I had the pleasure of meeting Maus, like most people here, at the front door of Loosy’s. Now, that was the first time meeting them, this is my first time sitting down and having a conversation with them. If you don’t know Maus, they are the person you can thank for the amazing music that you are getting at Loosy’s. After graduating from college two years ago, they stuck around town for the music and as they describe it, got their dream job right out of the gate.

So far, everyone I have had a conversation with I somewhat knew, but I have never actually spoken to Maus before. Naturally, I went to their Instagram page to see what I could ask about. Thankfully, they had something written that was pretty helpful. “Ask me about my DVD collection.” So, I did. Maus started their collection about four years ago and has an impressive five hundred-plus collection. This started on their journey of cord-cutting and getting rid of streaming services. We talked about the pros and cons of DVDs and Blu-ray. Bottom line she has some Blu-ray but DVD’s just have that magical imperfection that Blu-ray try to kill.

Maus told me more about their love of booking shows. They actually have always known they wanted to be in the music industry, but playing an instrument wasn’t for them. By the time they graduated music was even deeper in their blood and Gainesville does have a pretty good connection to the music scene. So naturally they stayed, got a job at Loosy’s and started booking shows. Maus even does booking outside of Loosy’s with Toothstar Booking. Reflecting on the fact that they are no longer a college kid but at the same time not part of the older crowd yet after graduating early, they try and bring the college bands and local bands together during demolition night so everyone can play and work together.

There is one more area outside of music that we talked a bit about, knitting & Crocheting. Maus is pretty damn impressive with it. I went to their other page to take a look at their stuff and was blown away. It truly is impressive. There were two styles that we mostly talked about, the first one is filet crochet, the art of creating images with positive/negative space on a grid. Second was subversive knitting, the art of using tools/yarns in unconventional ways. If you go to their knitting page, you will see what I am talking about.

Walking away from the conversation, I really felt like I got to know Maus better. Now for all you people in bands, I got a little insider advice. Step one, check your email. Step two, reply! Now go check out their work and book some shows. Also, stop and say hi if you see them at the door.