and rigging begins. "Lighting load in can take hours and takes up the whole stage so that gets done first. Then an hour or two later the rest of the crew will start loading in audio & all of the band gear. I set up all the cameras and the streaming equipment. I make sure that everything is absolutely perfect by soundcheck. I always say soundcheck is basically a full show practice… the band has worked so hard to make their sound exactly what they want it to be for every show, so we make it all happen.”

Once soundcheck is on, Marta shifts her focus to the livestream. “I talk with LiveXLive from soundcheck through the end of the show, just checking in making sure everything's good because we send our program feed from the cameras to them from our video world on site at the shows. After soundcheck, we clean everything up, get all the cases off stage and clean everything up and get ready for the show (Marta pauses and takes a deep breath)… The funniest thing is that's not even my whole day, but I love how I just took a breath there. When the guys start, that's when I can actually take a breath even though I'm always on standby on stage just in case anything happens or anybody needs anything at all.” Approximately 10 hours into her work day, Marta begins prepping for an efficient load out. 

“Halfway through second set, I'll start getting ready for load out. It's important for us to get out of venues in a timely manner so we can get sleep. I work closely with our new Stage Manager and backline tech, Padge, and he's amazing! Our manager, Ben Baruch, has known him for years, because he’s worked in the industry for over a decade.

So when we start loading out, I pack up the cameras and get all the cases going out to the truck in the right order because we pack the truck the same way every night. My job is to make sure everything goes smoothly from the time the truck arrives until the end of the night when we shut the truck doors.”

But wait, there’s more! Arguably Marta’s biggest contribution directly impacting fans is bringing epic production straight to our living rooms via live stream. Her innovation began during Bingo Tour. “I had been doing multi camera recording and editing for Dizgo, and before COVID, Peter was doing it for Goose. He called Andrew and I and pitched the Bingo Tour idea and asked, ‘Is there a way that we can set up a live stream? Do you know what we need?’ I’m such a nerd and have always been but I didn't know.” Marta went to work researching the equipment they’d need to make Bingo Tour happen. Costs were adding up, and without live music, money wasn’t coming in. She had to get scrappy. “I started selling my clothes so we could buy or rent everything we needed.”

As always, Marta made it happen. With all the gear they needed secured, they began preparing for what became one of the most momentous performances for Goose. “I was so nervous because it wasn't like a live show. The show was live streamed and that was it for the fans so it had to go perfectly. Days before Bingo Tour actually started, we were setting up while the band was practicing. Management got us in with LiveXLive, and we did test streams to make sure that everything was sending to them… it was so much fun! Being able to do this for everybody during COVID was so important to us. People would leave comments or write us and say how they've always loved music and COVID really hurt them. Not being able to see live music was devastating to them and these live streams were the highlight of their life, pulling them through. That made our hearts smile. To be able to do that for people, even when they're not at the show, it's just so awesome. We're so honored to be able to make people feel like that even if they aren’t there.” After a wildly successful live stream event, Goose wanted to continue provide a couch tour option through COVID and beyond. “Peter said, ‘I would love to bring all this gear on the road and live stream every single show.’ That was the start of me with touring with Goose!”

Plenty of bands put out live streams, but few, if any, are doing it for every show. Marta pioneered a road ready setup conducive to tour life. “I figured out how we could bring the cameras and get them to connect to the switcher. I eventually built this huge road case with everything built right into it. We open up the stream case, set up the camp, and run the cables. Then it's pretty much plug and play! There’s a transmitter that sends Jon's voice to Danny's in a wireless pack. We have a PC built into it that sends the feed to LiveXLive… It took a lot of work to figure out how to do live streaming in the first place, but I spent weeks before tour really understanding everything that we needed to make it work and record it perfectly. When venues see what we travel with, they’ve never seen anything like it.”

Marta calls her control console "video world.” If you’ve ever seen a Goose show or live stream, you know exactly what she’s talking about. “We don't always use video walls. Sometimes small venues have video walls and we choose not to put the program up on it. If it's not a huge venue where people are so far back that they can't see very well, then we just want people to enjoy the live show. If it’s big enough to where it will help people in the back see better, then we love to put it up there.”

Ultimately, Marta gives us a unique opportunity to connect with the band. “Growing up when I started going to shows, you couldn't go on YouTube and a watch a show because it just didn't exist. I wanted to look up this STS9 show that I was at last year and loved, but I couldn’t find it. Growing up I loved watching videos of live music on TV and YouTube. Once I started going to shows I remember always wanting to relive it later but you couldn't find a lot at the time because it just didn't exist for bands I was going to see at the time. There really wasn't a ton of content for bands, especially Goose’s size. When I'm home, I love drinking wine and listening and watching live music performances. To be able to do that for an up and coming band was so cool. They wanted to try it out, and they gave me an opportunity. We were figuring it out all together, and once we did, we just ran with it.” Not only does Marta make streaming possible, the quality of the production is unmatched. Stylistically, the way everything is shot makes it feel so personal.

 They are able to capture every nuance, zoom in at the perfect moment in a solo, and show us incredible vantage points we’d never see otherwise. “I think it comes across that way to people at home because of Danny. He is so talented with the camera. That together with Jon knowing everything about the music is just magic.”

Jon “Coach” Lombardi essentially orchestrates what we see on the stream. Surprisingly, absolutely none of it is rehearsed. “It's 100% improv. Coach is the one that actually does the switching. There's nothing forced. Danny knows the music unbelievably well. Jon has a headset on and is constantly talking to Danny throughout the show. He tells Danny, ‘Trevor's about to have a bass solo so go over there and I'll count you down. All right, I'm gonna switch on 3, 2, 1 and you're live. Okay, on 3, 2, 1 I'm going to front of house’, and then Danny will go there. Danny doesn't have a way to talk back to Jon, but he'll take the initiative to move, like this would be a good shot of Ben right now… he takes the chance to go get something that maybe Jon wouldn't have thought of because he's actually the one out there with the camera seeing things from a different perspective. It’s totally organic.”

Though Jon’s role has evolved with the growth of Goose, Marta loves and appreciates his contributions that have become a staple for the band and crew. “Before the guys come out, I man the switcher because he always walks them up and goes out to pump everyone up. I've never seen anybody with that kind of energy. Coach is the reason we're all here. He has been the backbone of everything Goose since they started. He’s so proud of how far everything's come. I thank him for being so involved and bringing this all to fruition back in the day. It’s been so amazing, and I wouldn't be here without him. He writes the setlist out every night. He's always working with Rick on what we feel like playing that night. The guys want him involved and it’s been that way since the beginning. It's cool to see how that never changes…he’s integral to the team feeling their best. He always reminds us no matter what scale the show is, just go out there and do what we always do. He says, ‘We got 50 more years of this together! This is the best team ever and I love you guys. Let's go out there and crush it!’”

This entire operation is incredible, but there’s one pesky detail that determines if this epic production can make it to our TV: the interweb. During advancing, Marta asks the venue to do a speed test to see if the WiFi checks out. “It doesn't take absolutely amazing internet to be able to stream but we need the bare minimum. Usually the bigger venues are totally adequate. The smaller places like Scoot Inn in Austin, TX last year have borderline internet to where we push the stream, but it might be risky.” 

They rely on their streaming partner, LiveXLive, for support in those situations. “They sent us an internet backpack. It’s basically mobile WiFi we just plug in and power up. Each tour leg we end up using the backpack like at least two or three times. I love LXL. Ever since we starting working with them on Bingo Tour, it’s been awesome!”

As we all know, despite all of their testing, planning, and immense efforts, shit happens. “If a stream ever goes down, it's really nobody's fault. That's just the way it is sometimes.

For the Greek Theater in LA, we ran a hard line from their router to our computer, and they had great internet, like amazingly high speed! It was so weird it dropped maybe two times. We can't control that live battle. I hate when it happens. It breaks our heart. It's really hard after the show to tell Peter. Nobody could have predicted it. It just happened.”

The entire band is invested in the stream experience for fans, but Peter’s involvement is above and beyond. He’s acknowledged the fans tuning in from home at multiple shows and even apologized once after he learned the stream went down mid set. “The other day he had a couple of questions about some video ideas for a big show we have coming up, and it turned into an hour long phone conversation about all things production. He wants to level everything up and I’m the same way. It’s amazing how much he cares. As soon as the show is over, he starts working on getting soundboards ready to go up. He doesn't stop.”

Marta sets up her video world on the sweet side of the stage. Peter can often see the camera feeds in his periphery while he’s performing stage next to the band's monitor world. "There have been a few shows where we may have had issues with the internet or something going on with the stream audio and Peter can't help but stay involved even when they go on stage. The shows that's happened at, he's looked at me in between songs with his eyebrows raised 

like 'we good?' I'm just thinking oh my gosh, Peter stop worrying focus on the show! (Marta’s laughing) That show at the Greek he could barely see the video wall from the stage. After the show, he told Jon, ‘You were really great tonight with the video switching!’ I said ‘Seriously, you're amazing Peter! You're up there playing the whole time and also can notice stuff like that out of the corner of your eye.’”

Even if the show isn’t streaming, the cameras are on and audio is recorded. Every single show is captured in some way. “We've literally recorded everything and saved it. The archives are crazy. We record multiple copies of the video or audio. Every show is definitely bulletproof. We didn't always have the means to record on multiple things. It's a huge bummer when a computer messes up and we lose a recording. We learned early on by making those mistakes how not to.”

Other than dropping soundboards and YouTube releases, what’s happening with all of this content? Is a documentary imminent? “The reason why it's all archived is for the possibility of maybe one day doing a documentary. We don't really know where this is gonna go, and it’s important to us to have all of it. As of now, there's no talk about a documentary, but when the time comes, we'll have way more than enough content… we always dreamed we were gonna be big one day.”

For a band who’s constantly outdoing themselves show after show, one may wonder if Goose reflects on these recordings akin to a football team reviewing plays. Does the band watch or listen to the show and critique their performance? “They're very present on show day. When we first started videoing every show, we would all get on the bus and watch it and re-watch it because we were like, this is so good! The crew watched it every night after the show until we got too tired on the road, but the band definitely doesn't use it in that sense. 

Even the crew doesn’t have to do that anymore. We’ve done so many shows together and just got in a groove.” Technical difficulties are rare, but not exclusive to streams. There’s been a few instances where Marta had to jump in and save the day during a live show. Perhaps the most notable was the smoking speaker from their first run in Montana at the Pine Creek Lodge in July 2021. “Rick’s girlfriend, Carina, ran up to me and says, ‘There's smoke coming out of the speaker.’ And I’m like Oh. My. God! We had to end that set early because the band saw us taking apart the speaker to see what was going on.”

Recently during the Chrysalis run, half of the lighting on the stage went out. “We wear in-ear monitor headphones the whole show and use mics to communicate for crew talk back. detail that Danny and I will need to fix or he'll get on the mic and say 'Goedde for Marta, can you do some haze tech?' which basically means I need to redirect the fans in front of the haze machines in order to perfectly cover the stage with haze. That's just an example, there's other things that happen that make our crew talk back essential if an issue occurs on stage and then there's times someone will just hop on their mic and say 'that was fire' or something in between songs like that.” 

Their communication and execution makes glitches like these brief and barely noticeable to fans. An insane amount of work goes into maintaining all of the crew and band equipment to prevent these kinds of things from happening. There’s backup gear and plan B’s galore to keep the show going in the face of a technical challenge. “Sometimes Goedde will have to replace a bulb in a light, but we carry extras in case that ever happens. Rick has his big amp and his original smaller amp as his backup now. Both of them had an issue at one point on this last tour. At the end of Red Rocks, his primary amp started glitching, so we switched it out before the encore. Then the smaller amp was having a similar issue but it wasn't nearly as bad. The next multiple shows we were sourcing for another amp to be brought in for him. There's so many moving parts to make it all work, but as a crew, we're such a great team. After doing it for a while, it's like riding a bike and now we just know to always check on those things.”

Let’s nerd out for a bit on some of the equipment in Marta’s rig. Disclaimer: This is some serious techy stuff that may go over the average reader’s head. That being said, Goose fans ain’t average, so if you’re here, read on. I can’t convey the excitement in Marta’s voice as we dove into her gear. This is her passion and she lives and breathes it. “We upgraded cameras two years ago to level up the video quality, but it was really important to me that we keep them low profile enough to have them on stage without interfering with the live experience. They're called Panasonic BGH1’s. The tripods we use are actually extremely heavy duty microphone stands. The cameras screw on to those so they don't shake because they're really heavy. All the cameras are powered by a Cat 5 line and transfer video over an SDI which is basically a video cable that’s better than HDMI. That all runs into the back of our video world. Then that goes into the Blackmagic Design ATEM 1 M/E Advanced Panel switcher. The switcher has a multi-view capability that goes to the computer screen so Jon can see all the different angles. We get the stream audio from the monitor console and run XLR’s into the switcher. The output for the actual program feed goes into two different things. Number one is a device we can put an SD card in to record the whole thing. Number two is the PC that we built in the video case. That’s where we open up the streaming software we use, vMix. We transmit from that software to LXL. They give me the SRT configuration which are numbers I have to type in before we can transmit. Then I hit ‘start sending’ and that's how they get our feed.”

Please take this moment to pause and reflect on the pure badassery of this woman.

“If say somehow Trevor's out of focus, I have control of every camera from that computer and can correct it. We also record every individual camera feed. There's 10 cameras total — 8 static cameras on stage, one static camera in front of house, and then Danny's gimbal camera which is completely wireless. It's the same exact camera as the others but a cable runs into a wireless transmitter that he has screwed onto his gimbal. That sends his feed to our video world and then it shows up as a source.”

One front of house camera and one camera for Danny leaves 8 for the band. “There’s one on Rick and one on Trevor. There’s one on Peter in front of him for when he's playing guitar and one behind him for keys. Jeff and Ben have two angles each. After soundcheck a couple of the guys will walk over to video world and check out their angles. Sometimes one will ask, ‘Can I check on my angle today? I think it'd be good to move it over a little bit this way.’ Not everybody does that, but I love when they do because I want to make sure it’s the best it can be. I love the feedback! It's always great to get a view from somebody else's perspective.”

Marta often doesn’t get to enjoy the production she works so tirelessly to give us, but she shared a few highlights from her tenure with Goose. In no particular order:

“Spirit of the Dark Horse” (7/3/21)
The Pines, Eau Claire, WI

“Full body goosebumps. I’m not kidding I remember exactly where I was for that. I was standing next to Matt Kolinsky (Goose manager) on Trevor side. It was absolutely unbelievable! I think that’s why they released it.”

“Moby” (5/8/21)
The Caverns, Pelham, TN 

“This show was on Goedde's birthday and he asked the band if they would play Moby for him. During soundcheck, they said ‘So are we gonna play “Moby” tonight?’ Rick said, Yeah, let's do it!’ and someone else said, ‘Do we practice it?’ Rick goes, ‘I don't think we can practice it guys. I think we just gotta do it tonight.’ When they played it, that was the first time they've played it since they soundchecked with it in Mexico for Dead & Co. It's just amazing how they're able to do shit like that on the fly.”

Goosemas (12/19/20)
Rockefeller Center

“Rockefeller was just surreal. I was gimbling that night. By no means am I a gimbal operator but they said, ‘You can crush it!’ I was happy to do anything to help pull something like that off. Jon walking them out in their snow suits was a moment for sure.”

CBS Morning Show (6/25/22)
Saturday Morning Sessions

“They obviously have amazing cameras and equipment. Goedde worked with the CBS crew setting up fixtures on the ground while we set up the band gear. Then we got to watch the whole thing! We could see the director switching. That was a fun day! We were really tired, but as exhausting as touring is, once they start playing, it sinks in and it's just like ‘hell yeah! This is why we do it.’”

I know I said no particular order, but I had to save the best for last: 

Red Rocks (8/18/22)
Morrison, CO

“I woke up to a text from my boyfriend, Matt, that morning. He said, ‘I know you're going to be busy all day. I wanted to catch you before you got in the thick of it and say take a moment today to realize how far you've come. I'm so proud of you!’ Honestly, when the guys first went on, I was tearful. That moment was just so crazy. You think about how proud you are of the band and the whole team, but at the same time, you think about how hard we worked to get there. It’s the best feeling in the world… They can't even believe that all this is happening… they've been so great to work with over the years. They deserve every bit of the success.”

And so do you, Marta.