Gary S. Hickinbotham
Red Nickel Productions

I've been fortunate enough to work with many great artists and engineers, and not just in the world of music. As I've gotten older I've learned more about project mangement and goal achievment. When I work with musicians, I am simply a co-producer/engineer (Tish Hinojosa calls it "interpretive production"). If you want someone who can help you record your vision of your music, we should talk to see if we're sympatico.

Before I took a hiatus from music in 1995 to assist on a design (patent pending) for a new type of physical therapy/fitness equipment (Z-Lift), I had many projects that came to fruition for the artists involved. Among them were demos for Pariah that resulted in an album for Geffen, demos for Doug Sahm that resulted in the Texas Tornados being signed to Reprise (and the demo made the album!), recording two of the Tornado's albums, re-recording an album (Culture Swing) that Tish Hinojosa did for A&M that was dropped when A&M was sold led to her being signed by Warner Bros., put together a project studio for a "band-under-construction" and made a demo for them that became an album for Dejadisc that went to the top 10 in Europe, and many other albums and demos that achieved recognition of one sort or another, including a Grammy and a couple of Indies. So, you see, I have been fortunate.

In 1998 I began to get involved in outside musical projects again after I became a lecturer for the Sound Recording Technology program (a 4-year degree) at the Department of Music at Southwest Texas State University. I had never thought of teaching, but I find it to be as rewarding and challenging a task as anything I have ever done.

For well over a decade I've been saying that the Internet would provide artists with a business structure much more favorable to them than the one record labels provide today. Of course, it still takes big bucks (major labels) to promote mega-acts via radio and print and to put up the costs of touring, etc., but many artists are finding they make a better living selling 20 or 30,000 or so CDs via the web than they would if they sold that number as part of a label's stable. (Old story: I know of a band that had a 10,000 member fan club before they were signed to a bighouse label. They made more money before they signed. They sold more records after they signed, but they owed more money...a lot more money.) The web isn't quite there yet as far as bandwith, copyright protection and other program-on-demand issues, but it's coming, and fast. I know the future when it spanks my butt... So, I'm involved with some web-based enterprises like BigJam.com.