Backstage stories from the PNW music grind.
Tri-Cities Mixtape is a rough-edged interview feed for musicians, venue-adjacent characters, and regional artists around the Tri-Cities and wider PNW. It favors green-room origin stories, first-show chaos, and practical band talk over polished promo copy.
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Tri-Cities Mixtape is a local-music document with the door left open. It catches artists in motion: backstage at Battle Vest Fest 2025, in the green room at Ray's Golden Lion, on location at Clover Island Inn, and around shows tied to the Tri-Cities scene. The format is simple and effective. Miguel Ortiz asks who everyone is, what they play, where they came from, how the name happened, and what the first show felt like. Then the better material arrives. Bands talk about hot rooms, awkward microphones, retired songs, band history, practice discipline, cheap guitars, Craigslist ads, old rap lyrics, scene stickers, and the moment a live set stops feeling like ordinary life. The show is especially good when it lets musicians explain their own mythology. Vaulderie turns heavy metal performance into vampiric transformation. Guillotine Gambit makes accordion miking and early-set embarrassment feel like band lore. Sunshine Lollipop frames grindcore through joy, water reminders, students, suits, and friendship. Metalachi turns mariachi-metal into a story about tequila, spandex, food, and names best left unexplained. The hip-hop episodes add another lane. Sean the Don talks promotion, DJ work, family loyalty, Tri-Cities Summer Fest, and a big show in Pasco. Price Solo traces rap back through lowriders, West Coast records, lyric writing, and a changing creative process. Truancy, a.k.a. Bad Dre, brings the episode toward scene memory, stickers, late nights, and the funny logistics of leaving a mark. Song segments can take over, and that is part of the texture. This is not a clean studio profile series. It is a field recording of a scene talking to itself, sometimes chaotic, often funny, and consistently more interested in how music gets made than in making anyone sound untouchable. The appeal is the closeness. Artists get to be talented, tired, ridiculous, serious, and proud in the same conversation. For discovery, that matters. Tri-Cities Mixtape makes regional music feel less like a list of acts and more like a room, a green room, and a stage all bleeding into each other.
Made for: For listeners who care about regional music scenes, band origin stories, DIY shows, and artists speaking in their own rough, funny, practical language. It fits fans of metal, hip-hop, mariachi-metal, grindcore, and local concert culture.
What sets it apart: The show stands apart by treating local and touring musicians as people in a room, not as brands to be summarized. Its best moments come from odd details: accordion mics, retired songs, sticker missions, stage nerves, and the shared labor behind a scene.
[email protected] WAV, mp3, or Download Link All Genres welcome to submit music. We aim to be a signal boost for PNW Musical Artists, and offer a playlist that will be as diverse as the artists actively creating music in the Tri-Cities, PNW, and beyond. Also, we will feature interviews with local artists, venue owners, journalists, DJs, musically tangential people. Logo Designed by Heather Yu Williamson (@brownie.pops)
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Miguel Ortiz connects artist interviews, guest music and backstage detail to document how regional songs, bands and live events take shape.
Tri-Cities Mixtape lets working musicians tell their stories in the language of rehearsals, bookings, writing sessions and crowded stages. Miguel Ortiz moves easily between rappers, metal bands and a DJ and show promoter, pairing career histories with questions about creative…
The green room door swings open, and you meet the musicians before the mythology hardens.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A loose backstage metal interview that turns a solo-project origin story into something bigger and more human.
Valduri gets a loose, lively backstage moment at Battle Vest Fest 2025, with Miguel Ortiz talking to the band in the green room of Ray's Golden Lion.
A loose green-room hang about band origins, stage problems, and making the set work.
Guillotine Gambit opens with the kind of green room noise that makes a band feel real. Tri-City Mixtape catches the group sorting out names, roles, and how the whole thing came together, with the early-band mess left intact.
A candid, scene-first hip-hop interview with promoter perspective and local energy.
Tri-Cities Mixtape frames Sean as a DJ, show promoter, father, influencer, and military veteran from Herndon, Virginia, and the strength is how naturally those roles settle into one conversation.
A loose, local rap interview that lands hardest on the story behind the bars.
Price Solo's appearance on Tri-Cities Mixtape feels rooted in place, and the strongest part is the memory of childhood car rides loaded with Pac, Cube, and Dre before that obsession turned into his own bars.
A loose local-music hang that turns scene memory into something worth keeping.
Tri-Cities Mixtape is strongest when it stays close to Truancy, also known as Bad Dre, and lets the name origin, the DIY scene energy, and the sticker-hoisting story do the work. That is where the episode feels most grounded.
Joe Wong interviews drummers and musicians about craft, history, and the working musician's life.
Records, careers and arguments, weighed by people who listen closely.
Tri-Cities Mixtape goes live from Battle Vest Fest 2025 with Valduri in the green room at Ray's Golden Lion.
Tri-City Mixtape records live at Battle Vest Fest.
Tri-Cities Mixtape sits down with Sean the Don for a loose, playful interview that moves from his Herndon, Virginia roots to the culture shock of landing in Yakima after time in Atlanta.
This episode features a poetic, emotional narrative about singing songs with mariachis that evoke memories of past loves and intense feelings.
Price Solo sits down with Miguel Ortiz on Tri-Cities Mixtape and talks through how he got started making music.
The hosts interview the band Metalachi about their origins, name, and unique mariachi-metal fusion at the Clover Island concert series.
Tri-Cities Mixtape sits down with Truancy, also known as Bad Dre, and lets the name, the music, and the persona all hit at once.
This episode features an interview with Nobi and Ernie Ashwood about their lead single on the Tri-Cities Mixtape.
The host reflects on personal identity, labels, and the struggle to feel whole while sharing an original song called 'Cold Harbor'.
Misdemeanor delivers raw, aggressive verses about street life, loyalty, violence, and success in Sacramento over a hip-hop beat.